BL 85 .D85 1894 Dunlap, S. F. 1825-1905 The Ghebers of Hebron THE GHEBERS OF HEBRON AN INTRODUCTION TO THE GHEBORIM IN THE LANDS OF THE SETHIM, THE MOLOCH WORSHIP, THE JEWS AS BRAHMANS, THE SHEPHERDS OF CANAAN, THE AMORITES, KHETA, AND AZARIELITES, THE SUN-TEMPLES ON THE HIGH PLACES, THE PYRAMID AND TEMPLE OF KHUFU, THE MITHRAMYSTERIES, THE MITHRABAPTISM, AND SUCCESSIVE ORI- ENTAL CONCEPTIONS FROM JORDAN FIREWORSHIP TO EBIONISM SAMUEL FALES DUNLAP AUTHOR OP "VESTIGES OF THE SPIRIT-HISTORY OF MAN," " SoD, THE MYSTERIES OF ADONI, AND "SOD, THE SON OF THE MAN" The Geboriin that were of old.— Genesis vi. 4 1894 Copyright, 1894, by SAMUEL FALE8 DUNLAP PEEFAOE. There was a line of "High places" running- from the pyramids of Gizeh through Philistia, Raman,1 Salem, Shiloh, Beth Shems, Moab, — to Bel's Tower at Babylon. They were sacred to Bal or Bel (El) the Sun. In Syria, Moab, and Mesopota- mia they built temples on elevations natural or artificial. Salamah is said to have built one bamah (highplace) to Ka- mos in Moab, and another to the " King " (Malak, Moloch) among the Ammonites. The bamoth were probably the old- est highplaces and temples of the Asarim, Asarielites, or Syrians. The Great Highplace was at Gabaon.2 There Bel- Saturn 3 met 4 his worshippers on Saturn's Day. Mse (Masses, or Moses 5) was of the race of the Chaldaeans. The Chaldaean Mithra had his Seven Bays, and Moses his Seven Days. The other planets which circling round the sun lead the dance as round the King of heaven receive from him with the light also their powers ; while as the light comes to them from the sun so from him they receive their powers that he pours out into the Seven Spheres of the Seven Planets 1 The city was upon a hill ; and still another ascent up to the Highplace.— 1 Sam. ix. 13, 14, 25 ; x. 5. 2 The abode of Iahoh was on the Bamah at Gabaon.— 1 Chron., xvi. 39. 3 Alohim, the Semite dual. 4 Numb., xxiii. 4, 16. 5 The Chaldaeans considered fire and light each as having the two genders, like Bel, Mithra, As (Ash), Alahim, Asar. Consequently, Simon Magus lets the Divine female fire be severed from the Male Fire, just as Genesis, ii. 21-23 severs the Woman-fire (Ashah, Aishah, Isis) from the Masculine Adam (Adon, Lunus). Alahim (Elohim) is the Spiritus Divine, a dual principium in Genesis, i. 1, 2 ; and in the male-female fike of Simon's theory Spirit is the God.— Hippolytus, vi. 18; John iv. 24. Thus the severed pairs are Bel and Beltis, Mithra and Mithraitis, Adon and Danae, Adam and Damia (Keres), As and Isis, Asar and Sahra or Sarah, Menes (Men) and Mene, Amon and Mona, Lunus and Luna : £ . Genesis, i. ii. is from the Chaldaean. iv PREFACE. of which the sun is the centre.1 The ancient world was one of fire, gnosis, civilisation, and inferences which resulted in re- ligious systems that, although externally and nominally dis- tinct, were founded in one common philosophy — the distinc- tion between spirit and matter. Spiritus means breath, from spiro, to breathe. Spiritus as the breath of life was considered fire ; but it is an unknown quantity in the oriental philosophy, intended to express the abstract idea, " life." It cannot be proved to correspond to any idea that can be grasped by the mind, since the word (meaning breath of life) designates a status, — not an entity but only a result. Life is a condition, a state, a result of previous conditions. Therefore the use of the word pneuma or spiritus to indicate a certain thing is un- authorised. The ancients invented a term for life, which, since vitality is a result, a state of matter, fails to express what it was coined to express, — a substance, an entity. The birth of man is entirely owing to nature, which has made provision for it. Like the grass, we are born from a parentage,2 not from a philosophy or a theology. Since Nat- ure is the authority for human existence the human thought should be based on facts, and not on oriental substitutes for truth. The past teaches us human errors. The theory of spir- it and matter pervaded the orient from the time of the early Ghebers down through the Christian centuries. The idea of spirit as a Cause is found in all the great oriental religions. We find it in those of El, Bel, Iao, and Iahoh, — in the Seven Bays of the Chaldaean Mithra and the Seven Days of Genesis. From the Sun came fire and spirit.3 This was the astronom- 1 Julian, Oratio 4. 135. 3 The life of the embryo animal reproduces very exactly that of the cellular tissues of the plants. The form is sketched and marked out in the first times of the evolution. — Dareste, p. 103. Let man catch some germ diseases, and he will soon recognise that he is a part of nature. 3 Diodor. Sic. I. 11. p. 15. Wesseling. Cyrus swore by Mithra (Rawlinson, Seventh Monarchy, 027 ; Xenophon, Cyropaedia, viii. 3. § 53) as the Jews did by Iah. — Exodus, xvii. 10. PREFACE. v ical religion of the Cbaldaeans, Jews, Persians, Syrians, Phoe- nicians and Egyptians. The records of the Jews contain the literature of the fire- worship. We trace this people back to a most interesting- source the city of the Achabara then occupied by a race of mighty warriors called the Kheta (Hetha) who defended them- selves later against Piamses the Great. It stood in the moun- tains west of the Dead Sea where Chebron, one of the oldest cities of Judah (now called Hebron), stands. The word Acbar means 'mighty,' and the Egyptians knew the Achabara by that name, for at an early period they never entirely conquered them. From the word Cabar or Gabar (also meaning ' mighty ') comes the word Geber or Gheber which (as the Kheta of Khe- bron were fireworshippers) was in time used to denote the an- cient people who were, like all the Old Canaanites, very much controlled by that form of religion. — Genesis, xxii. 7 ; Deut. v. 24 Our subject is what a Greek dramatist called ' the immor- tal light of fire,' with which we propose to connect the ' Ca- naanite fires in the land of Seth.' The results of a supposed action of solar heat or spirit upon the earth-forms of matter are plainly seen in the Oriental Philosophy. It has therefore appeared absolutely indispensable in this treatise to provide the reader with the facts, evidences,1 and criticism requisite to enable the student of the records of the past to understand the ancient utterances to which his attention is directed. Be- fore the works of Movers,2 of the author of ' Supernatural Re- ligion,' and of the author of ' Antiqua Mater ' no such treatise as the present could have been readily prepared. The extracts given further on are translations that deliver the very spirit of 1 The proper names in the Hebrew Bible have been read without the points, be- cause these were not in existence in the centuries before our era. 2 Movers is quoted by Gerhard in his Griechische Mythologie, and has been praised by Theodore Parker. Chvvolsohn quotes Movers in his work on the Ssabians. — Mas- pero, too, quotes Movers. Vl PREFACE. the orient, breathing- that essence of the oriental philosophy that was associated with the fire of the King- Sun. The red-hot ' Divine Conception holds the first place ! — Chaldaean Oracle. The Chaldaean held that all things are the progeny of One Fire, that the Primal Fire did not enclose his power within matter by works but by mind, for the Architect (the Logos) of the fiery world is the Mind of mind. Consequently " the Fire- heated Ennoia holds the first rank, and afterwards comes the first of the immaterials or spirituals. So, too, the soul was held to be, by the Power of the Father, bright fire ; remains immortal, and is the mistress of life. Compare Genesis, ii. 7. Moreover the Chaldaean Logos was the Father - begotten Light, for he alone, having gathered from the power of the Father the flower of mind, is able to understand the Paternal Mind (— Proklus, in Timaeum, 242, Cory, 253, 254; Hermes Trismegistus, I. 6 ; Jeremiah, li. 7, 13). Like a Jew, Simon the Gittite held the intelligible, mind-perceived, and visible nature of Fire ; that the beginning of all things is boundless Fire.2 And the Hindu sage declared that when the Divine Being formed out of the waters the Spirit, He looked on it, and its mouth opened like an egg : out of its mouth pro- ceeded the Word, and from the Word came forth Fire ! S. F. Dunlap, Graduated at Harvard in 1845. 1 Primal Conception, Creative Mind, heated by fire (purithalpes). For God is the life of all things in conception. — Philo, Legal Allegories, 1. 29. The soul is life or has life.— Justin Martyr, Dial., p. 36. 2 Matthew, iii. 11. INTRODUCTION When the sacred scribes of a Great Temple in tlie East wrote a work of magnitude describing the construction of the Temple, the rules for the priests and the people, all the regu- lations essential for the government of a theological state, pro- visions for cities of the priests, cities of refuge, singers in the temple, levites, laws, revenues, a fundamental philosophy and a religion laid down with directions for the observance of stated religious festivals on the new moons and the sabbaths and everything carefully prescribed like a ritual — no matter whether the work takes on the appearance of history or any other shape, — we should expect to find the theological element dominating and the chief thing pervading it. Such a work is both civil and religious in character, exhibiting the art of gov- ernment by the Temple in the centre of an Arabian people. It was indeed " the call of the preacher in the Desert ! " The successes of the Makkabi, in the 2nd century before Christ, set up the Jews, for the first time in history, in power and renown, and ultimately at a later period led to the produc- tion and combination of the entire body of Hebrew- Jewish Scriptures in one great pandect, — the mega biblion. In this present volume we are considering a condition of Judrea and Arabia before the Books of Moses, were written. To under- stand what preceded the Hebrew Scriptures we have to learn the religion of the Mysteries of Dionysus in Arabia, the Mys- tery of Iacch or Iauk in Arabia with his Seven, the Mystery of the Adon-Adam, the Mysteries of Kronos in Phoenicia, the Osiris Mysteries, and all the Jewish Mysteries from the Ara- bian Lifegod And in Audah or Iaudah (Ieudah) down. When the Scribes of the Jewish Temple made the state- ments in Genesis the Books of Hermes were already in exist- ence, as could have been supposed from the identity of the verses of Genesis i. with several of the passages in the Poi- mander of Hermes. The Jewish philosophy rested on the x INTR 01) UG TION doctrine of spirit ' and matter, — the basis of the entire oriental philosophy from the Nile to India, including- Assyria and Babylon. Chapter Four deals with the emigrations from Philistia or Canaan into the Delta of Egypt and the connection of the Canaanite worship with the Osirian. Our endeavor has been to connect Palestine with Memphis in philosophy, in the com- mon use of Semitic names, in close observation of the stars, and in religious sentiment. This similarity must be kept in view in reading the Hebrew Bible. We next proceed to Hebrew gnosis, Philo and the Semitic Kabalah, and close the book with Messianist and Christian movements, the Nazoraioi (Nazori) of Matthew, Acts, and Epi- phanius.2 In about the year 176-177 Athenagoras makes no mention of Iesu or his crucifixion ; speaks of the Logos ; who is (according to the Sohar to Gen. xl. 10 and Matthew, xxv. 34) the Anointed King.3 In 176, therefore, there were Iessaians who believed what the Logos told them, and had a body of divinely-given instructions or teachings.4 — Athenagoras, ed. Otto, pp. 50, 51, 174. 1 " iubar sancti spiritus," = the sunbeam of the holy spirit. ? See the Postscripta, pp. 1002-1006. On page 353, for "Markion's First Apology," read Justin's First Apology. a This was Jewish doctrine. Acts, viii. 1, supplies an Ecclesia and apostles, but Joseph us knows none at all. 4 Preceptis utpote non humanis sed a deo traditis. Athenagoras p. 170 strictly objects to too much kissing ; and says that the rule of the order is to regard her as his wife whom he has married legally. But having the hope of eternal life they contemned the things of this life. — p. 170. Philo called these Essaians and Therapeutes ; Josephus calls them Essenes. They were Jews wor- shipping the Logos. — Rev. xix. 8, 13. Epiphanius calls them Iessaians. In the Apokalypse, xiv. 4, xix. 11, 13, they are looking for the Coming of the Logos. Philo Judaeus is one who believed in a Great Archangel who was the Logos, but not in the flesh. The sriRiT, then, and the power from the God it is not proper to think anything else than the Logos. — Justin, Apol., I. p. 148. Being His Logos and firstbegotten and power. — ib. p. 144. Hermes the Hermeneutic Logos and Teacher of all. — ib. p. 143. Hermes the Logos bringing-messages from God. — ib. 143. The Passion of Dionysus is a sacred story about the being born again !— Plutarch. Sarkophagia, vii. They consider the Adon Dionysus. — ib. Sumpos. Probl. iv. 5. 8. The Adon dies and the remains of Dionysus are laid away near the oracle at Delphi. — ib. De Iside, 35. Athenagoras, however, p. 166, seems to quote almost literally Matthew, v. 28. The Nazoria were John's disciples. INTRODUCTION xi No such Antipharisee demonstration, such as Luke or Mat- thew relate, could have grown up in Jerusalem before a.d. 70. It was the nest of the Pharisee sect. The Antipharisee feeling- grew up in the Transjordan region among the Beni Abrahm in the 2nd century ; after Jerusalem was destroyed. The Law of Moses still continued to prevail among a kindred population (Gal. ii. 7, 8, 19, 21 ; v. 2 ; Mt. v. 17, 18), but Matthew's Nazoria, the 2d century Transjordans, hated the Scribes and Pharisees, lawyers ! If Iesu were a Galilean Jew, none but a late 2nd century Nazori needed the testimony of the Magi ! Why intro- duce Magi, except to convert the Nazoria, who knew them in Arabia ? There were no Magi among the Jews. Under the Eomans the Arabia beyond the Jordan was one of the most fertile and populous countries on earth. Not many years ago 446 ruined or deserted places were counted in the districts beyond the Jordan. — Syria and the Holy Land, p. 443. Our Transjordan Nazorenes lived there as far as the Hauran and Damaskus. The Gospels, including that of Peter, blame the Jews, not Pilate nor the Romans, for the Crucifixion. Matthew is careful to give Caesar all his rights. But the Rev- elation of John, xiv. 8, xvii., xviii., hopes Rome will be destroyed and burned up. Rev. ii. 9, 14, 20, 26, 27, sides with the Jews against Rome, the Gentiles and Nikolaitans. In some parts Revelations is Iessaiam hence it does not even mention the word Nazorene. It is therefore an older work than the Gospels that mention the Nazorene ! Rev. ii. 6 ; iii. 9, 12 ; xiv. 4, is Iessaean (quite Essene), yet not altogether Nazorine. Therefore Rev. xvii., xviii., prophesies the burning and total destruction of Caesar's City Rome, while the Nazorine Matthew, xxii. 17, 19, 21, says: Pay tribute to Caesar. The Essaians were followed by the Iessaians, and from the Iessaians issued the later Nazorenes and Ebionites. Since Justin always speaks of Magi " from Arrhabia " the Naz5renes, like the Iessaeans, lived be- yond the Jordan in Arabia. — Rev. xii. 6 ; xvii. 3. The Codex Nazoria lands John the Baptist on the Jordan. There was close intercourse in the 2nd century between Arabia, Syria, Galilee, Antioch, Phoenicia and Asia Minor. Iessaians were in the Desert; supposed to be there. — Rev. xii. 6, 14: xiv. 4; xvii. 3. The Iessaiaus, Jews in most respects, as Epiphanius held, followed Moses' laws, as Philo held that the Essaians did. The Apokalypse comes after the year 70, since it twice men- xii INTRODUCTION. tions the New Jerusalem. Titus in 70 destroyed Jerusalem. While the Old One was in good condition, a new one was not in demand. Paul belonged (as far as his writings) to a later period than the Apokalypse. Paul was in Acts declared to be a Nazorine. The Nazorines belonged not so much to the time of the Iessaeans as to that of the Epistle to the Galatians. Both Iessaeans and Nazorenes across the Jordan (like the Ebionites and Kerinthus) were mainly Jews, were called such. Across the Jordan was Arabia, even if the Bible calls it Moab, etc. The Transjordan Messianists were circumcised; — Galatians, ii. 12, 14, 15, 16, 21 ; v. 3 ; vi. 12 ; and stuck to the Law of Moses. — Mt. v. 16, 17. Matthew does not commit himself on the question of circum- cision, says not a word about it ; the reason is plain, if he was a later Nazorine, and accepted only Galatians, v. 19-25. They who lived with reason are Christians, . . . the ancients living without it were bad and hostile to the Christ. — Justin, Apol., L, p. 153. The question of the itidividual existence of the Iesua as a man has been kept out of sight by oriental teachings in the form of parables, statements that cannot be verified, the Essaian-Ies- saian socialist communist theories and the forced application of earlier Jewish passages in the Old Testament to the arguments and assertions in the New. The art of the Greek- Oriental Sophist was to claim by arguments and theories the admission of what he had never proved as fact. He has collected the best moral doctrines and sayings of the Iessaians and the East and placed them in the mouth of an individual whose existence he has never even attempted by proper evidence to establish, and whose body no one has ever found. — Matthew, xxviii. 13. Mt. xxviii 6, 7, 13, indicates the resurrection of the body ! — Luke, xxiv. 39. TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER ONE. PAGE The Mountains of the Amorites, 1 CHAPTER TWO. Spirit and Matter in the East, 9 CHAPTER THREE. Abraham, Aud, and the Iaudi of Araba, 49 CHAPTER FOUR. The Asarians in Egypt, 82 CHAPTER FIVE. Isis in Phoenicia 225 CHAPTER SIX. The Cross, Crown and Sceptre, 317 CHAPTER SEVEN. Before Antioch, 369 CHAPTER EIGHT. The Nazarenes, 438 CHAPTER NINE. The Great Archangel of the Ebionites, 638 ERKATA. Page 158, line 31, strike out the first either. Page 178, line 11, read Hor-em-saf. Page 179, read "having left the Sacred Tmolus. " " Nemus Bacchi, Tmoli vineta." — Ovid, Fast. ii. 315. Page 241, line 8, for Kassistis read Kassiotis. Page 676, line 3, for vocantur read vocatur. Page 724, line 12, for Cupids, read Cupido.— Ovid, Fast. ii. 463. Dione accompanied by the little Cupido carne to the Euphrates and sat by the Palestine water. For Palestina read Palestine. Page 750, line 27, for Iesous read Iesous. Page 807, line 8. It is nowhere stated that Simon Magus was crucified. Acts associates Simon Magus with Nazorene Apostoloi ; but this does not help to date the origin of the first account of the Crucifixion. Page 813, line 14, for thereapeutai read therapeutai. Page 893, Judenchristenthum, one word. Page 992, line 31, no comma after the word Samaritan. Page 1001, lines 38, 34, and page 1002, lines 11-33. In the beginning of the second century the Syriac Version of I. Chronicles v. 2, read : From Judah shall King Messiah go out : Min Iauda nephoq Malka Meshiha ! Shiloh, in Gen. xlix. 10, meant the Messiah. The man who wrote that could not have supposed that Christus had already come. —Isaac Prager, De Versione Syriaca, pages 19, 45. Observe that this verse in the Peshito contains in the second century an addition to the original Hebrew passage ! That is the point. He makes this addition, just as Philo might have done, who mentions no Iesu. THE GHEBERS OF HEBRON. CHAPTEE ONE. THE MOUNTAINS OF THE AMOKITES. "The people of the land the Beni Khat."— Gen. xxiii. 7. Malachia niiniedbar kadiaoth.— Deutekon. ii. 26. Once the valley of the Jordan was a series of lakes, and the Dead Sea of far greater extent than now. The waters of the Gnlf of Akabah covered the entire Wady el Arabah to the Dead Sea, and the salt rocks of Jebel Usdum were formed in the sea's bed. The waters of the Jordan Valley did not flow down into the Gulf of Akabah after the land had emerged from the sea.1 The whole of Palestine rose up from under the waters in the Miocene period! The Dead Sea in the Pluvial period had a length of nearly 200 English miles from north to south at the time when its surface was at a higher level than that of the Mediterranean at the present day. This Pluvial period extended from the Pliocene through the Glacial period down to recent times. The Lebanon throughout the year was snow- clad over its higher elevations, while glaciers descended into some of its valleys. The region of the Hauran, lying at its southern base, was the site of several extensive volcanoes, 2 while the district around and the Jordan Valley were invaded by floods of lava.3 During the time that the shores of the Gulf of Suez were depressed 200 feet (or more) lower than at present, those of the Gulf of Akabah experienced a like submergence.4 The region about Sadem (Sodom) was the abode of the Lotan 1 Alohim said : Let the dry appear. — Gen. i. 9. - The lava patches reach from Northern Palestine to Aden, and the Red Sea is a vast crevasse of plutonic depression. — R. F. Burton, in Acad., p. 48. 3 Gen. xix. 24, 25. * Edward Hull, Mount Seir. 2 THE GHEBERS OF HEBRON. Arabs. * And Genesis supposes Lot to have seen the volcanic fires.2 Between Hermon and Sinai lay a country occupied by a con- siderable number of tribes, among" the most southerly being the Adites (Auditae,3 or Oaditae) and Midianites ; among those to the north being the Kananites of Acho (Ako, Akko) and Tyre, and also the Amorites. The Bible describes the Phoenicians in the north as Kananites, in the south as Pelestim or Philistians. The land Caleb (Egyptian Khalebu) was near the district of the Katti (Kheth or Keth) at Hebron, while the Khatti (Katti Kheta) extended to the south as far as the country of the lower Ruthen 4 (Arad) and Idumea (Mt. Seir, Edom). The land of Kanan took in the country between the Mediterranean and the sea of Tiberias, from Hermon (Chermon) down to Iebus, Hebron, and Arad. Kanaan begat Khat (Kheth). — Gen. x. 15. Over all this region Adonis (Saturn) was adored under various names by the fire-worshippers ; for they called Dionysus Adon (Adonis) in the Lebanon, Adoni and Adonai in Jerusalem, Sat, Set, in Philistia and Seb or Sabi 5 in Arabia. Euripides, Herod- otus, and Movers leave no doubt upon the point.6 There was a strong desire on the part of the mountaineers of Jerusa- lem in the second century B.C., to get possession of Kanan. Genesis, ix. 25-27, curses Kanan, and declares him to be the servant of Shem and Iapet. It carries out this disposition of the Son of Cham (the Hot) by taking possession of Kananite territory 7 from the surroundings of Sidon and Tyre, all they could get of the Khatti territory, the lebusite, Amorite, Gergashite, Choite (Acho, Acre), Arak or Arukaanl and, Beth 1 Gen. xix. 15, 30. 2 Compare Gen. xiii. 10, with xix. 17, 24, 25. 3 Asu (Esau) married Audah, daughter of Ailon the Khethite (Khittite), and lived in Mt. Seir in Edom (Adorn). — Gen. xxxvi. 1, 2, 8. 4 Osiander mentions an Arab deity Ruda. 5 See also Genesis, x. 7. The Arabs called Kronos Adon and Seb. Kronos is the Hebrew Karan 'to shine.' Herakles, King of Fire,' was called Apis on the Nile, Kronos in Arabia. — Nonnus, Dionysiac xl. 393. Also called Amnion. — xl. 392. 6 Dunlap, Vestiges, 199,201. 'Arabica gens calls me Adoneum.' — Ausonius, Ep. 30. Ausonius identifies Adoneus with Dionysus, Adonis, and Osiris. And Nonnus evidently holds the same view. The Phoenicians proclaimed Ousorus a deity. — Movers, 120, quotes Eusebius, de Laud. Constant, c. 13. Osiris was declared to have been a man by Euhemerism ; and Eusebius held Ousorus to have been a man. 7 Genesis, xii. 2, plainly indicates the intention to take the country. Kanan could not have become a Son of Cham until after the Kananites had emigrated into and colonized the Delta. THE MOUNTAINS OF THE AMORITES. 3 8an, Samaria and Karrnel to the southern part of the Dead Sea ; and Judas Makkabeus took Asdod and Askalon. It was an old Phoenician tradition that Saturn had granted the Land of the South to the God Taut, and Taut appears to have got a good share of it, even so far south as Egypt. The Phoenician Taut is the Egyptian Tat, Tot, Thoth. A more recent tradition, in Genesis, ix. 25, 26, of priestly origin, opens the Chananite ter- ritory to conquest by the Jews. The climate of ancient Palestine was always of varied char- acter owing to the variation of level in different spots, but its hills and mountains, together with the wooded character of the country at an early period, must have made most of it a toler- able abode for man. In January, 1884, at Jerusalem the snow fell to a depth of over two feet all over the country. Such a fall had not occurred for five years. In the most ancient period the woods must have kept the snow longer on the ground to feed the streams of the country, so that it was in all prob- ability better watered than since its woods have been cut down.1 It is possible that Arad may in the time of Ramses II. have had water for a moat around the town. Of early Arabia we know but little except its worship of Saturn, Kronos, Dionysus and Aphrodite Ourania, and in the sketches of ancient Judea we are introduced to Adon (Iachoh) the Lebanon Life-god and to Ashera (the Syrian Venus), Sarah. Without going too deep into' geology it may be said that marine shells are found in the stratifications around the Dead Sea, that salt water ran from the Salt Sea down the Valley of Akabah past Petra and Acharon's tomb 2 to the Eed Sea at the Gulf of Akabah,3 that hills formed by the coral insect are found some way inland in Arabia,4 that the Eed Sea once was broader than now, that the shores were once under water,4 that the land has risen5 (the water subsided), that the Isthmus of Suez was all deep water, and that formerly Egypt had waterfalls besides the cataracts of the Nile. Egypt has been gradually drying up. The prodigious water-worn ravines in the cliffs of the Nile valley show this ; and there are remark - 1 The Lebanon was once snow-clad throughout the year. — Hall, Mount Seir, 183, and pp. 124, 129, 133, 134. 2 Aharon ; Ahron, Aaron : from Acharand Chares, meaning 'Sun.' 3 Hull, Bit. Seir. 4 Niebuhr, Voyage in Arabie, I. 244. 5 R. H. Burton, Land of Midian, passim. 4 THE GHEBERS OF HEBRON. able evidences of the Nile having- been habitually some 50 feet above its present level, thus filling up the whole valley at all times of the year. That its stream was fed by local rains throughout its course is seen by the deep gorges in the cliffs, often a mile long, and ending in dried-up waterfalls. In the history of the Faium the same drying up is seen.1 Arabia anciently was less dried up than to-day, and appears to have been the heart of the Semite race.2 From e.g. 2000-450, the time of Herodotus, the Arabians of Audah,3 the Chanania or Kananites, the Tyrians, the tribe of Iauclah (Jews), Israelites, Philistians and Egyptians wor- shipped idols. Ancient religion appears as a matter of organization, priestly theory, and manipulation, coupled with the supersti- tions of the multitude ; and these in time became somewhat systematized under the efforts of the priesthoods. These, in turn, became the leading castes, as in Egypt ; and as religion reduced to a system requires gradations of rank as well as a constant attendance at the temples, a jobbing goes on with the people to obtain offerings to support the priest caste, while claims are made on the king for lands for the temples, and it ends by the pharaoh, the priests and the military holding all the landed property in Egypt, while in the Arabian Desert the sheiks or patriarchs wander from place to place with their families, their slaves, their cattle, horses, camels, and supersti- tions. Meanwhile great temples to the Sungod and the Moongod- dess4 (Binah, Venah) have been erected. Nature is carefully 1 Petrio, Pyramids, 149. - Renan, Hist. Peuple Israel, I., 10. In the earliest Semite period we may suspect that the alphabet may perhaps not have been completed. That p and b were modified by subsequent additions to the alphabet may be assumed, or else these letters were changed in the pronunciation. Phuo varies into pephuka, showing an early recognition of the close relations of p and ph (f). So g, k, ch were originally modifications of one sound ; thus we have the district Kabul in Palestine, and the name Chaboio and Gebal. T, d, and th are, between Egyptian and Hebrew, in constant interchange, being modi- fications of one original sound. 3 Compare Wright, Chr. in Arabia, 2-5. The Arabian peninsula is considered by Niebuhr an immense pile of mountains encircled by a belt of arid, flat ground extending from Suez around the whole peninsula to the mouth of the Euphrates, and continued on the north by the province of Petra and the deserts of Syria. — lb. 11. * W. H. Reseller's Lexicon der griechischen und romischen Mythologie confirms the view that Aphrodite was the great Asiatic moon-goddess, like Astarte and Artemis, and is the 'Queen of heaven.' See " Academy," August 15, 1885, p. 106. THE MOUNTAINS OF THE AMORITES. 5 attended to by the priests, the stars are gazed at, the constel- lations formed and numbered, and a system of the universe invented. Genesis starts from Chaldaism. Compare Gen. xv. 7 ; Sep- tuagint psalm xix. ; Philo, Who is Heir, 45, 48, and Change of Scripture Names, 3. Phoenicians and Syrians name Kronos El, Bel and Bolaten. The God El l was the primal God of the Semite race known to the Hebrews as Hael (Hel), the Greek Aelios and Helios. The Cretan God Abel (Abelios) is in Babylon Bel, the Bal, Abel, or Habol of the Jews, the Greek Apollon, Cretan Apellon. The Tower of Bel at Babylon with its seven stages is duplicated in the Syrian and Hebrew-Ghe- ber High Places and in the Pyramids of Egypt, — without however the seven stages of Bel's tower at Babylon ; Bel's temples were on the High Places. The Sacred Number 7 was everywhere from the Euphrates to the Nile. Bel and Istar were among the Hebrews Bal and Astarta, Astarta too in Egypt. Ash (fire, life) becomes Asara, Azara, Ashera in Judaea and Phoenicia, Aisah in Genesis, and Isis in Ptolemaic Greek. Isis came out from Phoenicia into Egypt, and the Assyrian Asar becomes Asar in Hieroglyphs, and the Ptolemaic Osiris,— the name Surya in India. A ' Tomb of Osiris ' was at Abydos, where the nobles of Egypt were buried, the kings of Syria were buried in the ' High Places ' of the Sun. From all this it is evident that Babel was as much the centre of the Semite Religion as Constantinople or Mecca are centres of Moham- medanism. Only that when the Priests of the Jewish Temple in the Second Century before our era compiled or wrote the Hebrew Old Testament they substituted the God of fire, life, and rain instead of Bal (Baal), abused the Chaldaean stargazers (2 Kings, xxiii.), and left out as much of the religion of Baby- lon as they possibly could.2 For Bel and Astarta, As and Aisah, or Osiris and Esi (Isis), they wrote Adam and Eua (Heuah), because they did not choose to surrender the doc- 1 Ps. xix. 1. The Hebrew Names El, Elah (in Hebrew letters Alh), Alha, Elolrim (Alhim) are translated 'God' in the English Bible. 2 Jeremiah, li. 7, 53. Adonai Iahoh is translated Lord, Adon and Bel also Lord. Adonis 'Lord' among the Phoenicians and name of Bol. — Hesychius ; Movers, I. 105. Balan 'our Lord.' Adni 'my Lord.' Hoi Adon ! Ah Lord ! They subtiliter celebrate the slain Adon, and his resurrection. — Movers, 194, 208 ; Hieronymus, ad Ezekicl, viii. 750. Adonis lives ! Kronos has a Son, named Kronos. — Movers, I. 186 ; Sanchoniathon, Orelli, p. 32. 6 THE GHEBERS OF HEBRON. trine of divine dualism (Apasson and Taautha, Hermathena, Chochmah and Bena, Adon and Vena, Bel and Beltis, Osar and Asherah) in the primal Creator. It would not do to give up tlie rib of Genesis, ii. 22, 23. What would have become of the " Mother of all that live " ? The theory of dualism re- quired the two sources (the male and the female) as late as the time of Simon Magus and the haeretical or independent opinions. A man in those days was required to believe in the ' Great Mother,' else he was an unusual heretic. — Gen. ii. 20- 22, iii. 20 ; Proverbs, viii. 1, 30. Like Brahma, Adam gives names to the animals. Bel was regarded as the " Lord of the world who dost dwell in the temple of the Sun." — Sayce, Hibbert Lect., p. 101. So the Septuagint, Arabic and Vulgate copies of the nineteenth Psalm say : In the sun Iahoh has placed his tabernacle ! The Semite and Sabian population thought alike. The conjunction of the ideas fire and light with life was offset by their oppo- sites darkness and death. As surely as the Babylonians and Jews both had the Flood-legend, and the Sacred Seven, and the Adonis-myth, the doctrine of a bisex first cause and the theory of precosmical powers, just as certainly the Babylonian Bel was the God of life (Iachi, Iachoh, Iahoh, Iao, and Ioue or Jove), since Bel was the Babylonian Creator (the Demiourgos), and out from the Unknown Darkness spoke the word of light and life. The Chaldaeans had the mysterious Name Iao, the Jews had the unspeakable word Ihoh (the tetragramaton ; in which the h, or ?-;, was read a) and the Phoenicians had " trina littera " and the mysterious Name Iao, the Ia5 of the Chaldaeans. Thus the mysterious ineffable Name at Jerusalem, consisting of four letters, stands between the equally mysterious Iao on the Eu- phrates and the Iao of the Phoenicians. Now since the Jewish Temple sought to absorb the other High Places, and as the kingdom of Hebron preceded that of Jerusalem, a new and unknown Name was not likely to captivate the priesthoods of the " Bamoth Bal " unless it was revered also in Babylon and Phoenicia ; there is reason to infer that lad and Iahoh (mean- ing life, Eternal Life) are merely shortened forms from the Hebrew roots chiah and hiah (chaiah and haiah) " to live." To exhibit the connection between the Mysteries and the religions of the East it is only necessary to quote Plato's THE MOUNTAINS OF THE AMORTTES. 7 Pliaedrus, which closely resembles Biblical and even modern Turkish doctrine, as follows : For if it were merely that mania is an evil, it would be well spoken ; but now the great- est benefits come to us by means of mania given by divine be- stowal. For both the Prophetess at Delphi and the holy ladies at Dodona have done many fine things for Greece, privately and publicly, when in a state of frenzy, but when in a sober state of mind little or nothing. The ancients who gave the names did not regard Mania as anything disgrace- ful or a reproach. The ancients testify that Mania is as much superior to discretion, what comes from God to that which is from men, as prophesy is more perfect and estimable than augury, or one name than the other, or the work of one to the performance of the other. Let us not therefore prefer a sane man to one who is moved by an inspiration. Every soul is immortal ; for that which is always moved is immortal ; but what moves something else and is moved by something else, when it has a cessation of movement its life ceases. That, then, which moves itself, since it does not leave itself, never ceases being moved but is the source and begin- ning of motion for the others that are being moved. And Be- ginning is unborn.1 For all that is born must be born from Beginning, but (the Arche) itself from none ; for if a Begin- ning should be born from anything, then it would not be a Beginning. Since, then, it is unborn (uncreate), it must be in- destructible also. For if a Beginning should perish, it will neither be born from anything nor anything else from it, if in- deed all things must be born from a Beginning (an Arche). So, then, the Beginning (Arche) of motion is the very thing that moves itself : and this can neither perish nor be born, or both all heaven and all genesis collapsing would stop and never would there again be (that) whereby what is moved shall be born. Since what is moved by itself, has been seen to be immortal, one will not hesitate to say that this very thing is the quality of soul : that having its impulse (motion given to it) from without is soulless, but that which is moved from within, of itself, has a soul, since this is the nature of soul. And if this is so, that there is nothing else that itself moves itself except soul, of necessity the soul (life) must be unborn 1 Compare the first words of Genesis i. 1 : In the Beginning, Elohim bore. Here we see the juxtaposition of Mases and Plato. 8 THE OHEBERS OF HEBRON. and immortal. Therefore we have said enough respecting athanasia.1 Plato then goes on to argue that a soul gets a body when it has lost its wings (that is, in the fall of man from paradise). While it remains perfect it soars aloft and governs the universe. This is not essentially different from Semite ideas. Plato then gets on the subject of the millennium as connected with the Mysteries.2 Next, he enters more full}7 in- to the joys of the Initiated in the Mysteries, pure and blessed, in company with " that happy choir " in company with Zeus (Bel) and other Gods, beholding the pure light and the blessed visions seen in those Mysteries,3 that, according to Cicero, gave a promise of dying with a better hope. Therefore Plato had been instructed in the Oriental Mysteries, and his specu- lations are about as closely connected with the Mysteries of the Syrian and Egyptian Semites and with Hebrew opinions (such as we find in the Bible) as we could expect of one ini- tiated into the Mysteries that Plutarch ( de Iside), Ezekiel, Isaiah and Irmiah 4 describe. Plato held the theory of spirit and matter, as representing two opposites. So did the Per- sians, Jews, the Jordan Ascetics, and Mani. But no evidence of the existence of such an entity as spirit can be shown. The Jews held fire was spirit ; but fire is the product of mat- ter, the friction of two pieces of wood, or flint and steel. 1 Immortality. 2 Plato, Phaedrus, cap. xxviii. xxix. p. 92. Stallbaum. Judgment too, and pun- ishment in Hades. 3 Ibid, pp.97, 98. 4Irmiaho, Jeremiah. CHAPTEK TWO. SPIKIT AND MATTER IN THE EAST. " elK&iv ydp iffriv ovffias iv v\t) yevecris. Kal /xlfirj^a rov ovtos to y^v6fXivovP " Sscrirep yhp tivva/xis tov irvev/xarSs icrrt to wip." The Egyptians and Greeks had the doctrine of 'spirit.' l The basis of Dualism consists in these words : Learn what the mind perceives, for it exists apart from mind.3 The indictment in this case charges that the Hebrew writ- ings of the Jews are based upon the recognition of the phi- losophy called dualism, that is, the doctrine of ' spirit and mat- ter.' We shall prove in this chapter that this is the doctrine that underlies the entire Old Testament. The doctrine of the Egyptians concerning the first principles inculcates the origin of all things from the unit with different gradations to the many, which again are held to be under the supreme govern- ment of the One. And God produced Matter from the mate- rial (substance) of the divided Essence, which being of a vivi- fic nature the Creator (Demiourgos) took it and made from it the harmonious and imperturbable spheres.3 The expression that SEEing is knowing 4 and believing, may be thus illustrated. The Latin word to see is uidi, the Greek is oida (I know), the Hebrew is ida (whence we have dath, Kxowledge) ; supernal knowledge, spiritual insight, superior science, are expressed in Greek by gnonai, in Sanskrit by jnana (gnana, gnonai, gnosis) : in Latin, we have NOU-i, in Eng- lish, I know. The Sanskrit ueda (the veda) is then the same 1 Plutarch, de Iside, 39, 40. 2 Manthane to noeton, epei noou exo uparkei. Compare the ' Ayin ' the ' No thing ' in the doctrine of the Kabalah. 3 Hermetic Fragments ; Cory, p. 285. 4 Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abichn, and Seventy of the Ancients, the nobles, saw the Alahi of Isarel (Israel). — Exodus, xxiv. 9, 10, 11. 10 THE OHEBERS OF HEBRON. root as the Greek oida and the Hebrew ida, meaning gnosis, vidh, uideo, video, uissen, wist, uisdom ttisxim, (visum). The Hebrews were gnostics ; 1 for gnosis is older than Christianity as a separated tendency of Judaism.3 The cv /ecu. ttoXXo. (one and many) both belong to existence or ousia, which thus com- bines unity and plurality. The one (the unit) exists and par- takes of being.3 The perfect states are ideal forms and ousia. — Julian, in Solem, 134. In an indictment for dualism it must be shown in what the dualism consists and the parties against whom dualism is charged. Plato speaks of the ousia, the essence of simple ab- stract existence, which is the vital force of deity in the abstract, the cause of causes. The religion of the orient was based upon two principles. These principles are spirit and matter. The fire principle was in the sun, and the spirit was in the sun, according to Diodorus, I. 7, 11, p. 15 ; compare Matthew, iii. 11 ; 2 Peter, iii. 10, 11. There is spirit in man, and the breath4 of Sadi gives intelligence. — Job, xxxii. 8. Iahoh thy Alah, a fire that eats is he ! la hoh Alahik,ash akalah hoa ! — Deuteronomy, iv. 24. Oshah malachio ruachoth, masartio ash lahat.— Psalm, civ. 4. He makes his angels spirits, his ministers a flame of fire ! — Ps. civ. 4. Ia'hoh, thy Alah, is fire that consumes ! He makes his angels spirits, Abrahm and LHT (Lot) dwelt in and near the fire-district, Laht or Lot. Lot is then the name of a burnt dis- trict, not of a man. The nature of Osiris-Dionysus consists of fire and spirit.5 1 1 Samuel, ii. 3 ; Isaiah, xlvii. 10. Hebrew text. " There is in man a third faculty which I call simply the faculty of apprehending the Infinite, not only in religion, but in all things ; a power independent of sense and reason, a power in a certain sense con- tradicted by sense and reason, but yet, I suppose, a very real power, if we see how it has held its own from the beginning of the world, how neither sense nor reason have been able to overcome it, while it alone is able to overcome both reason and sense." — Max Midler, Science of Religion, p. 14. Mr. Max Miiller here gives the exact defi- nition of the gnosis, and, in a lateral way, gives it the benefit of an endorsement, of which it stands in great need. 2 Nork, Real-Worterbuch, ii. 95, 99, 100 ; 2 Samuel, ii. 3, Septuagint. 3 Plato ; Midler, Hist. Lit., ii. 240, ed. 1858. Ousia is the fiery spiritual form, the vital essence, or being. 4 pneuma, neshamath. s Diodorus, I. 11. SPIRIT AND MATTER IN THE EAST. 11 Iacholi is the breath of life ; the feminine spirit is called Eua and Asah,1 and, in the Midrash Kabbah, Asat.3 The deities of the oriental world mostly represent the spirit, or life, in the sun and moon. Plato says that the most high God is in the fiery essence.3 The new fire of Vesta was lighted in March.4 Whithersoever the spirit was to go. — Ezekiel, i. 20. And the SPIRIT entered into me. — Ezekiel, ii. 2. Reasonably then the mind-perceived (the intelligible)5 does not go forth to ns ; surely not the SINGLE,6 which is set above the ousia : 7 for this too belongs to divine gnosis to behold, whence the most supernal of the real elements that are mentally perceived by us we declare as mind-perceived 8 and as the real es- sence,9 that really is. For Plato bringing the souls up to this place supposes in it the Ousia absolute, and visible only to the ruler of the soul. — Damaskius, cap. 113. In treating of the Mind-perceived primal entities (or pow- ers) we are reminded of the ancient saying ; " For every nature of the first principles ,0 lies far from our senses below." The latin verb, uro, urere, ussi, ustum, has a very respectable antiquity. It connects with AR, Ares, and Areia (Hera) mean- ing fire, in Phoenicia, Armenia, Moab, Israel, Arabia, Ur (Ourie the city of the Firepriests) of the Chaldees, mentioned in Abra- hamic story ; appears in the names Ar (of Moab) ARimmon and Ariel, and in the name of the fire-altar ARa.11 It is the same Avith our word ash (ashes). It begins with the Sanskrit and Semitic root as (fire, life), appears in the Hebrew as or ash 1 So Simon Magus held. The Egyptian Aso. 2 Midrash Rabba, parasha 22 : inCN !Tin nXJJT DnXiTI 3 Justin ad Graecos, V. 4 It was the first month. — Macrobius, I. xii. 6. July was the fifth, August the sixth month. 8 TO fOJJTOl'. 6 t6 evialov, that which is the unit. 7 the essence, or ideal substance. 8 VOTJToV. oovcria. The ousia is the place of forms. A mind-perceived world, a mind-per- ceived Sun, and a mind-perceived to ov belong to gnosis and the early Kabalah. So, too, the deities of Italy were the mind-perceived, ghostly, forms of Etruscan Gods. 10 the first of things, the first elements, the beginnings, or primal powers. — Compare Colossians, i. 15, 1(5, 18. 11 Our fire, imitating the action of divine fire, destroys whatever belongs to matter, in the sacrifice, and purifies what is brought to it and looses it from the bonds of mat- ter and owing to its pure nature renders it suitable for the Gods to partake of. — Iamblichus, de Mysteriis. 12 THE GHEBERS OF HEBRON. " fire," Asah, Aso, Aisab, Isah, Isis, and terminates at the fire- altar of the Phoenician, Etruscan or Roman in ussi and usta. For the mortal that approaches the Fire shall have light from God. ' — Chal- dean Oracle. And said Eliaho to the people : I alone am left a prophet to Ia'hoh, and the Nabiai (prophets) of Habol- (Apollo) 450 men. And you shall call on the name of your God (Bol, or Abol) and I will call on the name Iachoh. And be it, the Elohim who responds by fire, he is the Elohim!— 1 Kings, xviii. 22, 24. Then fell down fire of Iachoh. — 1 Kings, xviii. 38. Kebir is a name of fire. The Gebirs 3 are the fire-worship- ers, and the Cabiri are the seven spirits of fire.4 Compare the Arabian idol Hheber,5 and the Ghebers at Hebron. Bacchantum ritu flagrantes circuit aras. — Ovid, Met. vii. 258. Circulates around the burning altars like the Sun-worshippers. Ia'hoh your Alah is a consuming fire.— Deut. iv. 24. To the God who is in the fire, who is in the water, who entered the universe, who is in the annual herbs and who is in the regents of the forests,6 to this God7 be reverence, to him be reverence. — The Swetaswatara Upanishad, cap. ii. 17. E. Roer. He whose head is the fire, whose eyes are the moon and the sun, whose ears the quarters, whose revealed word8 the Vedas, whose vital air the mind, whose heart the universe, from whose feet the earth, is the inner Soul of all be- ings.— Mundaka Upanished, mund. ii., 1, 4, Roer. We have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire. — Deuteronomy, v. 24. That which in thee sees and hears is the Logos ' of the Lord. — Hermes Trism. I. 6. I am that which is the seed of all existing things.— The Bhagavad-Gita, cap. x. God was the Logos. This was in the beginning with the God and all 1 Proclus in Tim. 65. 2 ?jnn may also be read Havol and Evol. Epul and Vul are names of Apollo. Hobal is Saturn of the dying year. — Movers, Phonizier, 86, 263, 287 f., 448. 3 Mankind, p. 579. 4 Rev. i. 4 ; iv. 5. 6 Univ. Hist, xviii. S87. Dunlap, Vestiges, p. 73. The Arab idol Hheber is at the Gheber altar of the Solar Firegod. 6 The trees. So Vishnu, Krishna, Adam. Magna Sacerdos Arboris. — Juvenal, vi. 544. 7 Logos. Adonis. 8 Revelation in India ; not to the Jews in this instance. 8 The Word. SPIRIT AND MATTER IN THE EAST. 13 things came into existence through the Logos, and without him not a thing was born ; what came to exist in him is Life. And in him the Eua was born, the Eua, Life. This is the Eua, Mother of all living things, common Nature. — Perataean Gnosis.1 The oldest Dionysus was the fire-god Moloch.2 Where God's bacchic FIKE leaps. — Euripides, Ion, 1125. The fireworship in the Herakles-temple at Gades was, ac- cording to Phoenician custom, conducted without an image ; 3 this was the case in Jerusalem. He is the spirit in nature, the Breath of life. The philosophy of the ancient world was ad- hered to by both polytheists and monotheists. Egyptians4 and Hindus, in spite of polytheism, believed in One God supreme, the doctrine of the primal unity of the spirit was held in the Mysteries of the Chaldean Adonis, the Jewish Ia'hoh- Adoni, the Arab Dionysus - Iacchos, the Egyptian Osiris : and the frog-headed deities of Egypt pointed to water as the medi- um in which the spirit was supposed to operate ; for the spirit was formed out of the waters.5 The region of the Chaldaeans was the nurse of the ancient philosophy.6 The Mosaic philosophy is Chaldaean.7 The Jewish religion is a form of the Dionysus-worship ; and Ado- nis, Adonai, Osiris, Dionysus, all are the Sun, the source of rain, as the Hindus regarded him. The vine was attributed to Noa'h,8 Dionysus, Osiris9 and Iacchos, while, according to Josephus, enormous clusters of grapes were depicted above the Gate of the temple of Ia'hoh at Jerusalem. From the Caucases first, afterwards from the Semites, came wine. The Greeks got it from the Semites.10 Spirit has neither flesh nor 1 Hippolytus, v. 16. Eua is Eva. The upper hemisphere of the earth that we in- habit was callerl Venus ; Proserpine is in the lower hemisphere. Venus mourns at cer- tain periods of the year for the Adonis that belongs to her, as Sun and Lover. 2 Movers, 372, 374, 370, 301. Here we come upon the Ghebers and 'Hebers. Com- pare Chebron or 'Hebron. See also Dunlap, Sod. I. 160 ; Dr. Paid Haupt, Sintfluth- bericht, p. 4 ; for Kebir meaning fire. 3 Movers, p. 76. 4 Philip Smith, Anc. Hist, of the East, p. 195. Harper. 6 Wnttke, Gesch. d. Heidenth. II., 295. In Genesis, i. 2, the spirit moves on the face of the waters. Compare Psalm lxv. 9, 10. 6 Ammian, lib. xxiii. 6, 25 ; Pomponius Mela, p. 206. i Movers, 390, 391 . 8 Noch, meaning Descent of rain. 8 Lenormant, les Origines, II. 239, 247, 250 : Diodor. Sic. I. 15. 10 Lenormant, II. 251. 14 THE GHEBERS OF HEBRON. bones.1 From the spirit issued light and water, and from the water matter settled. The serpent, in the mysteries, indicated darkness, the earth, death and the tomb. He has his hole in the ground and is found in the cave of Ahriman.2 As spirit, he pointed to the resurrection. Berashith bara Alohim eth ha-shemaim wa ha-araz.3 — Gen. i. 1. At first this was water, fluid. Pra^apati, the Lord of creatures, having be- come wind, moved on it. — The Taittiriya Samhita.4 ua ruach Alohim merachefet 61 phani hamaim. — Gen. i. 2. And the wind 6 of God flitted above upon the surfaces of the waters. — Gen- esis, i. 2. He (Pra^apati) saw this earth, and, becoming a boar, he took it up.6 — The Taittiriya Samhita. Here we have again the spirit and matter philosophy, the philosophy of the orient. The power of Isis was respecting Matter, which takes and receives light and darkness, day and night, fire and water, life and death, beginning and end.7 Of all objects in the created world water existed first when as yet there was neither devatah, nor man, nor animal, nor star, nor other heavenly body." The whole universe was dark and water. In this primeval water Bhagavat in a masculine form reposed.9 It is plain that the Jews in the 2d century had the Hindu opinions at hand, and Josephus said that the Jews were a sect of the Brahmans. No mortal lives by the breath that goes up and by the breath that goes down. We live by another, in whom both repose. Well then, I shall tell thee this mystery, the eternal word (Brahman), and what happens to the Self, after reaching death. Some are born again as living beings, others enter into stocks and stones, according to their work and according to their knowledge. 1 Luke, xxiv. 39 ; 1 Cor. ii. 10, 11, 12 ; iii. 16 ; xv. 44. 2 Ezekiel, viii. 8, 10. 3 Erats. Compare the Homeric adverb epa£e, erazah, (in Hebrew) meaning to earth. 4 Max Muller, India, What can it, p. 137. 5 Spirit (spiro, to blow). The Spirit is Wind. — Acts, ii. 2. Ruach, Rudra. 6 Lifted it on his tusk from beneath the waters. The whole world was involved in darkness and submerged in water. — Maurice, Hist. Hind. I. pp. 407, 410. 7 de Iside, 77. Here we have the A and 6. The Moon is the Mother of the Gods. The Egyptians represented their deities floating on the waters. 8 Maurice, Hist. Hind., I. 407. 9 Ibid., 407. SPIRIT AND MATTER IN THE EAST. L5 But he, the Highest Person, who wakes in us while we are asleep,1 shaping one lovely sight after another, he indeed is called the Light,- he is called Brah- man, he aloue is called the Immortal. All worlds are founded on it, and no one goes beyond. This is tiiat ! He (Brahman) cannot be reached by speech, by mind, or by the eye. He cannot be apprehended except by him who says, He is. a— The Vedanta. Max Muller, 249. There is an unbroken continuity between the most modern and the most ancient phases of Hindu thought extending over more than three thousand years.4 This remark is applicable to the Hebrew mind as well. The Stoics defined the essence of the divinity as intelligent and fiery spirit, without a form, capable of changing into what it wills, and making itself like and united to all things. God, being a globe of fire, is intelligence and the soul of the world ; he is the mind of the world, and idea is the bodiless essence in the conceptions and exhibits of the God. Hence the Stoics regarded Bacchus, who is the water-god and the fire-god, as God of light, Nutritive and Generative spirit. The male-female spirit of Mithra was adored : There went out a fire from Ia'hoh and devoured them. — Leviticus, x. 2. Whose fire is in Sion and whose furnace in Jerusalem. — Isaiah, xxxi. 9. quia dominus est spiritus. — Origen in Numb. cap. xxxiii. God is spirit. — John iv. 24. pneuma 6 Theos. — John, iv. 24. Centum aras posuit vigilemque sacraverat ignem. — Virgil, Aen. iv. 199. Yet know the untransitoriness of That from which this All is unfolded. — Bhagavad-Gita, ii. 7. Lorinser. God was regarded as Mind ; also as male-female.5 The recog- nition of God 6 as the intellectual principle, wholly distinct from matter, which presides over creation is seen in Anax- agoras and Thales.7 For the nature 8 which admits neither 1 Compare Pharaoh's dream of the fat kine. 1 Gen. i. 3, compared. 3 So Exodus iii. 14 I am what I am. < Max Miiller, 249. 6 Hermes, I. 9. The Babylonian Ea is king of the ocean. Iah sits king upon the floods. — Ps. xxix. 10. 8 The Gothic Tio, Theos ; Tios in Crete. 'Kenrick, Egypt, I. 367; Cicero, N.D. I. 10. 6 Substantia. 16 THE G HE BEES OF HEBRON. color nor form and is not tangible, the undoubted ruler of the soul, is beheld by the mind alone.1 Mithra is the divine fire of the Persians and the Moabite or Jewish Ariel.2 Mithra stands on a lion, is Ariel. The lion of Judah is then the lion of Babylon and Persia. Aid olio is Mithra, and the lion is his emblem for Croisos sent a golden lion to Delphi ; thus the lion is the Persian-Babylonian- Jew- ish-Egyptian emblem of Adonis, Mithra Apollo and Bacchus. It is the emblem of Horus in Egypt. Mithra is born from a cave 3 Dec. 25th, Christmas ! Apollo in the cave of Bacchus.4 Hear Plato : The man in the cave is liberated from chains, he turns from shadows to the images and the light ! He ascends from the cavern underground to the Sun. — Plato, Republic, vii. c. 13. The High priest and 24 priests bowed down before the ris- ing Sun,5 who is the water the light, and the fire ! Mithra and Matar. They impart the Mysteries of Mithra in caves in order that, sunk in the Darkness, they may look up to the splendid and serene light. — Julius Firmi- cus, 5. Slaying the children in the valleys under the clefts of the rocks. — Isaiah, lvii. 5. They adored Mithra under the names " Zeus- ■ Hello >s- Ser -apis ," for Lepsius found in Gebel Dochan, on the peninsula of Mt. Sinai, a temple with this inscription ; and dedicated by Ha- drian.6 The Church Historian 7 cannot prevent himself from drawing a comparison between the cross in the temple of Sera- pis and the attribute of the Redeemer.8 Serapis was wor- shipped in Hadrian's temple as Seir Anpin (the Sun), the Second Person of the Kabbala, the Redeemer Mithra who in Babylon raises up the souls from the darkness of Hades to the 1 Origen c. Cels. vi. p. 495. 2 Ar = fire. Ari = lion. 3 Justin, cum Tryplio, p. 82, edition 1551. 4 Diodorus Sic. III. 193. See Isaiah, xlv. 7 ; lvii. 5 ; Jer. xix. 5. Mithra was said to have been born from a rock. — Justin Martyr, p. 82. 5 Bzekiel, viii. 16. 6 Lepsius, letters, p. 288. Seir Anpin has the two sexes, like Zeus of the Orphics. 7 Sokrates, v. c. 17. s Nork, Bibl. Mythol. II. 282, note. SPIRIT AND MATTER IN THE EAST. 17 Light of heaven and the eternal life of Apollo, B61 Mithra, Horus ! She did not know that I (Iachoh) gave (Jerusalem) her corn and wine and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold ; but she made silver and golden (things) to the she-Baal.1 — Septuagint, Osea, ii. 8. Zahab 6s6 leBol : they made gold for B61 ! — Hosea ii. 10. In the Kosniogony of Berosus, Belus formed the stars, the sun, the moon and the five planets. Iauk the Arab Iach (Iachi " he lives "), the Hebrew Iachoh (" I am ") was repre- sented as a Horse surrounded by seven images. It is the Arab Dionysus ; for Herodotus credits the Arabians with the opin- ion " that Dionysus and the Ourania 2 are the only God." So As and Asah, Euas and Issa-Isis. Among the Elohim none like thee, Adoni ! I will confess to thee, O Adoni, my Elah, with all my heart, and will honor thy name to eternity, for thou hast snatched my soul from the lowest Hades. — Psalm, lxxxvi. 8, 12, 13. We think then God a blessed living being and immortal and beneficient towards men. — Plutarch, de Stoic. Repugnant., 38. On the third tablet you will know whence shall be the harvest of wine, where the Lion and the Virgin are. And on the fourth who is the ruler of the grape-bunch, where, drawing sweet nectar, with painted hand Ganymede lifts a cup. As thus the God spoke, the vine-loving maid ran turning round her eyes. And by the presaging wall beheld the first triangular tablet, as old as the end- less world, presenting in one what the Lord Ophion 3 did, whatever aged Kro- nos performed, when, cutting the Father's male ploughs, he ploughed a child- bed water, Sowing unsown backs of a daughter-producing sea. — Nonnus, xii. 37-47. Eretrians and Magnesians presenting the God 4 with the first-fruits of men 5 as Giver of fruits, Father of his children, giving birth and loving man. — Plu- tarch, de Pythiae orac. 17. You shall not kindle fire in all your dwellings on the Seventh day.6 — Exo dus, xxxv. 3. 1 Heracles-Archal as Rachel ; the female Apollo, i.e. Minerva. Gold is Sol's color; silver is luna's. - According to Macrobius, I. xii. 11, Venus is in Taurus. This is the location of Isis, according to Krichenbauer, Theogony and Astronomy, 197 f. 3 The Divine Wisdom, Herakles the Logos. See John, i. 1. 4 Apollo Hebdomaios. s So Exodus, xiii. 12, 13. • Our forefathers upon certain frequent plagues in the district, following a certain ancient superstition, made a custom to observe that day which by the Jews is called the Sabbaton. — Samaritan Epistle, Josephus, xii. 7. 2 18 THE GHEBERS OF HEBRON. The Seventh day was sacred to Saturn, El, Iachoh, Apollo and the Arabian Dionysus, whom the Titans tore into seven pieces. And he put out the inextinguishahle divine fire of breakers. Honoring Helios and Bacchus and at the same time Zan. — Nonnus, xxiv. 66, 67. Thee I invoke, the Lord of Life and Light. — The Shah Nameh. Heat is a mode of motion ; but to say what a thing is in itself is always attended with difficulty, since the nature of things is not yet fully understood. In drawing sudden infer- ences there is risk, as in the case of spirit and matter. Spirit means nothing appreciable, nor are we to greater advantage with the expression matter. Neither is a scientific definition, although the term matter is a tolerable, superficial designa- tion. Matter is proteus-like in its forms, and in its states of organization it is hard to say whether or not it ends in a vital appearance or exposition of motion and apparently vital aspects. The question arises whether what the ancients chose to call spirit is not rather an aspect of some of the organizations of matter or substance, a result worn as a signal of the vitalized aspects rather than a separate entity apart from physical ma- terial substance. Here we are arrived at the limits of human knowledge, if not at the limit of human capacity ; and the problem of what life is may be left for a subsequent age to determine ; only, so far as our present thesis is concerned it seems as if the dogma, the formula, ' spirit and matter ' was, in the ancient world, or might have been, a hasty generalization, particularly as a division into things that have life and things without life, owing to our limits, is not easily established to- day. The incomplete condition of gnosis and science in the world of two thousand years ago is therefore an assumption that has a chance of being correct. The mental condition of the system-makers and theorists of that day seems to us to have been truly unscientific, founded in mere surmises and baseless conjectures regarding spirits, and, of course, spirit. The only definition of spirit is breath, and breath was re- garded as the symbol of life, whereas, like heat, it resolves itself, under some aspects, into a mode of matter in motion. So far as we know, no life is observed apart from substance, from some stage or form of material organization. But the ancients in their superstitions gave forms to souls, and to all SPIRIT AND MATTER IN THE EAST. 19 sorts of spiritual beings of the imagination, such as Gods and Goddesses, demons, etc. Examine Etruscan drawings found in their tombs, the descriptions of beings that the imagination only has conceived. This shows the power of the imagination to create untruth, to personify unverities, such as seven devils entering a human being. From the point of view of accurate, scientific observation, the orient will not bear examination. Omne vivum ex vivo is the result of all human observation of animal flesh, or of human. Under certain forms of organiza- tion is there not a tendency to the distillation, secretion, of the nervous strings or telegraphs that primarily transmit sensa- tion, and (by the reflex action) a repetition of the cerebral mod- ification of sensation? Is not thought a reflected modified sensation repeated, by physical effort, in the brain ? The repetition of the image that sensation impresses on the brain ? In dreams, this can occur ; but in fainting (bloodlessness in the brain) never ! Herodotus regarded all the dark-skinned population extend- ing from Nubia across Southern Arabia to India as Aethio- pians ; 1 Desvergers,2 Wright and Heeren 3 describe the Aethio- pians and Arabs as masters of the commerce of India, while Winwood Eeacle 4 states that Arabia was enriched by the mo- nopoly of the trade between Egypt and the Malabar coast. Lucian tells us that the Indi rose at dawn to pray to the Sun, kissed their hand facing the east, and greeted the Helios with dancing. The Bible tells us that David danced before Ia'hoh, that the Jewish temple faced the rising sun and Job speaks of looking upon the sun and moon and kissing the hand.5 Hang them up to Ia'hoh, facing the Sun.— Numbers, xxv. 4. Whom some call Sun, others Jove. — Servius, Ad Aeneid, i. 729. In the sun Ia'hoh has set his tent. — Psalm, xix. 4. Septuagint." Kronos is the spirit in the sun ; Venus is the feminine spiritus in lima. Plutarch says that all things are born from Kronos and Venus.7 Nonnus mentions Kronos as lancing rain. The 1 Herodotus, iii. 97, 08. 2 Desvergers, Abyssinie, 7. 3 Heeren, Hist. Res., iii. 407-409. 4 Martyrdom of Man, 97. 6 Job, xxxvi. 27. * The Vulgate says the same. ' Plutarch, Iside, 09. 20 THE GHEBERS OF HEBRON. Kabbala Denudata speaks of the Dew of the Seir, which is the moisture of the Sun ; for Seir Anpin (Serapis) is the Sun, the source of fire, heat, spirit, water, light and life. The Babylo- nians and Hindus adored heat, water and earth. Pythagoras held that heat is the principle of life, that God is spirit and fire, that fire is the soul of the world and the source of all souls. He shall baptise you with holy spirit and with fire.— Matthew, iii. 11. The Sun, Adonis, appears as the spirit, Eros, and Bacchus, the source of the soul. The fable of Cupid and Psyche has all the characteristics of a Platonic myth. The Orphics, like the Essenes, held that the soul descended into the body as into a prison. Plutarch confirms this by expressing the same view.1 A bas-relief of the Louvre represents Prometheus modelling a human figure, other finished forms are by his side, and Athena, fons naturae, fons omnium, imparts life to them by placing the symbolic butterfly on their heads. The Magi taught that the soul is immortal,3 and Egypt believed it. The IAO of the Chaldeans and Phoenicians (Movers I. 539, 552) is the mysterious name of Dionysus and the Hebrew deity lad. Since the Romans had vestals who vowed in chastity to watch the eternal fire, and the HebreAvs had an eternal fire to watch that was never suffered to go out on the altar of Ia'hoh, is not Plutarch's question pertinent when he inquires : " Why it has been forbidden both to speak and to ask and to name the God, whether he is male or female,3 who is charged with saving and preserving Borne ? " 4 As the four-letter name of the Jewish Jehovah (Ihoh) was ineffable, and the word Adoni or Adonai spoken instead in the Jewish mysteries, it is but reasonable to presume that the Boman priesthood were quite up in the Iacchic Kabbalist mysteries, as much as in the Bacchic mysteries ; for the two " traditions " seem to be one, just as they appeared to Plutarch eighteen centuries ago.3 And this is not all ; for in a chapter on Vows (nedarim 6) there is 1 Collignon, Essai sur les mon. grecs et romains, 330, 339, 358 ; Dimlap, Vestiges, 155, 169, 170, 177, 195, 196, 222, 231 ; Dunlap, Sod, I. 187, 188. " Spiegel, Vendidad, 16, 32 ; Theopompus, apud Diogenes Laertius. 3 The Orphic hymn : Almighty Zeus is male, Almighty Zeus is female ! — Gen. ii. 23. 4 Plutarch. Quaest. Roman. 61. 6 ibid. Quaest. Conviv. iv. 6 ; ix. 14, 4. 8 Leviticus, xxvii. 2, 3, 4. SPIRIT AND MATTER IN THE EAST. 21 mention of vows of males and females ; and the priest must appraise the value of a vow according" to the age and sex of those who devoted themselves. As it is said by Origen that the eunuch has devoted himself to God, a similar self-devotion may have earlier existed, on the part of women, so very an- ciently as prior to Herodotus ; forPhilo mentions the Eunuchs in his time as does Juvenal, and Lucian places them within the temple precincts of the Syrian God and Goddess a century later. It is not intended here to overlook the Mosaic statute that prohibits a eunuch from attending the Congregations ; only to remark that Isaiah, lvi. 3, 4, 5, gives the eunuchs l a very high position in the Church. Consequently a temple- devot, hardly a vestal, and even a sacred devadassi, may have once graced the temples of Babylonia, Syria or Palestine.2 Dr. Movers shows that the vestals were in the temples of Diana all through Southern Europe and Asia Minor. The castum cubile belonged to the religions before Christ, and Christian monachism carried out the doctrine, handed down inferentially by Plutarch, to mortify the flesh ; for he says that " Matter is what first is subject to being born, corruption and the other changes."3 Saint Paul spoke about this cor- ruption putting on incorruption ; but this is implied in the old doctrine of metempsychosis, h aXko £JW det yLvo/xevov, and long previously was the doctrine of the Bacchic, Chaldaean and Mithriac Solar self-denying inspiration. Like the gnosis, eastern monachism began long before Judaism and Chris- tianity, in which we see only the after part of the insurrection of the spirit against " the doings of the body." The politician Josephus indeed says of the justice of the Essenes, that they owed it neither to Greeks nor Barbarians, but it was theirs from anciently} In the morning-land the Sun is associated with fire, water and spirit, which is the flatus or breath of life.5 The spirit is the associate of water, and moves on the 1 Sarisim. Lucian De Dea Syria 43, 50, mentions the Eunuchs at the sanctuary at Byblus in the second century of our era. 2 Movers, Phonizier, 360, 679 ; 1 Samuel, xxiii. 7. 3 Plutarch, de placitis philosoph. I. ix. 1. Bromius and Siva create and destroy, to recreate in other forms. "But how can the same man be both immortal and mor- tal" asks De Vita Contemplativa, 1, when speaking of the Demigods. Daring to con- neot license with the Blessed and Divine Powers, if those thrice blest and free from all passion madly in love consorted with mortal women. — ibid. 1. see Genesis, vi. 4. 4 Josephus, Ant. xviii. 2. 5 Acts, ii. 1, 2, 3. , 22 THE GHEBERS OF HEBRON. face of the waters.1 In the waters Brahma placed a quicken- ing seed. It is associated to moisture ; hence the serpent working in the wet 2 is the emblem of the spirit. The hus- bandman had closely observed nature and well knew the con- ditions under which the phenomena of life and growth are exhibited in young plants. This is the truth : As from a blazing fire 3 in thousand ways similar sparks proceed, so O beloved, are produced living souls of various kinds from the in- destructible, and they also return to him. He is verily luminous, 4 without form, spirit, he is without and within, without origin, without life, without mind, he is pure and greater than the in- destructible one.5 From this 6 are produced life, mind and all the organs, aether, air, light, the water, the earth the support of all. He whose head is the fire, whose eyes are the moon and the sun, whose ears the quarters,1 whose revealed word the Vedas, whose vital air the mind, whose heart the universe, from whose feet the earth, is the inner soul of all beings. From him is produced the fire whose fuel is the sun, from the moon, Parjanya, the annual herbs on the hearth ; children are born from the wife, many creatures are produced from the spirit. From him proceed the seven senses, the seven flames, the seven kinds of fuel, the seven sacrifices, these seven places 8 in which the vital airs move that sleep in the cavity 9 and that, always seven, are ordained. Thence all the seas and mountains ; from him proceed the rivers of every kind, thence all the annual herbs, the juice by which, together with the ele- ments, the inner body l0 is upheld. Spirit alone is this all, the works, austerity ! Whoever knows this supreme immortal Brahma as dwelling in the cavity, breaks, O gentle youth, the bonds of ignorance. — The Mundaka Upanishad of the Atharva Veda.11 And the Lord is the spirit ! — 2 Coriutb., iii. 17. 1 Gen. i. 2. The priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel. — Numbers, v. 17. 2 Genesis, i. 2, 28 ; ii. 6, 7, 8 ; iii. 1 ; Plutarch, de Iside, 11, 18, 26, 37, 39, 47. Hence Bacchus is Hues, the Moist, Damp, Diphues ! The Argives evoked him from the -water. — Plutarch, de Iside, 35. 3 Father, Lord, Abadon ! Abdon ! Abaddon ! 4 John, i. 4. 5 the neutral brahman. 6 Brahma. 7 the four quarters of the universe. 8 the places of the senses. 9 of the heart. 10 the subtile body, according to the Vedanta, consisting of the three sheaths of intellect, of the mind, and life. 11 Second Mundaka, 1st section. We have made the part concerning the birth of children less striking than in the original passage, Bibl. Ind. 156. SPIRIT AND MATTER IN THE EAST. 23 The chariot of Vishnu (Bacchus, buried in Apollo's shrine) is very large and richly carved. On these chariots images of the God are adored.1 Here we have sun-chariots, like those of the Hebrews mentioned in 2 Kings, xxiii. 11. The Egyptian regarded the beetle as double -gendered and self-producing. On a coin of Magnesia occurs the type of a Hermaphrodite. The idea of an original self-complete nature in which the distinction of sex has not yet been developed was characteristic of the cultus of Cybele, and is known to have been an Asiatic, not a Greek thought.2 The divine being has both principles, the masculine and the feminine, united in itself, like the source of light ; 3 it divides and unites them again to create, or God can bring forth something with his own procreative power. Bhavani is the feminine principle separated into a Goddess, Maia, the Love that from eternity dwells with God. She is spouse of the creative Light-prin- ciple, becomes Mother of the three Gods and, again, their common wife, so that the great world-principle continues one and the same throughout the succession of formations. Those three Gods and their feminine parts, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, become again with their Lady one form ; they are hermaph- rodite and receive the names of Bhavani as surname.4 Com- pare the Adam (Sun, Mithra) as spiritus vitae (containing in himself the souls of all the Israelites) before the Issa (the Isis rib) was parted from him. In the beginning it existed alone, the spirit ; nothing beside Him active or at rest. He thought : I will let the Worlds issue from me : He let them go forth : Water, light, what is transitory, and the waters. Water was above the firmament which bears it. Then he formed out of the waters the spirit (the Pnrusha). He looked upon it and its mouth opened like an egg ; out of its mouth proceeded speech and from the speech FIRE ! Aitareja-Aranjaka Upan- ishad. From him who is, from this immortal cause who exists for the reason and does not exist for the senses Purusha the divine Son of Brahma is born. He remained in the egg of gold for the space of a divine year, and by the single effort of his thought divided it in two. Having divided his body into two parts, Nara, the spirit divine, became half male half female, and, uniting him- self to this female part, the immortal Goddess Nari, He procreated Viraj.6 1 Allen's India 380 ; Buchanan, Mysore. 2 Journ. Hellenic Studies, HI. 54; Jahu in Leipz. Verhandl. 1851. • Wie der Lichtquell. 4 Nork, Braminen und Rabbinen, 345. Ma, Maia, Vena, Venus are the Lunar feminine principle. 6 Belonging to the Rig Veda. 24 THE OHEBERS OF HEBRON. Vak, the Wisdom, 4 is the feminine Logos 2 the supreme and universal soul, the active power of Brahma. She says : I up- hold both the sun and the ocean, the firmament and fire . . . I pervade heaven and earth. I bore the father 3 on the head of this,4 and my origin is in the midst of the ocean ; and there- fore do I pervade all beings and touch this heaven with my form. Originating all beings, I pass like the breeze ; I am above this heaven, beyond this earth ; and what is the Great One, that am I.5 When He prepared the heavens there was I. When he described a ball (or circle) on the face of the abyss : (; when he fixed the clouds above: when he made stable the fountains of the deep : when he laid down for the sea his statute and the waters did not go beyond the words : when he defined the foundations of the earth. And I was by him, the Maker.7 The " Monad being there first, where the Paternal Monad subsists " indicates the Father and the Son.8 When the Monad (the Son) is extended and this extension generates Two,9 we have the Adam and the Eua, the Dionysus and the Eua. For the Duad (the Isis Mother) is the maternal cause which is doub- le, having received spirit and matter from the Father. For the Duad sits by this and glitters with intellectual sections, to govern all things and to arrange each.10 From the Two Prin- ciples the Orphic egg appears, which is the Duad of the nat- ures male and female contained in it.11 From this egg issues Arich Anpin the Phanes,12 the New Light. For from this triad the Father has mixed every spirit.13 All things are governed in the bosoms of this triad.14 1 Proverbs, viii. 1, 2, 30. 2 Speech, the Word, Athena. 3 Heaven. 4 Spirit, Mind in the Waters. s The Sankita of the first Veda. Colebrooke, Essays, pp. 16, 17. 6 Tahom. * Anion, fiDX, tne Creative Mind (the Novs). — Proverbs, viii. 27-30. sDunlap, Vestiges, pp. 179, 226, 229; Proclusin Euc. 27. sProclus in Euc. 27. 10Proclus in Plat. 376; Cory, Anc. Fragm. 245. "Damaskius; in Cory, Anc. Fragments, 286, 320. The Venah shall be called Mother.— The Sohar, III. 290 a ; Gelinek, Frank, die Kabbala, 137. The Chochmah is Father, the Venah is Mother, as it is said ; am l'Venah tekara.— Sohar, III. 290 a. 12Dunlap, Vestiges, pp. 249, 250; Orpheus, Argonautika, 16. 13Lydus de Mensibus, 20. Cory, Ancient Fragments, 245. " ibid. 20. SPIRIT AND MATTER IN THE EAST. 25 Moulding first the Generic Man, in whom is, they say, the male and female sex, He afterwards makes the species, the Adam. — Philo. Legal Alleg. II. 4. And the God cast upon the Adam an ecstasy, and he slept ; and He took one of his ribs and filled in flesh in its place. What is spoken respecting this is mythical. — Philo. Legal Alleg. II. 7. In the time of the Csesars the Moon-god at 'Harran (Carrhae) in Mesopotamia was androgyne.1 Iacchos is male and fe- male, and diphues.2 The epithets oY/xopc£os, hfyvrjs, 8ia-(ro]<; have been said in a quite recent work of M. Lenormant to refer to light and dark- ness ; but they appear equally expressive of that two-sexed- ness, belonging to Vishnu and the consort of Ehea, ascribed in the Levant to the Hermaphrodite Adonis-Osiris-Dionysus in the moon. A recent work by Lenormant shows that the Lebanon Venus is the Image of Jealousy mentioned by Eze- kiel as a piece of sculpture in the portico of the Jerusalem Temple. Adonis died, was mourned and rose the third day. The spirit was regarded as hermaphrodite ! Did not a sacti emanate from the Hermes-Adonis in Hades'? The luna in Hades is Proserpina; but Venus is the crescent (vena), daughter and rib of Sol-Saturnus, the Venah (Binah, B is V) the " Daughter of God " mentioned in Jewish philosophy. Now we come to the two-gendered Bol of the Babylonians and the remarkable manliness of the Homeric Goddess of Wisdom, who later appears, with the ball on her head, as Fortuna. The Wisdom which is man and woman !— Hermes, i. 30. The Wisdom the Daughter of God is also male and father.— Philo Judaeus, de Prof. 9. The Egyptians supposed that the world consisted of a mascu- line and feminine nature. They engraved a scarabaeus for Athena and a vulture for Hephaistos, since these were regard- ed as hermaphrodite ;3 like Men, Lunus-luna, Adam Kadmon and Brahma. The holy image of Athena (Minerva, the Isis or feminine holy spirit) fell from heaven : and a lamp of gold Kallimachus made for the female God. And 1 Chwolsohn. Ssabier, I. 399, 403. 2 Gerhard, Gr. Mythol. p. 453. 3 Cory, Anc. Fragm. p. 286, from Horapollo. The duad is the combine of the Male and feminine Fire that Simon Magus propounded. 26 THE GHEBERS OF HEBRON. filling it with oil, they wait until the same day of the next year: and that oil is enough for the lamp ' during the intervening time, which shines equally by day and by night. It has a wick of Karpathian flax, which is the only flax that is not consumable by fire. A brass palm tree over the lamp going up to the roof draws off the smoke.2 Compare Prometheus, Artemis and Minerva as fire deities. And it is said as follows : Iodama having been consecrated to the female God 3 went in at night into the temple and to her Athena appeared and on the chiton (tunic) of the female God there was the head of Medusa the Gorgon ; and Iodama, as she looked on it, was made stone. And on this account a woman, placing, every day, fire upon the altar of Iodama, announces as many as three times in the Boeotian tongue that Iodama lives and asks for fire.4 Compare the " fire-born Dionysus " and the fire that ever burned upon Apollo's altar.3 Is not Iodama a form of Ashah (the feminine vital fire of Huah in Genesis, ii. 23) ? This Ashah or Aishah (with the later vowel point put in) is the Mother of all, like Athena. They call the Moon the Mother of the world and think that she has a male- female nature, because being filled by the sun and becoming pregnant, she sends forth again the generative germs into the air and scatters them about. 6 From him who is,7 from this immortal cause who exists for the reason and does not exist for the senses, Purusba8 the divine son of Brahma is born. He remains in the egg of gold for the space of a divine year, and by the single effort of his thought divided it in two. . . . Having divided his body into two parts, Nara the Spirit divine became half male and half female (like Adam Hermaphroditus), and, uniting himself to the immortal Goddess Nari (his female part), became the father of Viraj. In the temples Nara was typified as bull, Nari 1 The virgins took their lamps, and went forth to meet the Bridegroom. — Matthew, XXV. I. 2 Pausanias, i. 26, 7. 3 Athena, the spirit divine, fi /u.i?ttjp. The name Iodama is significant of some con- nection with Adam and Damia perhaps ; although Adam, if not connected with Kad- mos, would appear to be Mithra Adamatos, Invictus. 4 Pausanias, ix. 34, 2. B Apollo and Bacchus are the same God. — Macrobius, p. 299, ed. bipont. ; see Sophokles, Antigone, 1126, and Euripides, Phoenissae, 227, 228. 6 Plutarch, de Iside, 43. 7 See Exodus, iii. 14 ; vi. 3. 8 The Spiritus, the Spirit as Life-princip. SPIRIT AND MATTER IN TIIE EAST. 27 as heifer. This usage was general, as Dionysus was so repre- sented and Astarte, not to mention Osiris, Apis, the Minotaur and the Mukerinos-Heifer (Isis) in Herodotus. In the case of Adam Kadmon l of the Jewish Ivabalah we know that the Monad becomes a duad. Here we have the lingam in the yoni, the primitive hermaphrodite uniting- the two sexes, Mahadeva and Bhavani, Isvara and Isi, representing-, in the popular worship of Siva, the Great Being, Author of all things and the form or Universal Mother,2 whose union gave birth to the Trimurti or trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. The unity in which the duality resides is the source and beginning- of all creation. The ling-am and yoni are in mystic union. This is the primal principal, "l'unite et le tout." No temples were raised to this neutral unity,3 except in Babylonia to Lunus- Luna. Zeus is male and female 4 in the Orphic hymns. The word man is used for the Monad from the one ; 5 woman for the ■fj vypa viTL<; the nioist element, Huah or Hue, Isah or Isis. The divine Hermaphrodite or Hermathena (Bel-Achad, 6 17 -9eos) is Chadmus, Kadmus, Dionysus diphues or 'hadmus (Adam) be- fore the Woman (Ishah, Isis) or lunar (lunar rib, crescent) principle was taken out of him. This is the Mighty Mother in Phrygia, the " Huah Mother of all that live," " Venus, Original Mother of our race," the Minerva or Mother of the Gods. This is the worship 'AvtotSkos Zevs 'Apaevi Sup^eiev, apr\yova &rj\vu 'AS^i/rji', Kal Ail Kal BpOfxiw kcu TlaWdSt fj.a>/nov avdstyw. — Nonuus, xxvii. 62, 63, 69. 1 Who is Brahma the Son of the neutral unit, brahman in the neuter gender. " La croyance a la nature androgyne de la divinite tut imaginee par les Indous pour expliquer la difference des sexes et leur mysterie'use union." The Huah (Eua, Eve) being the moist, for Dionysus is called Hues, is the Binah or Venah born from the foam of the sea, the Aphrodite of Askalon and the Phoenician Berouth. 2 ayaAjuara iv rjj o-roa Aiotwov Kal 'Etfanjs, 'A^poSt'rr) re Kal MTJnjp deiav Kal Tii^iJ. — Pausanias, ii. 11, 8. 3 das brahman, Tb Belov. 4 Dunlap's Vestiges, pp. 145, 146. To Elohim the Seven altars were raised by Balaam ; which corresponds to Apollo Hebdomaios, both altars being horned. 5 ijraiSev9r)