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THE BOOK OF GOD 
 
 of 
 ^tiam^ii^anttefi;. 
 
 BY 
 
 E- V. KEN CALX LL.D.,Q.C. 
 
 I will teach you by the hand of God ; 
 
 That which is with the Almighty Ones will I not conceal. 
 
 Job XXVII., ii., lo. 
 
 LONDON : 
 REEVES & TURNER, 238, STRAND. 
 
^¥^f.a^.^ a.^ ,,^,^^ 
 
 
 zS?-^ 
 
 ^A 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PniN'TKD BY S. AND J. BRAWN, 13, PUINCES-ST., LITTLE QUICEN-ST., W.C. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 The lifting of the Veil, 1 — 8. Definitions, 9 — 16. 
 
 Book I. — A syllabus of tlie ancient Creeds in God and 
 ///r Holy Spirit, 17 — 31. HowtheCreationhegan, andthe 
 Triad explained, 31 — 42. The necessity of a Revelation, 
 and a Heaven-sent Messenger, 43 — ^52. The Naros, or 
 Sibylline Year 6!)0, 53 — 72. The mystic secret of the 
 Naros and the Apocalypse belonged to tlie Greater Myste- 
 ries, 73 — 94. Notes, 95. 
 
 Book II. — The splendour and magnificence of ancient 
 art and science, 117 — 133. Knowledge flowed from a 
 common centre, 134 — 139. Religious rites of all natimis, 
 proved from their affinity, to have all emanated from One 
 primeval faith, 139 — 172. The mythos of the Phoenix 
 explained, 172 — 180. Biblical views of MytJiology and tlie 
 Trinity shown to b ' false, 180 — 183. Notes, 184. 
 
 Book III. — Th", Messianic and Gablrlc Messengers oj 
 God, 197 — 209. The Nemesis of Heaven, and the inevitable 
 punishment of the evil, 209—212. Notes, 214. 
 
 Book IV. — The common Apoccdypse rejected by most 
 eminent theologians of all ages, 215 — 232. Is the most 
 ancient vjork now existing; and is in reality the comj)0- 
 sition of Adam, the First Messenger of God, 233 — 244. 
 Proofs of this drawn from the most aiicient traditions of 
 Egnjit. Irdn, Tsabma, Greece, Palestine, Jiid)ylonia, and 
 Mexico, 241 — 2G0. Various mystical refei'ences to Adam, 
 and his Revelations, with Rabbinical traditions, 260 — 276. 
 
 f % *^ C '^ ^ 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Proof that the Apocalypse existed in Rome, Wales, &c„ 
 276 — 292. Traditions of the First Messenger and his 
 Apocalypse, found all over the world, 292 — 313. How the 
 original and perfect copies of th". Apocalypse have disap- 
 peared, 313—318. N^otes, 321. 
 
 Book V". — The authenticity of the Old Testament doubted 
 by the most eminent divines, 329 — 31:2. Proved conclu- 
 sively to he unreliable, 343 — 363. Utterly lost for several 
 centuries, 364 — 382. 7s vnritten in a language modern 
 and hicorrect; the loork of numerous unknown writers, 
 383 — 405 ; proscribed and destroyed throughout all ages, 
 405. Alistof lost Hebrew Scriptures, 4:09. Reasons why a 
 new copy should be forged, 410 — 414. Mistranslations of 
 Old Testament, 419 — 430. Doubts as to the Nev:>, 431 — 
 439. Repulsive character of inuch of the Old Testament, 
 440—447. Notes, 448. 
 
 Book VI. — A II common chroTiology confused, and base- 
 less as a system, 481 — 489. The grand and majestic 
 nature of ilie true Apocalypse, 490 — 494. Invocation of 
 the Supreme, 495. Summary, 497. 
 
 The Apocalypse. 
 
 Greek text, with a new translation into English, 500. 
 Tlie Seven Thunders, 612. Notes to the Apocalypse, 633. 
 Index, 639. 
 
in tl)t ^me of tbt ©oU ot Crutl), 
 
 The Lord of Light — ^the Lord of the Universe ; 
 
 Wlio framed the Kosmoe of iimuinerable spheres ; 
 
 From wlTOm cometli all that is beautiful : 
 
 The Creator and the Sovereign Ruler, 
 
 Tlic Father and the Judge ; 
 
 The Eternal Fire vrlio is alone in the Orb of Circles ; — 
 
 Wlio fu^t gave form to the Elements, 
 
 The stai-s, the firmament, the shining planets, 
 
 The sun and comets, rapid in their wandering flight ; 
 
 Tlic lightnings which arc his quick sceptre ; 
 
 The whirlwinds, the luminous expanse ; — 
 
 Who fabric;ited the earths in choirs innumerable, 
 
 And made them to be the habitation of life ; 
 
 And from the essential energy of the mateiial and imma- 
 tcriid, 
 
 Made spirits manifest in soul and body. 
 
 In His Name — the Name of the Most High God, 
 
 I delivci- unto the Earth this Book ; 
 
 That it may be an Everlasting Testament through Tinif; 
 everlasting 
 
 (if the whole duty of Man. 
 
 This is the Book of Light ; 
 
 Tins is the Book of the Clnldrcn of Tlejivcn : 
 
 Wliicli God lintli graven in lire 
 
 On the stupoidous pilJars of the Univoi-se. 
 
 Let no man approach unt/% it. 
 
 W-hosc soul is not pui'c : 
 
Let no man touch it with hi§ hand, 
 
 Who hath a thought of sin witliin his heart. 
 
 Let no man gainsay its words — 
 
 They aixj the "Words of Ti-uth the most Ancient. 
 
 There is but One only God — 
 
 This is His Book : 
 
 There is but One only Heaven — * 
 
 This is its law. 
 
 The Heavens and the Earths inliabited by spirits, 
 
 The mp'iad-foldcd hearts of men ; — 
 
 Behold, they shall bear witness unto its veinty, 
 
 In the face of deatli and desolation. 
 
 O Sons of men ! know this — 
 
 That in tliis book wliicli now I Jiold, 
 
 Tlic law of Trutli is opened : 
 
 Tlie Light of Heaven is unveiled. 
 
 Like the Everlasting Universe of the Lord of Beauty, 
 
 It comprchcndcili alL 
 
 It is the First and the Last 
 
 Of things recorded. 
 
 O God ! give unto tin' sons, 
 
 The brightneFS of thy Sj»irit ; 
 
 Thr»t they may read, know, mid undorstan<K 
 
 O God ! give unto thy sod.-: 
 
 Tlic illumination of thy Wisd'^.m ; 
 
 That they may believe iiiiue Jieavenly precepts. 
 
 From all evil guard uf, O GovI ! 
 
 That our intellects may be calm and holy, 
 
 Wliile meditating on thy Holy Word. 
 
Tin: s;c:jj.OL CI .. -"v i^'"' 
 
 Point Loma. California 
 
 THE LURING OF THE VEIL. 
 
 Jii t\)t namt of tl)t itlos^t S^olj) (©nr. 
 
 I stood in sj»irit before the Tlirones of God, 
 
 I moved iu liglit before the Supreme ; 
 
 His brows M'ere lost amid the infinite, 
 
 His feet were resting on the sun. 
 
 The Heavens were l^ofore Ifini like a carpet spread ; 
 
 And He was clothed in tlie flame of lightnings : 
 
 Darkness and mysterious Silence, 
 
 Were rouml, an«l ovt-r, and before the Lord. 
 
 He wa« alone )ji light — 
 
 Alone in a far <»ir .sphere. 
 
 Alone — alone, and jio created essence 
 
 Sliared tlie mystery (»f darkness with the Supreme. 
 
 And all the Powius, and all the Princes, 
 
2 THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL. • 
 
 And all the blessed Spirits of the XJnivei'se ; 
 
 And all the mighty Energies and Essences ; 
 
 Were before the Thrones of God. 
 
 And they hymned to Him in the measure of the stars ; 
 
 And in the ever-moving radiance of the globe of elements; 
 
 They rejoiced in the splendoui-s of His essence ; 
 
 In the emanating loveliness of the Lord. 
 
 And a Voice came forth from the place, 
 
 A Voice from the place wherein the Thrones were ; 
 
 A Voice of deep thunder and eternal melody ; 
 
 Bright as lightning, softly-sweet as if a flute breathed. 
 
 It was the Voice of God liimsclf ; 
 
 I knew it — ^aud my spirit knew it in the spirit : 
 
 The everlasting Voice of the Father, and tlie King, 
 
 Who speaks, and the Universe is still. 
 
 And the Voice said : Son of ]\Ian ! 
 
 And I answered, Behold, I am here ; 
 
 And the Voice sjiid, I am the Lord thy Go<l who made 
 
 thee, 
 And bixjuthetl my flame into thy breast. 
 I sent thee ii[>on the eai-th to preach to cartli, 
 The woi-ds of Timtli and Lidit and Wisdom : 
 To develop ancient holiness ; 
 To reveal the things that I made niaiiifest : — 
 I bore tliee on the lightnings of the sun, 
 Wliere the morning walks in glojy ; 
 I wafted tiioe on tiic wings of clicniMin, 
 Where the stars set in the evening lioiir ; 
 I lifted up the Veils of jMystciv, 
 Opening unto thine eye many secrets ; 
 
THE LimNG OF THE VEIL. 
 
 And placed my tliundei*s in thine hand of fire, 
 
 To smite the fanes of suixii'stition. 
 
 And now, answer thon me and say, 
 
 Wlicthcr tl)ou hast fulfilled thy solemn work 1 
 
 Wliethcr thovi hast c;\st down one stone 
 
 From tlic gkx)my fabrics of the univci-se ? 
 
 Then the Voice ceased, and theit; was silence ; 
 
 A silence tliat juoixjcd my soul j 
 
 An awful .•stillness came xiyton my spirit ; 
 
 I stood ahnsluMl, and downcast and afraid. 
 
 And in a little wjiilc the Voice again sjuko ; 
 
 Saving unto me. Son of Alan ! 
 
 And I answL'ivd, Behold I am here : 
 
 And the Voice s;iid, Answer thou me. 
 
 And I fill down j^rostrate before the Throne.*; ; 
 
 The coldness of death smote me, through and through 
 
 And the awe of that mysterious Silence 
 
 Froze the spirit within my soul. 
 
 Meaner than a worm, am I, O Holy One ; 
 
 An abject sinner loadc<l with hLs sins ; 
 
 I have .Ktn»ycd in cloud.s of darkness ; 
 
 I have walked in vanity and death ; 
 
 I have wandered away from the straight path 
 
 In which I .should have paced with Thee ; 
 
 And, formed out of d)i:st and clouds and ashes, 
 
 I have followed after dust and ashes, and decay. 
 
 Earth and tlio things of PZartli, Lord ! 
 
 Have led my spirit fi(^m Thee ; 
 
 I have been deaf to the Voice of God, 
 
 Which spake within my troubled soid. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL. 
 
 tTiK>n that which is perishable, did I fix mine heart ; 
 
 Upon tliat which passes away for ever ; 
 
 But ui)on Thee, the Eternal and the Everlasting King, 
 
 Little did I repose my wandering thought. 
 
 Yet now, Lord, and now will I awaken, 
 
 And now will I pour out my voice ; 
 
 De[X\rt thou, from me, my foolishness ! 
 
 Henceforth I am the servant of the iVIost High. 
 
 And while I spake, I remained prostrate. 
 
 For the mystery of God was upon me like a mountain ; 
 
 A deep and all-subduing Awe ; 
 
 The shadow of a death-like swoon. 
 
 And there was a sound of music in the Heavens, 
 
 A soft and sacred harmony ; 
 
 And tlie Powers in the far-off distance, 
 
 Hymned sweetly upon golden instruments : 
 
 And a light like that of the purple nib}', 
 
 Descended slowly above my head ; 
 
 Covering me over as if with a crown of splendour.s. 
 
 Like a rainbow arching the ocean. 
 
 And as I lay I heard a trumpet sound 
 
 A wild and solitary blast ; 
 
 Then my spirit shook. 
 
 As if a thunderbolt had riven it in twain. 
 
 A whirlpool of light snatched me ui)ward ; 
 
 A flashing voi-tex of quivering flame ; 
 
 And all the brightness of the universe 
 
 Surrounded me M-ith glittering colours. 
 
 God him.sclf, the Ijifinitc, the AU-roworful, 
 
 Lifted me among the fiery sub.stance of the .stiu-s ; 
 
THE LIFTING OP THE VEIL. 
 
 I saw the sun in his grandeur ; 
 
 The planetaiy choirs danced around liim. 
 
 The morning with its varied tints of beauty, 
 
 Illuminated the golden ni*ches ; 
 
 And the seven pure rivers of the Celestial 
 
 Flowed and sparkled in sunny light. 
 
 I saw in them, the Author of Nature, 
 
 The divine i-csplcndcnt God of Heaven ; 
 
 Whose presence is as the warmth of vernal summer ; 
 
 Who is the Tree of Life growing in Paradise. 
 
 As the moon accompanies the traveller 
 
 In his lonely walk in the midnight hour ; 
 
 She cheers him with her soft light ; 
 
 She seems to glide in beauty by his side : 
 
 Yet is she still unmovctl and far away. 
 
 Throned in tlie depths of the finnament ; 
 
 Even so did God lead me, 
 
 Upwaixl and on into the broad heavens. 
 
 I saw Him not, but yet I knew Him ; 
 
 I beheld not Ills jnajcstic Image : 
 
 He was far away in His Own Sphere ; 
 
 The Cciitml Glory of the Divine Presence. 
 
 Like the shifting beauty of the heaven 
 
 Whose face is varied with new splendour ; 
 
 Purple and white, and rose and silver ; 
 
 The deep intense also of night's starry fires ; — 
 
 Even so is the ever-flashing face of God 
 
 As it moved before mo in a glimpse ; 
 
 Yet was it but as a fleeting dream, 
 
 Wherein He glittered, yet concealed himself. 
 
6 THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL. 
 
 And as I was borne along iii fire, 
 I saw a splendid Angel of the Sun ; 
 He poured forth his voice, 
 And this was tlie burden of liis speech. 
 Hail thou who ai-t Parasu Rama, 
 In the golden plains of be.auty ; 
 The chosen child of lightning and of trutli ; 
 Long have I looked for thine arrival. 
 Hail thou who art Imaum Mahidi, 
 Fiery-cinctured by the Word of Heaven : 
 Long liave I looked forth from the niountjiins, 
 To behold the sunlight of tliinc advent. 
 Now ascendcst thou, 
 
 Unto the Pillars of God whereon the Univci-se is sus- 
 pended, 
 Enveloped in the dark lightnings, 
 And in the quickly rolling thundei*s of liis flame. 
 To the silent Watei-s from whose deep Abysdcs 
 These lofty Pillars lise ; 
 Darkness broods above their awful bosoms ; 
 And many a great Spirit guides tlicir far-ex tondcd strength; 
 And into the jNIountains from whose recesses 
 These ocean watei-s flow : 
 
 And into the AVinds in whose embrace they i*est, 
 Smaller than the motes in a sunbeam. 
 And into the still, the solemn Whirhvind, 
 From whose least breath these Winds arc born ; 
 The Whirlwind wliose place is afar off, 
 In the arms of the all-sustaining God. 
 These Pillars arc called the True j 
 
THE LIFTING OP THE VEIL. 7 
 
 And tliese "Waters are called the Ancient; 
 And these litoun tains ai-e called the Strong ; 
 And these Winds are called the Everlasting ; — 
 Therein shalt thou be made a witness of the Tnith, 
 And of the Sacred Light, wliicli is the breath of God ; 
 Therein shall the Mysteries of the Univci'sc 
 Bo uncurtained before tliy rapt gaze. 
 
 Then the lightnings flashed, 
 
 And the thundci-s answered the lightnings ; 
 
 And the Angel of the Sun departed ; 
 
 And I wended onward in my flight. 
 
 I saw the stai-s which no eye on earth beholds. 
 
 Glittering in their golden zones of light ; 
 
 Beautiful they were, and of rapid dance ; 
 
 Inconceivable, and to be pamllclcd only by the thought. 
 
 The magnitude of their dark circles 
 
 Was beyond all the imagination of man ; 
 
 The seven-rayed spheres of solar light were there, 
 
 But only Grod could span their mighty orbits. 
 
 Like "walh of glittering gold and beryl. 
 
 The fiimament extended itself in the far distance ; 
 
 And veiled in deepest night and flame and star, 
 
 I saw the everlasting seat of God's splendour. 
 
 Folded in beams of light Avere the Sjjirits of Heaven, 
 
 Beautiful as flowers resting in the sunshine ; 
 
 There was no revolution of day or night, 
 
 But the i:)erpetual glory of God illuminated all. 
 
 Hear me, O ye Si)heres of Beauty, 
 
 He;u*ken unto me, O ye Children of Paradise ; 
 
8 THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL. 
 
 And thou, Time, everlasting image of Eternity, 
 
 And thou, O Earth, bow down thine eai'S ; 
 
 For now was opened unto me the boundless majesty, 
 
 !riie vast stupendous nature of the Univei-se ; 
 
 The fiery splendour of the heavens and the suns that roll 
 
 for ever, 
 The far-extended earths, and oceanic globes. 
 In light — in fire — in mist — in flame, 
 I moved, as floating on the sunbeams, 
 Breatldess in serai)hic ti-ance ; 
 The coursei-s of the morning bare me. 
 Wliat gleam — what gloiy bui-sts afar ? 
 What Splendour couching in the sun ? 
 She rose — she smiled — she stood unveiled — 
 I looked — and I beheld All. 
 
DEFINITIONS, ETC. 
 
 Apocalypse — a Revelation; an uplifting of the Veil, which 
 separates the Invisible from the Visible. 
 
 Ark, a mystic name for the Holy Spirit. Parkhurst in his 
 Greek Lexicon, though he has entirely omitted it in the Hebrew, 
 where it ought to be found, says ' * ^PXV ^^ *^^^ application 
 answers to the Hebrew n^ti^J»^1 rasit, or Wisdom ; and what 
 word could be so proper as that which in the language of the 
 Western world was unknown, but which had the meaning of the 
 emblem of the female generative power, the Arg or Area, in 
 which the germ of all nature was supposed to float or brood on 
 the great abyss, during the interval which took place after every 
 mundane cycle ?" This was the vessel or symbolic boat-shaped 
 ark or cup, which we find everywhere in the Sacred Mysteries 
 under different names in Greece, Egypt, India, Judsea, &c., and 
 on whose misunderstood symbolism, Faber has raised one of the 
 most extraordinary structures of erudition and folly that the 
 world has ever seen — I mean his literal interpretation of the 
 Arkite mythos in Genesis. The navi-form Argha of the Mysteries 
 alluded solely under an expressive type to the Holy Spirit — the 
 Queen of Heaven ; the Great Mother of all existences ; and from 
 her the nave in our churches and in all the ancient temples was 
 denominated, that nave being one of the most sacred parts of the 
 fane. For the sake of the unlearned, I add that nave comes 
 from the Latin word navis, a ship. Thus the Holy Spirit was 
 the Ship of Life which bore over the vast Ocean of the Infinite, 
 the germs of all being : and God was the ruling Force. And the 
 Moon in her crescent or boat-like shape thus became one of the 
 emblems of the Holy Spirit. The crescent which every true 
 Islamite wears, and the same symbol throughout Hindostan, 
 alludes to the Holy Spirit, who was an essential part of the true 
 
 B 3 
 
10 DEFINITIONS, ETC. 
 
 Arabic faith as preached by Mohammed, though by his followers 
 it has been wholly ignored. The mystic word ALM, which that 
 Great Prophet prefixed to many chapters of the Kordn, and 
 which no commentator has ever been able to explain, alludes to 
 her, the Aim or Immaculate Virgin of the Supreme Heavens. It 
 signifies also AL, God, and M. 600, which covertly refers to a 
 secret cycle of the most high importance, which the reader 
 will find explained in this work. Tiraeeus, the Locrian, 
 alluding to the Holy Spirit under her mystical name of Arka, 
 calls her ^Kp\a twv apia-Tiav, or the Principle of best things. 
 The word arcane or secret is derived from this, and covertly 
 alludes also to its symbolic meaniug. To no one is the Arcane 
 exhibited, says the Codex NazarcBus, (a volume of great antiquity), 
 except to the Most Great and Most High, who alone knows and 
 doth discern all things. Pausanias relates that ^sculapius, which 
 was a symbolic name for the Messiah, was called Archagetas, which 
 lie translates the primceval divinity, but wrongly, for it means, 
 born of the Archa. What the Greek sage called to ap^aiov 
 Xao?, alluded mystically and mysteriously to this ark, for 
 Xao9 and X^^5, was aw, and o-aw, / save, with the X or sacred 
 cross at the beginning ; and this X was also the Greek monogram 
 for 600. Jablonski says ; Iw, loh, JEgyptiis Lunam significat, 
 neqve habent illi in communi sermonis usu, aliud nomen quo Lunam 
 designent prater lo. lo in the Egyptian signifies the Moon, &c. 
 Eustathius declares that lo signifies the Moon in the dialect of 
 the Arg-ians. In Cambodia, this Divine Spirit is adored as the 
 Soul of the Universe, under the name of On-Ao, and the chief 
 temple of the empire is erected in her honour. Cunctorum dicas 
 supremum numen lao, says Macrobius, citing the oracle of Apollo 
 Clarius, I. Saturnal. Throughout the Apocalypse God and the 
 Holy Spirit are called AO. The pillar and the circle |0 allude 
 mystically to this, and constitute 10, the perfect number. Arka 
 in Javanese, according to Sir S. Raffles, means the Sun. In con- 
 nection with this he mentions a celebrated sacred poem which 
 they have called KHinda, or KUndina — this he declines giving. 
 It is probably like the Song of Solomon, or the Geeta-Govinda. 
 This poem he says is also called Pepa-Kam : this is Pi-Akm, The 
 Wisdom, it also means The Father and the Goddess of Love. The 
 whole alludes to the Sacred Spirit of Heaven. 
 
 Avatar — a descent of the Messiah- Angel in his due cycle : 
 sometimes, but improperly called a Theopany. 
 
 Beauty — the Beautiful : the perfection to which every Exist- 
 ence should aspire. 
 
DEFINITIONS, ETC. 11 
 
 Beth PT^ A house : thus Elisa-beth is the house of Elisa. 
 In some couutries pronouuced Bat, Bad, Abad. Baal-bec is sup- 
 posed to have been really named Baal-beth. In the Welsh, Bett- 
 . Vs, is the Place of Fire. As Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrews 
 meant the God of Fire, so Beth, the second letter, meant his 
 House ; and AB meant AIL 
 
 Birth — the re-appearance of a Spirit in some new form, with- 
 in our circle of existence. Death, its disappearance and palin- 
 genesis into another circle, after an interval in JJade^r the 
 Invisible. 
 
 Blood — a symbolic name for Truth ; true Religion. 
 
 Body — a material covering, or means of manifestation, for those 
 orders of existence whose nature confines them to material 
 spheres. Angels and Spirits consist of two natures, spirit and 
 soul. Men consist of spirit, soul and body : the lower existences 
 consist only of soul and body. Man is inferior to Spirits and 
 Angels because he has a body : but is superior to all below him, 
 for they are without spirit. 
 
 Cherubim D^^Ill^D — Oxen, that is, heavenly beings, bright 
 with solar splendours ; creatures lustrous as the sun himself. 
 Three orders of them are mentioned in the Apocalypse : the 
 highest with eight wings, the next in rank with six, the lowest 
 with four wings. They are mentioned in Genesis iii. 24, attended 
 by a flaming fire turning upon itself^ which is the true version. 
 
 Day of Judgment— the period after death, when the animating 
 principle assumes its new condition of being. 
 
 Death — is any change from one condition of existence to 
 another. It is the same as birth. The animating principle dies 
 as to one mode of manifesting its power, and is born anew in 
 some other. Spirits and Souls have existed from an immemorial 
 time ; and every new birth is but a new manifestation of an ani- 
 mating principle which has been in action for millions of years, 
 and has transmigrated through innumerable orders of life. When 
 the animating principle passes out of any form it goes into some 
 other form as nearly as possible in harmony with its true nature. 
 Thus a man may remain a man for ever : no better and no worse. 
 
 Essence — the vital and immortal energy in things. It is dis- 
 tinguished from the visible or the corporeal. 
 
 Eternity— is that which never has had beginning and never 
 will have end. It is the state of God alone, and is pecuharly 
 connected with the Supreme. 
 
12 DEFINITIONS, ETC. 
 
 Everlasting — is that whicli has had beginning, but never will 
 have an end. It is the attribute of the Holy Spirit, and of all 
 spirit-existences. 
 
 Final Day — the end of the Kalpa, or allotted period during 
 which a sphere like the earth undergoes not change or revolution. 
 
 God — the Almighty and Supreme Father, sometimes applied to 
 the Holy Spirit, but not correctly, for She is only His regent or 
 representative: sometimes in a lower sense to a divine nature, as 
 a god. 
 
 Gods — all divine natures that exist below God, and the Holy 
 Spirit. 
 
 Heaven — the place in which God actually manifests his pre- 
 sence to the Spirits who inhabit it. Hell — every place in which 
 that presence is not actually beheld. Thus this earth is in 
 reality a Hell, because God is not manifested there ; and it would 
 be absolutely a place of misery if the Sun and Light, which 
 are shadows of the presence of God, did not shine upon it. 
 God manifests his Presence in various gradations of splendour, 
 according to the sphere on which he shines ; according to the 
 knowledge and virtue in each sphere, so is His Light. Irrationa- 
 lity and utter darkness constitute the lowest hell : a chaos of 
 confused and frantic existence, never blest with a ray of light. 
 
 Immortality — is an attribute of souls ; as health and vigour are 
 of bodies : it is that enduring principle of life which we see in all 
 living things. 
 
 Infinity — as to place, is the co-relative of Eternity as to dura- 
 tion. As the latter has neither beginning nor ending, so also 
 Infinity has no limit. God may therefore be truly defined as the 
 Eternal-Infinite. 
 
 Lapse— €s the fall of one of the high Spirit-existences into a 
 lower condition of an existence of the same nature, as where a 
 celestial lapses into a sub- celestial. Rise — is the opposite of this; 
 as where a Celestial ascends to the condition of a Supra-Celestial. 
 
 Logos — ^is a word with three meanings. First the Holy Spirit, 
 the first Word that God spake, and consequently the first of his 
 created Essences. Second, the Universe, which He next formed. 
 Third, the Messenger from God to Man, who proclaims the celes- 
 tial Word or Revelation. 
 
 M— a letter peculiarly sacred in all languages and all religions : 
 it is a sjonbol of waves or waters ^. M final, in the Eastern 
 
DEFINITIONS, ETC. 13 
 
 languages, means 600. It is the monogram of Maya, Maia, Mary, 
 Minerva, Mercury, Manu (the anagram of Trvcv/xa, or Pneuma, 
 Numa), Messias, Myjtls, or Divine Wisdom. Mimra, tJie Word^ 
 Matrix, Mater, Mamma, Mas {the Male) Mihr (commonly called 
 Mithras) the Monad, Mystery ; and an immense variety of words 
 which bear those refined and subtle meanings familiar to every 
 student in theology. All letters are mystic : this is pre-eminently 
 so. 
 
 Messiah — a Messenger of God : a divinely-sent Spirit who 
 preaches Truth to mortals. The Saviour, because he announces 
 tidings of salvation, and points out the way that leads to Light. 
 A man in all respects while he sojourns on earth : not exempt 
 from human error, except in his teachings, which are infallible. 
 
 Metasomatosis — is the transmigration from one body into 
 another ; as where the nature of a murderous human being passes 
 into the manifestation of a hyena ; or the nature of an elephant 
 ascends into the manifestation of a Man. 
 
 Metempsychosis— is the transmigration of a spirit -existence 
 into a lower order of life, to which its desires incline it. It then 
 becomes connected with soul. 
 
 Mystery — a holy but ineflfable truth, to be pondered upon in 
 the mind, rather than communicated in words. 
 
 Mythology— a representation of sacred truths, imder the guise 
 of Fable, Symbol, or Parable. 
 
 Palingenesis — regeneration, or new birth ; the first condition 
 of an existence in an altered form of life. It applies equally to 
 metasomatosis and metempsychosis. 
 
 Pan — the All, used indiscriminately in ancient Mythology to 
 signify God, and the all-pervading Spirit. As sylvan Pan, it 
 means the Messiah ; or Messenger of God, This word consists of 
 t?tree letters, which is a mystical allusion. 
 
 Paradise — a Garden in Heaven, to which Celestial Spirits, on 
 their ascent from the terrestrial sphere, axe first admitted. Para- 
 dise is thus described in the Brahmin theology. Round about 
 the Mountain stand seven ladders, by which you ascend a spa- 
 cious plain in the middle whereof is a bell of silver, and a square 
 table surrounded with nine precious stones of beautiful colours. 
 Upon the table lies a Silver Rose, called Tamara Pua, which 
 contains the images of two Women as bright and fair as a pearl ; 
 but these two are only One, though appearing as if distinct 
 
14 DEFINITIONS, ETC. 
 
 according to the medium, celestial or terrestrial, through which 
 they are viewed, In the first aspect she is called Briga-Siri, the 
 Lady of the Mouth: in the other Tara-Siri. the Lady of the 
 Tongue — or the Spirit of Tongues. In the centre of this Silver 
 Eose, God, has his permanent residence. 
 
 Revelation — an inspired doctrine received from God by one 
 of the Messiah-angels, and by him published to mankmd. 
 
 Satan — a symbolic name for that which is vicious : an allego- 
 rical personification of moral evil. Not a being — but a symbol. 
 
 San — Son, Azan, Azon, As-On, the Fiery Sun, Gr. Zrjv. 
 Hesychius says that the Sun was called Saos the Saviour by the 
 Babylonians. He was called Zauan by the Sidonians. In India 
 Hercules was called Ador-San, the Lord of Light. He was adored 
 in Temples called Zaanim. Princes in Greece were styled Zanides, 
 or sons of Zan. Places peculiarly sacred were called San-Sanna. 
 It is the first syllable of Sanctus. The Etruscan name for Italy 
 was Au-soni-ya. Some of the ancients taught that the soul and 
 spirit were divine emanations from the Sun : hence Macrobius 
 tells us that they called the spirit, Zoan — a living thing. Zion is 
 another form of this. Za implies greatness. Zan har in the Ma- 
 dagascar language means God ; Har is the Hindu Heri, or Sove- 
 reign. Sin, Sen, a cycle. Sol-Sin, a year. Punico-Maltese, Sena, 
 a year. Snin, the seasons. Irish, Soinin. Heb. and Chald., Sena, 
 a year. 
 
 Seraphim— J3 ^51 K^ Fiery Winged Serpents; that is Arch- 
 angels of the most transcendent glory; flame like in splendour 
 and majesty, which live in the presence of the Serpent of Eter- 
 nity — God. The word Cherub also meant Serpent. It is a com- 
 pound word, formed of "^3 ^^- circle, and ^^^ aub. serpent — a 
 Serpent in a Circle. 
 
 Shekinah — a mystic word, often typified as a Rose, a floral 
 wreath, a Lotus, an Egg, or any oval emblem, a Dove, a Boat, 
 the Ocean, the Moon, a Virgin, a wheel, a nimbus of splendours, 
 a golden crown, &c. God, when He meditates on Divine Beauty, 
 is said to be One : but when He creates to be Bi-Une. The Syrians 
 symbolized this communion by their image of Ad-Ad, the Sun- 
 Father, shooting down his splendid rays towards the Earth, 
 while she sent forth rays of splendour upward that' met and min- 
 gled with his beams. This word has an affinity to the Indian 
 Yoni. Calli, is the Hindu name of the Holy Spirit. In the Mexi- 
 can language it means the House, or Tabernacle of God. 
 
 Shm, Shem, Q^»— the Sun. This is the Mexican god Chemin. 
 
DEFINITIONS, ETC. 1 5 
 
 As a name of the Sun, says Parkhurst, it came to denote the 
 Trinity. It also means to place in order with great care, and to 
 make waste and utterly desolate : herein exhibiting the Generator 
 and the Destroyer. It meant also an Onion, On-Ion, from the 
 regular disposition of the involucra, or integuments, thus symbol- 
 izing the Universe. An onion was considered to be dtwv riov 
 atwvwv : and the word Oaunes bare a mystical allusion to this, in 
 its signification of the divine Messenger, who appeared in his 
 cycles or ages. Shamen, Shemesh ti^/^tJ^, are words relating to 
 the heavens and the Sun. Baal Shamen is Lord of the Heaven. 
 Shema-El, the heavenly brightness of God; by the Greeks 
 changed into Semele; the mother of Bacchus, which was a 
 Messianic name. Assyria was called Shems and Shams, because 
 of the sun-worship prevalent there. The Ethiopians pronounced 
 the word Zam and Tzam. Sons of Shem means Sons of Heaven, 
 a name appropriated of old by the true believers in God's unity. 
 In India Sana is god of the sky : Saon of Samothrace, is son of 
 Zeus : he ia the Saviour. lasion is son of Jupiter, or God. Azon 
 or the Sun, in Hebrew, Vedic Suna, Gothic Sunna, German 
 Sonne, Spartan Asana, Greek Zan, Assyrian San, Hebrew Shanah, 
 Sion, Zion, Shanskrit Ahan or Day, Shan in Tartar and Chinese, 
 Sun and Son in English, are all cognate words expressing the 
 same idea. 
 
 Son of Man— a title given to the Divine Messenger or Incarna- 
 tion, who, if he were not born of a mortal, could not live or move 
 in a terrestial sphere. He is called also a king of men. 
 
 Soul — an animating essence, which includes all existences from 
 man downwards, to the least one which has life. It is of the 
 same nature as the Spirit, although inferior to it, for the Spirit is 
 an actual portion of the Fire of God. The Spirit never can die ; 
 but it is possible for the soul by long continued conjunction with 
 body to reduce itself finally to a mere point in life. To prevent 
 this, God has imbued it with an aspiring energy which ever lifts 
 it from the clay to its original Fire- fountain. 
 Sphere— an inhabited orb like the earth, 
 
 SiPRiT— An immortal essence and energy which includes all 
 existences from man upwards through the manifold degrees that 
 lead to the Supreme. Its lowest development is in human beings. 
 In seven high orders of beings it exists without soul ; in the three 
 lowest orders with soul. Josephus, Antiq. Jtid. lib. i., cap.^i., 
 sect. 2., thus speaks of the soul given by God to man : Kat 
 irvevfxa €Vi'Jk€v avTio Kal ^vx^v. He placed in him a spirit and 
 a soul. See post, page 189. 
 
16 DEFINITIONS, ETC. 
 
 Supra-Celestial —tlie home of God and the Holy Spirit. 
 Celestial — the permanent home of Spirits next in order. Stjb- 
 Celestial— the angelic spheres. Terrestial — the spheres of 
 matter. 
 
 The Holy Spirit— the second Great Being of the Universe : 
 the Great Mother, Nature: called also Providence ; Perem-Atma ; 
 Anima Mundi : the Queen of Heaven. 
 
 The World — the same as the Universe : called also the Kosmos 
 from its beauty and order. 
 
 TRiNiTY~the three Essences which constitute the All of exist- 
 ence : one in quality ; innumerable in development. God is like 
 a Tree which out of one sap produces all the fruits and flowers in 
 the Universe. He is in all ; all are in him. 
 
 Tsar and Zar — *^^^ a rock. As temples were erected on rocks 
 these eminences were called Sar-On, from the Deity, in whose 
 honour they were built. The term Sar was always used as a 
 mark of high honour. Thus God is called the rock of refuge, the 
 rock of salvation : and Jesus addressing Peter, says, On this rock 
 I will build my church. {Matt, xvi., 18.) In compound words it 
 denotes respect, as /Sar-danapalus ; Nebuchadonnezar. High 
 groves, or rather hills, with woods of antient oak, were named 
 Tsaron, because they were sacred to On. Lilius Gyraldtis calls 
 Saron, the God of the Sea. Diana was named Saronia and Sar- 
 Ait : and in the religious feasts called Saronia Sacra, Orus, the 
 Messiah, was said to have been born. Diodorus Siculus speaking 
 of the Druids of Gaul, styles them' philosophers, theologians, men 
 held in supreme honour, whom they designated Saronides. Oaks 
 were called by the same name, .^sar - and Kaisar are from this 
 root. 
 
 Virtue — the condition of that existence, which employs all its 
 time in the acquisition of knowledge and the diffusion of good 
 among others, from the mere delight which it finds in both. 
 
 Wine — a symbolic name for truth, and true religion. 
 
€i)t 3Bxiofe of (gotr. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 1. In the Sacred Apocalypse, which here follows, 
 certain great and leading principles of the primeval the- 
 ology, are alluded to, which require to be explained. They 
 belong to a system of heavenly polity, or the religious 
 government of God over man, in which the most pro- 
 found wisdom, and the most universal benevolence were 
 alike displayed. It is not intended that any other than 
 a very cui-sory sketch of these principles shall be given 
 in this Essay : to expound them at length, and with the 
 copiousness of elucidation which they might receive from 
 history and mythology, profane as well as sacred, would 
 fill volumes, and they would even then have failed to be 
 illustrated by all the light which they deserve. Those 
 who are interested in such subjects will be assisted in 
 working them out for themselves by the hints herein 
 offered, and the authorities herein cited. Those who have 
 
18 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 not time to do so, will probably rest content with the 
 brief notices that are presented in the following pages. 
 May the Sacred Light illuminate all who read them. 
 
 2. The student who devotes himself to themes of this 
 high nature, will do well to bear in mind, the w^ords of 
 one, who was well capable of raising his sublime intellect 
 to the most exalted purposes, but who was so misled by 
 worldly shows that he sacrificed God and Heaven to the 
 merest phantoms, and reaped what all such sowers reap, 
 a life of sorrow, disappointment, and disgrace. Holy 
 mysteries, says Lord Bacon, must be studied with this 
 caution, that the mind for its module be dilated to the 
 amplitude of the mysteries^ and not the mysteries be 
 straightened and girt into the narrow compass of the 
 mind. And if this Essay be studied with this august 
 spirit, I believe that every man who master it will re- 
 cognise its truths, with the most supreme advantage to 
 himself, both in this life, and the more important life 
 that is to follow. 
 
 3. It was the belief of ancient men, that God (AB) (1) 
 was the Parent of all peoples, and that He felt the most 
 tender love and paternal sympathy for the various races 
 that He had formed : they held also that for their more 
 effectual knowledge of Him, and of the way that led to- 
 Him, God gave Bevelations, which contained the Laws, 
 the Maxims, and the Truths, which practically adopted 
 in their lives on earth, would ensure to all a state of 
 future happiness in heaven. They believed that God was 
 One Supreme and Splendid Being ; eternal in nature y 
 spiritual in essence ; wise, j)ure, beneficent, and just ; that- 
 He pervaded all places, and extended through all Infi- 
 nity; but that the Thrones of his magnificence, were' 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 19 
 
 more especially exalted in the supercelestial regions of 
 Divine Light, to which none but the most wise and hal- 
 lowed Spirits could ascend ; and that a gi-eat portion of 
 tlie ineffable felicity of the All-Father, consisted in the 
 innocent enjoyments oi the virtuous and loving creations 
 on whom He had bestowed existence. 
 
 4. The Hindu sages, who from the most early period, 
 have promulgated idejis of the Supreme Creator far more 
 sublime than any to \rhich Europe has been accustomed, 
 acknowledged and de\'t'loped this truth in their proverbiid 
 phrase — One Brahm wUIiout a second; and the Greek 
 philosophers who borrowed whatever was good in their 
 science from the Eabt, while they did all they could to 
 poison it by an infusion of their own shallow specula- 
 tions, adapted the Hinda axiom into their language under 
 the form of "Ev to Ilav—^27ie One who is All : — a divine 
 creed which modern re'Jgionists entirely ignore : but 
 which is nevertheless tlie one gi-eat actual fact in the 
 Universe. 
 
 5. God, though One, the ancients did not suppose, as 
 modem ascetics do, to bu alone in solitaiy and morose 
 magnificence. They did not make of Him a monk, or a 
 gloomy anchorite secluded in the inaccessible silence of the 
 spheres. Albeit none could share with HIM, the glory 
 and surpassing majesty of the supreme heaven, they de- 
 clared neverthel'jss that He was perpetually surrounded 
 by otlier gods c/f light, beauty, purity, and divineness : im- 
 mortal in th'^r essence, for it emanated from the Most 
 High ; but nil proceeding in fiery stream from Him ; and all 
 alike dependent upon His laws, as they were encompassed 
 by His love. Chief among these — pi*e- eminent in wisdom, 
 liveliness, and all that is essentially celestial and most 
 
20 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 pure, tHey held one Divine Nature to be ; and this Nature 
 they called the Spirit of God — the Dove, the Holy and 
 Divine Spirit of love the most divine. 
 
 6. The golden fancy of the Past exhausted itself in 
 describing the matchless glory of this exalted Being. She 
 was the Yirgin-Spirit of most ineffable loveliness ; the 
 Logos, the Protogonos : the Mimra-Daya ^"I^ K^D^^j or 
 Word of God, by whose intermediate agency the whole 
 spiritual and material Universe, wa;3 developed, fashioned, 
 beautified and preserved. She was the Astrsean Maid 
 of purest light, clothed in the sun, and mantled in 
 the shining stars : the moon and silver spheres of heaven 
 were beneath her feet : she was crowned with all the 
 brightness, majesty, and knowledge, that her Celestial 
 Essence merited or required. She was the Minokhired 
 and Mayu-Khratu, or Divine Intelligence of the Zoroas- 
 trian and the Zend. She was the Shehinah H^OtJ^j of the 
 Jew, in whose shining, central, circumambient flower-like 
 glory, God was wont to manifest His presence when He 
 created : she was the Eros or Divine Love which impreg- 
 nated by heaven, produces all things. Under the conge- 
 nial symbol of the Dove (2), she became the national ensign 
 of the greatest empires ; on whose coins she was at one 
 time imaged as that bird of love, standing on a globe 
 (the Universe) with pinions closed, and with a glory of 
 sunbeams round the head ; at another, sitting on the 
 sphere with wings displayed, as if she brooded over it, 
 while the blaze of sunbeams spread behind the whole, 
 until they terminated in a shining starry circle. The 
 Spirit of God, says the Talmud (Chagiga), hovered over 
 the waters like a Dove which spreads her wings over her 
 young; and her benignant energy was thus symbolized^ ' 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 21 
 
 In China she is represented as KAnwyn, the dove-like 
 Goddess of Mercy, riding on a dolphin in a troubled sea^ 
 distributing acts of grace, and exhibiting her power to 
 save. KUn is a mystic word, and has the meaning of 
 Shekinah ; the exquisite and celestial Rose of Beauty 
 joined on to the proKfic stem. She was the zodiacal sign 
 Virgo, who bare an ear of com, emblematic of her pro- 
 ductive powers, and a lovely babe, her offspring or Incar- 
 nation : she was Venus Urania or Heavenly Beauty, 
 whose every look and thought were hallowed in the all- 
 hallowing light of the Supreme Lord. She was Vesta 
 symbolized by Fire, the electric or magnetic flame which 
 is the Life diffused throughout the Universe: and was 
 defined by one of the early theologues to be the Celestial 
 Soul, the Fountain and Source of all other souls ; the 
 best and the most wise ; the producing Power who obeys 
 the will of the great Creator, God, and promptly exe- 
 cutes His bidding. She was the Ceres Manimosaf or all- 
 fruitful ; and like Isis, which in the Old Egyptian means 
 The Antientf as her husband Osiris means the All-Seeing, 
 the Almighty-One, she was denominated and adored as 
 Altrix nostra ; the nurse of man, and indeed of all exist- 
 ences. I called upon God, says Solomon (vii 7), and the 
 Sjnrit of Wisdom came to me. I pre/erred her be/ore sceptres 
 and throneSy and esteemed riches nothing in comparison 
 of her : neither compared I unto Iter any precious stone, 
 because all gold in respect of her is as a little sand ; and 
 silver shall be counted a^s clay before her, I loved her 
 above liealth and beauty y and chose to have Iter instead of 
 light ; for the liglU tliat comeih from her never goeth out. 
 All good things together came to me with her^ and innume- 
 rable riches in her hand. * * For she is a treasure vaito 
 
22 ^HE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 men that never ftdleth ', which they that use become tlie 
 friends of God, being commended for the gifts tliat come 
 from learning. * * Wisdom^ the mother of all things, 
 taught me ; for in her is an understanding spirit, holy, 
 one only, manifold, subtil, lively, clear, undefiled, plain,, 
 not subject to hwrt, loving the thing that is good, quick, 
 which cannot be letted, ready to do good, kind to man, sted- 
 fast, sure, free from care, having all power, overseeing all 
 things, and going through all understanding, pure and 
 most subtil spirits. For Wisdom is more moving than any 
 motion : she passeth and goeth through all things by reason 
 of her pureness. For she is the breath of the power of 
 God, and a pure influence flowing from tlie glory of the 
 Almighty : therefore can no defiled thing fall into her. For 
 sJie is the brightness of the Everlasting Light, the unspotted 
 mirrour of the power of God, and the Image of his good- 
 ness. And being but one, she can do all things : and re>- 
 maining in herself, she mahetk all things new : and in aU 
 ages entering into holy souls, she rnaJceth them friends of 
 God, and prophets. For God loveth none, but him tha£ 
 dwelleth with Wisdom. For she is more beautiful than the 
 sun, and above all the order of the stars : being compared 
 with the light, she is found before it. For after this 
 Cometh night ; but vice sludl not prevail against Wisdom, 
 The Universe, says an early Avriter, hatli a Ruler set 
 over it ; the Logos or Word : the fabricating Spirit which 
 is its Queen : this is the First Power after the ONE : 
 t^ngenerated, incomprehensible, inclining and dependent 
 oil Him, and ruling over all things which He created ; the 
 fiiiltless genuine Emanation of the All-perfect. So in 
 tho Indian Purana shown by Mr. Halhed to Mr. Mau- 
 rict^, the Spirit whose essence is eternal, one and self ex- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 23 
 
 istent, is represented as in the fii-st place giving birth to a 
 oeiiiain pure sethereal Light — a LigJit not perceptible to the 
 elementary sense, but extracted from the all-comprehensive 
 essence of his own perfections. Hist, of Hindostan, L G4. 
 There is, says Pindar in his sixth Nemsean Ode, one kind 
 both of divine beings and of men ; and both draw breath 
 from the same Mother. The Platonist Apuleius {Metam. 
 xi.), inti-oduces her thus sublimely describing herself; and 
 there can be no doubt that -when he was initiated into the 
 Greater Mysteries, he was taught the tiniths which I now 
 reveal Behold, Lucius, I, moved by thy prayers, am 
 present with thee ; I, who am Nature, the Parent of all 
 things, the Queen of all the elements, the primordial pro- 
 geny of the Eternal, the Supreme of Divinities, the sove- 
 reign of the spirits of the dead, the first of the celestials, and 
 the uniform resemblance of gods and goddesses. I who rule 
 by my nod the luminous summits of the heavens, the salu- 
 brious breezes of the sea, and the mournful silences of the 
 realms beneath ; and whose one divinity the whole orb of 
 the earth venerates under a manifold form, by different 
 rites, and a variety of api)ellations. Hence the primoge- 
 nial Phrygians call me Pessinuntia, the mother of the 
 gods ; the Attic Aborigines, Cecropian Minerva ; the 
 floating Cyprians, Paphian Venus ; the arrow-bearing 
 Cretans, Diana Dictynna ; the three-tongued Sicilians, 
 Stygian Proserpine ; and the Eleusinians, the ancient 
 goddess Ceres. Some also call me Juno, others Bellona, 
 orthers Hecate, and others Rhamnusia. And those who 
 are illuminated by the incipient rays of that divinity, the 
 sun, when he rises, the Ethiopian, the Arii, and Egyptians 
 skilled in ancient learning, worshipping me by ceremonies 
 perfectly appropriate, call me by my true name, Queen Isis. 
 
24! THE BOOK OP GOD. 
 
 7. Virgil when lie conducts his hero to the Elysian 
 Fields, and faintly limns the secret of the Mysteries, 
 alludes to this sublime doctrine, making a distinction 
 only visible to the nice observer, between the Holy Spirit, 
 and her Lord and Father, God. 
 
 Principio ccelum ac terras, camposque liquentea 
 Lucentemque globum lunse, Titaniaque astra 
 Spiritus intus alit ; totamque infusa per artus 
 Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet ; 
 Inde hominum pecudumque genus, &c. — ^n. vi. 
 " First, then, the Divine Spirit within sustains the 
 heavens, the earth, and watery plains, the moon's en- 
 lightened orb, and shining stars ; and the Eternal Mindf 
 diffused through all the parts of nature, actuates the whole 
 stupendous frame and mingles with the vast body of the 
 universe. Thence proceed the race of men and beasts, the 
 vital principles of the flying kind, and the monsters which 
 the ocean breeds under its smooth crystal plain." And this 
 was no other than the doctrine of the old world universally. 
 
 8. The people of Laos have a fair poetical fable, 
 symbolic of the creation, which beautifully reveals a 
 hidden truth. They say that both Heaven and Earth 
 have been from everlasting, only that the former was 
 never subject to any change, but that the earth (the 
 created spheres of life), has undergone a variety of revo- 
 lutions. After the latest, which was one by waters, a 
 most holy mandarin (God) descended from the highest of 
 the celestial circles, and with one stroke of his scymetar, 
 cut in two a certain lotos-flower which floated on the 
 surface of the waves, and from that flower sprang up a most 
 lovely Virgin, with whom the Mandarin fell in love : but 
 her inflexible modesty rendered all his addresses fruitless 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. "25 
 
 and ineffectual. The Mandarin was too exalted in justice 
 to put any constraint upon this surpassing Virgin ; but he 
 placed himself before her, and admired her fragrant 
 beauty from morning to evening, gazing upon her with all 
 the stany tenderness of love; and by the miraculous force 
 of his glances, she became the most joyful mother of a 
 numerous offspring, and yet continued a pui-e Virgin. 
 When the childi*en (all existing spirits), grew up, the Man- 
 darin considered himself as under an obligation of making 
 some provision for them, and for that purpose created 
 that beautiful variety of beings, which now replenishes the 
 earthly spheres ; and having accomplished this he ascended 
 into heaven, his own and primal circle. 
 
 9. The Hebrew priests, who did not themselves originate 
 anything, but who were copyists, or rather plagiarists, of 
 the theosophical knowledge of the nations from whom 
 they emigrated, or among whom they dwelled, have handed 
 dowTi to us a picture of this Heavenly and most Glorious 
 Being, whom they called Wisdom, because she was the 
 Vii'gin-Pallas from the brain of God. By Wisdom, God 
 formed the heaven and the earth; is the opening verse 
 of Genesis; and it was to Wisdom, as the primary emana- 
 tion from the Supreme Boodh or Father, that some of 
 those fine fragments of Oriental divinity which they have 
 incoi-porated with their writings, esj^ecially refer. And 
 thy counsel who Imth known, excejyt thou give Wisdom, 
 and 8&nd thy Holy Spirit from above, Solomon, ix. 17. 
 For thine incon'ujHible Sjnrit is in all things. Let all 
 creatures serve Thee, says the Hebrew author of the Book 
 of Judith, (xiv. 14), for Thou didst si^eak and they wer6 
 made. Thou didst send forth thy Spirit, and it created 
 them. She is faintly imaged also in the remnant of a 
 
 C 
 
26 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 faint tradition of the Mighty Spirit Metathronos, who in 
 the Tahnud is said to share the Throne of God. (Beres- 
 MthRahba.) But the whole mythos has been completely 
 destroyed by the Hebrew Rabbis. Yet we read in Ec- 
 clesiastes xii, Remember thy Creators ; — and in Isaiah, 
 xliv. 2, Thus saith the Lord, thy Redee7ners. And in 
 Gen. i. 2% God said (to the Holy Spirit) let us make 
 man in our image, after our likeness j so Aleim (3) (the 
 Powers), "created man in their own image j in the image 
 of Aleim created he them j male and female created he 
 them. This, say the Paulites, proves a Trinity in unity, 
 — but was the Trinity male and female 1 In the 
 so-called Proverbs of Solomon, (which are indeed no more 
 his than they are Solon's), we find her thus described ; — 
 Happy is the man who findeth Wisdom ; and the man 
 who getteih an imderstanding of her ; for to Jcnow her is 
 better than the merchandize of silver, and to gain her than 
 fine gold. She is more 2^recious than rubies [the magnet] ; 
 and all the things thou canst desire are not to be com- 
 pared to her. Length of days is in her right hand ; and 
 in her left riches and honour. Her ways are ways of 
 pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a Tree 
 OF Life to them that lay hold of her; and happy is 
 every one who heepeth her. The Lord by Wisdom hath 
 founded the earth; by her knowledge did he establish the 
 heavens; by Iter intelligence the depths are broken up and 
 the clouds drop down dew. In another chapter this Di- 
 vine Being is introduced as thus describing herself. / 
 Wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge oj 
 wise inventions. Counsel is mine, and sound reason; lam, 
 understanding ; I have strength. By me kings reign, and 
 princes decree justice. By me princes rule, and nobleS) 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 27 
 
 yea^ and even all the judges of the earth. I love them 
 who love me; and those who seek me early sliall find me. 
 MicJies and honoivr are with me; yea, everlasting riches 
 and righteousness. My fniit is better than gold, yea, than 
 fine gold; and my revenue tlian choice silver. I lead in 
 tlie way of 7'igIUeousness, in the midst of the paths of 
 judgment; that I may cause those that love me to in- 
 hent substance; and I will fill their treasures. TJie Lord 
 possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his ivorks 
 of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the begin- 
 ning^ or ever the earth was. Wlien there were no deptJis, 
 I was h'ought forth; ichen there were no fountains 
 abounding vnth water. Before tlie mountains were settled, 
 before the hills was I brought forth : while as yet he had 
 not made the earth, nor the fields, nor tlie highest part 
 of the dicst of tlie world. When he prepared the heavens, 
 I was th&re : wlien he set the compass upon the face 
 of the depth : when he established the clouds above : 
 wlien he strengthened the fountains of tJie deep : when he 
 gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass 
 his commandment : when he appointed the foundations of 
 the earth : tlien I was by him, as one brought up with 
 him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before 
 him; rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and 
 my delights were unth tJi£ sons of Qnen. Now therefore 
 Jiearken unto me, O ye children; for blessed are they tliat 
 kevp my ways. Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse 
 it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching 
 daily at my gates, waiting at tJie posts of my doors. For 
 wlioso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of 
 tlie Lord. But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his 
 own soul : all they that hate me love deatk 
 
 C 2 
 
28 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 10. There is in truth no part of primeval religion 
 wherever we can find its traces on the vast earth, in which 
 this Sacred Spirit does not figure prominently : the cen- 
 tral figure beaming with splendours. She was Juno, the 
 wife of God, or the Celestial Majesty of Heaven : she 
 was called Issa or Ish-1-Aum, which means the Yirgin of 
 God, from whence the name of Asia itself came j and the 
 religion of the Arabs from the most ancient ages was 
 called Islam. She is the Indian Lakshmi with the infant 
 Incarnation on her bosom ; and Lakshmi Narayau, or the 
 Holy Spirit of the Naros, who bears the Messiah in her 
 lap. She was Al-Ma, and Aum-Ma, the Pure, the 
 God-Mother ; because through her we all appeared. She 
 was the Magna Mater, and Sibylla, symbolized over the 
 whole earth by the crescent ^silver moon, the lunette- 
 shaped boat, the flowing sea, the mystical rose, the winged 
 cup, (4) the eai' of com, the horn of plenty, the water lily 
 (or Nymphsea), the honey- breathing hive, the sea-shell j 
 iand a variety of emblems all typical of her peculiar and 
 "transcendant properties. She appears on almost all the 
 medals and sculptures of the Past, either emblematically, 
 or as a beautiful Yirgin, robed and crowned, and flashing 
 loveliness and light. (5) 
 
 11. But of all pure and shining images to which the 
 nations of old were used to compare her, there was none 
 more frequent than the Rainbow ; and in the ancient mys- 
 tical theology, the word is scarcely ever used, without 
 bearing secret relation to the Divine and Yirgin Spirit of 
 God. Thus Iris (or rainbow) was designated from the 
 very beginning, the Messenger of the Gods ; signifying 
 by a bold figure that the Holy Spirit whom Iris repre- 
 sented, was the medium of the appointed Messengers, to 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 29 
 
 whom his Revelations came. When the hour approached 
 in which the destined mother on earth, of the Messiah, was 
 to conceive him, she perceived the fragrance of celestial 
 lilies, and was enveloped in a heavenly Rainbow j feeling 
 a sweet influence like a sunbeam, pervade her inmost 
 essence : and when the virtuous spirit of man emancipa- 
 ted from earth, sought that paradise-garden to which all 
 its best and noblest aspii'ations* tended to uplift it, it was 
 borne into the sphere of happiness on a Bridge of Rain- 
 bows, shining more magnificently than all the other con- 
 stellated lights and meteoric flashes of the Universe. 
 There was a beautiful recondite meaning in comparing to 
 a Rainbow, the form of this Holy Spiiit, whom philoso- 
 phers call Nature, Providence, &c., but Christians most 
 in-ationally designate the Holy Ghost ; a false vei-sion of 
 the word Geist in Luther's German translation of the 
 Bible. It is, as if she said, I am all the splendid colours- 
 of the Rainbow (that is all the divine and varied beauty 
 of the Universe), concentrated into One j and yet they 
 are nothing but my simple, sunlike, and uniform bright- 
 ness, variously refi*acted and represented. In the Saitic 
 temple she was the veiled mysterious Isis, spangled all 
 over with starry brilliancy : while near her was inscribed 
 in words as noble, solemn and sublime as were her own 
 immortal attributes, that mystic inscription, for the con- 
 cluding line of which we are indebted to the platonic 
 sage Porphyry; for Plutarch either did not know, or 
 dared not venture to transcribe the whole. 
 
 J am All that is : I am All that hath been; 
 
 J am All tliat will /or ever he: 
 
 And my Veil no mortal hath drawn aside. 
 
 The fruit that I brought forth was the Stin. (G) 
 
30 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 And these two sublime Beings, tlie Creator and the 
 Created, the Lord of all, and the Genitrix of all, were 
 the ruling Essences that breathed into the Past, that 
 calm, august, and moral grandeur which we are accus- 
 tomed to associate with its sacred roll of sages and asce- 
 tics, and which so long retained primeval men in a purity 
 of life and sublimity of thought, to which modem days 
 present no parallel. 
 
 12. God having thus determined to create, and having 
 begun with the Spirit, who henceforward bare his name, 
 desired further to develope himself in various splendid and 
 immortal forms. These forms infused into the Spirit 
 of God, were by her emaned in the shape of Spirits 
 or angelic beings, of the most supreme grandeur, only 
 one degree removed from herself ; for She came direct 
 from God, and was therefore transcendently lovely and 
 could not err; but they proceeding from her were removed 
 one degree more distant, and were consequently subject in 
 some sort to imperfectness. Thus the whole Infinite be- 
 came filled with Spirits ; all after the First and Second, 
 equally wise, lovely and powerful ; all clothed in sun-like 
 light, and brightened with immaculate purity. Thus also 
 the Universe began to consist of three : 1. God ; 2. The 
 Spirit of God ; 3. Spirits. But these three were abso- 
 lutely one in essence, though not in form. As the sim is 
 an aggregate of particles of light; as the Ocean is an 
 aggregate of particles of water ; and the sun and the par- 
 ticles are one, and the sea and the di^ops are one ; so God, 
 the Spirit of God, and all other Spirits throughout the 
 unbounded Universe, were absolutely one, though in three- 
 fold form, and were One in Three, and Three in One. 
 Hence the primeval dogma of a Trinity, which as ex- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 3J 
 
 plained in modern times, is inexplicable, absurd, and 
 even ludicrous ; but as thus simplified is truth, wisdom, 
 and beauty as it were in one. 
 
 13. This absolute identity, or one-ness of God with all 
 existence, and all existences with God, is divinely illus- 
 trated by Jesus, the ninth Messiah of Heaven, in one of 
 his most striking parables, the time Pantheistic meaning 
 of which has wholly escaped the biblical commentators : 
 or which, if it should have been made manifest to them, 
 they purposely and craftily conceal from those whom they 
 profess to teach the truths of heaven. When the Son of 
 Man shall come in his glory, says Jesus, and all the holy 
 angels loith /dm, then shall he sit upon the throne of his 
 glory : and be/ore him shall be gatliered all nations : and 
 he sliall sejyarate them one from another, as a shepherd 
 separateth his sheep from the goats : and he sliall set tJie 
 sheep indeed on his right hand, but the goats on the left. 
 Then shall tJie King say unto them on his right liand, 
 Come, ye blessed of my Fathtr, inlierit the kingdom prepared 
 for you from the foundation of the looi'ld : for 1 was an 
 hungered, and ye gave me meat : I was thirsty, and ye 
 gave me drink . I ivas a stranger, and ye took me hi : 
 naked, and ye clothed me : I was sick, and ye visited me.* / 
 was in 'prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the 
 righteous answer him, saying, Master, when did we see thee, 
 an hungred, and fed thee f or thirsty, and gave tliee drink ? 
 WJicn did we see thee a stranger, and took thee in ? or 
 naked, and clothed thee ? Or wlien did we see thee sick, 
 or in prison, and came unto thee ? And the King sliall 
 ansxcer and say unto them, Amen, I say %mto you, In- 
 asmuch as ye have done it unto one of the hast of these 
 my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then sJutU he 
 
32 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 say also unto them on the left hand. Depart from me, ye 
 cursed^ into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and 
 his angels : for I ivas 'an hungred, and ye gave me no 
 meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink : I was 
 a stranger, and ye took me not in : naked, and ye clothed 
 me not : sick, and in ^:)riso?i, aoid ye visited me not. 
 Then shall they also ansiver him, saying, Master, u'hen 
 saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or 
 naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto 
 thee 7 Then shall he answer them, saying, A me7i, I say 
 unto you. Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least 
 of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away 
 into everlastiyig 2^unishme7it : hut the righteous into life 
 everlasting. — Matthew xxv. 31. 
 
 This creed, — although it shines upon the thought, so 
 exquisitely clear and true, that the wonder is how people 
 have remained ignorant of it, and why they prefer their 
 ignorance to that august and everlasting knowledge which 
 is as it were in their footpath, waiting only recognition, — 
 is absolutely lost to Europe and its Churches. And yet 
 was ever any so well adapted to fill even the most incon- 
 siderate with solemn feelings ? How consolatory to think 
 in the spirit of that sacred similitude which Jesus used, 
 that every good and holy act which we do on earth to our 
 fellow creatures, is done absolutely not merely to them, 
 but to God who receives it in them; but how dreadful 
 also is it to be assured, and to know moreover that the 
 assurance is beyond all doubt, that every evil act which 
 we do unto any is, in efiect done as it were, individually 
 or personally against the very God of Heaven whose re- 
 presentative he is : and that he who in the slightest 
 degree wi'ongs, maltreats, or deceives another, injures, in- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 33 
 
 suits, and tells a lie to the Supreme Ad-Ad (7), who lives 
 visibly even in the least of those creatures, to whom He 
 has transferred a portion of His glorious being. The mur- 
 derer who destroys life, murders God who is in that very- 
 life : the robber who thieves from his fellow mortal, robs 
 not him only, but the Divine Being, of whom he is a 
 living portion : and the man who by fraud or violence, or 
 false pretence, seduces a young vii'gin from her purity, is 
 as guilty as if it were the Being of Life and Beauty and 
 Innocence whom he misled and deceived ; for in her soul 
 she is an actual part and image, and con substantial portion 
 of the Splendid Light that shines supreme throughout the 
 Worlds. 
 
 14. The religion here developed, though mystical, and 
 perhaps recondite, at the first glance to the ignorant and 
 carnal-minded, was beautiful in the extreme ; and the- 
 source of its beauty is to be traced to its truth ; for to- 
 declare its absolute and perfect truth is the object of this 
 Volume. God is eternal ; but Spirit and Matter have 
 been created, and are only everlasting. It follows from 
 this, that there was a time when there was neither 
 Spiiit nor Matter. At that time God was One and 
 Alone, for there existed nothing else. But when God re- 
 solved to develope his majesty in a forai, which, though 
 separate, was nevertheless as much a part of himself as a 
 sunbeam belongs to the sun, he made that development 
 first in a Spirit of the most divine loveliness, wisdom and 
 power, that it was possible for the Supreme Being to 
 emane. And God said, Let there be LIGHT, and there 
 was LIGHT. {Gen. i, 3.) This spirit is not eternal, for 
 God made it : it is an everlasting Splendour. This Spii-it 
 is not infinite, for only God is infinite ; but it is universal, 
 
 c 3 
 
34 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 which is the very nearest approach to infinity that the 
 mind can conceive. This Spirit is not all-poweiful, but 
 it possesses every exquisite quality that God can transfer 
 from his own essence, into that supremely pure essence 
 which the most resembles His own ; and which is only 
 one degree removed from the majesty of the One. This 
 great Essence, as I have before said, is called the Spirit 
 of God ; an universal and an everlasting Spirit, and was 
 the second great Power that began to exist, when God 
 ■developed beauty out of himself. And through the me- 
 'dium of that Power it was, that all that now is, came 
 into Being. All that exists, says Sohar, all that the 
 Ancient has formed, can only have existence by reason of 
 a Male and a Female. 
 
 15. A self-existent, uncreated, eternal Being, the original 
 Source of all creatures, and of all worlds, and of all the 
 gods who made and governed them, lies therefore at the 
 basis of all the ancient theosophy, although our priests 
 do all that they can to mystify or conceal the fact. In 
 the Hindu system this Uncreated and Eternal Being is 
 named Bralim (8) the Formless, that is, the original Great or 
 Mighty One, the all-pervader; and this Power is sometimes 
 designated Para-Brahm, as indicating the superlative of all 
 Dominion and Magnificence. The real doctrine of the 
 whole Indian scripture, says Colebrooke, (As Ees. viii., 
 468), and higher authority cannot be cited, is the Unity 
 of the Deity in whom the Universe is comprehended : and 
 this Unity is but another name for His universality. 
 The Ancient of the ancient, says Sohar, has a form and 
 has no form. He assumed a Form when he called the 
 Universe into being : and the rabbinical writer here 
 drew undoubtedly from Indian sources. Among the 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 85 
 
 ancient Persians and Medes the name of God was 
 Zerran-Akerene, or Uncreated Time, or the Infinite 
 One, as appears in the Zand-a-Yesta ; the Egyptians 
 called him Athou, or Athyr, that is Ancient DarJcness : 
 the Chinese designated Mm T'AO and AO, that is 
 the Three-One. According to these systems, this ori- 
 ginal source of life, considered as undeveloped, and as 
 existing in and by himself, had as yet no proper per 
 sonality. He was the One of the Greek philosophers, 
 or the Monad, that is, the abstract principle of Unity ; 
 but not One in the concrete sense, and as distin- 
 guished from two or more taken in a concrete sense. In 
 order, however, that a development of this Original might 
 be made, a Pothos, or desire^ called by the Hindus, virajj 
 was ascribed to him, the tendency of which was towards 
 development, emanation, or creation. God, the original 
 source of all things, has developed himself: the creation, 
 rational and irrational, therefore exists. In the develop- 
 ments which the Godhead has made, his personality, so 
 to speak, has become perceptible to the rational beings 
 whom He has created ; and all things, and all beings, 
 as Jesus says, are, as it were, a mirror of Him. And, in 
 complete consonance with the Triune- All, before alluded 
 to, and its general knowledge among the primeval men, 
 we find that the leading nations of antiquity, with whose 
 theosophy we are in anywise acquainted, have represented 
 the development of God as threefold, or tripartite; as the 
 Tri-mourti, or the Tri-vamz. Thus, in the Hindu system 
 of theology, from Bmhm, the original source, proceed, 
 when He developes himself, Brahm-ma, the Producer, 
 Vishnu, the Preserver, Shiva, the destroyer, and re- 
 newer. These are the three forms in which Bmhm re- 
 
36 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 appears, and it is in these only that worship is paid to the 
 original Divine Being, who is considered as developing 
 himself in all. The Yed begins and concludes with the 
 three peculiar and mysterious epithets of God ; Ong, Tuty 
 JSut, equivalent to the Magnus Divus, Ultor, and Genitor 
 of the ancient Zeus. Among the Buddhists, BuddhasA, 
 the Developer, Dharmas^, the developed, and SangghasA, 
 the hosts, who issue from the development, constitute 
 the three great existences of the Universe, as formed 
 by Boodh, the First. God, says Lao-Tseu, the great 
 Messiah of the Chinese, is, by his nature. One j but the 
 First has produced a second, the second a third, and these 
 three are all things. In vain may your senses enquire 
 concerning all three : your treason only can affirm any- 
 thing respecting them ; and this will tell you that these 
 are only One. Orpheus called this Triad, Aitheros, Phanes, 
 Chaos, (God, the Spirit, and that which Avas of both, but 
 imperfect); Pythagoras, the Monad, Duad, and Triad; and 
 Plato, the Infinite, the Bounded, and that which is com- 
 pounded of the two others. The Father^ S2iys Zaratusht, 
 perfected all things, and delivered them to the Second 
 Mind, whom the nations of men call the first, — implying 
 that they did so in ignorance ; — ^but all things, he adds, 
 are the progeny of One Fire. This Second was called 
 Rhea, the fountain of the immortal and divine ; for first 
 receiving the Power of All things in her ineflfable em- 
 braces, she pours running generation into everything ; 
 her hairs (all spirits, souls, and existences) are ever- 
 gi'owing beams of light that terminate in the merest point ; 
 that is, she produces archangels, or the highest, and other 
 existences thence downward unto the very lowest living 
 images of the Eternal Life, whom she embraces, and who 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 37 
 
 is God. Lord Kingsboiough, in his maguificent work on 
 the Mexican Antiquities (p. 410) gives the name of their 
 Trinity as Om-Equeturicki and Ur-Ao-Zoriso, signifying 
 the Blessed : TJr-upo, the Holy Spirit : Urus-Ana, their 
 offspring. Their Hei-mes, or heavenly Messenger, was 
 Omid-euchtli, the very name prefigured by one of the 
 Hebrew priests. One, say the Chaldee Oracles, which 
 are certainly a reflex of a religious belief, whose date 
 is lost in far antiquity, has produced a Second, which 
 dwells with it. From this proceeds a Third, which shines 
 through the whole Universe. The Phoenician theology 
 assigns to the Universe a triplex principiumj — Belus, 
 Urania, and Adonis, or Heaven, Earth, and Love, which 
 unites the two. The primeval Arabs called it Al-Lat, Al- 
 Uzzah, and Manah, or the Goddesses. The Magian divi- 
 sion was Oromasd, Ahriman, and Mihr ; the Egyptian 
 Amoun-Ras, Muth, and Chous, which subsequently grew 
 into Osiris, Isis, and Orus, (*nK aur^ fire). When He 
 exerts his creative energy he is Amoun (God) ; when He 
 displays his skill in perfecting and harmoniously arranging 
 he is named Ptha (9) (the Holy Spirit) ; and when he 
 dispenses blessings He is termed Osiris, the Father of the 
 Messenger. So Jamblichus relates : and albeit not ex- 
 actly correct, the reader will see how it accords with the 
 Truth revealed in this volume. The Kalmuck Triad was 
 Tanii, Megonizan, Bourchan : the Siamese Phut-Ang 
 (God), Tham-Ang (Word of God), and Tauk-Ang (Imi- 
 tator of God) : the Samothracian, Axieros (or the Al- 
 mighty), Axiokerses-Axiokersa (God in union with the 
 Holy Spirit, the Great Fecundator, the Great Fecundatrix), 
 and Casmilus, or he who stands before the face of Deity. 
 The old German was Perkunos, in honour of whom his 
 
88 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 votaries kept a fire of oak-wood always burning ; Pikolos, 
 andPothrimpos; the Tartar, Artagon, ScMego-Tengon, and 
 Tangara : the Peruvian, Apomti, Charunti, and Intiquao- 
 qui: the ancient Swedish, Odin, Thor, and Frigga. The 
 Scandinavians called the three divisions Har, Jafnar, and 
 Thride, and sometimes Othin, Yile, and Ve : the Irish, 
 Kriosan, (10) Biosena, and Shiva : the Tyrians, Monimus, 
 Azoz, and Ares : the Greeks and Eomans, Jupiter, Nep- 
 tune, Pluto : and the Canaanites, Baal-Spalisha, or self- 
 triplicated Baal. And the like correspondences have been 
 found among the Indians of South America in their 
 Otkon, Messou, and Atahauta ; and in the West African 
 Islands and other places ; all demonstrating, not only an 
 identity of religion, but even of family from a remote era. 
 The freest wits among the Pagans, says Cudworth, {Pre- 
 face to the Intellectual System), and the best philosophers, 
 who had nothing of superstition to determine them in that 
 way, were so far from being shy of such an hypothesis 
 (the Triune Nature of the All) as that they were even 
 fond thereof. And that the Pagans had indeed such a 
 cabbala among them (which some perhaps will yet hardly 
 believe, notwithstanding all that we have said), might be 
 further convinced from that memorable relation in Plu- 
 tarch, "of Thespesius Solensis, {Lihro de his qui serd a 
 Numine puniuntur, torn, 2) ; who, after he had been 
 looked upon as dead for three days, revi\dng, affirmed 
 amongst other things, which he thought he saw, or heard 
 in the meantime, in his ecstacy, this, of Three Gods in the 
 form of a triangle pouring in streams into one another. 
 This triangle, or pyi-amid, which I shall explain by and 
 bye, is represented in the most ancient coins of Thibet j 
 it is of a blue colour, to denote its celestial nature, and- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 39 
 
 Las sometimes in its centre the TamaiTi, or lotos flower ; 
 sometimes a circle, the emblem of God : it is occasionally 
 also delineated with three lunettes, and three asterisms, 
 all of which ty|>ify the Holy Spirit. 
 
 16. The material Unirerse, however, did not yet exist; 
 the All was constituted of celestial worlds only, and these 
 were filled with Spirits of Life, which shone around the 
 One, the Universal Life, from whom all existence came, 
 and without whom there could be none. In the very 
 beginning, as has been shewn, God made all spirits after 
 the Second, equal in beauty, in light, in intelligence, and 
 purity. He surrounded his Thrones in Heaven by those 
 dazzling beings. They were as great and splendid as the 
 brightest stars that now fill the material Kosmos. But 
 theii' will was free. God would not be surrounded by 
 machines, which should be virtuous because they were 
 fashioned to be so, and could not be otherwise because 
 made as if to order ; — which like a clock, or clockwork 
 mice, might be wound up to do a certain thing, and 
 could do only that certain thing : moving like automata^ 
 but as their fabricator designed, without any independent 
 2>ower, or free volition of their own. It is obvious that 
 the Supreme Father could not be encircled by toys of 
 this kind. His felicity must be participated in by 
 free Spirits capable of such participation : he could not 
 share it with slaves or pieces of mechanism. But this 
 freedom which was an absolute necessity to the happiness 
 of the whole Universe of Spirits, became in course of 
 time a source of calamity to some. It was not possible 
 even for the Supreme Father to do what was impossible, 
 although modern religionists always assume that He can 
 and that He does. He could not at the same moment 
 
40 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 make them free to will, and not free to will. As God 
 camiot make that which is white, black, while it is yet 
 white ; or cause that fact not to have happened, which 
 has actually already happened; or form a diamond with- 
 out the diamond properties of splendour j so he could not 
 restrain a Spirit who had full liberty of will, from the 
 fullest exercise of that free will, without at the same 
 moment restraining that which was given to be unre- 
 strained. And as the will was free, and the intellect was 
 great, and the desires of those splendid Spirits were large, 
 vast, and soaring, these three combined, produced inclina- 
 tions, which, as they could not be gratified by limited 
 natures, and ended therefore in disappointment, hatred, 
 or envy, disqualified their owners for the paradise-sphere, 
 where only love and happiness exist. 
 
 17. An illustration of this will make it probably more 
 clear than mere description. Let us suppose a Spirit as 
 large and splendid, as lovely with refulgent light as the 
 star Yenus : let us suppose this radiant creature before 
 the throne of God : let us suppose that from a perpetual 
 contemplation of the Beatific Beauty it becomes discon- 
 tented with its own condition, and wishes to be God ; 
 or to be as holy, wise, infinite, and powerful as the 
 Almighty Lord and Father. This very wish, which 
 would appear natural, is in reality evil : for all discontent 
 and envy of another are evil. But such a wish as this 
 cannot be gratified. This glorious but ambitious spirit 
 cannot be God : it becomes unhappy : it grows gloomy : 
 it is no longer fitted for a heavenly sphere, where only 
 blessedness and love can live. What is to become of it ? 
 It has absolutely done no evil j but it has unfortunately 
 made itself unfit for heaven. God does not detrude it 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 41 
 
 into darkness. He is too beneficent to plunge it into 
 a fiery hell, for merely exercising that free will which He 
 himself made free. He removes it to another region : 
 lower indeed in splendour of light than that which it had 
 first occupied, but still a region of magnificence. It Avas 
 once celestial; it is now infra-celestial. If it purifies 
 itself in the latter from that evil thought, and grows 
 thoroughly convinced of its folly, while it sincerely repents 
 its ingratitude and disloyalty to the Father who created 
 it, God says. It is my law that you shall re-ascend. But 
 if instead of doing so, it hardens itself in its discontent, or 
 accuses God of injustice, or cries out against Him that 
 He made it capable of error, it must be obvious that this 
 is sinking into a still lower deep of sinfulness, and that 
 even for the sub-celestial it is too impure. It cannot any 
 longer live there, any more than men can live in pure ether; 
 for no spirit can abide in any sphere for which its qualities 
 are unsuited. And as the sub-celestial, though far in- 
 ferior to the celestial, is nevertheless of a heavenly nature, 
 a spirit that is not in accordance with it cannot dwell 
 there. Thus it descends into a terrestrial sphere and 
 assumes a terrestrial form, suited to the nature of its 
 dwelling-place ; and there also an oppoi-tunity is oftered 
 for its self-purification. This, in brief, is the origin of 
 the teiTcstrial worlds, and the races that are now upon 
 them. The last were all once pure Spirits before the Thrones 
 of God, and the ten-estrial spheres and all matter were 
 made only when spirits fell from heaven. 
 
 18. But in what way is this self-purification to be 
 brought about if man on eai-th receives no glimpses of the 
 Divine] He is suiTOunded wholly by material things; 
 he can soar indeed in fanoy to the spheres ; he can trans- 
 
42 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 port his thoughts aloft, and float among the beaming 
 stars, but after all his lot is miserable. He contemplates 
 the heavenly arch : he sees the sun sink behind golden 
 mountains of resplendent brightness, or the moon rise 
 a pure silver orb out of deep and purple glens, while the 
 stars shine with living lustre ; and all above him fills him 
 with this thought : Why cannot I mount and leave this 
 wretched place of low and mean pursuits, for yonder swiftly 
 rolling spheres of brightness, peace, and purity ? God 
 knew this, and therefore God in his wisdom made a Law, 
 that Revelations of himself to man should be from time to 
 time given, as the exigencies of man required. The first 
 races he illuminated by the means of divine patriarchs, 
 ancients, or Boodhoos : but as years revolved, certain 
 Men or Messiahs, of a grander order, and more extensive 
 views, were sent on earth, who were the Messengers of 
 God to man. These were emanations from the Holy 
 Spirit of God : they came out of her as the rainbow is the 
 child of 4}he Sun. They were not archangels or gods 
 despatched from the paradise-circles upon a special errand 
 to mortals ; for this would contradict two laws of God, 
 which like all divine laws are immutable and perfect. 
 First, it would be unjust in God to send a j^ure and sin- 
 less archangel out of his own sphere of happiness, into a 
 sphere of wretchedness and suffering, such as the earth of 
 mortals is ; and this consequently could not be done by 
 God. The common notion of the sects who call them- 
 selves "saints," that God is All-powerful, and can do 
 what He pleases, is founded on modem foolishness, and 
 would have been considered by the ancients to be dread 
 blasphemy. This is the notion of a savage despot, whose 
 caprice is his law; but it is not consistent with the 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 43 
 
 sublime nature of the Father. God cannot do as he 
 pleases in the popular acceptation of the term. He could 
 not send a perfectly just man into a state of everlasting 
 misery : if He did so, He would not be a Grod at all. If 
 he did any thing wrong, or unjust, or foolish, or inconsis- 
 tent with his divine and exquisite perfectness, He could 
 not be God. It is ob^us therefore that as God cannot 
 commit injustice, the general supposition adopted from 
 the Jews, that He can be unjust if it so pleases Him, or 
 caj^ricious, or wayward, or revengeful, or false, because He 
 so chooses, is repugnant to all true conceptions of the 
 Divine Being, and is indeed nothing but the most dark 
 impiety. 
 
 19. Secondly, God could not do so because He would 
 have to break one of the material laws which He has 
 made : and as all God's laws are perfect, it follows that if 
 He broke the perfect. He would act inconsistently with 
 himself — which it is obvious God cannot do. It is a law 
 that a bird cannot live under water ; that a fish cannot 
 live on the land ; that an animal cannot live in fire j that 
 a man cannot live in ether. If therefore God were to 
 send a divine angel out of one of his ethereal spheres to be 
 His Messenger, he would have to violate this Law which 
 He has made ; and compel that angel to exist in a sphere 
 for wliich by nature he was not constituted. It is equally 
 clear that God would not do this. Therefore God by the 
 medium of the Holy Spirit, permits certain beings of a 
 special order, to assume the nature of Men, and to de- 
 scend on earth ; and these convey to mortals the Revela- 
 tions with which they are charged. Hence they are called 
 Sons of God ; but in reality they are not more so than 
 other beings, becaiLse every Existence is a Son of God 
 
44; THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 iriasmucli as it is from God alone tliat it draws the vital 
 essence in which it subsists. And these special beings 
 when they come on earth are called Incarnations. 
 
 20. The whole ancient world, the remains of all pri- 
 meval religion, the temples, towers, obelisks, frescoes, the 
 mouldering ruins of palaces, of gates and pillars, are 
 filled with traces of these celestial Messengers. They are 
 the Twelve Angels of this revealed Apocalypse ; they are 
 the twelve Tien Hoang or Heavenly Men of Fohi, with 
 human faces and dragon bodies. (11) The Chinese call 
 Fohi himself a KiXntze, which signifies Shepherd, and All- 
 Teacher. Twelve are the jEsers to be worshipped, says 
 the Edda ; and as Odin's surname was Asa ; and as he 
 was Godam, Gaudama, and Boodh from Asiatic Tartary, 
 this doctrine like that of the twelve pagan gods is thus 
 traced up to the very earliest seras of revelation. (12). The 
 Goths were originally Scyths ; from them they inherit 
 the wandering Celtic propensity; all the old northern 
 scalds and historians agree that their ancestors came from 
 the high North-east, and brought the religion of that 
 country with them ; which was in fact the primeval re- 
 ligion. These Twelve Messiahs, of whom I have just 
 spoken, are the Twelve Imamns or Sacred Priests of an- 
 cient Arabia, in commemoration of whom Jesus sent forth 
 Twelve Apostles. And after twelve days, says the Codex 
 Nazarceus, the Holy Spirit brought forth Twelve Figures, 
 mutually unlike, mutually like, and each had a winnow- 
 ing fan in the hollow of his hand. These fans the reader 
 will see in the Egyptian frescoes and carvings which are 
 thousands of years old : and though the Codex Nazarceus 
 is not genuine as a whole, it contains passages that belong 
 to almost the primal books. So the Egyptians (one of 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 45 
 
 ■whose mystic names for their Messiah, was Ramses Miu- 
 mun), said that Osiris (God) had enclosed in the Egg from 
 which the world was originally produced, twelve white 
 pyramidal figures to denote the infinite number of bless- 
 ings which he intended to shower down upon men ; but 
 that Typlion, his brother, the author of e^il, having 
 opened this Egg, introduced twelve black pp-amids, the 
 causes of all the miseries wath which the earth is over- 
 mn : thus drawing a beautiful distinction between the 
 true religion as preached by the Twelve, and the false 
 caricatures of it which the priests set up. They are 
 alluded to also in the Mim-Ra of the Chaldseans, or Ray 
 of the Holy Spirit who is mantled in the Sun. By the 
 Bunnese the Incarnation is called Loghea^ or the doctrine j 
 which the Greeks not inaptly changed into Logos or mes- 
 sage of God ; and on which Christian writers have made 
 the most absurd and monstrous guesses ; and by the 
 later Arabs, he is called Resoul, or the Sent. In the 
 Brahmin theology these Messengers were designated Brah- 
 madicas (preachers of God), and NarasinkaSf or lions of 
 the Holy Spirit, as Jesus also was designated the lion of 
 the tribe of Jid, or Juda. The Egyptians, among other 
 titles, called the Incarnation Andro-Sphynx^ and Sarahhas 
 or God's Abbot ; symbolizing him by the winged lion, 
 and the golden serpent coming out of the mystic coffer or 
 ark ; and by the first Iranians he was revered as an Ha- 
 zaraJi, a mystic title of the highest honour; and from 
 which indeed we have the Hebrew name of Azariah, or 
 God is my comforter. The Japanese call him Gi-won, and 
 Goso-Tennoo, or the Ox-headed Prince of Heaven : the 
 ox being typical of the Sun or God, from whom he is sent. 
 He is the long-expected Pai*asu-Rama, and Mahidi of 
 
46 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 Indian and Arabian theology ; and the So-Shiosh or 
 Saviour king, and Baggava-Matteio of the Boodh, or wis- 
 dom-bom religion. The people of Laos in the East Indies, 
 call their Messiah, Xaca ; and believe that the religion 
 which he established, after having lasted a certain cycle, 
 shall give way to another which shall be founded or 
 renovated by a new Xaca, who shall arise and demolish 
 the old temples, break down their sacred images, and 
 burn theii' scriptures, after which he shall promulgate 
 new laws, and a pure form of worship. This is the 
 doctrine of the Apocalypse, and it appears to refer in a 
 striking manner to the advent of the Tenth and Eleventh 
 Messengers of Truth. So the Hottentots say that Gounja 
 Ticqvoa (the God of Gods), sometimes descends, and be- 
 comes visible to men, in appeai'ance, shape, and dress 
 the finest among mortals. Jvipiter was called KaraLfSaTr}^^ 
 or the Descender, because the Messiah descends from 
 heaven ; and EjDiphanes, or the Appearer, the very word 
 which is used for the Epiphany of the Ninth Messenger. 
 The Incarnations thus were called in the Mysteries of 
 Greece, Gcot aSeA^ot, or the Brother-gods, though the 
 populace could not tell wherefore. This unity between 
 them was signified by the Romans, when they called 
 them ConsenteSj as it were consentienfes, or having one 
 mind. And the Greeks who borrowed everything divine 
 from the religions of almost all people, not only so de- 
 signated the various Messiahs, as all emanating from one 
 Parent, but they symbolized him also under various 
 names. Now he is Bal-Kiun or the Lord Kiun (the 
 Kuntze of Fohi), which, by a transposition of the vowels 
 (a common custom in ancient times), became Bui-Khan, 
 or Yul-Kh-an, the Lord of Fire, the Child of the Sun. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 47 
 
 Hephgestos was the Greek form for Ashta- Abba, or Father- 
 rii*e ; and Zeus his sire (God), was said to have hurled 
 him like a star from heaven to earth, which signifies 
 his ^divine mission from above. In ancient paintings he 
 wore a hl%ie hat to indicate his celestial origin. Through- 
 out the whole of the piimal theology, when it was yet 
 comparatively pure in form, he is represented as a son 
 of God or Jah-son, who was to quit his heavenly abode and 
 to live among men, to be theii- Teacher, Saviour, Prince. 
 They gave him different names according to his differ- 
 ent functions. HencePhilo Judseus calls the Incarnation, 
 A/oxayycA-os ttoAvww/aos, the Archangel of many nayiies. 
 And the old Roman, or rather Etniscan oath, me dius 
 Julius, by the son of God, was in allusion to the Naro- 
 nic Messenger. Sometimes he is Apollo the god of 
 prophecy, fighting against the serpent Python ; or Samp- 
 son, spnmg from a miraculous conception and slaying 
 thousands of the wicked ; sometimes he is Hercules (13) de- 
 stroying monsters and giants, and purging the earth of 
 all its crimes and enormities ; one, while he is Hermes, 
 son of Maia, or the Messenger of God, flying about 
 every where to execute His decrees, and conducting souls 
 into the other world ; and another while he is Perseus, 
 delivering Andromeda, or human nature, from the monster 
 that rose out of the gi'eat deep to devour her ; or Elijah 
 bonie up to heaven on a chariot of fire-winged steeds. 
 He is always some child of destiny, giving battles and 
 gaining victories : all his acts are mii*acles : and success 
 accompanies him in the most difficult undertakings. His 
 career is one of pure beneficence, and unmitigated labour, 
 or romantic adventure, or the most ascetic piety. The 
 wicked are opposed to him in all places, for the wicked 
 
48 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 are tlie natural enemies of Truth and Beauty. (14). Fre- 
 quently he succumbs and is destroyed ; like Melicarfc he 
 disappears in fire ; like Phoenix he is self-consumed ; but 
 his heroic spirit mingles with the stars. 
 
 21. But this symbolic hero did not confine himself to 
 mere warfare ; he was Hermes the most eloquent of 
 speakers, with " chains of gold flowing from his mouth, 
 with which he linked together the minds of those who 
 heard him ;" he was a sweet- voiced musician, like Or- 
 pheus and Amphion ; he built cities by his words j he 
 animated stones into men ; he was a conquering prince 
 who went with armies of truth to subdue the earth. 
 The tongue is the great instrument of knowledge and 
 civilization : hence the Holy Spirit who inspired the Mes- 
 siahs, was called the Spirit of Tongues, Lucian relates 
 that in Gaul he saw Hercules, (one of the symbols of 
 Messiah), represented as a little old man, whom in the 
 language of the country, they called Ogmius, (15), drawing 
 after him an infinite multitude of persons, who seemed 
 most willing to follow, though led by fine and almost 
 imperceptible chains, which were fastened at one end to 
 their ears, and held at the other, not in either of Hercules's 
 hands, which were both otherwise employed, but tied to 
 the tip of Ids tongue, in which there was a hole on pur- 
 pose, where all those chains concentered. Lucian won- 
 dering at this manner of pourtraying Hercules, was in- 
 formed by a learned Druid, who stood by, that Hercules 
 did not in Gaul, as in Greece, among the vulgar, signify 
 Strength of Body, but rather the Force of Eloquence; which 
 was there very beautifully displayed by the Druid in his ex- 
 plication of the picture that hung in the Temple. In a 
 word all religions have him, and confess his univei^ality : 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 49 
 
 the Christians and the Jews are the only people who 
 strenuously maintain that he was never sent to any one 
 except themselves (16) — all other profane wretches being 
 unworthy of the paternal care of God. When he died or 
 was destroyed (17), he re-ascended to heaven ; he became 
 a god, an Ancient, a Boodhoo ; and reigned with the 
 Divine Father whose message he had performed. There he 
 was surrounded by the happy spirits whom his teaching 
 had saved from evil ; or as Plato in his Timaeus expressed 
 it, They who rightly and virtuously finished the course of 
 life assigned to them by nature, returned to that star 
 (Messiah) with which they were connected. 
 
 22. And here it may be well to observe that the entire 
 structure of the Latin and Greek churches, (or Catholi- 
 cism), is based on the divme system now developed ; with 
 this difference, that they degrade the Spii-it of God from 
 Heaven, into an earthly woman whom they call the 
 Virgin Mary ; and the heavenly Messenger, whom she 
 emanes, and sends, Jesus, (18), they elevate from a mere 
 Man or Spirit, to an equality, if not an identity with the 
 Eternal Lord and Maker of all things. The Reformed 
 Protestant systems do the same. But what is to prevent 
 •either from returning to the same Fountain head, which is 
 -developed in these pages ? or what is to prevent all the 
 nations of the earth from again embracing the One 
 Universal Faith which their forefathers all believed ? 
 
 23. It is not possible to imagine a more ennobling 
 form of religion than this : but it was once the univei-sal 
 creed, embracing all mankind as if in one brotherhood. It 
 operated the gi*eatest wonders ; it inspired resplendent 
 deeds of heroism, virtue, and charity ; deeds with which all 
 ancient history is illuminated. The daughter dies to save 
 
 D 
 
W THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 her father : the son sacrifices his life to presen'e his parents, 
 to emancipate his country, to make free his friend ; the 
 wife is willing to sun-ender np her own existence, so that 
 the days of her husband shall be prolonged. Not by the 
 august men who received these hallowed doctrines from 
 the Messengers, were the vile rabble of divinities invented, 
 who subsequently brought the very name of religious 
 worship into contempt ; who polluted Olympus ; who de- 
 secrated Meru ; but by the priests and poets, v>'ho fabri- 
 cated lies and legends without number, and gradually per- 
 verted religious beauty into profaneness. Therefore was 
 it that Plato wisely banished all such from his model re- 
 l^ublic, as common nuisances and pests ; and the almost 
 divine Pythagoras gave currency to the tradition that 
 Homer and Plesiod were in hell chained to brazen pil- 
 lars and stung by serpents, for daring to blaspheme re- 
 ligion by their fables, (19). The most horrid legends were 
 thus forged j as they were graced by all the charms of 
 flowing song, they obtained the widest circulation. Wicked- 
 ness of every kind could point out to one of the newly- 
 sprung divinities, and invoke its example, as an induce- 
 ment to crime, or a protection from infamy ; and the 
 robber, the assassin, the adulterer, or even worse, could 
 hold up his head audaciously before his fellows and 
 shield himself under the foul aegis of the Hermes, Mars, 
 or all- sustaining Zeus of poetical creation, and popular 
 belief. Hence Yarro, if we may believe Augustine, (De 
 Civit. Dei), says, that things thus became attributed to the 
 gods, which one would have blushed to ascribe to the 
 most vile of men. Denique in hoc, omnia J)iis attrihu- 
 untur, quoi non modo in homincm, sed etlam in contemp- 
 tissimum hominem cadere non possimt. Yv'hat took place ■ 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 51 
 
 in Oreece and Europe generally, took place in India and 
 throughout the East, and unfortunately still in a great 
 degree subsists in those unchanging lands. A multitude 
 of gods and goddesses was in later times imagined by 
 the poets of those mighty regions ; a great lyrist Dwa- 
 payana, sumamed Vyasa, or the compiler, arose and col- 
 lected a number of idolatrous hymns, which he pretended 
 wei*e part of the Scriptures of God ; and the common 
 people under the leadership of their priests, whose inte- 
 rest it has ever been to keep them ignorant, credulous, 
 and enslaved, were taught to abandon the one pure pri- 
 meval faith which God himself had given ; and to be 
 allured by the meretricious myths of those whose very 
 existence depended on their remaining in darkness. (20). 
 
 24:. In the primal ages of mankind, when their lives 
 extended to a greater period than at present, though not 
 to the extent mentioned in Genesis, the teaching of truth 
 was chiefly patriarchal. One common language prevailed 
 everywhere. All the languages of the earth, says Mau- 
 rice, {History of Hindostan, i. 49), are derived from one 
 gi-and primeval alphabet, which was once general like its 
 religion, till like that religion in its progi-ess to remote 
 countries and distant generations, its original simplicity 
 and purity were debased and corrupted by mankind. For 
 the fii-st 200 years after the creation of mortals, God taught 
 them by divine instincts : after this in every 100 years he set 
 up a Teacher who kept alive his holy knowledge. Twenty- 
 four of these appeared and taught, and they are comme- 
 morated in the Apocalypse as the Twenty-four Ancients ; 
 when, as the race of men had now gi-own widely diffused, 
 it became necessary to make an improvement, and to 
 adopt a wider range. Of several of these Maha-Bads, 
 
 D 2 
 
52 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 «r Great Prophets, (Boodlias, or men of wisdom), 
 we have remains, not all authentic, in the Desdtir, 
 ©r Book of Regulations ; a manuscript volume written in 
 a tongue of which no other vestige subsists, and which 
 would have been unintelligible without the assistance of 
 a Persian translation which was found with it. This 
 Tolimie fell accidentally into the hands of Mulla Piruz 
 Bin Kaus, by whom it was translated, and given to the 
 world in 1818. 
 
 25. The doctrines of religion hitherto pi'omulgated had 
 not extended beyond Asia ; but the human race was now 
 circulating far and wide. A change therefore became 
 al^olutely necessary. The first Ancients had been 
 merely men ; but a nobler order of Teachers was now to 
 appear. One Bevel ation would not suffice for this wide 
 earth : nor would the earthly patriarchs who had hitherto 
 preached, possess a sufficiency of authority over their 
 iellow-men. Nations were perpetually changing ; colo- 
 nies were perpetually going forth; language was per- 
 petually varying ; books were liable to corruption. God 
 resolved therefore to renew his Messages; and as He 
 always works uniformly in his least as in his greatest 
 manifestations, it was His will to send His new repre- 
 sentative in that which has been apj^ropriately named the 
 Cycle of the Sun. This is the lunisolar Naros^ or Sibyl- 
 line year ; it is composed of 31 periods of 19, and one of 
 11 years; and is the most perfect of the astronomical 
 cycles : and although no chronologer has mentioned it at 
 length, it is the most ancient of all. It consists of 600 
 years, of 7,200 solar months, or 219,146J days: and this 
 same number of 219,146 J days gives years, consisting each 
 «f 365 days, 5 hours, 51 minutes, and 36 seconds, which 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. bt 
 
 differs less than 3 minutes from what its length is 
 observed to be at this day. If on the first of January at 
 noon, a new moon took place in any part of the heaven, 
 it would take place again exactly in 600 years, at the same 
 moment and under the same circumstances, the sun, the 
 stai-s, the planets, would all be in the same relative posi- 
 tions. Cassini, one of the greatest of astronomers, declares 
 that this is the most perfect of all periods ; and adds that 
 if the ancients had such a period of 600 years, they must 
 have known the motions of the sun and moon more accu- 
 rately than they were known for many ages after the flood. 
 It was known, however, but it was guarded as the most 
 religious of all secrets ; hidden as this very Apocalypse 
 itself was, from all mankind, except the priests, and com- 
 municated only to a favoured few, who did not betray the 
 confidence reposed. Yet it was covertly hinted at in the 
 Sibylline oracles ; it was the unacknowledged source from, 
 whence the Hebrew priests, who brought their sacred 
 volumes from Egypt or the centre of India, drew predic- 
 tions of a Messiah, and it was in some manner guessed at 
 by Virgil in his celebrated fourth Eclogue, which was 
 certainly suggested by passages in this Apocalypse. Tk^ 
 last period sung by the Sibylline proiyhetess is now arrived, 
 and the grand series o/ages, that series which recurs again 
 and again in the course of one mundane revolution^ begins 
 afresh. Now tits Virgin Astrcea returns from heaven^ and 
 the primceval reign of Saturn recommences. Now a new 
 race descends from tlie celestial realms of holiness. Do, 
 thou, Lucina, smile pro^ntious on the birth of a Boy loho 
 wiU bring to a close the present age of iron^ and introduce 
 throughout tJie whole world a new age of gold. Then shali 
 the herds no longer dread the fury of the lion, w>r shall 
 
54 THE BOOK OP GOD. 
 
 the poison of the serpent any longer he fomiidahle : every 
 venomous animal and every deleterious plant shall pe^rish 
 together. The fields shall he yellow with corn; the grapes 
 shall hang in ruddy clusters from the hramhle, and honey 
 shall distil spontaneously from the rugged oak. The uni- 
 versal globe shall enjoy the hlessings of peace, secure under 
 the mild sway of its new and divine sovereign. Nor can 
 I doubt that the master of Plato alhided to it in the fol- 
 lowing, though if he had been initiated, he could not have 
 been ignorant. Socrates, endeavouring to satisfy the 
 mind of Alcibiades on the subject of acceptable worship, 
 says, avayKaiov ovv iarri TrepL/x^veLv ews av tus ixaOrj cos 8e? 
 TT/Dos deovs Kot Trpos av9p(i)Trov<i ScaKdcrOaL. It is therefore 
 necessary to wait till some One may teach us how it 
 behoves us to conduct ourselves both towards the gods 
 and men. To which Alcibiades makes answer : ttotc 
 ovv TtapkcTTai o )(povo<s ovtos (o SwK/Dare?; Kal tis 6 TratSev- 
 a-OiVy rlSKTra yap av fxol Sokw ISetv tovtov tov avOpo)Trov tis 
 ecTTLv; when shall that time arrive, O Socrates? and 
 who shall that Teacher be ? for most eagerly do I wish to 
 see such a man. — Alcihiades. But as Socrates had not 
 been initiated, and knew not the Naros, he could give no 
 answer. 
 
 2G. Upon the necessity of Revelations from God to Man, 
 in order to declare not only his Laws, but to confer upon 
 his creatures some knowledge of the Celestial, I suppose 
 no one can entertain a rational doubt. The united voice 
 of all nations seems to recognize it as a sacred truth : 
 there are few, even among the most barbarous, who have 
 not claimed for themselves the priesthood and the mes- 
 sages of divine Prophets, who were commissioned to raise 
 them from the depths of ignorance, and to bless them 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 55 
 
 with the light and ai-ts of civilization. That persons have 
 arisen, who falsely laid claim to the Messianic character, 
 and daringly announced themselves to be the messengera 
 of Heaven, in no way weakens the assiu'ance of this hal- 
 lowed calling ; it only demonstrates still more potently 
 the necessity which the human mind feels for an authen- 
 tic apocalypse of the hidden Past and Future : and shews 
 that for want of the living presence of the true Apostles, 
 the soul of man yearns for that which is tangible and 
 visible; and will too_ frequently accept it as holy, with- 
 out requii-ing the best proofs of that holiness. Man can- 
 not indeed subsist without some Kevelation of the ordi- 
 nances and purposes of the Most High ; and we may be 
 certain that this desire has not been implanted in him 
 except for wise ends, and that God would not perpetually 
 balk the aiigust curiosity which He has inspired ; and to * 
 confine this Revelation to only one people, and to hide it 
 from almost all others, would not, and indeed could not 
 be consistent with the character of the King and Father 
 of mankind. (21). We may be certain, therefore, that if 
 God ever sent a Revelation, he sent it to all men. But 
 as this would be an impossibility, if it were confined to 
 only one place, and time, it follows that He must send 
 many Revelations, if he willed that the whole world 
 should be partakei-s of the knowledge which was needed. 
 And as it would not be consistent with the dignity of 
 His Apostle, that a number of similar apostles should at 
 the saime time co-exist and preach, it follows from this 
 that his Apostles would appear at intervals, and in diffe- 
 rent countries, and would preach in different languages, 
 and in diffei-ent types and figures, according to the genius 
 of the people to whom each was sent. The dialect that 
 
56 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 would suit a Chinese, or a Greek, or Roman, would fall 
 without effect upon the soul of an Indian or an Iranian ; 
 the subtile and sublime mysticism that would captivate 
 the Egyptian or the Arab intellect, would be utterly lost 
 upon the dull Hebrew, or the carnal European, whose 
 coarser mind is unable to comprehend those ideas which 
 to an Oriental fancy are the impersonation of all that is 
 beautiful. As the Revelation therefore must be given 
 to all, and as this could only be effected by sending 
 men to all the people, whose importance seemed to justify 
 the special interposition of the All-Ruler, it was neces- 
 sary that Messiahs should appear in Scythia, China, India, 
 Arabia, Iran; in fact, wherever there was one vast and 
 common centre from which the teachings of the Holy 
 One could be most generally disseminated. Hence also, 
 as they could not all appear at the same sera, they would 
 be sent successively, that is at certain fixed periods ; as we 
 see the seasons of the year, as we see the tides, as we see 
 the lunations, as we see the growth of trees : in a word 
 all the visible operations of the Divine, which are always 
 regular in times and modes. For this jDurpose the period 
 of 600 years seemed to God to be the best; the interval 
 being not too long for the teachings of the preceding 
 Messenger to be forgotten ; nor too short to prevent their 
 having due influence on mankind; and as during this 
 time also a cyclic revolution took place in heaven, it 
 seemed consistent that He should give that cycle as a 
 sign infallible to man when he should expect the advent 
 of the new Messiah. 
 
 27. This sublime provision requires no elaborate argu- 
 ment from any, to make manifest its wisdom or its beauty. 
 When it is once confessed that God interferes in the 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 57 
 
 government of the -vrorkls which He has formed, and that 
 He benevolently desires the happiness of His creatures, 
 all the rest must follow ; namely, that the only course 
 consistent with that intei-ference is a Revelation of him- 
 self, univei'sally delivered, and miraculously preserved. 
 If it were given by only one man to one people, it never 
 could be universal. An old and haughty nation like the 
 Chinese, for instance, would never be persuaded that ali 
 their ancestoi*s, so wise, so pure, so excellent, were utterly 
 excluded from all the active interference of heaven ; and 
 that it was never exercised until thousands of yeai-s had 
 passed away, and millions of men had lived and died, 
 when it was at length put forward as it were by accident, 
 for a wandering horde of exiles out of Egypt, or in a 
 paltry district like Judsea, which is but a little larger than 
 Wales. (22). As the sun and moon, therefore, renew their 
 course mysteriously in heaven at tlie end of every 600 years, 
 God resolved that this period should be the cycle of his 
 Messiahs, and should constitute the interval during 
 which they were each destined successively to re-appear. 
 It was called in the primitive ages the Naros, from I^ara, 
 which was a mystic name for the Virgin Spirit of God ; 
 whence she is called in one of the Hindu books Nara- 
 yana, which is translated the Mover on the waters, though 
 it has another secret meaning which I cannot reveal ; and 
 by Amosis it is said, " the Spirit of God brooded like a 
 dove over the face of the waters." The Dove that is fabled 
 to have descended on Jesus w^as the Holy Spirit thus sym- 
 bolized ; and note that Homer calls Iris a Dove (23). Jesus 
 was the Ninth Messenger of God, and appeared in the Ninth 
 Cycle ; and Juvenal, who knew nothing either of him or of 
 the Naroa,says in his XIII Sat., v. 28, N'ona (ttasa^itur, &c., 
 
 d3 
 
^8 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 ** Now is tlie ninth cycle or age," which it undoubtedly 
 was ; but in what way, was an entire secret to him, and 
 indeed, to all others except the deeply mystic and initiated. 
 The Naros, the Apocalypse, and in later and corrupt ages, 
 when the priests invented the horrible tenet of a blood- 
 mediation, a human sacrifice, were the thiee great secrets 
 of the Ancient Mysteries ; and circumcision, which was a 
 primary rite among the novices, was adopted as a masonic 
 symbol, by means of which the brethren were enabled to 
 recognize and assist each other, in whatever part of the 
 world they might be ; while by those without, (the exo- 
 teric, the profane), it was a sign which from its pecuKar 
 nature was secure from all discovery. Pythagoras called 
 it his golden thigh ; Abaris called it his golden arrow : both 
 meant the same thing. Jesus himself, (who as a Messiah, 
 of course knew of the Naros), when he predicted to his 
 disciples the Epiphany of his successor, (the tenth Messen- 
 ger), clearly alluded to it, but in a way which none but the 
 initiated could undei^tand. There shall be signs, he said, 
 in the Sun and in the Moon, and in the Stars ; and then 
 also shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in Heaven. 
 {LuJce xxi. 25,) which was as precise and certain an allu- 
 sion to the lunisolar cycle as could possibly be made with- 
 out revealing the secret to mankind. (24). Job (xxyiii. 32) 
 also covertly alludes to the Naros in a passage which has 
 been most artfully disguised in the Yulgate version. 
 " Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season, or canst 
 thou guide Arcturiis with his sons?" A more false and 
 disingenuous translation it is not possible ' to conceive. 
 The real version is, Canst tiiou bring forth the Twelve in 
 their season ; or. Canst thou guide Ash ( tt^y, the Holy 
 Spirit) with her sons ? (or, more literally her flock), mean- 
 
THfi. APOCALYPSE. 69 
 
 iug Thou canst, tkc., «fec. And as this sacred drama was 
 written by Amosis, one of the Twelve Messiahs of God, 
 the importance of such an allusion by him will be at once 
 perceived ; nor is the weight to be attached to it the less, 
 because of the secret and mysterious way in which its 
 sense is guarded. 
 
 28. The period of six hundred years, says Bailly, a 
 period which was indeed preserved but misundei-stood 
 at Babylon, will supply me with another argument. 
 It is evident they presei-A'ed it, since it is cited by 
 Berosus, one of tlieir historians : it is as evident they 
 did not understand it, since they made no use of it for 
 the regulation of time. It should seem that they took no 
 notice of it in theii- books of astronomy, inasmuch as Hip- 
 parchus, who examined the Chaldsean periods of motion 
 in the stars, makes no mention of this. Hence we neces- 
 sarily conclude that it was not the result of their own 
 labours. It was therefore transported among them : and 
 those two facts, the knowledge of the period of six hun- 
 dred years, and the return of comets, belonged to astro- 
 nomy in an improved state, previous and foreign to the 
 Chcddcuans. 
 
 29. A variety of cii'cumstances all apparently slight, 
 but nevertheless significant, shew the importance of the 
 number 6, and the word Nai'os in ancient tradition. 
 Adam is said in Genesis to have been formed on the sixth 
 d9y. So we are told that Noah was six hundred years 
 old when the flood of waters was upon the earth. Gen 
 vii. 6. This mystically means that the cycle of the Naros 
 was come. In the Hebrew Chaldee, the name and 
 quality of tlie Divine Spirit Narah-Yona are preserv^ed. 
 rny^ Naarah, a Viigin, and Naaray nV^> Child of the 
 
GO ' THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 Lord. Ner *n^ means Light, from the Arabic nur, to give 
 light. Nahr (^lll^) in Hebrew and Arabic is a River ^ and 
 nni Neriyyah is Lamp of the Lord. The Hindus preserve 
 the tradition in the name Narad^ whom they believe to be 
 a great Prophet, who is for ever wandering about the 
 earth, giving good counsel. {^^.) A very distinguished 
 son of Brahma, (the Holy Spirit), named Narad, (says 
 Jones), whose actions are the subject of a Purana, bears 
 a strong resemblance to Hermes, or Mercury. He was a 
 wise legislator, great in arts and in arms, an eloquent 
 Messenger of the gods, either to one another, or to 
 favoured mortals, and a musician of exquisite skill. His 
 invention of the Yina, or Indian lute, is thus described 
 in the poem entitled Mogha^ Narad sat watching from 
 time to time his large Yina, which by the impulse of the 
 breeze yielded notes that pierced successively the regions 
 of his ear, and proceeded by musical intervals. As. Res. 
 i. 264. Hermes, as the classical reader recollects, in- 
 vented the lyre also, and Phoebus always carried one. 
 Skanda, which with the Hindus is a symbolic name for 
 the Messenger, is called Shanmatura (six-mothered), and 
 Shandanana (six-faced). Both allude to the Naros of six 
 centuries. So the Japanese Incarnation is seated on a 
 lotos flower, with six beautiful infants round his head, 
 which form a crown or circle of rays. The druids also 
 paid great veneration to the number six. As to what 
 remains, says Mayo, vol. ii. p. 239, respecting the super- 
 stitions of the Druids, I know not what was the founda- 
 tion of the religious respect which they had for the 
 number six ; but it is certain they preferred it to all other 
 numbers. It was the sixth day of the moon that they 
 performed theii* principal ceremonies of religion, and that 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 61 
 
 they began the year. They went six in number to gather 
 the misseltoe ; and in monuments now extant, we ofteft 
 find six of these priests together. In the old pictures of 
 the Annunciation, the Angel Gabriel is always painted 
 with a bunch of lilies, which he is offering to the Virgin. 
 Mary. This is but the ancient myth of Juno's concep- 
 tion of one of the divinities. Juno, surprised that ZeuB 
 should produce Minerva from his head, went to Oceanus 
 to ask his advice, whether she could have a child without 
 her husband's concurrence. She was tired on her jour- 
 ney, and sat down at the door of the goddess Flora, who, 
 understanding the occasion of her journey, desired her to 
 be of good heart, for she had in her garden a flower, and 
 if she did only touch it with the tips of her fingers, the 
 smell of it would make her conceive a son presently. So 
 Juno was carried into the garden, and the flower shewn 
 to her ; she touched it and conceived. The flower was- 
 called Nerio or Nerione, (the Naros). Nereus in Hesiod 
 is called " the truth-speaking." I doubt if Hesiod really 
 knew what the Naros meant, but the allusion i* 
 curious. In Burgundy was found a statue of a young 
 man with short hair, wearing a short cloak like 
 Apollo Belvedere ; in his right hand a bunch of grapes ; 
 in the left some other fmits which time had defaced. 
 It was inscribed Deo Bemilticio VI. The numerals have 
 puzzled all the antiquaries ; but the young man was an 
 image of the Incarnation, and the six indicated the Naros, 
 30. In the Vishnu Purana, the Naros is thus alluded 
 to : "When the practices taught by the Vedas and the 
 institutes of law shall have nearly ceased, and the close 
 of the Kali age shall be nigh, a portion of that Divine 
 Being who exists of his o>vn spiritual nature in the chai'ac- 
 
C2 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 ter of Bralimah, and wlio is the beginning and the end, and 
 who comprehends all tilings, shall descend upon the earth. 
 By his iri^sistible might he will destroy all whose minds 
 are devoted to iniquity. He will then re-establish righ- 
 teousness on earth ; and the minds of those who live shall 
 be awakened and shall be as pellucid as ciystal. The men 
 who are thus changed by virtue of that peculiar time shall 
 be as the seeds of human beings, and shall give birth to a 
 xace who shall follow the laws of the age of purity. As 
 it is said, When the sun and moon and tJie lunar asterism 
 Tishya and the j)la7iet Jupiter are in one mansimi, the Age 
 of Purity shall return. 
 
 31. The Hindus would readily admit the truth of our 
 gospel, says a very learned writer long resident among 
 them, but they contend that it is perfectly consistent with 
 iheir own Sastras. The Deity, they say, has appeared 
 many times in many parts of this world and of all worlds, 
 for the salvation of his creatures : and tliough we adore 
 Him in one appearance and they in others, yet we 
 adore they say, the same God ; to whom our several wor- 
 ships though different in form, are equally acceptable if 
 they be sincere in substance. As. lies. i. 274. And this 
 it will be seen is precisely the doctrine taught in the Apo- 
 calypse, which is now for the first time rescued from 
 obscurity and foolishness. In the Hindu theology, it 
 should be noted that Messiahs are not specially appointed 
 by God to be sent to the earths of mortals ; as the Chris- 
 tians preach that Jesus was, and so was destined by the 
 All-Father to a death of agony : but theii- mission is ac- 
 complished in this wise. When the cycle approaches in 
 which the Incarnation of anew Messenger is to take place, 
 one of the divine angels who commiserates the condition of 
 
THE APOCALYPSK M 
 
 mankind voluntarily oifei-s himself as an ambassador ; he 
 is Avilling to descend from the glorious happy spheres, and 
 to tiike upon himself tlie burden and the wretchedness of 
 humanity, for the sake of the vast amount of good which 
 the teaching of the Messenger usually accomplishes ; his 
 desire is gi-anted, and he is clothed in flesh : he descends : 
 he preaches : he sufibrs and dies, and reascends into the 
 splendour of the empyrean. It is on this, as will be seen, the 
 Christian mythos is founded ; but the Hindu form of 
 the tiiith is infinitely more beautifiil than that which the 
 half rabbinical, halt pagan notion of God himself incar- 
 nate, has diffused through Europe. The Hindu form is 
 also that which is developed in the Apocalypse ; for there 
 proclamation is made in Heaven for one who will volun- 
 teer to open the Book, that is, to diffiise its teachings ; and 
 it is answered voluntarily by one of the happy Spirits, 
 symbolized as a lion-like Lamb, and who is himself in this 
 a type of the various Messengers who follow. I need not 
 add, that this explication of tlie Messianic mission is the 
 only true one. Nor did it belong solely to the Orient. 
 God, says Socrates in Plato, (Symposium), mixeth not 
 with man, but by the mediation of this Daimon or 
 Blessed Spirit, by whom all communion and conference 
 betwixt the gods and men ia maintained. This also was 
 the popular belief in the days of Jesus. The goda in 
 the likeness of me7i have come down to us. — Actsxiv. 11. 
 32. This voluntary oiBfering and self-sacrifice of the 
 Messiah Angel, was compared from the early ages to a 
 martyrdom — for he abandoned for a period the blissful- 
 ness of heaven, and took upon himself the tribulations of 
 humanity. Hence it was likened to an impalement on a 
 rock like that of Prometheus, and to a crucifix like that 
 
64 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 of the Buddha of Nepaul, and Jesus of Nazareth : the 
 mythologies of all nations are full of allusions to it as a 
 death, a shedding of blood, and it is more than once 
 alluded to under that figure in the Apocalypse. 
 
 33. The Mussulmans, says Sir W. Jones, {Gods of 
 Greece, d;c.), are already a sort of heterodox Christians : 
 they are Christians, if Locke reasons justly, because they 
 firmly believe the immaculate conception, divine charac- 
 ter, and miracles of the Messiah : but they are heterodox 
 in denying vehemently his character of Son, and his 
 equality as God, with the Father, of whose unity and 
 attributes they entertain and express the most awful 
 ideas ; while they consider our doctrines as perfect blas- 
 phemy, and insist that our copies of the Scriptures have 
 been corrupted both by Jews and Christians. It is not 
 unusual among the poets of Persia and Turkey, to allude, 
 even in their profane and unchaste compositions, to the 
 miraculous power of Issa*s (Jesus) breath, which could 
 give health to the infirm, and restore the dead to life. 
 These allusions are intended seriously. I have read in 
 some Travels, of a Turk who was bastinadoed almost to 
 death for uttering disrespectful words against the Messiah ; 
 although he might with impunity have cruelly abused the 
 followers of that divine personage. And when their poets 
 speak of him, let their allusions be ever so silly or inde- 
 corous, fchey speak of him, according to the learned critic 
 Revicksky, in the same manner that they would do of 
 Mohammed himself. — Spec. Foes. Pers., 97. Comparing 
 this behaviour of the Mohammedans with that of our own 
 to the heavenly-inspired Prophet of Arabia, we should be 
 filled with shame, had not the odious bigotry and intole- 
 rance with which the priests have filled the Paulite- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 65 
 
 Christian mind, oblitemted all notions of tiiith, justice, 
 or enquiry in mattei-s of religion. 
 
 34. The apocryphal Esdras (as he is called, though I do 
 not believe him to be a less genuine writer than some of 
 those who have been admitted into the Canon), gives \i& 
 in full the Hebrew belief of the Messiah. Paulite writers 
 say that this alludes to Jesus; but no Jew would so write> 
 of the despised Galilean. And this Hebrew article of 
 faith was only a reflex of that which came from China 
 and Hindostan. / Esdras saw upon the Mount JSion a, 
 great people^ wJiom I could not number y and they all jyraised 
 the Lord with songs. And in the midst of tlyenx tJiere 
 was a young Man of a high stature, taller tluin all the 
 rest, and upon every one of their heads he set crowns, 
 and was more exalted; which I marvelled at greatly. So 
 I asked the angel, and said, Sir, what are tliese ? He an^ 
 swered and said unto me. These be they that Imve put off 
 the mortal clothing, and put on the immortal, and hav& 
 confessed the name of God ; now are they crowned y and 
 receive palms. Then said I unto the angel. What young 
 person is it that croioneth them, and giveth them palms in- 
 their hands ? So he answered and said unto me. It is ilke' 
 Son of God, wliom they liave confessed in the world. Then- 
 began 1 greatly to commend them that stood so siijjly for 
 the name of the Lord. Then i/ie A ngel said unto me. Go 
 thy way, and tell my people what manner of tilings, and 
 Itow great wonders of the Lord thy God thou hast seen, 
 
 3a. It appeal's, says Colonel Wilford, (As. Ees. x. 27), 
 that long before Christ, a renovation of the universe was 
 expected all over the world, with a saviour, a king of 
 peace and justice. This expectation is frequently men- 
 tioned in thePuranas; the earth is often complaining that 
 
6G THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 she is ready to sink back into Patala, under tlie accumu- 
 lated load of tlie iniquities of mankind : the gods also 
 complain of the oppression of the giants. Vishnu comfoi^ts 
 the earth and the gods, assuring them that a Saviour 
 would come to redress their grievances, and put an end to 
 the tyranny of the Daityas or Demons; that for this purpose 
 lie would be incarnated in the house of a shepherd, and 
 brought up among shepheixis. The followers of Buddha 
 unanimously declare that his incarnation in the womb of 
 a Virgin was foretold several thousand years before it came 
 to pass. Not only the Jews, but the Romans on the autho- 
 rity of the Sibylline books, and the decision of the Sacred 
 College of the Etrurian augurs, the sole depositaries in 
 Home of primeval religious knowledge, were all of opi- 
 nion tliat this momentous event was at hand. All these 
 facts prove the knowledge of the Naros, and of the 
 avatar of the Ninth Messiah in the days predicted in the 
 Apocalypse : and on no other hypothesis indeed can they 
 be explained, unless on one which has a series of miracles 
 for its basis. While this sheet is passing through the 
 press, a work has appeared, {Travels in Egypt and Syria, 
 hy S. S. Hill), in which the author details a conversation 
 between himself and a Mohammedan ; which shows how 
 strongly this belief of a renewal of revelations has en- 
 tered into the Oriental mind. According to this speaker 
 the world is on the eve of another religious revolution — 
 We are noAV, said he, just what the Jews were at the 
 advent of the Messiah, and what the Christians were at 
 the coming of Mohammed ; and zcntil a netu dispensation 
 be given toe shall grow worse and W07'se; but this wUl 
 come. As the Gospel succeeded the Pentateuch, and the 
 Koran the Gospel, so sure will another and purer dlsiyen' 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 67 
 
 sation explain the three tJiat have preceded it, and establish 
 a law adapted to extend at least to all those of the three 
 faiths which owe their existence to revelation, and perhaps 
 to tite whole human race. The dispensation thix)ugh Jesus, 
 the Son of Maiy, was like that through Moses, and given 
 to spread, and the means to that end were adopted. When 
 the Messiah apj)eared, the Jewish religion had expired in 
 spirit, and the world was orerrun with wickedness. The 
 Romans, who then governed, were to be eonvei*ted by 
 woixis and reason. But as you know from your Scrip- 
 tures that these were not always the means used by the 
 legislators and prophets of the Jews, you must acknow- 
 ledge that God permits the acts of mankind to march by 
 steps, unchecked by his will and unforeseen by themselves ; 
 and what means He will employ in the event of his again 
 addressing himself to the human race it is impossible to 
 foresee. This of course was all new to Mr. Hill. 
 
 36. A glorious picture of Divine Polity is thus deve- 
 loped before our eyes, in which the Heavenly Father is 
 represented, seated on his Thrones and sending forth 
 among mankind Messengera of His sacred ti-uth, which is 
 thus dispersed throughout the whole length and breadth 
 of the world. We know what innumerable atheists and 
 infidels (26), have been made in Europe by the exclusively 
 bigoted views of the Celestial goveniment, which have 
 tainted even Christianity itself; views which are the 
 natural consequence of that gradual and almost impercep- 
 tible influence which the i-abbinical writings and precepts 
 had over the early Fathers ; many of whom were also con- 
 vei-ts from Judaism, and like modem Protestants believed 
 in Paul and his fancies rather than in the divine Jesus ; 
 and as these rabbis were at all times the most narrow- 
 
68 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 minded of theologians, it can scarcely be a matter of sur- 
 prise, that they debased all that they touched to the very 
 lowest standard of nonsensical' Talmudism. They were 
 in fact Hebrews only in the name : of the great principles 
 of Osarsiph or Amosis, who was one of the greatest scho- 
 lars of his age, if not the very greatest, they had no ade- 
 quate conception : they had about the same idea of his 
 genius, as the miserable believers in Johanna Southcott 
 had of the Holy Spirit of Heaven ; or the unhappy fol- 
 lowers of Joe Smith possess, of the grandeur, moral worth, 
 and elevating influences of true religion. By demanding 
 therefore as an article of belief, the soul-debasing creed, 
 that God was so partial in his administrative office, as to 
 leave the great bulk of mankind in dense ignorance, 
 while he enlighted but a few, who to say the least, were 
 never pre-eminently distinguished above their fellows by 
 their superiority in virtue : the Western Churches created 
 so much disgust, that among those who had seriously con- 
 sidered the subject, and who had taught their souls by 
 daily meditation, that God, if He existed at all, was Uni- 
 versal in all things, a belief in their dogmas became im- 
 possible ; and from doubt and infidelity the way is short 
 and easy into an absolute disbelief in God himself. And 
 as falsehood must always produce evil, we see the same 
 result happening at present all over Europe, where men 
 are rushing into positive atheism, because they think they 
 must either do this, or believe in a series of legends to 
 which the lies of Paganism are far superior, whether we 
 regard them for their poetic colouring, or for the species 
 of moral which is often conveyed under the guise of 
 grossness itself. (27). He, however, who shall behold God, 
 as He is made manifest in this Apocalypse, and by the light' 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 69 
 
 which the Naros and the Messengers throw over all past 
 events, will run no risk of sinking into atheism ; but on the 
 contrary, will find his soul and reason alike enlarged, and 
 Ills conceptions of the Divine Being luised from the most 
 petty, to the most sublime, majestic, and comprehensive 
 degree of which the human understanding is capable. He 
 will see God, as it were by his own mouth, teaching the 
 early races of men ; he will see Him commissioning Mes- 
 senger after Messenger into regions the most distant from 
 each other, but at intervals as fixed and regular as the 
 revolutions of the stars themselves; he will see that 
 these Messengers have in their seras established and re- 
 established the One Primeval Religion, and have per- 
 petually renewed its beauty, covered over it as it were 
 with the slime and corruption of priestliness ; he will 
 see that God has ever preserved all over the world the 
 giand and leading outlines of a belief in Himself; and 
 that the lies, the superatitions, the low and debasing 
 ideas of things spiritual, which have converted the very 
 Holy of Holies into an abomination of desolation, have 
 been the life-long work of the sacerdotal order : who are 
 for ever adding creeds, articles, and legends to the simple 
 preachings of the Inspired Apostles of the Lord. In what 
 part of the genuine Law of Amosis are the Jews taught 
 to expiate their sins by the sacrifice of a cock ] Yet we 
 know that they do so sacrifice, and that they do so hold. (28). 
 In what sermon, parable or speech of Jesus, is he found 
 saying that Tom, Dick, or Harry, can change a wafer into 
 his body and blood, and that that wafer will ensure them 
 heaven? Yet we know that all the priests of Rome pre- 
 tend that they can do so. In what discourse did the Son 
 of Mary ever declare that God predestined John to ever- 
 
70 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 lasting flame, and Will to everlasting paradise (29), though 
 John was a good man in all relations of life, and Will was 
 a thief, a murderer, and perjurer] yet we know that this 
 is the belief of millions of men, and that with Calvin's 
 subtleties they can support it by arguments drawn from 
 Paul, and such like wretched casuists. And the observa- 
 tions on this head that apply to Judaism and Clmstianity, 
 apply to every form of religion in the world, which has 
 been taken out of the hands of sages, and fallen into the 
 clutch of priests. 
 
 37. That during so many thousand years this mystic 
 Cycle, of such wide-diffused importance, which was known 
 to so many, should have remained unknown to the whole 
 world, and be only now brought prominently forward, 
 would strike any one as a most curious fact ; but it will 
 not be w^ondered at by those who know the watchful 
 jealousy, -wibh which the priesthood kept the knowledge 
 even of letters from the common people. To pry into 
 science, or to divulge it, without initiation into their 
 Mysteries, was likened by the Hebrews to eating of ih'i 
 fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, which entailed death as a 
 punishment : and for aught we know, had it ever been 
 attempted, the priests would not have hesitated to murder 
 their betrayer. It was far divulging the secrets of the 
 gods, that Tantalus was fabled to have been plunged into 
 hell ; and the guardian of the Sibylline Books was liable 
 to the penalty of deatli if he revealed aught that they 
 contained. In the temples were Sigalions, or images of 
 Harpocrates, with his finger on his lips, to indicate reli- 
 gious secrecy and silence ; and they had two species of 
 disciples, the esoteric, or brethren to whom they explained 
 everything : the exoteric, or multitude to whom they- 
 
THE AiPOCALYPSR 71 
 
 spake in riddles, and whom they left in ignorance, as they 
 do still. In a niche of the Temple of Isis, at Pompeii, 
 was found a marble statue of a female with her forefinger 
 on her lip. I give the following passage from Varro, 
 which shows that a statue of this kind was always seen 
 in temples of Isis. Quoniam in omnibus templis uhi Isis 
 et Serapis cokbatur, ereU etiam simulacrum quod digito 
 labiis imj^ressOj achionere videbatur ut silentia Jierent, 
 In all the temples where Isis and Serapis were worship- 
 ped, there was also an image, which with the finger im- 
 pressed on the lips or labia, seemed to admonish that 
 silence should be maintained. But had not this junction 
 of the forefinger with the lip, another and a mystic mean- 
 ing also, which alluded to the very mystery that was to 
 be kept secret? and did it not symbolize the She- 
 kinah or Yoni of Heaven, the Sacred Spirit who is the 
 Mother of all existences? 
 
 38. The Genesis which is ascribed to Amosis, is 
 itself in parts profoundly enigmatic. Taken to the 
 letter, says the learned Maimonides, this work gives 
 the most absurd and extravagant ide>is of the Divinity. 
 Whosoever shall find the true sense of it, ought to 
 take care not to divulge it. This is a maxim which 
 all our Rabbis impose on us; and aboA^e all respect- 
 ing the true meaning of the work of tlie six days. If a 
 person should discover the hidden secret of it, cither by 
 himself, or by the aid of another, then he ought to be 
 discreetly silent ; or if he sjKjak of it, he ought to speak 
 of it obscurely, and in an enigmatical manner, as I do 
 myself, leaving the rest to be guessed, by tliose who 
 can undcj^tand me. Heiodotus, who as a Greek, could 
 have no terror of the pnests of Egy|>t, unless, indeed, 
 
72 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 5ie was initiated into their Mysteries, thus speaks, 
 when excusing himself for not informing his readers 
 of the secret reasons why the Egyptians revered the 
 images of animals. If I should take upon me to give 
 the reasons of this opinion, he says, I must enter into 
 a. long discourse of divine things, which I avoid with 
 all possible care, having hitherto said nothing of that 
 kind, unless in a transitory manner, and compelled by 
 the force of necessity. (Lib. ii.) In our schools, says 
 Rabbi Abondana, Natural Philosophy is to be learned 
 -from the first chapter of Genesis, upon which account it 
 is called the study of the Work of Creation ; which being 
 encumbered with great dilQEiculties, is not wont to be 
 publicly explained, but only in private to the party that 
 desires it. As for Metaphysics, neither is this study to 
 be otherwise attained to ; it being grounded upon the first 
 chapter of Ezekiel, which is looked upon as no less diflfi- 
 cult, and therefore not to be explained but with the like 
 caution. (Polity of the Jews). In the Book of Sohar it is 
 «aid ; Alas for the man who thinks that the Law con- 
 tains nothing but what appears on its surface ; for if that 
 were true there would be men in our day who could 
 excel it. But the Law assumed a body ; for if angels are 
 obliged, when they descend into this world to assume a 
 body in order that they may subsist in the world, and it 
 he able to receive them ; how much more necessary was it 
 that the Law, which created them, and which was the 
 instrument by which the world was created, should be in- 
 vested with a body in order that it might be adapted to 
 the comprehension of man. That body is a history, in 
 which, if any man think there is not a soul, let him have 
 no part in the life to come. And so strictly was this 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 73 
 
 esoteric knowledge guarded, that even Jesus himself, the 
 purest of human beings, ordered his dLsciples not to 
 *' throw their pearls before swine;" that is, to disclose 
 nothing but to those who were enrolled. 
 
 39. It was for the esoteric order, therefore, and for the 
 truly wise, that the Greater Mysteries, of which all an- 
 cient histoiy is full, were fii-st invented ; and to them in 
 these Mysteries this Apocalypse was for the first time 
 communicated, though even from these the secret of the 
 Naros was in a great measure withheld. Accordingly we 
 know that the most splendid and dazzling figures were 
 scenically represented; figures calculated to fill with 
 delight and wonder; a series of illuminated paintings 
 passed before the eye, vivid with all the glory of art ; 
 thunders rolled, and lightnings flashed; fiery meteors 
 were beheld; the whole past, present and future were 
 unveiled, and the initiated brother never could forget the 
 magnificent spectacle on which his eyes had feasted, and 
 in which his ear and mind were alike charmed by the 
 melodies and songs that breathed into his soul, secrets 
 guarded from the whole community. The mystagogue, 
 habited like the Demiourgos, and moving in a cloud of 
 luminous glory, sang a divine hymn, of which the follow- 
 ing fragment will convey no unfair idea as to the sublime 
 nature of the whole. 1 will declare a secret to the initiated^ 
 biU let the doors be wliolly shut against the profane (30). . . 
 Suffer not the prepossessions of your mind to deprive you 
 of that happy life^ which tlie knowledge of tJiese mysterious 
 trutlis will procure you ; but look on the Divine Nature ; 
 incessantly contemplate ity and govern well the mind and 
 heart. Go on in t/te right tcay and see tits ONE GOVEi^ 
 NOR OF THE UNIVERSE. Ue is One and of him- 
 
 B 
 
74 THE BOOK OP GOD. 
 
 self alone; and to that One all things owe their being. He 
 operates through ally was never seen hy mortal eyes; hut 
 does himself see everything. In the most Holy Mysteries 
 of those who are made perfecrt, isays Proclus in Plat. 
 Repuh.y p. 380, the gods exhibit many forms of themselves, 
 and appear in a variety of shapes ; and sometimes indeed, 
 an unfigured light of themselves, is held forth to the view, 
 sometimes JAts light is figured according to a hvrnianform, 
 and sometimes it proceeds into a different shape. This 
 doctrine, too, of divine appearances in the Mysteries, is 
 confirmed by Plotinns, Ennead i. lib. 6, p. 55. and En- 
 nead 9, lib. 6, p. 700 ; and Aristides tells us that in the 
 shows of the Mysteries innumerable generations of men 
 and women appeared to the Initiated. If the reader, 
 when he shall have perused this Apocalypse, and contem- 
 plated it as a whole, will but form to his mind's eye an 
 image of what it must have been, when scenically repre- 
 sented, or recited as an Oratorio, amid music, light and 
 song ; with all those dazzling appurtenances of matchless 
 art, vivid colour and magnificent decoration, with all 
 those awful alternations of the deepest shadow and the 
 most brilliant torrents of lustre, for which the dramatic 
 pictures of the ancients were eminently distinguished, he 
 will understand clearly to what Proclus, Plotinus, and 
 Aristides allude, when they speak of the things of multi- 
 form shape and species, " and the innumerable genera- 
 tions " which passed before the eye ; and will be con- 
 vinced that the sublime symbols and chain of prophe- 
 cies herein contained, and no others, were the many- 
 shining splendours that were flashed across the vision of 
 those whom the priests thought worthy of initiation, and 
 who consequently regarded that initiation ever after as • 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 75 
 
 the most wondroiis incident in their "whole existence. 
 Among the many excellent things, writes Cicero, which 
 the Greeks have taught the Romans, are the Mysteries. 
 Well indeed are they called initiations ; since they intro- 
 duce us to i:h.e first 'principles of Wisdom and enable us to 
 live more happily and to die with better hope. No per- 
 son, remarks Payne Knight, could be perfect who had not 
 been initiated into them. They were divided into two 
 stages or degrees ; the first or lesser of which was a kind 
 of holy purification, to prepare the mind for the divine 
 truths which were to be revealed to it in the second or 
 greater. From one to five years of probation were re- 
 quired between them, and at the end, the initiate, on 
 being found worthy, was admitted into the inmost recesses 
 of the Temple, and made acquainted with the first prin- 
 ciples of religion, — the knowledge of the God of Nature, 
 the First, the Supreme, the Intellectual ; by whom men 
 had been reclaimed from rudeness and barbarism to 
 elegance and refinement ; and been taught not only to 
 live with more comfort, but to die with better hopes. 
 When Greece lost her liberty, the periods of probation 
 were dispensed with in favour of her acknowledged sove- 
 reigns ; but nevertheless, so sacred and awful was this 
 subject, that even in the lowest stage of her servitude and 
 depression, the Emperor Nero did not dare to compel the 
 priests to initiate him, on account of the muider of his 
 mother. To divulge anything thus learnt, was every- 
 where considered as the extreme of wickedness and 
 impiety, and at Athens was punished with death. 
 
 40. The beginning of Callimachus's Hymn to Apollo, 
 (the Messiah), plainly shews that he was revealed and 
 beheld in the Mysteries : he was the Ach-Arez (31). 
 
 E 2 
 
76 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 See how the laurel's hallowed branches wave ! 
 
 Hark ; sounds tumultuous shake the trembling cave ! 
 
 Far, ye profane ! far off! — with heauteous feet 
 
 Bright Phoebus comes, and thunders at the gate. 
 
 See ! the glad sign the Delian palm hath given j 
 
 Sudden it bends, and hovering in the heaven, 
 
 Soft sings the swan, with melody divine ; 
 
 Burst ope, ye bars ! ye gates, your heads decline — 
 
 Decline your heads ! ye sacred doors expand ! 
 
 He comes ! the god of light ! the god's at hand. 
 
 Begin the song, and tread the sacred ground, 
 
 In mystic dance symphonious to the sound. 
 
 Begin, young men : Apollo's eyes endure 
 
 None but the good, the perfect, and the pure. 
 
 Who view the god are great j but abject they 
 
 From whom he turns his favouring eyes away. 
 
 All piercing god ! in every place confessed j 
 
 We will prepare, behold thee, and be blessed. 
 
 41. There is a curious fragment of one of the Welsh 
 Druids or priests of Boodh, which alludes to this secret, 
 under the name of Awen, in words that to me are perfectly 
 clear. I cite it, with one or two alterations, from Davies's 
 Celtic Researches. I am Taliesin. I will record a true string, 
 which shall remain to the end as a pattern to Elphin (the 
 Spirit.) A royal tribute of gold, duly counted, may be abhor- 
 red, because perjury and treachery are odious. I seek not to 
 procure advantage by undermining the laws of our song. 
 No one slmll discover , the secret which is committed to me 
 by a brother; a man of wisdom, eminently skilled in the 
 studies of the Sywedydd (the god Siva.) Concerning the 
 hvrd of .judgment (or Phoenix) ; concerning the fire of 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 77 
 
 judgment ; concerning the citanges of the Teacher of Man ; 
 and concerning men well versed in divine lore. It is the 
 mystery of the God who has appreciated the desert of the 
 transgression of Bardism, which he gave, together with its 
 secret, the -4w;ew(32), not to be divulged. And seven score 
 personifications pertain to the Awen — in the deep which 
 is void of wrath ; in the deep where extreme indignation 
 dwells — in the deep beneath the elements — and in the 
 sky above the elements. There is one who knows that 
 state of pensive meditation which is better than cheerful- 
 ness. I know the laws of the endowments of the Awem,^ 
 when they stream forth, concerning the secrets of the un- 
 derstanding; concerning the blessed Godsj concerning an 
 inoffensive course of life ; concerning the ages of deliver- 
 ance; concerning that which beseems princes and the 
 duration of their bliss ; and concerning the analysis of 
 things on the face of the earth. 
 
 Few would be found to say that this passage from 
 Taliesin is not enigmatic in the highest degree ; fewer 
 would allege that it does not embody a secret of the 
 most profound importance. Those who study this volume 
 will be convinced that the only secret to which it could 
 refer is that which is here alluded to. 
 
 42. A remarkable example of the sacred secrecy common 
 to all priests in those days, is to be found in the second 
 book of Esdras, which is itself one of the Apocryphal, or 
 hidden volumes, to which the laity are prohibited to re' 
 sort for doctrinal teaching. It appears from this that the 
 whole Law of the Jewish people had been burnt by their 
 conquerors, and that not a single copy could be discovered. 
 Esdras, therefore, was divinely appointed to bring forth 
 anew by a species of inspired transcription from the 
 
78 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 oracles of heaven, wherever he could hear them, the lost 
 sacred writings. These words, says Esdras, Thou shalt 
 declare, and these thou shalt hide * * * For Thy Law 
 is burnt, there/ore no man knoweth the things that are done 
 of Thee, or the works that shall begin. But if I have found 
 grace before Thee, send the Holy Spirit into me, and I shall 
 write all that hath been done in the world since the beginning, 
 which were written in thy Law, that men may find thy path, 
 and that they which live in the latter days may live. And he 
 answered me saying. Go thy way : gather the people together, 
 and my unto them thai they seek thee not for forty days. 
 But look thou,prepare thee many box trees, and take with thee 
 Sared, Dabria, Selemia, Ecanus, and Asiel; these five which 
 are ready to write swiftly. And come hither, and I shall 
 light a candle of understanding in thine heart, which shall 
 not be put out till the things be performed which thou shalt 
 begin to write. And when thou hast done, some things shalt 
 thou publish, and some things shalt thou shew secretly to the 
 wise. To-morrow, this hour shalt thou begin to write * * * 
 And the next day, behold a Voice called me, saying, Esdras, 
 open thy mouth and drink that which I give thee to drink. 
 Then opened I 7ny mouth, and behold He reached me a full 
 cup, which was full as it were with water, but the colour of 
 it was like fire. And I took it and drank: and when I had 
 drank of it, my heart uttered wisdom, and knowledge grew 
 in my breast, for my spirit strengthened my memory. And 
 my mouth was opened and shut no more. The Highest gave 
 understanding unto my five companions, and they urrote the 
 wonderful visions of the night that were revealed, and which 
 they knew not : and they sat forty days, and they wrote in 
 the day, and at night they brake bread. As for me, I spake 
 in the day^ and J held not my tongne by night. In forty 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 79 
 
 days they wrote two hundred and four chapters. And it came 
 to pass that when forty days were fulfilled^ that the Highest 
 spake, saying, The first that thou hast written publish openly^ 
 thai the worthy and unworthy may read it. But keep the 
 seventy last thai thou mayst deliver them only to such as be 
 wise among the people. For in tliem is the spring of un- 
 derstandingy the fountain of wisdom, and the stream of 
 knowledge. And I did so (33). More authentic authority as 
 to the custom among divines in this matter, cannot be 
 resorted to, than that of this learned priest ; and what 
 he did, and even boasts that he did, was in accordance 
 with all sacerdotal usage and tradition. (34). 
 
 43. And as the Rabbins borrowed nearly all things from 
 the Heathen philosophers, so they followed their method 
 of concealing them from the people, by wrapping them up 
 in fables, allegories, and dark sayings. We read in the 
 treatise HaXichot Olam, that the teachers among the Israel- 
 ites had little schedules or scrolls of parchment, in which 
 they set down all the traditions, sentences, decisions, 
 statutes, and mysteries, which they learned from their 
 ma.sters, and that they called them volumes of the secret 
 things. Jesus declares that the Scribes and Pharisees had 
 the key of knowledge; but rebuked them for having 
 taken it away from the people, and shut up the kingdom 
 of heaven against men ; not going in themselves, nor suf- 
 fering them that are entering to go in. {Mait. xxiii, 13 ; 
 Lvke xi., 52.) Philo, speaking of the Essenes, whom he 
 also calls Therapeutae, says, — Reading the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, they apply to Philosophy, making use of allegories 
 handed down to them by their ancestors, for they believe 
 that under the plainest words are contained mysteries. 
 (Z)e Vit. ContempkU.y p. 893.) Woe to the man, say the 
 
80 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 Kabbalists, who avers that the Doctrine delivers common 
 stories and daily words. For if this were so, then we also 
 in our time could compose a Doctrine in daily worda 
 which would deserve far more praise. If it delivered 
 usual words we should only have to follow the lawgiver^ 
 of the earth, among whom we find far loftier words, to 
 be able to compose a Doctrine. Therefore we must be- 
 lieve that every word of the Doctrine contains in it a 
 loftier sense and a higher mystery. The narratives of the 
 Doctrine are its cloak. Woe to him who takes the 
 covering for the Doctrine itself. The simple look only 
 at the garment, that is, upon the narratives of the Doc- 
 trine : more they know not. The instructed (the initia- 
 ted), however, see not merely the cloak, but what the 
 cloak covers. — The Sohar. It adds : Every word hides 
 in itself a lofty meaning : every narrative contains more 
 than the event, which it seems to recite. This holy and 
 lofty doctrine is the true Doctrine. What man of sense, 
 asks Origen, will agree with the statement that on the first, 
 second, and third days in which the evening is named, the 
 morning was without Sun, Moon, and Stars, and the 
 first day without a heaven ? Wliat man is found such 
 an idiot as to suppose that God planted trees in Paradise, 
 in Eden, like a husbandman, &c. ? I believe that every 
 man must hold these things for images under which a 
 hidden sense lies concealed. 
 
 44. Nothing, says Father Simon, in his Critical History 
 of the Old Testam>ent, can more clearly demonstrate the 
 genius of the Jews, than the words of Aristseus, wherein 
 he says that certain persons going about the translating 
 the scriptures, have been prevented by being punished by 
 God : one Theopompus having been so bold as to insert in 
 
TUE APOCALYPSE. 81 
 
 his history, part of the Law not well translated, became dis-' 
 tracted. And he farther adds that the same Theopompua, 
 during some little interval of his madness, having prayed 
 to God to let him know the cause of his disease, God told 
 him in a dream that all tliat had happened to him was because 
 he had gone about the publishing of sacred things, which 
 otight to be concealed; at last he was cured after he had 
 desisted from what he had gone about. There is in the 
 same place another story concerning Theodectus, a tra- 
 gical poet wlio was struck blind, because he had been so 
 rash as to insert in one of his plays something of the Law 
 of Moses : but having afterwards acknowledged his fault, 
 and asked pai'don of God, he recovered his sight. If we 
 compare these miracles with those related in the Talmud, 
 upon account of the Chaldsean paraphrase of Jonathan 
 upon the Prophets, we shall easily find out the rise of all 
 these pretended wonders. According to the testimony of 
 the Jewish doctors, there was a voice heard from heaven, 
 which asked Jonathan, who he was that durst reveal tlie 
 secrets of God by publishing of them to men ; and they say 
 that Jonathan was hindered by that voice from translating 
 the other books of the Bible. — Booh 2, chap. 2. 
 
 45. It will probably be asked why was this secret of 
 the Naros guarded so suspiciously ? The reason is on the 
 surface. Had it been made known to the world, that 
 God at the end of every six hundred years, sent forth a 
 Messenger, let us for a moment consider what would be 
 the condition of mankind when the Sacred Cycle recom- 
 menced. Thousands of fanatics or impostors would arise, 
 every one of whom would lay claim to the mystic charac- 
 ter- of the promised Messiah. Great kings, unscrupulous 
 soldiers, might assert their title to it by the sword, and 
 
82 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 use it as a pretext for conquest and subjugation. Men of 
 vast ambition and towering intellect would usurp the 
 name, would mislead mankind, and wrap the earth in 
 turmoil. The four quarters of the world would produce, 
 and would be the prey of such persons : there would 
 be no peace, nor any security perhaps for centuries; 
 nay the followers of such individuals would probably 
 survive for ages, and the most terrible religious struggles 
 might be protracted to the end of time. It was absolutely 
 necessary therefore, and indeed it was commanded by God 
 himself, that the Cycle should not be made known ; though 
 He never ordered salutary knowledge to be locked up : 
 now, indeed, it may be revealed, for the Twelfth Cycle is 
 completed, and a new era of light will prevent the up- 
 rising of any without the very seal of heaven itself. Those 
 who had the heavenly book well knew, that when the 
 destined Messenger himself arrived, he, the bearer of the 
 seal and of the celestial key, by a divine instinct would 
 know who he was, and would proclaim his advent to mor- 
 tals ; while if the mystery were known, or hinted abroad, 
 or the period of his epiphany discovered, he would be 
 assailed on all sides by rivals ; might be cut off by assas- 
 sins before his course was completed ; and perhaps even 
 his voice and the voice of heaven speaking through him, 
 would themselves be lost in the surrounding tumult of 
 kings, priests (35), philosophers or knaves, contending for 
 that diadem of truth, which he alone was ordained to wear. 
 46. A cogent proof that something had been divulged 
 is furnished by ancient historians. The mystic word as I 
 have shewn was Nai'os. It implied that which perpetually 
 lived ; which could not die : which did but disappear to 
 be renewed in greater, or at least equal, splendour. A 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 83 
 
 shadowy form of this name was given to a Roman empe- 
 ror ; and accordingly, we find Suetonius, in his life of Nero, 
 penning the following passage : — It was early in his life 
 predicted by astrologers to Nero, that it would be his 
 fortune to be at last forsaken by all the world, which 
 occasioned that famous saying of his : " An artist may 
 live in any country," designed to insinuate some sort of 
 an excuse for his practice in the musical art ; since it was 
 entertaining to him, now he was a prince, and would be 
 necessary for him when reduced to a private fortune. Yet 
 some of the astrologers promised him after his forlorn 
 condition, the government of the East, and some ex- 
 pressly the kingdom of Jerusalem ; but the most part of 
 them flattered him with assurances of his being restored 
 to his fortune [Sec. 40]. These seem plainly to be the 
 elements of a report respecting Nero, which was spread 
 wide and far through the Roman empire : and so deeply 
 seated was the conviction of its truth in the common 
 people, that even after his death, notwithstanding the 
 general joy at Rome, there were some, says Suetonius, 
 who for a long time adorned his tomb with spring and 
 summer flowers : at another they set up robed images of 
 him in the Rostrum ; and at another time they published 
 edicts as if he were still living, and would shortly re- 
 appear to the dire misfortune of liLs enemies. This report 
 had penetrated even to the uttermost bounds of the Roman 
 empire. Vologesis, King of the Parthians, adds Sueto- 
 nius, ambassadors being sent to the senate for the sake of 
 renewing an alliance, earnestly besought that the memory 
 of Nero might be cherished. Finally, twenty years after 
 this, when I was a youth, there arose a person of uncer- 
 tain origin who boasted that he was Nero ; and so attrac- 
 
84 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 tive was his name among the Parthians, that he was aided 
 by them with much zeal, and finally was given up with 
 great reluctance. The expectation therefore that Nero was 
 to reappear and renew his former fortune, was plainly che- 
 rished by this most distant people. This account is the 
 more to be relied on, inasmuch as Suetonius was himself 
 contemporary with the occurrences which he relates ; and 
 evidently had no conception of the secret source of all 
 these rumours. 
 
 Tacitus has given us several hints respecting the same 
 phenomenon. Thus {Hist. ii. 8) he says: — About the 
 same time [a.u.c. 823.] Achaia or Asia were tenified 
 without any good reason, as if Nero were coming; 
 reports being various respecting his death ; and many 
 on this account imagining and believing that he was 
 still alive. This was three years after the emperor's 
 death ; and it shows how strongly the notion that what 
 the soothsayers had predicted, respecting Nero would 
 come to pass, had taken hold of the public mind ; 
 and how extensively rumours of such a nature concerning 
 him had been spread abroad and believed. Dio Chrysos- 
 tom {Orat. de Pulchritud. p. 371) says :-^Those around 
 Nero left him as it were to destroy himself : for even to 
 the present time this is not certain : even now all still 
 desire him to live, and most suppose that he is alive. Dio 
 was a contemporary of Vespasian, and the above words 
 must have been written long after Nero's death. We see 
 n them evidence that in the provinces abroad, public 
 opinion was divided ; a part supposing Nero to be dead, yet 
 wishing that he were alive; while others believed that 
 he was not dead at all, but had escaped the blows of the 
 assassins. Dio Cassius relates that, in the time of Otho, 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 85 
 
 who succeeded Galba, a person made his appearance at 
 Rome who gave himself out for Nero ; and in the reign 
 of Titus, a pseudo-Nero made his appearance in Asia 
 Minor and gained a party there : afterwards he went to 
 the Euphrates, and there greatly increased the number 
 of his followei-s ; and finally he resorted to the King of 
 tlie Parthians, who received him with favour, and made 
 arrangements to attack the Romans. This was ten years 
 before the other pseudo-Nero, mentioned by Suetonius. 
 Within this small number of years therefore we have two 
 phenomenas of this kind in Parthia, and two in Asia 
 Minor. These, in addition to the like occurrences at 
 Rome, shew that a deep persuasion in respect to Nero's 
 reappearance, must have existed in the minds of the 
 community at large, in order to render it even possible 
 for impostors to play such a part with even the shadow of 
 success. 
 
 Lactantius, in his treatise, De morte Persecutorunij c. 2, 
 recognizes the existence of the belief in his day. Cast 
 down fi'om the lofty eminence of his empire, he says, 
 an<l rolled from its height, the impotent tyrant (Nero) 
 suddenly disappeared. Thence some silly persons suppose 
 him to have been conveyed away and kept alive : accord- 
 ing to the words of the Sibyl, in the same manner they 
 think Nero will come. Down to the close of the third 
 century, traces of the belief may still be found. Thus, 
 Sulpicius Severus, the ecclesiastical historian of that 
 pt'riod, says [Ilist. Sac. ii. 28] : Nero, the basest of all 
 men, was worthy of being the first persecutor. I know not 
 whether he may be the last, since it is the opinion of 
 many that he is yet to come. Augustine, in his w^ork, 
 De Civil. Dei, xx. 19, says : Others suppose that he was 
 
86 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 not actually slain, but had only withdrawn himself that 
 he might seem to be dead ; and that he was concealed 
 while living in the vigour of his age, and when he was 
 supposed to be extinct, until in his time he would be re- 
 vealed and restored to his kingdom. 
 
 If it be asked, what is the meaning of all this, the 
 answer is obvious. By some means a knowledge of the 
 mystic name, given to Nero, had crept out ; those who 
 knew the matter but imperfectly, supposed that the Naros 
 was a man that could never die, but was to be invested 
 with imperial power; they did not know that the Naros was 
 only a cycle, and that it was indeed true of the Man of 
 that cycle, but of no other man. Having therefore but 
 this flimsy knowledge, they confounded Nero, the Naros, 
 and the Messiah all together ; and thus originated a report 
 which even to the present moment has baffled the sagacity 
 of all scholiasts, commentators, and enquirers, but 
 which after this revelation can no longer appear doubtful 
 to any. 
 
 47. Another proof may be cited to shew that the Naros 
 was in some way known, though its secret was not actu" 
 ally communicated. I allude to the allegory which made 
 Truth the daughter of Time, or, as Plutarch says, of Saturn 
 taken for Time. Pindar, however, says, that Zeus was 
 her father; and they feigned that she was the mother of 
 Virtue : both of which fables signified that in the lapse 
 of Time all Truth would be developed by the Messengers. 
 And the way in which they typified her, was no less pro- 
 found or elegant. Philostratus represents Truth as a 
 young Virgin, clad in a robe whose whiteness resembled 
 that of snow. Hippocrates, in one of his Letters, gives 
 likewise her Portrait. Represent to yourself, says he, a 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 87 
 
 fine woman of a proper stature, modestly dressed, with 
 a thousand attractive charms, the lustre of her eyes, espe- 
 cially, resembling that of the Stars, and you will have 
 the just idea of this divinity. Lactantius has left us a 
 Baying of Democritus, that Truth lay hid in the bottom of 
 a well ; so difficult it is to come at the discovery of it. 
 But if the Holy Spirit be, as she is, the great Fountain 
 of Truth, and if Democritus knew this, as I doubt not he 
 did, for he was probably initiated, the saying will have a 
 deeper and more beautiful meaning : as it is out of this 
 Celestial Fowntain^ or Well, that the Messenger of Truth 
 comes. The Persian priest, Giamasp, who lived in the sixth 
 century before the Christian era, wrote a book containing 
 JudgmeTds on the grand conjunctions of the Planets, and 
 on the events produced by tliem. And he predicted that 
 at a certain period Jesus and Mohammed would appear ; 
 and that the religion of the Magi would perish. Hyde 
 de Mel. Vet. Fers., 385. And it was a knowledge of this 
 prophecy which brought Magi to Jerusalem at the birth 
 of Jesus. From this it is evident that Giamasp knew of 
 the Naros, and he probably also had read the prophecies 
 of the Apocalypse. 
 
 48. But though the priests concealed the Apocalypse, 
 they resorted to it for myths in which they faintly 
 imaged many of its mighty revelations. The first inventors 
 of the Greek mythos of Apollo, (who, as I have said, is a 
 personification of the Messiah), if not themselves initiated 
 priests, must have had this very Apocalypse before them. 
 One feature cannot be mistaken. I mean the Red Dra- 
 gon (36). Helios (from El. God), or Phoibos- Apollo (the 
 light of life, "the light of the world"), arises out of the 
 golden -winged cup (Sacred Spirit). He is the sun-god, the 
 
88 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 Light-bom, XvKrjyevqs, because he is born in the cycle of 
 the sun. He is like Jesus, a divine shepherd with flocks 
 of long-wooled sheep at Tsenaron, and other places. His 
 head is surrounded with rays. He has children by the 
 Nymph Necera, or Newness, a clear allusion to the Naros. 
 He plays his lyre at the banquet of the gods, for truth is 
 the music of heaven. At the moment of his birth he 
 called for his bow (language), and said he would declare to 
 men the will of Zeus (God). He is born in a floating star 
 island called Asteria, (the earth which floats in the air). 
 His mother is attacked by Python (the Red Dragon), before 
 she brings him forth. He is called the pure, (ayvos, 
 Agnus Dei, the Indian Agni) ; in the primal mythos he 
 is exempt from all sensual love. He is taught divination 
 by Pan (the All). He went from heaven to give laws to the 
 Hyperboreans (the first people). He is called Paean, from 
 his healing power. He raises the dead, &c., &c. To the 
 same passage may be traced also the legends of the Wars 
 of the Giants, the rebellion of the Angels, with which all 
 the ancient mythology is filled ; and on which indeed it 
 may be said to have been constructed. But the wise 
 ancients themselves knew better than the moderns in this 
 respect ; and were not so ignorant of God as to believe in 
 a Devil. With them the true interpretation of the pas- 
 sages did not waiTant a belief in the existence of any such 
 odious being in Heaven. And they judged well. There 
 is no Dragon, there is no War, there is no Tempter, there 
 is no Evil Being in the paradise spheres of God ; such 
 excrescences were inconsistent with the happiness, the 
 peace, and the beauty that are the law of that divine 
 region. But in Heaven, as in all other places where created 
 living essences exist, the will, as I have shewn before, 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 89 
 
 is free ; and where the will is free it is always liable to 
 error. The angel spirits of the celestial are not and never 
 were exempt from fallibility. God alone is Infallible and 
 Incorruptible, and these attributes are part of his con- 
 stitution. They cannot be given to any other existences : 
 they belong to the Uncreated, who is God ; and are inca- 
 pable of being possessed by created, finite beings however 
 high they may be placed in the order of life. Hence 
 even the purest spirits are subject to a lapse from para- 
 dise into a lower sphere, under the temptation of their 
 own thoughts. When this happens, it is figuratively said 
 there is war in heaven : when they lapse lower, they are 
 said to be cast upon the earths ; when an impure thought 
 has rendered them unworthy to stand in the presence of 
 God, they are no longer Angels, but Dragons. That this 
 lapse of spirits happened ages ago is certain ; it was re- 
 vealed in the text to the Messenger, to make manifest that 
 what had happened in heaven must also be expected on 
 earth, when the Holy One went forth to preach truth : 
 and so indeed it has always been. This is its sole and 
 its true meaning;. The vul^jar notion of a Devil or an 
 Evil Being of immense power, has indeed been founded 
 upon it, and it is still carefully fostered by the prie>ts to 
 keep the rabble enslaved by fear ; but the existence of 
 such a Being, if it were not impossible, which it is, is 
 wholly inconsistent with the nature, the benevolence 
 and the paternal character of God. Sharistani, an Arab 
 follower of Zaratusht, the fifth Messenger of God, well 
 describes the meaning of the fable. The first Sages, 
 he s«ys, did not look upon the Two Principles as co- 
 eternal, but believed that the Light of God was Eternal, 
 and that the Darkness was produced in time j and the 
 
90 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 origin of evil they account for in this manner : Light can 
 produce nothing but light, and can never be the origin of 
 evil j how then was the evil produced, since there was 
 nothing co-equal or like the Light in its production! 
 Light, say they, produced several Beings, all of them 
 spiritual, luminous, and powerful. But a great one, 
 whose name was Ahriman, had an evil thought, contrary 
 to the Light. He doubted, and by that doubt he became 
 dark. Hence arose all the evils, the dissensions, the 
 malice, and everything else that is of a contrary nature 
 to the Light. These two make war upon one another, — 
 that is, good and evil are perpetually opposed ; a very 
 different idea from the European notion of Satan, with 
 tail and horns, and saucer eyes, whom God sends forth 
 to tempt mankind into the commission of every species of 
 sin, that He may see whether they may be able to resist 
 or not. The whole thing is indeed figurative ; there is 
 no Tempter, as I have declared ; nor does God lead any 
 into temptation. They who say so make him the Parent 
 of all evil, and would do well to ponder on the beautiful 
 oriental apologue : Mar oh rashly said that all evil came 
 from God ; but when he reflected 07i the wickedness of his 
 speech, he imposed silence on himself, and opened not his 
 lips for seven years. 
 
 49. That the Naros, the Messenger, and this Apoca- 
 lypse, were known to all the primeval priests, though they 
 were guarded with the most jealous eye from the public, 
 the slightest examination of the medals, the sculptures, 
 or the antiquities of the Past, will satisfy any one that 
 looks at them, with a mind instructed in the truths which 
 I have here made known. The vast symbolic sculptures 
 of Persepolis and Nemroud, some of which are now in the 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 91 
 
 British Museum, could have been, and were, inspired alone 
 by the sublime figures of the ApQcalypse. By the Brah- 
 mins, foremost of all the ancient priests in sacred learn- 
 ing, the Naros was symbolized under the form of a man 
 six'headed (the centuries), riding on a peacock, the emblem 
 of the starry firmament, and who was called Cartikeya, 
 and sometimes Skanda : his robe was richly spangled, 
 indicating thereby an astronomical secret. A star of six 
 rays, a cross, a crown of six points, a circle, a ring, 
 a wreath of flowers or a rosary, is a frequent emblem ; 
 and wherever either of these is found, it may be regarded 
 as a positive sign of the Naros. The Naros is still com- 
 memorated in India on May-day (the Hooli-feast), the day 
 of Mai'a, the Virgin of Heaven, that is D*D> Mayim, or 
 Waters from on high, and it is called the Naurutz festi- 
 val ; though even the most learned Brahmins of the pre- 
 sent age know, or profess to know, nothing of the object 
 that is intended to be honoured. In the Neuruz of Iran, 
 which was a holiday instituted by one of their most an- 
 cient patriarchs, Djemshed, and which takes place at the 
 beginning of the year, they present each other with eggs. 
 In Barbary the Jewish mourners at funerals eat eggs, 
 thereby symbolizing their present belief in the resurrec- 
 tion of the dead ; and on Easter day the Oriental Chris- 
 tians present each other with eggs adorned with painting 
 and gilding. The Russians of Narva eat painted eggs at 
 their funeral feasts, which are held among tombs. All 
 these eggs typify the new creation, and the new order of 
 things J and particularly the renovated birth which occui*s 
 in the Naronic Cycle. The Druids, who were Boodhist 
 priests, wore around theii* necks an egg-formed jewel cased 
 in gold to commemorate the same event. The pillars 
 
92 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 Joachim and Boaz had around each of their capitals 100 
 pomegranates, (1 Kings vii. 20 ; 2 Chron. iii. 16, 17). This 
 fruit was selected for two reasons : first, as a common em- 
 blem of the yoni ; secondly, on account of its star-like 
 flower, with six leaves or rays at the top of the fruit : so 
 that as the Water Lily in ancient representations is always 
 a symbol of the Spirit of God, or of the Messiah, who 
 proceeds out of waters, so is the pomegranate of the Naros 
 or mystical six. A hundred pomegranates consequently 
 represent 600, or the Magnus Annus. The Mexican 
 and Egyptian antiquities cluster all over with these sym- 
 bols : and, indeed, throughout the whole world are found 
 the unmistakeable signs of this One, Universal and Pri- 
 meval Faith founded by God himself; revealed in this 
 Apocalypse ; miraculously preserved and renewed by the 
 successive Messengers ; and with a paternal solicitude for 
 all mankind without reserve, which is the blessed charac- 
 teristic of the Ail-Father : and now finally promulgated 
 to the public in these pages. 
 
 60. These wonderful mysteries were in the primeval 
 theology concealed universally under symbols : we, who 
 know, can read them at the present moment in nearly all 
 the sacred reliques of the Past. This symbolic language was 
 designed for an universal mode of communication among 
 the priests, and to make them known to each other, like the 
 mark of circumcision in the most distant regions ; so that 
 if a priest from the farthest plains of Scythia came into 
 Atlantis, or Africa, or England, he could, by enteriDg a 
 temple on which the sacred symbols were cut or painted, 
 at once secure a home and hospitality from any of thfl 
 fraternity whom he found there, simply by explaining . 
 the knowledge which he possessed. The sacerdotal order 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 93 
 
 themselves, to whom the Sacred Cycle was known, as the 
 passing six hundred years drew to a close, always looked 
 forward to the appearance of the new Messiah, who was 
 to be the Star, the Phoenix, the Homai or the Foiig- Whang 
 (37), of the six hundred years that were to come ; and 
 who was to inaugurate the most important changes, moral 
 as well as physical, over the face of the whole earth. 
 Hence the great number of Oriental and Jewish prophe- 
 cies relating to Cyrus, which some Christian writers 
 ignorantly, and many who are not Christians, falsely, 
 apply to Jesus : hence the distinct promise of Amosis 
 himself : / loill raise them up a Prophet like unto thee, 
 and will pvi my words in his mouth, and he shall speak 
 unto them, all tliat I sltall command him. — Deut. xviii. 
 81 : hence the remarkable lines of Virgil applied by that 
 base flatterer to a mere human being, Marcellus ; hence 
 also the distinct assurance of Jesus, that he would send 
 One after him, which was fulfilled in Mohammed, or the 
 Renowned, the Periclyte, which later writers changed 
 into Paraclete. The theologians pretend that this was 
 fulfilled by the tongues of fire (Acts ii.); but this is wholly 
 absurd, as Jesus evidently alluded to a Man. The very uni- 
 versality of these symbols, however, endangered the secret ; 
 and it became absolutely impossible but that some vague 
 knowledge of the Naros, and its Messenger, should creep 
 out. They who saw every day in the temples and on the 
 altars, certain types to which the wise and pious paid the 
 most profound veneration ; who were themselves not 
 worthy to be initiated, but who had active brains and pry- 
 ing intellects, and whose pursuit after the Unknown was 
 probably stimulated by the knowledge that it was ever 
 intended to be kept unknown at least from them, would 
 
94 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 scarcely fail to pick up here and there a few stray 
 beams of light to guide them in their darkness. Hence 
 arose the notion of Genii and Daimones, whose assis- 
 tance the Supreme God made use of in the government 
 of the earth, and in the due administration of the affairs 
 of men ; and whom he at times sent forth among man- 
 kind, for their education and protection. Hence also 
 their numerous legends of gods speaking to mankind ; 
 hence the mysterious hint in old theogonies of the marriage 
 of Earth with Heaven. But as they were unacquainted 
 with the exact cycles, and as the priests rather encou- 
 raged than dispelled their dreams, which were founded 
 after all but on fancy ; it came to pass that whenever 
 they saw any one greater than the rest of men in power, 
 wisdom, strength, or excellence, they supposed him to be 
 a Genius of this sort, and to have come from heaven 
 and after death they paid him divine honours. Thus the 
 heavenly hierarchy became gradually filled with the names 
 of dead conquerors and bravos, whom the mere multitude 
 blindly worshipped, supposing them to have been blessed 
 Daimones ; and whose deeds they typified under the most 
 fantastic and romantic legends, until the Poets and Priests 
 whose lives depended on fable and falsehood, respectively 
 stepped in, and corrupted their entire system of theology. 
 But all their speculations ended eventually in disappoint- 
 ment; however they might peer, they could discover 
 nothing ; the secret of the Naros was still a secret ; im- 
 penetrable as the veil of Isis herself. The Apocalypse 
 that follows shews it forth for the first time to the world, 
 in the most clear, convincing, and conclusive manner. 
 
NOTES TO BOOK I. 
 
 Note 1 (p. 18.) — Ab ^^. Father: Parent: and pronounced 
 broadly, Aub, a Serpent. As a Persian termination, it meajis 
 River. Nilab, the river Nile ; Pan jab, the Five Rivers ; Danaub. 
 and River, Ocean, Sea, Waters, all symbolically mean the Holy 
 Spirit. Angl. Abbot, Baba, Papa. LcU. av-us. an ancestor. 
 Irish. Ab, a Lord ; Ab-har, a Canoe. There is something very 
 curious, says Higgins, Anacalypsis, i. 725, in the word ^^ ab. 
 or n^t^ ^^^- "^^^ ''*^* ^^ ^^^^ *® ^® ^^^? ^^ with a mutable 
 or omissible H ^/ t^^-t is> i* ™*y ^^ either ^^ ab or ^^^? 
 abe: it may have either a masculine or feminine termination. 
 This seems odd enough for the word father : but it is still more 
 odd that it always adopts a feminine termination for its plural ; 
 always Jll^?^ «^"* (abbot) or ^^^? «&^ ^ut never Q^ im. 
 Here the secret doctrine shows itself. So Baal in Greek has 
 always the feminine article prefixed, Jer. ii. 18, 28, xi. 13, xix. 5, 
 Ac, &o., and sometimes Baalim the plural has Tas ^aaki/Xj 
 1 Sam. vii. 4. As A, the first letter, stood for Ox, (Aleph, a 
 symbol of the Sun, and the Sun was a type of God), A stood for 
 God ; and B represented Beth, his House or Shekinah. Both 
 had the force of A B, or A and B united ; and so united they 
 meant Parent. See Beth, in the Definitions. Abner "l^^J^ 
 is Father of Light— a name applied to God, as Lord of the 
 Naros. Apis, Bra-Ap-Is, was God the Father— or Pri-Apis. Ab 
 was an emblem of the Triime All. A = 1. B = 2. =3. Bra, 
 means Creator. Abiri, **nOK and Abirim, U'^'^^^t^ tlie Mighty 
 Ones : the same as the Cabiri, or Messengers of Justice, to whom 
 the Druid temple of Abury, in Wiltshire, was raised. Span. Cobra. 
 Or. 0<f>Ls. Aub also means a Beam, a Cloud. From hence, says 
 Vallancey, the Irish Ob-air an observer of any kind, and abar to 
 relate : also Abaras a manifestation, a Poem, a work of medita- 
 tion and study: whence Abaris the Hyperborean. I wish to 
 impress on the reader, the necessity of patient and careful study 
 of the various radical words, which he will find in this book ; I 
 have not inserted one without a purpose. They will convince 
 him of the absolute truth and one-neaa of all the analogies ia 
 
96 NOTES TO BOOK I. 
 
 names, symbols, and things to which this Volume refers ; and he 
 will find it no unpleasing pursuit, guided by these suggestions, to 
 find others for himself. 
 
 Note 2 (p. 20). — The house of our Dove-like religion (says Ter- 
 tullian, witb a covert allusion to the real mystery of Christianity, 
 which was well understood until it was destroyed by the Church 
 of Rome)is simple, built on high, and in open view ; respecting 
 the Light as the figure of the Holy Spirit, and the East, as the 
 representation of the Anointed Messiah. 
 
 Note 3 (p. 26).-Al \s^ God, and '7^^^ AH, a Ram, having 
 nearly tbe same sound, gave occasion to a good deal of ancient 
 symbolism- A very curious dissertation upon the name Aleim 
 Q^n /^?) occurs in Parkhurst's Hebrew Lexicon, where, deriving 
 it from n < ^? Alhe, a denouncing of a curse, that learned author 
 defines it to be "^ a name usually given in the Hebrew Scriptures 
 to the ever-blessed Trinity, by which they represent themselves 
 as under the obligation of an oath to perform certain conditions, 
 and as having denounced a curse on all, men and devils who do 
 not conform to them." The absurdity of this can scarcely be 
 surpassed ; and yet . by how many thousands, is it not implicitly 
 credited? Al. El. ^{^ God. Cham-El DH ^^, the Most High 
 God. Greek HA109, the Sun, Lat., Ala., a wing, alo, I 
 nourish: ille, He, the prominent One. Arabic, Alia. Gr., Al-ala, 
 a feminine Deity, KAv^' AAaAa. Plut. de amore fratemo, 483. 
 With the I doubled all, 7 /^?, it means Nothing. Alma Venus 
 is Al, bK, and Ma, ^<^, the God Mother, the Olma K/tD^V 
 of the Phoenicians, and the Olme or Virgin, H^ /5^ ^^ ^^^ 
 Hebrews. AM, vKH) a tabernacle, a tent: hence the words 
 avXr^, aula, a hall : symbolically God, who is the Universal 
 Protector. Angl. the All. Al is an Arabic prefix : and is to be 
 found in Al-Achor, an idol of the Sun : the pronoun ille of the 
 Romans, and the Le and La of the French are similar. Halo, 
 I breathe: Lai, 77, means to turn round, one turn of the globe. 
 Laila, H/ Vj (Arab, liel) darkness. The Persians call the glory 
 of the Supreme Being jellali Alia, the Glory of God : and say 
 one ray of this divine glory reduced Mount Pharan in Arabia into 
 dust, and dissolved into water the Jieyuela al auely. In the 
 Mayan, Kinal, or Fire of God, is a Serpent : and Khin is the Sun. 
 
 Note 4 (p. 28), — This cup or patera was always used in sacri- 
 fices. It was the lotus or rose symbol of the Holy Spirit from 
 whom all being came : and as the ancients believed that all being 
 should return back to her, they received in a patera, the blood 
 
NOTES TO BOOK I. 97 
 
 of tlie sacrificed victim ; this was iu accordance with the tenet 
 that tlie life was in the blood, Oen. ix. 4. Pater-a was a mystic 
 feminine of Pater — the Father ; it indicates a lotus-shaped cuj), 
 or matrix, a Shek'mah. This patera is a cognate of Pater Patri- 
 cius : the Roman patres wore a lunar or crescent-shaped shoe, 
 calceos patricios, by which they signified their high descent from, 
 and future sojourn in the Moon or Holy Spirit. The chief of the 
 Sacred College was called Pater Patratus by contraction for Pate- 
 ratus, and from bearing the sacred patera : so the Father and th e 
 Holy Spirit are symbolized in the word Patri-Archa. 
 
 Note 5 (p. 28). — Hence the vow of Arrius Babinus mentioned by 
 Montfaucon : To thee, Goddess Isis, icho art One and all things 
 Arrius Babinus makes this vow. 
 
 NoteC (p. 29). — This proves that it was not the common Minerva, 
 as the Paidites pretend, for she did not bring forth the Sun. The 
 Sua really meant the Messiah, or Incarnation of the Sun. 
 
 Note 7 (p. 33).— Ad-ad, Tin, the Deity of the Syrians : it 
 signifies King of Kings : he who is essentially The One. It is 
 found in a compound form Ad-Aur, UK J ^^^^ Ad-On, ]"TK '» 
 and Adouai, ^3*t?^' Bryant says it is the same as UpojTOs, 
 the First : hence Proteus, a name for the Holy Spirit, from the 
 variety of her forms. Ad, 1^, is an Element. Adonis is the 
 Sun. Irish, ad is water, and in the Armorican, ad-a is to 
 seed. niV ^</«'' in Hebrew is beauty. Welsh, Adon, a 
 Lord. Hebr. Adun piK, a Lord. Joined on to Di, ^^, it sig- 
 nifies Quantity. From this root the Celts had their De, Di, 
 Te, Dia, the only appellation by which God was known to 
 those who siwke the Gaelic of Britain and Ireland. And so 
 the Gauls in Cafsar's time asserted that they were all de- 
 scended, ab Dile j^atre, from father Di or Dis. {Comm. vi. 16). 
 Hence also the Greek, At? Aios ; whence Latin, Deus, dius. 
 Hence ^tj'ji compounded with Mrj-njp, Demeter or Ceres, whom 
 Orpheus calls seminal, heap-(jivin(j, delifjhtimj in the baiii fioor, 
 affording the green fruits, and also Mother of all, and all-be stouing. 
 
 Note 8 (p. 34).— Is not Brahm the Hebrew KTH, Bra (Creator), 
 and Om (God), Bra-Om, softened into Brahm, or Bram? 
 
 Note 9 (p. 37).— Ptha is the Ordainer, who did all things in truth 
 and wisdom. She is the same as Water, which Thales called the 
 Principle of all things, and God is the Spirit who has formed the 
 Universe from this humid Principle. Synesius, full of this ancient 
 theology, alludes to the mystic union ; and says. The father, 
 mother, male and female art thou. This principle is hinted at in 
 
 F 
 
98 NOTES TO BOOK I. 
 
 tlie radical Am, V^, a pure Virgin, a Fountain ; a name also 
 for tlie Holy Spirit. Thus ^Enon near the fords of Jordan, meant 
 Fountain of the Sun : hence John baptized in it, or immersed in 
 the Holy- Spirit which was the Fountain, or feminine counter- 
 part of the Sun, namely the Moon, John iii. 23. Ath-Ain became 
 Athena or God's Fountain. At other times the name was re- 
 versed, and became AnAit; a goddess worshipped throughout 
 Asia : and by the Hebrew tribe of Naphthali, Josh. xix. 38, at 
 Beth Anath, or the House of An-Ait. From this place they 
 had their name Beth Ani. Bal-Ain w^ere weUs sacred to the 
 Sun : hence the Greek fjaXaveia^ and the Roman balnea : so 
 also Balcence, large fishes, which were sacred symbols. Ouranos 
 is the same as Our-Ain, the Fountain of Cms : and Amia Perenna 
 was the Everlasting Fountain, or the Holy Spirit. Ur-Ania was 
 the Fountain of Fire or God. This was Egeria, the inspiring 
 Deity of Numa, an anagram for Amiin. Egeria est, quas prcebet 
 aquas, Dea grata, says Ovid, p jl^? henak, is a torque or neck- 
 lace ; hence annus, a year, and annuliis, a circlet or ring. Aonach 
 (pronounced Enoch) in Irish signifies a cycle of the sun, an an- 
 niversary : and we are told in Gen. v. 23, that all the days of 
 Enoch were 3G5. In the Polynesian group of islands, hina, from 
 this radical Ain, means a perfect Virgin. Note also, that as On 
 represented God, so Ain represented His Divine and Virgin 
 Spirit. 
 
 Note 10 (p. 38). — This was the name at a period comparatively 
 modern — that is before Christianity — their more ancient manner 
 of invocation being Ain treidhe Dia aimn Tau-lac, Fan, Mollac, 
 or Ain, triple God, whose name is Taulac, Fan, Mollac. This 
 third person was the Destroyer, which the Hebrews afterwards 
 changed into Moloch, *1^/2> melh, the Great, the Prince. The 
 Orphic Phanes, was the Irish Fan, and the Greek Pan {with a 
 digamma), which in the Coptic is Pheneh, or the Everlastmg, 
 according to Jablonski. In the same language it meant the Phoenix, 
 which reproduced itself at the end of every 600 years from its 
 own ashes. It has been questioned whether Phanes is not 
 HNI^ ^-D£3) Pheni Jeue ; the faces of Jehovah. And the Mysians 
 called Bacchus Phanacem or the Phoenix. 
 
 Note 11 (p. 44). — The original name of the Seventh Messenger 
 Moses, or Amosis, was Osarsiph, which is Sar-Iph, and Sar- 
 Iphis, meaning Son of the Serpent. 
 
 Note 12 (p. 44).— Eden, \1)^, more i)roperly Odin (as the Hebrew 
 scholar sees), means delight ; and the Halls of Odin, meant the 
 Paradise of delight. As I have frequently had occasion to cite 
 
IfOTES TO BOOK I. 99 
 
 Hebrew words and their meauings, I wisli it to be noted here 
 that I quote from Hebrew, not that I at all suppose it to be the 
 primeval language, but that all the words which I do cite from 
 it, belong absolutely to the fu-st language spoken among mankind; 
 in the same manner as there are numerous monosyllabic words 
 in our own tlialect which belong to the same ancient tongue. 
 Sir W. Jones asserts as a fact that the oldest discoverable lan- 
 guages of Persia were Chaldaic and Shanscreet : and that the 
 Hebrew, the Chaldaic, the Syriac, and the Ethiopian tongues, are 
 in his opinion only dialects of the old Arabic. When Homer dis- 
 tinguishes between the language of Gods and men, as in IllaSf 
 xiv. 289, 290, 291, he means by the first the primeval language to 
 which I here allude. 
 
 Note 13 (p. 47). — Hercules is Alcides, that is Al-s-ida, lion 
 of Jid or God : he was called Astrochyton, or the star- 
 clothed. Children of Israel means children of the Prince of God, 
 that is the Messiah of God. Amosis is also called a prince or captain 
 of God. Melichart is either J/e^ecA'ariAa, KfTlp '^'^O? King 
 of the City, or VH^ "j^Dj Melee Aretz, the Mighty King, or 
 the King of the Earth, which the Messiah is. 
 
 Note 14 (p. 48). — Whosoever gazes on the Divine Beauty like 
 Jesus, or Actrcon who saw Diana naked, is torn in pieces by 
 dogs— a fine but melancholy truth. 
 
 Note 15 (p. 48). — This word Ogmius is pure Celtic, and signifies 
 the secret of letters : theli-ish hieratic language was called Ogham 
 (pronounced Oum), which is the same as the Boodhist and the 
 Brahmin Aum, and the Magian and Mexican Horn, or ineffable 
 name of God. This last, the Greeks changed into A.0M.A12, or 
 Alpha and Omega. Hermes and Hercides, were sometimes blended 
 by sciUptors into the same figure, and it was called Hennheracles. 
 Hermes in the old Egyptian, means Interpreter, that is the 
 Messiah was tlie Interpreter or had the key to the language of 
 Heaven. Janus, which was an Etruscan name for a Messiali, 
 ^as represented with leys. 
 
 Note 16 (p. 49). — There is no other name nnder heaven, 
 given among men whereby we must be saved, says the compiler 
 oi Acts iy. 12 : and this narrow, confine<l, and exclusive system is 
 supposed to be the i)olicy of the Universal Father. Christ, 
 says Birihop Pearson, is the Supreme, Almighty, and Eternal 
 God, — a blasphemy which it almost shocks one to transcribe. 
 Nothing can more clearly manifest that the ^klcssiahs are not infalli- 
 ble in merely secular matters, than the choice of Judas Iscariot by 
 Jesus. So the Jewish articles of belief, 8 and 9 : " I believe with a 
 
 F 2 
 
100 NOTES TO BOOK I. 
 
 perfect faith that all the Law which at this day is found in our 
 hands, was delivered by God himseK to our master Moses (God's 
 peace be with him). I believe with a perfect faith that the same 
 law is never to he clianged, nor any other to he given us of God, 
 whose name be blessed." The old prediction given to Saturn, the 
 Father, that one of his sons would deprive him of his kingdom, 
 is verified every day in the worship paid to Jesus in place of Him 
 who made him. 
 
 Note 17 (p. 49). — Xenagoras relates that Sicily being reduced by 
 famine, the people consulted the Oracle of the Palici, and were 
 answered that if they sacrificed a certain hero, whom authors do 
 not name, the famine would cease, which accordingly happened. 
 The notion that a Messiah would expiate the people's crimes, was 
 curiously illustrated in the Palilian sacrifices, where purifications 
 were performed with the smoke of horses'' blood, and with the 
 ashes of a calf, that had been taken out of an immolated cow — thus 
 uniting in one the three emblems of the Sun (God), the Moon (the 
 Holy Spirit), and the Messiah, their child and representative. 
 Thus we find Buddha saying, Let all the sins that have heen com- 
 mitted in this ivorld fall on me, that the ivorld may he delivered : 
 (Max Muller, Ancient Sanskrit Literature, 80), which pagan 
 false doctrine is the doctrine of the Paulites with reference to 
 their Atonement or Eedemption. 
 
 Note 18 (p. 49). — The harlot of Jericho was a progenetrix of 
 Jesus, Matt. i. 5. Salmon virum justum Booz de Raah meretrice 
 genuit. St. Jerome, Proem in Hosearn [cited, ii. Nimrod, 198]. I 
 mention this, not to reflect on that Divine Messenger — as it is of 
 little moment through whom in the body he was descended — but to 
 showhowabsurdly theorthodoxbase their faith on the sacred pui'ity 
 of the genealogical line of Jesus. To obviate any inconvenience 
 from the character of Rahab, an attempt has been made by the 
 rigidly righteous to show that she was only an innkeeper, who 
 perhaps kept a house of accommodation, but this has signally 
 failed. The Seventy, says Parkhurst, in all these passages render it 
 TTopinrj, and the Vulgate, meretrix, a harlot, and in like manner 
 Rahab is called Tropvt] by St. Paul, Heh. xi. 31, and by St. James 
 ii. 25. And indeed nothing more may be intended' by the epithet 
 harlot, but that she hsid foi'merly been so ! ! See Joshua ii. 1. 
 
 Note 19 (p. 50). — Milton has in like manner degraded both 
 Judaic and Christian divinity by the representations he has given 
 of the Garden of Eden, hell, devils. Heaven, &c. ; representations, , 
 which from their much-vaunted poetic skill, have brought down 
 the minds of his countrymen to the very lowest, basest, and most 
 
NOTES TO BOOK I. 101 
 
 irreverend notions of the Supreme Government of God, of His 
 dealings with his creatures, and of the Future Life. These fables 
 read at an early period, and recommended constantly to perusal 
 by a species of parson-critics, whose knowledge is in reality but 
 gross ignorance, become amalgamated with the mind itself, like a 
 belief in ghosts, demons, &c., and work great evils : so that if 
 Pythagoras were now alive, he woidd have certainly added to 
 the chained in Tartarus, the wretched shade of John Milton. 
 
 Note 20 (p. 51).— The remai'ks of Philo-Byblius are applicable 
 here. The Greeks, says he, who in refinement of genius excelled 
 all other nations, appropriated every ancient history to them- 
 selves, exaggerated and embellished them, aiming at nothing but 
 to amuse by their narratives : and hence they have turned these 
 same histories into a quite new shape. Hence it is that Hesiod 
 and the other Cyclic poets have forged Theogonies, Gigantoma- 
 chies, Titanomachies, and other pieces, by which they have in. 
 a manner stifled the truth. Our ears, accustomed from infancy 
 to their fictions, prepossessed with opinions that have been in 
 vogue for several ages, retain the vain impression of these fables 
 as a sacred deposit. And because time has insensibly rivetted 
 these idle tales in our imagination, they have now got such fast 
 hold thereof, that it is extremely difficult to dislodge them. 
 Hence, it comes to pass, that even Truth, when it is discovered 
 to men, ajipears to have the air of Falsehood ; while fabulous 
 narratives, be they ever so absurd, pass for the most authentic 
 facts. Nevertheless the wise treated these Milesian myths as 
 they deserved. 
 
 Note 21 (p. 55). — And his (the Messiah's) goings forth have 
 been from of old, 0/^V 't3*'0j irom the days of antiquity; not his 
 eternal generation from the Father, says Parkhurst, as this word 
 has been tortured to signify, but his going forth to action, his 
 proceedings or acts for the benefit of his people, and the destruc- 
 tion of his enemies. Even from the perverted Hebrew tracts, 
 the Rabbins have not wholly banished allusions to the avatars of 
 these Messiahs. The Song of Amosis reminds the Israelites of 
 the days of old, the years of many generations in which 6t€ 
 
 8t€/X€pt^€t 6 'Y^WTTOS WlTj ia-Tt^CTiV O/Oltt WviDV /CttTtt dptd- 
 
 fiov dyyckMv 0€ov — when the Most High divided the nations, 
 he fixed their boundaries according to the number of the Messen- 
 gers of God ; which the common version impudently renders the 
 children of Israel, Deut. xxxii. 8. This accords with what I have 
 said (ante p. 56) as to God sending his Messengers to all the cen- 
 
1(^ NOTES TO BOOK I. 
 
 tral or ijrincipal empires on the earth. They are again alluded to 
 in the ladder wliich Jacob beheld in vision, with Messengera of 
 God ascending and descending on it, Gen. xxviii. Xor is it without 
 deep significance that in the Chinese language, Logha, or Logos, 
 means Six, in allusion to the Naros in which he appears ; and that 
 in the same language Shiloh means the Sun, which we know was 
 a symbol of the Messenger. Bell's Travels in Asia. This word 
 occurs Hebraically n'?*^^^? (Shiloh), G-en. xlix. 10, but it is ad- 
 mitted that it has no meaning whatever in that language. It is 
 the Chinese word copied from the Scripture of Fo-hi, and brought 
 from India by the Jewish priests, who evidently knew that it 
 meant the Messiah, "/or unto Mm sJiall the gatherings of the people 
 Z)e." And the occurrence of this Chinese word in the Jewish 
 scripture is pregnant with meaning, and historical interest. 
 The word is not to be found in the Septuagint ! In the Book 
 which bears the name of Joshua, Auses or Jesus, the Cabiric Mes- 
 senger or Messiah of War, is mentioned. I cite it, not that the 
 book is at all genuine, but as a record of the Hebrew belief, which 
 was also that of the Gentile world generally. And it came to 
 pass when Joshua teas by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes, and 
 looJced, and behold there stood a Man over against him, with his 
 sword drawn in his hand ; and Joshua v:ent unto him, and said 
 unto him. Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And he said. 
 Nay, but as Captain of the Lord's host, am I now come. And 
 Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and said unto him.. What saith 
 my Lord unto his servant? And the Captain of the Lord^s host 
 said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy feet, for the place 
 whereon thou standest is holy, Josh, v, 13. 
 
 Note 22 (p. 57). — Its precise size maybe gathered from Temple- 
 man's Survey of the Globe, where he allows to Wales 7011 sqxxare 
 English miles, and to Judaea 7600. 
 
 Note 23 (p. 57). — The divine birth of the Messenger was thus 
 symbolized by the Scythians, according to Diodorus Siculus. 
 They deduced their origin from Scythes, who was the son of a 
 "Virgin sprung from the earth, that is, whose origin they did not 
 know. They said she was half woman and half serpent, and 
 that God fell in love with her, and that Scjiihes was the child of 
 this union. 
 
 Note 24 (p. 58).— Phanes, the God of Fire, Pan, Van, Phen- 
 nische, Phoenix, all are typical of the 600 years. 
 
 Note 25 (p. 60). — Neri, according to Luke, was one of the pro- 
 genitors of Jesus — it means my light. 
 
 Note 26 (p. 67).— This is the case with Mr. L. , says Dr. Priestley, 
 
SOTES TO BOOK I. 103 
 
 a most excellent man, who is now reading my sermons on the 
 evidences of revelation ; and I hope to good purpose. He, like 
 thousands of others, told me that he was so much disgusted with 
 the doctrines of the Church of England, especially the Trinity, 
 that he considered the whole business as an imposition without 
 further inquiry. — Memoirs of Theojtliilua Lindsay, 381. 
 
 Note 27 (p. 68).— Mark i. 23; Luke viii. 1-2; Matt. xii. 22; 
 Mark v. The Old Testament is scarcely better. I call upon 
 the Theist, says Sir William Dnimmond, who has contemplated 
 the Universe as the work of Intelligence, to consider whether 
 the Old Testament, if literally interpreted, presents him with such 
 exalted notions of the Deity, as natural religion is itself capable 
 of inspiring. It is monstrous to be told, if the sense be taken 
 literally, that the Infinite Mind shewed its hack parts to Moses. 
 — (Edipus Judaiais, p. xiii. 
 
 Note 28 (p. 69.) — The day previous to the day of expiation, 
 the more self-righteous Jews provide a fowl, but it must be a 
 cock, which they send to an inferior Rabbi to be slain. After 
 it is slain, the person whose property it is, takes the fowl by 
 the legs, and with uplifted hands, swings it nine times over 
 their heads, and at the same time prays to God that the sins 
 he has been guilty of during the year may enter into the fowl. 
 When I followed the Jewish customs I was very tenacious 
 myself in having a fowl slain; in so doing I thought I was 
 justified. — Ceremoniea of the Jews, by Hyam Isaacs, p. 54. The 
 Kev. Mr. Herbert (Nimrod) in his learned Miscellany, speaks of 
 the Hebrew offering mentioned in Leviticus xvi., 7, 8, 9, 10, as a 
 sacrifice of one goat to God, and of the other to the Devil ; yet it 
 is upon this the Atonement is based. Thousands can perceive the 
 absurdity of the cock and goat, who do not, however, reflect that 
 they probably hold equal absurdities as i)oints of faith. We want 
 a Lucian to open their eyes to the folly of these atonements. 
 Hurd mentions another form of this insanity and blasphemy 
 among the Hebrews. The father of every family made choice of 
 a white cock, and every woman of a hen : but such as were preg- 
 nant took both a cock and a hen. With these fowls they struck 
 their heads twice ; and at each blow the father of the family said. 
 Let this cock stand in my room ; he shall atone for my sins : he 
 shall die, but I shall live. This being done, the necks of the 
 fowls were twisted round, and then their throats were cut. 
 Surely there never was a readier mode invented to make smooth 
 for sinners the road to hell, than this fearfiil one of an Atonement. 
 Yet it is innocence itself, when compared with the Jewish sacrifice 
 
104 NOTES TO BOOK I. 
 
 of men. The reason of this absurd custom, says Kingsborough's 
 Mexican Antiquities, vi.,209, was derived from the Hebrew word 
 Gebher, which signifies a man, and in the Talmud a cock. 
 That Gebher shoukl suffer for their transgressions they could 
 not doubt, because the Talmud declares it ; but as it appeared 
 to some of their Rabbis unreasonable to suppose that the anger 
 of God could be appeased by a human sacrifice, they took this 
 word in its other signification of a cock, and accordingly made 
 expiation for their sins by the blood of that bird. On the 
 summit of Kedar Nauth, in the Himalaya, Call is supposed to 
 have her residence. One among the numerous proceedings of 
 her votaries is to scramble as high up the momitain as they can 
 attain, taking with them a goat for an offering (a scapegoat) ; the 
 animal is turned loose, with a knife tied round his neck ; and the 
 belief is that the goddess will find the victim and immolate it 
 with her own hand, thereby redeeming the sacrificers from all 
 their load of sin. Upon the tenth day of the month, says Sir 
 Isaac Newton in his Ohservations on the Apocalypse (p. 310), a 
 young bullock was offered for a sin-offering for the High Priest, 
 and a goat for a sin-offering for the people : and lots were cast 
 upon two goats to determine which of them should be God's lot 
 for the sin-offering ; and the other goat was called Azazel, the 
 scape-goat. The high Priest, in his linen garments, took a censer 
 full of burning coals of fire from the altar, his hand being full of 
 sweet incense beaten small ; and went into the most holy place 
 within the veil, and put the incense upon the fire, and sprinkled 
 the blood of the bullock with his finger upon the mercy seat, and 
 before the mercy seat seven times : and then he killed the goat 
 which fell to God's lot, for a sin-offering for the people, and brought 
 his blood within the veil, and sprinkled it also seven times upon 
 the mercy seat and before the mercy seat. Then he went out to 
 the altar, and sprinkled it also seven times with the blood of the 
 bullock, and as often with the blood of the goat. After this he 
 laid both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confessed 
 over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their 
 transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of 
 the goat, and sent him away into the wilderness by the hands of 
 a fit man ; and the goat bore upon him all their iniquities into a 
 land not inhabited. Levit. iv. & xvi. While the High Priest 
 was doing these things in the most holy place, and at the altar, 
 the people continued at their devotion quietly, and in silence. 
 Then the High Priest went into the holy place, put off his linen 
 garments, and put on other garments, then came out, and seat 
 
NOTES TO BOOK I. 105 
 
 the bullock and the goat of the sin-oflFering to be burnt without 
 the camp, with fire taken in a censer from the altar; and as 
 the people returned home from the Temple they said to one 
 another, God seal you to a good new year ! In the great Temple 
 of Samorin, the priest cuts the throat of a cock with a silver 
 knife dipped in the blood of a hen, and holds the cock with a 
 knife over a chafing dish, in the middle of the altar. This altar 
 is pompously illuminated by wax tapers, and at the close of the 
 sacrifice the priest takes a handful of com and walks backward 
 from the altar, keeping his eyes stedfastly fixed upon it. When 
 he comes to the middle of the chapel, he throws the corn over 
 his head, and in this way the sins of all the people who are pre- 
 sent, and take part in this eucharistical ceremony, are supposed to be 
 atoned for. So the Brahmins teach their followers that if a dying 
 person takes hold of a cow by the tail, and the priest puts a little 
 water into his hand, and receives a small sum of money, then when 
 he comes to cross the dreadful fiery river, which separates the 
 earth from eternity, the cow will, by his laying hold of her tail, 
 carry him safely over. The people of the Phillii^pine Islands have 
 an atonement of their own, which is just as good as any other.. 
 After a concert of vocal and instrumental music, two old women, 
 step forward and pay the most devout homage to the Sun. This- 
 act of adoration being over, they dress themselves in pontifical 
 vestments, and bind a ribbon round their heads in such a manner 
 that they appear to have two horns growing out of their foreheads. 
 In the meantime they hold something in their hands resembling a 
 girdle, and thus arrayed they dance and play upon a kind of rural 
 pipe, say their prayers, and pronounce some particular words with 
 their eyes fixed on the Sun. During this act of devotion the hog 
 that is to be sacrificed is bound fast to a stake, and they all dance 
 around him. A flaggon of wine is next brought to one of the old 
 women, who pours a cup full of it on the hog, performing at the 
 same time some ceremonies suitable to the solemnity of the occa- 
 sion. She then stabs the hog, and lets him bleed to death ; they 
 wash their musical pipes in the blood of the victim, and dipjjing 
 one of their fingers into it, mark the foreheads of the men with 
 a bloody cross. The carcase is then washed before a slow fire, 
 and the priestesses cut it in small pieces, and distribute it ; 
 and all who partake thereof are cleansed from sin : it has 
 licen washed away in the blood of the Hog. Into such 
 horrible excesses did the Paulite doctrine gf a blood atonement 
 lead, that three considerable sects at least of those who pro- 
 fessed to be his followers, made an Eucharistical cake of flour, 
 
 F 3 
 
106 KOTES TO BOOK I. 
 
 and the blood of an infant a year old, which was punctnred all 
 over until enough had been got to temper the composition. If the 
 infant died it was called a blessed Martyr ; but if it sur\dved it 
 •was destined for the priesthood. These and similar horrors pre- 
 pared the Romans to carry out the proscription of Nero against 
 the Paulite Christians, who had, by their dread superstitions, 
 made the whole Gentile world their bitterest foes. And it can 
 hardly be doubted that like the Jews, ancient and present, they 
 crucified children at their nocturnal orgies, as was charged against 
 them by hosts of accusers. There is a shocking anecdote of this 
 soul-destroying superstition among the South Sea Islanders, in the 
 Quarterly Review, Aug., 1809. This chief, it says, who went to 
 the god of the English for healing, did not in the meantime neglect 
 his own ; and when his disease became desperate he resolved upon 
 a desperate remedy. It is the dreadful belief of these islanders 
 that if a human victim be offered in vicarious sacrifice for the 
 sick, his life and strength will pass into the patient : the nearer the 
 relative who suffers the more acceptable is the atonement to the 
 Odooa supposed to be : and this wretched old chief clinging with 
 cowardly selfishness to life sent for his younger son, Colelallo, to 
 have him strangled. The youth was told he was to have his little 
 finger cut off— a common form of propitiatory sacrifice ; but as 
 soon as he came into his father's presence he was seized. Then, 
 comprehending their intention, he bade them use no force, and 
 he would submit to his father's will, &c., &c. Antiochiis Epi- 
 phanes when he conquered the Jews, and entered the inmost 
 recesses of their Temple, found a man whom they had kidnapped, 
 and were feeding daintily that they might sacrifice him to God, 
 to atone for their sins. The same bloody reason was advanced by 
 their priest Caiaphas, as one of those for which they ought to 
 murder Jesus. Now CaiapJias was he, tchich gave counsel to the 
 Jews, that it was now expedient that one man should die for the 
 people, John xviii. 14. 
 
 Note 29 (p. 70). — This awful doctrine is contained in the XVII 
 Article of the Church of England. "Predestination to life is 
 the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations 
 of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his 
 counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those 
 whom he hath chosen in Christ out ofman¥md, &c., &c." Those 
 whom he hath not chosen of course go into both curse and dam- 
 nation. * 
 
 Note 30 (p. 73). — Saint Chrysostom says, When we celebrate the' 
 Mysteries, we send away those who are not initiated, and shut 
 
NOTES TO BOOK I. 107 
 
 the doors, a deacon exclaiming, Far from hence, ye profane! 
 close the doors. The Mysteries are about to begin. Things holy 
 for the saints; hence all do(/s.— See Apocalypse xxii. 15, for a re- 
 markable confirmation of the fact that the ApocalyT^se was indeed 
 the ritual of tlie Mysteries. And in this passage doubtless origi- 
 nated the oriental hatred of dogs, which subsists to the present 
 day. The Turks, says Busquebius, reckon a dog an unclean and 
 filthy creature, and therefore drive them from their houses. Dog 
 of a Jew, Dog of a Christian, are Arabic terms of contempt. It 
 is curious to note the folly of even Cicero on this subject, 
 when he professes to treat of it.— ii. DeNat. Deor. c. 20. Cicero, 
 Macrobius, and Plutarch, all exhibit the most profound ignorance 
 of the secret of ancient religion. The Greek and Latin mytholo- 
 gists knew nothing of the real pontifical creed. 
 
 Note 31 (p. 75).— Ag, Og, Ac, Oc, One, Ong, {Agom, Q^^ 
 a pool. Ocean; Greek, 12 Keavos, fi T^yi', (Hesych), Gothic, Oggur. 
 God and the Sun were adored by the Arabs, under the name of 
 Al-Ach-Aur. The Shepherd-Kings were Uc-Chusi, signifying 
 the Royal Cuthites. It is foimd in Babylonish names, as Ochus, 
 Belochus ; and in Egyptian, as Ach-Arez, mighty sun ; Ach-En- 
 Chercz ; Ach-Aur Ach-Oris. Bag, in Irish, is a circle and a cycle j 
 in Shanscreet it is the same. Bagha in the Shanscreet also 
 means the Sun, and the Yoni ; Bagha-vad-Geeta, is Song of 
 the Holy Spirit. Bag-d-Ad is the sun-like House or Tabernacle 
 of God. Osiris may have been a form of Uch Sihor. The Sun 
 was styled El-Uc-Or, which* the Greeks changed to Lycoreus. 
 Latona, Apollo's mother, was transformed into a wolf— that 
 is, was transfigured into Light, like Jesus on the Mount, 
 for the wolf was but a sacred type of the sun. And as a 
 star (which is a sun) conducted the Magi to the manger of 
 the infant Messiah, so the Hirpi, who were worhippers of 
 fire, that is Truth, were conducted to their settlement in Cam- 
 pania by a wolf — that is by a Priest of the Sun. — Straho. 
 V. Aca, Oice, Oige, Uige, in Irish, water ; aqua, Cann-Oice, the 
 star Oice, sometimes written for Cann-Ob, whence Canobus in the 
 Constellation Argo. Chaldee 2l*13/» Org. Arg ; Ethiopic, lioug^ 
 the sea, or a lake. Jupiter was called Lucetius by the Etrus- 
 cans : and the Greeks made of the root Xv\vo<;, a lamp, and a 
 host of cognate words. Nag, in Irish, is Star, whence Maid- 
 din Nag, the matin or morning star, is literally the Chaldee 
 and Syriac J^, nag and J«?^J, naga, light, spendour. Venus, 
 the star of love (Buxtorf,) HDID {medinah), Medina, the Orient, 
 from n^'^ denah, to arise ; and hence the Irish Maiddin, morn- 
 ing, because of the sun's position. The Sacred Poem which passes 
 
10 S NOTES TO BOOK I. 
 
 under the name of Lycopliron, is in reality the Jifanifestation 
 of Light. Groves were called lucus, as being consecrated to the 
 god : only scholiasts can derive the word a non luceiido. Cioros, 
 which was Uch-Ur, was a Greek name for the Sun : it is nearly 
 the same as Orus. Hesychius says, Curis was Adonis. Apollo 
 was called Kyrrsens. Kyrene, the daughter of God, was really 
 Kyrain, the Fountain of the Sun. Hesychius tells us that loy^v 
 anciently meant the Ocean, which is evidently derived from the 
 Phoenician y^\l^ Og, or encompassing. From Uc-Ait the Greeks 
 formed Hecatus ^Apollo) and Hecate. In the Mysteries, Ceres was 
 called A^ Qua {Ach theia) or the great Goddess pre-eminently. 
 The reader will have noticed the "beautiful feet" mentioned in 
 the Hymn. Beautiful feet were an ancient symbol of the Messiah. 
 Thetis (the Holy Spirit) was silver-footed, and the divine Ach- 
 illeus, was iroSapKrjs, which contains an allusion to his swiftness 
 and to the Arc. The Hindu city, Narayanu Pura resplendent 
 like a hundred million suns, wherein is the fire that shall con- 
 sume the world, is "the place of the most excellent feet." The Grand 
 Lama of the Boodhists is saluted as "the most excellent feet," 
 and the Emperor of Ava as " the golden feet." The common word 
 ;patam ending the names of Indian cities appears to mean *' feet ;" 
 the British Museum contains a gigantic gilded foot of Buddha, 
 the sole of which is divided into compartments, and covered with 
 mystical figures. So we read in the Jewish tract, Uoio beautiful 
 upon the mountains, are the feet of him whohringeth good tidings, who 
 puhlisheth peace ; whohringeth good tidings of good ; who puhlisheth 
 salvation [that is a Messenger], Is. lii. 7. So in the Apocalypse, we 
 read, And his feeticere like smelting brass when it burnetii brightly 
 in a furnace of fire. Hence Hercules, which I have already shewn,, 
 was a name for the Messiah, was known by his, foot — Ex peda 
 Hercules. And oracles were given from a sacred patera or seat» 
 called a ^ripocZ— the three signifying the All, and the beautiful 
 feet their celestial character. So it was by the gliding motion 
 that the gods and goddesses of old mythology were always known. 
 The Menu-Taur, and the Bulls of Colchis, solar emblems, that ia 
 types of the Messiahs, had brazen feet^ and breathed celestial fires, 
 from their nostrils, 
 
 • iNote 3^ (p. 77) '—Is not this the p}»J Aven or Ann, the Sun, indi- 
 cating that the Naros was the secret of the Sun ? And have we 
 not it also in the Gothic, Rona, a ISIystery, a counsel xchose soul is 
 secrecy ? This is the Naros transposed. Awen, in the Cymric, is a 
 River, like Nara, as before mentioned. IK, Ann, the Sun must 
 
NOTES TO BOOK I. 109 
 
 not be confounded witb QJ^, Cm, God ; the latter was the Supreme 
 Lord. The former was the Holy Spirit of God, and sometimes 
 the Divine Messenger, symbolized as usual by the Sun. This Aim 
 in time grew to signify heaven, and when pronounced according 
 to the Masoretic punctuation, Aven, it is nothing more than our 
 English haven (rest) and heaven. Faber, speaking of the calves 
 of Jeroboam, says, that they were in theii' use and application 
 designed to he tJie images of the two sacred Bulls, which were living 
 represoitations of Osiris (God) and Isis {the Holy Spiiit). Poti- 
 pherah was a high priest of On, or Aun, and there was a magnifi- 
 cent Heliopolis, or City of the Sun in most of the great ancient 
 empires. Babel-On is an instance. On, Un, An, says Drum- 
 mond, in the ancient oriental languages, signified the Sun ; On a, 
 Una, Ana, the Moon. Ana, in Shanscreet means Mother. Hence 
 the Hebrew Hosanna, and the Latin Anna Perenna. 
 
 Note 33 (p. 79). — This suggestion of the supernatural was of 
 course caught at and improved by the Papists. When the Comicil 
 of Nice was convened to decide what books of the Jews were and 
 were not canonical, we arc informed that the bishops there assem- 
 bled were by a very extraordinary miracle convinced which were 
 inspired and which were apocryphal books after this manner. 
 Having put all the books that laid claim to inspiration under 
 the communion table in a church, they prayed to God that those 
 which were not apocryphal might be found above or upon the 
 table, and those which were apocryphal might be found under, 
 and accordingly as they prayed it came to pass ! ! 
 
 Note 34 (p. 79).— The later Jews, says Cunteus (tZe Rep. Ehr. iii. 4) 
 were so incensed and grieved that the Bible was translated into 
 Greek at the request of Ptolemy Philadelphus, that they had a pub- 
 lic fast for it on the eighth day of Theuth. Whence it is easy to see 
 what care or desire such men, who could bear so much malice 
 and hatred to any men whatever, would have to instruct and re- 
 form the heathens, when their sole desire and business was to 
 prevent their coming to the knowledge of anything right and 
 good. 
 
 Note 35 (p.82). — The falsehood of priestsyfhen they wish to decry a 
 creed opposed to their own is without parallel. Thus Eabbi Solomon 
 Jarchi, describiug the worship of Baal-Peor, says; Eo quod dist^n- 
 debant coram Ulo foramen podicis, et stercus offerehant. As if any- 
 one but a Rabbi could allege that this was meant for worship, and 
 anyone but an idiot could believe it. We shall soon hear it said 
 that those reverend clergymen who administered the Eucharist to 
 
110 NOTES TO BOOK I. 
 
 the donkey at Oxford simply did it in commemoration of tlie 
 Last Supper. One of the venerated fathers of the Church, 
 Jerom, whom Rome has made a saint, invents a nearly similar 
 tale. In his Commentary on Isaiah, lib. xi, he says ; Taceam de 
 formidoloso et horribili cepe, et crepitu ventris inflati quce Pelu- 
 siaca religio est ! 
 
 ]Srote36(p. 87).— This is the Titan Porphyrion (the Scarlet), 
 •who waged war with God, and was bound down in the infernal. 
 
 Note 37 (p. 93).— This was the Heavenly Eagle of Fohi : Ababil 
 among the Arabs had the same mystic signification. By the ancient 
 Irish the Holy Spirit was adored as Chri-Om-Ruach — the Spirit of 
 the Sun-God, Om ; and in the temples erected to Her, she was sur- 
 rounded by twelve gods, who were the twelve Incarnations. Her 
 image was of pure gold — theirs was of silver. Ham. Om. Qpf 
 Heat, Fire, Black; Latin, Amo. The Japanese Supreme God, is 
 called Cami, Shanscr., Cama, the god of love. Cham, Chemmis, 
 Chamnia, a name of Diana, all come from these roots. Q^ Am, 
 a mother and Am, says Festus, prsepositio loquelaris significat 
 clrcum. The ancients said am urhem, for circum urbem, and the 
 like. Mamma, Amo, I love, Aum, and Om, God, is Om-n-Is, the 
 AU. Amir, ")*0J^ ^ branch: hence Arabic, JSmir, or branch 
 from the Lord of all. The word Om is always prefixed in pro- 
 nouncing the words which represent the superior seven worlds, as if 
 to show that these seven worlds are manifestations of the power 
 signified by that word. In an old Purana we read ; All the rites 
 ordained in the Vedas, the sacrifices to the Fire, and all other 
 solemn purifications shall pass away : but that which shall never 
 pass away is the word Om, for it is the symbol of the Lord of all 
 things. This Hindu word, will be found in the celebrated 
 Greek noun OfJi(jir), which signifies a Divine Voice ; an answer 
 given by the Deity to him who considts. ^yj or fpi is the root of 
 (jiao), 1 speak, and I shine. In the Hebrew, ^?7ie j^Q ov j^hi, *>i^ 
 is a noun in regimine, and means an opening, a mouth, a measure 
 of capacity. Thus the literal meaning will be the mouth, or the 
 opening of Om. This is not far from the Divine Voice of the 
 Greek. Hesychius and Suidas interpret the word o//,^, to be the 
 sacred voice, the holy sound : and hence cornea OyU<^aAos, a navel, 
 which was a name given to Delphi. But Delphi has the same 
 meaning as Yoni. OfxcfiaXos, or phallus means the generative 
 power of Om. Bacchus was called Om-Esta, and Om-Adios, or 
 the holy son of Om. Om also means a circle, or cycle ; hence 
 am-bire, ambages, circum. In the Irish lom, Uim, Aim, is a 
 cycle, a period, the globe of the earth. Arabic A em is years. 
 
NOTES TO BOOK I. Ill 
 
 Note upox Os. 
 
 On, Eon, Ann, ]^^. The Sim. Copt. On. p7J^ Al-On the 
 oak— the Sungod. ]J7 On is sheep : Al Qiizwini says it is the 
 star Agndm. Helio-Polis was the City of On. Hence Ham, 
 who was worshipped as the Sun, got the name of Am-Oa, and was 
 styled Baal-Hammon. El was sometimes joined, and it became 
 El-On ; other peoples went farther, and added Ab-El-Eon, which 
 is Pater Summus Sol. Vossius thinks that this is the original of 
 Apollo. It was sometimes made Ab-Ad-On. Ani t^J^ is a 
 ship, and the Sim was the Ship of the Heavens. Am On, pQj^ 
 also means an Artificer, Artifex Mundi. Amnis, a river, is de- 
 rived from it. Labitur et Idbetur in ovine volubilis cevum. Still 
 glides along, and ^vill for ever glide. The inhabitants of Helio- 
 polis worshipped the God Genn^eus in the form of a Lion— a lion 
 of the sun. Was this God the same as Janus ? Strabo calls 
 the temple of Jupiter Ammon, 'Ic/ooi/ Ojxavov : but is not this 
 Ham pn '^^ ^^> *°^ Aun? It was from a priest of On, 
 Oenuphis, that Pythagoras learned the true system of the heavenly 
 bodies moving round the Sun in unceasing motion. But how 
 comes On to mean the generative principle ? It is a part of Yoni : 
 it is 12-01/, the egg, the Mundane Egg. It is the neuter of the 
 Greek pronoun 6s, meaning existence, which always carried along 
 with it the idea of destruction, and necessarily of reproduction, 
 that is the Generative Principle ; and I-ov is the On of I, and I, 
 the Jod, is ten, the perfect number, the number of the Ten 
 Spheres, or orders of existence. The Kal On, or Beautiful of 
 the Platonists, was the Hindu Holy Spirit Cali, and On, 
 blended together, and thus constituting all that was Divine. 
 The On-I-On, on account of the similarity of its coats to the 
 planetary spheres, and as a type of the everlasting renewal 
 of ages, was called, from Ijeing sacred to the Father of Ages, 
 anavwv^ onion. Heaven, says Boethius on Porphyry, is referred 
 to the most ancient OpMon, who has no beginning. But this 
 Ophion is the same as the Orphic Dragon, and it is o<^tov, the 
 Serpent and the Yoni, or On himself in the Shekinah, when he is 
 creative. It was a mystic name for the Apocalypse. Elion enters 
 into the construction of many words thought to be Greek, as Pyg- 
 malion, which is tV^ j;^ y\^ rent from the Most Uigh God. 
 Pygmalion, like Prometheus, was a sculptor, and Venus (the Holy 
 Spirit) animated one of his statues, as Minerva did those of 
 Prometheus, with celestial fire. Another cognate of this radical 
 is lin, \'^, Wine; Gr., olvos: Lat., Vinum; Ital. and Span., Vino; 
 
112 NOTES TO BOOK I. 
 
 Fr., Vin; Celt., Gwin ; Cimbr., Vien ; Gothic, Vein; Old Germ., 
 Uain ; Danish, Vien ; Dutch, Wiin; Saxon, Fin; and Engl., Wine 
 and Vine. But this wine has a mystical relation to H^V 
 Yoneh, the Dove, the Holy Spirit, which, as Parkhurst says, 
 is used in a ^lasslve sense, while the Creator Lord is the active 
 power. "Wine, therefore, and the Holy Spirit, are in reality 
 but one word or root in the primitive language; hence Truth, her 
 essence, is spiritually called ivine, and sometimes blood, for wine 
 is the blood of the grape ; and hence also the remarkable part 
 which wine plays in the Old Testament and the New. A careful 
 consideration of these two curious synonyms will help the reader 
 through many difficulties in theology. We find another cog- 
 nate also in Canaan, 1>f^3 anciently pronounced Cnaan. Sanco- 
 niatho says that Isiris was the brother to Cna. Hence Canaan 
 means Sun-worshipper. Kin 1>^ is Nature, the Mother and 
 Directress of all. Hence the Kann, or Diana of the Etruscans, 
 and the Kiiin, ]VD or round cross cakes, in honour of the 
 Queen of Heaven. Juno was named Kiun. Apollo Cunnius con- 
 veys the same idea ; hence Kvveiv 7rpo(TKvv€Lv, Trpoa-Kvvqa-LSy 
 adoration. Diodorus Siculus calls the Sun-God of Egypt, Kan ; 
 and Colonel Tod has remarked that the Lotus is equally sacred to 
 the Egyptian deity, Kan, and the Hindu goddess Kaniya, or 
 Venus, as well as to Crishna or Apollo. The Canaanites built 
 tem-ples to Herm, QIH *^^^ Projector. Professor Wilson speaks 
 of a Pandaean dynasty of kings, ending with Guna Pandya. This 
 is identical with the Pand-ion of Greece, and the Apollo Cunnius, or 
 Vvvrj. In the Hebrew gn, p is Garden, and so metaphori- 
 rically a AVoman. Hence Paradise, the Garden of Delight. 
 The Greek word ivvr] a bed, and the English word honey, are 
 forms of this word : it also signifies an anclior a mystical 
 sacred symbol N^ of the Triune All. Ken, ]'r\'2 oi" Cohen, means 
 Priest : hence Khan, and King, impersonations of power and 
 wisdom. In early times the Priest was usually the Prince. 
 Rex Anius, rex idem hominum, Phcehique sacerdos. — ^^neia 
 iii., 80. We find it compounded with Athoth, as Can- 
 Athoth, Can-Osiris, Can-Ophis. The Egyptian Hercules was 
 called Con. Genesis calls God Konah, "^yp xiv., 19. Ur- 
 chan and Orchan were names of the God of Fire. Cuno- 
 Belinus, the Apollo of Britain, was male and female. Chan, 
 Chon, Chen, ]n<D -^ priest ; and from the union of the regal, 
 with the sacerdotal character, Tai*t., Khan; Germ,, Koning; 
 Angl. King, Queen; Chandra, the Moon in Shanscreet; Cann 
 in Irish is the Moon; Gr., p;X"^/ Lat., machina, machina 
 
NOTES TO BOOK I. 113 
 
 mimdi, Lucr., v. 97. Chn aud Aph are found in Cncph, of 
 which Phitarch says that it meant the All-Good, without be- 
 ginning, without end. This is the Irish Cnaimh, or Cnaiv, 
 the Great winged One. The Phoenicians had the same idea. 
 Zus hu Asphira (says Sanconiathon) acranitha meni arits chnia. 
 Jupiter is a feigned sphere : from it is produced a Serpent, 
 Asphira hu chial iVAlha dilh la strura ula shuhna. The Sphere 
 shews the divine nature to be without beginning or end. Last 
 of all is the affinity with this nvlical of Yuneh, Yoneh, Juneh, 
 Jonah, HjV a Dove. Shanscr. Yoni. Vocula hoec Indica 
 valet natura muUehris, Brachmanni fingunt to Yo7ii interdilu- 
 vium formam columbse induisse. Abiyonah H^ViD^^ mentioned 
 once only in the 0. T. {Eccles. xii.. 5), and there translated 
 desire, really means the father of the Yoni. In the Maya 
 language, one of the most ancient of which there is any record, 
 yecunah means love. 
 
 Note upon Asa. 
 
 -A-sa, ^'C't^ Physician. Ees and Is always had relation to 
 Light and Fire. Pers., Azur, fire ; Aziz, lightning, which is the 
 same as Isis. Ceres was called Azazia, and by the lonians, Az- 
 E-sia : this became Hesus, Zesus, and Jesus. Jezabel, so called 
 from Aza-Bel, for all the Sidonian names are compounds of sacred 
 terms. El-Ees became -Elysium. Aa-El became the Etruscan 
 Sol. Ash {^{i^ is lire; Ecrrta Vesta ; Lat., asso, to roast; Engl., 
 ashes ; aXs the sea ; Eesel, a title of Mithras. The Asas was a 
 Scandinavian title for the Gods. The As Soors are Indian deities 
 The Arabic Az and Azar implies a high degree of excellence and 
 power. Azoz was one of the Syrian Trimurti. Eeswar is a Hindu 
 divinity. Ais, Eis, Ois, Ease, a cycle; whence Eas, Ease, the 
 Moon (Irish), Ais-beis, Ois-beis, an epicycle, Aision, a cro\vTi, are 
 evidently of Chaldajan origin. Chaldee p^*^ hizak, annulus. 
 Egyptian, Oeish, a period, a round of time, whence Isis, the 
 cyclic moon. Egyptian, loch, the moon. vSyr., Asan, a crown ; 
 hence the Persian Magi were called Ostaues, or doctors, that 
 is, learned in cycles (Suidas). Ish tt^> and Ishis t£^^ti^>, very 
 old or ancient, whence Isis, and Ice, or water in a state of 
 purity and solidity. Ishing, the Chinese Husheng, Isho 
 y^> salvation, and the Saviour : also the Cup of Salvation. 
 But how came this word into China ? It is a primitive radical. 
 With this radical also are connected An-ait ; An ais means a 
 Fountain of Fire. This is Esta and Vesta ; virgins consecrated 
 
114 NOTES TO BOOK I. 
 
 themselves to Hestia, Lat. ^stas, ^^stiis, Aestuo : hence also the 
 Gaulish Mars, Esus, ^sus, Hesus, Hesar and Cassar. Zaz, Zazil, 
 Mayan, light and lightning, Niebuhr speaks of some very- 
 ancient Latin coins called ases, without inscriptions, which have 
 the head of a young man on one side wearing a Phrygian 
 bonnet, and on the reverse a wheel ^mth six spokes. This is the 
 revolving cycle of 600, and the bonnet, or mitre, signifies that 
 it was sacred. In the Etruscan, ^sar meant God and the 
 Sun. Bacchus was called IH2. In the Gothic, As, Aes, Aesus 
 is the name of Odin. Izar is ^"^^j iasm-, he formed. Oz-Uz 
 is exceeding strong: and the Syriac AzAz-Os, and the Arabic 
 Az-Eez, excellent, precious. In the Arabic Az, and Azar, 
 always implies excellence and superiority. In the Hindustanee, 
 God is called Eashoor, Esur, Iswur ; in the Shanscreet, Eswara ; 
 in the Arabic Usar, the All-beholding God. In Egyptian it is 
 Oshiris. In the Irish the Messiah is called losa, and Esa ; in 
 the Arabic, Issa. In the language of the Yezeedis, Yezdan 
 means God. God, says Bochart, was called Al-On by the 
 Carthagenians, but the Etruscans gave him the name of ^sar. 
 This word is of Syrian and Phoenician origin. Asar, or Asara, 
 was one of the Gods adored by the idolatrous Jews : and the 
 name of this idol was derived from Hlti^X ^^^vra, which 
 signifies a grove. Hence Rabbi Kimchi tells us — every wooden 
 idol was barbarously called Ashra. In another place he says, 
 Et fuit AsarcB clomus et locus et expositio ejus est, quod mu- 
 Ueres ibi sedentes, solicits qucerehant et expectabant Asaram 
 — that is, waited for a Eedeemer, a Messiah. The old Egyp- 
 tian word for a Bull was ^01 Asi. In Coptic Xa^O^I 
 hahsi, signifies a cow, and U ^CI masi, a bull ; but ?n, is only the 
 usual and ancient prefix. This brdl is the Solar splendour. 
 Aesar was the name also of one of the ancient Irish gods ; the literal 
 meaning of the word is "to kindle a fire." In the Hebrew ^*J^ 
 aza, means to illuminate. ^ti?i^ aslia, is Fire. In the Shans- 
 creet, Osch^ or Asch, is Fire, or Heat ; and the Egyptian word 
 Osiris, has been by Schelliug thought to be compounded of the 
 two primitives t£^^{^ aish ")Q{»^ asi\ or a Fire-Enchanter. 
 Aesar, in the old Etruscan, meant a God. The Aeswar or Isioara 
 of the Hindus is analogous. In the Baghavad-Geeta we read ; 
 Aesicar resides in every mortal being, and puts in movement, 
 by his supernatural powers, all things which mount on the v/heel 
 of time. As Fire was supposed to be the first Principle it was 
 also supposed, by a peculiar refinement, to be the destroyer, 
 
NOTES TO BOOK I, 115 
 
 whence arose the idea of the Creator and Destroyer being identi- 
 fietl. The primitive Fire was supposed to have an insatiable 
 appetite for devouring. Maximus of Tyre relates that the ancient 
 Persians threw into the fire combustible matters, crying. Devour, 
 Lord ! In the Irish language easam, or asam, signifies to make, 
 or create. It would not be difficult to shew the universality of 
 these analogies and allusions. 
 
 Note upon Car. 
 
 Car, Cur, Chri, Cor, Sar, Sir. ^HiJ illH ^W- The 
 Sun; Zend, Khoro; Hur, Ahuro; Shanscr., Surya; Gr., '2€Lpo<s., 
 2€i/)ios. The Druidical Crios is the Sun. ^PT ^^^', ^ ^^le 
 through which white light appears. Kur ^^ Lambs. Koresh, 
 l^"T^ Cyrus, the Sun; Gr. Kvpios-, a lord. The Lord's anointed. 
 — Isaiah xlv., 1. Cor, the heart. Gael, coir, genitive choir, a 
 space of ground enclosed on all sides. Gor is a circle. Proserpine 
 was called pre-eminently Korh, the Virgin-daughter. Ceres, 
 ^pr)(TTo<s, the Mild, the Evangelist, and "Kprja-rr]'^, the Prophet, 
 are forms of this root ; it subsequently became X/oiaTos, the 
 Anointed, the surname given to Jesus. Xp?;?, is a good Genius, 
 one who confers benefits. Chrishna, is the Indian Messiah. 
 Hrsh ti^*in is the solar fire. Vulcan, and Jupiter also, was 
 called Cliry-sa-Or. Crcas, Creasna, Chores, Creeshna, Cur, Cores, 
 and Kuros, says Alwood, all mean the Sun. It is from the 
 Ceres, or X/jt^?, that the Christians have got their custom of burn- 
 ing candles before their crucifixes and images, and of carrying 
 them in their processions. Ceres was called Tcedi/cra. Qiios ciim 
 Tcedifcrd nunc Iiahet ille Ded. — Ov. Fast. iii. And, Et 2>er Tcedi- 
 feroi mystica sacra Deot. — Ov. Epist. ii., 42. Axio-Kersa, a 
 name of Ceres, comes from this root. Pythagoras's School of 
 Wisdom was held at Creston. The ancient Romans, copying the 
 Etruscans, celebrated a feast called Charistia, on a day sacred to 
 Concord and the Loves, and in love and harmony they finished 
 the old year, and began the new. A similar feast was in use 
 among the Celtic Druids. Hence the Eu-Charist. In Hebrew, the 
 feast was called qum, D1P> from which comes Communion. Fr. 
 Chretien, a Christian : Crete, a holy island. In India, Lakshmi 
 is called Chri. Keren, ]^p, a horn, or emblem of j)ower ; in 
 Japanese the Phccnix, Gr. KepaS. Gerenios, applied to Nestor, 
 is an Ammonian title, and signifies a princely and venerable 
 person. The Egyptian Crane, for its great services, was held in 
 
116 NOTES TO BOOK I, 
 
 high estimation, being sacred to the God of Light, Ab-Is, 
 ti^^^ D^j or, as the Greeks expressed it. Ibis— hence its 
 name. Apollo was named Craneiis and Carneiis, which was no 
 other than Cereneiis, the Lord of light, and his festival was styled 
 Camea. The priest of Cybele, in Phrygia was styled Carnas. 
 Cuaran, Cnruinne, Cru-inne (Irish), a cycle, sphere, globe ; Chald. 
 P^ caran ; Arabic, Krun, a sphere. Qu£ere — If Chronus does 
 not derive from this word : as Saturn (a name of the Sun) does 
 from the Satham (cycle) of the Druids ? 
 
 Note upon Argha. 
 The reader of this Volume, and of such as may follow, must 
 bear religiously in mind, that the words Argha, Lotus, Shekinah, 
 Theocrasia, Yuneh, &c., are symbolical : they are not things but 
 ideas, which, without these terms would be unintelligible. I feel 
 obliged to state this, because there are malignant, sensual, and 
 guilty spirits, who out of Truth and Purity themselves extract 
 the very opposite. The poverty of all languages forces those who 
 use them, to adopt phrases which are felt to be inadequate to the 
 idea intended. Thus, when the Hindu uses the word Lotus, he 
 does not mean the flower simply ; but some Transcendent Presence 
 with the fragrance and beauty of a thousand heavens mingled into 
 one : he designates this for brevity's sake by the most beautiful 
 flower in his beautiful land. So the Hebrew by the word Sheki- 
 nah means a hlaze of glory ; and with this, God is said to be sur- 
 rounded when He creates. But these divine ideas may be tortured 
 by the wicked into a gross or physical meaning ; and from this I 
 wish to guard all my readers. God is not a man, nor does He do 
 as a man. Nevertheless we are obliged to speak of Him as the 
 Male Principle. Bishop Warburton alluding to this, calls it 
 magjium et pavendvm mysterium, a great and fearful mystery, and 
 it is so. Let no man therefore presume to profane it, or put upon 
 my words constructions which 1 abhor. In the heaven-worlds all 
 is purity, of the purest nature ; and he who thinks or would teach 
 otherwise, is unable to comprehend what Beauty is. 
 
€f)t 3Boofe of (goi. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 1. That men possessed of such supreme intelligence, as 
 the ancients, drawn from the very highest and purest 
 sources, should have accomplished great works on earth, 
 and exercised a transcendent influence over their fellows, 
 seems but naturally to follow, and they certainly suc- 
 ceeded in accomplishing both. They sent forth colonies 
 all over the world ; and over these colonies they placed 
 priests to whom they imparted their science ; they estab- 
 lished an Univei-sal Church with a hiei-archy like that of 
 Tibet, Benares, or Rome } traces of which even now are as 
 univei'sally discovered ; so much so that it may be said 
 with truth, that nearly all existing creeds are but off- 
 shoots and modifications of that pure primeval mono- 
 theism, which God himself founded through their instru- 
 mentality, and which He has preserved to the present 
 moment by the medium of His Messengers. So widely 
 
118 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 was their dominion diffused that in Europe alone, the 
 French Institute in 1804, found that there were 127 
 towns, which had anciently been in part at least Cyclo- 
 pean, that is, reared by the Gnostic priests, or Cyclopes, 
 the sons of tlie Cycle : who were fabled to be one-eyed, (1) 
 because they were pure Monotheists; and to be the 
 sons of Yulcan, because he, as has been shewn, was a 
 name and symbol of the Fire-Messenger. They possessed 
 powers of machinery to which modern skill is unequal ; 
 though modern vanity has excused itself by saying that 
 these were the works of " hundred- handed Giants." (2.) 
 The Druidical circles, cromleachs, cairns, altars (called in 
 Wales, Minnu-geyr, or seats of Mah-Nuh) Tolmen, Towers, 
 Salsette, Elephanta, Flora, Carnak, &c., are the work of 
 these gigantic engineers (3). They used neither mortar 
 nor cement, nor steel, nor iron to cut the stones with ; 
 and yet they were so artificially wrought that in many 
 places the joints are hardly seen, though many of the 
 stones, as in Peru, are 38 feet long, 18 feet broad, and 6 
 feet thick, and in the wall of the fortress of Cusco, there 
 are stones of a still greater size. {Acosta, vi. 14.) The 
 well of Syene made 5400 years ago, when that spot was 
 exactly under the tropic, which it has now ceased to be, 
 was also one of their works of wonder. It was so con- 
 structed, that at noon, at the precise moment of the sum- 
 mer solstice, the entire disk of the sun was seen reflected 
 on its surface — a work which the united skill of all the 
 astronomers in Europe, would not now be able to effect. 
 
 2. By what means, asks Maurice, was it possible for 
 such ponderous stones, as, for instance, those that crown 
 the summit of the grand portal of Chilambrum, forty feet' 
 long and five broad, to be raised to the altitude of 122 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 119 
 
 feet, but by the aid of geometiy joined to mechanics ? 
 From what other source has it arisen that the amazinjr 
 colossal cai-ved work and images in Salsette and Elephanta, 
 are executed according to the rules of such just propor- 
 tion, as they are i^epresented to be by Mr. Hunter and 
 others, and that such lofty columns richly adorned with 
 mythological sculptures are seen elevated, to a vast height 
 in eveiy province of Hindostan 1 Hist, of Hindostmi, i, 
 489. One of these astonishing structures still in part 
 exists in our own land. Mr. Waltii-e, says Higgins, 
 thought this temple (Stonehenge) had been constructed for 
 several uses : that it was peculiarly well contrived for the 
 performance of secret rites which were practised in early 
 times — as, if a person stood without, he could not see 
 anything that was done in the centre, provided the en- 
 trance were closed, as it might be very effectually by 
 three persons standing before it. If a pei'son st<?od on 
 the large stone or altar, within the inner cui^'e, which is 
 a parabola and not an ellipse, he might be heai'd when 
 si)eaking by all within the temple. Another use for 
 which he thought this structure had been erected was 
 that of making astronomical obsei*vations on the heavenly 
 bodies. By careful observations made on the spot, Mr. 
 W., found that the barrows or tumuli surrounding this 
 temple accurately represented the situation and magnitude 
 of the fixed stai-s, forming a correct and complete plani- 
 s})here, [or on*ery]. Eight hundred only can be seen by 
 the unassisted eye, but he thought he traced fifteen hun- 
 dred, the smaller representing stars too minute to be 
 observed without some instrument similar to a telescope ; 
 and that there are some other proofs of the occupiers of 
 this stmcture having ix)ssessed something answering to 
 
120 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 our reflecting telescope. He thought he could prove that 
 other harrows registered all the eclipses which had taken 
 place within a certain number of years ; that the trili- 
 thons are registers of the transits of Mercury and Venus ; 
 the meridian line had then been even with the avenue or 
 approach by the grand entrance and the altar stone within 
 the innermost curve, but which is now removed seventy- 
 five degrees from it. Celtic Druids, xviii. (4). 
 
 3. How early the Chaldseans began to cultivate astro- 
 nomy is recorded by Porphyry from Aristotle, who relates 
 that when Alexander was in Babylon, Calisthenes on en- 
 quiring of the Chaldsean Priests of Bel, found that they had 
 a series of astronomical observations, extending back for 
 a period of 1903 years, written, or rather 'engraved on 
 tiles or bricks. But we advance far beyond all this, says 
 Bailly, in his Ilistoire de r Astronomic Ancienne, sect. 
 xiii., and think it by no means improbable, that the most 
 celebrated discovery of our own time, namely, the true 
 measurement of the earth, was ascertained in those far 
 remote ages. A veiy strong proof leads us to this opinion. 
 Aristotle {De CcgIo. lib. ii.) relates that in his time, ma- 
 thematicians reckoned a degree at 1111 stades, and the 
 circumference of the earth at 400,000. The learned are 
 agreed that by these stades was not meant either the Greek 
 or Alexandrine stadium : the lesser of which would give 
 a measurement nearly double that of the real circumfer- 
 ence of our globe. I have ascertained the true value of 
 the stadium to which Aristotle alludes, and I find it to 
 be as near as possible to tlie degree of our own a^i-a, 
 namely 57066 toises: an approximation remarkably sin- 
 gular if it belong to those primal ages. How know >ve 
 to what point of perfection, Astronomy was then carried 1 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 121 
 
 We can only gather our ideas from detached and fragmen- 
 tary facts : but the whole, the combination of those fact 
 has escaped us, and it is this which constitutes true know 
 ledge. The vantage ground on which we stand at present, 
 in composing a history of Astronomy, is the large collec- 
 tion of scientific facts which we now have, and the power 
 of weighing probabilities, or assimilations to those facts, 
 when evidences fail us. This measurement, is not there- 
 fore the work of those Greeks who preceded Aristotle : 
 this we may be assured of for a strange, but, nevertheless, 
 true reason, because it is exact. The Chinese and Chal- 
 daeans made but a rough guess at the tiiie measurement. 
 To whom then are we to attribute it, but to an unknown 
 ancient people ? But how could this people remain un- 
 known, if they had been cotemporaneous with the Indians 
 and Chaldseans ; or how is it that their renown in philo- 
 losophy and science has not come down to our own times 1 
 It can in no way be accounted for but by supposing them 
 to be before both the Indians and Chalda?ans. And the 
 measurement spoken of by Aristotle must have either 
 reached him from the Orient through Callisthenes, toge- 
 ther with the records of the Babylonian Observatory, or 
 it must have come to him through some Chaldwan me- 
 dium : and this nation which knew of it so accurately, 
 must have derived it from some elder people [the Atlan- 
 teans] which eclipsed all others in science. To which 
 obsei-vation may be added the following fact ; — that the 
 septennial cycle or the week, the days of which were 
 dedicated to the planets by the Chinese, the Indians, the 
 Ethiopians, the ancient and modern Europeans, not in any 
 order regulated by the distancSy or tJie size, or the brilliancy 
 oftJiem, but arbitrarily, area furtherproof of one uniform 
 
 G 
 
123^ THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 system of religious astronomy, prevailing at one time 
 among a most powerful people : and tlie possession of a 
 scientific knowledge also of the order of the heavens, 
 which, modem ages are always claiming for themselves, 
 but as we have seen, without ejnj good reason. This 
 ancient lost people were the people of the great island- 
 continent Atlantis, which was destroyed by a deluge ; and 
 in which the pontifical empire of Enoch, the second Mes- 
 senger of God, and the first and greatest of astronomers, 
 was established, and where it long flourished. From them 
 came all the ancient astronomical knowledge (5). 
 
 4. In Siberia, says Bailly, under the 50th degree, and 
 between longitude 80 to 130, are found the vestiges of 
 a civilized people ; the ruins of many cities once flour- 
 ishing ; manuscripts on silver paper, in characters of Chi- 
 nese ink, in gold and silver ; pp^amids which are tomb- 
 stones for the dead, and inscriptions in a language that is 
 unknown : figures of men and animals, in gold, in silver 
 and in bronze. The human figures bear a remarkable 
 resemblance to the gods of India. M. D'Anville remarks 
 that Serica, the tov/n called Sera Metropolis, was the resi- 
 dence of kings who had governed a people by whom the 
 sciences had been cultivated ; and who are mentioned in 
 Chinese history under the name of Hoei-he {Geographie 
 ancienney ii. 326). Serica is in fact that part of Tartary in 
 which Selingiskoi is found. I have remarked that in this 
 locality, Indian idols have been discovered : the Indians 
 themselves have a tradition, of which they do not know 
 the true meaning. This tradition, which embraces the 
 exact knowledge of the movement of the stars, coupled 
 with that of the period of 180 years, which has never, 
 been used by any other people than the Tartars, seems to 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 123 
 
 demonstrate that the latter people departing from the North 
 of Asia carried with them traditions of which they did 
 not really know the exact bearing or sense. It was in 
 this region that the twenty-four Boodhoos or Ancients 
 promulgated their doctrines, and prepared mankind for 
 the advent of the First Messenger : but it was not in this 
 region, but in. the lost Atlantis, that astronomical science 
 reached its culminating excellence. 
 
 5. One of the most remarkable of modern scientific 
 instruments, the orrery, appears to have been a very old 
 invention. Landseer, in his Sahcean Researches f has she^vn 
 that the word rT*l^'X A-shre^ rendered Groves^ in our trans- 
 lation of the Old Testament, means a kind of orrery, or 
 armillary machine made for purposes of divination : and 
 supposes them probably to have been about the height of 
 a man, with small balls branching off cui-vedly from the 
 sustaining rod or axis : and referring to 2 Kings xxi., he 
 says : The Sabsean Ashre appears to have been erected 
 within the precincts of the Temple, where the altars also 
 were built; but besides these perhaps immoveable armillary 
 machines, which for the purpose of divination, Manasseh 
 had constructed in the courts of the Temple, he had 
 also a small copy, or graven image of the Ashre within 
 — doubtless to assist in the celebration of those Sabaean 
 rites, which were performed during his idolatrous reign, 
 and which are described by Ezekiel, For there can be 
 no reasonable doubt, that the idolatries which this writer 
 saw on. the banks of the Chebar, were those with which the 
 Temple at Jerusalem had really been polluted. It is cer- 
 tain that the word translated " gi'oves," cannot always be 
 interpreted to mean a grove of trees : since we read of 
 setting up groves under every green tree (2 Kings xvii; 8), 
 
 G 2 
 
124 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 nor alvrays strictly designated an image, for we also read 
 that the people made them molten images, and made a 
 grove, and worsliipped all the host of heaven, and used 
 divination (v. 16). See also Judges vi. 25, 2 Kings :K.-K.i\i. 
 4. Hence Selden supposes the term was used for the 
 images worshipped in the groves, especially Ashtarte or 
 Venus. I have no doubt that the Ashre were orreries, and 
 that for purposes of astrology they were always used in 
 the Temples, and groves, near the images of the gods. 
 These images were either molten, or were trees themselves. 
 Dr. Gloster Eidley says : Trees were the original temples 
 of the gods : they were also the symbols or images of 
 them : and their several attributes were expressed by 
 several trees which were perpetually appropriated to their 
 respective deities, and called by their names : and there- 
 fore addressed and appealed to, as if they had themselves 
 the attributes and powers of their Prototypes, to hear 
 the covenants made in their presence and to punish the 
 violators of them. We are told in the Chinese annals that 
 the Emperor Yu, son of Shun, who reigned in the 23d 
 century before Jesus, invented a great sphere of gold, set 
 with jewels, exhibiting the earth and revolving planets, as 
 far as their revolutions were at that time known. On 
 this sphere the planets were represented by jewels that 
 corresponded to them in colour ; and this doubtless was 
 an orrery. 
 
 6. In the study of the history of mankind, says Hum- 
 boldt, Researches, i. 147, as in that of the immensity of 
 languages spread over the face of the globe, it would be 
 losing ourselves in a labyrinth of conjectures were we not 
 to assign a common origin to so many races and so many , 
 different tongues. The roots of the Shanscrit found in 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 125 
 
 the Persian tongue, the great number of roots of tlie 
 Persian, and even of the Pahlavi, which we discover in 
 the tongues of Germanic origin, give us a right to consi- 
 der the Shanscrit, the Pahlavi, or the ancient language of 
 the Medes, the Persians, and the Germans, as derived 
 from one and the same source. It would no doubt be 
 absurd to suppose the migration of Egyptian colonies, 
 wherever pyramidal monuments and symbolical paintings 
 are found : hut how can we avoid being struck with tlie 
 traces 0/ resemblance offered by the vast picture 0/ manners, 
 of arts, of language and traditions^ which exist at present, 
 among nations at the most remote distances from each 
 other / Why should we hesitate to point out wherever 
 they occur, the analogies of construction in languages, oT 
 style in monuments, and of fictions in cosmogonies, al- 
 though we may be unable to decide what were the secret 
 causes of those resemblances, while no historical fact car- 
 ries us back to the epocha of the communications which 
 existed between the inhabitants of different climates ] 
 * * * Kalm relates in his Travels in America, that 
 Mr. Verandrier had discovered in 1746, in the savannahs 
 of Canada, nine hundred leagues west of Montreal, a. 
 stone tablet fixed in a sculptured pillar and on which 
 were strokes that were taken for a Tartarian inscription. 
 Several Jesuits at Quebec assured the Swedish traveller 
 that they had examined this tablet, which the Chevalier 
 Beauhamois, then governor of Canada, had sent to M. 
 de Maurepas, in France. We cannot but deeply regret 
 having no further knowledge of a monument so interest- 
 ing to the history of man. * * * The Anglo-American 
 antiquaries have made known an inscription which is 
 supposed to be Phoenician, and which is engraved on the 
 
126 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 rocks of Digliton, in. Narraganset Bay, twelve leagues 
 soutb. of Boston, Drawings of this inscription have been 
 repeatedly published from, the end of the 17th century 
 down to the present time by Danforth, Mather, Green- 
 wood, and Sewell. The natives who inhabited these 
 countries, at the time of the first European settlements, 
 possessed an ancient tradition, according to which 
 strangers in loooden houses had sailed up Taunton river, 
 formerly called Assoonet. These strangers after having 
 conquered the red men engraved marks on the rocks, "which 
 are now covered by the waters of the river. Count de 
 Gebelin does not hesitate, with the learned Dr. Stiles, 
 to regard these marks as a Carthaginian inscription. 
 % % it- 1^ jT^Q voyage made by M. Bonpland and 
 myself to ascertain the communication between the rivet's 
 Orinoco and Amazon, we were told of an inscription, 
 which it was assei-ted was found in the chain of granite 
 mountains, that in the seventh degree of latitude ex- 
 tends from the Indian village of Uruana as far as the 
 -western banks of the Caura. A missionary, Ramon 
 Bueno, a Franciscan monk, having accidentally entered 
 a cavern formed by the separation of some ledges of 
 rocks, beheld in the middle of the cave a large block of 
 granite, on which he saw what he believed to be cha- 
 racters formed into various groups, and ranged on the 
 same line. The missionaiy gave me a copy of part of 
 those characters. Some resemblance to the Phoenician 
 alphabet may be discovered in them ; but I much doubt 
 whether the good monk, who seemed to be but little in- 
 terested, had copied it carefully. It is remarkable 'that in 
 this savage and desert country, where P. Bueno found ' 
 letters engraven in granite, are a great number of rocks. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 127 
 
 -which at considerable heights are covered witli figures of 
 animals, representations of the sun, moon, and stars, and 
 other hieroglyphical signs. The natives relate that their 
 ancestors in the time of the Great Waters, came in canoes 
 to the tops of these mountains, and that the stones were 
 then in so plastic a state, that men could trace marks on 
 them with their fingers. This tradition indicates a tribe in a 
 different and infeiior state of civilization from that of 
 those who preceded them, discovering an absolute igno- 
 rance of the use of the chisel and every other mechanical 
 tool. 
 
 7. Payne Knight in his Letters to Sir W. Hamilton 
 (p. 87), thus speaks of the temples which exist in Egypt, and 
 more particularly those very curious ones in the island of 
 Philse, on the borders of Ethiopia, which are probably the 
 most ancient monuments of high ai-t now extant, at least 
 if we except the neighbouring temples of Thebes (G). 
 Both were certainly built when that city was the seat of 
 wealth and empire, which it was even to a proverb during 
 the Trojan war. (11. ix., 381.) How long it had then 
 been so we can form no conjecture, but that it soon after 
 declined, there can be little doubt ; for when the Greeks, 
 in the reign of Psammetichus (generally computed to have 
 been about 530 years after the siege of Troy), first became 
 personally acquainted with the interior parts of that 
 countr}', Memphis had been for many ages its capital, and 
 Thebes was in a manner desei-ted. Homer makes Achilles 
 speak of its immense wealth and grandeur as a matter 
 generally known and acknowledged ; so that it must have 
 been of long established fame even in that remote age. 
 We may therefore fairly conclude that the greatest part 
 of the superb edifices now remaining were executed, or at 
 
128 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 least begun, before that time, many of them being such 
 as could not have been finished, but in a long term of 
 years, even if we suppose the wealth and power of the 
 ancient kings of Egypt to have equalled that of the 
 greatest of the Roman emperors. The finishing of Tra- 
 jan's column in three years has been justly thought a very 
 extraordinary efibrt, for there must have been at least 
 300 good sculptors employed upon itj and yet in the 
 neighbourhood of Thebes we find whole temples of enor- 
 mous magnitude covered with figures carved in the hard 
 and brittle granite of the Libyan mountains, instead of 
 the soft marbles of Paros and Carrara. Travellers, who 
 have visited that country, have given us but imperfect 
 accounts of the manner in which they are finished ; but if 
 one may judge by those upon the obelisk of Rameses, now- 
 lying in fragments at Rome, they are infinitely more 
 laboured than those of Trajan's column. An eminent 
 sculptor, with whom I examined that obelisk, was deci- 
 dedly of opinion that they must have heen finished in the 
 manner of gems with a grf^ving tool, it being impos- 
 sible for a chisel to cut red granite with so much neatness 
 and precision (7.) The age of Rameses is uncertain, 
 but the generality of modern chronologers suppose that 
 he was the same person as Sesostris, and reigned at Thebes 
 about 1,500 years before the Christian era, and about 300 
 before the siege of Troy. Their dates are however merely 
 conjectural, when applied to events of this remote anti- 
 quity. The Egyptian priests of the Augustan age had a 
 tradition which they pretended to confirm by records 
 written in hieroglyphics, that their country had once 
 possessed the dominion of all Asia and Ethiopia, which 
 their king, Ramses, or Rameses, had conquered. {TaciL 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 129 
 
 Annalf ii, 60.) Though this account may be exaggerated, 
 there can be no doubt, from the buildings still remaining, 
 but that they were once at the head of a gi-eat empire ; for 
 all historians agree that they abhorred navigation, had 
 no seaport, and never enjoyed the benefits of foreign com- 
 merce, without which Egypt could have no means of ac- 
 quiring a sufficient quantity of superfluous wealth to 
 erect such expensive monuments unless from tributary 
 provinces, especially if all the lower part of it was an un- 
 cultivated bog, as Herodotus, with great appearance of 
 probability, tells us it anciently was. Yet Homer, who 
 appears to have known all that could be known in his 
 age, and transmitted to posterity all that he knew, seems to 
 have heard nothing of their empire and conquests. These 
 were obliterated and forgotten by the rise of new empii'es ; 
 but the renown of their ancient wealth still continued, 
 and afforded a familiar object of comparison, as that of 
 the Mogul does at this day, though he is become one of 
 the poorest sovereigns in the world. But as far as these 
 Egyptian remains lead us into unknown ages, the sym- 
 bols they contain appear not to have been invented in 
 that countiy, but to have been copied from those of some 
 otiier people still anterior^ who dwelt on the other side 
 of the Erythraean ocean. One of the most obvious of them 
 is the hooded Snake, which is a reptile peculiar to the south- 
 eastern, parts of Asia, but which I found represented 
 with great accuracy upon the obelisk of Rameses, and 
 have also observed frequently rejxjated on the Isiac Table 
 and other symbolic works of the Egyptians. It is also 
 distinguishable among the sculptures on the sacred cavejus 
 of the Island of Elephanta, and appears frequently added 
 as a characteristic symbol to many of the idols of the- 
 
 G 3 
 
130 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 modern Hindus. Among the Egyptians, as before ob- 
 served, the Cow was the symbol of Yenus, the Goddess of 
 Love, and the passive generative power of nature. On 
 the capitals of one of the Temples at Philse we still find 
 the head of this Goddess represented as of a mixed form ; 
 the horns and ears of the cow being joined to the beau- 
 tiful features of a Woman in the prime of life, such as the 
 Greeks attributed to that Yenus, whom they worshipped 
 as the Mother of the prolific God of Love, Cupid, who 
 was the personification of animal desire, or concupiscence, 
 as the Orphic Love, the Father of Gods and Men, was of 
 universal attraction. The Greeks who represented the 
 Mother under the form of a beautiful Woman, naturally 
 represented the son under the form of a beautiful Boy ; 
 but a people who represented the Mother under the form 
 of a cow, would as naturally represent the Son under the 
 form of a calf. This seems to be the case with the Hindus 
 as well as with the Egyptians. 
 
 8. The same learned writer refers to two curious facts, 
 as establishing not only the antiquity of the human race 
 to an extent greater than is vulgarly supposed, but also 
 their wonderful skill in mechanics. Thrace, he says, was 
 certainly inhabited by a civilized nation at some remote 
 period, for when Philip of Macedon opened the gold 
 mines of that country, he found that they had been worked 
 before with great expense and ingenuity by a peoj^le well 
 versed in mechanics, of whom no memorials whatever were 
 then extant. Of these probably was Orpheus, as well as 
 Thamyris, both of whose poems, Plato says, could be read 
 with pleasure in his time. * * ^ * The Cow is in 
 almost all the Hindu pagodas, but the Bull is revered 
 with superior solemnity and devotion. At Tanjour is a 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 13 J 
 
 monument of theii' piety to him, which even ihe inflexible 
 perseverance and habitual industry of the natives of that 
 country could scarcely have erected without greater know- 
 ledge in practical mechanics than they now possess. It 
 is a statue of a Bull lying down, hewn with great accuracy 
 out of a single piece of hard granite, which has been con- 
 veyed by land from the distance of a hundred miles, 
 although its weight in its present rednced state must he at 
 least a hutidred tons. Payne Knight. Letter to Sir W. 
 Hamilton, ^to, London, 1786; in the Pi'ivate Case (21b) 
 at tJie British Museum. 
 
 9. The allusions therefore to high art which are to be 
 found in the Apocalypse will strike no one with surprise. 
 In the 3000 years which had passed previous to the 
 epiphany of the First Messenger, (I pui-posely exclude the 
 additional 200 ; see ante, p. 51), civilization had grown 
 rapidly, and had advanced into states which are popularly 
 called savage. It can hardly be doubted, says the com- 
 piler of Lord Kingsborough's Mexican Aiitiquities, vi., 15, 
 that the Mexicans were acquainted with many scientifical 
 instruments of strange invention as compared with our 
 own : whether the telescope may not have been of the 
 number is uncertain : but the thirteenth plate of M. 
 Dupaix's Monuments, which represents a man holding 
 something of a similar nature to his eye, affords reason 
 for believing that they knew how to improve the powers 
 of vision. For proof, says Parkhui*st, that the circulation 
 of the blood was known to other ancients besides Plato, 
 particularly to Hippocrates, I refer to the learned 
 Dutens' Enquiry, tlhc, part iii., ch. iii. * That the Chal- 
 dreans and Egyptians were better skilled than the Greeks 
 in the severer sciences, says Sir W. Dnimmond (Anti- 
 
132 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 quities of Zodiac, 34), maybe inferred from the occasional, 
 I might say, the frequent admissions of the Greeks them- 
 selves. It may be inferred from the fact that the most 
 distinguished philosophers of Greece went to Memphis, 
 and even to Babylon, to study geometry and astronomy ; 
 and lastly and principally it may be inferred from those 
 fragments of science gathered in part by Thales, Pytha- 
 goras, and Democritus, which seemed once to have be- 
 longed to a mighty system. The difficulty is 2>erhaps to 
 decide when, where, and by whom this system was originally 
 constructed. The fact, however, is certain, that at some 
 remote period there were mathematicians and astronomers 
 who knew that the Sun is in the centre of the planetary 
 system, and that the earth, itself a planet, revolves round 
 the central fire : who calculated, or like ourselves, 
 attempted to calculate, the return of comets, and who 
 knew that these bodies move in elliptic orbits immensely 
 elongated, having the Sun in one of their foci : who indi- 
 cated the number of solar years contained in the great 
 cycle, by multiplying a period (variously called in the 
 Zend, in the Shanscrit, and the Chinese, ven, van, and 
 phen), of 18.0 years by another period of 144 years : who 
 reckoned the Sun's distance from the Earth by a measure- 
 ment equal to 800,000,000 of Olympic stadia, and who 
 must therefore have taken the parallax of that luminary 
 by a method not only much more perfect than that said 
 to have been invented by Hipparchus, but little inferior 
 in exactness to that now in use among the modems : who 
 could scarcely have made a mere guess, when they fixed 
 the moon's distance from its primary planet at 59 semi- 
 diameters of the Earth : who had measured the circum- 
 ference of our globe with so much exactness that their 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 133 
 
 calculation only differed by a few feet from that made by 
 our modern geometricians : who held that the Moon and 
 other planets were worlds like oiu' owd, and that the 
 Moon was diversified by mountains and valleys, and seas : 
 who asserted that there was yet a planet which revolved 
 round the Sun beyond the orbit of Saturn : who reckoned 
 the planets to be sixteen in number, and who calculated 
 the length of the tropical year within three minutes of 
 the true time : nor, indeed, were they wrong at all, if 
 a tradition mentioned by Plutarch be connect. All the 
 authorities for these assertions are stated in my Essay on 
 the Science of the Egyptians and Chaldaeans ; and, there- 
 fore, I think it unnecessary to repeat them here. In the 
 same Essay, chapters 1 and 9, I have shewn that it may 
 be considered as almost certain that the use of the tele- 
 scope and microscope must have been known to the 
 ancient astronomers of Egypt and the East ; and in 
 chapter 9, I have cited a Greek author, who distinctly 
 describes these instruments; but in countries where 
 knowledge was in the hands only of a few, who carefully 
 concealed their discoveries from the public, it may be 
 easily imagined that little was known to the people of the 
 art of assisting the powei*s of vision by the aid of glasses. 
 It may be said that the fragments which we have collected 
 here are widely scattered. This I admit ; but as we infer 
 the existence of the poet from disjecta memhra^ so we 
 infer the existence of the system from the disjointed parts 
 and the scattered remains. If in crossing the desert you 
 find the spring of a watch in one place, an index in another, 
 and pieces of a broken dial-plate in a third, you will 
 scarcely doubt that somebody in the desert must have had 
 a whole watch. 
 
134 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 10. When we look for monuments of ancient science, 
 he adds {Antiquities of Zodiac, 51), whether in India, or 
 Bactria, or in Chaldsea, or in Egypt, we find remnants 
 which seem to have belonged to one common system. 
 Among other examples the zodiac may be cited. We 
 find all the Oriental nations, with the exception, indeed, 
 of the Chaldseans, agreeing in the division of the zodiac 
 into 12 signs. It wonld seem from this circumstance 
 that they had followed some common model, the more 
 especially as all the emblems in the Egyptian, Indian, 
 and Arabian zodiacs are nearly, if not exactly similar. 
 To whom then shall we attribute the invention of the 
 zodiac if not to the common ancestors of the nations we 
 have named 1 And that these common ancestors were 
 those to whom the Apocalypse was revealed, and that 
 upon its express revelation nearly all the pure primeval 
 forms of religion were modelled, and eventually dissemi- 
 nated over the earth, is a conclusion to which all must 
 come who will enter upon the study of that work as it is 
 here developed. 
 
 11. Charactei-s, says Humboldt (Researches i. 145) are 
 found in Ethiopia, which have an astonishing resemblance 
 with those of the ancient Shanscrit, and particularly ^vdth 
 the inscriptions in the Caves of Canara, the construction 
 of vjhich 2yreceded all the hnoion periods of Indian history. 
 The arts appear to have flourished at Meroe, and Axoum, 
 one of the most ancient cities of Ethiopia, before Egypt 
 rose from a state of barbarism. Sir William Jones believed 
 that he had traced the same people in the Etliiopians of 
 Meroe, the first Egyptians, and the Hindus. Yet it 
 is almost certain that the Abyssinians, whom we must ' 
 not confound with the Autochthones of Ethiopia, were an 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 135 
 
 Arabian tribe, and according to the observation of M. 
 Langles, the same liamyaritic characters which we discern 
 in the east of Africa, still decorated in the 14th century 
 of the vulgar era, the gates of the City of Samarcand. 
 Some connexion, therefore undoubtedly existed between 
 Habesch, or ancient Ethiopia, and the elevated plain of 
 Central Asia. 
 
 12. An amazing similarity of construction has been 
 remarked between the Mexican taocallis and the Tem2)le 
 of Bel, at Babylon. Zoega was particularly struck by the 
 analogy, though he had been able to procure only very 
 incomplete descriptions of the group of the pyramids of 
 Taotihuacan. (Zoega de Orig. Obelise, 380.) According 
 to Herodotus, who visited Babylon, and saw the Temple 
 of Bel, this pyramidal monument had eight stories. It 
 was a stadium high, and the breadth of its base was 
 equal to its height. The outer wall which surrounded 
 it was two stadia square. The pyramid was built of 
 brick and asphaltum. A temple was erected on its top, 
 and another at its base. In the Mexican taocallis, as in 
 the Temple of Bel, the lower temple was distinguished 
 from the temple on the platform of the pyramid ; and as 
 the Chaldfisans made their observations from the top of 
 the temple, so did the Mexican priests observe the lisiug 
 and setting of the stars. The whole of these American 
 works resemble those which are daily discovered in the 
 eastern part of Asia. Among the hieroglyphical orna- 
 ments of the pyi-amid, we distinguish heads of crocodiles 
 spouting toater, and figures of men sitting cross-legged in 
 Asiatic fashion. As the structure is placed in a plain, 
 says Humboldt, {Researches i. 111?) elevated more than 
 1300 metres above the level of the ocean, and since crcco- 
 
136 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 diles liaimt only the rivers which are near the coast, ifc 
 seems strange that the architect instead of imitating plants 
 and animals belonging to mountainous countries, should 
 have employed in their reliefs, with extreme industry, 
 the gigantic productions of the torrid zone. Had Hum- 
 boldt known that the Crocodile was a symbol of God, and 
 Water of the Holy Spirit, and that the emanation of the 
 water here alluded to the birth of the Holy Spirit, he 
 would not have made this remark. Yet he might have 
 found, if he had sought, that among the inhabitants of 
 the Ombite-nome, God was worshipped under the form 
 of this creature ; and in the remaining sculptures of the 
 Temple of Ombos, the highest honours of divinity are 
 appropriated to a figure with the head of a Crocodile. 
 {Description de VEgypte^ i. pi. 43.) How came they then 
 to represent the same idea in regions so far apart ? 
 
 13. In May, 1830, there was read at the Asiatic So- 
 ciety, a paper from the pen of Colonel Tod, on a gold ring 
 of Hindu fabrication found at Montrose, in Scotland. 
 The ring, the subject of this Essay, was in the possession 
 of the Countess of Cassilis, and was dug uj? on the forfc 
 hill, near Montrose. The ring bears the miniature Lin- 
 gam and Yoni, of Hindu adoration : round and over 
 which is wreathed the Serpent ; on either side is the 
 Sacred Bull, with the hump on the shoulder, which 
 caused the whole design to be mistaken for the arms of 
 Mar, supported by the winged wiverns, or griffins, under 
 which supposition it was purchased by Miss Erskine, of 
 Dun, from whom it came into the possession of its present 
 owner, who having shewn it to Col. Fitzclarence, that 
 gentleman obtained permission to submit the relic to the 
 inspection of Col. Tod. After suggesting the reasons 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 137 
 
 which occur at first sight of the ring, for pronouncing it 
 to be of Hindu origin, the author urged the similarity of 
 reh'gion once prevailing among all the tribes who peopled 
 Europe from the East, as well as in India and Egypt ; in 
 proof of which he adduced the existence of exactly the 
 same symbols as those upon the riug in the ruins of Pom- 
 peii, of Ptestum, and of Cortona, as well as in various 
 pai-ts of Fmnce. The remainder of the paper was prin- 
 cipally occupied with the arguments for ascribing a 
 common origin to the Indo-Scythic martial races of India, 
 and the early colonists of Europe. These symbols, it will 
 be seen, were thoae by which the Great Father and the 
 Great Mother were typified in the Mysteries; which still 
 exist throughout the greater part of the oriental world ; 
 which Jesus alluded to when he made Love the founda- 
 tion of his religion j which the early Christians celebrated 
 in their Agapce or love-feasts, held in caverns at night, 
 like the Eleusinian and Cabiric rites, though the priests 
 of course have assigned other and different reasons for 
 these assemblies. 
 
 14. There is not, says Max Muller, (Ancient Sanskrit 
 Literature^ 13,) an English jury nowadays which, after 
 examining the hoary documents of language, would reject 
 the claim of a common descent and a legitimate relation- 
 ship between Hindu, Greek, and Teuton. Many words 
 still live in India and in England that have witnessed 
 the first separation of the Northern and Southern Aryans, 
 and these are witnesses, not to be shaken on cross exami- 
 nation. The terms for God, for house, for father, mother, 
 son, daughter, for dog and cow, for heart and teara, for 
 axe and tree, identical in all the Indo-European idioms, 
 are like the watch -words of soldiers. We challenge the 
 
138 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 seeming stranger, and whether he answer with the lips of 
 a Greek, a German, or an Indian, we may recognize him 
 as one of ourselves. Though the historian may shake his 
 head, though the physiologist may doubt, and the poet 
 scorn the idea, all must yield before the facts furnished 
 by language. There was a time when the ancestors of 
 the Celts, iihe Grermans, the Slavonians, the Greeks, and 
 Italians, the Persians and Hindus, were living within 
 the same fences, separate from the ancestors of the Semi- 
 tic and Turanian races. General Yallancey, says Davies, 
 (GqU. Res. 224,) has proved that Irish has a certain degree 
 of connection with Chaldaic, Arabic, Persian, Coptic, and 
 Phoenician. From these premises, and from other data, he 
 infers that in tlie Irish we are to acknowledge emigrants 
 from India to the coast of Arabia, Egypt, and Phoenicia, 
 and from the latter country by sea through Spain to the 
 British Islands. The Irish language appears to have 
 arrived at maturity amongst the Japetidce while they 
 were yet in contact with Aramean families, and formed a 
 powerful tribe in Asia Minor and in Thrace. It may, 
 therefore, in particular instances, have more similitude or 
 analogy to the Ai'abic dialects, than what appears in those 
 branches of the Celtic that were matured in the west of 
 Europe. Those who used this language consisted partly 
 of Titans, of Celto-Scythians, or of those Japetidse, who 
 assisted in building the city of Babel. Irish, or a conge- 
 nial dialect once prevailed in Thrace, and . was diffused 
 from thence all the way to the islands of Britain, whilst 
 at the same time it branched off to the Italian side of the 
 Alps. 
 
 15. Some granitic rocks, says Humboldt, {Researches i,' 
 177), which rise on the savannahs of Guiana, between the 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 139 
 
 Cassiqiiiare and the Conoricliite, are covered -vrith figures 
 of tigei's, crocodiles, and other characters, which may be 
 regai-ded as symbolical. Similar figures are found 400 
 leagues to the north and the west, on the banks of the 
 Orinoco, near Eucaramada, and Caicara : on the borders 
 of the river Cauca, near Timba between Cali and Jelima : 
 and even on the elevated plain of the Cordilleras, in the 
 Paramo of Guanacas. The natives of these regions are 
 unacqicainted vnth the use of metallic tools, and all con- 
 cur in asserting that these characters already existed when 
 their ancestors arrived in those countries. Is it to a 
 single nation trained to industry and skilled in sculpture, 
 such as the Toltecks, the Aztecks, and the tribes that 
 emigrated from Aztlan that these marks of remote 
 civilization are owing 'I In what region must we place 
 the seat of this culture ? Is it to the north of the river 
 Gila, on the elevated plain of Mexico ? or in the southern 
 hemisphere, or those lofty plains of Tiahuanacu lohich the 
 Incas themselves found covered with ruins of majestic 
 greatness, and which may be considered as the Himalaya 
 and Thibet of South America 1 These problems are not 
 to be solved in the present state of our knowledge. 
 
 IC. It is excellently I'emarked by "Wilford, says Faber 
 (Pag. Idol. i. 60), that one and the same code both of theo- 
 logy and of fabulous history (8), has been received through 
 a range or belt about forty degrees broad, across the old 
 continent, in a south-east and north-west direction, from 
 the eastern shores of the Malayan peninsula to the western 
 extremity of the British isles : that through this immense 
 region, the same origmal i-eligious notions re-appear in 
 various places, imder various modifications as might be 
 expected ; and that there is not a gi-eater difference be_ 
 
140 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 tween the tenets and -worship of the Hindus and Greeks, 
 than exists between those of the churches of Rome and 
 Geneva. Immense as such a territorial range may be, 
 the preceding observation is yet too limited. It applies 
 with equal propriety to the whole habitable globe : for the 
 arbitrary rites and opinions of every pagan nation bear 
 so close a resemblance to each other, that such a coinci- 
 dence can only have been 'produced by their having all 
 had a common origin. Barbarism itself has not been 
 able to efiace the strong primeval impression. Yestiges 
 of the ancient general system may be traced in the re- 
 cently discovered islands of the great Pacific Ocean : and 
 when the American world was first opened to the hardy 
 adventurers of Europe, its inhabitants from north to 
 south venerated, with kindred ceremonies and kindred 
 notions, the gods of Egypt and Hindostan, of Greece, of 
 Italy, of Phcenicia and Britain. * "^ * This enter- 
 prising people, were known by various names. They were 
 called ScuthSf Chusas, Chasas, Cisseans, Cosseans, GotJis, 
 Ghauts, and Goths, from their great ancestor Cash, whose 
 name they pronounced Gusha, Ghusa, Ghoda, Chasa, 
 Chasya, or Gassius, They were styled Falli, Bali, 
 Bhils, Philistim, Palistim, Bolgs, or Belgce, from their 
 occupation ; for the term denotes Shepherds. And they 
 were partially denominated Fhanakim or Fhceiiicians and 
 HuG-Sos or shepherd-kings, from their claiming to be a 
 royal race : Sacas, Sagas, Sacasenas, JSachim, Suchim, 
 Saxe, or Saxons, from the god Saca, or Sacya; Budins 
 or Wudins from their god Buddha or Woden; Tents or 
 Teutons from their god Teut or Taut; and Germans or 
 Sarmans from their god Sarman or Saman and his minis- ' 
 ters the Samaneans or Sarmaneans, or Germaneans, as 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 141 
 
 they are indifferently called, according to a varied pro- 
 nunciation of the same word. * * * The evidence 
 indeed for the remote antiquity of Buddhism rests upon 
 exactly the same foundation as that for the remote anti- 
 quity of Brahmanism. There is scarcely a country iii 
 which we do not find both systems more or less blended 
 together, and Buddha as much as Siva or Osiris, under 
 his vai-ious names of Buddha, Saca, Taut, Teut, Thoth, 
 Bod, Wod, Hermaya, Hermes, or Mercolis has been wor- 
 shipped from Japan in the East, to Ireland in the West. 
 (i. 88). All these facts tend to prove the uniform system 
 of theology established by the 24 Ancients, and renovated 
 by the Messengers of the Cycle (9). 
 
 17. The same author (Faber) in his second chapter has 
 collected proofs that all the religions of the earth were at 
 first One, and emanated from one centre. He gives re- 
 markable evidence of this, by citing some tenets of a 
 striking character, in which they all agreed. I summa- 
 rize here from that chapter, some of the extmcts which 
 he has made from reliable sources, of the grounds on 
 which his proofs are based ; and I have added to them 
 certain selections by myself. They are singularly inte- 
 resting ; and they are truly appropriate in this place ; 
 for the reader will find that they embody in some mea- 
 sure, portions of the teaching of this Apocalypse ; and as 
 their antiquity extends even into the very morning of the 
 ages, it will be a,t once seen that they could not have been 
 gleaned from a work said to be written not quite 1800 
 years ago — while no one will assert that the pretended 
 John of Patmos extracted from Chinese or Indian sources, 
 the doctrines which he puts forth in his Revelation. 
 
 18. It is well known, says Hoi well (Interesting Hiatori- 
 
142 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 cal EventSy i. 3), that at the capture of Calcutta, a.d. 
 1756, I lost many curious Gentoo manuscripts, and among 
 them two very correct and valuable copies of the Gentoo 
 Sliastah. They were procured by me with so much trouble 
 and expense, that even the commissioners of restitution, 
 though not at all disposed to favour me, allowed me 2,000 
 Madras rupees in recompense for this particular loss : but 
 the most irreparable damage I suffered under this head of 
 gi'ievances was a translation I made of a considerable part 
 of the Shastah which had cost me eighteen months' hard 
 labour. As that work opened upon me, I distinctly saw that 
 the Mythology as well as the Cosmogony of the Egyptians, 
 Greeks, and Romans, were borrowed from tlie doctrines of 
 the Brahmins contained in this booh, even to the copying 
 their exteriors of worship, and the distribution of their idols, 
 though grossly mutilated and adulterated. 
 
 1,9. The various systems of Pagan idolatry, says Faber, 
 in his preface, in different parts of the world, correspond 
 so closely both in their e"\ddent purport, and in numerous 
 points of arbitrary resemblance, that they cannot have 
 been struck out independently in the several countries 
 where they have been established, but must all have ori- 
 ginated from some common source. But if they all origi- 
 nated from a common source, then either one nation must 
 have communicated its peculiar theology to every other 
 people in the way of peaceful and voluntary imitation : 
 or that same nation must have communicated it to every 
 other people through the medium of conquest and violence : 
 or lastly, all nations must in the infancy of the world 
 have been assembled together in a single region, and in a 
 single community, must at that period, and in that state 
 of society have agreed to adopt the theology in question. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 143 
 
 and must thence as from a common centre, have carried 
 it to all quartei*s of the globe. These are the only three 
 modes in which the universal accordance of the Gentiles 
 in their religious speculations can possibly be accounted 
 for. But as the incredibility of the first, and as the equal 
 incredibility and impossibility of the second, may be 
 shewn without much difficulty, the third alone remains to 
 be adoptecL Now this third mode, both perfectly har- 
 monizes with the general purport of heathen idolatiy, and 
 minutely accords with an historical fact which is declared 
 to us on the very highest authority. An examination of 
 the theology of the Gentiles forces ils to conclude that all 
 mankind were once assembled together in a single com- 
 munity, and that they afterwards spread themselves in 
 detached bodies over the face of the whole earth. From 
 this assertion I do not veiy materially dissent. Faber 
 uses it to connect it with some maniacal nonsense sug- 
 gested by Bryant, about the mythos of Babel, the Noa- 
 chian deluge, helio-ai-kism, the miraculous confusion of 
 tongots, and I know not how many other fables. The 
 real truth of it, however, consists in this, that although 
 polytheism was the earliest, though not the first, form of 
 religion, it gradually infused itself into the sublime sys- 
 tem of Theism, which the Ancients and the first Messiah 
 of God preached ; and the two becoming imperceptibly 
 blended, the result is seen in the general uniformity of 
 which Faber speaks. 
 
 20. The Hindu sages view their principal G^d as trip- 
 licating himself, and as thus sustaining under his three 
 grand forms, the characters of the Creator, the Preserver, 
 and the Destroyer. They do not however use the term 
 Creator in the scriptural sense of the word, as denoting 
 
144j the book of god. 
 
 one who causes something to exist out of nonentity, but 
 rather as one who gives regular form and activity to crude 
 j)re-existing materials. The creative power disposes such 
 materials into definite shape and thus fashions a world : the 
 preserving power upholds the world when it is fashioned ; 
 and the destroying power reduces it at length to its consti- 
 tuent elements, sometimes by a deluge of water, and at other 
 times by a deluge of fire. Everything is then absorbed 
 into the unity of the Great Father, and this mysterious 
 Being during the period that elapses between each two 
 mundane systems, reposes on the surface of the mighty 
 deep, floating securely either in a wonderful egg (Sphere), 
 or in the calix of the lotus, (the Shekinah), or on a 
 naviform leaf, or on a huge Serpent coiled up in the form 
 of a boat, or in a sacred ship denominated Argha, of 
 which the other vehicles are consequently symbols. To 
 destroy, however is but to create afresh ; for destruction 
 affects form alone : it reaches not to substance. Hence 
 when the Great Father has slept a whole year of the 
 Creator,* the space which ever intervenes between world 
 and world, he awakes from his slumber and produces a 
 new order of things. Out of the chaotic materials of the 
 prior world, another world is fashioned : the Preserver 
 again supports it — the Destroyer again dissolves it, and as 
 it was preceded by a world, so in due time it is likewise 
 succeeded by one. This alternate destruction and repro- 
 duction is thought to be repeated again and again, so that 
 in the lapse of countless ages, an enormous number of 
 successive worlds is believed to have existed. * * Brahm 
 is introduced in diflerent pai-ts of the Geeta, saying : / 
 
 * The Apocalypse alludes to this, and calls it '' silence in' 
 Heaven for haJf-an-hour." 
 
THE APOCALYrSE. 145 
 
 am of all things transient the beginning, the middle^ and 
 tlie end ; the whole world was sjyread abroad by me in my 
 invisible form. A t tlie end of the period Kalp, all things 
 return into my primK)rdial source, and at tlie begi7ining of 
 another Kalp I eniane them all again. I am the under- 
 standing of tlie wise, the glory of the proud, tlie strength of 
 tlie strong. I am the eternal seed of all nature. I am the 
 father and mother of this world, the grandsire and the pre- 
 server. I am death and immortality. I am entity and 
 nonentity. I am never failing and wise. I am all- 
 grasping death. I am tlie resurrection. The great 
 Brahma's is my womb, in it I (God) place my foetus; and 
 from it is tlie productio^i of all nature. TJie great Brahma's 
 is the womb of all those various fm'ms lohich are conceived 
 in every natural ivomb, and I am tlie being that soweth tlie 
 seed.* All things in short are in a state of perpetual 
 solution and reproduction. The earth is perishable, say 
 the Hindu bards, in one of their funeml hymns ; the 
 ocean, the gods themselves pass away. How should not 
 that bubble, mortal man, meet destruction ? All that is low 
 must finally perish : all that is elevated, must ultimately 
 fall : all compounded bodies must end in dissolution : life 
 must be concluded with death. Brahm the Great Father 
 is that lohence all beings are produced : that by which tJiey 
 live when born ; that towards which they tend, and tliat 
 unto which they pass. 
 
 21. In the theological Works of Hermes Trismegistug 
 (Thoth, the Sixth Messiah,) which contain an account of 
 the old Mizraimic philosophy (10), it is laid down, that 
 nothing in tlie world perishes, and that deaih is not the 
 
 * Compare with this the exclamation of Wisdom cited iu page 
 26, and the identity of her and Brahma will bo apparent. 
 
 H 
 
14G THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 destruciiorij hut only the change and translation of things. 
 Agreeably to this niaxim it is further taught, that when 
 tlie world becomes degenerate, then that Lord and Father, 
 the Supreme God, and the only governor beholding the 
 manners and deeds of men, hy his will, which is his benig- 
 nity, always resisting vice and restoring things from 
 their degeneracy, will either wash away the malignity 
 of the world by ivater, or else consume it by fire, 
 and then restore it to its ancient form again. In tho 
 celebrated answer given by the oracle of Sarapis to 
 Nicocreon, King of Cyprus, who sent messengers to en:-. 
 quire v/hat Divinity he ought to acl6r€ under that name, 
 the priest said. My divinity shall be described in the, 
 words I now utter. The canopy of heaven is my head; 
 tlie sea is my belly : the earth my feet ; my eyes are. in the 
 ethereal region, and mine eye is the resplendent and fur- 
 shining lamp of the Sun. The prevalence of such an opinion 
 among the Egyptians, respecting the Pantheism of the Uni- 
 verse, and the successive destructions of the world, by inun- 
 dation and conflagration, is nientioned also by Julius Fir- 
 micus, and it is eminently set forth in the curious dialogue 
 between Solon and the Egyptian priests as recorded by 
 Plato. Solon, we are told, wishing rather to learn the 
 sentiments of the Egyptians, then to declare his own, put 
 many questions to one of their priests on various points 
 of antiquity. Thus, from a desire to reduce Chronology 
 to some degree of cei-tainty, he asked respecting the age 
 of Phoroneus, esteemed the first of men, and Niobe, and 
 Pyrrha and Deucalion after the flood, and other matters 
 which enter so largely into the mythological genealogies 
 of the Greeks. To this the priest replied ; 0, Solon, Solon, 
 you Greeks are always children, nor is there an old man. 
 
TUE APOCALYPSK 147 
 
 among you. Having no ancient traditions, nor any ac- 
 quaintance with chronology, you are as yet in a state of 
 intellectual infancy. The tnie origin of such mutilated 
 fables as you possess is this. There have been and shall 
 again be in the course of many revolving ages, numerous 
 destructions of the human race : the greatest of them by 
 fire and water, but othei*s in an almost endless succession 
 at shorter intervals. {Plato, Tim. 22—23.) This is 
 exactly the Hindu theory, and every discovery of geology 
 shews that it is true. The same doctrine is mentioned 
 also by Origen. They hold, says he, a succession from age 
 to age of many conflagrations and many inundations, and 
 esteem the flood of Deucalion as an event but of yester- 
 day. Indeed to such as are disposed to listen to their 
 speculations, they teach that the world was never pro- 
 duced, but has existed from all eternity : and he adds 
 tiiat the wisest among the Egyptians had communicated 
 their theory of successive conflagrations and inundations 
 to his opponent Celsus {Orig. adv. Cels. i.). According to 
 these there was originally a boundless darkness on the 
 Great Abyss, but Water and an Ethereal Spirit acted by 
 divine power on Chaos. Then sprang forth holy Li(/ht; 
 then all the gods made an orderly distribution of things 
 out of scminative nature. So Saiiconiathon, speaking of 
 the Holy Spirit, calls her the Air shining with ethereal 
 light, by whose fiery influence on the sea and earth, winds 
 were begotten, and clouds, and great defluxions of water. 
 The Hermetic books are full of the same allusions. The 
 great god [it should be Goddess] of the Egyptians, though 
 clothed with tlie attributes of the Deity, was no more the 
 Supreme Being, than the Great God of the Hindus. He 
 [She] is described as being the Soul of the World, and as 
 
 H 2 
 
118 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 partaking of the nature of both sexes precisely in the 
 same manner as that Siva-Ardha-Nari, who floated in the 
 ship Argha (11), on the surface of the waters. From 
 this their common parent all souls are derived. He [She] 
 is ever pregnant and ever productive. Death is nothing 
 more than a change of body, and a passing from visibility 
 into invisibility. Every day some part of the w^orld 
 passes into this invisibility. It does not utterly perish, 
 but only disappears from our sight, being either translated 
 into some other place, or changed into some other form. 
 In a similar manner animals are dissolved by death, not 
 that they may be utterly destroyed, but that in due season 
 they might be made again. As for the world, which is 
 the body of the Great Father, it makes all things out of 
 itself, and it perpetually renews all things. In the whole 
 Universe nothing utterly perishes. Itself is unchange- 
 able : its parts only admit of alteration. Yet of these^ 
 subject as they are to mutation, none utterly perishes, or 
 is absolutely destroyed ; for what is incoiTuptible cannot 
 be con-up ted, and what is a part of the Great God cannot 
 be annihilated. 
 
 22. The Iranians held the same doctrines respecting a 
 succession of worlds that the Hindus had adopted : and 
 the conclusion is rendered more probable, both from the 
 common Gothic or Celtic descent of the Indo Scythse, 
 and the military and sacerdotal castes of the Persians ; 
 and from the circumstance of the primeval Babylonian 
 empire comprehending within its limits that part of Iran, 
 which still bears the name of Chusistan. There is a 
 tenet of the ancient Magi, preserved by Theopompus, 
 which is so nearly allied to the doctrine in question that 
 there can be little doubt of its having been maintained by 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. ItQ 
 
 them. It was their belief that men would live again in 
 another state of existence and become immortal ; nor are 
 we to suppose that this means simply their belief of a 
 resurrection in the modem sense of the word ; for it 
 was additionally their opinion, that the things which now 
 are, would for ever continue to be designated by the 
 names of their possessoi-s. There is some degree of obscu- 
 rity in this statement ; but since the doctrine held by the 
 Hindus is precisely that which renders it perfectly intel- 
 ligible, I am inclined to believe that it has been regularly 
 deduced from that doctrine. 
 
 23. The mystic philosophy of the Chinese Book, Yeking, 
 bears a close resemblance to that of the Pythagoreans. 
 Eight Koua, or symbols, each composed of three lines, 
 hieroglyphically express certain general things, on which 
 the nativity and corruption of all particular things are 
 allowed to depend. Of these the first represents the 
 heaven, the second the earth, the third, lightning, the 
 fourth, mountains, the fifth, fire, the sixth, clouds, the 
 seventh, water, and the eighth, wind. From these 
 variously combined the perpetual variety of nature origi- 
 nates. Now the Pythagoreans expressly held the doc- 
 trine of a succession of worlds, and a transmigration of 
 each, and taught much respecting the potency of numbers, 
 and a pei-petual destmction and reproduction of the 
 Uuiverse. If then, the theology of the Chinese, which 
 similarly treats of generation and destruction, resemble 
 that of the Pythagoreans, it must have inculcated the 
 tenet of a succession of worlds. The substance of what 
 they teach would seem indeed to be this, that destruction 
 and reproduction in perpetual vicissitude, spring from 
 the numbei-s three and eight, with which every new 
 world commences. 
 
150 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 24. In supposing sucTi to be the doctrine contained in 
 the Book Yeking^ one is the more confirmed by the cir- 
 cumstance of Buddhism prevailing so generally in China ; 
 the worship of Buddha has been the religion of the Chi- 
 nese from the very commencement of the empire. Now 
 the doctrine of a succession of worlds is held no less de- 
 cidedly by the Buddhists than by the Brahmins : nor is it 
 set forth with greater precision in any country than in 
 that of the Burmese, who are both determined Buddhists 
 and near neighbours of the Chinese. The Universe is 
 called by them Loglias (Logos), which signifies successive 
 destruction and reproduction : because it is conceived that 
 the Universe after it has been destroyed either by fire, 
 water, or wind, is again of itself restored to its ancient 
 form. They say that the age of man has not always been 
 the same with what it is at present, and that it will not 
 continue to be the same ; but that it is lengthened or 
 shortened according to the general merit or demerit of 
 men's actions. After the first inhabitants, their children 
 and grandchildren had gradually and successively shorter 
 lives, in proportion as they became less virtuous; (12) 
 and this gradual decrease continued until men came to 
 live ten years only ; the duration of the life of men in their 
 greatest state of wickedness. The children of these, con- 
 sidering the cause of their parent's short life, and dedi- 
 cating themselves more to the practice of virtue, had their 
 lives gradually lengthened. Now this successive decre- 
 ment in the duration of the life of man, followed by an 
 increase, must take place 64 times after the reproduction 
 of a world before that world will be again destroyed. In 
 the present world eleven of these changes have taken 
 place ; nor will it be destroyed until it has passed through 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 151 
 
 lifty-tliree more changes. The Burma writings allege 
 three remote causes for the destruction of a world — 
 luxury, anger, and ignorance. From these, by the power 
 of fate, arise the physical or proximate causes, namely, 
 fire, water, and wind. When luxury prevails, the world 
 is consumed by fire : when anger prevails, it is destroyed 
 by wa,ter ; and when ignorance prevails it is dispersed by 
 wind. The Burmas do not suppose that a world is de- 
 stroyed, and a new one instantaneously regenerated ; but 
 that the destruction takes up the space of an Assenchiekat, 
 that the reproduction takes up another, and that a third 
 intervenes between the end of the old world, and the be- 
 ginning of the new. At the end of each of the 04 changes 
 in the life of man which take place during the existence 
 of every world, an almost total destruction befalls the 
 human race. After (lie greater 'pari have perislied, a heavy 
 rain falls J and sweeps awaijinto the rivers unhuried bodies 
 andfdth. Then follows a shower of flowers and sandal 
 wood to purify the earth ; and all kinds of garments fall 
 from above. The scanti/ remains of men who had escaped 
 from destruction note creep out from caverns and hiding 
 places, and repenting of tfceir sins henceforth enjoy longer 
 lives. A thousand yeai*s before the destruction of a world 
 a certain Nat (13), descends from the superior abodes. 
 His hail* is dishevelled, his countenance mournful, and 
 his garments black. He passes every where through the 
 public ways and streets with piteous voice, announcing 
 to mankind the approaching dissolution. When it is to 
 liappen by fire, as soon as the Nat has ceased to admo- 
 nish men, a heavy i-ain falls from heaven, fills all the lakes, 
 causes torrents, and produces an abundant crop. Mankind 
 now filled with hope sow seed more plentifully : but this 
 
152 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 is the last rain : not a drop falls for a hundred thousand 
 years, and plants with every vegetating thing perish. 
 Then die all animals ; and passing on to the state of Nat, 
 are from thence transferred to the abodes Zian (14) or 
 Arupa. The Nat of the sun or moon, having now become 
 Zian, these luminaries are darlcened and vanish. In their 
 stead two suns arise, which are not Nat. The one always 
 succeeds to the other, rising when it sets, so that there is 
 no night : and the heat consequently becomes so intense, 
 that all the lakes and toi'rents are dried up, and not 
 the smallest vestige remains upon the surface of the 
 earth. After a long interval, a third sun arises : then 
 are dried u]) the greatest rivers. A fourth sun suc- 
 ceeds, and two being now constantly above the horizon, 
 even the seven ^reat lakes or oceans disappear. Affth 
 sun arises and dries up the sea. A sixth sun rends asun- 
 der this and the other 1,010,000 earths, while from the 
 rents are emitted smoke and fire. Finally, after a very 
 long intei^al, a seventh sun appears, by which Mienmo, 
 (theBiirman centrical mount Meru), and all the inhabitants 
 of the Nat are consumed ; and as in a lamp, when the 
 Avick and oil are exhausted, the flame goes out, so when 
 everything in this and the other 1,010,000 worlds is con- 
 sumed, the fire of its own accord will die away. Such is 
 the manner in which the Kosmosis destroyed by fire (15). 
 (^As. Res. vol. vi. p. 174-249) Similar to this is the apo- 
 calyptic theology of Siam, or more properly Sian and 
 Zian, its real name. The figure of the world according 
 to their doctrine is eternal : but the world which we see 
 is not, for whatever we see therein lives in their opinion, 
 and must die : and at the same time there will spring up 
 other beings of the same kind, anotliei- lie;iYen, another 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 153 
 
 earth, and other stars : and this is the gi'ound of 
 what thej say, that they have seen nature decay and 
 revive again several times. (Loubere's Siamy p. 119.) 
 Adair, in his History of the Amencan Indians^ relates a 
 conversation with one of their priests, when he spoke of 
 the dreadful day in which Loak Ishto-hoollo, would send 
 PhiUchick Keeraah Ishtd^ the great blazing star, Yahkan^ 
 eekleiina Loak lodclutchey to burn up half the earth with 
 fire ; PJierimini Aiube from the north to the south ; hasse 
 oob^a percty toward the setting of the sun, according to the 
 ancient true speech that Ishto-liooUo Aha spoke to his be- 
 loved Lodche, p. 89. From whence but the Apocalypse 
 could all these analogies have come 1 
 
 25. When the Goths who were a branch of the Chasas, 
 or Chusas, or Indo-Scuths, emigrated from the East and 
 invaded the Roman empire, they brought with them the 
 Buddhic theology of their ancestoi's : and as a part of it 
 they have preserved with a considerable degree of accu- 
 i-acy the doctrine of a succession of worlds. According 
 to the Scaldic philosophers, a world luminous, glowing, 
 not to be dwelt in by stmngers, existed before all things. 
 This world is named 2fuspels1ieim. There black Surtur *" 
 holds his empire. A flaming sword shines in his hand. 
 He shall come at the end of all things ; he shall van- 
 quish eveiy god : he shall give up the Universe a prey to 
 tlie flames. Next in order to Muspelsheim, the abode of 
 Surtur, was created another world, which commences 
 with a man and his three sons, born from a mysterious 
 Cow. At the close of the present system, that is in the 
 
 • This God is described to be black, because He was the God 
 of the primeval Black Nation : and also because He is hidden iu 
 ioipenetral le darkness. 
 
 n3 
 
IH THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 Maha-Pralaya of tlie Hindus, all will be involved in de- 
 struction. The gieat ship Naglefara shall be set afloat ; 
 the mighty serpent vomits forth floods of poison ; the 
 Black Deity and his Genii invade the perishing Universe ; 
 and tlie power of dissolution wraps the Vhole earth 
 in Are and flame. But to destroy in one form is only to 
 reproduce in another. There will arise out of the sea, a 
 new earth most lovely and delightful : covered it ivill he 
 with verdui'e and 2^leasant fields : there the grain shall 
 spring forth and grow of itself without cultivation. Yidar 
 and Vale shall also survive, because neither the flood, 
 nor the black conflagration shall do them any harm. 
 They shall dwell in the plains of Ida, (the Hindu Ida- 
 vratta) where was formerly the residence of the gods. 
 The sons of Thor, Mode and Mane repair thither : thitlier 
 come Balder and Hoder from the mansions of the dead* 
 They sit down and converse together : they recall to mind 
 the sufferings which they had formerly undergone. Nor 
 do the gods alone tenant the renovated universe : while 
 the fire devours all things, two persons of the human 
 race, the one ma,le and the other female lie concealed under 
 a hill. These feed on the dew and propagate so abundantly 
 that the earth is soon peopled with a new race of mortals. 
 The sun also, at once a Female and the brilliant monarch 
 of Fire, before it is devoured by the wolf Fenrir shall 
 have brought forth a daughter as lovely and resplendent 
 as herself, who shall go in the track formerly trodden by 
 her mother. Everything in short shall be renovated, 
 and the destTuction of one world shall only be the har- 
 binger to the creation of another (16). 
 
 26. The opinions of the Goths respecting alternate 
 destniction and reproduction are so well summed up by 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 155 
 
 Mr. Mallet, tliat I cannot refrain from giving liis state- 
 ment at some length. The philosophers of the North, he 
 says, considered nature as in a state of perpetual labour 
 and warfare. Her strength was thus continually wasting 
 away by iittle and little, and her approaching dissolution 
 could not but become every day more perceptible. At last 
 a confusion of the seasons, with a long and preternatural 
 winter, was to be the final mark of her decay. The moral 
 world is to be no less disturbed and troubled than the 
 natui*al. The voice of dying nature will be no longer 
 heard by man. Her sensations being weakened, and, as 
 it were, totally extinct, shall leave the heart a prey to 
 cruel and inhuman passions. Then will all the malevolent 
 and hostile powers wliom the gods have hitherto with much 
 di(Jlculty confined, burst their chains and Jill the Universe 
 with discord and confusion. {See Apocalypse, section 
 48.) The host of heroes from Yalhalla shall in vain 
 attempt to support the gods ; for thougli the latter 
 will destroy their enemies, they will nevertheless fall 
 along with them. That is, in other words, in that 
 great day, all the inferior divinities, whether good or 
 bad, shall fall in one great conflict back again into the 
 bosom of the Grand Divinity, from whom all things have 
 proceeded, as emanations of his essence, and who will 
 sui'\'ive all thii.igs. After this, the world becomes a prey to 
 flamies, which ai-e however destined rather to purify tlian 
 destroy it, since it afterwards makes its appearance again, 
 more lovely, more pleasant, and more fruitful than before. 
 In this new earth lohich is to succeed tJiat which toe inhabit^ 
 there are to be again subaltern divinities to govern it, and 
 men to i)eople it. This in general is what the Edda means 
 to tell us. Although the cii-cumstances of the relation are 
 
156 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 darkly and allegorically delivered, yet they are not de- 
 tailed so obscurely, but that one easily sees it was the idea 
 of the northern philosphers, that the world was to be 
 renovated, and spring forth again, more perfect and 
 beautiful. 
 
 27. Mallet, says Faber, speaks somewhat too exclu- 
 sively of its being the opinion of the Goths that the pre- 
 sent world would be destroyed by fire. In reality they 
 have blended together the two notions of a destruction 
 hy fire J and a destruction by loater, each of which is in- 
 differently called by the Hindus, a Fralaya^ or Flood. This 
 will be evident to any one who examines either the pre- 
 ceding extract from the Edda, or the more ancient Vo- 
 luspa, where it treats of the same subject. In both men- 
 tion is made, not only of devastating fire, but likewise of 
 a wonderful ship being set afloat on the swelling ocean ; 
 and we are further taught that the new earth is to arise 
 out of the sea. The giant Jiymer^ says Voluspa, arrives 
 from the East, carried in a chariot; the ocean sivells; the 
 Great Serpent rolls himself furiously in the waters, and 
 lifteth up the sea.* The Eagle screams, and tears the dead 
 bodies loith his horrid beak. (Apocalypse, section 34.) 
 The vessel of the gods is set afloat ; the vessel comes from 
 the east; the host of evil genii arrives by sea. LoJci is 
 their 2^ilot and director. Their furious squadron advances, 
 escorted by the wolf Fenrir. Lohi appears with them. 
 The Blach Prince of the genii issues forth from the south 
 surrounded with flames ; the swords of the gods beam forth 
 rays like the sun. The rocks are shaken and fall to pieces. 
 
 * See Apocal., section 56. This is the dracontiue Typhon of 
 Et'ypt, who is expressly said by Plutarch to be a personification 
 of the Deluge, 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 157 
 
 ( A POCALYPSE, section 57.) ThefemaU giants ivander about 
 iceeping. Men tread in crowds the path of death. The 
 heaven is split asunder ; the sun is darkened; the sea over- 
 whelms the earth; the shining stars vanish out oflieaven; 
 the fire furiously rages; tlie ages draw to an end; the ascend- 
 hig flame licks the vault of heaven. (Apocalypse, section 5 7.) 
 Here the agents of destruction are both fire and water ; 
 and while the whole world is convulsed we are presented 
 with an image of the ship of the gods floating on the sur- 
 face of the agitated ocean. This agrees with the perio- 
 dical voyage of the Indian Menu : but the Goths in the 
 course of their progress westward, from their original 
 settlements in Cashgar and Bokhara, have deviated some- 
 what from the genuine tradition, though they have no t 
 altogether lost it. The Voluspa proceeds like the Edda, 
 to describe the production of a new world out of the ruins 
 of its predecessor, in a manner which exactly corresponds 
 with the rising of the present world out of the waters. 
 llien we see emerge from the bosom of the loaves an earth 
 clothed with a most lovely verdure. Tlie floods retire; the 
 eagle soars wlieresoever lie lists, and seizes his fishy prey : 
 on the tojys of the mountains, Balder and his brother, the 
 warrior gods, return to inhabit the ruined palaces of Odin, 
 The gods assemble in the fields of Ida : they discourse toge- 
 tlier concerning the heavenly pcdaces, ivhose ruins are before 
 them : they recollect their former conversations and the 
 ancient discourses of Odin. 
 
 28. It is observed by Mallet, that the doctrine of the 
 Gothic philosophers is precisely the same as that espoused 
 by the Stoics, and as a proof he adduces several i)assages 
 from the writings of Seneca. The observation is just; 
 but the doctrine iu question was by no means peculiar to 
 
158 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 the Stoics. It was held also by the philosophers of other 
 schools. The principle which they laid down universally, 
 as being indisputable, and which formed the basis of all 
 their subsequent reasoning, was the eternity of matter. 
 This was declared by them to be at once uncreated, and 
 incapable of annihilation. TJiere was among tlie heathen 
 philosophers, says Bayle, a great variety of opinions about 
 the origin of the world, and the nature of the element or 
 elements, of which they pretended particular bodies to 
 have been formed. Some maintained that water was the 
 principal of all things. Others gave that pre-eminence to 
 air j others to fire ; others to homogeneal parts ; but they 
 all agreed in this — that the matter of the world was un- 
 produced. They never disputed among themselves upon 
 the question, whether anything was made out of nothing ? 
 they all agreed that that was impossible. But though the 
 eternity of crude matter was thus maintained, a frequent 
 change of figure in that matter was fully acknowledged. 
 Matter itself, they taught, is indeed eternal ; but in addi- 
 tion to the changes of form which we daily witness, it 
 successively undergoes at the end of certain vast periods, 
 mutilations which are equivalent to the destruction of one 
 mundane system, and to the 2^roduction of another from 
 its ruins. This point is argued by the philosopher Sal- 
 lust. Drawing a distinction between substance and form, 
 he allows the corruptibility of the latter, but denies that 
 of the former. {De Diis et Mund., C. viii., xvii.) In a 
 similar manner, Timseus, the Locrian, though he admits 
 the creation, or rather the generation of the world by a 
 Deity — (for he represents it as being the offspring of his 
 god) — yet he acknowledges nothing more than a produc- 
 tion out of already existing materials. (De Anim. Mund., 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 169 
 
 p. 545.) Precisely the same language is held by Ocellus 
 Lucanus {de Univ., C. i., ii.) ; and accordingly it is on this 
 identical principle that he nndei-takes to answer those 
 writers who made the history of Greece commence with 
 Inachiis. That epoch, says he, was no real beginning, but 
 only a change ; for as Greece had been in a state of bar- 
 barism before the days of Inachus, so will it again relapse 
 into a similar state at some future period — a singular pro- 
 phecy, which we now see realized. At the same time he 
 intimates the existence of certain physical, as well as 
 moral revolutions. The different parts of the earth are 
 liable to coiTuption and change, sometimes in consequence 
 of a deluge produced by the sea, and sometimes by the 
 more silent operation of dissipating winds or undermining 
 watei-s ; meanwhile the substance of the earth itself is in- 
 capable of coriiiption. Such also is the doctiine of Ma- 
 crobius. {In Somn. Scip. ii., 10.) Nothing can be pro- 
 perly said to perish throughout the whole world. Those 
 things which seem to be destroyed, only change their 
 appearance. The world itself remains, though the human 
 race has often been iilmost totally swept away either by 
 inundation or conflagi'ation. In this tenet, with some 
 smaller varieties, the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the Pla- 
 tonists were all agreed. 
 
 29. In the same way the devouring Jupiter of tlio 
 Stoics swallows up at the close of each world the whole 
 host of hero-gods ; and as it was the universal doctrine of 
 those philosophers that during the intervals of the suc- 
 cessive conflagrations by which the mundane system is 
 destroyed, that god retires into himself and converses 
 with his own thoughts ; so at the end of each interval he 
 produces a new frame of nature, together with a new 
 
160 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 family of inferior divinities out of his own substance. 
 Such speculations are plainly the same as those of the 
 Indian school. The devouring Jupiter occupies the place 
 of Siva, or Maha-Cali, or the Destroying power ; and his 
 solitary abstraction during every intervening period is 
 palpably no other than the profound solitary meditation 
 of the creative Brahm, while he floats inactive on the 
 surface of the chaotic abyss. The world, says Seneca, 
 being melted, and having re-entered into the bosom of 
 Jupiter, this god continues for some time totally concen- 
 tered in himself, and remains concealed, as it were, wholly 
 immersed in the contemplation of his own ideas. After- 
 wards we see a new world spring from him, perfect in all 
 its parts. Animals are produced anew. An innocent 
 race of men is formed under more favourable ausj)ices, in 
 order to people this earth — the worthy abode of virtue. 
 In short, the whole face of nature becomes more pleasing 
 and lovely. (E^nsL 9, and Qucest. Nat. iii., c. ult.) And 
 again, speaking of a mundane dissolution, as involving the 
 destruction or death of all, he teaches us, that when the 
 laws of nature shall be buried in ruin, and the last day 
 of the world shall come, the southern pole shall crush, as 
 it falls, all the regions of Africa, and the north pole shall 
 overwhelm all the countries beneath its axis. The af- 
 frighted Sun slmll he deprived of its light ; the palace of 
 heaven falling to decay shall produce at once both life 
 and death, and some kind of dissolution shall equally seize 
 upon all the deities who thus shall return into their ori- 
 ginal chaos. {Here. (Et.^ 1102.) 
 
 30. The opinions of the ancient Druids have not come 
 down to us with so much precision as might have been 
 desired; yet there remains sufficient proof that they 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 161 
 
 agreed with all the other primeval peoples in these par- 
 ticular points of doctrine : and that like the other 
 Onental priests, they anticipated geological discoveries 
 by several thousand years. They were in fact themselves 
 an order of Eastern priests located in Britain, adoring 
 Buddwas, and symbolizing him as the Mighty Serpent. 
 Dr. Borlase, says the author of Celtic Researches^ p. 119, 
 has demonstrated the general and close analogy of the 
 Druids to the Magi of Persia. It almost constituted 
 identity. They scarcely differed in their name, for Pliny 
 calls the Druids the Magi of the Gauls and Britains. 
 The most able author of the Indian Antiquities marks, 
 with a deep and sound learning, the same affinity between 
 the Druids and Brahmins of India. It may be extended 
 to the Chaldseans and the Orphic priesthood of Thrace, as 
 well as to many others. As this resemblance of charac- 
 ter has been justly deemed both too perfect and general 
 to be resolved into accidental coincidence, it has been the 
 ingenious labour of many learned men to ascertain the 
 several means by which the institutions, opinions, and 
 customs of the Eastern world have been imported into 
 the West of Europe. 
 
 31. Csesar assures us that the Druids held the soul to 
 be imperishable, and that after death it passed from one 
 body to another. Lucan explains that they taught that 
 the same sinrit would animate a new body, not here, but 
 in a different world. Hence, like the Hindus, they must 
 have maintained the tenet of a succession of worlds. 
 Diodonis says that they declared that the souls of men, 
 after certain determinate periods, would pass into other 
 bodies ; and, according to Valerius Maximus, so fully 
 were the Gauls impressed with the idea that they should 
 
162 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 animate new vehicles hereafter in a renovated world, that 
 they were wont to lend money on condition of its being 
 repaid them when they should again become incarnate, — 
 an amount of faith which one might vainly hope to find 
 among the most devout Christians. Agreeably to these 
 notions, they burned, on the funeral pile of the deceased, 
 whatever he had best loved, whether servants, or animals, 
 or valuable treasure, so that their original owner might 
 continue to possess them in his new world, — a devoted- 
 ness in which they stand in curious contrast to our own 
 times, for we sacredly keep all these possessions to our- 
 selves, thus reconciling our faith with our interest in a 
 manner peculiarly agreeable (17). 
 
 32. And as in Wales and England, Mona and Scot- 
 land, we find corresponding features of one system, so, 
 also, we may recognise them in the sister country. In 
 Ireland, on the first of Novembei", the autumnal equinox, 
 the time when the Sun was in Taurus, it Avas usual to 
 extinguish all the fires, except the sacred fires of the 
 Druids. Dr. Hyde, the Orientalist, says that the Gebirs 
 of Persia do the same, and he adds that the Jews, when 
 they were in captivity, adopted the same rite. This 
 identity between Ireland and Persia is only one of the 
 multitudinous facts that establish one origin, one lan- 
 guage, and one religion, in the remotest ages. Strabo 
 says that there was an Island near to Britannia in which 
 Oeres and Proserpine were worshipped with the same 
 rites as in Samothrace (lib. iv.), and this Island was 
 Sacred lema. I had not been a week landed in Ireland 
 from Gibralter, says Vallancey, where I had studied 
 Hebrew and Chaldaic under Jews of various countries and 
 denominations, when I heard a peasant girl say to a boor 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 163 
 
 standing by her, Feach an Jlctddin Naff (Behold the 
 Morning Star), pointing to the planet Venuf», the Maddina 
 Nag of the Chaldoean. Shortly after, being benighted 
 with a party in the mountains of the western parts of the 
 county of Cork, we lost the path, when an aged cottager 
 undertook to be o\ir guide. It was a fine starry night. 
 In our wa}'' the peasant, pointing to the constellation 
 Orion, said that it was Caomaij or the Armed King, and 
 he described the three upright stars to be his spear and 
 sceptre ; and the three horizontal stars, he said, were his 
 sword-belt. I could not doubt of this being the Chimah, 
 HD^^ of Job, which the learned Costard asserts to be 
 the constellation Orion. Job xxxviii. 31. Chimah, ifc 
 should be added, means a warrior armed ivith a coat of 
 mail. 
 
 33. They who are acquainted with day and night, says 
 the Geeta, know that the day of Brahm is a thousand 
 revolutions of the Yugs, and that his night extendeth 
 for a thousand more : as on the coming of that day all 
 things proceed from invisibility to visibility, so, on the 
 apjn'oach of that night, they are all dissolved in that 
 which is called invisible : even the Universe itself liaving 
 existed is again dissolved : and now again on the approach 
 of Brahm*s day, by the same overruling force it i^ re- 
 produced. "Who that reads this, is not startled by its 
 similarity to 2 Peter iii. : There shall come in the last days 
 scoffers J walking after their ovm lusis^ and saying ^ Where 
 is the 2'>foinise of his coming 1 for since the fathers fell 
 asleejy, all things continue as they loerefrom the beginning 
 of the creation. For this tliey are vnllinghj ignorant of 
 that by the Word of God tlie heavens tcere of old, and the 
 earth standing out of tlie loater and in the loater : Whei'eby 
 
164 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 the world that then was, being overflowed ivith tvater, 
 perished : but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by 
 the same Word are hept in store, reserved unto the fire against 
 the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, 
 beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is 
 with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousa7id y:ars 
 as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, 
 as some 7nen count slackness ; but is long suffering to us- 
 ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should 
 come to repentance. But the day of the Lord ivill come as a 
 ihiefin the night ; in the which the heavens shall pass away 
 ivith a great noise, and the eleyyients shall melt loiih fervent 
 heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be 
 burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dis- 
 solved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all 
 holy conversation and godliness ? Looking for and hast- 
 ing unto the coming of the day of God, icherein ths 
 heavens being on fire sliall be dissolved, and the elements 
 shall melt ivith fervent heat ? Nevertheless we, according 
 to his 2>Tomise, look for new heavens and a new earth, 
 wherein dwelleth righteousness. But did Peter get all this 
 from the Geeta ? Undoubtedly not. Where then did 
 he get it from ? Not from the Apocalyse of *[oanj which 
 did not appear until many years after Peter's death, but 
 from the original Apocalypse, which must have been com- 
 municated to him by the Ninth Messenger. From that 
 Sacred Volume also was derived the following passage, 
 which we find in the Vishnu Purana, p. 633. At the end 
 of a thousand peiiods of four ages, it says, the earth is for 
 the most part exhausted. A vital dearth then ensues, which 
 lasts a hundred j^ears, and in consequence of the failure of 
 food all beings become languid and inanimate, and at last 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. IG'5 
 
 entirely iierisli. The Eternal then assumes the character 
 of the Destroyer, and descends to reunite all his creatures 
 with himself. He enters into tJte seven rays of the sun, 
 drinks up all the watei-s of the globe, and causes all 
 moisture whatever in living bodies or in the soil to evapo- 
 rate, thus drying up the whole earth. Thus fed through 
 his intervention with abundant moisture, the seven solar 
 rays dilate to seven suns, whose i-adiance glows above, 
 below, and on every side, and sets the three worlds and 
 Patala in a blaze. The three worlds consumed by these 
 suns become nigged and deformed throughout the whole 
 extent of their mountains, rivers, and seas : and the earth 
 bare of verdure, and destitute of moisture, alone remains, 
 resembling in appearance the back of a tortoise. The 
 Destroyer of all things who is the Flame of Time, be- 
 comes the scorching breath of the Serpent, and thereby 
 reduces Patala to ashes. The great Fire, when it has 
 burnt all the divisions of Patala, proceeds to the earth 
 and consumes it also. A vast whu-lpool of eddying 
 flame then spreads to the region of the atmosphere, and 
 the sphere of spirits, and thus wi-aps them in ruin. The 
 three spheres shew like a fiying-pan amidst the surround- 
 ing flames, that prey upon all moveable or stationary 
 things. The Eternal having consumed the whole world, 
 breathes forth heavy clouds ; and these resembling vast 
 elephants in bulk, overspread the sky, roaring and darting 
 lightnings. Some are as black as the blue lotus ; some are 
 as white as the water-lily : some are dusky like smoke, and 
 some are yellow : some are of a dun colour like that of 
 an ass : some like ashes sprinkled on the forehead : some 
 are deep blue as the lapis lazuli : some azure like the 
 sapphire : some ai*e white as the conch or the jasmine, and 
 some are black as the coUyrium : some are of bright red like 
 
166 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 tli8 lady-bird : some are of the fierceness of red arsenick, 
 and some are like the wing of tlie painted jay. Such 
 are these massy clouds in hue ; in form some resemble 
 towns, some mountains, some are like houses and hovels, 
 and some are like columns. Mighty in size and loud in 
 thunder they fill all space. Showering down torrents of 
 water, these clouds quench the dreadful fires which in- 
 volve the three worlds, and then they rain uninterruptedly 
 for a hundred years, and deluge the whole world. Pouring 
 down in drops as large as dice, these rains overspread the 
 earth, and fill the middle region and inundate heaven. The 
 world is now enveloped in darkness, and all things ani- 
 mate or inanimate having perished, the clouds continue to 
 pour doAvn their waters for more than a hundred years. 
 
 3i. It is the mystery of our holy language, says Rabbi 
 Bechai, that a serpent is called Seraph, as an Angel is 
 called Seraph : and in accordance with this supposed 
 mystery, adds Faber, it has been imagined that Satan 
 tempted Eve under the form of one of those resplendent 
 Winged Serpents which are denominated Seraphim ; and 
 that he succeeded the more easily because the angelic Sera- 
 phim were wont to appear to our first parents under the 
 precise form assumed by the seducer ! Pag. Idol. i. 448^ 
 But how came the following passage into a writer of the 
 6th century, who was not a Jew ? A quick gliding train 
 of radiant Seraphim, says Taliesin, the Pagan bard of 
 Wales, in due order, mysterious and pure, shall deliver 
 Elphin — i.e. (Al-phi, the Yoice or Word of God) — 
 
 A ches ffysgiolin 
 
 hlan Seraphin, 
 
 Dogyn, dwfn, diwerin, 
 
 Dyllyngein Elphin. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 167 
 
 3 a. Where did this Pagan priest get the Serapliim, if not 
 from the old Apocalypse 1 It is not in the work of 
 John. These Seraphim are the fiery splendid Serpents 
 of Heaven (a symbolical name), which in the Geeta arc 
 described thus : There is a fair and stately mountain, and 
 its name is Mem, a most exalted mass of glory, re- 
 flecting the sunny rays from the splendid surface of its 
 golden horns. It is clothed in gold, and is the vene- 
 rated haunt of gods and heavenly choristers. It is be- 
 yond imagination beautiful, it is not to be reached by 
 sinful man, and it is guai'ded by Serpents. Many celes- 
 tial medicinal plants adorn its sides, and it stands pierc- 
 ing the heavens with its aspiring summit : a mighty 
 mountain inaccessible even to the human thouglit : it is 
 adorned -with trees aiid j)leasant rivers, and resounds with 
 the delightful songs of various birds. Thus finding in 
 V/ales and Hindustan the same picture-sentiments, shall 
 we eiT in tracing them to one source, and wliat other can 
 that be but the Apocalypse ? the primaiy fountain from 
 which all the creeds on earth at one time flowed in pure 
 and silver stream. 
 
 36. So also in the Sibylline Oracles, we are told; 
 And when this shall come to an end, the day of tho 
 Almighty decreed in the beginning shall come upon good 
 ni°n. The productive earth shall yield its boundless 
 store of best fmit for mortals, of wheat, wine and oil. 
 Then will He give from above the delicious drink of 
 sweet honey and trees, and the fruit of fruit trees, and 
 fat sheep and oxen, and tlie lambs of sheep, and the 
 kids of goats, and he will make the sweet fountains 
 to buret forth with wliito milk. The cities, moreover, 
 shall be full of good things, and the fields shall be rich ; 
 
168 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 there shall be no more sword on the earth, nor alarm 
 of war, nor shall the earth any more be shaken with 
 heavy groans. There shall be no war, nor drought upon 
 the earth, nor famine, nor hail threatening the fruits. 
 There shall beside this be great peace through all the 
 world, and one king shall be the frieud of another 
 until the end of the age : and a common law for all the 
 earth shall the Eternal in the Starry Heaven make per- 
 fect for men ; for He only is God, and there is no other. 
 He will also burn with fire the cruel rage of men. 
 Earnestly intent in your hearts upon my opinions, avoid 
 sinful worship : serv^e the Living One : keep yourself 
 from adultery and forbidden intercourse with males, 
 nourish your own children, and do not destroy them. 
 For the Eternal will be angry with those who commit 
 such sins. Then will he set up a perpetual kingdom 
 over all men, when He gives his holy law to the pious : 
 to all has He promised to open the eai-th and the gates of 
 the world of the blessed every kind of joy : also perpetual 
 wisdom, and endless gladness. From all the earth shall 
 they bring frankincense and gifts to the House of God : 
 nor shall there be any other house where consultation 
 shall be made by men of a future age, but that which 
 God has given to faithful men of reverence. And all 
 the paths of the field, and the rough shores and the lofty 
 mountains, and the raging waves of the ocean, shall be 
 safely travelled over and sailed upon in those days. The 
 abundance of the good shall extend over the eai*th. The 
 prophets of the great God shall take away the sword, 
 for they shall be the judges and the just kings of 
 mortals. Riches shall be lawfully acquired among men. 
 The dominion and the judgment of the great God , 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 169 
 
 sball be the same [i.e., both shall be universal]. The 
 wolves and the bears shall eat grass together on the 
 mountains, and the leopards shall feed with the kids. The 
 bears shall dwell in the same herd with the calves, and the 
 carnivorous lion shall eat straw at the stall like the ox, 
 and children, the very babes, shall lead them in bonds : 
 even the maimed shall be a terror on earth to the beasts, 
 and dragons shall repose by the side of infants, nor shall 
 they harm them. The hand of God shall be on them (18). 
 See ante J page 53, 54. The Sibylline Prophetess was a 
 secret name for the Spirit of God. 
 
 37. In the Polynesian mythology, though it comes un- 
 der the questionable shape of a missionary's volume, the 
 Supreme" God To-Ivi, existed from eternity. After innu- 
 merable years had passed away, he cast his shell as birds 
 do their feathers, or serpents their skins — thus his splendid 
 form was ever renewed. In the highest heavens he 
 dwelled alone. He first created Hina, (from |*y, a Foun- 
 tain), who is also called his daughter. Countless ages 
 pa.ssed, and with her aid He made the heavens ; and after 
 them all existences in ten orders. In the same work 
 (Ellis's Polynesian ResearcJies^ 1. 312), we read of the 
 Incarnation, and of the Virgin of earth who is his mortal 
 mother. Oro, says the legend, desired a wife from the 
 daughtera of men (19). Tufarapainuu and Tufarapaii'ai 
 searched through the whole of the islands from Tahiti to 
 Borabora, but saw no one whom they supposed fit to 
 become the sj^ouse of Oro, till they came to Boi-abora, 
 Here they found Vairaumati. When they beheld her. 
 they said. This is the excellent woman. Returning to the 
 «kies they informed Oro, and represented her as a VaJiina 
 pv/rotM aiaif a Virgin possessed of all loye]i»Dss, The 
 
 X 
 
170 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 God fixed the Rainbow in the heavens, one end of it rest- 
 ing in the valley, near her residence, and the other pene- 
 trating the skies, and thus he sought the home of his be- 
 loved. When he emerged from the vapour which like a 
 cloud had encircled the Rainbow, he discovered the dwel- , 
 ling of Vairaumati, the fair mistress of the cottage, who 
 became his wife. Every evening he descended on the 
 rainbow, and returned by the same pathway on the fol- 
 lowing morning to the heavens. His wife bore a son 
 whom he called Hoa-t-Abu-iterai, the Sacred to the- 
 Heavens. 'This son became a powerful ruler among men. 
 It may fairly be asked how these poor savages acquired 
 a tradition of this recondite nature ; — of an incarnate 
 King and Messiah, and of a E,ainbow as a divine medium, 
 if not from the Apocalypse, and the universal system of 
 religion which was founded upon it 1 
 
 38. Taliesin thus mystically alludes to the confusion 
 prevailing among mankind at the close of the cycle, and 
 its dispersion by the Rainhow4ike Holy Spirit. I saw a 
 fierce conflict in the vale of Beaver, on the day of the Sun, 
 at the hour of dawn, between the bii'ds of wrath (wicked 
 men) and Gwydion (the son of God). On the day of God, 
 they securely went to Mona to demand a sudden shower 
 of the sorcerers ; but the Goddess of the Silver Wheel, of 
 auspicious mien, the Dawn of serenity, the greatest re^ 
 strainer of sadness, speedily throws round the hall, the 
 Stream (the emanation) of the Rainbow ; a stream which 
 scares away violence from the earth, and causes to subside 
 the bane of its former state around the circle of the globe^ 
 The books of the Kuler of the Mount record no false* 
 hood (the Book of God). The Chair of the Preserver 
 remains here ; and till the doom shall it continue. ^^ 
 
THE APOCALYPSK 171 
 
 tlie " day of God," here mentioned, it would seem that 
 Taliesia has actually quoted the Apocalypse, where it is 
 called KvpMKrj rjixepa, " the day of the Lord." 
 
 39. By the Mexicans, the Holy Spirit, was worshipped 
 under the name of Cihuacohuatl, or the Serpent- Woman : 
 and also as Tonacacihua, or woman of our flesh : she was 
 the companion of God, Tonacateuctli. The Mexicans con- 
 sidered her as the mother of the human race [all beings], 
 and after the God of the Celestial Paradise, Om-Eteuctli,. 
 she held the first rank among the divinities of Anahuac : 
 we see her always represented with a great Serpent. 
 Humboldt Researches, i. 195. Purchas, in his Pilgrimage, 
 says that they believed tiie world to have been made by 
 gods ; but professing themselves ignorant of the precise- 
 mode in which it was formed, they imagined that since 
 the creation, four suns had successively appeai'ed, and dis- 
 appeared ; and they maintained that that which we now 
 behold is the fifth. The first Sun perished by a deluge of 
 water, and with it all living creatures : the second fell 
 frcmi heaven at a period when there were many giants in 
 tlie country, and by the fall everything that had life was 
 again destroyed. The third was consumed by fire. And 
 the fourth was dissipated by a tempest of wind. It is 
 impossible not to see the striking resemblance between 
 this system, and that of the Burmese ; and not to bei 
 struck by the similarity which it bears to the Egyj^tian 
 tradition, mentioned by Herodotus, namely that tlve Sun 
 had four times deviated from his regular course, having 
 twice risen in the west, and twice set in the east {J,ih. ii. 
 0. 142). And all these my thologies bear the most curious 
 correspondence to the Apocalypse. Another fact may be 
 cited to prove this j and it is one of those singular demon- 
 
 I 2 
 
172 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 jstrations whicli almost admits of no dispute. It must be 
 ■^^remised that although in the primeval Mexican paintings 
 they had pictures of a horse, the animal itself was un- 
 known to them : but they knew from their sacred writ- 
 ings of the descent from heaven of him who was to come 
 on a white horse, and heavenly armies followed after him 
 ■on white horses. When, therefore, the Spaniards landed, 
 ,and with their cavalry marched into the country, the 
 Mexicans believing this to be the very Avatar 'predicted 
 ^ the Apocalypse, willingly submitted ; and this accounts 
 for the rapidity with which Spain achieved the conquest 
 of that gallant people. But the Mexicans had been 
 isolated from the rest of the globe since the fearful 
 Atlantean Deluge : it follows therefore that they must 
 have had the Apocalypse before that catastrophe ; and 
 though the Book itself may have been lost or concealed, 
 its mighty images were represented in their temples. 
 
 40. Ovid represents Pythagoras as adducing the story 
 of tlie Phoenix by way of exemplifying the perpetual de- 
 struction and reproduction of the world ; and in point of 
 application there is reason to believe that the mythos ori- 
 giaated from this very doctrine. The poet's account of it 
 is nearly the same with that given by Herodotus. The 
 historian informs us that the Egyptians have a sacred 
 bird called the Phoenix, which he never saw except in a 
 picture. Its form according to the delineation of it, 
 was that of an eagle ; and its wings were of the blended 
 colour of gold and ruby. It was wont to make its ap- 
 pearance only once at the end of 600 years, and '^7ia^ upon 
 the death of the parent bird. The Heliopolitans asserted 
 that whenever that event took place, it came from Arabia 
 to the Temple of the Sun, bearing the dead body of its 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 173 
 
 parent inclosed in a ball of myrrh, whicli it prepared in 
 the following manner. First it made a ball shaped like 
 an egg of such a size as it found itself by trial able to 
 carry. Next it hollowed out the ball and introduced the 
 body of the dead bird into the excavation. Lastly, it closed 
 the aperture with myrrh, and the ball being thus made of 
 the same weight as it originally was, it carried it to the 
 Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis (ii 73). In several of 
 these particulars Ovid agi-ees with Herodotus : but he 
 adds to them some others not specified by the Greek his- 
 torian. He tells us that the Phoenix possessed the power 
 of self-reproduction, which peculiarity fitted it to be the 
 type of the world. When its long life of six centuries 
 was drawing to a close, it prepared for itself an aromatic 
 nest in the branches of an oak, or on the summit of a 
 palm tree (20). Its work being finished, it placed itself 
 upon it, and ended its life in the midst of sweet odours. 
 From the body of the deceased bird soon sprang a young 
 Phoenix destined to live through the same long period as 
 its parent had done before it. "With pious care it still 
 hovered near the nest which had given it birth ; and as 
 soon as its strength was equal to the task, it bore away 
 that which had equally been its own cradle and the tomb 
 of its parent and deposited it before the gates of the Tem- 
 ple of the Sun {Met. xv. 392). Nonnus extends the life 
 of the Phoenix to a thousand years, and alludes to the fami- 
 liar story which, however, is mentioned neither by Hero- 
 dotus nor Ovid, of the parent bird burning itself upon 
 the odoriferous pile which it had carefully prepared, and 
 of a young Phoenix springing to life from the ashes of its 
 sire {Dyon. xl. 375). This doctrine of the renewal of the 
 world held by the ancient philosophers has received a 
 
It4t THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 great accession of probability from the astronomical dis- 
 coveries of La Place, who has demonstrated that certain 
 motions of the planetary bodies which appeared to New- 
 ton to be irregular, and to portend at some future period 
 the destruction of the solar system, are all periodical; 
 and that after certain immensely elongated cycles are 
 finished, everything returns again to its former situation. 
 The ancient philosophers of the East had a knowledge of 
 this doctrine, the general nature of which they might 
 liave acquired by reasoning similar to the above, or by 
 lihe same means by which they acquired a knowledge of 
 the Naros, that is through the Apocalypse. 
 
 41. One of the characters, attributed to the Great 
 Year, says Boulanger, was the Phoenix, an apocalyptical 
 dogma, enveloped in an allegory, become by its fable un- 
 intelligible. In the Chaldee, as well as in the Coptic 
 JPhenische makes up the cycle — 600. 
 
 Ph. £3 
 
 80 
 
 * 
 
 500 
 
 E n 
 
 5 
 
 N 
 
 50 
 
 N :i 
 
 50 
 
 N 
 
 50 
 
 N J 
 
 50 
 
 
 
 I ^ 
 
 10 
 
 
 600 
 
 K p 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 Sh. ^ 
 
 300 
 
 
 
 E n 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 600 
 
 The Chaldaeans had another name for the Phoenix, viz., 
 V/J, do. (Buztorf) : and these letters used as numerals 
 make up the same number : Caph final =^500 ; Lamed = 
 30; Oin = 70.=600, whence, perhaps, the ColL Yug of 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 175 
 
 the Brahmins. The mythos, though an enigma to Bou- 
 langer, explains itself in the doctrine of one world rising 
 out of the ruins of another at certain stated immense 
 periods, and one Messiah following another in the same 
 manner. And the Christian fathers were wont to employ 
 it as a symbol of the resurrection, when the microcosm 
 man will issue forth in renovated beauty from the decayed 
 ruins of his former self. Herodotus, as we have seen, 
 mentions that the Phoenix was one of the sacred birds, or 
 hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, and it is a curious circum- 
 stance that we find nations the most remote from each 
 other well acquainted with this symbol. The ancient 
 IrLsh ascribed a longevity of six centuries to their Phoenix, 
 and considered the production of the young bird as a 
 restoration to life of the old one. At the same time they 
 remarkably explain the mythos by declaring this hiero- 
 glyphical bird to mean o^ily a celestial cycle. By the 
 Japanese the Phoenix is called Kirin, and by the Turks 
 Kerkes. ' According to the latter it lives a thousand years. 
 When the thousand years are past it gathers pieces of 
 wood in its bill, and kindling a flame is consumed in the 
 fire and becomes ashes. Then, by the command of the 
 Almighty, the Air (the Holy Spirit) restores these ashes 
 to life ; and it again lives a thousand years, and so on to 
 the day of judgment. (21.) The Phoenix is also very 
 plainly the same as the Simorgh of Pei*sian romance ; and 
 the account which is given us of this last bird yet more 
 decisively establishes the opinion that the death and re- 
 vival of the Phoenix exhibit the successive destruction and 
 reproduction of the world, which many believed to be 
 efiected by the agency of a fiery deluge. When the 
 Simorgh was asked her age, she infonned Caherman that 
 
176 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 this world is very ancient, for it has been already seven 
 times replenished, with beings different from man, and 
 seven times depopulated : that the age of the human race 
 in which we now are, is to endure seven thousand years, 
 and that she herself had seen twelve of these revolutions, 
 and knew not how many more she had to see. (Orient 
 Collect, ii., 119.) The Simorgh is in reality the same as 
 the winged Singh of the Hindus, and the Si^hinx of the 
 Egyptians. It is said that the former will appear at the 
 end of the world, and that such will be the size of this 
 monstrous lion-bird, that as soon as he is born he wiE 
 prey upon an elephant, which will shrink into absolute 
 insignificance compared to the bulk of its mighty de- 
 vourer. From these the Kabbins have borrowed their 
 mythos of an enormous Bird, sometimes standing on the 
 earth, and sometimes walldng in the ocean, the waters of 
 which reach no higher than its legs, while its head props 
 the sky ; and with the symbol, they have also adopted the 
 doctrine to which it relates. They teach that there are 
 to be seven successive renewals of the globe ; that each 
 reproduced system will last seven thousand years ; and 
 that the total duration of the Universe will be 49,000 
 years. This opinion, which involves the doctrine of thepre- 
 existence of each renewed creature, they may either have 
 learned during their Babylonian captivity, or it may have 
 been part of the primeval religion which their priests had 
 preserved from remote times. The disciples of Jesus 
 enquired of him whether a blind man had been born blind 
 in consequence of his own sin, or that of his parents. Now 
 it is obvious that no sin of his could have been deemed the 
 cause of a blindness, which was coeval with his birth, 
 \mless it had been committed before his birth ; but it 
 
THE APOCALYPSK 177 
 
 could not have been committed before his birth unless he 
 had lived in some prior state — that is, in some other 
 world. This question therefore necessarily implies that 
 they had the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls; nor 
 did Jesus at all reprove them for it, or intimate that they 
 were mistaken. On the contrary, his reply would go to 
 show that he himself also professed the same belief. JesiLS 
 answered, it was not because this man sinned, nor his 
 parents, but that the works of God should be made mani- 
 fest in him — which reason is evidently an interpolation, 
 for God never makes manifest his works or his'^wisdom by 
 inflicting misery on a human creature. The same tenet 
 appears to be inculcated in the^oo^ of Wisdom viii.,^19, 
 20. For I was a witty child, and had a good spirit — yea, 
 rather being good, I came into a body undefiled. But if 
 his goodness was the cause of his being thus born, he 
 must have livecj in the judgment of the writer previous to 
 his birth into the present world. And they proved its 
 truth by two passages in their books. The first is in 
 Deuteronomy xxix., 14, 15. Neither with you only do I 
 make this covenant and this oath. But with him that 
 standeth here with us this day before the Lord our God, 
 and also with him that is not here with v^ this day. 
 Whence they argued that since the covenant was made 
 with generations unborn as well as born, the former must 
 then have been actually in existence, though they had 
 not as yet been bom into this world. They also adduced 
 a passage from Jeremiah (L, 5), in which God declares to 
 the prophet that be/ore he had formed him in tlie womb lie 
 knew him, or, as they translate it, had endowed him with 
 wisdom : whence they argued that if Jeremiah possessed 
 wisdom before his birth, he must have existed antece- 
 
 I 3 
 
178 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 dently to it. So also we read in Pscdm xc. Lord, ttiou 
 hast been our dwelling place in all generations, before the 
 mountains were brought forth, or even the earth and the 
 world vjere made; — which shows the belief in an existence 
 before any part of the material universe was brought 
 into action : an existence in the bosom of the Holy Spirit 
 of the Heavens. 
 
 42. It is curious, and may not be uninteresting to 
 trace the word Phoenix to its root, and to take a glance 
 at its cognates. The radical from which it is derived is 
 Aph P)^«^, Heat. Aptha, Apha, Pthas, Ptha, an Amo- 
 nian name for God, and Fire, and Vulcan. There was a 
 Temple of Yenus Aphacitis, near Mount Libanus. 
 Zozimus says that near the temple was a large lake, made 
 by art, in shape like a star. About the building, and in 
 the neighbouring ground, there at times appeared a fire 
 of a globular figure which burned like a lamp. It 
 generally shewed itself at times when a celebration was 
 to be held ; and he adds that even in his time it was 
 frequently seen. Diana was called Apha and Aphoea. 
 Dyctinna, which was a surname also for both Minerva 
 and Diana, was called Aphoea. Mars was called Aphoeue. 
 Aphetor was what the ancient Dorians expressed to be 
 Apha-Tor, a fire tower, or phallic tower, or Prutaneum. 
 This in aftertimes was changed to Prsetorium, and the 
 chief persons who officiated were called Prsetores or 
 priests of fire ; hence they were called Aphetae ; and 
 every Prsetor had a brazier of live coals carried before 
 him as a badge of his office. This Ptha, which denoted 
 Thoth or Hermes, was T and E united, thus, ^. This 
 was the crux ansata, and was often formed as a K^eg; 
 which was the foxmdation of the numerous allusions to 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 179 
 
 the Keys of Heaven, of Hell, and of Death. It was in 
 all the ancient temples, as an emblem of the Naros and 
 the Resurrection : all the Egjrptian gods bore it in their 
 hands. Sometimes it was figured thus, ^, a circle sur- 
 mounting a cross. This is the Linga and Yoni of India 
 united. Pthas, in Greek numerals, is equal to 600. The 
 deity Pthas presided in the Kingdom of Omptha — the 
 cycle of Aum. Luther took for his coat-of-arms a Cross 
 rising out of a Rose — this was a mystic symbol — the 
 Linga rising out of the Yoni, as we see in the Indian 
 carvings. This root, pronounced broadly is Oph, a serpent; 
 and was variously pronounced Ope, Oupis, Opis, Ops, and 
 by Cicero, Upis. It was an emblem of the Sun, and of 
 time everlasting. The Egyptian Opas was the same as 
 Oniis. Ob and Aub are but variations. The basilisk, op 
 royal Serpent, was named Oubns — a prophetic deity, 
 whose sayings were oracular. All the mythologic legends 
 of Serpents have reference to the God adored under this 
 symbol. His pillar, cone-shaped, was called Ab-addir, or 
 Splendid Father. Cecrops introduced Serpent worship 
 into Greece at a very early period. Callimachus calls 
 Diana, Dupis. As a compound it makes Cnuphis, and 
 Cnepb, and Caneph. Ops was esteemed tlie goddess of 
 fire and riches; it was a title given to Cybele, Rhcea, 
 Vesta, Terra, Juno ; but all these were one. The Tsabii 
 worshipped Beltha, which was Bel and Ptha, God and the 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 43. Vallancey, copying fix>m an old Irish glossary, thus 
 writes : Tlie Phoenix is a bird about the size of an Eagle, 
 and when restored to life^ lives 600 yeai-s, or 600 turns of 
 Baal, the sun ; and there is but one of the species in the 
 world, and she makes her nest with, combustible spices ; 
 
180 ^ THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 and when the sun sets them on fire, she fans the flame 
 with her wings, and burns herself; and out of the ashes 
 arises a small embryo, which becomes another Phoenix. 
 Una est quae reparat seque ipsa reseminat Ales, Assyrii 
 Phoenica vocant. (Met. xv. 392.) Pluche derives the 
 name from the Phoenician word phanag, to be in delight 
 and abundance ; but it is more rational to draw it 
 from phanahy pronounced phanach, which signifies to 
 return : and this agrees better with the story of the 
 Phoenix, which might be expressed by oplien^ a wheel, or 
 rather by phonech, that which returns or turns round- 
 In Irish, phainic is a circle or ring : hence it signifies an 
 Eagle or any great bird that flies in circles, as those birds 
 do j whence, the Egyptian pheneli, cyclum, periodum, 
 sevum. The word also signifies a Raven, whence the 
 raveu became sacred in Eastern countries, and in the 
 Mitbraic Mysteries, 
 
 44. All these varied features of one common creed 
 among every people on the earth, are so remarkable thai 
 it is impossible to withhold assent from the fact : while 
 the mythos of the Phoenix is so striking a representative 
 of the Messenger who is ever connected with the Temple 
 or Tabernacle of the Sun, and who always re-appears on 
 the expiration of the Cycle, that I think no one can 
 doubt that it bears the double type of the destruction 
 and reproduction of worlds, and the aphanism and new 
 Epiphany of the Sacred Herald of the Most High. And 
 I believe, on fair examination, it will be made manifest 
 to the mind that almost every great characteristic of this 
 ancient and primeval creed, has flowed directly from the 
 language of the Apocalypse, and from no other book that 
 now exists on earth. Nor can the similarity between 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 181 
 
 them and it, and each other, be accounted for on any 
 other hypothesis. Thi^ tinith will appear absolutely de- 
 monstrated beyond all cavil, if the reader will compare 
 certain peculiar incidents in the Ancient Mysteries with 
 what I have already pointed out, as articles of faith, and 
 ■with those parts of the Apocalypse itself, to which those 
 incidents bear relation. 
 
 45. Biblical writers, like Eaber, who study to support 
 a system, not to discover or preach Truth, are in the 
 habit of pretending, upon these facts, that the whole 
 ancient world was wrapped in idolatrous darkness, and 
 that it worshipped a multiplicity of deities. That the 
 populace were grossly ignorant then, as they are now, 
 may be conceded; and that the herd of priests encouraged 
 them in that ignorance is as true of those distant ages as 
 it is of the present ; but who would seek the truths of 
 Christianity in some ranting chapel in the remote pro- 
 vinces 1 who would not rather search after them in the 
 acknowledged guides and leaders of the church 1 This 
 the biblicals do not do ; but they extract from my tholo- 
 gists like Hesiod, and fabulists like Ovid, and dotards like 
 Varro, Plutarch, and Diodorus, their notions of ancient 
 religion, and then exclaim. Thus lost in superatition were 
 all the peoples of the past ! whereas these writers knew 
 absolutely nothing of the Truth, which was revealed only 
 to the initiated in the Greater Mysteries; or, if they 
 did, they could not venture to disclose it. And the 
 biblicals talk perpetually of ancient polytheism, as they 
 do now of the polytheism of India, when they know 
 that monotheism was the creed which all the sages pro- 
 mulgated; and that this Triune- All, of which I have 
 spoken, was essentially distinct from the least recognition 
 
182 TSE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 of any Power but the One. How utterly reduced to 
 silence these writers were, when Hammohun Koy pointed 
 out, that with equal reason, Christianity itself might be 
 accused of idolatrous teaching as the pagan system, is well 
 remembered by those who have taken interest in such 
 investigations. The editor, says that acute reasoner, 
 alluding to one of those blatant missionaries to India, 
 who by preaching Paulism, disgrace Christianity, denies 
 positively the charge of admitting three Gods, though he 
 is in the practice of woi-shipping God the Father, God the 
 Son, and God the Holy Ghost. I could wish to know 
 what he would say when a Hindu also would deny Poly- 
 theism on the same principle, that if three persons be 
 admitted to make One God, and those that adore them 
 be esteemed as worshippers of One God, what objection 
 could he advance justly to the oneness of three hundred 
 and thirty-three millions of persons in the Deity, and to 
 their worship in different emblems ; for oneness of three or 
 of thirty millions of separate persons is equally impossible 
 according to human experience, and equally supportable 
 by mystery alone? This argument of course was not 
 answered, nor could it be ; and yet we find these tracta- 
 rians still pretending and declaring that idolatry is the 
 national religion of the East, when they would act more 
 fairly if they contented themselves with saying that, like 
 our Paulite atonement, it is the nationpJ superstition, 
 which it unquestionably is. But tliough this be so, the 
 founders of the religion were not in fault ; no founder ever 
 preached idolatry ; his successors in the priesthood are 
 they who have done it all; and every European who 
 holds the vulgar doctrine of the Trinity is as much a poly- 
 theist as the ignorant inhabitant of the East ; for the 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 183 
 
 recognised definition of that mystery, "three persons in 
 one God," if it have any meaning at all, means " three 
 gods in one God," and is as near polytheism as can well be. 
 Yet so great is the power of words in deceiving the falli- 
 ble mind of man, that he who would avert his belief 
 immediately from the latter definition, unhesitatingly 
 adopts the former, which, as I have shewn, differs in no 
 way whatever from it, in its real and essential interpreta- 
 tion. 
 
NOTES TO BOOK 11. 
 
 Note 1 (p. 118). — The Cyclopes were called one-eyed, for another 
 reason also, because they invented the telescope. Yulcan their 
 father was a fabricator, as Jesus was said to be a carpenter, and 
 the son of a carpenter, which only meant the Artifex Mundi. 
 All these things may appear to be, and they are, riddles, but the 
 theological student knows that religion has always been wrapped 
 up in them. Thus Saturn devouring his children, means God 
 absorbing all things into himself ; and raising the dead, restoring 
 the blind to sight and the mad to reason, simply means to purify 
 the souls of the ignorant, who are in reality, blind, irrational, and 
 in a state of death. 
 
 Note 2 (p. 118). — Syene, says Strabo, stands immediately under 
 the tropic ; a well is sunk here, which marks the summer solstice, 
 and the day on which it happens is known, when the style of the 
 sundial casts no shade at noon. At that instant the vertical sun 
 darts his rays to the bottom of the well, and his entire image is 
 described upon the ivater (lib. xvii.) Who could have conceived, 
 says Maurice, that one of the most difficult processes in the 
 whole science of chemistry, that of reducing to powder, and 
 rendering potable the golden calf, could have been known at so 
 early a period as when Moses led out of Egypt into the desert 
 the children of Israel ? Hist, of Hindostan, i., 483. The Pharos 
 built by Sostrates of Cnidus, contained several stories, and was 
 surrounded by galleries supported on marble columns. This 
 miraculous tower as Csesar calls it, was near 400 feet high : on its 
 summit was a vast mirror of polished steel, so disposed as to pre- 
 sent the image of distant vessels before they were visible to the 
 eye. It was destroyed, as Abulfeda relates, by the Christians, and 
 it may be questioned whether such a work could now be con- 
 structed. Can it be wondered that with aU these facts before 
 him, Whitehurst felt himself compelled to acknowledge from 
 what the fathers of human science have delivered down to poste- 
 rity, concerning the chaotic state of things, and the universal 
 fluid in which the earthly particles were suspended, that the 
 
NOTES TO BOOK IL 185 
 
 Newtonian doctrines respecting gravity, fluidity, and centrifugal 
 force were known in remotest antiquity, though afterwards for- 
 gotten and lost, till revived by our great mathematician. {Inquitij 
 page 18.) 
 
 Note 3 (p. 118). — From the Buddhistic title for the Messiah, 
 namely Saca comes Saca-sa; hence Saxon and Scythian. The 
 universal affinity of all these Cyclopean structures, is curiously 
 shewn in the Travels of Mr. Walters in the Pundua Hills, printed 
 in the AsiaticJournal for 1829, p. 322. As he advanced still further, 
 it says, Mr. W. saw some most magnificent scenery, which we 
 regret that our limits will not admit of particular reference to. 
 "What is very singular, however, is his falling in with gigantic 
 stone monimients and door- ways, that strongly reminded him of 
 Stonehenge. These upright stones and stone doors are monuments 
 to the memory of departed rajahs and chiefs. The first gateway 
 of stone he passed (formed of three single slabs) was twelve feet 
 high, and he conjectures that some of these monumental stones iveigh 
 thirty tons. These stupendous monuments are found near all the 
 villages on the hills. The Cosseah monuments are numerous, and 
 of large size, about Nunclow. The circular and square stones, 
 supported by stones placed on end, are extremely similar to the 
 * cromlechs' found in Cornwall and Wales; doubtless those ancient 
 moniunents were appropriated to the same purpose, the reception 
 of the ashes of deceased chiefs enclosed in urns. If this was the 
 case, how singular it is that the customs of nations, in the same 
 stage of society indeed, but situated at such an immeasiirable 
 distance from each other, should be found so exactly to coincide ! 
 If any doubt exists as to the purpose for which the monuments 
 in Britain were erected, is it not dissipated by observation as to 
 the actual use of similar monuments in this country at this day ? 
 I did not observe that any of the upright stones were placed in 
 circles like those of Stonehenge, but generally in lines. So we 
 read that on the shores of Oceanus, stood a stone called Gigonian, 
 so vast that no force could move it, but at the touch of Asphodel 
 it woidd move. Ptol. Heph. ap. Phot. lib. 3. This was a rocking 
 stone, such as we have in Cornwall : and the Asphodel was the 
 Druidic ai-t. The worship of Baal or Bel, as they called the Sun, was 
 spread to the north and the west, by the merchants and mariners 
 of Tsidon, Tyre, and Carthage. Vossius has traced the worship 
 of Belenus or Belen, evidently the same as Balen, to Aquileia on 
 the Adriatic, to Noricura, a southern province of Germany, and 
 to Armorica in Gaul. The name of Beli or Bali seems to have 
 been equally known to the Goths and Celts. If the Goths ac- 
 
186 NOTES TO BOOK H. 
 
 cording to tlie Edda do not give a distinguished place to Beli in 
 their mj^thology, it is easy to discern in the name of Balder, the 
 HyiJerborean Apollo, the elementary words which compose it, and 
 which are clearly Baal Adur, the brilliant lord, or the lord of Jfire. 
 The name of Beli was familiar to the ancient Britons, (see 
 Davis's Mythology of the Druids,) and the descendants of the 
 Celts of Scotland often speak of Bel without suspecting its Chal- 
 dsean origin. Beltaiu is nothing else than the ancient god of the 
 east, ^IV^ 721 Bel-itan, or Bel the mighty, the name which 
 according to Ctesias the Babylonians gave to Bel, and which he 
 writes BeAiraj/T^s. 
 
 Note 4 (p. 120), — Near the city of Benares in India, are the as- 
 tronomical instruments, cut out of the solid rock of a mountain, 
 which in former times were used for making the observations just 
 now alluded to, which Sir W, Jones and the priests say were only 
 back-reckonings. The Brahmins of the present day, it is said, do 
 not know the use of them : they are of great size, and tradition 
 states them to be of the most remote antiquity. Maurice observes 
 that circular stone monuments were intended as durable symbols 
 of astronomical cycles, by a race, who not having, or politically 
 forbidding the use of letters, had no other permanent method of 
 instructing their disciples, or handing down their knowledge to 
 posterity. The number of stones at Stonehenge was originally 
 600, to commemorate the six centuries. Of the lily which Gabriel 
 in all the old Annunciation paintings, presents to the Virgin, 
 Parkhurst says, ' ' Its six-leaved flower contains within it seven 
 apices or chives ; i.e., six single headed ones, and one triple -headed 
 One in the midst." Now what does this symbolize? The six 
 leases and the six chives are the Naros : and the triple-headed 
 central Chive, is the Messiah, whom the Celestial Messenger thus 
 brings to the Sacred Virgin. See ante, p. 61. So the Muses were 
 Baid to speak Gecov otti XeLpioecrcrL, with the lilied Voice of the 
 Gods. Theog. 41 ; Iliad, iii. 152. The arrow or javelin -headed 
 "writing found in Assyria and Babylonia, is an imitation of the 
 fipear-head or liliaceous writing of the primitive Assyrians, if it 
 be not the same. So language was called " a flight of arrows :" 
 and the first Messiah in the Apocal3rpse is seen with a bow. In 
 conformity with the six centuries of the Naros, the' globe was at 
 first divided into 60 degrees, which subsequently multiplied by 6, 
 became 360, at which it now remains : the horn- also was divided 
 into 60 minutes, of 60 seconds each : the Tartars and Chinese had 
 a period of 60 days, and the Asiatics generally a cycle of 60 years : 
 the Roman lustrum of 5 years represented this when multiplied 
 
NOTES TO BOOK H. 187 
 
 "by 12 : and the Babylonian great year was 360O, being the Naros 
 multiplied by 6 : a more remarkable proof of all things flowing 
 from one common centre and fountain, can hardly be conceived I 
 The Tartar cycle called A"an was 180 years or three sixties: 
 which multiplied by 12 tunes 12=144, makes 25920 years, the 
 exact period of the revolution of the heavens. 
 
 Note 5 (page 122). — Genesis makes the increaseof the waters of 
 the Deluge, continue for 150 days (viii. 3), that is five months of 
 30 days each — a clear proof that in the time of the writer when- 
 ever it was, the year was thought to consist of only 360 days, 
 that is 30 X 12. The Septuagint speaks of tke 27th day of the 
 month, as that on which the waters ceased to flow (viiL 4) : in 
 which it differs from the Hebrew, Chaldee, Samaritan, Arabic, 
 and Syriac Books of Genesis, which all assign that incident to the 
 17th day. As the Apocalypse, xii. 6, speaks of a year of 360 days, 
 three years and a half = 1260 days, it thereby conclusively estab- 
 lishes itself by the best of all evidence, namely internal evidence, 
 to be entitled to an antiquity ascending to a period almost prim- 
 eval ; and I would not deny the same character to that particular 
 portion of Genesis, above cited, did it not shew by internal 
 evidence also that it had been corrupted by the Talmudists. 
 
 Note (page 127). — Dr. Himtington, in his Account of the Por- 
 phyry Pillars in Egypt, tells us that the hieroglyphic characters 
 wherewith they are engraven, are probably the aboriginal Egyp- 
 tian letters, long become obsolete ; and they resemble the Chinese 
 characters, each whereof represents a word, or rather an entire 
 sentence ; besides they seem to be written the same way, namely 
 from top to bottom- 
 Note 7 (page 128). — In Exod. xxviii. Moses is commanded to take 
 two onyx stones, and grave upon them the names of the children 
 of Israel ; with the work of an engraver in stone like the engravings 
 of a signet, shalt thou engrave the two stones with tke names of tke 
 ckildren of Israel. In the same chapter is a direction to engrave 
 twelve stones with the names of the children of Israel, according 
 to their names, like the engravings of a signet. In these passages 
 we have a constant reference to a well-known art of engraving 
 names upon signets ; and these engravings cannot be regarded as 
 cyphers, or mere hieroglyphical symbols ; for (in v. 36) we find 
 another command to make a plate of pure gold, and grave upon it 
 like the engravings of a signet, Holiness to the Lord niH^/ t2^*Tp 
 Kodesch Layhova. From this emblem of sanctity, Hermes the 
 was always represented with the caducetu, a word 
 
188 NOTES TO BOOK II. 
 
 evidently kindred witli Tcodesch. There is a degree in masonry called 
 " a Chapter of the Grand Inspector of Lodges, or Grand Elected 
 Knights of Kadosh," who seem to have borrowed their title and 
 functions as Inspectors from those of the Egyptian Mercury. The 
 badge borne by Mercury appears to be alluded to by the manner 
 of answ^ering the question " Are you Kadosh ?" upon which the 
 person questioned places his hand upon his forehead and says, 
 *' Yes, I am." The sacred words are Nekam Adonai ; which pro- 
 bably have the same signification as the words engraved on the 
 plate worn by the Jewish high-priest, Adonai or Adonis, meaning 
 Lord. The mitre worn by the high-priest of masonry, in the 
 royal arch degree is surrounded with the words Holiness to the 
 Lord. 
 
 Note 8 (page 139). — The Peruvians of quality,'says More {Expla- 
 nation of Grand Mystery, 86), and those too of mean sort, would 
 sacriice their Jirst born to redeem their own life, when the priest 
 pronounced they were mortally sick ; and Picart has a plate in 
 which a representation is given of a scene in Florida, where the 
 first-bom child, if a male, was sacrificed to the Sun. And as the 
 King of Moab when in distress, took his first-born son that should 
 have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering (2 
 Kings iii. 27) so Hacon, King of Norway, offered his son in sacrifice 
 to obtain of Odin, the victory over his enemy Harald. Aune, 
 King of Sweden devoted to Odin the bk>od of his nine sons to 
 prevail on that god to prolong his life ; and the ancient history of 
 the North abounds in similar examples. — Mallefs Northern An- 
 tiquities, i. 134. 
 
 Note 9 (page 141).— Al (God), Aum (God), Bra (the Creator), are 
 three sacred names with which all the ancient theology is filled : 
 the Alhambra in Grenada commemorates them. Aum was changed 
 by the Greeks into Aun, and On, the Sun — it meant the Self- 
 Existent. In the Kahala the First Cause (God) is named Ain 
 (Nothing, Not anything). This is the formless Brahm of the Hin- 
 dus. From this Ain or On, came 0-On the Mundane Egg, or 
 Sphere, which God is represented in old paintings and sculptures, 
 as discharging or emaning from his mouth : and from this O-On, 
 came Zo-On, or living creature which the] Mundane Sphere or the 
 Universe is. Plato in the Timseus calls God, Zwov : and Aristotle 
 {MetajyJiysic, xiv. 8), says, cfia/xev Se rov Oeov ctvat Zwov di'Stov, 
 apicTTOv — we say that God is the Living One, the venerable, the 
 most excellent. 
 
 Note 10 (page 145).— Cudworth, says Faber, Pag. Idol i. 121, 
 Beems to me rightly to conclude on the authority of Jamblichus, 
 
NOTES TO BOOK H. 189 
 
 that the Trismegistic Books really cotitain the Hermaic ojiinions. 
 His argument is now much streugthened by the circumstance of 
 the same theory respecting the world being found to prevail 
 throughout the East. It was long a favourite axiom with the 
 priests that everything which did not coincide with their notions 
 of the Future was a forgery or a fable. But this seems to be now 
 reluctantly abandoned. 
 
 Note 11 (page 148). — Cue of the Shanscreet emblems, says Wil- 
 ford, is named Argha, which means a cup, dish, vessel in which 
 flowers and fruit are offered to the Deity : but this cup or dish 
 must always be shaped like a boat or ship ; and hence Iswara has 
 the title of Arga-nautha, or the Lord of the boat -shaped vessel. 
 The name is preserved by the Laplanders, who call the Holy 
 Spirit, Virchu (Virgo) Archa. And as the Spirit comes from God, 
 and the soul from the Holy Spirit, so their double nature enters 
 into the composition of man. This is alluded to in Gen. ii. 7, 
 where we read that leue Aleim breathed into ha- Adam's nostrils, 
 the breath of lives, hayim D^IH in the plural. This, as usual, is 
 disguised in the English version. Job alludes to this, xxxiii, 4 : 
 The Spirit of God hath made me ; and the breath of the Almighty 
 hath given me life ; as if the Two had taken counsel together ; 
 {let us make man in our image, after our likeness, Gen. i. 2C,) and 
 given him, the soul and spirit of which he consists. Wisdom, xvi. 
 14 ; Hebrews, iv. 12. It is more than probable, says Maurice, that 
 the secret and mystic sense of the word Aleim (plural) was known 
 to the Rabbins, and preserved among the most venerated arcana 
 of their cabalistic doctrines in every period of their existence as 
 a nation ; and though it might not be prudent to reveal that 
 mystic sense to a wavering and infatuated people, who were for 
 ever relapsing into polytheism, yet that the doctrine of the world, 
 created, regulated, and governed by three sovereign hjrpostases, 
 made a part of the creed of the ancient synagogue, there can be 
 no stronger evidence than their devout and rapturous expressions 
 concerning the Three Great Sephiroth, or Celestial Enumerations, 
 Hist, of Hindostan, i. 72. But the Three Sephiroth had nothing 
 to do with the Aleim properly considered : the Aleim meant God 
 and the Holy Spirit : the Sephiroth meant God, the Holy Spirit, 
 and aQ Existences — the Trinity. 
 
 Note 12 (page 150). — This is the rabbinical theory, as developed 
 in Genesis, where there is a gradual shortening of human life from 
 the supposed days of the first people. 
 
 Note 13 (page 151). — Nat or Nauth signifies Lord, and is used in 
 composition with the names of the Gods, much in the same man- 
 
IW NOTES TO BOOK II. 
 
 ner as the Canaanites used Baal, wliicli is a word of the same im- 
 port. Thus we have Jagan-Nath, Suman-Nauth or Somnauth, 
 and the like. In the Apocalypse we have this Nauth descending 
 and binding Satan for a thousand years. In the Kingdom of As- 
 sam, when any person is taken sick, a priest is sent for, who 
 hreatkes upon the patient, and repeats several prayers over him. 
 So Jesus breathed Qn his disciples, John, xx. 22. How comes this 
 analogy ? 
 
 Note 14 (page 152), — An, Ana, Avne, Onn (Irish), a cycle, seasons : 
 hence Lu-an the Moon, the An or cycle of L, ^ ^ 30. Bel-ain a 
 year, the cycle of Belus. Ain-leog, a swallow, a cyclic or revo- 
 lutionary bird. Ain-naomhagh, the celestial bird, the Phoenix, and 
 perhaps the fabulous bird of the Brahmins, the Auny. Onn as 
 applied to the cycle of the sun, signifies the sun-fire, &c. -i^gypt. 
 Oein, and Hon the Sun ; ^^ ^HD Cohen or Ken On, Priest of the 
 Sun ; in Irish, Conach Oin ; Persian, Ayine, seasons, revolutions ; 
 Chald. \]y hon, time ; honan ]^*\y, to observe the times, whence 
 the Irish Anius, an astrologer, astronomer, &c. The Druidical 
 temples named Ana-mor, were composed of 48 stones, denoting 
 the number of the old constellations, with a Kebla of 9 stones 
 near the circumference, or the inside, to represent the sun in its 
 progress through the signs. Ao, Ion, lo, lao, and 0, says Sir W. 
 Drummond, were the same word originally, though pronounced 
 differently by different nations. This is the root of the Latin 
 Janus, Jovis, and Jupiter, which is lao-pater, and leu-pater, 
 corrupted into Jupiter. It seems likewise that both Ion and lanus 
 were the same with Zan, On, or Oannes, that imago biceps which 
 returned to the sea with the setting sun ; and which was wor- 
 shipped as a solar symbol, or an Incarnation, by the Cretans, Egyp- 
 tians, Phoenicians, and Babylonians. All the greater gods enume- 
 rated by Ennius were Asiatic before they were Italian ; and a curious 
 proof that they were so is furnished by one of the etymologies of 
 Jupiter, which we are told is not derived from Juvo and Pater, 
 but from the Shanscreet word jd, sether, heaven, and pitri, father 
 (Jupitri), which explains the reason of the title having been ap- 
 plied as well to the firmament as to the Deity. Hence Ennius 
 wrote ; Aspice hoc sublime candens quern invocant omnes Jovem. 
 Mystically it was used by the Etruscans in rings, or oviform pre- 
 sents which they made, and which bore the initials A.O. amico 
 Optimo. The reader will see the importance of A.O. when he 
 comes to the Apocalypse. 
 
 Note 15 (page 152). — The reader cannot fail to perceive that 
 the whole of this theory is founded on the Apocalypse, sec- 
 
NOTES TO BOOK H. 191 
 
 tions 55, 56, 57. Yet who can believe that the Burmese boiTowed 
 it from the mutilated Greek-Hebrew copy ? It is evidently taken 
 from the true primeval Apocalypse and no other. 
 
 Note 16 (pagel54).— Edda,fab. ii., iii., iv., xxxii.,rxxiii. Bishop 
 Percy supposes that there is some defect or ambiguity in the ori- 
 ginal, because the Sun in the same sentence is spoken of as both 
 masculine 'and feminine : a mode of phraseology carefully pre- 
 served both in the French translation of Mallet, and the Latin 
 one of Goranson. There may be an ambiguity, but there is no 
 defect. This very ambiguity indeed which perfectly accords with 
 the opinion entertained by the ancients respecting the two sexcd 
 character of the Divinity whom they venerated in the Sun, is the 
 best proof of the genuineness of the ancient verses referred to as 
 an authority by the compiler of the Edda : and I greatly doubt 
 whether the Bishop's attempt to remedy this supposed erroneous 
 reading by using the word parent rather than mother, has not com- 
 pletely marred the intentional mysticism of the writer. The ver- 
 sion of Mallet is : Le Roi hrillant dufeu engendrera unefille nnique, 
 avant que detre englouii par le loup ; ceite jille suivra les traces de 
 sa mere, apres la mort dee dieux. That of Goranson : Unicam 
 Jiliam genuit, rubicundissimua Ule rex, antequam eum Fenris devo- 
 raverit ; quce cur sura est, mortuis diis, viam maternam. Such lan- 
 guage exactly describes the solar Siva in his double character of 
 Ardlui-Nari ; and ought to be scrupulously retained, as exhibit- 
 ing a faithful picture of the theological notions which the Goths 
 brought with them from the East. 
 
 Note 17 (page 162). — The Roman Lar in fact was the same as the 
 Brabin of the Tonquinese, When a man comes into possession of 
 any tenement, he entertains this household deity in a small hut or 
 apartment prepared for his reception. He is solemnly invited by 
 beat of drum, and presented with agreeable perfumes, and a 
 variety of dishes. After having been thus entertained he is ex- 
 pected to protect their houses from fire, lightning, thunder, wind, 
 rain, or any thing by which they or their inhabitants may be in- 
 jured. This mode of attaining the favour of heaven was certainly 
 more innocent than that practised by the Athenians and ^Mas- 
 silians, who sacrificed a man annually for the welfare of the state. 
 They loaded him with the most dreadful curses ; they prayed 
 that the wrath of the gods might fall upon his devoted head, and 
 thus be diverted from the rest of the citizens ; and they solemnly 
 called upon him to become their ransom, their salvation, and 
 their redemption ; life for life, and body for body ; after tliis they 
 cast him into the sea, as an ofiFering to Neptune. —i^rtZ>6r, Pag. 
 
192 NOTES TO BOOK 11. 
 
 Idol, i. 476. As a friend of mine, who has seen my note in a 
 former page, doubts whether the general public will accept the 
 statement of a converted Jew, and says that the Jews will 
 assuredly deny its truth, as they deny their crucifixion of chil- 
 dren, (than which no fact is better established) I subjoin an 
 authority that cannot be disputed with any hope of success : I 
 mean Buxtorf. The account which he gives, is as follows : Each 
 father of a family begins the ceremony by stepping forth into 
 the midst of the assembly with a cock in his hands, and by 
 repeating certain appropriate texts of scripture. Then he 
 thrice strikes the cock against his head, and at each blow ex- 
 claims : May this cock he accepted in exchange for me ; may he 
 succeed to my place, m.ay he he ati expiation for me. On this cock, 
 death shall he inflicted, hut to me and to all Israel there shall he a 
 fortunate life. Amen. Afterwards placing his hands upon the 
 victim he slays him. Then drawing the skin tight around the 
 neck, he mentally confesses that he himself was worthy of 
 strangulation, but that he substituted, and offered the cock in 
 his own room. Next he cuts its throat with a knife, silently 
 reflecting that he was thus worthy of being slain with the 
 sword. Next he violently dashes the carcase on the ground 
 to denote that he was worthy of being stoned to death. Lastly 
 lie roasts it with fire to intimate that he deserved the punishment 
 of burning. And thus by these several actions the idea was con- 
 veyed that the cock underwent four sorts of death in the place 
 of the Jews, being accepted as their representative and substitute. 
 Buxtorf, Synag. Judaic, p. 509. See Chambers s Journal, Sept. 
 14, 1861, The Jews wrote to the editor complaining of the article 
 as a libel ; but the author of it verified every fact by actual re- 
 cords, and the Jews dropped the subject. 
 
 Note 18 (page 169). — See section 7 of the Apocalypse, for the 
 Song of the Angels, on which those Sibylline passages were founded. 
 The Jews transferred this to the writings of one of their priests ; 
 but I have brought it back to the original. 
 
 Note 19 (page 169). — Ar. Aur. Or. ^li*? Fire, whence from its 
 brightness, Lat., aurum, gold ; Gr., rrvp., fire ; Angl., burn : Lat., 
 nro, ardeo ; Hari, the Hindoo Lord of Light : hence ara, oro, hora, 
 Upov. Zeus was called Kiofivpos-, or Cham-Ur. See Lycophron. 
 As a first syllable it generally indicates a sacred word, as Argha, 
 Ari-ya, Ar-canus, Ur-anus, Urim and Thummim; so Armon, 
 P^*in a pomegranate tree, from p^*l nmwiow, a pomegranate. 
 Arka in Javanese means the Sun. "\*)K /N Al Or, God of light. 
 From this word comes Alorus, Al-Horus, Arjp, Aer, air, aerial, year. 
 
NOTES TO BOOK II. 193 
 
 also lip, the dawn, and Aurora, Uri-El, a Fire-Angel of God. 
 Arabot TW^*^V *^^6 ninth heaven, is called by the Rabbis, the 
 supreme sphere, iihi Deus thronum habet gloriosissimum. '^IJ^ ^7»^ 
 Alph-Aor, leader of light, Orus. To express Fire or Liglit, the 
 ancients said at first Ur, then an Aleph was added at the begin- 
 ning of the word to pronounce it more softly, and that made Aur. 
 Others have added the letter N, and have pronounced it Nur. 
 The Greeks have put a labial letter at the beginning, whence they 
 have made it Pur. Orion, is Aur-Ion, the Dove of Fire — a name 
 for the Cabiric Messenger : though he destroys, it is in love and 
 humanity to the rest of the world. Orion is described by Palce- 
 phatus as hunting with Diana — tliis is a Messiah. 
 
 Note 20 (page 173).— The Spirit of Wisdom or the Tree of Life, 
 whose Golden Bough, or Messiah, conducts the soul to the Ely- 
 sian Fields, was thus described by Virgil in his 6th book. 
 A mighty Tree that bears a Golden Bough 
 Grows in a vale surrounded with a grove 
 And sacred to the Queen of Stygian Jove 
 Her nether world no mortals can behold 
 Till from the bole they strip the blooming gold. 
 The mighty Queen requires this gift alone. 
 And claims the shining wonder for her own. 
 One plucked aicay, another Branch you see 
 Shoot forth in gold, and glitter through the Tree. 
 Go then : with care erect thy searching eyes 
 And in proud triumph seize the glorious prize. 
 Thy purposed journey if the Fates allow. 
 Free to thy touch shall bend the costly Bough, 
 If not, the Tree will mortal strength disdain 
 And steel shall hew the glittering Branch in vain. 
 
 Note 21 (page 175). — We see a Phoenix, says Montfaucon, repre- 
 sented upon a Medal of Constantine the Younger, on the top of a 
 craggy rock, all radiant, with this inscription, Felix temporum re- 
 jyaratio'ihe happy restoration of the times ; which is agreeable to 
 the opinion of the ancients, that the Phoenix renewed itself ! ! 
 There is no reference as the reader sees to renewing itself, but 
 renewing times — a very great difference. But thus it is that eccle- 
 siastical writers translate, paraphrase, and change, relying on the 
 insuperable ignorance of their readers. 
 
 Note upon Bal. 
 Bal, Bel, Bol. Baal /V^l* I<ord, Sun ; Irish, Bealtinne ; Fires 
 in honour of Belus. It is often compounded with other terms, as 
 
 K 
 
194 NOTES TO BOOK II. 
 
 Bel-Adon, BelOrus, Bel-On, from which came the Bellona of the 
 Romans : Baal-Samin, Baal-Athis. Nimrod, i. 299, suggests that 
 the Tower of Belus, and the hanging Gardens of Babylon, inti- 
 mated the mystic union ; the Garden was the Female Principle 
 herself, under a venerated symbol : the Tower on the other hand, 
 symbolized the masculine energy; the phallos. Some even say 
 that from Bel (God in his Cabiric character) comes Bellwm war. 
 Bala, is one of the names of Boodh : in Ireland the various places to 
 which Bal or Baali is prefixed, such as Baltimore, Ballinasloe, &c., 
 were Boodhist villages. The Hindoos have Bala-Rama. Like the 
 word Al, though a masculine noun it makes its plural in the femi- 
 nine Bolini, DwVil' The Pelasgi, who used B. and P. indis- 
 criminately, formed from this ITeA-a), I am : also Belinus. It no 
 doubt hence entered into the formation of Apollo ; A-Bol, Bali, and 
 Palistan, and Balistan, a name for Thibet, the City of God, come 
 from this root : also the Bull, the symbol of the Sun. The word 
 for the Sun is in Hebrew Sur : in Chaldee Tur. In the Hebrew 
 this would be TB, the same as Taurus. This is T = 400. B. 200 = 
 600. Bala-Deva in India is represented with a plough share in his 
 left hand, a symbol of the procreative or generative power ; and 
 in his right hand a club like that of Alcides, typical of strength. 
 The Bulla which the Boman children carried around their necks, 
 as an amulet, was succeeded by the Papal ac/nus dei, with the same 
 object : the Pontifical Bull comes from this root. The temple of 
 Bel atBa-Bel-On, as described by Herodotus, was pyramidal. Hera, 
 says Hitzig, was the counterpart and wife of Zeus-Bal, and was 
 symbolised as the Moon. Baaltis and Bualtis was a Tsabsean name 
 for the Queen of Heaven, Bol-Berith, H^*!^ /V^' Sometimes 
 she was called Anna-Berith, which the Greeks changed into the 
 nymph Anobret who conceived by Zeus. God the purifier was the 
 same as the Zevs Ka^apcrtos of the Greeks. In the Philippine 
 Islands, the whole of their religious ritual consists in songs and 
 hymns which parents teach their children to learn by heart. They 
 call the Supreme Being, Boodh- Ala, and Abba, which of course 
 gives occasion to missionaries to declare that they are descended 
 from the Jews, the word Abba in Hebrew and Syriac signifying 
 Father and Parent. But most of the Asiatic nations apply this 
 title to the Supreme Creator. 
 
 Note upon Dt. 
 
 Di, Dio, Ti, Du, Dus, Thu. Thus, God ; Shans., Dew, Deo, Deva ; 
 Lat., Deus, Divus; Gr., Geos : Celt., Du, Dia, Deu. This was 
 the common name for the Deity. Thus Dis and Dus, added to Arez,. 
 
NOTES TO BOOK IL 195 
 
 one of the names of the solar god, signified the God Sol. Di is 
 ^*1 dius. It is probably old Etruscan. B D, and B T. are fotmd 
 in almost every country to be sacred letters, and to refer to the 
 Supreme. In Shanscreet Di- Jana is goddess Jana, as Di-One and 
 Di-Ana is goddess Ana, the Yoni. In the Arabic Du and Dsu 
 signify Lord : transposed the Hebrew Dii ^♦T is Jid, which also 
 was a divine name. Hence also Ida, a holy mountain. Lord 
 Kingsborough shews that Dios was a name for God in South 
 America. Ceres was called Arjb), Ti-mor in Irish is God, the 
 Great Circle. The Gypsies call God, Dewla. Ti, Tidh (Irish) a 
 great cycle : Ti-greine the ecliptic, or circle of the sun. Dra, 
 Drach, Draoch, Dur (Irish) a wheel, circle, cycle, period. Ihiir. 
 teach, the round cell of a Druid j a temple, cell, church. The 
 temples of the Druids were all circular : hence Drochad the arch 
 of a bridge : Reall Draoch the cyclic planet, the Sun, Moon ; 
 whence the Druidical circular Temple named Rolldrich, near 
 Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire. Chald., dor, "iTTf a circle, 
 Arab. Dur, circum ambulation. General VaUancey, {Collectanea 
 iii. 503,) says; Welsh Drud, a Druid, i.e. the absolver or remitter 
 of sins : so the Irish Drui, a Druid, most certainly is from the 
 Persian daru, good and holy man. Ouseley {Collect. Orient, iv. 
 302,) says : In the Arabic, deri means a wise man, which in Per- 
 sian is dam, whence English Druid. The Vates or Prophets, the 
 last order of Druids, were called Baidh (Boodh) Faith, Phaithoir. 
 This Baid is the Chaldasan Bada K"T^ hda-jjroeddcavit, DH^ 
 hadim divinatores. The Irish Phaithoir is the Hebrew inD 
 ptr., to solve an senigma. 
 
 Note upon Pni. 
 
 Pi, Ph, Pa, Pu, the ; Phi ^Q A mouth, an oracle : he (Aaron) 
 shall be to thee instead of a mouth, Exod. iv., 16. With this in 
 composition is found the particle Al. Phcethon was an ancient 
 title of the Sun, a compound of Phi-Aith-On. Bacchus was 
 called Phi-Anac by the Mysians, rendered by the poets, Phanac 
 and Phanaces. Hanes was a title of the same Deity, equally 
 reverenced of old, and compounded Ph' Hanes : it signified 
 the Fountain of Light. From it was derived Phanes of Egjrpt, 
 and Fanum, a temple, Eu-hanes, and Oannes. The antient 
 name of Latian Zeus, was P'Ur, by length of time changed 
 to Puer. He was the Deity of Fire, and his ministers were 
 styled Pueri ; and because many of them were handsome youths 
 selected to that office, Puer came at length to signify any young 
 person. Purim was divination by fire-lots. It was of Chaldaic 
 
 K 2 
 
196 NOTES TO BOOK II. 
 
 original, and was brouglit from Babylonia into Italy. It is men- 
 tioned in Esther iii. 7. They cast Pur before Haman, that he 
 might know the success of his purposes against the Jews, D'El 
 Phi (Delphi) means the Voice of God. The ancient form of the 
 Greek PAi <X> had a mystic signification. The Phoenician ^?p7ia. 
 means a Bull, According to the theology of the Greeks, says 
 Proclus, in his commentary on Plato's Parmenides, even Jupiter 
 and Dionusus are styled Boys and young persons. The people of 
 Amphissa perform a ceremony, says Pausanias, in honour of per- 
 sons styled Anactes Paides or Royal Children ; but who these 
 Anactes Paides were is matter of great uncertainty, Byrant en- 
 deavours to explain the difficulty by putting the particle P, before 
 Ades, btit this only ends in nonsense. The true explanation is 
 that the Royal children were the Incarnations, of whom neither 
 Proclus nor Pausanias knew anything, I do not believe that 
 either of them was fidly initiated. 
 
CJK BOOfe Ot 0Oti4 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 1. The characteristic qualities of the various Messen- 
 gers of God, their attributes, and modes of dealing with 
 mankind, as developed in the Apocalypse, and regarded 
 by the ancients, do not differ very materially from the 
 views practically adopted by the moderns, and sanctioned 
 by common sense, and all notions of political justice. As 
 mildness, mercy, and compassion are essential features of 
 the Father, we find that the great majority of his divinely 
 commissioned Incarnations were essentially distinguished 
 by these qualities, and appeared simply in the benign 
 light of Teachers, seeking to raise mankind to heaven by 
 wisdom, truth, and charity ; but as unerring justice, and 
 the most utter disunion between the Divine and evil are 
 also vital essences of the Supremely Pure, so it is seen 
 that three out of His Twelve Angels were permitted to 
 assume the part of Judges, whose errand was to over 
 whelm the guilty with deserved though long delayed re- 
 tribution. The first order are the Messianic Messen- 
 
198 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 gers ; the second are the Cabiric. It may, and I have 
 no doubt, will be said, that this view of God is utterly 
 false, as it represents Him in the light of a i^ersecutor for 
 opinion, and would justify the enormities of the Inquisi- 
 tion, the execution of Fisher, and the burning of Serve- 
 tus. I am bound to meet this argument, and I will do 
 so. In the first place, it is not true that what God per- 
 mits He consequently commands. He permits murders, 
 rapes, and robberies every day, but can in no wise be said 
 to order them to be committed. (1.) In the second 
 place it is not true that what God foreknows he necessa- 
 rily destines. God foreknows, and every living man 
 foreknows, that the wicked will do wickedness, that ships 
 will sink, and houses will burn, that thieves will rob, and 
 murderers will slay ; but that this prescience makes 
 either God, or you and me, to ordain those sins or cala- 
 mities, or that our knowing them beforehand necessarily 
 makes us either to cause or to sanction them, seems to 
 me too manifestly erroneous to be refuted. I know in- 
 deed that this is the commonly received opinion, but it is 
 evidently false. God foreknows that a murderer at a 
 certain hour will take a life, just as / know that accord- 
 ing to the almost unerring doctrine of chances, some in- 
 di\'idual man to-morrow will undoubtedly slay some 
 other man in some part of the earth. But am I causer 
 of that crime ? It may be said I ain if I can prevent and 
 do not. The answer is, I am not hound to prevent by 
 force, nor should I be justified in slaying the man who is 
 about to sin. Those who think otherwise make God the 
 cause of all crime, for he undoubtedly could prevent it by 
 suddenly striking dead or paralysing the arm of the cri- 
 minal, or by forcing him to change his evil thought, and 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 199 
 
 yet He does not. But he could only do this by perpetu- 
 allj/j and without one moment's interval, interfering with 
 all human action, and by making all his creatures slaves, 
 by depriving them of free will, by systematically chang- 
 ing them from active thinking beings into lifeless pup- 
 pets, which could not stir until He pulled the strings ; in 
 other words, by reducing creation and all its living 
 splendours into a piece of mechanism, worked, as it were, 
 by wires and pulleys. It is on the whole better that 
 some men should be killed, than that this glorious Uni- 
 verse of millions and millions of stars, and innumerable 
 millions of millions of animated beings, should be wholly 
 deprived of free and soaring thought, individual action, 
 grand and lofty emotion vivified by love, by charity, by 
 benevolence; and should be transformed into a dead ma- 
 chine, peopled with automata or marionettes, incapable of 
 doing aught but lying dormant until God moved them: 
 which should speak with his speech, think with his senti- 
 ments, and be incapacitated from generating out of them- 
 selves any thing godlike or beautiful ; which should be like 
 the dull clay that of itself produces not, but waits until 
 the seed is sown, and can even then give nothing forth 
 but what was primarily contained within that very seed. 
 An universe so constituted might gratify a curiosity col- 
 lector, or appear precious in the eyes of a savage ; but 
 after the first wonder were over, it would cease to please. 
 It would be wholly unworthy of the Divine Creator, and 
 would be a source of misery to every thinking creature in 
 it, who, if he were constantly constrained in thought and 
 action, would curse rather than bless the Author of his 
 existence. It is palpable, therefore, that God could not, 
 and ought not to make such a creation ; and we know He 
 
200 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 did not j for the veriest slave is in his tliouglits as free 
 tlie greatest monarcli, and tlie will of the smallest insect 
 is as practically unrestrained as that of the loftiest angel. 
 
 2. Having thus established that what God foreknows 
 or permits, He does not consequently command, I relieve 
 the believer at once in His divine attributes from being 
 asked to associate Him with all the particular thoughts 
 or things which to the judgment of the Messengers 
 seemed necessary at the time, and which to the judgment 
 of posterity may seem open to reproach. I have already 
 stated that these Messengers are not infallible ; they could 
 not be so, for God alone possesses that attribute. They 
 are left as free to think and do as all other beings ; they 
 will be judged by these their thoughts and deeds like all 
 other beings. On them alone rests the responsibility of 
 all their acts ; not on God, who did not command, though 
 He indeed foresaw. If Amosis extirpated idolatry by the 
 sword ; if Mohammed, for the most dreadful of abomina- 
 tions that the mind can conceive, substituted by violence 
 a sublime creed and a system of purity ; if Chengiz-Khan, 
 like a destroying angel, swept before his armies thousands 
 of the wicked, who in the eyes of all thinking men perpe- 
 trated crimes every day of the deepest dye, and on their 
 ruins raised a temple to monotheism — for these things, if 
 they were wrong, they must each one render an account 
 to Heaven. God did not say to them : Ye shall kill all 
 who disbelieve : but He left them free to do exactly as they 
 thought expedient under all the circumstances surround- 
 ing their actual position. God indeed foresaw, and j^er- 
 mitted it to be revealed in the Apocalypse, that they 
 would do these things, just as he foresaw and revealed in 
 the same divine work that Lao-Tseu and Jesus would be 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 201 
 
 slain; but what sane man ever argued that God was 
 answerable, because he so foresaw, or that the Chinese 
 and Jews were not guilty of a ruthless murder because 
 that very murder had been revealed ? If the cruel Jews 
 must answer for the murder of Jesus, although it was 
 foresho^vn, so must the three Messengers answer for their 
 acts, although they were predicted. No distinction can 
 be made, or will be made ; the simple difference will be 
 that the Jews condemned an innocent man, and the Mes- 
 senger destroyed only the guiltiest of wretches ; the- 
 Jews crucified for the most base of purposes ; the Messen- 
 gers adjudged for the most sublime of all : the ruin of. 
 idolatry, the substitution for it of God. The Jews did 
 nothing beautiful, or good, or pure, which in the eyes of 
 One who weighed them in the balance, might possibly to 
 some extent diminish their weight of crime. The Mes- 
 sengers, on the contrary, devoted their whole lives and 
 thoughts to the propagation of a system of Theism, or 
 belief in One God, which has mainly held the bulk of 
 mankind from idol- worship — has diffused among them 
 august ideas ; has inspired them with the most exalted: 
 sentiments of the present and future; has been, as it 
 were, the salt of the earth, that aloue preserved purity 
 upon it, and has saved it from being changed into that 
 living heir which the priests of evil have sought to make 
 it, and which they always did make it, wherever they 
 possessed an undisputed sway. 
 
 3. In thus reasoning it will be seen that I have volun- 
 tarily taken the strongest ground against myself. I may 
 be said to have, to some extent, conceded that those 
 three Messengers persecuted, or did wrong, for the sake 
 of religion; and may be probably accused of the old 
 
 K 3 
 
202 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 Jesuit notion that the end justifies the means. I msh, 
 however, to set myself right. I do not admit that either 
 of these Incarnations did evil, or was wrong in the course 
 he took ; on the contrary, I hold that each was perfectly 
 right. I do not admit that he persecuted for religion ; 
 on the contrary, I aver that it was his duty as a Messen- 
 ger to destroy disbelief. I do not assert that the end 
 justifies the use of bad means ; on the contrary, I am of 
 opinion that the means used were just, and that the end 
 was great and godlike. Upon lohat do I base these 
 opinions 1 I assume it as conceded that they were Mes- 
 sengers of God. No Christian can deny Amosis to be so : 
 no Eastern Theist can refuse the title to Mohammed and 
 Chengiz-Khan. I will confine myself to the first ; because 
 if what I advance be true of him, it must be true also of 
 the others. Amosis was di^'iuely appointed to re-estab- 
 lish a system of monotheism. God himself gave him this 
 command. It is a fair deduction that God did so, because 
 lie was the only creature then existent who seemed most 
 capable of carrying out the design of God, — he was the 
 lion-lamb come down in human form to open the Book. 
 To succeed in this he must have possessed all the qualities 
 necessary for it; judgment, knowledge, intrepidity, sted- 
 fastness, self-denial, holiness ; and history tells us that he 
 did possess them. Here, then, is a man pre-eminently 
 possessed of all these virtues, who has an end in view, 
 about the divinity of which no man can doubt ; for it is 
 the propagation of true religion, as it is revealed by the 
 very tongue of God himself. The chances consequently 
 are as ten hundred thousand to one, that he will do 
 nothing but what is absolutely right and requisite : and 
 if he does do anything which to men appears questionable, 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 203 
 
 the chances are in the same ratio, that these men judge 
 mistakingly; for no one among them can possess the 
 same means of forming an opinion as he had, and no one 
 among them is possessed of the same splendid qualities, 
 that, as I have shewn, are essentially inherent in his 
 missionary character. When therefore I hear it pro- 
 claimed by this Messenger, that he will cut off a tribe of 
 infidels by the sword, I regard him not as a priest, but 
 as a judge, who, having well weighed all the circum- 
 stances, is deliberately convinced that they deserve death; 
 that their removal is a public necessity, and so pro- 
 ceeds to execute his judgment. Who can say that 
 they do not deserve death ? Who can say that they are 
 not a moral pestilence fraught with ruin 1 No man has 
 the same means of knowing that Amosis had. He says 
 so, and what he says, I believe. If he was wrong, God 
 will make him answer for it ; but upon what pretence 
 can any man declare that he was wrong, without denying 
 his divine priesthood, his ennobling qualities, his oppor- 
 tunities of forming the best opinion, and his inflexible 
 adherence to true justice? It may be said this punish- 
 ment is persecution for opinion, and God is not a perse- 
 cutor; and persecution is wicked, and Amosis, being a 
 pei'secutor, is wicked also. No Christian, indeed, can say 
 this, for to do so were to deny Jesus, who confessed 
 Amosis to be the Messenger of God, and who himself 
 said; Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I 
 come not to send peace hut a sword. (Matt. x. 34.) And 
 again ; Te shall hear of wars, and rumours of wars : see that 
 ye he not troubled; for all these things must come to pass^ 
 but the end is not yet : for nation shall rise against nation, 
 and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall he famines 
 
204i THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places : all these 
 are the beginnings of sorrows (Matt. xxiv. 6 — 8) : passages 
 wliicli suggest that Jesus liimself at times mistook his own 
 sera, and confounded the ninth cycle with that fierce and 
 warlike one, which under his successor, Ahmed, was to 
 follow. Those, however, who deny Christianity and 
 •Judaism may use the argument above stated. The 
 answer is, all punishment is persecution for opinion : and 
 all punishment is therefore wrong, if what you allege be 
 true. Thieves have a stroug opinion that they are ill- 
 used men : that they cannot get work, or that if they do 
 get it, they are under-paid; that property is unfairly 
 distributed : that the rich are their lawful enemies j that 
 it is unjust in the extreme that one man should possess 
 thousands while they starve ; that idleness is more agree- 
 able than labour; and acting on these opinions and a 
 variety of analagous ones which might be advanced, they 
 plunder their neighbours, and are punished ; but did any 
 man ever seriously maintain that they were objects of 
 persecution ? Murderers have an opinion that revenge is 
 sweet, and they kill men under the influence of that sen- 
 timent ; but who ever held that they were ill-used victims 
 and entitled to our sympathy as objects of persecution, 
 against whom the sword should not be drawn? Idolaters 
 are of opinion that it is praiseworthy to slay their first- 
 born as blood-sacrifices to God j that it is holy to pass 
 their innocent children into the burning fires of Moloch, 
 and so to destroy them ; that it is a blessed . thing to 
 prostitute their wives and daughters to the service of the 
 idol or the priest, so that the price of their debauchery 
 goes into the treasury of the church ; that Mendesian 
 worship (whose horrors I cannot further allude to, but 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 205 
 
 ■which ever}^ scholar will understand) is an intimate com- 
 munion with the Divine Being, and that in the blood of 
 a murdered or crucified man all their sins are washed 
 away ; and if such fearful crimes be punished by extermi- 
 nation, wdll any say that the Messenger herein is not 
 the faithful minister and servant of the Most High Judge 
 himself, who uses him to sweep this plague-spot from the 
 eai-th ? or who will dare to allege that the punishment of 
 robbeiy is legal, but that the condemnation of these 
 wi-etches is unjust ? Melhinks I hear it said, this exon- 
 erates the Inquisition 1 By no means. And for these 
 reasons : the Inquisition was not founded and presided 
 over by a divinely-appointed Messenger of God, but by 
 corrupt and evil-minded priests ; and the Inquisition did 
 not punish for these crimes, but for mere opinion, not 
 practically carried out. I have no right as a Judge to 
 destroy a man who merely thinks Mendesian woi*ship is 
 divine ; but the moment I find a man or a community of 
 men who practise this and similar atrocities every day as 
 part of their religion, or who live in crime because they 
 hold that the Lamb has saved them from perdition, God 
 and man will acquit me for destroying them off the face of 
 the earth; and this was the exact thing which these 
 three Cabiric Messengers of Judgment did, and which 
 I maintain they were perfectly right in doing. 
 
 4. To repress, to subdue, to destroy wickedness and the 
 wicked by the sword, if necessary, is a right acknowledged 
 by the whole earth ; and if it were not so, the earth 
 could not be inhabited. Were there no terror for the 
 evil but in the promised judgments of a future life, the 
 evil would combine together, and anniliilate the good 
 from the face of the globe ; law would perish ; justice. 
 
206 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 truth, and mercy would not exist; the fair sphere of 
 nature would be overrun and desolated by the licentious 
 and the cruel; and their instant annihilation by the 
 Supreme King would become a work, not only of neces- 
 sity, but of benevolence. But fortunately for mankind, 
 the destroying power of justice is conceded : it is agreed 
 that criminals may be cut off. I do not justify the wars 
 of Napoleon, or of such conquerors. I do not say that 
 the Crusades were lawful. The first were for selfish 
 aggrandizement by the ruin of others ; the second were 
 waged for an unhallowed Church : but when I see the 
 divine Minister of God, who appears in the divine cycle, 
 and when I see that his main object in unsheathing the 
 sword, is to root out the churches of abomination, and the 
 communities who live in the daily practice of crimes that 
 appertain only to an infernal pandemonium, can the 
 slightest doubt exist in my mind that justice demands 
 their destruction ; or that that the Minister who prepares 
 and compasses it, only carries out the decree of God him- 
 self, and judicially rules that they are unfit to live, or to 
 pollute the earth by their odious superstitions ? (2.) A 
 contrary opinion cannot be maintained without practically 
 admitting that God punishes no crime, and that every- 
 body may do exactly as he pleases. If Amosis was not 
 justified in destroying those who lived like demons, who 
 were monsters of blood, licentiousness, and the most 
 "unnatural lusts, by what title can any law repress 
 crime ? and by what title are assassins hanged ? It may 
 be said that Amosis was a stranger; he was not the 
 judge over these men ; and that he had no right to inter- 
 fere with them. If Amosis were a mere man, this might 
 be urged; and his conduct was a breach, perhaps, of 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 207 
 
 international law. But Amosis was something more 
 than man. He was the accredited Messenger of Heaven : 
 he had a divine mission to extii-pate idolatry ; he treated 
 its upholders as all civilized states at the present day 
 treat pirates, namely as the general foes of God and man, 
 and without inquiring curiously into international law, 
 they hang and destroy them wherever found. Nobody 
 doubts that they act properly : to do otherwise were tacitly 
 to support crime. Amosis did no more, but he did so by a 
 higher title than either kings or states. If the latter are 
 right, he must perforce be right also, for none can show a 
 charter so supreme as his. It may be said, "Why did he 
 not leave them to God ? If all criminals are to be left to 
 God, and not restrained by man, how long would nations 
 last ? how long would peace or happiness exist ? or pro- 
 perty be secure ? or life be safe ? or modesty be protected? 
 Those who argue in this way, wilfully shut their eyes to 
 the legitimate consequences of their arguments. 
 
 5. It may be asked, why did God appoint these beings 
 to be His Messengers, when he knew that they would ine- 
 vitably destroy 1 why did He not select all his Incarna- 
 tions from among mere teachers ? and must He not be 
 taken to sanction these and their acts, when He might 
 have sent others of a different stamp? It might be 
 answered to this, why does God permit any thing at all 
 to happen that is not consonant with perpetual peace and 
 universal blissfulness ? Why does He permit hurricanes, 
 lightnings, thunders, or volcanic eruptions that hurl un- 
 offending people into ruin ? These forces of nature 
 though apparently hurtful, are nevertheless fraught as we 
 know with benevolent operation. The lightnings, huni- 
 canes, and thunders clear the atmosphere overcharged 
 
208 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 with dangerous exhalations : the volcano is the outlet of 
 those subterranean fires which tend to fructify the earth 
 for man. The Messenger of God armed with his sword 
 and sceptre, gives lessons to mankind that a course of 
 crime cannot be persisted in, without attracting certain, 
 punishment, and that that punishment will come upon 
 them like fire from heaven. We know the atheist argu- 
 ment against future retpibution ; and many have confessed 
 that it is not easily combatted. God does not punish 
 the evil on this earth, they say : what reason have we to 
 suppose that He punishes them anywhere else? The 
 career of these Messengers is a conclusive answer to such 
 an argument. God might if he pleased have commissioned 
 all his Messengers with mercy alone, but in such a case 
 He would have seemed voluntarily to relinquish one of 
 his sovereign attributes, that of the Judge, and to have 
 manifested himself only in another, that of Teacher. I 
 do not see why He should do this. I do not know why 
 God should not come forth and judge the guilty. I have 
 never heard a good reason given why He should not arise 
 as King. 
 
 6. But let no man from this my teaching, dare to arro- 
 gate to himself, the power to destroy. That power belongs 
 exclusively to the Messenger, and to no other. In the 
 Seven Thunders, appended to the Apocalypse, this distinc- 
 tion is palpably shewn ; for while the Three Cabiric Ava- 
 taras, are said to go forth with the sword of God, three 
 mere terrestrial Conquerors, Cyrus, Caesar, Napoleon, are 
 seen descending to the pit of fire and blood, which is alone 
 their appropriate dwelling place. Behold, says some He- 
 brew priest, the name of the Lord comelh from afar: his 
 wrath burneth and is heavy to bear ; his lips are filled with 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 209 
 
 indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire. His breath 
 as a torrent overflowing even to the midst of the necky to destroy 
 the nations unto nothing, and the bridle of error that was in 
 the jaws of the people. (Is. xxx. 27). I can understand the 
 wicked crying out against Him, or His Messenger, wlien He 
 tlius developes liimself ; but tlie wicked would prefer not 
 to be punished either here or hereafter ; and they cannot 
 be supposed to look very favourably upon their punisher. 
 But I cannot understand why good men should find fault 
 with God, because the vicious do not escape. It is in 
 vain for them to speak of God's mercifulness. This mer- 
 cifulness means no more than this, that He will give to 
 every man the fullest possible reward for his least possible 
 excellence ; but though He does this, if He wavered, if 
 He were unjust, if He weakly pardoned murderers and 
 thieves, and allowed them into Paradise to associate with 
 the purest angels, the very stones thereof would cry out 
 agjiinst Him. These benevolent people who think that 
 He must forgive everything, do not know him and cannot 
 appreciate His ineffable justice ; nay, they unconsciously 
 commit impiety against Him when they ask that He shall 
 pardon crime, rampant and unrepentant, in deference to 
 their kindly gentleness and compassion. God does not do 
 so ; and in fact, God cannot do so, without abdicating his 
 seat of justice and ceasing to be God. 
 
 7. This theory may not bo popular, nor suit the maud- 
 lin sentiments of hypocritical prc)fessors, who pretend 
 that everything is love, that God is the paternal deity, 
 and that He is all mildness and compassion. But the 
 whole world and every man and woman in it must con- 
 fess the existence of a fierce avenging Nemesis, which 
 smites every man the moment he violates one of the phy- 
 
210 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 fiical laws : and the same Power is present to inflict a 
 Wow when he tramples on the moral institutes. From 
 this, the dearest child of his flock is snatched away ; from 
 that, empire, in its most coveted hour ; from another, all 
 that his heart yearned for, is suddenly made his, and he 
 dies almost the moment he possesses it. The story of 
 Niobe is not a fable. Whosoever unduly exults in aught 
 that he has, will most assuredly be smitten by the arrows 
 of the Sun ; and will live to weep over ruins. It is not 
 for me to justify the existence of this dread Power — suffi- 
 cient for the present page is it, that we all feel, confess, 
 and fear its force. And this being so, how utterly childish 
 it is to deny that God sends forth punishing Ministers, 
 avenging Messiahs (3), even as he sends the devastating 
 elements to purge the sky and earth of their corruptions. 
 He, and He alone is Judge where, and when, and how 
 He shall punish : if He does it here. He will not do it 
 elsewhere also : if He reserves his day of wrath for ano- 
 ther life, He will not exterminate as well in this. But 
 that his minister Nemesis is perpetually present, and 
 walks through every household, is as certain as that the 
 sun shines, and that man suflers. 
 
 8. To those who will not at present accept my words, 
 I commend the language of the Ninth Messenger, who in 
 his parable expresses exactly the same truth. The ground 
 of a certain rich man, he says, brought forth plentifully : 
 and he thought within himself saying, Wliat shall I do 
 because I have no room where to bestow my friuts ? And 
 he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns and 
 build greater; and there ivill I bestow all my fruits 
 and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou 
 hast much goods laid up for many years ; tahe thine ease 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 211 
 
 eat, drink and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou 
 fool this night thy soul shall he required of thee', then 
 wlwse shall those things be which thou hast provided ? 
 Luke xii. 16. 
 
 9. Yes ! let it be proclaimed that the Eternal Lord of 
 Light and Truth, is a Judge more teirible than all the 
 lords and kings of earth ; that He arises in his thunders 
 and goes forth to execute his edict on the guilty ; that 
 there is no man living, or that ever lived, or that ever 
 shall live, who can defy His Laws with impunity, or 
 bribe Him into mercy by repentant words; — by tears 
 from the eyes, or sorrows on the lip, or even in the 
 heai-t. The most dreadful of sinners may indeed mould 
 himself into an archangelic brightness ; but until he do 
 so by a long series of deeds that practically annul and 
 atone for the past, he cannot hope for mercy. The most 
 bitter sobs of penitence that were ever breathed are 
 useless ; deeds alone prevail with God ; and by deeds 
 alone, can be unbarred the golden gates that give to 
 man admission into Paradise. If the living spirit be 
 evil when it leaves the earth, though all the priests of 
 earth combined their prayers for its salvation, it cannot 
 ever mount to Grod : an impassable zone of fire separates 
 the guilty soul from souls that are all pure, and from the 
 sphere of Him who is transcendent Purity. It is as effec- 
 tually kept back from the impenetrable heaven, as the 
 body of man is kept down upon the earth when it longs 
 to soar into the sun : it could no more exist or pass into 
 the celestial region than it can now ascend through inter- 
 vening space, and grasp the nearest star. The Laws of 
 God exclude it from him ; He knows it, nay He sees it 
 not ; it is millions of miles away from Him ; though he 
 
212 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 be everywhere, yet its evil essence cannot come within 
 his influence ; and by no efforts can it ever reach Him, 
 until it has purified itself from past sin, by along un- 
 selfish series of heroic acts in the service of its fellows. 
 
 10. That the views are true which in the foregoing and 
 following pages are rather hinted at, than developed, the 
 common sense of mankind will in time enable them to 
 feel, though at the present moment they may appear in 
 advance of the age, and may probably startle the mere 
 many who are always led by those whom they have been 
 taught to follow, but whom they should in reality despise. 
 It remains to be seen whether even now, there are not 
 enough among the enlightened and the well-disposed, to 
 give them practical shape. The time is ripe for an Uni- 
 versal Church, which should be pre-eminently the church 
 of all. Our old cathedrals are deserted; our churches 
 and meeting-houses are in the possession of pew-owners, 
 who rule the congregations with an iron rod ; the rich 
 support the minister, but the rich have little or no abiding 
 faith j while the great multitude of the people, are with- 
 out shepherds that sympathize, or heads that guide them 
 into true knowledge. So long as any one existing creed 
 is taught that it alone possesses truth, and that all others 
 are the slaves of error or ignorance — so long as Europeans 
 are divided from Asiatics, and the West practically believes 
 that the East is worshipping the devil, a line of demarcation 
 will exist among mankind, which will perpetually operate 
 to keep them enemies or strangers. But when the world 
 believes that God has revealed his truth to the whole world, 
 and not to any little hole and corner that may be found 
 in it ; that every religion that exists is in reality but a 
 branch of the One Keligion ; that Mohammed was inspired ' 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 213 
 
 as well as Moses, and Fohi sent as tinily as was Jesus, then 
 will begin that sera of universal brotherhood to which so 
 many sublime thinkers have looked foi'ward with hope ; 
 and the true millennium of peace and faith be felt over 
 the globe. Will not the good aid in the formation of 
 this happy peiiod. Will they not come forward and lay 
 the foundation of this Universal Cliurch ? Happy they 
 who may respond. They shall be hailed by future ages 
 as the true Apostles of the Creed of Heaven ; and by 
 God himself they will be regarded as the corner-stones on 
 which the glorious Fabric of the ONE TRUE FAITH 
 was first supported in this latter age. They shall have 
 Thrones and Crowns of Light in Heaven, who shall have 
 aided to diffuse God's light on earth. 
 
NOTES TO BOOK III. 
 
 Note 1 (page 198). — ^The fore-knowledge by God of tilings tliat 
 are to happen, must not be wrested as any argument for pre- 
 destination. A very acute writer asks : Does God's infallible 
 knowledge of the Past and bis certain knowledge of tbe Present, 
 prove bim to be the agent in all past and present crimes : also 
 whether the knowledge any one may have of another's past ac- 
 tions, or of those he is about to commit, makes him the author of 
 his neighbour's doings ? or what connection there is, or possibly 
 can be, between kno'wdng a thing and causing a thing ? 
 
 Note 2 (page 206).— Wliile I write this, we hear that the King 
 of Dahomey and his priests are preparing another sacrifice of 2000 
 human beings to their infernal deities. If France or England were 
 to send an expedition which would sweep the upholders of this 
 system from the earth, would not the whole world applaud ; and 
 would any but the most diseased brain find fault with them for 
 the persecution? 
 
 Note 3 (page 210).— The Three Cabiri were types of the three 
 Avenging Messiahs of God : and this would in part explain the 
 human sacrifices which were offered to propitiate them. Cabiri 
 from Cahr 1^3 multitude, denotes the large armies and foUow- 
 ings that were with these three Mighty Ones : " heavenly armies 
 followed after them." In the Arabic, al. Gibhar, means the 
 Mighty, the Giant. See Dr. Hyde's ed. of Ulug Beg. p. 45. 
 
€f)t 33tioit ot eoti. 
 
 BOOK ly. 
 
 1. The Apocalypse that follows differs so materially in 
 form from that which has so long usui'ped the name, that 
 it may possibly be expected, I should render some account 
 of the mode in which it has been constructed, or the 
 piinciples on which I have interfered with that, which for 
 BO many centuries has been accepted, at least by many, as 
 the inspired work of some inspired writer. My answer 
 is simply this : He who does not recognize in my con- 
 struclion of it, an unity, a chain of fulfilled events, a 
 divine system, materially different from the unconnected 
 rhapsody which has been so long palmed off upon the 
 world, would not be persuaded though I were to work a 
 miracle before him, or an Angel from God were to descend 
 visibly and shout it in his eai\ All I ask is that one 
 may be compared with the other ; that they may be 
 placed side by side, and faiily examined. That which 
 is of heaven will then be confessed. That which is 
 not so, must naturally be condemned. But before this is 
 
216 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 done, let the staunch adherent for the common form, 
 enquire for himself, what satisfactory evidence has he that 
 the work which bears the name of John — whoever he was 
 — is at all authentic ? (1 .) Does he know that some of the 
 greatest of the biblical critics have wholly rejected it as 
 spurious 1 as negativing in its vulgar shape every aspect 
 of a divine origin 1 and have pronounced it to be the mani- 
 fest forgery of some Jewish convert to Christianity, in an 
 age when it was thought, as even Mosheim acknowledges, 
 that pious frauds and lies in furtherance of Paulism — or 
 pseudo- Christianity — were the most acceptable service that 
 could be rendered to God ? (2.) The banishment of John 
 to Patmos, says Eichorn, must be a mere matter of imagi- 
 nation ; for otherwise the author, by mingling historical 
 and unhistorical [i.e. unreal] circumstances, has presented 
 us with a hermaphrodite fiction which no critical taste 
 can justify. And a matter of fiction it may be : for real 
 history nowhere says that John was banished to Patmos : 
 and what ecclesiastical tradition says respecting this, has 
 no other source than the Apocalypse, interpreted in an 
 unpoetical manner, which has substituted fact in the place 
 of fiction. — Introduction to the N'ew Testament, 1810. 
 
 2. In New Testament criticism, says De Wette, vothing 
 stands so firm, as that the Apostle John, if he be the 
 writer of the Gospel and the first Epistle, did not write 
 the Apocalypse : or if the latter be his work, that he is 
 not the author of the former. So Ewald : That the Apo- 
 calypse was not written by the same author who com- 
 posed the Gospel and the epistles, is clear as the light of 
 the sun. So Liicke : Either all criticism, of the New 
 Testament canon is but idle sport, or the result, viz., that 
 the author of John's Gospel and first Epistle cannot he 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 217 
 
 Ue author of the Apocalypse stands irriTnovably fast. A. 
 still later writer, Creclner, speaks with no less confidence : 
 Between the author of the Apocalypse and the Apostle 
 John, there exists a diversity so deeply pervading, that 
 even to the mere supposition that the Gospel and first 
 Epistle, were the production of the same mind, when it 
 Lad attained to higher spiritual progress, which at an 
 earlier period could have composed the Apocalypse, no 
 place can be given ; since it toould he altogether unnatural 
 -and inadmissible. Moses Stuart, from whom I cite these 
 authorities adds : Those who are well acquainted with the 
 critical writings of such men as De "Wette, Bleeke, 
 Ewald, Credner, Schott, Liicke, and Neander, must doubt- 
 less know that they cannot have united in denying the 
 cpostolical origin of the Apocalypse, from any common 
 sympathy in theological views ; nor from any favouritism 
 on the part of some of them towards neology {page 286). 
 * * * A Dionysius, a Eusebius, a Luther, a Schott a 
 •Neander, and a Liicke, he continues, not to mention 
 othei-s, have doubted ; and against these the accusation of 
 xjontempt, or of undeivaluing the sacred books in general 
 could not well be brought (page 287). It appears from a 
 fragment of Papias (he adds, page 290), that there was a 
 John of some note in Asia Minor, who was a Trpca-pvrepo?, 
 (a presbyter), and a fiadrjrqs Kvpiov (a learner of tho 
 Master) : and a contemporary in part with John the 
 Apostle. Dionysius of Alexandria, and after him, Euse- 
 bius, and since him not a few others, have thought it not 
 •improbable that the Apocalypse might be ascribed to John 
 jthe Presbyter. May not the John mentioned in the Apo- 
 calypse, then be intended to designate this individual and 
 the book itself be no forgery, although not written jjy th^ 
 
218 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 apostle, but a work from the hand of one who has given 
 his true name 1 The possibility of this cannot well be 
 denied. Yet a little after he says, Could a man that was 
 capable of writing the Apocalypse, and who felt free to 
 address the leading churches of hither Asia, as the author 
 of the Apocalypse has done, remain in obscurity, and 
 scarcely be thought of, or any where mentioned 1 Things 
 of such a nature are not wont to take place in such a 
 way. On the very face of the whole matter therefore, it 
 is an improbability that the second John wrote the Apo- 
 calypse. One might as well think of attributing Virgil's 
 -^neis to a Codrus, or Paradise Lost to Sir Richard 
 Blackmore. Eusebius, however, who perhaps had better 
 opportunities of hearing how matters stood in those re- 
 mote days, was not so certain as Stuart. The statement 
 of those is true, he says, who assert that there were two of 
 the same name in Asia ; that there were also two tombs in 
 Ephesus, and that both are called John's, even to this 
 day, which it is particularly necessary to observe. For it 
 is probable that the second, if it be not allowed that it was 
 the fir sty saw the Revelation ascribed to John, — Ec. Hist, 
 iii. 39. 
 
 3. The language of the book, says De Wette, is entirely 
 different from that of the fourth gospel, and the three 
 epistles of John the Apostle. It is characterized by strong 
 Hebraisms and rugged ness, by negligences of express 
 sion, and grammatical inaccuracies, while it exhibits the 
 absence of pure Greek words, and of the apostle's favourite 
 expressions. The style is unlike that which appears iii 
 the gospel and epistles. In the latter there is calm deep 
 feeling : in the Apocalypse a lively creative power of 
 ■fancy. In connection with this, the mode of representing 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 219 
 
 objects and images is ai-tificial and Jewish. On the con- 
 trary, John, the son of Zebedee, was an illiterate man in 
 the Jewish sense of that epithet : a man whose mental 
 habits and education were Greek rather than Jewish, and 
 who, in consequence of this character, makes little, or no 
 use of the Old Testament or of Hebrew learning. Diony- 
 sius of Alexandria, in the third century, ascribed the 
 Book to John the Presbyter, not to John the Apostle. 
 (EusEB., Hist. Eccles.y vii., 26.) Some who were before 
 us, he says, have utterly rejected and confuted this book, 
 criticising every chapter, shewing it to be throughout un- 
 intelligible and inconsistent, adding,, moreover, that the 
 inscHption is false, forasmuch as it is not John's ; nor is 
 it a Revelation which is hidden under so obscure and 
 thick a veil of ignorance ; and that not only no apostle, 
 but not so much as any holy or ecclesiastical man was 
 the author of this writing ; but that Cerinthus, founder 
 of the heresy, called after him Cerinthian, the better to 
 recommend his own forgery, prefixed to it an honourable 
 name. For this, they say, was one of his particular no- 
 tions, that the Kingdom of Chiist should be earthly, con- 
 sisting of those things which he himself, a carnal and 
 a sensual man, most admired — the pleasures of the belly 
 and of concupiscence, that is, of eating and drinking, and 
 marriage ; and for the more decent procurement of these,, 
 feastings and sacrifices, and slaughter of victims. * * * 
 But who the author was is uncertain, for he has not said^ 
 as in the gospel often, that he is " the disciple whom the 
 Lord loved ;" nor that he is he " who leaned on his 
 breast ;" nor the brother of James ; nor that he is one of 
 them who heard and saw the Lord ; (3) whereas he would 
 have mentioned some of these things if he had intended 
 
220 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 plainly to discover himself. * * * * And, in short, 
 throughout the gospel and epistle, it is easy to observe one 
 and the same character. But the Revelation is quite dif- 
 ferent and foreign from these ; without any affinity or re- 
 semblance, not having so much as a syllable in common 
 with them. Nor does the Epistle (for I do not here insist 
 on the Gospel) mention' or give any hint of the Revela- 
 tion, or the Revelation of the Epistle. And yet Paul in 
 his Epistles has made some mention of his Revelations, 
 though he never wrote them in a separate book. . Besides 
 it is easy to observe the difference of the style of the 
 Gospel and the Epistle from that of the Revelation, for 
 they are not only written correctly according to the pro- 
 priety of the Greek tongue, but with great elegance of 
 phrase and argument, and the whole contexture of the 
 discourse. So far are they from all barbarism or solecism, 
 or idiotism of language, that nothing of the kind is to be 
 found in them, for he, as it seems, had each of these gifts, 
 the Lord having bestowed upon him both these — know- 
 ledge and eloquence. As to the other, I will not deny 
 that he saw the Revelation, or that he had received the 
 'gift of knowledge and prophecy. But I do not perceive 
 in him an accurate acquaintance with the Greek lan- 
 guage ; on the contrary, he uses barbarous idioms and 
 some solecisms, which it is necessary that I should now 
 show particularly, for I do not write by way of ridicule. 
 Let none think so. I simply intend to represent in a 
 critical manner the difference of these pieces. 
 
 4. Luther thus speaks of it : In this book of the Re- 
 velation of St. John I leave it to every man to judge for 
 himself; I will bind no man to my fancy or opinion. I 
 say only what I feel. Not one thing only fails in this 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 221 
 
 book, so that I hold it neither for apostolical nor prophe- 
 tical. Fii-st, and chiefly, the apostles do not prophecy in 
 visions, but in clear plain words, as St. Peter, St. Paul, 
 and Christ in the gospel do • it is moreover the apostle's 
 duty, to speak of Christ and his actions in a simple way, 
 not :in figures and" visions. Also no prophet of the Old 
 Testament, much less of the New, has so treated through- 
 out his whole book of nothing but visions ; so that I pub 
 it almost in the same rank with the fourth book of 
 Esdras, and cannot any way find that it was dictated by 
 the Holy Ghost. Besides, I think it too much that in 
 his own book, more than in any other of the holy books 
 which are of much more impoi-tance, he commands and 
 threatens that if any. man shall take away from the words 
 of this book, God shall take away his part out of the book 
 of life j and, moreover, declares that he who keepeth the 
 words of this book shall be blessed, though no one is able 
 to understand what they are, much less to keep them ; 
 also there are much nobler books, the words of which we 
 have to keep. In former times, likewise, many of the 
 fathers suspected this book, though St. Jerome talks in 
 high words, and says it is above all pi'aise, and that there 
 is much mystery therein. My spirit can make nothing 
 out of this book ; and I have reason enough not to esteem 
 it highly, since Christ is not taught in it, which an 
 Apostle, above all things, is bound to do. As he says 
 {Acts i.) Ye sliall be my witnesses. But let every man 
 think of it as his spirit prompts him. My spirit cannot 
 adapt itself to this production ; and this is reason enough 
 why I should not esteem it very highly. 
 
 5. Luther's doubts did not confine themselves wholly 
 to the Apocalypse ; he extended them to the Epistle to 
 
222 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 the Hebrews, wliich all scholai-s have long since given up 
 as the work of Paul, and that also of James, and of Jude ; 
 and he printed them merely as an appendix to his version 
 of the New Testament, and without number or page. 
 This arrangement, by which these four books were ex- 
 cluded from the canon, was continued in the Lutheran 
 editions of the Bible, down to the beginning of the 17th 
 ■century. In some cases they were even printed with the 
 title of Apocrypha. The strict followers of Luther for a 
 long time, and in fact even down to the middle of the 
 17th century, refrained from appealing to them as cano- 
 nical. In the second quainter of the 16tli century the 
 leading and most influential persons concerned with the 
 reformation in Switzerland adopted views respecting the 
 Apocalypse much like those of Luther. At the conference 
 l>etween the Romanists and Reformei^ at Berne, in 1528, 
 '^uingle refused to admit j)'>'oof texts from the Apocalypse, 
 *' because it was not a biblical book," i. e. not a canonical 
 one. {Werke, ii., Ahth.i., p. 169.) In this he was joined 
 -^by CEcolampadius and Bucer, who were present, none of 
 them regarding the Apocalypse as authoritative. And 
 this state of things would probably have continued to the 
 present time had not some anonymous writer soon after 
 that period published a Commentarius, which proved that 
 the Pope was Antichrist, and the Scarlet Whore ; and 
 this at once established its canonicity with all well regu- 
 lated Protestants ; and as a canonical work against Po- 
 pery it has still held its ground. 
 
 6. Having examined, says Michaelis, the evidence for 
 and against the Apocalypse, I must now propose the 
 question, How is it possible that this book, if really writ- 
 ten by St. John the apostle, should have either been 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 223 
 
 wholly unknown, or considered as a work of doubtful 
 authority, in the veiy earliest ages of Christianity 1 The 
 other apostolical epistles are addressed only to single com- 
 munities or churches ; but the Apocalypse, according to 
 its own contents, was expressly ordered by Christ himself, 
 in a command to St. John the Apostle, to be sent to 
 seven churches ; and not only these seven churches were 
 in that part of Asia Minor where Christianity was in the 
 most flourishing situation, but among them was Ephesus, 
 where St. John spent the latter part of his life ; and con- 
 sequently where every work of St. John must have been 
 perfectly well known. If St. John, then, had actually 
 sent the Apocalypse to these seven churches, and that too, 
 not as a private epistle, but as a Revelation made to him 
 by Jesus Christ, one should suppose that its authenticity 
 could not be doubted, especially at a time when there were 
 the best means of obtaining information. We cannot say 
 that the book was kept secret, or was concealed in the 
 archives, lest the prophecies against Rome should draw a 
 persecution on the Christians, for secrecy is contrary to 
 the tenor of the book, and the author of it enjoins that 
 it should be both read and heard. Though the figura- 
 tive language of the Apocalypse, continues Michaelis, 
 when compared with the simple style of St. John's gospel, 
 cannot be alleged as an argument that the two books 
 were written by different authors, since the same author, 
 when animated by a spirit of prophecy, will write in a 
 different manner from that in which he had written as an 
 historian ; yet there is a certain character in the lan- 
 guage of the Apocalypse which is hardly to be reconciled 
 with the manner which is visible in St. John's gospel. 
 Throughout almost the whole of the Apocalypse, we find 
 
224«- THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 the author an imitator of the ancient prophets [the con- 
 verse of this is nearer the truth, for it was" they who- 
 imitated him] ; from whom he borrows his images, and 
 renders th«m more beautiful than they were in the 
 originals : but St. John's gospel has a soft and gentle 
 character peculiar to itself, so as to exhibit no trace of 
 imitation. Further, the author of the Apocalypse (whom,, 
 from the title of the book I will call John the Divine, in 
 contradistinction to John the Apostle), has not borrowed 
 his imagery merely from the canonical books of the Old 
 Testament, for he has taken a great part of it from the 
 Jewish antiquities, and the theology of the Babbins, sa 
 that his work has almost a cabalistic appearance. And 
 he not only seems himself to be intimately acquainted 
 with these subjects, but to presuppose the same intimacy 
 in his readers, and to have written for those only who 
 were initiated into the abstrusest doctrines which were 
 iaught in the schools of the Eabbins j nor does it ever 
 once Occu'T to him that what he says may appear foreiga 
 or obscure. But John the Apostle seems to have been 
 well aWare that not all his readers had this kind of 
 knowledge ; for he has frequently explained circumstances, 
 relative to the city of Jerusalem, and the customs of the. 
 Jews, with more historical perspicuity than we find even, 
 in the other evangelists. ... - ' ; , 
 
 7. Liicke, who generally writes, says Stuart (p. 297), 
 in a spirit of moderation and candour, has, as we 
 have seen above, expressed a most unqualified nega- 
 tive upon the question of the apostolic origin of the 
 Apocalypse. The same author has, however, admitted 
 fully that no valid claims can be made out for the 
 second John at Ephesus. He gives up even all pre 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 225 
 
 tences to conjecture who the author was. His geneml 
 conclusion is that John the Apostle may have had the 
 visions related in the Apocalypse : that he probably spoke 
 of them in the circle of the Asiatic churches ; that some 
 gifted man there heard him, and undertook to write them 
 down : that in so doing he has mingled his own concep- 
 tions with those of John : that the apostle, when he saw^ 
 the writing (for he allows that he probably must hava 
 seen it), finding that it did not substantially disagree^ 
 with his own doctrinal views, or with those of Paul,, 
 suffered it to circulate without remark, at least, without 
 opposition ; and that all this might happen, because, as- 
 he avers, the primitive Christians were much more con- 
 cerned about the matter of a writing, viz , whether it was 
 truly Christian or not, than they were respecting the author 
 of it. He acknowledges, with much candour, that he 
 has no data on which to build all this j but he thinks 
 that some such supposition is necessary, in order to re- 
 concile the apparent difficulties that exist as to the* 
 composition of the book in question. Erasmus, in the 
 first edition of his Greek Testament, has inserted in 
 his Remarks on the Apocalypse some intimations of 
 doubt among the Greek churches of ancient times re- 
 specting it, as testified by Jerome. Erasmus himself 
 thiiiks it sti'ange that the writer of the Apocalypse so 
 often mentions his own name, contrary to the usage of 
 John. Paul, he significantly suggests, relates his visions 
 (2 Cor. xii) with great modesty. Besides, the title of 
 the book is Iwavi/Ty? ^eoXoyo?, loan the Divine, or the 
 theologue. The difference of style, he furthei* suggests, 
 is also great between loan's gospel and the Apocalypse, 
 All this, he says, makes him doubt about the apostolic 
 
 L 3 
 
226 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 origin of the book ; " unless indeed the general consent 
 of the Christian worid should be in favour of it, or especi- 
 ally the authority of the Church defend it, if indeed the 
 Church should determine in its favour." So Erasmus 
 was much in the same plight with Eusebius : critical 
 arguments seemed to invite him one way, and the voice 
 •of the Church another. He then goes on to relate the 
 doubts of Dionysius of Alexandria, of Eusebius, of Caius 
 the Roman Presbyter, &c. j and he concludes with naming 
 several of the fathers who were its strenuous defenders, 
 but who were strong Chiliasts (Millennarians). All this 
 is merely a masked battery for assault. Finally he comes 
 out with the conclusion, that the book being made up of 
 Tisions and allegories, cannot be so profitable as some 
 •others ; and in order to soften down this, he suggests that 
 ■even among precious jewels, one kind of gold may be 
 much more pure and valuable than another. Such reflec- 
 tions show in reality his secret doubts : they show also 
 how timid he was in venturing to say anything which 
 would call in question the established opinions of the 
 Bomish Church. -rji^'i^J ^.\l >> rv<:?- '>^ ; 
 
 8. The arguments of Dionysius, a ' disciple 'of Origen, 
 and an eminently learned Bishop of Alexandria, in the 
 third century, are contained in an extract from a treatise 
 of Dionysius, in the seventh book of Eusebius's Ecclesias- 
 tical History. They are thus abridged by Dr. Lardner : 
 Dionysius' objections are five in number. 1. That the 
 evangelist John had not named himself either in his 
 gospel or in his catholic epistle : but the writer of the 
 Revelation names himself more than onee. - 2. That 
 though the writer of the Revelation calls himself John, 
 he has not shown us that he is the apostle of that name. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 227 
 
 3. That the Revelation doth not mention the catholic 
 epistle, nor that epistle the Revelation. 4. That there is 
 a great agreement in sentiment, expression, and manner 
 between St. John's epistle and gospel, but the Revelation 
 is quite diflferent in all these respects, without any resem- 
 blance or similitude. 5. That the Greek of the gospel 
 and of the epistle is pure and correct, but that of the 
 Revelation has barbai-isms and solecisms. These, it will 
 be seen, have been much amplified by other ecclesiastical 
 Clitics ; find it is not without significance that in so far 
 distant an age such doubts should have been generally 
 spread by writei's who, in all other respects, were devoted 
 adherents of the so-called Christian system. And it is 
 absuixl to suppose that, if John were really the author of 
 the Apocalypse, so many eminent divines would in almost 
 his own age stand up and deny it before men. 
 
 9. "We are told by Michaelis, that Amphilochus, who 
 was bishop of Iconium about the year 370, says in his 
 metrical catalogue of canonical books, Some ascribe the 
 Apocalypse to St. John, but most persons consider U 
 spurious. In fact it was almost universally condemned 
 as such by the members of the Greek church, at the end 
 of the fourth century. Hence Jerome, in his epistle to 
 Dardanus, says that the Greek church rejected the 
 Apocalypse with the same freedom as the Latin church 
 rejected the Epistle to the Hebrews \ and Junilius, an 
 African bishop, of the sixth century, says, c(Bterum de 
 Johannis Apocalypsi apud Orientales admodum dubitatur. 
 The authority of the Apocalypse, therefore, instead of 
 gaining, lost ground among the Greeks : and Lardner 
 acknowledges, not only that the two celebmted Greek 
 commentators, Chrysostom in the fourth, and Theophy- 
 
228 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 lact in the eleventh centniy, have not qnoted it in a 
 single instance ; but that Nicephorus, patriarch of Con- 
 stantinople, about the year 806, expressly rejected it. 
 He continues thus : That the style of the Apocalypse- 
 is very unlike that of any other book in the New Testa- 
 ment is a fact which no man who understands Greek, and 
 is capablig of judging impartially, will deny. Nor is this 
 difference of such a kind only that we might ascribe it to 
 the peculiarity of the subject, and say that the same 
 author when he wrote in the character of a prophet 
 would use different modes of expression from those which 
 he had adopted as an historian ; whence might be ex- 
 plained the contrast between the simple, unadorned style 
 of St. John's gospel and the rich figurative language of 
 the Apocalypse. ' But when the rules of tlie Greek gram- 
 mar are accurately observed in St. Johris gospel^ and are 
 frequently violated in the Apocalypse, we have a difference 
 which cannot be ascribed to the dissimilitude of tha 
 subject ; for the same author who wrote correctly as am 
 historian, would not be guilty of solecisms even in writing 
 prophecies. 
 
 10. The Apocalypse is said to have been written A. j. c. 
 95. As loan the disciple was a cotemporary of Jesus, 
 there is no reason for supposing that he was not bom at 
 or about the same time, so that he would be upwards of 
 ninety when he wrote it. When Jesus died as some say 
 A. J. c. 33, as other and better authorities, a. j. c. 57, 
 there were only 120 converts in all to Christianity, (Act» 
 i. 15) j yet we are asked to believe that some years after, 
 there were seven bishops in seven flourishing churches, in 
 seven chief cities of Asia : and that they all recognized a 
 right in loan to be their guide and patriarch ; he then 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 229 
 
 "being without any crime, an exile in a desert island, where 
 he could get no materials for writing, and from which 
 under the vigilant guardianship of Roman soldiers, he 
 could have no means of transmitting his pastoral epistles, 
 to those for whom God especially designed them. All 
 this is as incredible as transubstantiation. 
 . 11. The 85th of the Apostolic Canons, which are sup- 
 posed to belong to the 4th century, does not mention the 
 Apocalypse among the apostolic writings. In the Consti- 
 tutions also, which probably originated in Syria and the 
 adjacent regions, there is no notice of the book. It has 
 been inferred from the circumstance of the Apocalypse 
 being wanting in the Peshito, that it. did not belong to 
 the canon of the Syrian church. It has also been thought 
 that the theologians of the Antiochenian school, among 
 whom are Chrysostom, Theodore t, and Theodore of. Mop- 
 suestia, omitted it out of the catalogue of canonical 
 writings. It appears also to have been rejected by the 
 theological school of Nisibis, which may be regarded as a 
 continuation of the Antiochenian. Junilius does not 
 mention it in his list of prophetic writings. Cyril of 
 Jerusalem has omitted it in his Catecheses; as also Gre- 
 gory of Nazianzen ; and the GOth canon of the Laodicean 
 synod. Amphilochus of Iconium, says that some re- 
 garded it as a divine production, but that others rejected 
 it. Eusebius's testimony respecting the Asiatics, is that 
 some rejected the Apocalypse, while others placed it among 
 the acknowledged. Euthalius when dividing part of the 
 New Testament stichometrically, says nothing whatever 
 of the book, and Cosmas Indicopleustes excludes it from 
 the list of the canonical. In like manner Nicephorus, 
 patriarch of Constantinople in the ninth century, appears 
 
2S0 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 to have j^laced it among the unacknowledged. His name- 
 sake Nicephorus Callistus quotes from Dionysius as fol- 
 lows. Some of these who have preceded us, have de- 
 stroyed and restored again the hook itself, and correcting 
 it through every chapter, have brought it into that condi- 
 tion that it cannot he recognised, and it seems to be con- 
 posed without any reasonable design. And they report 
 that it beai"s a false inscription. He adds, without 
 adopting the opinion of Dionysius, that it had been com- 
 posed by Cerinthus ; but this though an error, does not 
 weaken the force of the fact mentioned by that author, 
 that the book had been mutilated by its possessors. We 
 shall find however ijx another place, a statement made by 
 this historian, quite at variance with the fact of the Apo- 
 calypse being the work of any writer after Jesus. 
 
 12. One word, says Stuart, on the idea of an impos- 
 tor's having composed this book — for more than a word is 
 not needed. If there be any book in all the Scriptures, 
 which bears unequivocal marks of a most serious and 
 earnest state of mind, the Apocalypse must be regarded 
 as such a book by every impartial and feeling reader. A 
 deeper tone of earnestness never pervaded any writing. 
 What could an impostor have in view by composing such 
 a book ? How could he expect the Asiatic Christians to 
 receive it ? How could he suppose that John would not 
 at once overthrow its credit ? Was it fame that the im- 
 postor courted % How could he obtain it where detec- 
 tion of his imposture was certain ? Was it personal 
 honour or gain that he sought for ? How could he obtain 
 either so long as he kept himself concealed and was un- 
 known 1 In fact the allegation of imposture may be made, 
 for it has been, by heated and indiscreet disputants, but 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 231 
 
 it is not deserving of any special notice. The importance 
 of this remark is obvious ; for if it be conceded that John 
 was not the writer, it is of great consequence to believe 
 that it was written by some real man; and with isome 
 real, grave, and holy object in view ; and this I think 
 cannot well be doubted by any. 
 
 13. The language of Irenoeus, has been cited as a proof 
 of the Christian origin of the Apocalypse — but it in truth 
 proves nothing of the kind. He simply says that the 
 Apocalypse — that is, a copy of the Apocalypse — was seen 
 some time before the period in which he wrote. Oi8e 
 yap irpo ttoWov )(povov koipaOr] [17 ATroKaAv^t?] ctAAa c^ihov 
 Ittl tt}? t)fJL€T€pas yevca?, Trpos ri^ reXct Tr]<s Ao/x€Ttavov 
 apXV^i that is : The Apocalypse was seen not long ago, 
 but almost in our generation, near the end of Domitian's 
 reign. These words are cited by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 
 iii. 18 ; but they cannot mean the Revelation itself; for 
 a Revelation is not seen— a Revelation is seen, shewn, 
 and heard. They allude no doubt to the Book in which 
 it was described. And this would lead to the surmise 
 that Irenseus did not then know of any existent copies. 
 The oldest traces, says Olshausen, of the existence of 
 the entire New Testament as a completely finished col- 
 lection^ are first found 300 years after the times of the 
 Apostles. The especial reason why so much time elapsed 
 before this body of writings was exactly compiled is, that 
 the individual Books thereof which naturally existed 
 earlier than the collection, were in circulation, at first 
 partly separate, partly in smaller collections. But this 
 latter clause, I must add, is mere assertion without real 
 historical proof. 
 
 14. With these facts and opinions before us it is melan- 
 choly to read in Doyly and Mant's Bible, the words fol- 
 
232 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 lowing : The testimonies in favour of the Book of Keve- 
 lation being a genuine work of St. John the Evangelist, 
 are very full and satisfactory.. It is more charitable to 
 suppose that these reverend doctors were ignorant, than 
 that they deceived— though it is very common with 
 writers of that class to presume immoderately on the pro- 
 found ignorance of their readers. In another place they 
 say that " it was called the Revelation of Saint John the 
 Divine," which it never was ; but this assertion is like 
 many others which they have made. Lee, in his book on 
 Prophecy, 237, was too candid for these editors. It is 
 true, he says, tradition makes Patmos the place of John's 
 exile under Domitian, but this seems to have no better 
 authority than that of conjecture. And certainly conjec- 
 ture, or rather fancy has been very busy with this John. 
 Tertullian relates that Domitian having commanded him 
 to be thrown into boiling oil, was so enraged at finding 
 him come out unhurt, that he exiled him to Patmos. As 
 nobody can believe the first portion of the narrative, it 
 makes one suspect the second also ; and yet the testimony 
 of writers of this class is cited every day in proof of his- 
 torical facts. It is not without some significance, that the 
 copy of the Apocalypse which Bruce brought with him 
 from Abyssinia, ascribed its authorship to loan. Bishop 
 of Constantinia, but who he was nobody seems to know. 
 {Travds ii., 407.) 
 
 1 5. When the reader has got thus far, he will probably 
 hesitate before he gives unlimited credence to all that he 
 has hitherto heard with reference to John, to the boiling oil, 
 to Patmos, &c. ; and when he thus hesitates, all I ask him 
 to do is to compare. It has not unfrequently been charged 
 against this book, says Stuart, that it is altogether unique; 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 233 
 
 that the genius of the whole New Testament stands iu 
 opposition to it, or at least is as widely distinct from it as 
 possible. This is perfectly true, and the reason that it is 
 true is this — that the real Apocalypse was given to the 
 priests and to man, thousands of years before either the 
 New Testament or the Old. No wonder therefore that 
 it savours of a different age, a different nation, and a dif- 
 ferent order of thought, and that it should be as widely 
 distinct from it in all material respects as one book can 
 be from another. The fact is, this is the very Apocalypse 
 of Adam himself which is mentioned in Epiphanius 
 {Ilceres xxxi., 8), and which was then in the possession of 
 the Gnostics, or Buddhists, of the first century ; though 
 by that 'writer it was supposed to have subsequently 
 perished ; and many copies of it certainly were destroyed 
 in all quarters by the priests and monks, who, while they 
 have carefully exterminated thousands of the most sub- 
 lime works ever dictated by heaven to the philosophei-s 
 of old, have piously presei-ved Catullus, Petronius, Mar- 
 tial, and the other degraded singers of the stews. The 
 Manichoeans used it, and called it the Book of Perfection. 
 I feel certain also that it was one of the Hidden Volumes 
 of the Essenes, which were revealed only to him who 
 swore to preserve lliA hooks and the Tiames of tlie 2Iessen- 
 fjers. — Josej)hus' Wars, Book ii., c. 7. It passed subse- 
 quently under the names of Abraham, Moses, Elijah, 
 Elias, (4) Zephaniah, Zechariah, Hystaspes, Peter, Paul, 
 Cerinthus, St. Thomas, Csecilius, Stephen the Martyr, and 
 probably of others ; which means no more than this, that 
 some of those persons possessed or distributed copies of 
 it, with additions and interpolations of their own, among 
 their followers, by whom it was then ignorantly assigned 
 
234 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 to the person so distributiug, and who in reality was 
 only a copyist of it, as I profess to be. That a genuine 
 transcript and translation of the original, probably in 
 Syriac or Chaldee, was in the hands of the person who 
 assigned it to John, is by no means certain; but if 
 it were, he must, when changing it into so-called Greek, 
 hare mutilated and transposed it designedly, as Nice- 
 phorus reports, for some purpose known only to liim- 
 self. (5.) 
 
 16. Assuming then that it may be taken as an histo- 
 rical fact that the Apocalypse was long anterior to John, 
 by whom else than Adam, if we so call the first Mes- 
 senger, shall we say that it was written 1 I have already 
 spoken of internal evidence, aniepage 187, that is the evi- 
 dence furnished by the book itself, irrespective of all others ; 
 and this evidence exhibiting further a connected series 
 and subject of the most important matters that can affect 
 mankind, beginning almost at the beginning, and going 
 clown to the end, appears to me to be exceedingly power- 
 ful. "We have not, as in the common version, the whole 
 history of the earth ignored, until the days of the supposed 
 John ; but we have a syllabus of the entire history of the 
 human race, beautifully connected, and limned, as it 
 were, in outline, by the hand of God himself. A careful 
 examination of the Apocalypse will more positively de- 
 monstrate this than any argument whatever. This being 
 conceded, the Book must be divine ; and if divine, to 
 whom was it given by its Heavenly Inspirer 1 If it be 
 true, and who can doubt it 1 that God ever gave a Reve- 
 lation, He must have given it when it was needed, that is, 
 by the early dwellers of the earth ; and if it be true that 
 He has inspired a series of Celestial Messengers, He un- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 235 
 
 doubfcedly bestowed this on the first, for there is no other 
 extant, with such genuine marks of antiquity. 
 
 17. That there were Prseadamites no i-ational person 
 will presume now to deny ; to do so, would be to ignore 
 the facts of history, and the disco veiies of geologists, which 
 conclusively show that the race of mankind has been upon 
 the earth many centuries before chronology will at all fit 
 into the popular tera of Adam. But as there is a certain 
 class of persons who believe nothing that is not proved to 
 be in the Jewish books, it is easy to shew that the writer 
 of Genesis himself declares that there were Praeadamites ; 
 the wonder is that people have not seen this long before. 
 It is a favourite theory with Biblical logicians that the 
 second chapter of Genesis, beginning with verse 4, and 
 containing an account of the formation of Adam, is not a 
 continuation of chapter I., but a recapitulation of it in 
 other words. Than this nothing can be more absurd. 
 Giving the compiler of the Genesis tracts credit for even 
 the lowest amount of literary skill, he would hardly com- 
 mit a blunder of this nature. Nor can any reasonable 
 excuse be offered, why, having given one account in 
 chapter I., ending at chapter II., vei*se 3, of the formation 
 of man, he should immediately after give another and a 
 different version. The tinith is he does not do so ; he was 
 not so grossly ignorant and unskilful as his Biblical apo- 
 logists pretend him to be. In chapter I., verses 2(d — 29, 
 we have a history of the Prseadamite races as God made 
 them, men and women, with dominion over the animals, 
 that is a nomadic tribe of hunters and shepherds ; such is 
 the obvious meiining of the writer's language. After that, 
 as time advances, and agriculture becomes needful, a new 
 ordinance is made, for a race that would till the ground ; 
 
236 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 wKich we know that hunters (like the Red race), and 
 shepherds (like the Tartars and Arabs), never can be 
 brought to do. A new leader of men is needed, and he 
 is sent. This is Adam. The earth is made ready for the 
 advent of an agricultural people, by the mist that waters 
 the whole face of the ground. And this leader is to be 
 the first Messenger to whom a Law is revealed, '^^^^c?' 
 leue Aleini (God and the Holy Bipirit), formed a many qf'[ 
 the dust of the' ground (symbolical of his teaching agri- 
 culture, not man as the English version most falsely, puts 
 it ;) and this man became an inspired creature. This 
 translation, as may be seen by any one who studies even 
 Parkhurst, though he was no Orientalist, sub voce Lt^£Di 
 (nephesh), is quite as true to the genius of the Hebrew 
 language as that which the Vulgate gives ; and is also in 
 accordance with the context, which the common version 
 is not ; for the very same word nephesh is used for the 
 Jish in verses 20 and 21, chapter I. ; and for the least of 
 the earth in verse 24» And for this man God expressly 
 makes a garden, as if to teach him, by example, the agri- 
 cultural art. This and much more that follows is no 
 doubt symbolical ; but it establishes that Adam was not 
 the first of human beingg, but that he came upon the earth 
 many ages after. It may be said that this view of the sera 
 of Adam is inconsistent with the high state of art men- 
 tioned in the Apocalypse. I at once admit the fact, but I 
 am not bound by all that the Genesis writer says. For 
 me it is enough that out of his own mouth I j)rove the 
 existence of Prseadamites : and I cite his testimony with 
 no other view. I will no more admit his authority 
 against the plain statements of the Apocalypse, and the 
 innumerable reliques of primeval art, civilization, and 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 237 
 
 splendour, with which the old world abounds, than I 
 would for the j-abbinical fables in which he is so profuse, 
 and the evidently Jewish bigotry by which he is inspired. 
 18. Cain, says Bayle, believed that all the earth was 
 inhabited : for a man who believed that the whole race of 
 mankind was comprised in the family of Adam could not 
 have found a better way to avoid being killed than to 
 absent himself from that family : and here on the con- 
 trary, Cain seems not to have feared any murderer, pro- 
 vided he did not leave it. He fears he shall be killed 
 only in case he became a vagabond and fugitive on the 
 ear^A, Gen. iv. 14. I find scarce one, who has undertaken 
 to refute this objection of the Praeadamites, otherwise 
 than by recurring to the fecundity of Eve, and comput- 
 ing how many children might be born of her and her 
 daughtera in the space of one hundred years. But this, 
 in my opinion, does not come up to the point ; it sup- 
 poses that Cain feared his brothers and nephews. Now, 
 it was not them he feared ; for as I said before, if they 
 had been the occasion of this fear, he could not have de- 
 sired anything better than to be banished : nor would he 
 have esteemed the exile to which God had condemned 
 him, a punishment too great for him to bear. It must 
 therefore be the inhabitants of remote countries that he 
 feared ; people unknown and no ways tied to him by any 
 relation. God so far from undeceiving Cain about his 
 supposition that there were men everywhere, seiems to 
 have confirmed it. He does not anSwfer him. Thou hast 
 no need to fear murderers in remote countiies : for there 
 is not one man there. But he encourages him by giving 
 him a mark which would prevent any one that found him 
 from killing him : and this manifestly supposes that Cain 
 
238 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 might find people in every place where his steps might 
 carry him. 
 
 19. But though Adam was not the first man, there are 
 traditions which shew that a person under that name, real 
 or symbolical, exercised a singular influence in his own 
 age upon his cotemporaries. This man as I have said w^as 
 the First Messiah from God : this man was the author of 
 the Apocalypse. Traces of him may be found in many 
 nations : but except among /the Jews, who claim him for 
 themselves alone, or those who have imbibed the fancy 
 from the Jews, there is no tradition anywhere of his 
 being the parent of mankind; or of his adventures with 
 a talking serpent. This a rabbinical allegory, which 
 exposes all who believe in it literally to contempt or 
 ridicule. 
 
 20. I do not value the writings of Paul very much ; he 
 has done more to destroy true Christianity than any 
 writer that ever lived, but he may be taken as. a witness 
 of what the early Jews, from whom he professed to aposta- 
 tize, believed about certain allegorical mysteries, which 
 simple Christians are taught to confide in as actual facts. 
 I have already cited a passage from Maimonides {ante p. 
 71), which shows the insanity of believing according to 
 the letter. The following strange passages from Paul, 
 shew that he also held similar notions about the entirely 
 symbolic character of parts of the Old Testament. I 
 have no doubt there are many others ; but they are hardly 
 worth looking for, as literal believers may be taken to 
 have wholly abandoned reason, and to be insensible to all 
 proof. In 1 Corinthy x, we read thus : Moreover, brethren, 
 I would not that ye should he ignorant, how that all our 
 fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 230 
 
 sea : and were all baptized imto Moses in the cloud and 
 in the sea ; and did all eat the same sinritual meat ; and 
 did all drink the same spiHtual drink : for they drank of 
 that spiritual Rock that followed them : and that Rock was 
 Christ. But with many of them God loas not well i^leased : 
 for they were overthrown in the wilderness. This indicates 
 a very strong doubt in the mind of the writer about the 
 litenxl acceptance of much that has been vulgarly taken 
 for reality. It does not look as if he at all regarded the 
 pillar of cloud, or the Red Sea, in both of which the Jews 
 were baptized unto Moses, as anything but symbolical ; 
 the same observation may apply to the spiritual meat and 
 drink (manna and quails) (6) ; and the watei-s from 
 Horeb ; to neither of which does he appear to give a lite- 
 ral meaning ; and that the Jews of Moses's time drank of 
 the Rock Christ seems lunacy itself. There is another 
 passage in Galatians iv, equally startling and inexplicable. 
 For it is writtenj that Ahraluxm had two sons, the one 
 by a bondmaidi the other by a freewoman. But he ivho 
 was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh ; but he of 
 the freedwoman loas by ])romise. Which things are an 
 allegory ; for these are the tvjo covenants ; the one from 
 the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is 
 Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and an- 
 awereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with 
 her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which 
 is tlie mother of us all. Now if all this about Abraham 
 and his two sons is an allegory, where shall we decide 
 between that which is true and that which is mythical ? 
 To decide is impossible : to let the Church decide for 
 uB against our own reason is madness. We should there- 
 fore exercise a little common sense : and reject whatever 
 
24-0 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 is repugnant to our own understanding, or to experience. 
 And all these myths about ribs, and serpents, are evi- 
 dently so. 
 
 21. Internal evidence is not the only evidence that the 
 Apocalypse was written by the first Messenger, whom we 
 may call Adam. There are not wanting historical tradi- 
 tions, which indeed are slight, although not worthless. 
 The reader may give what weight to them he thinks fit : 
 or he may give none at all, for this Essay claims higher 
 authority than any historical proof whatever. One of 
 the most ancient traditions of the Oriental world, and 
 one which all the learned Arabs and Mohammedan 
 priests hold implicitly to this present day, is, that God 
 -commanded, the splendid Angel Azaz-El, to bear a 
 Message or a Revelation to Adam, whom they call Sefi 
 Alia, the chosen, the wisdom-word of God; and that 
 Azaz-El having refused he immediately fell, and became 
 Iblis, which means Despair. As Adam was then in his 
 human appearance, though in reality a Messiah, this dis- 
 obedience of Azaz-El, who did not know that he was 
 commissioned to a Divine Incarnation, may easily be ex- 
 plained ; and if the tradition be accepted as true — and I 
 know not why it should not be so received — it will at once 
 explain why God lifted Adam on high in divine ecstacy, 
 and ruled that the Revelation which he was to receive, 
 should be actually presented to him in Vision, and not 
 brought to him by any of the Heavenly Spirits. 
 
 22. Cedrenus and Syncellus have two curious fragments 
 of ancient tradition, one copied from the other in nearly 
 the same words, which assign to Adam the receipt of an 
 Apocalypse. Tw ^ eVct /xcravoi^cras o 'A5a/;t, tyvoi St A^OKa- 
 Xv^ews, ra ttc/di rdv iyprjyopuyv, Kal tov KaraKkvcrixov Kai 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 241 
 
 •m vepl fi€rdvota<;, Kal rrjs Oeias (ra/jKCtkrcws, Kal TtUv irepl 
 jcad* hcdirnjv te/oav rj/Mepivrjv kol vvKTipivrjv avaTr€jJLTrofj.€vo)V 
 
 €t'^WV TW 0€(p €^ 6X(DV T(l)V KTlCfXaTUiV SlO. OvpLYjX TOV iwl 
 
 T^s fxeravoias apxoiyyeXov. In his six hundredth year, 
 Adam repenting of his sin, learned by an Apocali/pse all 
 the things about the Watchers, and the inundation of 
 watei's, and about repentance, and the divine Incarnation, 
 and the prayers presented to God by all creatures, through 
 every hour of the day and night, by Uriel the archangel, 
 of repentance. 
 
 22. Epi[)hanius, speaking of the Gnostics, says : They 
 produce other Revelations of Adam, airoKaXvipei'; Kal tov 
 ASa/x a\Xa<s kiyovcTLv. From these he cites a fragment, 
 which it will be at once seen is identical in spirit with 
 tJie words in the text ; Slo Kal kv d7roKpv(f>ois dvayivaxTKovTes, 
 
 OTl €i8oV ^'-V^pOV 4>€pOV 8w8€Ka Ka/37rOl»S TOV CVtaVTOU, Kttt 
 
 <Tir€ p.01 rovTO ccttl to.^vXov rrjs ^uirj^i' 6 dvTol dX.XT]yopoxf(riv 
 <ls Tr)v Kara fjirjva ytvofxfirqv yvvaiKaLav pvciv. Propterecu 
 in Apocryphis legunt ; vidi arhorem duodeseinfructus quo- 
 iannis ferentem, et dixit mihij hoc est lignum vitce. Idij)- 
 sum de meristruis mulierum profluviis interpretantur (7). 
 It seems to me very clear from this, that the Apoca- 
 lypse which the Gnostics used as the Revelation of Adam, 
 vas this very work which has so long passed under the 
 name of loannes. And the explanation of the Tree of Life 
 IB merely a fiilsehood of Epiphanius : but the twelve fruits 
 from the Tree, are the Twelve Messengers, in commemo- 
 mtion of whom Herodotus relates that in the Egyptian 
 temples there were <i^6/re golden patei-se, ii. 151. Tertul- 
 lian, c. ix. de Anima, says : An ecstacy fell on Adam (Gen, 
 iv.), the operating influence of the Uoly Spirit of Pro- 
 phecy. Is not this the very essence of the Apocalypse aa 
 
 M 
 
242^' THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 here explained ? and is it not clearly deducible from the 
 passage that it was the very same Apocalypse as the 
 Gnostics used ? 
 
 23. Hottinger, {Hist. Orient, p. 22,), cites an Arab 
 writer, who reports, that God delivered to Adam a book 
 of twenty-one pages. This was the first Book direct from 
 heaven, and written in the first language. It contained 
 precepts, traditions, promises and denunciations on futui'e 
 ages, and the interpretation of certain mysteries ; and 
 exhibited the laws and histories of the whole earth. And 
 in this also, the Supreme God, represented the generation 
 of men, one after the other, and their career, and their 
 transactions, with those also of their Kings, and all and 
 every of the revolutions on earth. And when Adam saw 
 these things, and what calamities should befal men, he 
 wept with a great weeping. Then God commanded him 
 to write them down with a pen, and he took the skins of 
 cattle, and prepared them until they were white, and he 
 wrote. Is there one word in this description of the revealed 
 volume, which is not strictly applicable to this Apoca- 
 lypse ? and what has become of this Book, if it be not 
 the Apocalypse ? 
 
 24. An Arabian doctor, quoted by Kircher (Fabric. 
 Cod. Pseud. Vet. Test., i., 18) says that, Adam meditating 
 one day by the banks of a river issuing out of Paradise, 
 on the good that he had lost, and the evils into which he 
 had fallen, with voice, eyes, and hands elevated to God, 
 implored some alleviation of his misery. On the third 
 day after his prayer the Angel Baziel (the Wisdom of 
 God) came to him, and handed him a Booh, that shone 
 like white Jlame, on which were letters traced by which he 
 was enabled to learn and understand, all the wonderful 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 248 
 
 events which either had been, weret or were to he,* and to 
 perceive all things in the heavens, the earths, the waters, 
 the abysses, and the places under the abysses ; all the 
 heavens, and the Messengers who were their ministers, 
 their virtues, and their employments, the motion of the 
 sun and moon and stars, and their natures and all things 
 by which the world is regulated. If this be not a de- 
 scription of the Apocalypse, as here printed and inter- 
 preted, it would be hard to say what is. 
 
 25. The Jews of the Cabbala have preserved the tradi- 
 tion; they relate that after Adam's sin, the Book of Revela- 
 tion which had been given to him in his ecstacy, and which 
 was full of mysteries and signs expressive of the most pro- 
 found knowledge, was taken away by the angel Raziel, by 
 whom it had been shewn to him at first ; that the pa- 
 triarch then went forth and wept, and having fully re- 
 pented, Kaziel was again sent by God to restore the Book 
 to Adam, lest men might lose its toisdom and instruction ; 
 that Adam then delivered it to Sheth, from whom it came 
 to Enoch and Abraham, and so in succession to the most 
 wise of every generation. Now, if this be true, and God 
 did indeed reveal an Apocalypse to Adam, and that the 
 wisest of the Hebrews still preserved it,how came it to be 
 lost? Answer — it is not lost, but has been miraculously 
 preserved, though under a false name, and in many frag- 
 ments, and that it is now restored to the world in its pure 
 and primal shape. 
 
 26. Kyss«eus, a Mahommedan writer, relates that when 
 Abraham, (a priest of Brahm), opened the chest of Adam, 
 behold in it were the ^00^5 of Adam ; likewise the Books of 
 Shet or Sasan, and of Edris (Enoch), as also the characters 
 
 * The very words of the Apocalypse. 
 
244!- THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 of the prophets who were to follow. Berosus likewise tells 
 us that XisuthiTis (Adam) composed certain writings at 
 the command of the Deitj, which were buried in Sippara, 
 the City of the Sun in Ba-Bel-On-Ya, and which writings 
 were actually dug up, at a later period, and were preserved 
 in the metropolis of Chaldaea. And it was from these 
 writings deposited in the Temple of Belus, that Berosus 
 took some of the outlines of his history of the prae- 
 adamite rulers of Chaldaea. Observe here that this Sip- 
 para comes from Saphr^ 1S)D) which means a Book, a 
 Scribe, and numbers j that it is the root of the Greek 
 iTOipo's, a wise man ; of the Persian Soh, a sage ; of 
 the English Sapphire, because blue was the emblem of 
 lieavenly Wisdom : and a sapphire girdle was worn by the 
 Messenger. This is mentioned in the Apocalypse. Does 
 thi^ furnish a reason why the work itself was secretly 
 d-eposited in the Sapphire-City ? 
 
 27. There is a curious passage in ^lian, says Herbert, 
 in Nimrod, where he speaks of a Hawk which brought to 
 the Egyptians, in the times of the beginning, a Book bound 
 in purple^ containing the written ordinances of their xe- 
 ligion, for which reason the scribes and interpreters thereof 
 iwed to wear hawk's wings upon their heads. Now we 
 know that the hawk like the eagle and vulture were solar 
 emblems : this hawk therefore means, a Child of the Sun 
 — an Incarnation. And whenever we see in Egyptian 
 liieroglyphics a hawk -headed creature, we may be sure 
 that it alludes either to the Messenger himself, or one of 
 hja priests. And as the hawk, the vulture, and the eagle 
 -vTere all three birds of prey, they symbolized under either 
 JBgure, the Cabiric Messenger, or Messiah of Justice, who 
 bore the thunderbolt of God within his talons. And to 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 245 
 
 this Messenger express allusion is made in I. Chron. xxL 
 15, II. Sam. xxiv. 16. But the Book above alluded to^ 
 was not the Book of Thoth ; what other volume then 
 could it be ? I answer it was this Apocalypse, which 
 thus got to Egyjit in the primitive ages — the times of the 
 beginning. 
 
 28. The religion of the primeval Persians, says Hyde. 
 Hist. Bel. Vet Fers. ii., was called Millat Ibrahim^ or 
 the Abi-ahamic Religion : and he says that it was con- 
 tained in a Book called So/hi, or Wisdom. This Revela- 
 tion they believe descended from Heaven during the feast 
 of Ramazan, and it was contained in ten books or chapters,, 
 the truth of which Wivs denominated P4zend, ''/uU of 
 counsel^ xmsdoni^ and secret mysteries.'^ It exists, or can 
 be found, no longer ; and orthodox commentators have 
 puzzled themselves and their readers in -attempting to 
 prove that it was given to the Jewish patriarch Abraham, 
 as he is called, whom biblicals delight to dub the Father 
 of all religion in the East. But Abraham is not a name 
 — it is a title of honour. DHl^i*? Abraham is Father 
 of a multitude. DI^K Abram, Father of elevation. 
 It may mean in addition to numerous other explanations 
 of which it is susceptible, the Father, {Ah\ from the 
 Sun, (Ram), a designation that would apply to any one 
 of the Twelve Messengers. It might therefore mean. 
 Adam himself the First Messiah, and it is possible that it 
 may have been the work mentioned by Kyssseus. And 
 this view is confirmed by the fact, that the Book of Abra- 
 ham which the Jews preserve, the Jetsira, or Creation, is 
 nothing but a pure cabbalistic farrago of equal foolishness 
 with the Talmud itself It is assuredly not the So/hij for 
 it is the reverse of Wisdom. Where then is the So/hi f 
 
246 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 Is it not the Apocalypse, " full of counsel, wisdom, and 
 secret mysteries?" This hypothesis is confirmed when 
 we recollect what Hyde further says, that Ibrahim is 
 synonymous with Imaum^ or High Priest, and is the same 
 as the Persic Pishvd, or Sovereign Pontiff. And who so 
 eminently woi*thy of this honourable surname as the 
 First Messenger, the chosen Imaum of God himself for 
 this divine Revelation ? Imaum is Hom-Aum, the name 
 of the sacred Brahminical Fire. 
 
 29. One of the mythical legends related of Ibrahim, 
 is evidently founded on the Apocalypse ; and is typical of 
 what befals the heavenly Messenger. When it pleased 
 Ood, says Abu Mohammed Mustapha, to send forth 
 Ibrahim, Nimrod dreamed that he saw a Star rising out 
 of the East, which obscured the sun and moon, so that 
 their light faded. Prom which being seized with great 
 fear, he consulted his magicians, who told him that in that 
 year a boy was to be born who would destroy himself and 
 his kingdom. Then di(J Nimrod give command, that 
 every boy who should be born in that year throughout 
 the country, should be immediately put to death, and he 
 gave orders also to separate the husbands from their 
 wives, sending out the former to war, or into encamp- 
 ments. Then the mother of Ibrahim fearing that her 
 son might perish, hid him in a cave, and every day of his 
 infancy was as a month ; and every month was as a year ; 
 until at last he said to his mother : Lead me forth, &c. 
 If the reader will turn to the Apocalypse, he will see 
 that this is but a new version of the Ked Dragon, the 
 "Woman and the man-child ; and in conformity with the 
 primeval symbol, we have nearly similar stories related 
 of most of the Holy Messengers. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 247 
 
 30. From a similar source, proceeded a cuiious mythos 
 prevalent among the Tartars of tlie Corea. A daughter 
 of the God Hoang-Ho, became pregnant by the action of 
 a sunbeam. In due time she brought forth an egg, and 
 from the egg was born a man-child. The king of the 
 country jealous of his address, sent assassins to murder 
 him. By these he was pursued to the bank of a river, 
 and was on the point of falling into theii' hands, when he 
 addi-essed a jjrayer to his father the Sun. Scarcely had 
 he finished it, when thefaJies rising to the surface of the 
 water, formed a bridge for him, over which he passed in 
 safety, and thus made his escape. The reader will see the 
 impoi-tance of these allusions to the hiding and the fishes 
 as he proceeds. 
 
 31. The Tsabseans say of Adam that when he quitted 
 the country adjacent to India for the confines of Babel, 
 he carried with him many wonderful things, amongst 
 which were one Tree, whose bi'anches, leaves, and flowers 
 were all of gold; and another all of stone [emerald], 
 and also two of the leaves of a third Tree, so verdant that 
 the fire could not consume its leaves, and so large as to 
 cover ten thousand men of equal stature with Adam. In 
 this mystical way, it would appear, they mentioned this 
 divine Aix)calypse — in words which the initiated would 
 undei-stand, but which to the many would only be a source 
 
 . of ignorant wonder. A Tree, a Pillar, and a Sceptre, in 
 ancient theology, were common names for a Book. So 
 we are told that when Juno was married to Jupiter, she 
 gave him a Tree that bare golden fruit : a covert allusion 
 to the Incarnation whom she produced, and to the Book 
 which the Incarnation promulgated. Note also the 
 Twelve Trees in the Apocalypse. Aos, one of the primi- 
 
248 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 tive words, in Irish is a tree, and it signifies knowledge : 
 so in Hebrew, '^K, az, or tz^ is a Tree. When Moses 
 sent out to search the land, he bade them try to find if 
 there were any V K, az, there j that is, any learned men, 
 any adepts, any acquainted with the Sacred Mysteries — 
 not if they had wood in the land, than which a more 
 absurd translation could not be presented. That this is 
 the true version is confirmed even by the Talmudists, who 
 say that the reply was not, as the text has it, that there 
 were Giants (an absurd answer to the supposed question 
 put), but that there were Anakim (Enochians) men of 
 learning in the country. So Taliesin, chief of the Welsh 
 bards, alludes to his mystic knowledge of the Sacred 
 Books : 
 
 I know the intent of the Trees 
 In the memorial of compacts. 
 I know good and evil. 
 and again — 
 
 I know which was decreed 
 Praise or disgrace, by the intention 
 Of the memorial of the Trees ^ of the Sages — 
 I understand my institute. 
 
 Davies' Gelt. Res., 248. 
 
 In allusion to this also, the primeval priests had the 
 figure of a Tree imprinted upcm their bodies, and were 
 therefore called Dendrophori, or tree-beai'ers, a symbolic 
 reference to their possession of the secret of letters, and 
 of this Apocalypse. By the Hindus, as Herodotus 
 relates, it was called the Tree of Frankincense, whose 
 fragrance was guarded by winged Serpents or Seraphim. 
 The Golden Apple-trees of the Hesperids, guarded by a 
 Dragon, mean the Golden Volume of the Apocalypse, 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 249 
 
 which the Pontiff* preserved ; and lasion's expedition in 
 search of the Golden Fleece, or vesture of the Apocalyptic 
 Lamb, was allusive to a search after the same concealed 
 volume. It was likewise called the Golden Napkin, 
 which the Great Mother Ceres gave to one of the Kings 
 of Egypt. Charax, of Pergamus, says that Phryxus had 
 left behind him some books written on sJieep-skin, in 
 letters of gold ; and Dionysius Scytobracbion, of Mity- 
 lene, who flourished a little before Julius Csesar, men- 
 tioned that the Golden Fleece, the cause of the Argonautic 
 expedition, was a Book that taught the art of making 
 goldj — that is, beautifying the world. By the Scyths it 
 was called The Golden Bowl that fell from Heaven; b^ 
 the Etruscans, The Golden Ancile; and by the Chinese, 
 Waters of Immo7'tality. It was concealed also under 
 various other names familiar to the classical student, 
 such as The Arrows of Hercules; for Hercules was a 
 name for the Messiah, and an-ows indicate language ; and 
 The Horses of RhesuSy for horses are solar symbols, and 
 Rhesus was a disguise for Rhoea, the Holy Spirit (antey 
 36). Thus it meant the sun-like emanations of the 
 Queen of Heaven. It was called also the Tahle^ and 
 sometimes the Tablets of the Sun. This symbolism and 
 concealment pervades the whole of ancient history. 
 Helene or Selene (the Moon, S-El-Ain, the Fountain of 
 the Most High) was a resplendent sta,tue of the Holy- 
 Spirit, radiant with the rarest metal and jewelry, and 
 enshrining in its breast a copy of the Apocalypse ; it was 
 stolen away by Paris, to Tro-Iah (the Tri-God) the name 
 of a sacred city ; and hence the holy war which followed. 
 Nor is it to be wondered that so mysterious and symbolic 
 a Book as the Apocalypse should give birth to mystery 
 and symbolism in all things. 
 
 M 3 
 
250 THE BOOK OF GOD 
 
 32. This Sacred Book of the Tsaboeans, if it could be 
 now procured, would, I doubt not, be found identical in 
 all essentials with my Apocalypse. We find a glimpse of 
 it in the well-known work of Maimonides, where it is 
 called the Book of Thammuz (8), or the Hidden one. 
 From that it would appear that it spoke of a Dragon or 
 Serpent, and Tree of knowledge of good and evil. Both 
 of these are in the Apocalypse. It may be said that they 
 are also in the second and third chapters of Genesis. 
 This is so — but who shall say that these were not founded 
 on the Apocalypse, or on some Tsabsean or Indian super- 
 stition 1 It is certain that they must be figuratively 
 accepted; it seems equally certain that they are in a 
 mutilated form. The Tsabasans also had other Books of 
 Kevelation called the Book Tarn- Tarn, or Sam-Sam, from 
 DD S7n, the Sun : hence the Arabic Zem-Zem, or Well 
 of Wisdom ; the Book Hassearab ; the Book of The 
 Messenger Hermes ; but we know nothing of them except 
 from Maimonides, who never sank the Jew in the philo- 
 sopher. They maintained that Adam was like others, the 
 offspring of a man and woman, though they gi'eatly 
 extolled him, calling him the Proi^het of the Moon : and 
 asserting that he taught men to worship the Moon, and 
 composed certain works on agriculture. — More Nevocliim 
 (Teacher of the Perplexed.) All these allusions shew 
 that Adam was believed to have been a Messiah, and that 
 he gave Revelations. 
 
 33. One fact suffices to shew that the common account 
 of Adam cannot be relied upon, as having reference to 
 any particular man, as the Hebrew doctors pretend. 
 We are told that the Genesis' Adam lived 930 years. 
 Is it possible, that if this were so, he, the Patriarch 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 251 
 
 of the human race, as it is urged, skilled in all the varied 
 accouiplishments which by that time were known and 
 diffused among his posterity, would have left no record 
 in writing of his astounding experience, and of those 
 personal communications which it is said that God him- 
 self held with him in the most eventful periods of his 
 proti-acted career ? Can it be credited that God who was 
 80 continually interfering in the good government of man- 
 kind, would have prevented him 1 is it not on the con- 
 trary more likely that God would have inspired him to 
 leave this mighty memorial behind, as an authoritative 
 guide to all posterity ? No sucli memorial is alluded to 
 in Genesis; from which I think the inference is clear 
 that the original tract relative to Adam, has, like every 
 other part of the Hebrew writings, been sadly muti- 
 lated by the Jews. And one reason wliy they pretended 
 that the First Naronic Messenger, was in reality the 
 Parent of the human family, and above all of the family 
 of their patriarch Abram, was, that upon this device 
 they might found one of their claims to universal pillage. 
 And not content with this, they feigned that Noah, the 
 Chinese Fohi, also was a Jew, so that in every way they 
 might make good theii* demand upon the nations to sur- 
 render all to them, as being the first progenitors of men. 
 
 34. I hold, says Pererius, that Adam at the time when 
 he conjectured the nature of all animals and birds, in the 
 same moment committed it to writing, and that he like- 
 wise reduced their nomenclature into a commentary. 
 For how otherwise could it have happened, tliat every 
 name which Adam gave, should have continued to the 
 time of Moses, if Adam had not at the same instant 
 .when he called all beasts and birds by theii' names, com- 
 
252 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 posed a catalogue of those names for the use of posterity ; 
 and that the various names of so many creatures, which 
 he might never again see, should not escape the memory 
 even of Adam himself ? From all which Pererius con- 
 cludes, that there were Praeadamites ; that Adam com- 
 posed books, and that the art of writing was well known. 
 Ought he not to have concluded also that no reliance can 
 be placed on the Genesis tract which does not speak of 
 any such Book ? 
 
 35. The Jewish sages have handed down a tradition of 
 two Psalms, which they declare to have been written by 
 Adam. I entertain no doubt that he wrote psalms ; and 
 I have inserted two after the Apocalypse. But they are 
 not in the Rabbinical form, but as they were really 
 wi'itten. If he wrote these, why may he not have written 
 the Apocalypse ? 
 
 36. Almost all ancient nations, says Higgins {Anaca- 
 hjpsis, 11. 147) had a tradition, that they once possessed 
 Sacred Writings in a long-lost language. The possessors 
 of these Writings, and this old language, must have been 
 the people who erected the Pyramids ; the gigantic stone 
 circles, and the other Cyclopean buildings which are 
 found of such peculiar character and siz3 all over the 
 world. Can these traditions be relied on ? The biblicaJs 
 always argue for the Noachian deluge, on the ground of 
 general tradition ; and I do not know why this should 
 not be as good a proof for me, as it is surmised to be for 
 them. Some people, s^ys Nimrod, i 18, are apt to argue 
 as if they took for granted, that there never were any 
 Holy Scriptures in the world before Moses wrote his for the 
 use of a single people. This however is a mistake. At 
 Athens they had a prophetic and mysterious Book, which 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 253 
 
 they called the Testament ; to which they believed the 
 safety of the republic was attached. ' They preserved it 
 with so much care that among all their writers no one 
 ever dared to make any mention of it : and the little we 
 know of this subject has been collected from the famous 
 oration of Dinarchus against Demosthenes, whom he 
 accuses of having failed in the respect due to this Ineffable 
 Book, so connected with the welfare and safety of the 
 state. Spineto on Hieroglyph^ p. 123. Was net this 
 Book the Apocalypse? I have already explained why it 
 was so carefully concealed. 
 
 37. Plato has the following allusion, which I think 
 intimates some knowledge of the Apocalypse. A gift as 
 it appeal's to me, says Socrates, {Philebus, 18), from gods 
 to men, was through a certain Prometheus, (a name for the 
 Messiah), cast down from some quarter by the Gods, along 
 with a certain Jlre the most luminous ; and the men of old 
 being better than us, and dwelling nearer to the Gods, have 
 handed down this story, (fee. This gift, among other mystic 
 titles, passed in those days under the name oflcpos A0709, 
 or the Sacred Discourse ; and it is mentioned by Fabricius. 
 {Bib. Gr. i. 118, ^(j2) ; though the extracts which Syrianus 
 professes to take from it are spuiious. It is referred to 
 by Herodotus under the name of Divine Traditions ; 
 with a declaration that he will not publish them ; and it 
 is in all probability the Holy Tradition recommended by 
 Orpheus to his favourite scholar, and quoted by Justin 
 Mai-tyr. There is another hint of it in Plato's Republic, 
 X. It is proper indeed, he says, always to believe in those 
 Ancient and Sacred Discourses which announce to us that 
 the soul is immortal, and that it has judges of its conduct, 
 and sufrei*s the greatest punishments when it is liberated 
 
25 4j the book of god. 
 
 from the body. But what Ancient and Sacred Discourse 
 is there, or have we any record of, that tells these things, 
 if it be not this Secret Volume of the Mysteries 1 
 
 38. Josephus in his Wars of the Jews, says : What did 
 most elevate them in undertaking this war, was an am- 
 biguous oracle that was found in their Sacred Writings, 
 tow about this time one from their country should become 
 governor of the habitable earth. (Book vi., c. 5, s. 4.) 
 What Sacred Writings were these 1 Not the traditions 
 -of the Babbis handed down from early times, for these 
 were not committed to writing. Were they those which 
 jEsdras was ordered not to publish 1 See antej p. 79. 
 Were they not the same as those which the Greeks pos- 
 sessed and guarded so carefully 1 Were they not the 
 Apocalypse 1 and was not the prediction on which they 
 relied, that contained in section 31, from which one of 
 iheir own writers, Haggai, had quoted 1 but which they 
 misinterpreted from their ignorance of true chronology : 
 for the Great Messenger there predicted did not appear 
 for 1200 y^ars after that writer's prophecy of him? 
 
 39. Plato again, in his Phsedo, treating of the immor- 
 tality of the soul, tells us, that we must search out the 
 strongest and best arguments to prove it, unless any can 
 by a more safe and certain way, that is to say some Divine 
 Word or Tradition, transmit it to us. Now, what this 
 Aoyos deios or Divine Word should signify, if not the 
 Apocalypse, it would be hard to imagine. In another place 
 he speaks of cTrtK-nyros yvwo-t?, or a Traditionary Know- 
 ledge ; which from the peculiar mode in which alone the 
 Apocalypse was communicated, namely, to the most per- 
 fect of the Initiated, might fairly enough allude to it. 
 And Plutarch mentions a HaXata Hicrrts, or Ancient 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 255 
 
 Creed, wliicli does not exist at present in any known 
 Greek form, if we except the Apocalypse. Pherecyides, 
 .the master of Pythagoras, by some said to be an Assyrian, 
 wrote a book called Theogony ; from whence he received 
 the name of Theologos, or the Divine. Diogenes Laertius, 
 and Suidas, both relate of him that he had no instructor, 
 but that he got all his knowledge from the hidden Books 
 of tlie Phoenicians, which he possessed : and in imitation of 
 these he himself wrote his Theology in symbols and senig- 
 mas : whence also he was surnamed ^kotlvos, or the 
 darkly-mystic. Can it be questioned that these hidden 
 and senigmatic writings were the Apocalypse ; and that it 
 was communicated by liim to his disciples l We are told 
 also that he wrote certain books upon the theology of 
 Ophion (meaning the Serpent On, the Phoenix On, the Mouth 
 of On, and the Serpent of the Yoni, that is the Messiah) ; 
 and these related to his birth (that of the Man Child) ; 
 the War in Heaven ; the Winged Tree ; and the Veil ; 
 and these books according to Isidorus {Cit. Clem. Alex. 
 Strom, lib. i., p. 632, ed. 1629), were taken from the Fro- 
 pliecy of Cham. But is not this Cham a radical and 
 important part of the name Adam ? Origen says that 
 Pherecydes describes the two hostile armies, the one com- 
 manded by Saturn (Satan), and the other by Ophion ; and 
 the agreement that whichever of the two should be beaten 
 into the waters, should remain expelled from heaven. Does 
 not this seem like an amplification of the Apocalypse 1 
 I may add here that the author of Nimrod is of opinion 
 that this FropJiecy of Cham, is alluded to by Lycophron 
 in his Cassandra (another prophetic vision), in verse 508, 
 as being the " wonderful worm-eaten seal " with which the 
 Twins are said to have sealed Attica. This I own is 
 
256 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 rather far-fetched, but it is the opinion of very learned 
 men : it may be right, and the seal may allude to the 
 Sealed Volume which only the Messenger of God could 
 open. But this Book of Cham, or Ophion, was also 
 called Orion, or Indian Bird of Fire, of which Clitarchus 
 says, that it i*esembled a heron in size ; red ((/)0tvtj) as to 
 his legs, and withal so musical as to rival the Sirens in its 
 music : and he adds that the Kings of India had large 
 waggons so constructed that trees might grow in them ; 
 and so they carried this Bird about with them, where, as 
 Nonnus relates, from the topmost honey -dripping branch 
 the sweet Bird Orion, sings with a divine voice like the 
 sagacious siuan, nor does he scatter it carelessly on the breath 
 of zephyr, lohile he waves his toings, but sheds it like honey 
 into the mouths of the wise, like a certain man. I believe 
 also that the Apocalypse was called for the sake of dis- 
 guise, l%e Lamb with Two Tongues, to StyAcuo-o-ov dpvLov, 
 which Helen was said to possess, together with the 
 Tripod of Pelops : and that the two tongues meant the 
 exoteric, and the esoteric interpretation. Nor can any 
 other meaning that I see be assigned to it than this. The 
 Lamb, I need not add, was an allusion to the lion-like 
 Lamb, or the Messenger. Bion of Smyrna called it the 
 Two-headed Lamb, Stcrcrivtov dpva, Epith. Achil. which 
 the Apocalyptic Messiah was. 
 
 40. So Memnon, which was a Messianic name — mean- 
 ing Mim-n-On (the Six hundred of On the Sun), when 
 dead was transformed into a Bird, incomparable, as he 
 himself had been among men, for beauty and sagacity ; 
 the Orion of the Indians, and Phoenix of -the classical 
 writers. Memnon was the Son of Aurora (the Morning), 
 whose Persian name was Ho-mai, or the Bird of Paradise. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 257 
 
 Now Phoenix was the Biid of the Morning also, and of Para- 
 dise : his dwelling was in the very East, at the Gate of 
 Heaven, in the Land of the Spring, and in the Grove of the 
 Sun, upon a plain of unalloyed delights, lying twelve 
 cubits higher than the highest of mountains, and which 
 alone of all the Earth, was unhurt by the Fire of Phaeton, 
 and the "Water of Deucalion. Phoenix was also the 
 Sacred Palm Tree — a Tree of Life, or an offshoot from 
 Her who is. 
 
 4L Reference has been made to a volume called Kirani, 
 which a King of Persia presented to Thoth, many thou- 
 sands of years before Mohammed adopted the same title 
 for his Koran, or the Teacher. This was a Secret and a 
 mystic Book : the biblicals who allude to it say that it 
 was magical. It is related of Harpocration, (that is the 
 god of sworn taciturnity, premens vocenij digitoque silentia 
 suadens), when he was travelling in Babylonia, and about 
 four miles from a city called Seleutica, that he found 
 three towers which had been built by Giants (or priests 
 of Anuk), and among them columnam cum turre magnd, 
 and with a Temple to be ascended by 365 silver steps. 
 Upon that column the Book of Kirani was found in- 
 scribed. The author of Nimrod says, that this was the 
 column which went by the name of the Pillar of Ach- 
 icarus, and that the writing upon it was in a sacred cha- 
 racter, upon the meaning of which Democritus and after- 
 wards Theophi-astus, wi'ote discourses ; and he adds that 
 Ach-icarus, which means Son of the Ocean, was wor- 
 shipped as a Prophet and demigod by the people of Cim- 
 merian Bosphorus. Was this Ach-icarus the same as 
 Ach-Adam ; and were the Kirani Mysteries those of the 
 Apocalypse 1 The coincidences are curious. A volume 
 
258 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 oi the Kirani was found in the tomb of Priam King of 
 Troy, with his bones. From the traditionary notices 
 of it which exist, it must have been a most venerable re- 
 cord of antiquity. Some writers maintain that Kirani is 
 in allusion to the Queen [of Heaven] KoLpavi], which they 
 3ay it means : others interpret it simply A Collection. 
 Salmasius thinks it has the same sense as the Arabic 
 Koran. Mention is made of a manuscript in the library 
 of Mr. Grelot, entitled The Golden Epitome, or the Book 
 of the Ancient Kiranids. Is this volume no logger to 
 be found 1 — or have the priests bought and destroyed it ? 
 To what other book that we know, could the name of 
 Golden Epitome apply so well as to this Apocalypse, which 
 is a picture in brief of the whole world's history ? It 
 jbas been attributed to Thoth ; it has been assigned to 
 Zaratusht, whom some think to be Adam. No one ever 
 seems to have seen it, though the number of guessers at 
 its contents have been numerous. 
 
 42. Harpocration's own account of it, may be cited. 
 When I formerly travelled, he writes, through the country 
 of Babylon I found a city, Seleutica by name, the history 
 whereof I have written : after that I saw another city 
 yet, seventeen Persian miles distance from Seleutica, 
 which Alexander of Macedon demolished. This is called 
 little Alexandria. The third year it happened that I 
 found an old man skilled in foreign learning, and in the 
 Oreek tongue : but he said he was a Syrian by nation, 
 was taken captive and lived there ; and he went round 
 the city with me, and showed me everything. And when 
 we came to a certain place about four miles distance from 
 the city, we saw a joi^^ar with a great tower, which the 
 inhabitants of Syria said they brought from the edifice of 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 259 
 
 Solomon, and placed it there for the healtli and cure of 
 the men of that city. Looking therefore well upon it I 
 found it was written in strange letters. The old man 
 therefore as soon as he was asked by rae, agreed to shew 
 me, and I willingly lent an ear to him, while he dis- 
 coursed and expounded the barbarous letters that were 
 upon the pillai", in the ^olic tongue. My son, saith he, you 
 see three towers standing here, one of which is five miles 
 distant, another two and a half, and another four. These 
 were built by the Giants who had a mind to climb into 
 heaven : for this their impious madness, some of them 
 were stiiick with thunder : others through the just judg- 
 ment of God, knew not themselves, and the rest were 
 cast into the Isle of Crete, into which God being angry 
 with them, hurled them. The old man then bade mo 
 measure the greatness of the stone with a cord. There- 
 fore measuring that which was nigh I found it two-and- 
 thirty cubits high, and seventy-nine broad, and there 
 were 208 steps to it. We also saw a sacred cloister, and 
 in the middle of the cloister there was a Temple having 
 305 silver steps, and GO more of gold, by which we went 
 up to pray to God. And he told me the Mysteries of 
 the Living G od, which I will not tell to all. I was indeed 
 willing to be informed of other things : but my main 
 design was to be informed of the pillar. And the old 
 man drawing aside a silken veil shewed strange and 
 foreign letters engraven upon it. And because he was 
 skilled in my tongue, I entreated and begged of him that 
 lie would candidly and without envy make plain all things 
 to me. Now the things that were read upon the pillar 
 were these : This is a manifold Table of ilie true examiple ; 
 always having^ and knowing^ and foreknowing t/te Immis- 
 
260 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 sions [Messengers] of the Divinity. Sucli was the volume 
 ■wliicli Harpocration says that he transcribed ; but the 
 volume which now bears his name, says nothing what- 
 ever of the Immissions or Messengers of the Divinity. A 
 copy of the true Kirani is known to have been once in the 
 Vatican ; but the work under that name which was pub- 
 lished at Constantinople in 1168, under the Emperor 
 Manoel by some anonymous monk, is the evident forgery 
 of some fortune-telling impostor : certainly not one likely 
 to have been graven and preserved in the manner related. 
 Making all due allowance for embellishment, I think it 
 can hardly be contended that there was no such vohime, 
 nor can it be denied that it bore the impress of a remote 
 antiquity — remote enough to have been deposited in 
 Priam's golden coffin. "What has become of it perhaps 
 the Yatican could tell, but the Vatican never speaks. 
 The fragment of it that remains, and which I have cited, 
 is in accordance with the Apocalypse — am I over fanciful 
 in supposing it to be the same 1 The reader will see in 
 a subsequent page how strangely the pillar, the temple, 
 and the mystery, correspond with an historical narrative 
 of Nicepborus, and with a vision of Swedenborg. The 
 sceptic will exclaim. Who minds a vision 1 The sceptic 
 does not ; but a believer in the Apocalypse cannot treat 
 any vision with disdain. 
 
 43. The singularity of this most ancient word Kirani, 
 and its resemblance to the name of Mohammed's scrip- 
 ture, is not less to be noted than other coincidences of the 
 same kind. The reader cannot have failed to observe the 
 remarkable name of the Mexican Messiah; given ante, 
 page 37, Omid-euchtli : he will find in the Orphic 
 Hymns that Omadius was a primeval name for the Sacred 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 261 
 
 Incarnation. So we read in Haggai ii. 7: A7id the Desire 
 of all nations shall come, IDH HMD. From this root 
 says Parkhui-st, the pretended prophet Mohammed, or 
 Mahomet had his name. Yet there can be no doubt that 
 in this place the great Arabian Messenger of God, is here 
 expressly foretold by Haggai, and by name : there is no 
 pretence even by the biblicals, that it is interpolated by 
 the Arabs. Did not Haggai copy the prediction from 
 some other volume ? We shall see that he copied it from 
 the Apocalypse. [Section 31]. How did the name get 
 to Mexico. — We find it in Japan as Amida; we find it in 
 Greece before Homer sang. Or is it an anagram of the 
 Shanscreet Adim, (Amid), and was it a general name for 
 the Celestial Interpreter? So we find Manu is Numa; 
 and this read backwards is Amun, or the Hidden, which 
 the Messiah is always said to be. Kir, we know, is a 
 radical for the Sun, and Ani, is Ain, the Fountain, the 
 Holy Spiiit ; and it entered into the word Anna-Perenna, 
 which was one of her titles. See antej page 108, Kyrene. 
 44. This passage of Haggai, says Dr. Henderson, has 
 long been regarded as one of the principal prophecies 
 relative to the time of the Messiah's advent. That it was 
 so applied by some of the early Jewish Rabbins is unde- 
 niable. Thus in the chapter of the Jewish Sanhedrim, 
 entitled pvH, Halk, tlie following interpretation is 
 given as that of Rabbi Akiba, who flourished before the 
 time of Jerome. For a little I will give the kingdom of 
 Israd, after our desolation, and after the kingdom, heliold 
 I will shake heaven and earth, and Messiah shall come. 
 The rendering of the Vulgate supports the same view. 
 Et veniel Desideratus cunctis gentibus. See Minor Pro- 
 phets, page 355. But the reverend Doctor throws no 
 
262 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 light on the singularity of the circumstance ; while Arch- 
 bishop Newcome, and others of the Paulite prelates and 
 fabricators, pretend, against the voice of all antiquity, that 
 the word ought to be plural ; and they propose to inter- 
 pret it, riches, or treasures ! ! 
 
 4-5. Of this name (Adam), says Parkhurst, I meet with 
 no trace in the Greek and Boman mythology, unless in 
 that of Admetus, who was so beloved by Apollo, that the 
 God having been banished from heaven, commenced herds- 
 man, and kept his flock for him. This tradition or 
 mythos is however one of very great significance : as the 
 reader who has advanced thus far will see. Adam mys- 
 tically may mean Ad-M, the Father, six hundred : mean- 
 ing the First one who appeared in the Naronic Cycle. 
 The t7'ue derivation of Adam D^irij however, is in the 
 Arabic, where it means to serve, to minister : and it is 
 characteristic of the Jewish conceit that when they arro- 
 gated to themselves alone, the title of God's chosen 
 people, they not only chose the first Messiah for their 
 progenitor, but also made him the first man. Stephanus 
 TrepL TToAcwv, on Adana, tells us that Saturn or Kronos, 
 was called Adanos ; and that this Adanos was the son of 
 Heaven and Earth : to which Yossius, (de Idolat. i. 38.), 
 adds j Neither may we conceive that his memory was lost 
 in Asia among the Gentiles — many things prove the con- 
 trary : Adana an ancient city in Cilicia, built by the 
 Syi'acusans, was so called in memory of Adam. For it is 
 evident that the Grecians having no words ending in m, 
 for Adam read Adan ; and the termination added, Adanos, 
 whence the city Adana. Note, that Adhdn in Shanscreet 
 means the richest land. 
 
 46. But though Yossius artfully glosses over this matter, 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 263 
 
 and Parkhurst afifects ignorance of any allusion to Adam 
 among the Gentiles, how came the latter to be silent about 
 that remarkable character among the Rabbis, whom they 
 name Adam Kadmon ? and who is in reality the very 
 Adam of the Apocalypse, and the propagator, if not the 
 inventor of letters, under the Greek mythos of Kadmos. 
 Euhemerus calls Kadmos, Phoenix, which we know was » 
 secret name for the Messiah ; and D*TD Kedem, or the East, 
 ■was another of his appellations. See ante, page 96, note 
 2. This Adam is called Adamus Primus, Occultus, the 
 first Adam who was concealed ; so the Orphic Phanes 
 who was both the Holy Spirit, and the Messiah, wa» 
 styled the hidden ; and Jesus was reproved by his own 
 relations, for concealing himself, and not manifesting 
 his royal nature before all. His hrotliers therefore said 
 unto him : Depart hence, and go into Judoea; because 
 thy disciples also may see the works tliat thou doest. For 
 there is no man that doeth anything in secret^ and he himr 
 self seeheth to he hnown openly : if thou do these things, 
 sheio thyself to the ivorld. For iiot even did his own 
 brothers believe in him, John vii. 3. Jesus was chary, 
 above all other things, of announcing his divine character 
 to men ; either, because tliis is a chai*acteristic of the 
 Messiah, or the time did not seem ripe for him to do so. 
 Adam means strictly in Hebrew, the two natures ; or ad 
 the biblicals say, it applies to both sexes ; but it really 
 alludes to the heavenly and the terrestrial combined in. 
 the celestial Messenger to man. Parkhurst also eays that 
 the name Adam may be derived from niDHJ Cedemut, 
 signifying likeness of God, and between this and Kadmon 
 there is scarcely any diiOference. The reader who chooses 
 to examine this and the other analogies pointed ont,, 
 
2G4 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 tlioroughly, will have little doubt resting on his mind. 
 Kadmos, Kam, Kamillos and Kasmillos were old sacred 
 names ; Creuzer admits that the last was a Hermes, or 
 Heavenly Messenger ; Kam is the Indian Kam Diva or 
 Oupid, who is in reality but a name for the Messiah. 
 Thus the Cupid of the Persians, appears seated on a 
 Rainbow in the front of one of the rock temples of Mihr, 
 or the Holy Spirit ; and the Cupid of the Greeks and 
 Romans, who was also a symbol of the Incarnation, is 
 represented either floating on the ocean in a shell, or 
 riding on the back of a fish, or gliding over the Waters 
 in a cup, the Argha of the Hindus, while he expands his 
 sail to the zephyrs. The scholiast on Apollonius, [Argo- 
 naut I.,) says, curiously enough, Ka(r/>iiXo9 6 Epfir]? ecrrLv. 
 Casmilus is Hermes the Interpreter ; w^iich we know was 
 a Messianic name. This Kasmilus, Bochart makes to be 
 the same as Chadmel SKDIH, which means Minister of 
 God : the difference between this and Kadmon Adam, 
 the Indian Adim ^sn^ , or the First, and Adn, is so 
 trivial, that no philologist will question their identity. 
 
 47. The scholiast on Lycophron, does not hesitate to 
 say that Cadmus was but a name for Hermes the Hea- 
 venly Messenger : Phavorinus makes the same admission ; 
 and Nonnus, says that in his Four Books, " the prophetic 
 hand of the first born Phanes, (query, Cannes) wrote all 
 the wonderful things that are to be accomplished in this 
 world" — a clear allusion to the Apocalypse. He adds 
 that the first of these books was coeval with the first 
 times of civilization ; and that it contained all that the 
 sceptre-bearing Gph-Ion, [Serpent- Woman, or God and 
 the Spirit], had permitted. These are singular passages. 
 I cite them from Bryant's Analysis; where also he inti- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 265 
 
 mates that the Sun was styled Achad, Achon and Achor ; 
 and expresses his opinion that the name Cadmos is a com- 
 pound of Achad-Ham (or Adam), which the Greeks have 
 thus altered, as they altered all foreign words. This Oph- 
 lon, is the same work, as that which Pherecydes intro- 
 duced among his followers. See ante, page 255. 
 
 48. The reader will not fail to notice the references to 
 cut gems which are scattered throughout the Apocalypse ; 
 and especially to the diamond. This gem was called 
 thencefoi'th by pre-eminence the Adamant ; Adamas- 
 gemnia. There are no existing memorials from which in- 
 fonnation may be obtained, says Maurice, History o/Hin- 
 doataUj L 478, relative to the period of the first discoveiy 
 and working of the mines in the neighbourhood of the 
 Adamas river, so denominated from the diamonds found 
 on its shores. It probably goes back to that of the foun- 
 dation of the Indian empire, i/ not to the remotest annals 
 of time. Might he not have added that it was denomi- 
 nated from the first Messiah ] 
 
 49. Manetho notices a Sacred Book in the great Egyp- 
 tion Ijibi*ary of Osymandias ; and which was said to have 
 been written by Phre Suphis — or the Wise One of the 
 Sun. Its contents were not disclosed to any one, except 
 the High Pontiff. Colonel Tod, in his annals of Eajas- 
 than, an enormous province almost unexplored, in the 
 most remote part of India, speaks of Jesulmer, (anagra- 
 matically Jerusalem, the Jews being originally Yadds 
 from Yodiah or Oude,) as a place of great antiquity and 
 in a peculiar manner sacred among the Buddhists. Of the 
 vast number of MS. books in its extensive libi*aries, many 
 are of the most dark antiquity, and in a character no longer 
 understood by their possessors, or only by the Supreme 
 
 N 
 
266 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 Pontiff, and his initiated librarians. There is one volume 
 held so sacred for its contents, that it is suspended by a 
 chain of gold in a golden casket in the Temple of Choont 
 Amoon (Kunt-Amun, that is, the Hidden Tabernacle), in 
 the desert, and it is only taken down to have its covering 
 renewed, or at the inauguration of a Pontiff. It is be- 
 lieved that any person reading it, would be instantly 
 struck blind. Some time ago, says Higgins, Anacalypsis, 
 i. 412, the prince of the country caused it to be brought 
 to him in order that he might read it ; but his courage 
 failed, and he sent back the Volume unopened. It bears 
 the traditionary name of Soma-dit-ya Sooroo Acharya (the 
 Moon-born Incarnation of the Sun), and I have no doubt 
 that it is the Apocalypse of Adam, and it is probably 
 •written in the primeval language. 
 
 50. Nor is it in Jesulmer alone that we should 
 expect to find a secret volume of this nature. I en- 
 tertain a conviction that there are copies of it in 
 Samarcand; but as that Great City is sealed against 
 Europeans, years may elapse before it shall be brought to 
 light. I once had hope that I should travel thither, and 
 explore both it and Benares ; but circumstances have not 
 favoured me, and it is now too late to do so. The reader may 
 surmise from the following letter written from Samarcand, 
 and which appears in that always respectable publication 
 the Standa/rd newspaper, of January 25, 1866, what 
 choice treasures exist in the library belonging to the 
 Mahwee, or Temple of the Mysteries : — At length, the 
 writer says, the dangers and privations which I under- 
 went in travelling to this city have been amply rewarded. 
 I have to-day for the first time been permitted to enter 
 ±he sacred precincts of the Mahwee, or Temple of 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 267 
 
 Mysteries, and I have become acquainted with Seh. 
 Your readei-s can have no conception of the difficulties that 
 beset me on every side ; but foi-tune has befriended me 
 thus far, and I hope ere long to return to England 
 richly laden with the treasures of Tartar literature and 
 science. At the same time, I cannot but be aware of 
 the chances that militate against tlie success of my un- 
 dertaking j and therefore I think it advisable as often 
 as any opportunity presents itself, to send you some 
 small instalment of the riches which I have amassed. 
 I have said that I to-day became acquainted with Seh. 
 He is a man fitted in eveiy respect to elicit the utmost 
 admimtion from all who are so fortunate as to sharc 
 his regards ; for in goodness of heart and urbanity of 
 manner he is as conspicuous as in philosophical attain- 
 ments. I conversed with him for some houi's, and he 
 was at the pains to make me understand the whole 
 arrangement of the Mahwee, over which establishment 
 he presides. He also showed me the library which is 
 under the same roof, and which contains such store of 
 rare and priceless volumes, tJiat I know not whether I 
 loas more ^^/easec? at tlie sight of so great an accession to 
 the civilized world's hioivledge, or chagrined at the tliougM 
 of its too probable inaccessibility, I found there many 
 classical works with which we are acquainted, both an- 
 cient and modem — a fact wliich I regarded with senti- 
 ments of the liveliest admii-ation, seeing that the pos- 
 session of these noble writings had apparently done 
 nothing to ameliorate the condition or extend the civil- 
 isation of Tai-taiy. Upon my mentioning this matter to 
 Seh, he smiled somewhat mournfully, and said — " My 
 friend, we gladly adopt whatever truth may flow in upon 
 
 N 2 
 
268 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 us from the outer world, but we care not to emulate your 
 greed of gain. Lest, therefore, our people should seek 
 after a condition for which they are ill-adapted, we 
 preserve our stores of wisdom in the Mahwee, and reveal 
 it but to the philosopher. Reflect upon the state of 
 the masses in your civilised Europe, and tell me if you 
 perceive that superiority over Tartary which your words 
 would seem to imply. Here, as you have doubtless ob- 
 served, they who are born but to misery soon find a safe 
 retreat in the black night of death, where they may 
 securely travel to the Unknown. In Europe would they 
 not be compelled to live, a burden to themselves and a re - 
 proach to their fellows 1" I was struck with this answer, and 
 I could not but reflect that there might be more equality 
 of happiness amongst various nations than would at 
 'first sight appear, and that an increase of physical com- 
 fort in some classes of a nation might not be an unmixed 
 good, if necessarily accompanied by a universal accession 
 of mental feeling, which would render the perception of 
 all misery much more keen. Amongst other notable 
 objects in this library I came across several works which 
 have for ages been a fruitful source of regret with all 
 scholars, such as Sanchoniathon's " History of Phoenicia," 
 and Quintilian's " Treatise on the Causes of the Corrup- 
 tion of Eloquence." I intend, as soon as practicable, to 
 furnish you with a complete list of these hitherto lost 
 works, but in anticipation of that purpose I must here 
 add that Seh exhibited to me a complete MS. of " Tacitus," 
 containing the whole of that celebrated historian's 30 books. 
 Surely this -fact alone will be sufficient to produce an ex- 
 pedition to Samarcand for the purpose of obtaining so 
 inestimable a work ! 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 2G9 
 
 51. The Dnises, says Nim/rody as our great traveller 
 Mr. Pococke, was told, have a silver box closed in such a 
 manner as not to be opened, and many of them know not 
 what it contains. They pay a sort of worship to it ; and 
 his informant believed that it contained images of the 
 nature of both sexes, iii. 386. His informant was wrong. 
 The silver box contains the Apocalypse : probably with 
 symbols of the Great Father and the Great Mother j cer- 
 tainly with the mention of the Two Powers — God, and 
 the Holy Spirit. And this copy, if it could be procured, 
 would no doubt agree in all things with mine. 
 
 52. As Adam was the first man to whom an ecstatical 
 Vision was ever given, or who beheld the glories of 
 heaven, {And God, the Almighty Powers caused a pro- 
 found ecstacy to fall upon the Man, and he slept. Gen. ii. 
 2) (9), it was therefore fabled that he dwelled in the Gar- 
 den of Paradise. After he had tasted the Fruit of the 
 Tree, he left it ; that is when he got the Apocalypse, or 
 Knowledge, ecstacy departed. Augustine, alluding to 
 this, in his commentary on Genesis, says : That divine 
 trance which God sent on Adam, when he dreamed a Vision 
 in his sleep, is rightly understood to mean that it was 
 sent to this end that his mind might i)articipate in the 
 angelic wisdom ; and, entering into the sanctuary (Sheki- 
 nah), of God, might underetand the very limits of know- 
 ledge. To what can this apply but to this Apocalypse ? 
 and is not the very Shekinah of God here mentioned in a 
 way that to those whom I have so far initiated into celes- 
 tial science, must be as plain as the sun itself ? 
 
 53. That a mystic meaning was intended to be con- 
 veyed by the compiler of Genesis, when he alluded to the 
 
270 . THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 Ga/rdeUf is clear from the words of the most learned of 
 the Hebrew doctors. It is part of the foundations of the 
 law, says Maimonides, to know that God may cause the 
 sons of men to prophecy. Now prophecy can rest only 
 on an eminently wise man, who has the power of ruling 
 his propensities, with whom no bad imagination has any 
 prevalence whatever in this world, but who by his know- 
 ledge is always able to overcome his bad imagination, and 
 who, moreover, is a man of a very extensive and well- 
 regulated mind. The man who is replete with such vir- 
 tues, and whose bodily constitution too is in a perfect 
 state, on his entering into the Garden (10), and on his 
 being carried away by those great and extensive matters, 
 if he have a correct knowledge so as to understand and 
 <;omprehend them — if he continue to keep himself in 
 holiness — if he depart from the general manner of the 
 people who walk in the darkness of temporary things ; if 
 he continue to be solicitous about himself, and to train 
 his mind, so that it should not think at all of any of 
 those perishable things, or of the vanities of time and its 
 devices, but that it should have its thoughts constantly 
 turned on high, and fastened to the Throne of Glory, so as 
 to be able to comprehend those pure and holy Intelli- 
 gences, and to meditate on the wisdom of the Holy One, 
 blessed be He ! which wisdom is displayed throughout 
 from the first Intelligence even to the centre of the earth : 
 and if by these means he come to know His Excellency, 
 then the Holy Spirit dwells immediately with liim ; and 
 at the time when the Spirit rests on him, his soul mixes 
 with the degree of those angels that are called Ishim 
 (angelic men), so that he is changed into another man. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 271 
 
 Moreover, he himself perceives from the state of his know- 
 ledge that he is not, as he was, but that he has become 
 exalted above the degree of other wise men. 
 
 54. And as the Holy Spirit was a Garden, so she was 
 called the Garden of Pai'adise. Hence, when it disap- 
 peared from earth the early Fathers said that Paradise 
 was in the Moon, which was but another name for that 
 Divine Being. One of the Homeridse calls Elysium 
 Hermione, that is Hermes and Yoni, where the Messen- 
 ger lives, star-like (ante p. 46), with his folio Wei's under 
 the sway of the Holy Spirit. The gardens which Jupi- 
 ter Ammon gave to the mother of Bacchus, are called in 
 Pausanias, The Garden of Dionusos ; and Dionusos 
 means the Soul (part of the essence) of God. And in 
 those gardens stood a Mount Meru, resembling the horn 
 of an Ox, and styled the Hesperian horn. It produced 
 vines and every delicious fruit, and among others golden 
 apples. And as all being first appeared in the North 
 (see Apocalypse, section 4), Paradise was sometimes fabled 
 to have been carried back thither : the Egyptians called 
 it Sais, and placed it there : not, says Proclus, because it 
 is so, nor because its climate is cold, but because it par' 
 takes of a certain peculiar emanation from God. So 
 Mount Meru, according to the Pui*anas, is a glorious 
 habitation lying to the north of India. They sometimes 
 mention places again to the north of Mei-u, and yet they 
 continually speak of it as being the North Pole itself. 
 The reason of these contradictions vn\\ appear from the 
 very reason of the Nortli being held sacred. Giordano 
 Bruno thus mystically alludes to this, and calls it the 
 North, the Great Bear, the place where the sailors (the 
 faithful) take counsel in the devioas and uncertain ways 
 
272 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 of the sea ; towards which all those who suffer tempests 
 lift up their hands in their distress (Ave Maris Stella, fi,s 
 they say in Italy); towards which the ambition of the Giants 
 aspired (alluding to the attack made by the Dragon on 
 the Woman. See Apocalypse, section 8) : the place 
 where the proud generation of Belus piled up the Tower 
 of Babel (that is, introduced the worship of the Dove); 
 where the magicians of the steel mirror (those Initiated 
 into the Greater Mysteries) seek the oracles of Floron, 
 one of the great princes of the Arctic spirits ; where, the 
 Cabbalists say, that Samael wished to exalt his throne in 
 order to assimilate himself to the First High-thunderer. 
 So the Hebrew writer : Beautiful for situatiooi, the joy of 
 the whole earth, Mount Zion on the sides of the north : the 
 city of the Great King, Ps. xlviii. 2. And the reader is 
 requested to examine the glowing picture of this Garden 
 of Delight, which he will find in the last five sections of 
 the Apocalypse, and he will find it correspond with the 
 general desci-iption of the ancient theosophists. 
 
 55. From the most ancient times among the Hebrews 
 it was a tradition that Adam wrote a Book of Revelations. 
 In the twenty-first chapter of Avodath Ilahlcodesch, we 
 read as follows ; The theologists or divines say that the 
 angel Rasiel was Adam's instructor or teacher. When he 
 was in paradise (in ecstacy), this Angel brought him 
 from heaven a Book, by means of which he conceived 
 mighty things concerning the higher spheres, and which 
 things had not been shewn, nor had they even been ima- 
 gined by the Angels of the Most High. And the arch- 
 angelic Spirits assembled before him to hear the deep and 
 wonderful secrets which were revealed in that Book. 
 In the Book of Sohar, at the Parasha Beresith, there is 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 273 
 
 another account. When Adam was in Paradise, God 
 sent him by the holy angel Rasiel, who is placed over the 
 secrets (or learning) of the upper or chief Spirits, a Book 
 containing the writing or wisdom of the superior Angels. 
 And he, Adam, divided or digested the seventy different 
 kinds of wisdom into a hundred and seventy discourses 
 of the sublime science, in order to attain by means of the 
 Book to the scripture of wisdom : and to know the 
 fifteen hundred keys, which it was not given to the 
 upper saints to know, and wh^ch were kept secret in that 
 Book, until the time of Adam. When the Book was 
 given to Adam, the higher angels assembled before him 
 to hear and to know the contents thereof. In the same 
 hour the holy Angel Adarniel came to him and said, 
 A clam ! A dam, the Glory of thy Lord was hidden : for 
 the Archangels are not permitted to know the Glory of 
 thy Lord : But to thee it is permitted to know all. This 
 Book was kept concealed by Adam till he went out of 
 Paradise : and every day he made use of this treasure 
 of his Lord. And he knew the sublime secrets which 
 the archangels of God, holy and blessed be his name, 
 knew not. But when he had transgressed, and had de- 
 parted from the commandment of his Lord, the Book 
 departed from him, and he beat on his forehead and 
 wept. Then God made a sign to Raphael, and per- 
 mitted that the Book should be again given unto Adam* 
 And Adam neglected not to read it : and he left it to 
 Sheth, and from one generation unto another it de- 
 scended to Abraham, who by means thereof beheld the 
 Glory of the Lord. 
 
 56. The Rabbinical writings likewise mention a certain 
 Staffy which was given to Adam. This staff I take to be 
 
 N 3 
 
274 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 the same as the Tsabsean Tree of golden leaves, and these 
 golden leaves were the Apocalypse of revealed wonders. 
 Rabbi Eliezer relates as follows. The staff which was 
 created between the stars (that is, in the evening), was 
 given to the first man in Paradise. Adam gave it to 
 Enoch : Enoch to Noah : Noah to Sliem : Shem to Abra- 
 ham : Abraham to Isaac : Isaac to Jacob. Jacob carried 
 it along with him into Egypt, and gave it to his son 
 Joseph. When Joseph died, his household of goods were 
 seized and carried to the palace of Pharaoh, who was well 
 skilled in enchantments. When Pharaoh saw the staff, 
 and read the inscription upon it, he set an esteem upon 
 the staff, and planted it in the midst of the garden, which 
 belonged to the house of Jethro. He only [that is Pha- 
 raoh] might view and read this staff. No other man ven- 
 tured to come near it. But Moses, when he was come 
 into the house of Pharaoh entered the garden of Jethro ; 
 and seeing the staff, and having read what was inscribed 
 thereon, he laid hold of it, and carried it away. When 
 afterwards Jethro saw Moses, he said. This man will de- 
 liver Israel out of Egypt ; and under this conviction he 
 gave him his daughter Zipporah to wife. In Medras Vi- 
 joscha there is a different account. Here the Staff becomes 
 a Tree, which puts forth almonds, that is, symbols of the 
 Holy Spirit of God. When I was grown, says Moses, I 
 went out to see the oppression of my brethren, and I saw 
 an Egyptian man strike a Hebrew man — one of my 
 brethren ; I struck him dead, and buried him in the 
 sand. When Pharaoh heard of this he intended to take 
 away my life ; and by his order, a sword being brought, 
 he endeavoured to slay me with it ten times. But the 
 Holy and Blessed God wrought a miracle, for my neck 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 275 
 
 became as hard as a marble pillar, and the sword had no 
 power over me. And then I made my escape to Jethro, 
 who caused me to be kept seven years bound in prison. 
 "When I went out of Egypt I was forty years old. And 
 as I stood near a well, I beheld Zipporah, Jethro's 
 daughter. And when I had seen that she was chaste, I 
 told her that I would marry her. Then did she acquaint 
 me with her father's custom, saying to me : My Father 
 tries at a certain Tree, which he has in his garden, every 
 one who has a mind to marry one of his daughters : for, 
 as soon as the suitor comes near the Tree, he is swallowed 
 up. Whereupon I asked her whence that Tree was 
 brought. And she answered me : The Holy and Blessed 
 God gave to the first man the Staffs which He created in 
 the evening of the Sabbath. The first man gave it to 
 Enoch : Enoch to Noah : Noah to Shem : Shem to Abra- 
 ham : Abraham to Isaac : and Isaac to Jacob. Jacob 
 brought it into Egypt, and gave it to his son Joseph. 
 After the death of Joseph, the Egyptians plundered his 
 house, and can*ied his Staff to the palace of Pharaoh. 
 Jethro was one of the greatest magicians in Egypt. He 
 saw the Staff, and having a great fancy for it, stole it, and 
 brought it into his house. On this Staff was cut the 
 Schem liamphurash, Dti^, (Name), DH, {Sun and Lord), 
 tt^mS- {Branch of Fire.) (11.) And in it were in- 
 scribed the ten plagues [which the Holy and Blessed God 
 suffered to come upon Egypt] It was kept many years 
 in my father's house, till at length he took it in his hand, 
 and went into the garden, and put it into the gi*ound : 
 and when he entered the garden again, with an intent to 
 take it away, he saw that it had sprouted, and blown, 
 and had ripe almonds on it. He left it standing, and 
 
276 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 therewith he is accustomed to try every one who seeks a 
 daughter of his iu marriage. I have no doubt that the 
 meaning of all this is, that Jethro had a copy of the Apo- 
 calypse, which, being one of the pontiffs of Egypt, he 
 would necessarily possess ; and knowing that the Naros 
 was come, he presented it to every suitor of his daughter 
 to expound its mysteries, being well assured that if it 
 should fall into the hands of the real Messenger, he would 
 have no real difficulty in explaining its meaning ; and 
 to him he was resolved to give his daughter. This would 
 be in accordance with all that we know of the subtlety of 
 the high priests of Egypt. Moses was able to expound it, 
 for being himself one of the Branches of Fire, he knew of 
 course of all that was prefigured, and so we find him suc- 
 ceeding in his marriage suit. 
 
 57. The same symbol of a Sceptre (meaning the Apo- 
 calypse), is commemorated by Pausanias. The Chsero- 
 neans, he says, venerate above all the gods, the Sceptre 
 which Homer says Vulcan made for Jupiter. This 
 sceptre Hermes (the Messenger) received from Jupiter, and 
 gave it to Pelops. Pelops left it to Atreus : At reus to 
 Thyestes ; and from Thyestes it came to Agamemnon. 
 This sceptre, too, they denominate the Spear ; [Hence 
 Minerva is always represented with a S];)ear — in reality it 
 is the sacred Apocalypse ;] and indeed that it contains 
 something of a. nature more divine than usual is evident 
 from hence, that a certain splendour is seen 2^roceeding 
 from it. There is not however any temple publicly 
 raised for this Sceptre; but every year the person to 
 whose care this Sacred Sceptre is committed, places it in 
 a building destined for this purpose ; and the people sacri- 
 fice to it every day. And it was in furtherance of all 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 277 
 
 these disguises that the Holy Book was called the Bi-azeu 
 Tripod of Pelops, which contained the knowledge of 
 things past, present, and to come. 
 
 58. Although little is preserved in history of the Si- 
 bylline books, enough remains to excite our curiosity as 
 to what they really were. The legend of their introduc- 
 tion to Tarquin is related thus by Niebuhr. An old 
 woman Amalthjea (12), had offered to sell the king nine 
 books for three hundred pieces of gold : being treated 
 with scorn, she burned three, and then three more, and 
 threatened to destroy the others, unless she received the 
 same price for them which she had asked for all. The 
 King repented him of the incredulity which had lost him 
 the greater part of an irreplaceable treasure : the prophe- 
 tess gave him the last three books and vanished. They 
 were deposited in the Capitoline Temple in the Cell of 
 Jupiter, and there they were preserved until the Marsic 
 war, in a stone chest, under the guardianship of Decem- 
 viri When the Temple was burned either intentionally 
 or accidentally in the 173d Olympiad, they were destroyed 
 by the fire with the other sacred offerings. Fresh copies 
 were subsequently procured from Samos and Troy. That 
 they were a national possession of peculiar sanctity, says 
 Sir G. C. Lewis, (Credibility of early Roman Hist i. 514,) 
 and that theii' antiquity was considerable, cannot be 
 doubted ; it is also highly probable that an account of 
 their introduction was preserved among the pontifical 
 records — but that the account was contemporary with 
 the event we have no proof; and it is to be observed 
 that in this, as in other cases, the legend fluctuates be- 
 tween the two Tarquins. After they had been consumed, 
 says Niebuhr, in the time of Sylla, the guardians of them 
 
278 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 may have ventured to tell, what previously could not 
 cross their lips. Whether they contained presages of 
 coming events, or merely directions what was to be done 
 far conciliating or appeasing the gods, is perplexing, 
 owing to the mystery which enveloped these books from 
 the time when Tarquinius condemned a decemvir to suffer 
 the punishment of a parricide for blabbing. [Dionysius, 
 iv. Q2 ] Vol Max. 1, 1. 13]. That much of this is mythi- 
 cal cannot be doubted ; but who can deny that there is a 
 substratum of truth at the bottom, and that these books 
 appeared to be so valuable, that death was the punishment 
 for any violation of secresy with respect to their con- 
 tents ? Varro relates that they were written on palm 
 leaves, and partly in verses, 'partly in symbolical hierogly- 
 phics. They were assuredly mysterious in the highest 
 degree. It is related by Livy that in B.C. 293, in conse- 
 quence of the mortality caused by pestilence, the Sibylline 
 books were consulted, and the response obtained was that 
 ^sculapius should be brought to Rome. But .^Esculapius 
 (the Healer) was a name for the Messiah ; and the mean- 
 ing of this is that the Komans should avert the wrath of 
 heaven by reveiting to the true religion. Lewis, Arnold, 
 a-nd Niebuhr talk here about a sacred serpent and a tame 
 snake, than which nothing can be more trifling or ridicu- 
 lous, though it is quite worthy of the believers in Genesis. 
 The latter says : It is true if these boohs offate^ by order 
 of which more than once in seasons of perilous warfare, 
 two Greeks and two Gauls, a man and woman of each 
 people were buried alive, were the Sibylline books, as 
 Plutarch conceives, then what went by that name among 
 the Romans, can never have come from a Greek source. 
 No one had ever asserted that they did so come. All 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 279 
 
 that has been alleged is that they were transcribed in 
 Greek. I myself entertain no doubt that these books 
 were the Apocalypse, and that they contained as here, the 
 secret of the Naros, else why should Tarquin sacrifice the 
 man who divulged them 1 It is tme that they do not 
 name ^sculapius, nor prescribe a blood-atonement, but 
 the first was only a symbol ; and the last was common to 
 every form of religion then prevalent ; and the Apocalj^pse 
 contains words which might be so inteq^reted. And if 
 the priests \vanted a human vicarious sacrifice, they would 
 of course declare to the people that they took the com- 
 mand from their sacred hidden volume of truth, and 
 probably cite the passage which they misrepresented or 
 misunderstood. 
 
 59. These Sibylline volumes may possibly have in fact 
 contained the very threats that are in the vulgar book of 
 Kevelations : and which are so evidently a sacerdotal 
 interpolation. If any man shall add unto these things, 
 God shall add unto him the i^lagues that are written in 
 this hook: and if any man shall take avoay from, the words 
 of tlie hook of this prophecy God sludl take away his part 
 Old of the hook of life, and out of the holy city, and from 
 the things which are written in this hook. And these very 
 threats may have been produced by the priests to justify 
 the sacrifice of the man who made the public acquainted 
 with their contents. 
 
 60. The present things which pass under the name of 
 Sibylline Oracles are of course spurious. As for the 
 Sibylline oracles, says Cudworth, there may, as we con- 
 ceive, be two extremes concerning tliem ; one in swallow- 
 ing down all that is now extant under that title, aa genuine 
 and sincere. "Whereas nothing can be more manifest 
 
280 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 tlian that there is much counterfeit and suppositious stuff 
 in this Sibylline fari*ago which now we have. From 
 whence besides other instances of the like kind, it appears 
 too evident to be denied, that some pretended Christians 
 of former times have been for pious and religious frauds, 
 and endeavoured to uphold the truth of Christianity by 
 figments and forgeries of their own devising — which, as 
 it was a thing, ignoble and unworthy in itself, and argued 
 that those very defenders of Christianity did themselves 
 distrust their own cause, so may it well be thought that 
 there was a policy of the devil in it also, there being no 
 other more effectual way than this, to render all Chris- 
 tianity, at least in after ages to be suspected. Insomuch 
 that it might perhaps be questioned whether the truth and 
 divinity of Christianity appear more in having prevailed 
 against the open force and opposition of its professed 
 enemies, or in not being at last smothered and oppressed 
 by these frauds and forgeries of its seeming friends and 
 defenders. (Intel. Syst. i. 463). 
 
 61. In the Book of Joshua, x. 13, there is a passage 
 which rightly explained proves that the Apocalypse was 
 known in his day, and was the Secret Book laid up in the 
 ark. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayedjintil 
 the people had avenged tliemselves upon their enemies. Is 
 not this written in the Book of Jasher ? Parkhurst, the 
 highest Biblical authority on Hebrew, says, that this is 
 wrongly translated, and that the version of the Seventy 
 is the true rendering rov Pi/Skov tov cvOovs, the Book of 
 the Right Road, and to this purpose Josephus explains it, 
 ArU., lib. v., cap. i., s. 17, by, rmv avaKei/xcvoyv -ev r<^ t€p(i> 
 ypafx/xaTOiv, the writings that were laid up in thelsacred 
 place. But what were those writings 1 Why the Apoca- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 281 
 
 lypse : and here is the very passage in the Apocalyiise to 
 which Joshua alludes, and on which probably he based 
 his creed of extennination. And I saw an Angel stand- 
 ing in the sun, and he cried icith a loud voice, saying to all 
 the folds tlmlfly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather 
 yourselves togetlier unto the supper of the great God. That 
 ye rtiay eat tlie flesh of Kings, <frc., <Scc. And the primeval 
 theory probably was that tlie Sun stood still, while the 
 battle of the heavenly Messenger continued. 
 
 Qf2. Taliesin thus alludes to a Sacred Volume which the 
 Druids had. A holy Sanctuary there is, with its produc- 
 tions, of the vessel of Ked. I possessed myself of its 
 courses which I had made my choice. / will not disclose 
 the progress of the laio which I religiously observe. The 
 writings of Prydain (Hu, the Sun, also Father Adam) 
 are the first objects of anxious regard; should the waves 
 disturb their foundation, I would again, if necessary, con- 
 ceal them deep in the cell. We may gather from this, says 
 Davis, that the Diiiids had certain Ancient Writings, 
 w!)ich they deemed more sacred by far, and of greater 
 importance, than those songs and tales which were made 
 public. These writings had already been concealed in 
 times of persecution, probably during the Roman govern- 
 ment ; and they were known only to the Dniids, or Bards 
 of the highest order ; for Taliesin tells us that in case of 
 necessity he possessed the effect\ial means of concealing 
 them again: We can only guess in general that these 
 arcana comprehended the Sacred History, and Kituals of 
 the Druids, and the most mysterious doctiines of the 
 ancient priesthood. (British Druids, 511.) But does this 
 correctly describe the hidden volume? and do we not see the 
 analogy between Pri-Adain and Adanos ? Hear Taliesin 
 
282 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 himself, who in another place writes : Am I not contefnd- 
 ing for the praise of that lore, if it were regarded, which 
 was four times reviewed in the quadrangular inclosure ? 
 As the first sentence was it uttered from the cauldron, 
 which began to be warmed by the breath of nine damsels. 
 Is not this the cauldron of the Kuler of the deep 1 What 
 is its quality 1 With the ridge of pearls round its border 
 it will not boil the food of a coward, who is not bound by 
 his sacred oath. Against him will be lifted the bright 
 gleaming sword ; and in the hand of the sword-bearer shall 
 he be left ; and before the entrance of the Gate of Hell 
 shall the horns of light be burning. The Bard here insists 
 upon the peculiar sanctity of the lore which he taught : 
 it had been four times revised in the sacred call or Ady- 
 tum, before it was tittered as the first sentence, the first re- 
 velation or fundamental doctrine of the mystical cauldron 
 of Ceridwen, or the Holy Spirit, the Queen of the Waters. 
 This cauldron had first been warmed by the breath of 
 Nine damsels, that is. Nine Spirits pure and beautiful as 
 virgins. The same cauldron communicated science, wis- 
 dom, virtue, happiness, and even immortality, but it would 
 not prepare the food of the coward. Observe, too, the 
 execration upon him who violated secrecy, and did not 
 keep his sacred oath not to divulge the hallowed volume ; 
 and comparing it with the curse in the Apocalypse, as 
 added to it by the priests {ante, page 279), the simi- 
 larity is so remarkable as to lead to a conclusion that 
 the Writings of the Sun are but another name for the 
 Apocalypse of him who was said to be the child of the 
 Sun and Moon — ^the inspired Messenger of Heaven. 
 
 63. My original country, says Taliesin, alluding to the 
 ante-terrestrial existence of all beings, is the Land of Che- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 283 
 
 rubim. (See Gunn's Nennius^ p: 41.) Can there be a 
 plainer reference to the Apocalypse, as we now hare it ? 
 More he could not say without breaking his oath or vow 
 of secrecy ; and we have already seen {ante^ page 70), what 
 that involved. To which this other proof may here be 
 added, that it was for divulging the secret of the Pheu, or 
 Naros, that Phineus was blinded by Zeus ; and his ban- 
 quets were beset by the pestiferous Harpyes. Pitying the 
 human race, he says ( Vol, FktccuSy iv., 479), with foolish 
 tongue / divulged the destinies and the counsel of Jove, 
 and the hidden designs about to fall suddenly on the 
 earth, which He alone had prepared : hence this so gi*eat 
 misfortune has fallen upon me, and I was stricken blind 
 in the midst of my discourse. 
 
 64. Another passage may be cited to show that the 
 volume of which Taliesin speaks, contained the ISTaronic 
 cycle. I will not redeem the mttltitudes with unguarded 
 mouths (who cannot keep a secret.) They know not on 
 what day the Chief was appointed ; or what hour in the 
 serene day the Ruler was born ; or what Living Creature 
 it is which the Silver-headed Ones protect. Is not this a 
 clear allusion to the Incarnation — the King of the Earth? 
 The silver-headed are the Ancient of Days mentioned in 
 the Apocalypse : and the Welsh even to the present day 
 symbolize their expected Messiah under the name of King 
 Arthur — a pei-sonago whose era is many centuries before 
 their fabulous Arthur of the Round Table, with whom 
 they confound him, and who is in reality Ar (Fire), and 
 Thor (Thunder). That Arthur was a name for the Messiah 
 is proved by the following passagft in Taliesin, in a poem 
 called Kadair Teyrn 0-n — the Throne of the Sovereign 
 On. The declaration of the luminous strain, it says, of 
 
284 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 the unbounded Awen, concerning the person of two 
 origins^ of the race of Al-Adar, *l*Ti^ /i^ {the Glorious 
 God), with his divining staff (or caduceus), and his per- 
 vading glance, and his neighing coursers, and his regula- 
 tor of Kings, and his potent number, and his blushing 
 purple, and his vaulting over the boundary, and his appro- 
 priate throne among the established train. Lo ! he is 
 brought from the firm enclosure (the firmament of 
 Heaven), on his light-coloured bounding steeds — even the 
 sovereign On, the Ancient, the generous Giver, the pro- 
 found object of the Sage, to pronounce the blessing upon 
 Arthur. " The person of two origins," here mentioned, 
 taken together with all the other features of the Messen- 
 ger which I have pointed out in various places, is obviously 
 no other than one of the predicted Twelve, the lion-like 
 Lamb. But where did the Pagan Welsh get the tradition, 
 if not from the Apocalypse? Manifest is truth, adds 
 Taliesin, when it shines : more manifest when it speaks, 
 and loud it spoke when it came forth from the cauldron 
 of Awen, ardent Goddess ! Can there be a clearer allu- 
 sion than this, to the Messenger who emanates from the 
 Spirit 1 
 
 65. In that strange cento, or compilation from I know 
 not how many writers or their fragments, which passes 
 under the name of Isaiah, there are numerous passages 
 which belong to the true Apocalypse, and which have 
 been incorporated with the effusions of the various Jew 
 scribes who foiged the Prophecy in the most clumsy 
 manner. The work has only to be read critically, to 
 make manifest what I mean. It should be perused also 
 without reference to the notes, or epigraphs to the chap- 
 ters. These indeed, have usually been made by the two 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 285 
 
 rival churches of Peter and Paul, the vehicle for the 
 most impudent falsehoods ; and so many glosses have been 
 foisted into the Hebrew and Greek text, and thence into 
 our modem vei*sions, that a plarin reader who has not 
 learning or time enough to investigate these may well be 
 deceived. And this unfortunately happens every day : 
 and I have no doubt that many ignorant pei-sons will 
 hastily cite against me and this AiK)calypse the very pas- 
 sages from Isaiah which I know to be false, and on the 
 consideration of which I have devoted years and years 
 of the hardest labour. In illustration of this I may 
 allude to that passage in the Seven Thunders, where 
 reference is made to the change in the earth's orbit 
 which undoubtedly was the cause of the great Atlan- 
 tean deluge. Of this scientific phenomenon, the Jews 
 knew nothing : but as it was contained in one of the 
 most remarkable passages in the Apocalypse, the He- 
 brew priest, or the body of compilers, boldly seized and 
 transferred it to their spurious Isaiah, where it has long 
 puzzled the biblical commentatoi-s. So also the other 
 prophecies which constituted the sealed-up Seven Thun- 
 ders of the Apocalyi^se, were impudently appropriated, 
 and by the introduction of names here and there, forced 
 to apply to Ba-Bel-On, Ethiopia, Egypt, Ai-abia, Persia, 
 and Tyre, great, powerful, and magnificent dynasties, 
 thousands of miles removed away from Judea, and 
 which had as little connection with that paltry and in- 
 significant province, and its proceedings, as we in Eng- 
 land have with the land of the Mormons, or the French 
 empire has with some little island of unknown savages 
 in the remotest ocean. Yet what would be thought 
 of the Mormons, or the cannibals, who had prophets 
 
286 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 by profession, who were always predicting tie fall of 
 France and her Emperor, or England and its tlirone? 
 This is exactly what we are taught these Jews were 
 doing : yet we do not laugh at them as fools or knaves. 
 The truth is that at the period when the forged 
 Hebrew Testament was compiled, the great dynasties 
 above mentioned had had their day j but the priests find- 
 ing in the Apocalypse predictions in which a fate like 
 theirs had been announced, and knowing that these pre- 
 dictions had been sealed up from the world, and only in the 
 hands of a very few, they transferred the prophecies from 
 the genuine Book of God, and his First Messenger, into 
 their own wretched figments, and thus gave them an 
 appearance of authenticity which they otherwise would 
 not have possessed. And to a critical eye, it is as easy to 
 discover these splendid interpolations amid their narrow- 
 thoughted nonsense, as gold may be distinguished from 
 brass. Let the reader compare Isaiah xiv., 9 — 23, with 
 the two absurd chapters that follow, and he will see that 
 they covM not have emanated from the same pen. Other 
 instances may be found. See chap, xxxiv., 9 — 15, which 
 in verse 16 is almost admitted to be extracted from the 
 Booh of the Lordj that is this Apocalypse. But readers 
 read, and they strenuously refuse either to consider or 
 compare, and the result is, the supremacy of superstition, 
 pontifis in palaces, bishops on thrones, and — their own 
 ruin. 
 
 ^^, But though the Jews appropriated to themselves 
 portions of the Apocalypse, they did not then venture to 
 publish it as a whole ; the oaths which they had taken 
 not to divulge it operated probably on their fears, or, let 
 us hope, their consciences. But they made extracts from 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 287 
 
 it occasionally ; and accordingly we find in their writings 
 numerous passages which have little or no connection with 
 the suiTOunding text. In this way, a considerable part of 
 it having been divulged, the persons who gave the re- 
 mainder to the world under the title of loannes, probably 
 considered that they were breaking no engagement in 
 publishing a part under a fictitious name ; and as they 
 were, perhaps. Christians — though, of this there is no 
 proof — ecclesiastical history satisfies us that since the 
 world began there was not a more profligate crew of 
 forgers and liars than the first followers of Paul. From 
 such corrupt sources, therefore, everything must be re- 
 ceived with suspicion ; and if the sect of Christians really 
 knew what their forefathers in the faith were, they would 
 have very difierent views of religion from those which 
 they now hold. 
 
 67. Nicephorus Callistus, lib. 10, cxxxiii., gives an 
 account of an ancient manuscript found under the foun- 
 dation of the Jerusalem Temple, in a nearly similar posi- 
 tion to that in which the Sibylline Books were hidden at 
 Rome. At the time, he says, when the foundation was 
 laid, one of the stones to which the lowest part of the 
 foundation was attached, was removed from its place, and 
 discovered the mouth of a cavern which had been 
 hollowed out of the rock. Now since they could not see 
 to the bottom on account of its depth, the overseers of 
 the work, wishing to be perfectly acquainted with the 
 place, let down one of the workmen by means of a long 
 rope into the cavern. When he came to the bottom he 
 found himself in water as high as his ancles, and exa- 
 mining every part of the cavern, he found it to be square 
 as far as he could ascertain by feeling. He afterwards 
 
288 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 searched nearer the'mouth of the cavern, and on exami- 
 nation discovered a low pillar, very little higher than the 
 water, and having placed his hand upon it, he found lying 
 there a Booh, carefully folded in a piece of thin and clean 
 linen. This Book he secured, and signified by the rope 
 his wish to be drawn up. On being drawn up he pro- 
 duced the book, which struck the beholders with astonish- 
 ment, particularly as it appeared perfectly fresh and un- 
 touched, though it had been brought out of vso dark and 
 dismal a place. When the book was unfolded, not only 
 the Jews, but the Greeks also were amazed, as it declared 
 in large letters, even at its commencement. In Arclia 
 was the Word, &c. From this it will be seen that 
 this Volume was the Apocalypse itself. The cavern also 
 was curiously symbolic, for the pillar, or Linga, in the 
 water, typified God and the Spirit, and the book was 
 the emblem of the Messenger. 
 
 68. But this is not the sole conclusion which is to be 
 deduced from this most important historical fact ; for it 
 demonstrates that the Apocalypse was placed there cen- 
 turies before the Christian sera, in the palmy days of 
 Judaism, when a theocratic priesthood had an esoteric 
 religion, and concealed Inefiable Yolumes like those 
 of India, Egypt, Home, and all the great centres of 
 Monotheism. It shews also that the Indian puUeiar 
 or mystic union was part of their creed. The short 
 preface, In Archa was tlie Word, &c., could not' have 
 belonged to what is now called the Gospel of John, 
 for this Book was deposited in this secret crypt hun- 
 dreds of yeai*s before : it was in fact Enoch's intro- 
 duction to the Apocalypse ; and it was upon this brief 
 exposition of a sublime truth, that Plato founded most of 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 2S9 
 
 "his tenets ; though he could not of course refer to the 
 Apocalypse as their source, for it was the Ineffable 
 Volume of the Mysteries which it was death to divulge 
 if he knew of it : and of which, if he were not Initiated, 
 he could know nothing whatever. 
 
 69. Swedenborg, who, though he did not perceive all 
 truth, nevertheless was a man who undoubtedly had 
 many Visions from heaven, which he did not always how- 
 ever succeed in interpreting rightly, relates one of these 
 manifestations, in which this incident is startlingly com- 
 memorated. That Swedenborg had no idea whatever of 
 the exact truth, regarding the Apocalypse or its true 
 origin, as they are revealed in this Volume, I need scarcely 
 premise : neither does he seem to have had any knowledge 
 of this curious passage in Nicephorus, or else I think he 
 would have cited it. Yet we find him beholding in a 
 Vision, a sight which could have no reference to anything 
 else than the veiy thing commemorated by that historian. 
 In depai-ting from this place, he says, I found myself with 
 Spirits and Angels who had passed their mortal life in 
 Great Tartary. They informed me that they had from 
 all antiquity possessed a Divine Word, which regulated 
 their worshi[), and which was entirely hy correspondences 
 (that is symbols]. These people who worshipped leue 
 only, some as an Invisible God, and some as an Invisible 
 Power, dwelt in the spiritual world upon a plain very 
 much elevated in the southern regions bordering upon the 
 eastern. They allow no Christian to be among them ; 
 but if any one enter their territories, they retain him, 
 and never suffer him to depart again. They live separate, 
 because they possess another "Word or Scripture. Some 
 angeU then told me that Moses took from the Sacred Books 
 
 
 
290 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 of these peojyle, the first chapters of Genesis which treat of 
 the creation of the garden of Eden, &c. While meditating 
 upon the Dragon, the Beast and the false Prophet, of 
 which the Revelations speak, an angel appeared to me 
 and said : Come, I will shew you into a place where you 
 ^hall see those that the Word denotes by the false pro- 
 phets, and by the Beast issuing out of the earth with two 
 horns like a lamb, and speaking as a dragon. I followed 
 him and saw a great body of peo2)le, in the midst of which 
 were prelates, who taught ths^t faith alone in the merits of 
 Jesus Christ was sufficient to salvation; that in order to 
 govern the simple, it was necessary to preach good works, 
 though they were not necessary to salvation. One of these 
 prelates invited me to enter his Temple, that I might 
 there see an Image which represented his faith, and that 
 of his adherents. I accordingly entered the Temple which 
 was magnificent, and in the midst of which a Woman 
 was represented clothed in purple, holding in her right 
 hand a golden crown piece, and in her left a chain of 
 pearls. The statue and the representation were only 
 fantastic representations; for these infernal spirits by 
 closing the interior degree and opening the exterior only, 
 are able at the pleasure of their imagination to represent 
 magnificent objects. Perceiving that they were illusions, 
 I prayed to the Lord. Immediately the interior of my 
 spirit was opened, and I saw instead of the superb Tem- 
 ple, a tottering house open to the weather from the top to 
 the bottom. In the place of the Woman-statue, an 
 Image was suspended having the head of a dragon, the 
 body of a leopard, the feet of a bear, and the mouth of a 
 lion ; in short it was the Beast rising out of the sea, as 
 described in the Apocalypse, xiii. 2. In the place of a 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 291 
 
 park tliere was a marsh full of frogs^ and I was infoi-med 
 that under this marsh there was a great hewn stone be- 
 neath which the Word was entirely liidden. Afterwards 
 I said to the j^relate, who was the fabricator of these illu- 
 sions; Is that your temple? Yes, replied he, it is. 
 Immediately his interior sight was opened, like mine, and 
 he saw what I did. How now, what do I see 1 cried he. 
 I told him that it was the eflfect of the celestial lights 
 lohich discovers the interior' qvulity of every thing, and 
 which taught him at that very moment, what faith 
 sepamted from good works was. While I was speaking, 
 a Avind blowing from the east, destroyed the Temple and the 
 Image, dried up the marsh, and discovered the stone under 
 which the Sacred Word was concealed. A genial warmth 
 like that of the spring descended from heaven : and in 
 the place of the Temple we saw a tent, the exterior of 
 which was very plain. I looked into the interior of it 
 and there I saw t/ie foundation stone beneath which the 
 Sacred Word was concealed, ornamented with precious 
 stones, the splendour of which diffusing itself over the 
 walls of the Temple, diversified the colours of the paint- 
 ings which represented cherubims. The angels perceiving 
 me to be filled with admiration, told me that I should see 
 stUl greater wonders than these. They were then per- 
 mitted to open the third heaven, inhabited by the Celes- 
 tial Angels who dwell in love. All on a sudden the 
 splendour of a light of fire caused the Temple to disappear, 
 and left nothing to be seen but the Lord himself, standing 
 upon the foundation stone, the Lord, who was the Word 
 such as he shewed himself, Eev. 1. Holiness immediately 
 filled all the interior of the spirit of the Angels, upon 
 wliich they made an effort to prostrate themselves, but 
 
 2 
 
292 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 the Lord sliut the passage to the light from the third 
 heaven, opening the passage to the light of the second, 
 which caused the Temple to re-appear with the tent in 
 the midst of it. (13.) That the Temple, the foundation 
 stone, and the Apocalypse mentioned by Nicephorus, were 
 here revealed in Vision to Swedenborg, seems certain . 
 but the man whom he mistook for Jesus, was Adam. 
 The passage is a most singular one : and it affords a re- 
 markable proof of the merely biblical and therefore incor- 
 rect mode in which this great Seer occasionally interpreted 
 the heavenly visions. In his vision of the Paulite pre- 
 lates, and theii- Jezabel Church, he is however perfectly 
 jaccurate. 
 
 70. It will be seen that in the present edition I have 
 restored the real name of Cannes (14) to the Apocalypse, 
 Tor which that of loan was substituted by the papal 
 priests, who presented it under a modern aspect. This 
 :9iame of Oannes in the primal language meant Divine 
 Messenger, like Hermes and Meshoh. In a fragment gar- 
 bled from Berosus by the ecclesiastical historian Eusebius, 
 from whom almost everything must be received with dis- 
 trust, we have some allusion to this Incarnation : but 
 strangely altered. Through its symbolism, however, truth 
 may be beheld. In the first year there appeared out of 
 the Red Sea (an ocean of fire), at a place near the con- 
 fines of Babylonia, a certain irrational animal (^woj/ a^pevov, 
 which is nonsense to write of this Teacher of arts and 
 sciences — the word should be a^^trov, an Immortal Liv- 
 ing Creature : Dr. Jackson proposes to read fwoi' €V(j)pov, 
 animal sapiens), whose name was Oannes. His body was 
 like that of a^A, but beneath his fish's head another grew; 
 (this also is wrong : it really means a man-headed fish like 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 293 
 
 Vishnu in the Matsyavatara, who when a child " hid 
 himself in the Moon" Tocl. Bajasthan, i. GOl): he had also 
 feet like a man, which proceeded from the fish's tail, and 
 a human voice, according to the picture of him which 
 was preserved to the time of Berosus. This animal con- 
 versed with men in the day without eating anything ; he 
 communicated the knowledge of letters, arts, and sciences ; 
 he taught men to dwell together in cities : to erect temples : 
 to introduce laws, and instructed them in geometry : he 
 likewise shewed them how to gather seeds and fiiiits, and, 
 in short, imparted to mankind whatever was necessary 
 and convenient for a civilized life. When the sun set, 
 this Living Creature retu-ed into the sea (the Holy 
 Spii-it) again, and stayed there in the night, being of the 
 amphibious kind — that is, a being really of heaven, but 
 fulfilling a mission among mortals. After him, there ap- 
 peared several other Living Creatures (Messiahs) of th& 
 same form. This Cannes did not deliver his insti-uctions 
 by word of mouth only, but wrote of the Origin of things. 
 ether authors have also mentioned him. Helladius calls 
 him Oes : and agrees in general with the foregoing ac- 
 count : but adds that he had hands as well as the head 
 and feet of a Man : that it was reported he was produced 
 from the Mundane Egg (the Holy Spirit), as his name 
 'iluv testified : and that he was in reality only a man, 
 though clothed in the skin of a fish. Hyginus likewise 
 writes that Euhanes, a name not veiy distant from 
 Cannes (15), came out of the sea in Chaldaea, and ex- 
 plained astrology. All this, it need not be added, is mys- 
 tical — covertly alluding to the primeval Messenger, whose 
 name is connected with Cn the Sun, and ditov twv atwvwv 
 — or -^on of Ages. Ho is the Indian Ar-yoon, a com- 
 
294 THE BOOK or GOD. 
 
 pound word of Ar, the Sun, and yoon, tlie Yoni — mean- 
 ing the One who conies from the union of both : and this 
 is the name of Aaron, and the famous Caliph Haroun, 
 who claimed to be a heaven-descended sovereign. The 
 word Fish is a covert disguise of his sacred origin. The 
 whole world is filled with similar analogies. Suidas says 
 that ^sop, secretary of Mithridates, in his Book on 
 Helene, called Pan (a name like Phanes, sometimes of 
 the Messenger), IxOvs KrjTcaSr]?, a great, or whale-like fish. 
 Sophocles called him a Wanderer on the Sea. The scho- 
 liast on Ajax, 695, says he was a fisherman who entangled 
 the Giant Typhon (the Bed Dragon) in his nets and caught 
 him. Pan is Pi- An, and Psean. In the old Irish, Ischa, 
 which is the Eastern name of Jesus, means Fish, and the 
 Welsh V is our single F. Our FF, is the Welsh F. 
 Ischa with digamma is Fischa. Buddha was called Dag- 
 Po, which was literally the fish Po, or Fish-Buddha. So 
 the Lama of the Christians, the Pope, is not only chief of 
 the Shepherds, but is Chief of the Fishermen, a name 
 ^which he gives himself, and on this account he carries a 
 fisherman's ring: on this account also the followers of 
 Jesus are said to have been fishermen. Hence, when Em- 
 pedocles claimed the character of a Divine Messenger, he 
 said that his spirit had formerly sojourned in the body of 
 the fish Hellopus. 0a/zvo?, t okovos, tc koI hv aAt cAAottos 
 ly^9v<5 ; a branch of olive, a bird of prey (eagle or vul- 
 ture), and in the sea, a sword fish. Jesus says to Simon 
 and Andrew, Follow me and I will make jou fishers of 
 men. Mark i. 17. The distinction between the Messianic 
 or peace messengers, and the Cabiric or avenging mes- 
 sengers, is pointed out in Jeremiah xvi. 16. Behold, I 
 will send for many fishers, and they shall fish them ; and 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 295 
 
 after I will send forth many hunters, and they shall hunt 
 them, from every mountain and from every hill, and out 
 of the holes of the rocks. The mild and peaceful Numa- 
 tor, a priest of Manu, precedes Romulus the conquering 
 king, who is again succeeded by Numa, the mild and 
 gentle. This old mythical legend really alludes to the 
 series of the Messengers — the Messianic and Cabiric : the 
 fishers and the hunters: See ante, p. 246, as to the Persic 
 Pish-va, or Sovereign Pontiff (16). Upon this mythos, I 
 may add, all the fables of the love of Dolphins for men. 
 were founded. Enalus, the ^]olian, was saved from 
 drowning by riding on a Dolphin. Melicerta jumped 
 into the sea to escape the rage of Athamas, and was car- 
 ried by a Dolphin to Corinth. The dead body ot 
 the poet Hesiod was earned by Dolphins to the 
 place of the Nemean games, and the life of Ar-Ion, 
 a divine musician, was saved by a Dolphin. He was 
 also noted, like Jesus, for his love of children. A Dol- 
 phin presei-ved a boy from drowning and brought him 
 to lassus in Caria, but pined away and died for loss 
 of his youthful rider. Pausanias relates that he saw a 
 Dolphin who, out of gratitude to a boy that had cured 
 him of a wound from a fisherman, used to carry the boy 
 upon his back. Note that in the Greek, Delphin, or 
 Dolphin, is a mystical word. See ante, p. 166. 
 
 71. The Mother of this Oannes was symbolized as a 
 Mermaid, and worshipped as Venus Atergatis — meaning 
 the Holy Spirit. She was said to be the receptacle of all 
 the hero-gods or Messiahs : as the Egyptian Tsis compre- 
 hended within herself the fii-st rudiments of all things. 
 Mooi^s Hindu Fantheon, 74, 132, 134, 137. Simplicius 
 in Aristot. de Ans. Phys. iv. 150. Plutarch, de Iside. p. 
 
296 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 374. On one of the ancient porticoes of the Church of 
 Notre Dame at Paris, the architect carved the Holy Spirit 
 as a Sii'en with the body of a woman, and the extremities 
 of a fish. BanitT Mythology^ bk. ii. cap. x. Fecundity was 
 typified by the Fish. Hyginus tells us that an Egg of an 
 immense size was reported to have fallen from heaven 
 into the river Euphrates. While it floated in the sacred 
 stream, Doves perched upon its exterior. Soon, however, 
 it was rolled out to land by fishes, and at length it pro- 
 duced Venus. Ampelius relates the same story, but 
 states that only a single dove perched upon the Qgg, that 
 the Egg itself was produced by a Fish, and that in its 
 turn it produced a Goddess kind and merciful to mortals. 
 The fish that produced the Egg was Venus; for here 
 again, though the Egg and Venus are really the same 
 thing, with a blending not uncommon in ancient mytho- 
 logy, the Goddess appears at once the joroducer and the 
 produced. These various minglings into One, of names 
 and persons and sexes (called theocrasia), so remarkable 
 in old mythology, intimate the Pantheism and oneness 
 that is universal : all are One, though their manifestations, 
 names, and qualities seem difierent. 
 
 72. That Hercules, who was in the whale's belly for three 
 days, was but, like lonah, Vishnu, Oannes, another name for 
 the Messiah, is clear to all who have studied the subject. 
 Herodotus tells us that he was one of the most an- 
 cient gods whom they worshipped in Egypt ; in fact, he 
 was Als-idi, or Adam the son of Jid, one of the Twelve 
 Messengers. The Scyths had a print of his foot upon 
 a rock like that of Buddha ; it resembles the' footstep 
 of a man, and is two cubits in length, says the father 
 of history, iv. 81. The curiosity of Herodotus was much 
 
TUB APOCALYPSE. 297 
 
 excited by these facts, and by what he heard of Her- 
 cules in Egypt from the priests. And being desirous, 
 he says, of obtaining certain information from whatever 
 source I could, I sailed to Tyre, in Phoenicia, having 
 heard that there was there a temple dedicated to Her- 
 cules : and I saw it richly adorned with a great variety 
 of offerings; and in it were two pillars, one of fine 
 gold j the other of emerald stone ; both shining exceed- 
 ingly at night. Convei-sing with the priests, I enquired 
 how long this temple had been built ; they said that 
 the temple was built at the time when Tyre was founded ; 
 and that 2300 years had elapsed since the foundation 
 of Tyre, ii. 44. This makes it 4610 years from the 
 present day ; cotemporaneous with the founding of Pcr- 
 sepolis. The two pillai^s in this ancient temple, repre- 
 sented God and the Holy Spirit, though Herodotus does 
 not say so : the former being symbolized by the Golden 
 Pillar, and the Spirit by the Pillar of Emerald, which 
 was the type of the Rainbow. In allusion to this, the 
 Apocalypse was sometimes called The Table of Eme- 
 rald : and in connection with Alcides it was denomi- 
 nated The LiorCs Skin, and the Cloak of Stars : and 
 sometimes the Pillars of Hercules, a name afterwards- 
 given to a Hock. And this we know to have been a 
 sacred word connected with religion. T/ie Lord is my rocky 
 and my fortress : loho is a rock save our God ? Ps. xviii^ 
 Then he forsook God which made him, and lightly es- 
 teemed the rock of his salvation. Deut. xxxii. There 
 were others who called the Apocalypse The Pillar of 
 Heaven ; a name given to Atlas, who is Enoch. 
 
 73. The northern Indians, says Adair, in his chapter^ 
 On the descent of the American Indiatis from the Jews, 
 
 3 
 
^.8 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 in the time of their rejoicings repeat Yo-ha-an, which he 
 supposes to be a corruption of their name of God, Yo he- 
 wah ; but which in reality preserves the traditional name 
 of Oannes, the first born of the Sacred Yoni. In their 
 language Oonna means, he is come ! a significant allusion to 
 the Messianic teacher. According to Abydenus, Oannes 
 "was followed by Annedotus, Enaboulus, Anementus, and 
 Eneugamus, who explained what he had only concisely 
 revealed. The three first of these names are but varia- 
 iiions of the second Messenger's name, Enoch, and the last 
 is Nu, and Manu, who is Fohi, the third Heavenly Mes- 
 senger. Fo-hi means Fo the victim, in allusion to what 
 I have stated, ante p. 63. Oannes is also the same as 
 Sanconiathon's Protogonos, or the First-born, as he was 
 the first heaven-sent Messenger : and his wife is said to have 
 been Aion, which is said to mean the first v/ho found out 
 ihe food which is gathered from trees — in other words she 
 was skilled in horticulture. See ante, p. 236. The an- 
 cient name for symbolic pictures was ouen, and the Chinese 
 letters are called the kou ouen. The vehicle of all the 
 Druid magic was a vessel called the cauldron of Ouen, 
 Owen, or Awen, a name explained in Welsh to mean 
 inspiration : and the holy city of Boodha was Ouen. 
 Oannes, therefore, must be considered a primitive radical 
 word, which had many meanings, but all sacred and mystic, 
 and pronounced according to its particular signification, 
 Yoni, Ouen, Yau-nus, Faunus, I-On, Oona, &c., &c. See 
 ante J p. 76. 
 
 74. And as this first Messiah was by some said to be 
 an husbandman, he was called Georgius, or tiller of the 
 ground ; and this became a general name for the Incarna- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 299 
 
 lion : hence Saint George and the Dragon, like the sym- 
 bolic Arthur of Wales, was one of his titles. Mantuan 
 describes him, 
 
 Albenti snblimis eqno, cui Thracia mater, 
 Et pater Astiir erat. 
 high on a white horse, whose mother was of Thrace, and 
 whose father was Astur (a Star). The Arabs aver that 
 he was a warrior of their own sect, and call him Deseleth 
 Tozatzel, or the Warrior of the White Horse; and hold 
 him in the highest honour. Tliey also style him Cheder- 
 les ; and they say of him that he traversed the world on 
 hoi'seback, and discovered the Waters of Immortality, of 
 which both he and his horse drank, and from thencefoi-th 
 they became invisible to human eyes. Nevertheless he 
 rides to and fro on his immortal charger, delighting in 
 battles, and lending his aid to the righteous cause. They 
 further relate that Georgius attended upon Alexander 
 when he conquered the East, and that upon such occasions 
 he brought with him a troop of warlike spirits called 
 Cheders, or Gaiberenleis (Cabirians.) Like most of the 
 Incarnations his fate was sudden : he was stung to death 
 by a dragon of the earth. This Georgius, the Phoenicians 
 called Agruerus, the patron of husbandry : his Messianic 
 character is shewn by his image having a bull's head. 
 Selden, de Diis Syr. 
 
 75. At Naulakhi in Cashmere a tomb is shewn, whore 
 a famous ruler is said to be interred. The Mussulmans 
 call it the tomb of Maiter Lam, that is the Lord Lama, 
 and they say they got this name from the natives. But 
 Lama is a primeval word that signifies the Messiah ; and 
 it was so used by Jesus in his dying moments, when he 
 cried out ; Eli, Eli, Lama ozebetani, God I my God, thy 
 
300 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 Lama is forsaken. This tomb or barrow, tlierefore, is con- 
 nected with the heavenly Messenger. The Buddhists say 
 that it is that of Buddha Narayana, or Buddha coming 
 out of the Waters ; and the Brahmins call him Macho- 
 dar-Nath, or the sovereign prince from the Fish's belly. 
 It is manifest that this fish prince is Yishnu in his fish 
 incarnation ; Oannes and the lonah of the Hebrews, and 
 the Dag-On, of the Philistines. The sepulchre which 
 contains the body of this ancient personage, is about 
 forty cubits long ; and under it is a vault of the same 
 dimensions with a small door that out of respect is never 
 opened. Whether this be a real tomb, or only a tradi_ 
 tionary one, in which the first Messenger is commemorated, 
 it is impossible to prove ; but it is undoubtedly a very 
 curious relique of the past. Of a similar character to 
 this tomb, was that seen by Benjamin of Tudela in 
 Alexandria. It was of marble near the sea-side, and on 
 it were graven figures of all sorts of birds and beasts, 
 with an inscription in characters so wholly ancient that 
 no man could then (in the 13th century) decypher them. 
 The length of this sepulchre was fifteen, and its width 
 six spans. I believe it to have been a crypt for 
 sacred concealed volumes, and that this in India was for 
 a like purpose. That writings which were considered 
 valuable were deposited in crypts of earth or stone, or in 
 cofiers in the ground, is manifested by the following pas- 
 sage in Jeremiah, xxxii. And Jeremiah said, The word 
 of the Lord came unto me, saying, Behold, Ilanameel the 
 son of Shallum, thine uncle shall come unto thee, saying. 
 Buy thee my field that is Anatlioth ; for the right of re- 
 demption is thine to buy it. So Ilanameel mine uncUs 
 son came to me in the court of the prison according to the 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 301 
 
 word of the Lordy and said unte Tne, Buy my fields I pray 
 thee, that is in Anatlioth, which is in the coimtry of Ben- 
 jamin : for the right of irdieritance is thine, and the redemp- 
 tion is thine ; buy it for thyself TJien I knew tliat this 
 was the word of the Lord. And 1 bought tlie fitlU of 
 llanameel my uncles son, tluit ivas in Anatlioth, and 
 weighed him ilte money, even seventeen shekels of silver. 
 And I subscribed the evidence, and sealed it, and took 
 toitnesses, and weighed him the money in the balances. So 
 I took iJie evidence of the purchase, both that which teas 
 sealed according to tlie law and custom, and that which 
 was open: And I gave the evidence of the purchase unto 
 Baruch the son of Neriah, the son of Maaseiah, in the sight 
 of Hanam^el mine uncle's son, and in the p)^'^sence of the 
 toitnesses that subscribed tJie book of tlie purchase, before all 
 the Jeivs that sat in the court of the prison. And I charged 
 Baruch before them, saying. Thus sailh the Lord of hosts, 
 the God of Israel; Take tJicse evidences, this evidence of the 
 purchase, both which is sealed, and this evidence which is 
 open, and 2)ut them in an earthen vessel, that they may 
 continue many days. And for aught we know, copies of 
 the primeval Apocalypse, may still exist in some of the 
 numerous barrows which remain in various parts of the 
 eai-th. 
 
 76. Herodotus speaks of another mysterious tomb, like 
 this, which was doubtless made with the same object. 
 At Sais, he says, in the sacred precinct of Minei*va, be- 
 hind the chapel, and joining the whole of the wall, is the 
 Tomb of One whose name I consider it impious to divulge 
 on such an occasion. [No wonder that the name of Adam 
 is so rarely found in liistory since it was thus held impious 
 to disclose it]. And in the enclosure stand large obelisks, 
 
302 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 [monoliths like those at Stonehenge], and there is a lake 
 near, ornamented with a stone margin formed in a circle. 
 In this lake they perform by night, the representation of 
 that person's adventures, which they call Mysteries : on 
 these matters however, though I am accurately acquainted 
 with the particulars of them, 1 must observe a discreet 
 silence, ii. 170. I ought to add that he describes the 
 chamber as being adorned with columns made in imitation 
 of palm trees : which connects it at once with the Apoca- 
 lypse ', and with Phen, Phin, and Phsenix. 
 
 77. The piimitive inhabitants of Chile in the extreme 
 south of America many thousand miles from New Spain, 
 had a tradition of this stranger Messiah, declaring that in 
 former times as they had heard their fathers say, a won- 
 derful Man had come to that country wearing a long 
 beard, with shoes, and a mantle such a,s the Indians carry 
 on their shoulders, who performed many miracles, cured 
 the sick with water, caused it to rain, and their crops and 
 grain to grow, kindled fire at a breath, and wrought other 
 marvels, healing at once the sick, and giving sight to the 
 blind : and that he sf)oke with as much propriety and 
 elegance in the language of their country, as if he had 
 always resided in it, addressing them in words very sweet 
 and new, that the Creator of the Universe resided in the 
 highest place of heaven, and that many men and women 
 who were resplendent as the sun dwelt with him. This 
 is the account given by Rosales. Mexican Antiquities, 
 vi. 419. The Japanese Messiah is also sometimes repre- 
 sented under the name of Can-On, (Priest of the Sun), 
 and like "Vishnu the lower part of his body seems to be 
 emerging from a fish. He has four arms : his head is 
 crowned with flowers : in one hand he holds a sceptre, in 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 303 
 
 another a flower, a ring in the third, and the fourth is 
 closed ^vith the arm extended. They image the Holy 
 Spirit, seated on twelve cushions, (supporters, that is Mes- 
 siahs), and placed on the trunk of a large tree which a 
 toi^toise supports. She is intensely black, (a symbol of 
 immense antiquity, deep as night itself), crowned with a 
 golden pyramid, and with bosom bare. An enormous 
 Serpent (God) is entwined around this golden image. 
 Tanaquil Faber speaks of a place in the Heliopolitan 
 prefecture in Egypt, denominated 'Ovlov x^P^a, the repose 
 of Onius, and the Temple was called Onieion or the 
 Temple of Onius. Has not this name a subtle relation 
 to the title Cannes % 
 
 78. A similar tradition pi*evailed in Peru. We are 
 told in the Ceremonies and Religious Customs of all na- 
 tions, iii. 199, that a man of extmordinary shape whose 
 name was Khov,n, and whose body had neither bones nor 
 muscles came from the north into their country ; that he 
 levelled mountains, filled up vallies, (was a Messiah), and 
 opened himself a passage through the most inaccessible 
 places. This Khoun formed the first inhabitants of 
 Peru, giving them the herbs and wild finiits of the field 
 for their sustenance. They also relate that this first 
 founder of Peru, having been injured by some savages 
 who inhabited the plains, changed part of the ground 
 which before had been very fruitful into sand, tind. forbade 
 the rain to fall and dried up the plants. But that being 
 afterwards moved with compassion he opened the springs 
 and suffered the i-ivers to flow. The identity of this with 
 some of the Messianic descriptions in the Apocalypse 
 seems plain enough, Khoun is but another form for 
 the Chinese Kuntze for Chiun, the God mentioned in the 
 
304 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 Old Testament, and also for Cannes, and Cohen a priest : 
 it contains likewise the elements of Yoni, and Cn, and 
 Ch or X which belong to the nomenclature of the inspired 
 Messengers of God. In the account given. Universal 
 History (vol i, p. 32 — 34) of the Crphic theology we read 
 that Crpheus taught that the great God Creator, was 
 Fhanes, (a name taken from niH* 0£3 Fheni Ieue,faces 
 of Jehovah, frequently mentioned in Scripture). See 
 Orpheus' hymn, IIpwToy This God according to his doc- 
 trine was represented by a threefold figure, that of an ox, 
 a serpent, and a lion. But is not Phanes, Cannes under 
 another form ? 
 
 79. This Cannes appears in the Nemroud sculptures. 
 See Bonomi, Nineveh, 168 — 329. In his left hand he 
 carries a richly decorated bag containing the Apocalypse : 
 and his right is upraised as in the act of presenting the 
 pine cone which was an oriental symbol of the Female 
 Generative Power — the Holy Spirit of God. His beard 
 has the ordinary elaborate arrangement, and on his head 
 is the egg-shaped cap with three horns and the bull's ears 
 all emblematic of the solar power. The head of a fish 
 surmounts his other head dress, while the body of the fish 
 falls over his shoulders, and continues down his back. 
 The size of this majestic statue is 8 feet by 2 feet, 8 inches. 
 A writer in the Journal of Sacred Literature, iii., No. 5., 
 New Series, comments on this figure as follows. The 
 figure of the Chaldsean Cannes discovered in the sculp- 
 tured remains of '.ancient Nineveh is valuable in two 
 respects : firstly in^^that it enables us to reunite him by 
 name to the Mizraimite On, his original (the Sun). 
 Cannes is merely the Hebrew y\^ (Aon) with a Greek 
 case termination : and the Hebrew form is only a tran- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 305 
 
 script of an ancient Coptic word, which according to 
 Champollion signifies to enliglUen. The primitive Aon, 
 therefore, Wiis an enlightener of man to a people speaking 
 the primitive language out of which the Coptic sprang ; 
 and the Jews stole the tradition, and made a Kabbinical 
 fable out of it which they called the Book of Jonah, 
 making that pei'son like Vishnu emane from a fish. 
 
 80. In the same work (Bonomi), we find him again 
 represented in page 1 48, in a woodcut copied from the 
 Nemroud marbles in the British Museum. It bears the 
 name of Dag-On, the Fish-On, or the Fish God. The 
 gigantic Cherubim of the Apocalypse are also shewn in 
 the combination of Man, Bull, Lion, Eagle, which Layard 
 brought from the disentombed palace ; and each of these 
 is, as it were, living evidence of the remote antiquity of 
 this divine volume. But there is one carving at Perse- 
 polis, which was founded 4600 years ago, and which de- 
 monstrates 80 powerfully that it was taken from the 
 Apocalypse (section 27), as to be almost conclusive. It 
 is described by Fi-ancklin in his Tour from Bengal to 
 Persia. On getting to the top of this staircase, he says, 
 you enter what was formerly a most magnificent hall : the 
 natives have given this the name of Chehul Minar, or 
 Forty Pillars ; and though this name is often used to ex- 
 press the whole of the building, it is more particularly 
 appropriated to this part of it. Although a vast number 
 of ayes have elapsed since the foundation, fifteen of the 
 columns yet remain entire : they are from 70 to 80 feet 
 in height, and are masterly pieces of masonry : their 
 pedestals are curiously worked, and appear little injured 
 by the hand of time. The shafts are influted up to the 
 top, and the caj>itals are adorned with a profusion of fret- 
 
so 6 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 work. From this hall you proceed along eastward, until 
 you arrive at the remains of a large square building, to 
 which you enter through a door of granite. Most of the 
 doors and windows of this apartment are still standing : 
 they are of black marble, and polished like a mirror. On 
 the sides of the doors at the entrance are bas reliefs of 
 two figures at full length : they represent a Man in the 
 attitude of stabbing a Goat, with one hand he seizes hold 
 of the animal by the horn, and thrusts a dagger into bis 
 belly with the other : one of the Goat's feet rests upon 
 the breast of the Man, and the other upon his right 
 arm. This device is common tliroughout the Palace, (p. 
 203.) The symbolic history here represented is the fall 
 of Alexander the Great, the He-Goat with one horn ; and 
 it was for this reason, not at the suggestion of the courtezan 
 Thai's, that that conqueror destroyed this majestic build- 
 ing, as if he sought to efface for ever this carved predic- 
 tion of his downfall : and at the same time he destroyed 
 all the Persian sacred books, including the Apocalypse 
 which contained the prophecy. But Nemesis preserved 
 the memorial ; as if in mockery of him, and in testifica- 
 tion of the true Apocalypse. An engraving of this bas- 
 relief will be found in the Ancient Universal History, 
 vol. iv., page 57, where the figure is erroneously called a 
 Bull ; but Francklin's authority cannot be disputed ; and 
 it has been confirmed by that of Chardin and other tra- 
 vellers. This prophecy is commonly ascribed to Daniel, 
 and it has been put into his book ; but it was simply 
 transfeiTed thither from the Apocalypse. Daniel is said 
 to have lived 2400 yeai-s ago ; but the Chehul Minar was 
 raised 2200 years before his time, according to a native 
 tradition, by a king, or pontiff, from Samarcand. This 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 307 
 
 He-Goat is again represented on one of the pilasters, as 
 led captive in the train of the king, and in anotlier 
 he is represented as being torn in pieces by the Persic 
 lion ; while in the first and second portal we find 
 the Cherubim, the exact counterpart of those which 
 have been brouglit to England from the Birs Nemroud. 
 All these things have been patent for years ; yet no one 
 has used his undei*standing upon them. The world has 
 eyes to see, but it sees not. Nor is this the only record 
 in stone which tends to show the truth of what I declare. 
 Let the reader pause upon the following significant pas- 
 sage from Francklin. Underneath the above-mentioned 
 devices, he says, there are small openings, which lead to 
 a subteri'aneous passage cut out of the mountain : it is 
 six feet in height, and four feet in breadth : the passage 
 leads a considerable way into the rock, but it is quite 
 dark after advancing about 30 yards, and emits a most 
 noisome damp smell. The natives call this place the 
 Cherk Almas [Adamas], that is, the Talisman or Dia- 
 mond of Fate : they affirm that at the end of the passage 
 is the Talisman, and that whoever aiTives thither, and 
 oaks questions of future events^ will be answered from 
 within : but they say that no one has ever yet been able 
 to penetrate to the extremity of the passage, being 
 opposed by the Demons and Genii, whom they believe to 
 dwell there : and superstitiously imagine that all lights 
 taken in there will go out of themselves (page 215). 
 What was this place but the crypt like that in the 
 Temple of the Capitol, in Jupiter's cell, at Rome, and the 
 Temple at Jerusalem ; where in the first, the Apocalypse 
 under the name of the Sibylline Books, and in the second 
 probably under its real name, was mysteriously hidden by 
 
308 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 the pontiffs 1 Are we to take no note of the tradition 
 of the place, that it contained a Talisman which held 
 the knowledge of future events ? and is not the Apoca- 
 lypse that Talisman? the Talisman of Adamas, or the 
 Diamond — the only authentic one, indeed, which the 
 world possesses. How much is to be desired that the 
 Shah of Persia would have this crypt examined. There 
 might yet be found the very petroma which contained 
 the secret Volume ; as in the centre of the Pyramid was 
 found the Chest in which in primal days it was depo- 
 sited ; which the ignorant call a tomb : but which was 
 in reality the mystic coffer in which the Inspired Volumes 
 of Heaven were laid up by the priests; and of which 
 mystic coffer they always carried an image in their 
 processions. 
 
 81. The ancient Mexicans, like all other primeval 
 peoples, had a secret Holy Book called Tao-Amoxtli, This 
 book, says Torquemada, the Indians declared that they 
 had buried under ground on the arrival of the Spaniards 
 amongst them. Brother Diego de Mercado, says the his- 
 torian Torquemada, a grave father who has been definitor 
 of this province of the holy gospel, and one of the most 
 exemplary men and greatest doers of penance of his time, 
 relates and authenticates this relation with his signature ; 
 that some years ago, conversing with an aged Indian of 
 the Otomies, above seventy years old, respecting matters 
 concerning our faith, the Indian told him that they in 
 ancient times had been in possession of a Book which 
 was handed down successively from father to son in the 
 person of the eldest, who was dedicated to the safe custody 
 of it, and to instruct others in its doctrines. Out of rever- 
 ence they did not turn over the leaves with their hands, 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 309 
 
 but with a small bar, which they had made for that pur- 
 pose ; and which they kept along with the Book. On 
 this ecclesiastic questioning the Indian as to the contents 
 of that Book and its doctrines, he was unable to give 
 him further information, but simply replied that if the 
 Book had not been lost, he would have seen that the 
 doctrines which he taught and preached to theniy and those 
 which the Book contained were the same (17) ; that the 
 Book had rotted in the earth where the persons who 
 kept it had buried it on the arrival of the Spaniards. 
 
 82. Humboldt in his Researches^ i, 207, speaks of the 
 Divine Bookj Taoamoxtli which, he says, was compiled at 
 Tula in the year 6 GO (a remarkable cycle), by Huematzin, 
 and in which was contained the history of Heaven and 
 Earth, a cosmogony, a description of the constellations, 
 the division of time, the migrations of peoples, my- 
 thology, and moral philosophy. Was this Mexican purana, 
 he asks, the remembrance of which has been preserved 
 so many ages in the Azteck traditions, one of those 
 which monkish fanaticism committed to the flames in 
 Yucatan, and the loss of which book was so deeply 
 lamented by Acosta, who was more learned and enlight- 
 ened than his contemporaries 1 No doubt it was ; and for 
 the same reasons that I have already explained (18). 
 
 83, Narcissus Gilbar, a Franciscan, says Humboldt, 
 Researches f i, 174, distinguished for his courage and his 
 love of enquiry, found among some independent Indians, 
 the Panoes, on the banks of the TJcayale, a little to the 
 north of the mouth of the Sarayacu, bundles of paint- 
 ings which in their external appearance perfectly re- 
 sembled our volumes in quarto. The covering of these 
 collections was formed of several leaves of the palm tree, 
 
310 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 with a very thick pareuchyma glued together : pieces of 
 tolerably fine cotton formed the leaves, which were fas- 
 tened by threads of the agave. When Gilbar reached 
 the dwellings of the Panoes, he found an old man seated 
 at the foot of a palm tree, and surrounded by several 
 young persons, to whom he was explaining the contents 
 of these books. The savages would not at first permit a 
 white man to approach the teacher, and informed the 
 missionary by means of Indians of Manoa, who alone 
 understood the language of the Panoes, that these paintinga 
 contained hidden things which no stranger ought to know. 
 With great difficulty, N. Gilbar procured one of these 
 collections, which he sent to Lima for the inspection of 
 Padre Cisneros, the learned compiler of a periodical jour- 
 nal, which has been translated in Europe. Several per- 
 sons of my acquaintance have seen this book of the Panoes, 
 every page of which was covered with paintings. There 
 were figures of men and animals, and a great number of 
 •isolated characters, which were deemed hieroglyphical, ar- 
 ranged in lines with admirable order and symmetry. The 
 liveliness of the colours was particularly striking : but as 
 no one at Lima had seen a fragment of Azteck manu- 
 script, it was impossible to judge of the identity of the 
 style of paintings found at the distance of 800 leagues 
 from each other. Padre Cisneros wished to deposit this 
 book in the convent of the missions of Ocopa ; but whe- 
 ther the person to whom it was entrusted lost it in the 
 passage over the Cordilleras, or whether it was taken and 
 sent clandestinely to Europe, it is certain that it never 
 reached the place of its destination. Was this manuscript 
 the copy of some primeval volume of the Apocalypse 1 
 Were the paintings of men and animals on every page 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 311 
 
 outlines of the wonderful and mysterious symbols con- 
 tained in that work 1 We know that Mani had a volume 
 of this kind richly decorated with illuminations. In the 
 early ages it was commonly believed that the sights re- 
 vealed in the Apocalypse were in the nature of a majestic 
 panonima exhibited in tlie heavens. The breaking of the 
 seals, and the disclosures of what the Book contained, 
 says Stuart (Aj^ocalypsej 181), now follow in order. Is 
 this by pictures or symbols drawn upon the pages of the 
 book, or hy pictures in party and partly hy language ? 
 The latter seems the most probable. Were not the palm 
 leaves a mystical allusion to the Phoinix, the Phoenix and 
 the Naronic cycle 1 In /oliis j^alniarum SihyUam scr there 
 Varro testatur ; as we read in Servius. ^neis, ii. 444. 
 Why was a stranger hindered at first from approaching 
 it ? Why did not the worthy Padre give some account 
 of it in his £1 Mercurio Peruana ? Can any one believe 
 that it was lost in the way stated ? — or that it found its 
 way to Euroi>e, where it was never seen ? If it were an 
 Apocalypse, the priests in the convent would necessarily 
 destroy it — for the true Apocalypse destroys the founda- 
 tion of the Church of Rome, and takes away from Chris- 
 tianity itself, as now preached, one of its main features — 
 its narrow-minded, bigotted, Jewish system of exclusive- 
 ness. It is melancholy to reflect what powers of evil 
 these missionaries have had, and to survey in fancy what 
 innumerable priceless manuscripts of old religion and 
 mythology they have destroyed in their eagerness to sup- 
 poi-t their odious creeds. 
 
 84. The tradition of a lost Book seems, indeed, to pre- 
 vail universally. In Carne's Letters from tlie East (p. 188), 
 we read as follows. The superior is a man of very digni- 
 
312 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 lied appearance and polite manners, and seems to know 
 the world well : he was very inquisitive about the affairs 
 of Greece in which he took a deep interest. After break- 
 fast he invited us to his apartment, where he produced 
 some fruit, and a bottle of excellent white wine. He 
 said that in their library about a century ago, was a curi- 
 ous manuscript that had remained there /or ages, till the 
 Grand Signeur sent from Constantinople to have it deli- 
 vered up to him. Here the narration ends : but it must, 
 indeed, have been a rare volume to have attracted the 
 notice of the Sultan. In another part of the same work (p. 
 212), we read : — Another cause of their hatred was the 
 Book of Might, which they, (the Arab sheiks), protested 
 and believed the priests kept in the convent, and buried 
 it for the greater part of the year in the earth. They 
 said this Book had power whenever it was opened and 
 exposed to the air, to bring rain upon the earth, (see Apo- 
 calypse, sect. 28), so that their hearts were made glad, and 
 their deserts refreshed. But the priests out of the malice 
 they bore to the Arabs, kept it in general buried deep ; 
 in consequence they were seldom blessed with any rain. 
 
 85. To assert that all these traditions of a primeval 
 volume are not to be relied on would be arrogant indeed. 
 He who would do so would have but slight regard for 
 human testimony. "What are the pillars of Atlas and 
 Sesostris ? of Seth and Thotli ? and those of the Welsh 
 Druid Wyddon Ganhebon, " which had written upon them 
 all the knowledge of the world 1" — what are the Seven Bra- 
 zen columns of Cham and Cheiron, but so many references 
 to such a Book ? Cham, says Posfcel, stole out of the Ark 
 the Books which had belonged to Adam, and gave them 
 to Cush his first born. In the account given by Euhe- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 313 
 
 meriis of tlie Island Panchaia, he mentions the Temple 
 of Jupiter of the Three Tribes, and in that Temple there 
 was a Golden Column on which Zeus himself, while he 
 was alive on earth (that is, while the Messenger repre- 
 sented him), had made inscriptions in Sacred Letters. 
 And, to whatsoever clime we turn, we find similar tra- 
 ditions. There is not a single fact in ancient history 
 better authenticated. With what face, then, can it be 
 rejected? If East and West, and North and South, 
 all retain the recollections of a Sacred Volume, which 
 was mysteriously hidden, which contained the most secret 
 truths of their theology, and which from all alike has 
 disappeared, to what other work can these characteristic 
 marks apply but to this Apocalypse ? 
 
 86. It is not necessary to introduce here any further 
 liistorical evidence that this Apocalypse is the very work 
 which was given to the First Messenger, whom we may 
 call Adam. Those who read to the end will be convinced 
 for themselves ; those who are not now convinced would 
 reject all evidence. I may be told that it does not neces- 
 sarily follow that, because a Secret Book belonged to all 
 creeds, it was therefore the Apocalypse. I admit that it is 
 not a logical consequence; but, having 2^oved that there 
 was a Secret Book analogous in numerous features to 
 the Apocalypse, and that the latter contained a secret of 
 the most vital importance, namely the Naros, it is incum- 
 bent upon all opponents to prove why the Scriptures, to 
 which I have alluded, were concealed and hidden, and are 
 still concealed and hidden ; and, until this is done, my 
 reas(ming on the matter stands without reproach. 
 
 87. It may still be urged, can it be possible that this 
 Book exists no where in a complete shape 1 I have already 
 
 P 
 
^14 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 given my reasons why I think it may be found yet in 
 more places than one. But no one can be surprised that 
 it should have utterly disappeared. Wars and conquests 
 have destroyed this and innumerable other holy reliqaes 
 of the Past. But its final disappearance from Europe — 
 for I am confident that it exists in the East, and if at all 
 in our own division of the globe, I believe it to be con- 
 cealed in a certain place in the Vatican — may be accounted 
 for by the crusade which Caesar Augustus made against 
 ail books of a divine nature. Having usurped or glided 
 into the mastery of the Eoman world, that crafty villain 
 sought by all means to inculcate the notion that he was a 
 person of divine birth, and by right from heaven was the 
 appointed king of all mankind, who was to be worshipped 
 as a god in the numerous temples raised by his flatterers. 
 He was perpetually promulgating, either by himself or by 
 his parasites, new details of omens and prodigies which 
 clearly manifested his sacred quality. His mother attend- 
 ing at midnight upon a religious solemnity in honour of 
 Apollo, when the rest of the matrons retired to their 
 homes, stayed and fell asleep in the temple. Awaking 
 suddenly she found herself in the embraces of a Serpent, 
 whose symbol appeared upon her person for the remainder 
 of her life : and in ten months after Augustus was born, 
 who was thus demonstrated to be the Son of Apollo. 
 Before her delivery she dreamed that her bowels were 
 expanded to the stars throughout the whole compass of 
 earth and heaven ; his father Octavius too dreamed that 
 a sunbeam had issued from his lady's womb. On the day 
 of his birth, Nigidins declared that the world had got a 
 master. The Oracle of Bacchus had promulgated the 
 same assurance, because upon pouring wine over the altar, 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 315 
 
 BO prodigious a flame burst out, that it overtopped the 
 temple, and reached up to heaven; which had never 
 happened to any one but Alexander the Great when he 
 sacrificed at the same altar. And the night after was 
 seen a vision of more than mortal appearance, with 
 thunder and sceptre, and the other habiliments of Jupiter, 
 with a crown on, set off with rays, mounted upon a 
 chariot decked with laurel, and di'awn by twelve milk- 
 white horses. While he was an infant, as Drusus relates, 
 being laid in his cradle by his nurse, and in a low place, 
 the next day he was not to be found ; and after he had 
 been sought for a long time, he was at last discovered 
 upon a veiy high tower, lying with his face to the east. 
 Quintus Catulus for two nights successively after his 
 dedication of the capitol, dreamed the first night, that 
 Jupiter out of several boys that were playing about his 
 altar, selected one of them, into whose bosom he put tke 
 public seal of tlie commonwealth which he had in his 
 hand : and the night after he saw the same boy in the 
 bosom of Jupiter Capitolinus, whom when he ordered him 
 to descend, the God still retained, saying that he was 
 educated for the salvation of all. And the next day 
 meeting Augustus, whom he had never before seen, he 
 cbsei-ved with astonishment that it was the same boy, who 
 had appeared to him in the vision. Mai-cus Cicero as he 
 was attending Julius Caesar to the capitol, happened to 
 mention to some of his friends a dream which he had the 
 night before ; wherein he saw a comely youth let down 
 from hejiven by a golden chain, and to whom a whip was 
 delivered by Jupiter : and immediately upon sight of 
 Augustus who had been sent for by his uncle Caesar to 
 the sacrifice, and who was as yet perfectly unknown to 
 
 P 2 
 
316 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 most of tlie company, he declared that he was the very 
 boy whom he had seen in his dream. In his retirement 
 at Apollonia he went along with his friend Agrippa, to 
 wait upon Theogenes the astrologer. Great and wonder- 
 ful things were predicted for him to Agrippa, who was 
 the questioner; for Octavius himself was silent; but 
 when at length he declared his nativity, Theogenes rose 
 from his seat and adored him. And not long after he 
 became so confident of the goodness of his fortune that 
 he published his nativity ; and struck a silver coin with 
 the impression of the sign Capricorn upon it, under 
 the influence of which he was born. After the death of 
 Csesar upon his return from Apollonia, as he was entering 
 the city, on a sudden in a clear and bright sky, a circle 
 like a rainbow surrounded the body of the sun ; and as 
 he was sitting for the observation of omens in his first 
 consulship, twelve vultures presented themselves as they 
 had formerly done to Romulus. Finally, Julius Marathus 
 tells us, that a few months before his birth, a prodigy 
 happened at Rome, by which was signified that Nature 
 was in travail with a King for the Roman people ; and 
 that the senate being alarmed at it, came to a resolution 
 that no child born that year should be brought up ; but 
 those amongst them whose ladies were with child, in order 
 to secure to themselves a prospect of that dignity, took 
 care that the resolution of the senate should not be en- 
 tered in the registry. All these, and a great many more 
 portents are related by Suetonius, and they shew the ex- 
 traordinary pains which this odious knave took to estab- 
 lish the belief in his celestial mission. But when he was 
 made Chief Pontiff, and so got possession ^of the Sacred 
 Apocalypse, which as I have shewn already passed under 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 317 
 
 the name of the Sibyl ; and when also he was initiated 
 into the Mysteries, and learned the secret of the Naronic 
 cycle, which was revealed there, he for the first time ex- 
 perienced that the heaven-sent Volume demonstrated the 
 utter falsehood of his pretensions ; for the eighth cycle 
 had not yet run its course ; — the six hundred years had 
 not expired. Stung with rage, he called in the Prophetic 
 and Sacred Books of all the peoples whom he could com- 
 mand ; and committed to the flames no less than two 
 thousand — thus vainly hoping to destroy all traces of 
 works that conclusively refuted his false pretensions to 
 the character of a Messiah. At the same time he so 
 mutilated those volumes which he affected to consider as 
 alone genuine, that a perfect copy of the Apocalypse be- 
 came an impossibility : and the writings of Enoch, Fohi, 
 and Zaratusht were treated similarly. Fragments of 
 the Apocalypse, however, existed here and there, which 
 the Jews worked up into the writings of their pretended 
 prophets, and which the Paidite forgers stuck together 
 in the random manner in which they have hitherto ex- 
 isted. The fat idici librl of almost all nations being thus 
 remorselessly destroyed, the Emperor deposited certain 
 forged ones of his own in two gilt cases, (forulis aurcUis), 
 under the base of the statue of Apollo in the Temple of 
 that god on the Palatine hill, as we have seen that the 
 Jews did also in the Temple at Jerusalem. But in the 
 reign of Theodosius, the senate being mostly Paulites, 
 they were no longer valued, and they were finally burnt 
 by Stilicho under Honorius. I may add here that it was 
 in pursuance of this scheme of Augustus that the -^neis 
 was composed, and that its writer received from Augustus 
 the enormous sum of X80,000. Nimrod il, 7., thus 
 
318 THE BOOK OF GOD, 
 
 alludes to its political objects. These were to gild over 
 tlie usurpation of a bloody assassin with splendid fictions, 
 endeavouring to give it the colour of a divine right, and 
 the fulfilment of ancient prophecy. In the course of his 
 adulation, he did not scruple to insult the memory of the 
 murdered Tully. And as the usurper's minister was not 
 only a patron or debaucher of minds, but a debaucher of 
 the bodies of his fellow citizens, the pipe of Corydon was 
 tuned accordingly. I gladly transcribe this passage from 
 a most accomplished scholar, as it so thoroughly exposes 
 those three infamous conspirators. 
 
 88. With reference to those who complain of the obscu^ 
 rity of the Apocalypse, it may be fairly put to them, 
 whether they have indeed laboured to undei-stand its 
 language. A student of astronomy may as well complain, 
 of Newton's Principia, or a Greek learner of the verbal 
 difficulties of Lycophron, as a student of theology of the 
 Mysteries of Revelation. He who would understand a 
 work of this description should bring thought, time, and. 
 hard exertion to its survey : he should not expect that the 
 sacred oracles of heaven should be as plainly manifested 
 as grammar rules to a beginner. The language of celestial 
 spirits, the visions seen by, or revealed before them, the 
 inspiration which such language, and such astounding 
 spectacles afford to the human intellect of him who is com- 
 missioned to describe them, cannot be supposed to belong 
 to that lower state of intelligence ia which ordinary mor- 
 tals live. Nor would he treat a heavenly work of this 
 sublime nature with fitting respect if he imagined that 
 every one of its holy symbols should be immediately per- 
 spicuous to the naked eye. But if he will devote only an 
 ordinary amount of research into the hidden mysteries 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. Z19 
 
 which the Apocalypse unveils, he will' in the end see 
 clearly the design of God, in all that has been fore- 
 shadowed ; and recognize in the universality of the Book, 
 the true interpretation which is divinely revealed in the 
 following pages. The design and method of prophecies, 
 says Daubuz, is very well expressed in that saying of 
 Heraclitus, the Epliesian philosopher, cited out of his 
 obscure book by Plutarch, and alluded to in Janiblichus, 
 wherein, speaking concerning the Delphian oracle, he has 
 made this description of it : It neither spealcs nor hides, 
 hut signifies. That is, the Deity, in the oracle neither 
 speaks plainly of the event, nor yet absolutely hides it 
 from our knowledge, but sets it out in signs or symbols, 
 which bearing analogy to the event, gives us some im- 
 plicit knowledge of it beforehand : and it would be diffi- 
 cult indeed to discover a Volume which more singularly 
 fulfils the condition of which Heraclitus spake, than the 
 divine Apocalypse that follows. 
 
 89. How ardently then ought every heart to welcome 
 the grand and glorious object with which this Volume is 
 sent forth into the world : how eagerly ought to be I'e- 
 ceived those religious truths of most remote antiquity and 
 of the most celestial pureness ; embodying the very reli- 
 gion and the God which our forefathers worshipped in 
 the gigantic temples of Stonehenge and Abury ; carrying 
 them in fraternal thought to the East and to the West, in 
 a word, over the whole earth, and uniting them with 
 those whose ancestoi*s once held the same tenets, and from 
 whom indeed we ourselves are lineally descended ; asso- 
 ciating all the sons and daughters of men again in that 
 Creed wliich once was universal, and which is alone fitted 
 to be so, from its sublime, universal, all-comprehending 
 
320 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 nature ; — so that when they are all thus knit in one faith, 
 all assembled before the same altar, all offering up the 
 Barae prayer, all animated by the same religion, they may 
 indeed feel and recognize their common brotherhood ; and 
 be led from thoughts of conquest or extermination, to the 
 more genial and rational feeling of love, afl&nity, and 
 benevolence. If this be a dream, it is at least one in 
 which it is delightful to indulge ; but I believe in God, 
 and therefore I do not believe it to be a dream, but that 
 it is a destined reality. 
 
 90. And here I should have referred at length, if I 
 had space, to the figurative language in which the Apo- 
 calypse is written — a language so iitterly different from 
 that of the age in which it is vulgarly said to have been 
 composed, and so entirely Oriental in thought and spirit 
 that no true philologist can for a moment imagine that it 
 was a composition emanating from the West. The bibli- 
 cals are so well aware of this that they endeavour to con- 
 fuse the minds of their readers, by some jargon about 
 Hebraistic Greek, in which, relying on the ignorance that 
 is universal, they pretend that the Apocalypse is written ; 
 but they would do better if they were at once to confess, 
 what the most learned among them more than suspect, 
 that the common version is a most barbarous and vile 
 translation into vile and barbarous Greek of a work 
 originally penned in the dialect of the farthest East, with 
 which Hebraism has scarcely one single feature in com- 
 mon. I must defer, however, my observations on this 
 head to a more favourable opportunity. 
 
NOTES TO BOOK IV. 
 
 Note 1 (page 216). — Several apocrjrplial writings, says Calmet, 
 are attributable to John, as a Book of his supposed Travels, an- 
 other of his Acts used by the Encratites, Manichseans, and Pris- 
 cillianists ; a book concerning the death and assumption of the 
 Virgin ; a Creed supposed to have been f/iven hij the blessed Virgin 
 and John to Gregory of Neocaesarea ; Calmet might have added 
 that the evidence for these is nearly as good as that for the Apo- 
 calypse. What is the meaning of : A nd their dead bodies shall lie 
 in the street of the Great City, tohich spiritually is called Sodom and 
 E(jypty where also our Lord was crucified. Rev. xi. 8. Jerusalem 
 may have been called Sodom from its crimes, but it was never 
 called mystically or otherwise Egypt. Was Jesus crucified in 
 Egypt ? or is it not an evident interpolation ? 
 
 Note 2 (page 216). — Vogel has proved from the diversity of 
 style in the epistles to the seven churches, from that which per- 
 vades the rest of the Apocaljrpse that the former comes from an 
 entirely different hand. But of what imposture were not the 
 first Christians capable ? The theologians who piously invented 
 Adam's riddle, as they called it, for the sake of their Redeemer, 
 whom it pre-figured, would not hesitate to invent anything. 
 '0 TTaT-qp fxov kyyivt^a-iv €/x€, Kayw kyyivqcra rrjv fxrjTepa tiov 
 TratStcuv /xov, Kal to, 7rai6ta fxov iyyimjcrav ti]v fxr^Tepa tov 
 Trarpos fiov. My father (God) beyat me, and 1 begat the mother 
 of my children, and my children begat the mother of my Father, 
 It is, however, literally true, if Mary be the mother of God 1 1 
 
 Note 3 (page 219). — In chapter i. 13, John beholds in the Vision 
 one like unto the Son of Man. Now, if this had been written by the 
 beloved disciple who knew Jesus well, he would have at once boldly 
 said, the Son of Man, not one like unto him, for he would have 
 had no difficulty in recognizing in heaven, him whom he had fol- 
 lowed and loved on earth. Observe also that there is no recogni- 
 tion by Jesus of the particular apostle to whom, in the agony of 
 death, he had entrusted his mother {John xix. 26). Nor would 
 
 P 3 
 
322 NOTES TO BOOK IV. 
 
 Jolin, or any Jew, whether genuine or a convert, have fallen at the 
 feet of an angel in worship, xxii. 8. Who can wonder that Michaelia 
 felt liimself compelled finally to pronounce this Book the most 
 difficult and most doubtful in the whole Neio Testament ? After all 
 these considerations, says an honest poor fellow, writing in Kitto'a 
 Cyclopaedia, and the many coincidences between sentiments ad- 
 vanced in our book, and the New Testament, we cannot suppose 
 that it was written in the first century by a Jewish-Christian. It 
 seems to us to have been composed a little he/ore Chrisfs appear- 
 ance by a Jew, who had studied well the Book of Daniel ! ! 
 
 Note 4 (page 233). — The words, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
 neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, what 
 God hath prepared for those who love him (I Cor. i. 9), are said 
 by Origen and Jerom to be taken from the lost Revelation of 
 Elias. 
 
 Note 5 (page 234). — Reference has been made by the priests ta 
 a tradition and a painting of the supposed author of the Apoca- 
 lypse, which do not, either of them, bear any sign of Christianity, ■ 
 but indeed the reverse. Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, afl&rms 
 that he, loan, wore a plate of gold on his forehead, as tlie orien- 
 tal priests at present do ; and in the picture he is drawn holding 
 a cup with a serpent issuing out of it, from which the priests have 
 invented an idle legend that he was condemned to drink poison. 
 But the male figure, which has been mistaken for John, is God 
 holding in his right the Cup or holy Spirit, out of which Life 
 (typified by the serpent) is emaned. This Cup is the Salvation 
 Cup of the Christians, which contains the true wine, of which we 
 read that it cheereth God and Man. Judges ix. 13. Wine when 
 drank in the religious festivals of the Gentiles had always a 
 mystic signification : one portion was ofiiered to Zeus Soter, one 
 to Hygeia, or the Holy Spirit, one to Agathodaimon, or the Mes- 
 senger—the Sacred three of all so-called paganism, but which 
 was really the True Eeligion. Sir W. Jones says, the orb of the 
 Sun personified, is adored as the God Surya, whence the sect who 
 pay him particular adoration are called Sauras. But another 
 oriental critic has told us that Sura means both ivine and true 
 wealth : hence, in the Ramayaua, it is said that the Devatas, 
 having received the Sura, acquired the title of Suras, and 
 the Daityas that of Asuras, from not having received it. 
 As. Res. viii. 50. There is a curious mythos in Nonnus 
 which mirrors this allusion. Some time after Bacchus had dis- 
 covered the use of the grape, he went and concealed himself in the 
 Cave of Cybele, or stables of Ehcea, and while he w^as still there, 
 
NOTES TO BOOK IV. 323 
 
 SiCus sent the Rainbow on a message to him, bidding him come 
 forth, and teach the use of wine to all the world. Iris came, but 
 out of deference to Rhoea spake not. Rhcea then ordered the 
 Corybantes to give her drink from the Goblet of the Holy TahUy 
 of which she drank with surprise and delight, and delivered to 
 Bacchus the commands of God with a prophecy of his future 
 apotheosis. Homer mystically alludes to these similitudes when 
 he says the Ocean has the voice of wine, calling it oivoira ttovtov, 
 and we know that the Ocean means the Holy Spirit. He says 
 also that wine has the voice of fire w light, atOorra Foivov. The 
 Brahmins declare that their sacred work called the Veda is wine. 
 In that dialect of the Graic or Pelasgic tongue, which retains so 
 many antique phrases, we find that sacred poetry or vaticination 
 is termed l\.afjL-oivrj (the work of wine, or Cam) and ficOv and 
 fiidvio are pure and analogical Greek words of the highest 
 antiquity, of which the etymon is after the rains, or After the 
 Water. Nimrod says that the Phrygian Gany-Medes [The Re- 
 joicer in Wisdom], Cata-Mitus [Hanging by a thread of Destiny], 
 Idris [the Wise], and Aquarius, or in a much older word En Och 
 [the Source of the Waters] all mean the same person, that is 
 Enoch the Patriach, iii. 22. But Ganymedes was the server of 
 wine in Heaven — that is he was a Messiah. 
 
 Note 6 (page 239). — The Jews in Arabia are so convinced that the 
 fowls, of which the Israelites ate so largely in the desert, were only 
 clouds of locusts ; that they laugh at our translators who have 
 supposed that they found quails where quails never were. Nie- 
 huhr. But were locusts miraculously produced in the wilderness 
 for forty years ? This would put to the blush all the other 
 miracles. 
 
 Note 7 (page 241). — Thus the Holy Spirit is sometimes repre- 
 sented as a spreading Tree, and she is the ash Ydrasil of the 
 Gothic creed, with a squirrel (or Messiah), perpetually descending 
 and ascending the trunk. Beneath her sacred branches, in the lofty 
 plain called Ida, the celestial gods assemble to administer justice. 
 This is the greatest and the best of all Trees : its branches ex- 
 tend themselves over the whole world, and reach above the 
 heavens. It has three roots widely remote from each other. The 
 first is among the gods (the supreme heaven) ; the second among 
 the giants in the place where the abyss formerly was (among blessed 
 spirits) ; the third covers Nifleim or hell (the region of all exist- 
 ences that are not among the heavenly blessed). Under this root 
 is the fountain Vergelmer (carnal desire), whence flow the infer- 
 
824 NOTES TO BOOK IV. 
 
 nal rivers : it is gnawed upon below by the mighty serpent? 
 Nidlioger, (Conscience, which is perpetually wari'ing with concu- 
 piscence). Under that which extends towards the land of the 
 giants, is a Fountain in which are concealed wisdom and know- 
 ledge : he who possesses it is full of wisdom because he drinks 
 thereof every morning. Edda Fab. vii., viii. From this Sacred 
 Ash, the Melifu, the first human beings were sprung. Paloephatus, 
 De Incredlh. c. 36. The word itself, which is a primitive radical, 
 enters into the names of the Buddhist Trivamz, ante page 36, and 
 it is one of the names of the Holy Spirit, ante page 58. The old 
 Greek proverb, 'Ap)(rj rjfxtcrv IlavTO?, Arch^ is half of the All, 
 mystically alludes to God and the Spirit. The Arabian high 
 priests and doctors know that the Holy Spirit is an essential part 
 of their religion, and that she is symbolized by the Crescent, to 
 which every Islamite pays reverence ; but among the vulgar this 
 sacred mystery is wholly unknown. It were to be wished that it 
 were not so ; for Woman can never take her right rank in the 
 world, until she is acknowledged to be in her nature representative 
 of the Queen of Heaven. 
 
 Note 8 (page 250n— Chamos, Thammuz, and Adonis, signify the 
 same being, who was concealed and buried and then rose from the 
 dead. Ausonius says he was the same as Ba-Chus. In the mystic 
 theology it was a name of the Sun, and also of the Messenger, the 
 Child of the Sun. But Adam was such a Messenger, therefore 
 the Booh of Thammuz would be the Booh of Adam. Thammuz 
 was subsequently worshipped as Adon, my Lord. But between 
 Adn and Adm in the Shemitic, there is really no distinction. The 
 book therefore would be the book of Ada Ad-On, Father On — and 
 this furnishes an additional reason, why it may have been either 
 this Apocalypse, or some version of it. El-AmQ7*y, Hidden time; 
 from which word comes Lama, or Messiah, Yam Q\ The Sea, 
 form parts of Ammon p^TT or Concealed, which is Tammuz, 
 and perhaps K'mosh l^^f2^, the Sun, Adonis. Another portiou 
 of the word is Q1. Dam, blood : with a formative ^, it is 
 applied to Adam and human nature, and curiously in Num. xxxi. 
 35. And the human persons of the icomen that had not hnown man 
 hy lying with him. This Thammuz has been pounced on by the 
 priests, and converted into St. Thomas the Apostle, who con- 
 verted all India to Christianity, and evangelized the mighty 
 empire of Prester John ! So we hear that one of our Anglican 
 clergymen is about to kidnap Zoroaster from his Ariyan home. 
 One might read recently among the literary announcements of the 
 
NOTES TO BOOK IV. 325 
 
 penny critics tlie following paragrapli. Mr. Ernest de Bumen is 
 about to offer Jiis contribution toicards a rej)hj to the great question — 
 who icasAdam ? We hear that his theory,— suggested, perhaps, by a 
 phrase of the late Baron Bunsen — is that Zoroaster was the Hebrew 
 Adam. This suggestion is a curious one ; and Mr. de Bunsen may 
 be eirpeded to present it ably and learnedly. Critics will be eager to 
 know the facts from ichich he draivs this inference. Mr. de Bunsen is 
 recommended to peruse the proofs herein offered, before he commits 
 himself to so extraordinary a theory. Any identity between the 
 Zand a- Vesta mythology and the Hebrew Genesis, is owing simply 
 to the fact that both are founded on an older Volume of Truth ; 
 and not to the fancy of which this gentleman is made — I hope 
 only in imagination — the literary foster-father. 
 
 Note 9 (page 269). — This the Greek calleth an ecstacy or trance, 
 which the Scrij)tures shew to have fallen on men, when they did 
 see Visions of God. Ai'sswob.th^^ Annotations. 
 
 Kote 10 (page 270). — Profound meditation on abstract and 
 metaphj'sical subjects, is figuratively termed by the Rabbins, 
 Promcnaxling in the Garden. But the Garden, was also a mystical 
 name for the Shekinah : he therefore who was in the Shekinah, 
 or Holy Spirit, was in the Garden. 
 
 Note 11 (page 275). — The name or history of the Sun, the 
 Branch of Fire. This clearly means the Apocalypse, in which the 
 Sun (God) and the Shekinah, and the Messenger, each of whom 
 may be called the Branch of Fire, are revealed. This between 
 the brackets is an interpolation no doubt. The plagues were the 
 Seven Vials. 
 
 Kote 12 (page 277). — Amalthoea, who sold the Sibylline Books 
 to Tarquin, bears the same name as the Nurse of Jupiter (in his 
 Messianic character), and is Aum-Al-Thea ; she is also Alma- 
 Thea, or the Holy Spirit. Hyginus calls her Adam-Authoea. It 
 is strange that such analogies should exist. 
 
 Note 13 (page 292).— Yet though Swedenborg thus denounces 
 this soul-destroying blasphemy and denominates its teachers false 
 prophets, and children of the Beast, and though he shews their 
 horrible transformation, yet I very much fear that most of his 
 followers have gradually subsided into this dreadful tenet of Paul ; 
 the cause of most of tire crimes of Christian Europe. 
 
 Note 14 (page 292). — The name Cannes as a symbol of an In- 
 carnation or Messenger, is preserved in the Armoric Oan and 
 Oanic, and in the Irish Uan, or a Lamb. There is a curious tra- 
 dition of this name, preserved in Ethiopia ; it is that of a Bird, 
 or Phoenix named Abou Hanes, which means Father John. Bruce 
 
326 NOTES TO BOOK IV. 
 
 says it is the same as the sacred mystic Ibis of Egypt. It appears 
 he says, on Saint JoJtn's day the precise time when first the fresh 
 water of the tropical rains is known in Egypt to have mixed with 
 the Nile, and to have made it lighter, sweeter, and more exhalea- 
 ble in dew. Travels, vii. 286 : that is, it appears when the 
 fblessed fruitful waters of the Mle begin to swell. Does not this 
 symbolically allude to the patriarch Cannes ? A most singular 
 preservation of this primeval word is to be found in Tongataboo. 
 The hair of their women remains uncut till marriage, as a token 
 ^nd ornament of maidenhood : it is then shorn, and by a pecu- 
 liarity of langtiage which implies the mystical union between 
 husband and wife, each is thenceforth designated by the common 
 word Oanna. Quart. Rev., vol 3. The man -fish Cannes, is the 
 /Jreat Fish, Leviathan, on which according to the Eabbins, the 
 faithful are to sup at the Day of Judgment ; and he is the Fish 
 .Jesus, of which the Eev. Mr. Herbert, in Nimrocl, iv. 26, gives 
 this reading, 'I^o-ovs Xpto-ros Oeos 'YTraros, 'ZcoTrjp. Jesus 
 the Anointed, the Highest God our Saviour; which accords with 
 the blasphemy of Bishop Pearson cited, ante page 99. — See Note 
 XQ, infra. 
 
 Note 15 (page 293). — In the birth of Beroe as given by Nonnus, 
 we have a clear symbolical accoimt of the emanation of the First 
 Messenger. The sea-nymph Beroe is the root of life, the house 
 ^or Shekinah) of Venus (Beauty), God, and the Loves ; the hall of 
 Mars, the habitation of Bacchus, the firm abode of Hermes : all 
 tliis means that from her issues the heaven-sent Messiah. Her 
 birth is said to have taken place when the whole earth was washed 
 by the Ccean ; when the Star of Crchomenus rode high in the 
 heavens ; and she herself is exhibited to us as the First apparent 
 Female, equalling the Universe in antiquity. When she is born, 
 Eon, that is Adam appears. He is a prophet, who has been 
 washed in the swelling floods of truth and justice. In consequence 
 of this purification, he is restored from old age to the vigour of 
 youth, in the same manner as a serpent at stated intervals casts its 
 skin, and becomes young again. Approaching Berob, he looses 
 the Veil of Justice with which she had been swathed, and removes 
 the mysterious covering that shrouded her— that is receives the 
 Apocalypse, which unveils the history of mortals. This Veil is 
 evidently the same as the Veil of Isis and the Peplos of Juno : 
 names for the Holy Spirit. Colonel Tod relates that on visiting 
 the sacred shrine of Eklinga in 1818, his meditations were broken 
 by an old Rajpooht chieftain, who saluting him, invited him to 
 
NOTES TO BOOK FV. 327 
 
 enter, and adore Baha Adam, "Father Adam," as he termed the 
 lingaic or phallic emblem ; Annals of Rajasthan, i. 516. Giafar 
 Sadak, one of the Twelve Imaiims, being asked if there had not 
 been another Adam before the common one, made answer that 
 there had been three before him, and that there were seventeen 
 to follow, and being further questioned whether God would create 
 other men after the end of this globe, he replied ; Think ye that 
 the Kingdom of God should remain void, and his power inactive ? 
 God is everlastingly creative. The tradition of Prie-adamites 
 may be considered as almost general throughout the East. 
 
 Note 16 (page 295). — But what had Jesus Christ to do with a 
 iish ? Why was the Saviour IH2, which is the monogram of the 
 Saviour Bacchus, called IX6Y2, the fish ? Here are the Saviour, 
 the Cycle, and thbFish, all identified. The answer is, because they 
 •were all emblems of the Sim, or of that higher power spoken of 
 by Martianus Capella, of which the Sun is himself the emblem ; 
 or as Mr. Parkhurst would say, they were types of the Saviour. 
 From this it was that the Christians called themselves in their 
 sacred mysteries, pisciculi, little fishes. Ix^vs is, acrostically, 
 Irjarovs Jesus, XprjcrTOS the Anointed, Qeov of God, Ytos a Son, 
 1,(oTrjp the Saviour. Jesus is called a fish by Augustin, who says 
 he found the piscity of Jesus in the word fish, "for he is a /^A 
 that lives in the midst of waters. " This was Augustin's mode of 
 concealing the mystery. The doctrine was probably alluded to 
 in some way or other in the miracle of the five loaves and two 
 fishes, (the mystic number ^eren), because Paidinus, "saw Jesus 
 Christ in the miracle of the five loaves and and two fishes, tvho is 
 the fish of the living water.'' Prosper finds in it the sufiferings of 
 Jesus Christ, for he is the fish dressed at his death. Tertidlian 
 finds the Christian church in it, " So many fishes bred in the 
 water, and saved hy one great fish.^^ Jerom commending a man 
 that desired baptism, tells him, that like the son of a Fish, ho 
 desires to be cast into the water. Here we come to the true secret 
 origin of baptism. Among the primitive Christians, says Calmet, 
 the figure of a, fish was adopted as a sign of Christianity, and it is 
 sculptured among the inscriptions on their tombstones, as a ^^n- 
 vate indication that the persons there interred were Christians. 
 We find also engraved on gems and other stones an anchor 
 (see ante, note, page 112), and on each side of it a fish, with 
 the letters which compose the name of Jesus, inscribed around 
 them. In these fishes we have Oannes, Vishnu, and the Syrian 
 Dagon, all emblems of the Messiah. In the entrance of most 
 
328 NOTES TO BOOK IV, 
 
 Roman clinrches is a vase full of water. This is called Piscina. It 
 is true that the word may merely mean a vessel for w^ater ; but 
 few persons will doubt that it has a more mystical meaning, 
 Higgins' Anacalypsis, i. 636. The way in which the title loamies 
 got foisted on to the Apocalypse is curious. The prophet who 
 was fabled to have been sent to the Ninivites is styled Yonas or 
 Cannes, a title bestowed on him as the Messenger of Yona, the 
 Holy Spirit. Among the Hebrews, says Hesychius, the word 
 lonas signifies a revealer of the word or the voice of the Most 
 High ; it also means a pigeon or dove. The translator into Greek 
 of the Apocalypse, finding Cannes or lonas on its title-page, 
 changed it into the Greek synonime, which means John and 
 a Dove. All our priests systematically ignore the all-important 
 fact preserved by Suidas, that its original name was GeoXoyia, or 
 Divinity. 
 
 Note 17 (page 309). — Was this statement a pious fraud of Bro- 
 ther Diego ? Every thing on such a subject is suspicious when 
 coming from such a source. Or was the Book the Apocalypse, 
 and therefore like in some respects to the creed which the brother 
 preached ? This last is the most likely supposition. 
 
 Note 18 (page 309).— Humboldt, Researches, i. 187, speaks of the 
 enormous quantity of paintings, which considered as monuments 
 of Mexican idolatry, were burnt at the beginning of the conquest 
 by order of the bishops and missionaries. 
 
Cfte 3Boolt of (Srji* 
 
 BOOK Y. 
 
 1. An objection will be made against this edition of the 
 Apocalypse, as I have before suggested, which, with many 
 shallow persons, no doubt will be conclusive — namely, 
 that portions of it seem to be transcripts from what is 
 called the Old Testament. In answer to this it may be 
 well to enquire what the Old Testament really is ? I 
 have already shewn in what manner Esdi*as relates that lie 
 compiled a version of the Old Testament [ante^ 78] ; 
 whether it is that which now remains, and whether Judas 
 Maccabajus, or some other Hebrew unknown to histoiy 
 was not its real compiler, are both matters on which some 
 of the most distinguished scholare and divines are still at 
 issue. Whiston, a most learned theologian, and a man of 
 consummate honesty (too honest indeed to get promotion 
 in the Church), has, I think, proved that the present 
 Greek version of the Hebrew books is more ancient than 
 
S30 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 the present so-called Hebrew version, though he holds 
 that there was another, a different and an earlier one, 
 which was the true Septuagint. He furnishes a cogent 
 :argument in this, that the Greek is the version which is 
 jalways cited in every part of the New Testament, and 
 that the present Hebrew, which in many material re- 
 spects, and in the parts that are quoted, is different from 
 it, is not so cited. And he infers that the latter has been 
 framed since the New Testament was published ; as it is 
 impossible to believe that converted Jews, as most of the 
 nearly Christians and Paulites, and as the apostles and 
 disciples were, would have cited a Greek version in pre- 
 ference to the Hebrew original, if the original existed. I 
 do not see that any satisfactory answer has ever been given 
 to this. To a candid mind it seems unanswerable. If Jesus, 
 ^nd those who are called apostles, always cited the Greek 
 jand not the Hebrew (as it seems perfectly certain they 
 did), it furnishes conclusive proof that they had the one 
 iind not the other ; and, before any tribunal, it would be 
 held to establish the one cited above any other in the 
 world. 
 
 2. Whiston has scarcely adverted to a fact, which veiy 
 greatly strengthens his position — namely, that the Jew 
 J'osephus and the Paulite Eusebius, than whom greater 
 bigots to creed, or more rabid unscrupulous writers of what 
 i?tei/ call history, never lived, always seem to quote the 
 Oreek and never the present Hebrew version : a circum- 
 stance wholly inconsistent with its existence in their day. 
 In many instances, says Butler, the Septuagint (for he 
 assumes the present to be the true Septuagint) differa 
 materially from the Hebrew : the diff'ere7ice has not yet 
 been accounted for on satisfactory grounds. The ancient 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 331 
 
 fathera generally referring to it in their controversies with 
 the Jews, it gi'ew out of favour with them, and some of 
 the Talmudists have spoken of it in the strongest terms 
 of reprobation. They declare that the day on which it 
 was made was as fatal to Israel as that of the golden calf; 
 that in consequence of it the earth was for three days 
 covered with darkness, and an annual fast on the 18th 
 of December was established. Ilorm Bihlicce. But as the 
 Jews, says Father Simon, saw that the Christians relied 
 wholly on this translation (the Septuagint), they cried it 
 down ; and, having before admired it as a divine work, 
 they now affected to look upon it as a horrid piece and 
 accui-sed of God. They forbade the Law from being writ 
 for the future in any other than the Hebrew-Jewish cha- 
 racters : and they commanded that the Hebrew text 
 should never be communicated to the Christians ; nay, 
 that they should not even be taught the Hebrew tongue. 
 See ante, page 109. 
 
 3. The discrepancies between the Hebi*ew and the 
 Greek, to which Butler refers, and which, occurring as 
 they do in Books on which the everlasting welfare of 
 those who put faith in them may vitally depend, are 
 necessarily of the most serious consequence, are sum- 
 marily accounted for by one of the canonized Fathers of 
 the papacy. Saint Augiistine, says Simon, when he 
 meets with any thing in the Septuagint, which is other- 
 wise in the Hebrew, accuses not the Jews of having 
 changed the text, although he believed as well as the 
 Fathers that the Septuagint was made by Prophets ; but 
 he has recourse to the Providence of God, who permitted 
 these interpreters to translate the Holy Scriptures as He 
 thought most fit for the Gentiles, who were to embrace 
 
332 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 the Christian religion. This holy doctor defends by this 
 means the Septuagint translation, and at the same time 
 preserves the authority of the Hebrew text, which he 
 sometimes prefers before the Septuagint : as when he 
 examines whether in the Prophet lonas we ought to 
 read three days, as it is in the Hebrew text, or forty 
 days as it is in the Septuagint, he is of opinion that we 
 ought to follow the Hebrew in that place ! This system 
 of falsehood which the early Christians, or rather Paul- 
 ites, always supposed that God sanctioned, was carried 
 out by themselves in their writings; and never did Payne 
 Knight write a truer sentence than that which follows. 
 In whatever else, he says, the early Christian writers 
 excelled, they had no claim to excellence in either 
 moral sincerity or critical sagacity, and none less than 
 Eusebius, who, though his authority has lately been pre- 
 ferred to that of Thucydides and Xenophon, was so 
 differently thought of by ecclesiastical writers of the im- 
 mediately subsequent age, that he is one of those by 
 whose example they justified the practice of holy lying ; 
 or asserting that which they knew to be false, in support 
 of that which they believed to be true. And there is 
 scarcely one of the fathers, or saints of the Papacy, of 
 whom a similar observation may not be made (1). I wish 
 I could believe that it was confined to those individuals ; 
 but truth compels me to acknowledge that there are few 
 ecclesiastical writers of any creed who do not habitually 
 resort to falsehood, and who do not malign with the most 
 mendacious virulence and malignity all who dissent from 
 their dogmas. 
 
 4. The reader will not have failed to notice the remark- 
 able admissions of Paul and Maimonides {ante^ pp. 71 and 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 333 
 
 238), so consonant with all that has been previously said, 
 of the figurative character of the Genesis relations. These, 
 even as they are, have been so mutilated that they cannot 
 be relied on ; and- when we bear in mind through what 
 subtile but corrupted channels, we have what now remains 
 of both the Old and New Testaments, the wonder is how 
 anything of even a doubtful nature has been allowed to 
 cotninue in them. But it seems to be the character of 
 crime, that no matter how cautiously it guards against 
 detection, it generally leaves marks behind it that betray. 
 So, there are several portions of these books which show 
 that they contained matters of which we have now no 
 knowledge — which, indeed, have been wickedly cut out 
 from them by the transcribers ; and why these singular 
 passages in Paul, to which I have before referred, were 
 permitted to remain, would be strange if it were inten- 
 tional ; but I believe it to have been entire oversight. 
 In the tract of Genesis which relates the quarrel between 
 Cain and Abel, there is an an evident omission, which 
 however has been supplied by the Targums. In several 
 ancient Hebrew copies of Genesis, iv., there is chasm in- 
 dicated thus : And Cain said to Abel, his brother j * * * 
 and it caine to pass when they were in the field, Sfc. The 
 omission is supplied by the rabbis thus, in the Jerusalem 
 Targum. And Cain said to Habel, his brother. Come, 
 and let us go into the open country. It came to pass, 
 therefore, when they had both gone forth into the open 
 plain, that Cain made answer and said to Abel, his 
 brother. There is neither Justice, nor a Judge, nor any 
 future, nor shall a good reward be given to the Just, nor 
 shall revenge be taken on the wicked, nor was the world 
 created in mercy, nor is it governed in mercifulness. 
 
834 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 Wherefore was your offering received with a blessing, and 
 my offering not received with a blessing 1 Abel made 
 answer and said to Cain, There is both Justice and a 
 Judge, and a future time, and a gift of price for the good, 
 and a vengeance to be taken on the bad ; and the world 
 was created in mercifulness, and it is governed in 
 mercy also. And as it is governed according to the 
 fruit of good works, for this reason, that as my actions 
 are better than yours, therefore was my offering ac- 
 cepted with a blessing, but yours was not accepted with 
 a blessing. And they both began to fight in the open 
 plain. The Targum of Jonathan Ben Uziel gives another 
 version. And Cain said to Abel, his brother, Come, let 
 us both go into the country ; and it was, when they both 
 went into the country, Cain answered and said to Abel : 
 As I understand the world was not made in mercy, nor 
 is it governed according to the fruit of works, and there 
 is a leaning to persons in the judgments that are given : 
 For what cause was it, that your sacrifice was received, 
 but mine was not received with a blessing? Abel 
 answered and said to Cain, The world was made in mercy, 
 and it is indeed governed according to the fruit of good 
 works : and there is no leaning to persons in the righte- 
 ous judgment : and moreover because the fruit of my 
 works was better than yours, and more precious, therefore, 
 was it that my offering was accepted with a blessing. 
 Cain answered and said to Abel : There is neither judg- 
 ment, nor judge, nor a due reward for the good, nor any 
 punishment for the bad. Abel answered that these all 
 were ; and for the sake of these things they contended on 
 the face of the plain. 
 
 5. That this, or something like it, once existed in 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 335 
 
 Genesis can scarcely admit of any question : and if tlii» 
 be so, we ought not so mucli to blame the Hebraic tracts, 
 for the fables which they now seem to contain, as we 
 ought to execrate the ecclesiastics and doctors who sc 
 mutilated and corrupted the originals, that we are led 
 into doubt as to the authenticity of the whole ; when it 
 may be, that if we had them in their genuine state all un- 
 certainty or scepticism would vanish. And this observa- 
 tion I make for those who may oppose to the doctrine put- 
 forth in this essay, as to the authorship of the Apocalypse^ 
 the supposed testimony of the Genesis tract, that Adam 
 was the firet man, and Eve, his wife, the fii'st woman. I 
 can only answer that no reliance is to be placed upon 
 that testimony, even if it existed ; and the reader, as he 
 proceeds, will find ample reasons to come to the same 
 conclusion. (2.) 
 
 6. In entering upon this discussion I can scarcely hope 
 that the general reader will exercise reason : he will read 
 and condemn without having once given himself the 
 trouble to reflect. Yet Bishop Marsh, Margaret Pro- 
 fessor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, thus 
 expounds the obligations of all those who have not only 
 subscribed to the Aiiiicles of the Church of England, but- 
 who have devoted themselves to minister at the altar } 
 and what applies to them applies to all. As our Litany 
 and Articles, he says, are avowedly founded on the Bible, 
 it is the special duty of those who are set apart for the 
 ministry, to compare them with the Bible, and to see that 
 their pi'etensions are well founded. But then our inter- 
 pretation of the Bible must be conducted independently ; 
 it must not be detennined by religious system : we must 
 follow the example of our Keformers, who supplied the 
 
836 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 place of tradition by reason and learning. RosenmuUer, 
 in the first edition of his Commentary on the Old Testa- 
 ment, the most valuable in existence, perhaps, considered, 
 as a critical and philological commentary on the Hebrew 
 text, does not hesitate to pronounce the Creation, the Fall 
 and the Deluge, as mere mybhs, which only idiots could 
 believe : he describes the history of Jonah as a repetition 
 of the mythos of Hercules swallowed by a sea-serpent : 
 and he says that it was not written by Jonah, but by 
 some cotemporary of Jeremiah ; while he brands the pro- 
 phecy of Isaiah as being made up by one writer out of 
 the minor works of several others. Gesenius, the Pro- 
 fessor of Theology at Halle, maintains after Paulus, Pro- 
 fessor at Wurtzburg, that the Pentateuch was composed 
 long after the time of Solomon, out of different fragments 
 joined together ; a conclusion in. which he but followed 
 such eminent divines as Vater, and De Wette, and Eichorn, 
 and Astruc. Bauer, in his Introduction to the Old Tes- 
 tament, has a chapter on the Myths of the Old Testament ; 
 and he has also published a well-known book, entitled 
 Hebrew Mythology of the Old and New Testament. Brets- 
 chneider rejects even the gospel of loannes, as the work 
 of a Gentile Christian of the second century ; and Eichorn 
 pronounces the Apocalypse itself to be a mere Drama, 
 representing the fall of Judaism and Paganism, while 
 Semler condemned it wholly as the work of a fanatic. 
 Hitherto England has allowed boldness of thought, and 
 scientific criticism to belong exclusively to Germany ; but 
 the time has assuredly come for this empire to throw 
 aside the shackles which the basest of mankind have im- 
 posed on reason. Yet it is not from any natural inapti- 
 tude for these studies that the intellect of our country- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 337 
 
 men — in my judgment the only true and real intellect 
 in Eui*ope — has failed to realize the most important re- 
 sults ; but rather from that indolence and love of pleasure 
 which the possession of wealth naturally superinduces, 
 and that all-engi-ossing ardour after its further acquisition 
 which our commercial spirit engenders. If the intellect 
 of England were really roused to a consideration of Paul- 
 ism, and the fearful wickedness and disregard of God 
 which it produces, the creed of that wily, wicked Jew, 
 could not endure for half a centuiy longer ; and crime 
 would diminish to an extent hardly credible, if the evil- 
 minded were no longer assured by men of learning and 
 ecclesiastical position, that all their sins have been atoned 
 for by the blood of Jesus. This tenet holds out to the 
 weak so direct an encouragement to sin, that their sinking 
 into it seems inevitable ; and it offers a positive premium 
 to the indolent and ignorant to let reason fall asleep. The 
 late Dr. Kitto has well described the large majority of 
 human kind, in their dealings with the immortal spirit of 
 life that is in them, and with the glorious awful Future. 
 You inquire, Sir, he says, whether mankind should not 
 be treated as children ? You probably did not make the 
 inquiry as a question for me to answer, but I take the 
 liberty of replying to it, and saying, Undoiihledly they 
 shovld. They are such indeed : children whom the full- 
 grown Christian beholds with horror and with pity, sport- 
 ing on the brink of a gulf into which they must inevit- 
 ably fall, unless speedy measures be taken to rescue them. 
 And shall we not endeavour to mise them 1 Yes, cei-tainly; 
 but how shall we proceed 1 They are obstinate and self- 
 willed ; they will not hearken to the warning voice, nor 
 attend to the words of instruction. We will moralize 
 
 Q 
 
338 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 with them. We will tell them that they are amused by 
 toys which will quickly break in their grasp ; that 
 serpents lurk in the green sward on which they 
 are playing, and that thorns surround the roses which 
 they are about to pluck. We will tell them this, 
 but it will not do. They will not believe us, till the 
 toy is broken — ^till they are bitten by the serpents and 
 the thorns have pierced their hands ; and even then they 
 will be amused by another toy, and seek another rose, till 
 they again are pierced, deceived, and bitten, and so on 
 continually until they sink into the gulf to rise no more. 
 — (Memoirs of Kitto, 157.) 
 
 7. This indifferentism to religion, which good men, 
 like Kitto, deplored, and which is now universal through- 
 out Christendom, is an appalling characteristic of our 
 times. The present age can only be paralleled by those 
 of the Ninth and Tenth Messengers. Atheism and infi- 
 delity are among the great and rich ; ignorance, contemp- 
 tuous disbelief, and superstition, are the rulers of the 
 multitude. Everything is profession, nothing is i-eality. 
 Men proclaim belief with loud, sounding trumpets, but in 
 their hearts they laugh at Revelation as a sham. It is 
 impossible, says a most acute reasoner, to calculate the 
 moral mischief that mental lying has produced in society. 
 When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the 
 chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief 
 to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for 
 the commission of every other crime. Here it may be 
 asked, I hope without offence, do our learned priests and 
 bishops (I speak not of the ignoi-ant) really believe what 
 they profess to venerate? No one thinks it. Bishop 
 Colenso has publicly challenged the Bishop of Oxford to 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 339 
 
 come forward and declare what he truly does believe; and 
 the Bishop, who perhaps feared he might be questioned 
 about Jonah and his whale, has adroitly remained silent. 
 Nearly every member of the sacerdotal order knows that 
 none of the hierarchy regards the Thirty -nine Articles as 
 any thing but a formula ; but few of the clergy believe 
 in them ; how many of the laity despise while they affect 
 to hold them ? Among the educated a well-bred scepti- 
 cism is all but general. The multitude adore money, and 
 they ignore God. Gold and public applause are the idols 
 of mankind. Yet they may read, if they think proper, 
 what the Ninth Messenger thought of these, the objects of 
 their worship. In his scornful rebuke of the Pharisees, 
 lie says : Ye are they who justify yourselves before men; 
 but God knoweth your hea/rts : for that which is highly 
 esteemed among meny is abomination in the sight of God. 
 — Luke xvi. 15. If this be so, do Christians believe it, or 
 oui- purple pontiffs truly think it 1 They tell their flocks 
 tliat the poor are the favourites of heaven, and that God 
 will reward them for their sufferings here. What then 
 will God do to those who, like our hierarchs, are not 
 poor, and who do no.t suffer 1 The few and honest, who 
 really believe, subscribe thousands to regenerate the 
 stranger, but refuse the hundreds which would make a 
 paradise of home. In papal countries forgiveness is offered 
 for all crimes, on the easy condition of confessing them to a 
 priest \ in Protestant nations even confession is dispensed 
 with ; for has not the atoning blood of Jesus opened 
 heaven to the most guilty? We cannot walk the streets, 
 or take our seats in a railway caniage, without having 
 thrust into our hands, by some grog-blossoraed man in 
 
 Q 2 
 
840 THE BOOK OP GOD. 
 
 black, tracts and broadsides headed with the text : The 
 blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin (1 John i. 7) ; 
 and this tenet preached perpetually to the ignorant, and 
 thrust down their throats in infant-schools and meeting- 
 houses, produces fruits in the general infidelity, profligacy 
 and infanticide which are the dark iniquity of our present 
 days. Thus sin exists everywhere; adultery is the 
 fashion; seduction is universal; prostitution pollutes 
 every street ; half our surgeons derive their income from 
 abortion. The West brags of its superiority to the East ; 
 but in the latter, virtue does exist, and the moral excel- 
 lences may be found ; with us there is a wide-spread 
 wickedness that has never been excelled since the world 
 began. Hypocrites in all things, we affect to look down 
 upon the whole world ; by only one country, perhaps, we 
 are outdone in crime, and that is Paulite America. In 
 England alone 50,000 women perish annually, the vic- 
 tims of lust and disease; and probably twice as many 
 infants, carried off by abortion, poison, starvation, and 
 neglect. The merchant cheats, lies, and robs, for he 
 reads that the Jews, the chosen people of Jehovah, did the 
 same ; and God himself, on more • than one occasion, 
 sanctioned fraud, falsehood, and perjury. (Exodus xii. 
 36; Gen. xvii. 8; Gen. xxii; Gen. xxvii ; 2 Kings x. 
 18 — 30.) If God did so, why may not man? and could 
 the Judge punish the offender for only committing the 
 same sin as the Judge himself had repeatedly ordered, 
 countenanced, or forgiven ? The murderer, on the scaf- 
 fold, is assured by the well-fed priest that, -if he is sorry 
 for what he has done, and professes contrition for the 
 gore-stained past, Jesus will wash him in his blood, and 
 that his spirit will ascend at once, sxaow- white, to heaven, 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 341 
 
 to take its place, in palaces of glory, with the purest choii-s 
 of arcbangelic splendour. Did not Jesus himself on thecixDss 
 declare to a dying thief that he should be with him thai 
 very day ia Pai-adise ? and is rkot the mercy of God as 
 infinite as himself? Who shall set a bouad to it? cries 
 the sleek parson. Thus, as God, who is all love, is to 
 forgive every villain for his villaniea, and the purest 
 virgin is to receive no more than the most haixlened 
 harlot, the heaven of the Paulites must present a motley 
 gathering. The most savage warfare is called hallowed ; 
 and the banners tliat accompany it are prayed over and 
 blessed, because Joshua, the friend of God, exterminated 
 all who stood in his path ; and the God of Heaven is 
 called by bishops the God of Battles when it is to Satan 
 only, if that hellish power existed, that the name could 
 possibly apply. Prostitution is harmless. Was not 
 Mary Magdalene, who had seven devils {Mark xvi 9), 
 that is, who had been guilty of the seven deadly sins, the 
 intimate friend and companion of the Apostks, and per- 
 haps of Jesus (Lttke x. 39, John xx. 11, 16) ; and is she 
 not now a canonised saint ? Adultery is innocent. Did 
 not Jesus himself refuse to condemn a woman guilty of 
 the crime, who had been taken in the very fact ? and do 
 we not see the Saviour, who pardons eveiybody, in every 
 print shop, looking on her with that mercy which all 
 adulteresses will receive? Were not Thamar {Gen. xxxWii. 
 21, Matt, i., 3), and Rahab, th« harlots, ancestresses of 
 Jesus himself, and was not the harlotry of the first par- 
 ticularly infamoiis, as it was with her deceased husband's 
 own father? Bathsheba the adultress, whose husband 
 David caused to be murdered (2 Sam. xi. 5 ; xii. 9), was 
 also a pj'ogenitiix in the direct line ; and yet from these 
 
842 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 alliances was not the immaculate Messenger of Heaven 
 descended? nay, was he not God himself who was so 
 born ? Never, even in the worst days of Paganism, had 
 female imchastity been more exalted, or more infamous 
 incests been authoritatively held up as sanctioned by the 
 Supreme. Thus eveiy horror that can be imagined has, 
 in consequence of these precedents, prompt and pleasant 
 absolution. The assassin of Nabal and Uriah, notwith- 
 standing all his crimes, continued to the last the especial 
 favourite of the Most High ; and is not John Bull quite 
 as good as David or the dying thief, and quite as worthy 
 of the Lord's paternal indulgence ? Man is the spoiled 
 child of God, who cannot bear to punish, and is certain 
 to reward. His crimes are but the outbreaks of nature, 
 which, if God the Father does not overlook, God the Son 
 will most assuredly regard with a compassionate sym- 
 pathy. He became a man, say the priests, and as he thus 
 knows the frail nature of man, he will plead with God 
 for every sinner, and if pleading fails, he will cry out : 
 Have I not atoned? have I not suffered? have I not 
 been crucified for him 1 and at this the portals of heaven 
 open; the Most High God himself is constrained to 
 yield, and the hideous wretch, who has committed every 
 atrocity, and violated every law, is escorted by angels 
 into the assembly of the just. This is Paulism, — the 
 religion of the Protestant ; but where is the Christianity 
 that Jesus preached? It lies in the same tomb with 
 Theism and Truth ; and this Book is now^ sent forth 
 among men to resuscitate all Three. It is sent forth to 
 tell them what they will hate to hear, and what they will 
 combine against it to its destruction for preaching, that God 
 will not forgive any sinner who does not himself atone , 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 343 
 
 for hLs crimes ; and that without a long career of works 
 truly good and heaven-like in their rfature, and a total 
 abnegation of the odious carnal pleasures of the world, 
 the Gates of Paradise will remain for ever closed. This 
 IS THE Law, and this is the Teuth supreme ; as true 
 
 AND CERTAIN AND UNCHANGEABLE AS GrOD. And aS all 
 
 existing creeds teach otherwise, all will join against its 
 promulgation to men. So be it ; and so let it be. Never- 
 theless it is the most absolute verity of all verities. And 
 I, when I shall have taught this, shall have fulfilled my 
 duty, and shall have sounded the warning Voice of 
 Heaven; but upon those who shall not hear it, there 
 shall come an hour, when their conscience and their 
 reason will proclaim it to be true ; and when, though 
 every pontiff in the land should din it into their ears 
 that their sins are forgiven, their own sense of justice will 
 rebel against the priestly falsehood, and they will wish, 
 when it is too late, that they had hearkened to the cry 
 out of the wilderness that from these pages goes upon 
 the earth. 
 
 8. I am about to shew by facts rather than by argu- 
 ments, how little reliance can be placed upon the genuine- 
 ness of the Books which Europeans hold to be inspired. The 
 value of every ancient book depends upon the character of 
 him who gives it ; and if we have received ours from the 
 basest hands, we cannot place much reliance upon them. 
 Do men gatJier grapes of thorns, or Jigs of thistles ? Matt. 
 vii. 1 6. The Old Testament comes from the Jews who, 
 from the days of Joshua, had been the vilest of mankind. 
 Ye <nre of your faiher, the Devil, was the indignant re- 
 proach of the Ninth Messenger to them, and tJie lusts of 
 your father ye will do. Ue was a murderer from tJie begin- 
 
344? THE BOOK OF 00I>. 
 
 Qiing. John viii. 44. As they were perpetually falling 
 away in the days -^ven of Amosis, so they abandoned his 
 doctrines almost to a man, after that gi*eat Judge had 
 been assassinated by Joshua in the mountains of Nebo. 
 During the long interval of abominations that followed, 
 they took no care of their sacred Books. In the period 
 of their enslavements and captivities, their distinctive cha- 
 racter as a nation was destroyed. Of these calamities there 
 were no less than six during the government of the 
 Judges : 1. under Chusan Rishathaim, King of Mesopo- 
 tamia, which continued about eight years : 2. under 
 Eglon King of Moab : 3. under the Pliilistines, out of 
 which they were rescued by Shamgar : 4. under Jabin 
 King of Hazor, from which they were delivered by De- 
 borah and Barak : 5. under the Midianites, from which 
 Gideon freed them : 6. under the Ammonites and Phi- 
 listines during the judications of Jeptha, Ibzan, Elon, 
 Abdon, Eli, Samson, and Samuel. Under the regal 
 government, Tiglath Pilezer took several cities, and car- 
 ried away the inhabitants, A.M. 3264 [I use the common 
 but erroneous chronology]. Salmanezer destroyed Sama- 
 ria after a siege of three years (A.M. 3283), and trans- 
 ported into Assyria and Media their King Hoshea, with 
 all the most valuable population of the ten tribes [2 Kings, 
 xvii. 6], and their places were supplied by colonies from 
 Babelonia and Susis [2 Kings xvii 24]. This was the 
 end of Israel as a kingdom. An intei'val of more than a 
 century followed, when Judah suffered a similar fate. Two 
 separate deportations are narrated in the Book of Kings : 
 others in Jeremiah and in the pretended Book of Daniel. 
 Einally in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, that 
 monarch carried into penal servitude all the population 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 345 
 
 except the peasants, who were the fewest and basest ; for 
 agriculture then as now was always held in detestation by 
 the Jews. During these changes obedience to their law 
 and its innumerable ceremonies was no longer possible ; 
 in fact, their religion passed from their memory altogether, 
 and that which conquest had not accomplished their own 
 idolatrous tendencies consummated 
 
 9, Bishop Warburton thus speaks of the polytheism 
 and paganism of the Jews in the days of Jeremiah and 
 Ezekiel. The Israelites, he says, had now contracted all 
 the feshionabl-e habits of Egypt. We are assured that it 
 was till then peculiar to the Egyptian superstition for 
 every city of that empire to have its own tutelary god, 
 besides those which were worshipped in common. But 
 Jeremiah tells us the j^eople of Judah bore a large part 
 with them in this extravagance. Where are thy gods tluit 
 tJiou liosi made tliee ? let tkem arise if they can save thee in 
 the dine of thy trouble; for according to tlie nurnber of thy 
 cities f are thy gods, Judaic,. Jer. ii, 28. And by the time 
 the sins of Uiis besotted people were ripe for the vengeance 
 of their approaching captivity, they had polluted them- 
 selvies with all kinds of Egyptian abominations, as appeal's 
 from tlmt famous vision of Ezekiel, where their tlu'ee 
 capital idolatries are so graphically described. The first 
 is delivered in this manner. And lie brought rue to the 
 door of the court, and wlien I looked^ behold a Iwle in Hve 
 wall. Then said lie unto me, Son of man, dig twijo in the 
 v)all. And wlien I Iiad digged in tlie icall, behold a door. 
 A ml he said unto me. Go in, and behold the wicked abomi 
 nations tJiat they do liere. So I went in and saw, and be- 
 held every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, 
 and all the idols of the House of Israel poi'tr ay ed upon the 
 
346 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 wall round about. And there stood before them Seventy 
 men of the ancients of the House of Israel; and in the 
 midst of them stood Jaazaniah, the son of Shaphan, with 
 every man his censer in his ha/nd^ and a thick cloud of in- 
 cense went up. Then said he unto «ie, Son of man hast 
 thou seen what the ancients of the House of Israel do in the 
 darky every man in the chambers of his imagery ? 
 EzEK viii. 6. The first conclusion I draw from these 
 words is, that the superstition here described was Egyp- 
 tian ; this appears from its objects being gods peculiar to 
 Egypt : every form of creeping things and abominable 
 beasts, which in another place the same prophet calls 
 with great propriety and elegance, the abominations of the 
 eyes of the Israelites. The second, that they contain a very 
 lively and circumstantial description of the so celebrated 
 mysteries of Isis and Osiris. For the rites are repre- 
 sented as performed in a secret subterraneous place ; 
 And whenllooked, behold a hole in the wall. Then said he 
 unto me. Son of man, dig now in the wall; and when I 
 had digged in the wall behold a door; and he said unto 
 me. Go in. Hast thou seen what the ancients of Israel do 
 in the dark 1 This secret place was, as the prophet tells 
 us, in the Temple, and such kind of places for this use, 
 the Egyptians had in their Temples, as we learn from a 
 similitude of Plutarch's. Like the disposition, says he, 
 and ordinance of their Temples, which in one place en- 
 large and extend themselves into long wings, and fair and 
 open aisles, in another sink into dark and secret subter- 
 ranean vestries, like the adyta of the Thebans. These 
 rites are . celebrated by the Sanhedrims, or the Elders of 
 Israel. And there stood before them Seventy men of the 
 ancients of the House of Israel. Now, we have shewn in 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 347 
 
 o\ir account of the Mysteries, that none but princes 
 rulers, and the wisest of the people, were admitted to their 
 more secret celebrations ; the paintings and imagery on 
 the walls of this subterraneous apartment answer exactly 
 to the descriptions the ancients have given us of the mys- 
 tic cells of the Egyptians. Behold every form of creeping 
 things and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the 
 House of Israd, portrayed upon the wall round about. 
 There is a famous antique monument, once a consecrated 
 utensil in the rites of Isisand Osiris, and now well known 
 to the curious by the name of the Isiac or Bembine table, 
 on which, as appears by the order of the several compart- 
 ments, is portrayed all the imagery that adorned the 
 walls of the mystic cell. Now, if one were to describe 
 the engravings on that table, one could not find juster or 
 more emphatic terms than what the prophet has em- 
 ployed in his description. The third conclusion I draw 
 from this vision is, that the Egyptian superstition was 
 that to which the Israelites were more particularly ad- 
 dicted ; and thus much I gather from the following words. 
 Behold every form of creeping things and abominable beasts, 
 and all tlie idols of the House of Israel, portrayed itpon 
 the wail round about. I have shewn this to be a descrip- 
 tian of an Egyptian mystic cell, which certainly was 
 adorned only with Egyptian gods, consequently those 
 gods are here called by way of eminence, all the idols of 
 the House of Israel. But the words, House of Israel, 
 being used in a vision describing the idolatries of the 
 House of Judah, I take it for granted that in this indefi- 
 nite number of all the idols of the House of Israel wei-e 
 particularly intimated those two prime idols of the House 
 of Israel, the calves of Dan and Bethel ; and the rather. 
 
348 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 for that I find the original calves held a distinguished 
 status in the paintings of the mystic cell, as the reader 
 may see by casting his eye on the Bembine table ; and this 
 by the way, will lead us to the reasons of Jeroboam's 
 erecting two calves, for they were, we see, worshipped in 
 couples by the Egyptians, as representing I sis and Osiris. 
 Now the Egyptian gods being, as we said, called by way of 
 eminence the idols of the House of Israel, we must needs 
 conclude the Israelites to be more particularly devoted to 
 their service j for other idols they had besides Egyptian, 
 and of those good store, as we now see. For we are to 
 understand that this prophetic vision is employed in de- 
 scribing the three master superstitions of this unhappy 
 people : the Egyptian, the Phcenician, and the Persian. The 
 Egyptian we have seen ; the Phcenician follows in these 
 words. He said also unto me, turn thee yet again, and 
 thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. Then he 
 brought me to tJie gate of the Lord^s house, which was to- 
 wards the north, and behold there sat women weeping for 
 Tammuz. Ezek. viii., 13. The Persian superstition is 
 next described, in this manner. Th&n he said unto me, 
 hast thou seen this, son of man; and tlwu shalt see 
 greater abominations than these. And he brought me into 
 the inner court of the Lord^s house, and behold at the door 
 of the Temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, 
 were about five and twenty men with their backs towards 
 the Temple of the Lord, and their faces towards the east, 
 and they worshipped the sun towards the east, viii., 15. 
 It is to be observed that when the prophet is bid to turn 
 from the Egyptian to the Phoenician rites, he is then said 
 to look towards the north, the situation of Phoenicia with 
 regard to Jeinisalem, consequently he before stood south- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 34;9 
 
 ward, the situation of Egypt, with regard to the same 
 place : and when from thence he is bid to turn into the 
 inner court of the Lord's house to see the Persian rites, 
 this was east, the situation of Persia ; with so exact de- 
 corum is the whole vision represented. Again as the 
 mysterious rites of Egyj^t are said, agi*eeably to their 
 usage, to be performed in secret, by their elders and rulers 
 only, so the Phoenician rites for the same reason are 
 shewn as celebrated by the people in open day : and the 
 Persian to the sun, which were performed by the Magi, 
 are here said to be celebrated by the priests alone : jive, 
 and twenty men loith tJieir fences towards the east. These 
 three capital superstitions the prophet again distinctly 
 objects to them in a following chapter. Thou hast also 
 commuted fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, 
 great of fleshy and hast increased thy whoredoms to provoke 
 me to anger: thou hast played the whore also with the 
 Assyrians, because tliou wast insatiable; yea, tliou hast 
 played the harlot with them, and yet couldst not be satis- 
 fied. Thou /last moreover multiplied thy fornication in the 
 land of Canaan unto Clialdcea, and yet thou wast not satis- 
 fied Jierewith, Ezek. xvi, 26. And when that miserable 
 remnant, who, on the taking of Jerusalem, had escaped 
 the fate of their enslaved countrymen, were promised 
 safety and security if they would stay in Judaja, they 
 said : No, but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we 
 shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor haw 
 hunger of bread, and there will we dwell. Jer. xlii. 14. Thus 
 we see what a surprising fondness had seized and pos- 
 sessed this infatuated people for Egyptian supei-stitions. — 
 Div. Leg., iv., 6. He cites also, the following passage to 
 prove that the Jews paid religious honour to the twelve 
 
350 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 monoliths, or twelve Messenger-idols which Joshua pitched 
 in Gilgal ; worshipped Priapic or garden images, and offered 
 up their own children as blood atonements for sin. But 
 draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the 
 adulterer a?id the whore. Against whom do ye sport your- 
 selves, against whom make ye a wide mouth, and draw out 
 the tongue ? are ye not children of transgression, a seed oj 
 falsehood, enflaming yourselves with idols under every green 
 tree, slaying the children in the valleys under the clifts of the 
 rocks? Among the smooth stones of the stream is thy por- 
 tion : they, they are thy lot : even to them hast thou poured a 
 drink offering, thou hast offered a meat offering. Should I 
 receive comfort in these ? Isaiah Ivii., 3. (3.) Nor is it only, 
 adds the Bishop, on the negative silence of the sacred 
 writers, or of the speakers they introduce, that we sup- 
 port our conclusion, but from their positive declarations 
 in which they plainly discover there was no popular ex- 
 pectation of a future state or resurrection. Thus the 
 woman of Tekoah to David ; For we must needs die, and 
 are as water spilled on the ground which cannot he ga- 
 thered up again. 2 Sam. xiv., 14. The psalmist says: 
 In death there is no remembrance of Thee; in the grave 
 who shall give Thee thanks ? And again : What profit is 
 there in my blood when I go down to the pit ? Shall the 
 dust praise Thee : shall it declare thy truth ? And again, 
 Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead ? shall the dead arise 
 and praise Thee ? shall thy loving kindness be declared in 
 the grave, or thy faithfulness in destruction f shall thy 
 wonders be known in the dark, and thy righteousness in tlie 
 land offorgetfulness i Ps. vi., 5, xxx. 9, Ixxxviii., 10 — 
 12. The writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes is still more 
 express. For the living know that they shall die, hut the 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 351 
 
 dead know not anything : neitlier liave Hiey any more a 
 reward; for tJie memory of them is forgotten^ ix. 5. He- 
 zekiah in his song of thanksgiving for his miraculous 
 recovery, speaks in the very same strain. For the gra/ve 
 cannot praise Tliee: death cannot celebrate Thee; tliey 
 that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth ; the 
 living, the living, he shall praise Thee, as I do this day : 
 the father to the children shall make known thy truth. Is. 
 xxxviiL, 18 — 19. Lastly Jeremiah in his Lamentations 
 and complaints of the people says: Ov/r fathers have sinned 
 and are not ; and we have borne their iniquities, v. 7 ; 
 which implies that the fathers being dead bore no part 
 of the punishment of their sins, but that all was thrown 
 upon the children. But could this have been supposed 
 had the people been insti-ucted in the doctrine of future 
 rewards and punishments? Could this language have 
 been used by a people instructed in the doctrine of life or 
 immoi-tality ? — Div. Leg., v. 5. 
 
 1 0. Nor was this tendency to idolatry a modem fashion : 
 it began in early days. The conduct of Rachel, says Lord 
 Kingsborough, Mexican Antiquities, vi., 354, in secretly 
 cariying away her fathers' gods, must appear very 
 strange ; and idolatry in her, who, as well as her elder 
 sister Leah had been for so many years the wife of a 
 patiiarch, was much more scandalous than in her father 
 Laban. But throughout the Jewish history the same 
 inconsistences are met with, in the characters even of per- 
 sons of the greatest reputed sanctity, whom the Jews would 
 hold forth as models for example to all succeeding ages : 
 and it is very unaccountable how such pei-sons in whom 
 faith was the evidence of things seen, should on so many 
 trying occasions have exhibited in their conduct a total 
 
352 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 want of it. Of Moses himself it is said that in the wil- 
 derness his faith was staggered. If David's conduct in 
 taking the wife of Uriah did not argue a want of faith, 
 he at least openly displayed the greatest presumption in 
 so. openly defying God and the prophet Nathan. But it 
 is most strange of all that Solomon's faith in the existence 
 of only One God, should have become st> completely 
 shaken in the latter years of his reign; and that the 
 Jews in a body, immediately after emerging from the Red 
 Sea, ere well the fiery bolt that destroyed Pharaoh had 
 returned to the hand that launched it, should have called 
 upon Aaron to make them a golden calf, and have ex- 
 claimed on beholding the finish which that master's hand 
 had given to the image : These he thy Gods, Israel, which 
 brought thee out o/tlie land of Egypt. The faith of Abra- 
 ham however in paying such ready obedience to the com- 
 mands of God as to be prepared to shed the blood of his 
 own son upon his altar, is after all the high example of 
 faith which ^<d Jews propose for the admiration of all 
 succeeding ages — may it ever remain inimitable ! Under 
 the Judges, under the Kings, during the captivity, and 
 after the captivity until the period of the destruction of 
 Jerusalem by the Romans, the Jews abandoned themselves 
 to all kinds of idolatry. They built high places (or tao- 
 callis) they planted groves, they worshipped idols under 
 every green tree, they adored the Sun and the Moon, and 
 all the Host of Heaven, they burned incense to the 
 famous brazon serpent called Nehushtan, which in this 
 manner damned more souls through idolatry than it had 
 ever cured bodies of diseases ; they worshipped other ser- 
 pents : the Kings of Israel made new molten images of 
 calves probably in recollection of the Egyptian Apis, for 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 353 
 
 cei-tainly they must have forgotten the calf of Aaron, 
 wliich had brought down plagues and not blessings upon 
 the house of Israel; and the inhabitants of Jerusalem 
 offered up their homage to the Queen of Heaven who was 
 perhaps the same as the Mexican Goddess Chal-chi-uitlicue. 
 The practise of all these idolatries and of far greater 
 abominations, did not last for a day or for a year only, 
 but from the reign of Rehoboam the son of Solomon, 
 from whom the ten tribes revolted, to that of Zedekiah 
 the last king of Judah, who was carried away captive to 
 Babylon ; and from the reign of Jeroboam the first king 
 of Isi-ael to that of Hosea the last, who was also carried 
 into captivity by Salmanezer king of Assyria. It is true 
 that in the reigns of the very few Jewish kings whose 
 names are mentioned in terms of approbation in the two 
 Books of Kings, and in the second Book of Chronicles, 
 such B3 Hezekiah and Josiah, the people influenced by 
 their example became less corrupt ; but it must not be 
 forgotten that the time existed when there was only one 
 true prophet in all Israel, as Elijah feelingly declares in 
 the 22nd verse of the 18th chapter of the first Book of 
 Kings. Thiis said Elijah unto the peo^^hy I even I only 
 remain a propliet of tlie Lord, but Baal's true 2?ro])Iiet8 are 
 four hundred and fifty men ; and the followers of Moses 
 did not amount to more than a few thousand persons. 
 This state of things amongst those who boasted that they 
 were the chosen and the sole people of God, can more 
 ea-sily be imagined than described. How they could ever 
 have anived at it may be a matter of wonder ; but it 
 should at the same time be a lesson to their descendants 
 to moderate their pretensions to an honour to which it is 
 clear their merits never entitled them. * * * The 
 
354 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 custom of worshipping serpents, was however far more 
 innocent than another kind of worship, which that ex- 
 travagantly idolatrous people are said to have paid to 
 devils. A nd he ordained him priests for the high places 
 and for the Devils^ and for the calves which he had made. 
 2 Chron. xi. 15. Jeroboam is here signified, to whom 
 the ten tribes revolted from Eehoboam, and who like all 
 usurpers studied in the first acts of his reign to gratify 
 the inclinations of the people — but over what sort of 
 people must he have reigned, when this was the line of 
 state policy which he thought it advisable to pursue ? 
 This single verse is sufficient, by justifying an appeal from 
 argument to facts, to confute volumes of laboured apology 
 which have been written in the defence of the Jews, 
 by those who are their mistaken friends, rather than 
 real well-wishers to the' great family of mankind, from 
 whom the Hebrew nation was so early separated ; and 
 whose professed hatred to idolatry, was, as the ancient 
 philosophers alleged, rather a hatred to the rest of the 
 human race, and to institutions which differed from their 
 own, than any real aversion to idols. (4.) It may 
 be supposed that Warburton and Kingsborough, in thus 
 speaking of those who called themselves a chosen people, 
 have put before us all their iniquities. In truth, they have 
 not done so. There are crimes too hideous even to be 
 alluded to, and to these crimes the Jews seem to have ad- 
 hered with that inflexible obstinacy which is in their 
 nature. I need only refer to Exodus, xxii. 19, to Leviti- 
 cus, xviii. 23, XX, 15, 16, and Deuteronomy, xxvii. 21> 
 to shew the indescribable horrors in which they indulged ; 
 horrors peculiar to themselves ; for we read nowhere in 
 ancient history of similar prohibitions, or similar practices, 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 355 
 
 except only on the most rare occasions in a part of Egypt 
 where the woi-ship of the Mendesian goat prevailed. But 
 tlie Jews made that which was only a ceremony of abo- 
 mination invented by priests, a part of their daily enjoy- 
 ments ; and even in the Mendesian district, where it once 
 found favour with the hierarchy, it had so grown into 
 disuse, that Herodotus speaks of it as " a prodigy," ii. 46. 
 It certainly never was the ordinary crime of any people 
 but the Jews ; and it required no less than four distinct 
 enactments of their legislators to check its universal 
 practise. But all laws appear to have been thrown away 
 upon the Hebrews. 
 
 11. So utterly degi-aded, idiotic, and superstitious, did 
 they become, that they at length venerated an Ass-head, as 
 if Nemesis itself had interfered to bring to scorn the self- 
 styled sons of God. Apion, in the days of Josephus, pub- 
 licly accused them of placing an Ass's head in their Holy 
 Place, and he affirmed that this was discovered when Antio- 
 chus Epiphanes spoiled their Temple, and found the Ass's 
 head there made of gold and worth a great deal of money. 
 Josephus gives a sort of denial to this ; but in a way that 
 is hardly satisfactory — although even if it were explicit, 
 he is one of those writers who never scruples to tell a lie 
 for his creed, and his works teem with the most palpable 
 falsehoods. But Apion was not singular in this accusa- 
 tion ; and the cock and man and goat sacrificers would be 
 capable of any madness. Tacitus, one of the most cau- 
 tious of historians, says of the Jews : Whatever is held 
 sacred by the E^mans, with the Jews is profane : and 
 what in other nations is unlawful and impure, with them 
 is permitted. The figure of the animal through whose 
 guidance they slaked their thirst, and were enabled to 
 
356 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 terminate their wanderings is consecrated in the sanctuary 
 of their Temple, Hist. Lib. v., Chap. 4. We read also 
 that one Zabidus, having got secretly into the Temple, 
 carried off the Ass's head, and conveyed it to Dora. Suidas 
 says that Democritus the historian, averred that the 
 Jews not only adored this head, but that they sacrificed a 
 man to it every three or every seven years, after having 
 cut him in pieces. Plutarch repeats the same, SympoSy 
 lib. iv., cap. 5. The Paulite Epiphanius sought to turn 
 the tables upon those writers by declaring that the Gnos- 
 tics worshipped their god Sabaoth in the shape of an Ass. 
 But as the Gnostics had the most exalted ideas of the 
 Supreme Being and His attributes that it is possible 
 for man to have, this may fairly be reckoned among the 
 other pious frauds (whose name is Legion) of those early 
 fathers of the church. The modern doctors have been 
 wholly puzzled by this Jew idol. Tei-tullian admits that 
 in his time the Hebrew-bom Jesus was ridiculed in a pic- 
 ture with the inscription the " Ass-borne god of the Chris- 
 tians ;'* and the story of the Ass-head worship had now 
 become an established fact. No wonder that the Paulite 
 converts from this frenzy were ready to believe that God 
 himself had come down from heaven to die the death of 
 a malefactor on the cross, for the express purpose of open- 
 ing heaven to such brilliant specimens of humanity as 
 they presented to the earth. Nor was their beastly super- 
 stition without allusion to Asinine symbols. The Ass of 
 Balaam was regarded as a Prophet : their hero-god Sam- 
 eon had achieved his victories with the jaw of an Ass ; 
 and a stream of fresh water flowed from the same, as it 
 was subsequently fabled to do from Oreb. Their prophet 
 Zacharias had said : Behold thy king cometh unto thee; 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 357 
 
 lowly and riding upon an Ass ; and it was said that this 
 was imaged in their sanctuary by the stone statue of a 
 Man sitting upon an Ass, and holding a book in his hand. 
 To such a depth of infamy had they sunk who had arro- 
 gantly declared themselves to be the chosen of God, and 
 the destined masters of mankind. But this, their wor- 
 ship of the Ass, was probably only a propitiation of 
 the Devil, as Christians hope to compound with God 
 for their sins by subscribing to Bible Societies. The 
 Jews, like their illegitimate sons, the Paulites, were 
 Manichees, who believed in the Two Powers of Good and 
 Evil : and they sacrificed to both, but to the latter most 
 frequently, as Goodness was easily appeased. / am the 
 Lord, and there is none else, says one of the Jew priests 
 who compiled the forgeries that pass under the name 
 of Isaiah. / forvi the Light, and I create Darkness : / 
 make peace and create Evil. /, the Lord, do all these 
 things, xlv. 7. Hence their worship of the Evil Power 
 whom they regarded, as our Paulites do Satan, as the 
 very son of God, who was admitted into his presence 
 [See the forged prologue to Job] ; and whom he employed 
 as one of his agents to tempt them into eveiy species of 
 crime. See ante, page 104, the Jews' sacrifice to Az-azel. 
 Nor in this notion are they without modern imitators. 
 The Rev. Mr. Herbert, in Nimrod, calls the Devil one of 
 the Messengers of Heaven, iv. 207 : and he cites for it 
 Job 16. I may add, for the benefit of the many, that 
 this gentleman, like Faber, was one of our most oi-thodox 
 believers— a Paulite Chiistian of the most approved 
 fashion, and a stout believer in all that Jews and Protes- 
 tants believe. The wretched Mosheim, who does all that 
 he can to mislead the minds of his readers, is constrained 
 
358 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 to write as follows of this degenerate tribe. The leaders 
 of the people, he says, and the chief priests were, accord" 
 ing to the account of Josephus, profligate wretches who 
 had purchased their places by bribes, or by acts of ini- 
 quity, and who maintained their ill-acquired authority by 
 the most flagitious and abominable crimes. The subordi" 
 nate and inferior members were infected with the cor- 
 ruption of the head ; the priests and those who possessed 
 any shadow of authority, were become dissolute and aban- 
 doned to the highest degree ; while the multitude, set on 
 by these corrupt examples, ran headlong into every sort 
 of iniquity, and by their endless seditions, robberies, and 
 extortions, armed against them both the justice of God 
 and the vengeance of men. * * * They were all 
 horribly unanimous in excluding from the hopes of ever- 
 lasting life all the other nations of the world ; and, as a 
 consequence of this odious system, they treated them with 
 the utmost rigour and inhumanity when any occasion was 
 offered them. * * * While then such darkness, such 
 en'ors and dissensions prevailed among those who assumed 
 the character and authority of persons distinguished by 
 their superior sanctity and wisdom, it will not be difficult 
 to imagine how totally corrupt the religion and morals 
 of the multitude must have been. They were accordingly 
 sunk in the most deplorable ignorance of God and of 
 divine things : and had no notion of any other way of 
 rendeiing themselves acceptable to the Supreme Being 
 than by sacrifices, washings, and the other external rites 
 and ceremonies of the Mosaic law. Hence proceeded 
 that dissoluteness of manners, and that profligate wicked- 
 ness, which prevailed among the Jews, &c., &c. Ecclesias- 
 ticcd History, cap. iL 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 359 
 
 12. In the course of these calamities, backslidings, &c., 
 this unhappy savage people wholly lost all knowledge of 
 Hebrew, their own peculiar language ; and even if they 
 had had, or cared to use, their sacred books, they would 
 have been of no use to them. But it appears that they 
 did not even have them ; their captors having destroyed 
 every copy that could be procured. And they did so for 
 this substantial reason. The Jews for centuries had been 
 looked upon by all nations as the general enemies of the 
 human race j as a horde of murderers, ravishers, and ma- 
 rauders, who declared that they had a divine mission from 
 God to kill and conquer all other people, and take pos- 
 session of their virgins, their wives, and their lands ; and 
 who supported this extraordinary claim by reference to a 
 command or a promise which they said they had received 
 from heaven, and which was contained in their scriptures. 
 W/ien thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it (says 
 Deuteronomy, xx., 10), then proclaim peace unto it. 
 And it sJtall be if it make thee answer of peace and open 
 unto thee ; then it shall he that all the people found therein 
 shall he tributaries and shall serve thee. And if it make no 
 peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou 
 shall besiege it. And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it 
 into thy Jiands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the 
 edge of the sword. But the women and the little ones, and 
 tlie caitUy and all that is in the city, even all the spoil 
 tJiereof shalt thou take unto thyself and thou shalt eat the 
 spoil of thine enemies which the Lord thy God hath giveii 
 tJiee. Thus slwlt thou do to all the cities, ike, dc. Such 
 was the doctrine and the practice of Joshua, than whom 
 a more ruthless villain never breathed our air. That he 
 received it from Amosis may indeed be said by the ortho- 
 
860 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 dox ; but in the first place it is not true that he so received 
 it ; and in the second, Amosis could not transmit his 
 judicial right to any. Assuming to the fullest that Moses 
 acted like Mohammed, still the Messenger and no other 
 is the Judge : those who come after him are mere men ; 
 and have no authority, or right, or pretension, to walk in 
 his footsteps : nor does it follow that the course of con- 
 duct which in the eyes of the heaven-sent Cabir of God, 
 is justifiable at one period, is fitting for all other times, 
 and men, and circumstances. This was what the Jews 
 imagined : they held that what Amosis did must be 
 right, for all men of their own creed, and for all future 
 ages ; but a more grievous wicked error was never made. 
 Accordingly, it became the very vitals of their religion to 
 extirpate and plunder universally. They declared that a 
 true Israelite ought for ever to hate and destroy heretics 
 and strangei's ; and where their other scriptures did not 
 aid them, they quoted the authority of David, who 
 had himself written, or caused to be written, by one of 
 his laureates in the Psalms : Do not I hate them, Lord, 
 who hate thee ? cxxxix. 21. And Maimonides himself does 
 not hesitate to adopt and defend this doctrine. (Fort. 
 Mos.f p. 178.) I will declare the decree, says another of 
 those hired writers, who wrote in the employ of that fla- 
 gitious tyrant ; and who speaking in the name of the He- 
 brew people, according to Hebrew idiom, called them the 
 Son of God : / wUl declare the decree ; the Lord hath 
 said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten 
 tJiee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heatJienfor thine 
 inlieritance, cmd the uttermost parts of the earth for thy 
 possession. Thou shalt h'eak them with a rod of iron 
 thou shalt dash them in pieces like a 2^otters vessel. Be 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 361 
 
 wise now therefore, ye kings : be instrtLcted, ye judges oj 
 the earth. Serve the Lord loithfeaVj and rejoice withtrem- 
 bVmg. Kiss the Son^ lest lie he am^ry, and ye perish from 
 the way, when his wrath is kindled hct a litde. And so 
 widely did the notion of their infamous character, 
 modelled upon these doctrines, prevail, that Tacitus 
 {Hist, V. 8) calls the Jews teterrimam gentem, which but 
 embodies the universal opinion of all nations ; and was 
 not hastily applied to them by this most grave and careful 
 writer. 
 
 13. The sacred duty of assassination when life stood in 
 their way, was inculcated so persistently, that it is not to 
 be wondered that kings and princes should do all they 
 could to exterminate the blood-breathing volume of this 
 truculent tribe. Let the reader turn to Judges iii., 14, 
 where he will read as follows : — So tlie children of Israel 
 served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years. But when 
 the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised 
 tJiem up a deliverer, Ehud the son of Gera, a Benjamite, a 
 man lefl-handed : and by him the children of Israel sent a 
 present unto Eglon the king of Moab. But Ehud made 
 him a dagger which Imd two edges, of a cubit length : and 
 he did gird it under his raiment upon his right thigh. 
 And he brought the present unto Eglon king of Moab : and 
 Eglon was a very fat m^ii. And when he had made an 
 end to offer the present, he sent away tJie people that ba/re 
 the present. But lie himself turned again from the quar- 
 ries tJuxt were by Gilgal, and said, I have a secret errand 
 unto thee, king : tvho said, Keep silence. And all that 
 stood by him went out from him. And Ehud came unto 
 him ; and he was sitting in a summer parlour, whicJi he 
 Jiadfor himself alone. And Ehud said, I have a message 
 
 B 
 
362 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 from God unto thee. And he arose out of his seat. And 
 Ehud put forth his left hand, and tooh the dagger from his 
 right thigh, and thrust it into his belly : And the haft 
 also went in after the blade; and the fat closed upon th 
 blade, so that he could not draw the dagger out of his belly : 
 and the dirt cams out. Then Ehud went forth through the 
 porch, and shut the doors of the parlour upon him, and 
 locked them. When he ivas gone out, his servants came ; 
 and when they saw that, behold, the doors of the parlour 
 were locked, they said. Surely he covereth his feet in Ms 
 summer chamber. And they tarried till they were ashamed: 
 and, behold J he opened not the doors of the parlour ; there- 
 fore they took a key, and opened them : and, behold, their 
 lord v^as fallen down dead on the earth. But Ehud escaped 
 while they tarried, and passed beyond the quarries, and 
 escaped unto Seirath. And again {Judges iv., 17), How- 
 beit Siserafled away on his feet to tJie tent of Jael the wife 
 of Heber the Kenite : for there was peace between Jabin the 
 king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite. And 
 Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said unto him, Turn in, 
 my Lord, turn in to me; fear not. And when he had 
 turned in unto her into the tent, she covered him with a 
 mantle. And he said unto her, Give me, I pray, thee, a 
 little water to drink -.for I am thirsty. And she opened a 
 bottle of milk, and gave him drink and covered him. 
 Again he said unto her. Stand in tlie door of the tent, and 
 it shall be, ivhen any onan doth come and enquire of thee, 
 and say. Is there any man here ? that thou shalt say. No. 
 Then Jael, Heber* s wife, took a nail of the tent, and took a 
 hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote 
 the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground : 
 for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died. And beliold, 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 363 
 
 as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet hiniy and 
 said unto him, Come, and I will shew thee the man whom 
 thou seekest. And when he came into her tent, behold 
 Sisera lay dead, and tJie nail was in his temples. So God 
 subdued on tliat day Jabin the king of Canaan before the 
 children of Israel. A'nd the liand of Hie children of Israel 
 prospered, and prevailed against J abin the king of Canaan, 
 until they had destroyed Jabin king of Canaan . And that 
 none among the people might entertain the least doubt of 
 the glory of such a murder, and its acceptable nature in 
 the sight of the Lord, it is introduced in the next chapter, 
 in the triumphant song of Deborah and Barak. Curse 
 ye Meroz, said the angel of Hie Lord, curse ye bitterly Hie 
 inhabitants thereof', because they came not to the help of 
 the Lord, to the helj) of the Lord against the mighty. 
 Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Ileber the 
 Kenite be, blessed shaU she be above women in the tent. 
 He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought 
 forth butter in a lordly dish. She put her hand to 
 the nail, and her right hand to the workmarCs hammer; 
 and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his 
 head, when she had 2>ierced and stricken through his tem- 
 ples. At her feet he bowed, lie fell, lie lay down: at her 
 feet he bowed, he fell : where he bowed, there he fell doion 
 dead. (5.) 
 
 14. All these circumstances naturally account for the 
 loss by themselves, or the extermination by their masters 
 of a work, which, as interpreted by its possessoi's, seemed 
 to be the greatest curse that ever came upon the earth. 
 It was accordingly sought out wherever it could be found ; 
 and when found it was ruthlessly destroyed ; so that its 
 disappearance can create no surpiise ; the wonder, oh the 
 
 2 B 
 
3C4 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 contrary, would be tliat even a single copy should remain. 
 It is related, however, that one copy did survive, and 
 and we have the following story of its discovery on the 
 return of the Jews from Captivity. Upon its mythical 
 character I will not say one word ; but leave the narra- 
 tive to the reader's judgment. And it came to pass in 
 ihe eighteenth year of king Josiah, that the king sent 
 Shaphan the son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam^ the 
 scribe, to the house of the Lord, saying. Go up to Hilkiah 
 the high priest^ that he may sum the silver lohich is brought 
 into the house of the Lord, which the keepers of the door 
 have gathered oj the people: and let them deliver it into the 
 hand of the doers of the work that have the oversight of the 
 house of the Lord : and let them give it to the doers of the 
 work which is in the house of the Lord, to repair the 
 breaches of the house, unto carpenters, and builders, and 
 masons, and to buy timber and hewn stone to repair the 
 Jiouse. Howbeit there was no reckoning made loith them 
 of the money that was delivered into their hand, because 
 they dealt faithfully. 2 Kings xxii. And when they brought 
 out the money that was brought into the house of the 
 Lord, Hilkiah the priest found a book of the law of 
 the Lord given by Moses. 2 Chron. xxxiv. And Hilkiah 
 the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found 
 the book of the law in the house of the, Lord. And HiL 
 kiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. And 
 Shaphan tJie scribe came to the king, and brought the 
 king word again, and said, Thy servants have gathered 
 the money that was found in the house, and have deli- 
 vered it into the hand of them that do tJie work, that 
 have the oversight of the house of the Lord. And Shap- 
 fmn the scribe shewed the kiiig, saying, Hilkiah the priest 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 365 
 
 hath delivered me a book. And SJiapJuin read it before 
 the king. And it came to pass, ivJien tlie king had 
 Iieard tJie words of tJie book of tJie law, tJiat lie rent 
 his clothes. And iliA king commanded Uilkiah tlie priest, 
 and Ahikam the son of Sluiplian, and Achbor tJie son oj 
 Micliaiah, and Simplian the scribe, and Asahiah a servant 
 of the king's, saying. Go ye, enquire of the Lord for one, 
 and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the 
 word of this book that is found : for great is tlie wrath 
 of the Lord tJiat is kindled against us, because ourfatliers 
 Imve tiot Iiearkened unto tlie words of this book, to do 
 according unto all that which is loritten concerning us. So 
 Hilkiah tlie priest, a^id Ahikam, and Achbor, andShaphan 
 and Asahiah, toent unto Huldah the prophetess, tlie wife 
 of Sliallum the son of Tikvah, tlie son of Ilarlias, keeper 
 of the wardrobe ; (now she dwelt in Jerusalem in tlie col- 
 lege;) an I tJiey communed with her. And sJie said unto 
 them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Tell tJie man that 
 sent you to me. Thus saith the Lord, BeJiold, I will bring 
 evil upon this place, and upon tlie inJiabitants tJiereof^ 
 even all tlie words of the book which the king of Judah 
 Jiath read: Because they Imve forsaken me, and Imve 
 burned incense unto other gods, tJmt tliey might provoke 
 me to anger with all the works of their hands; tJierefore 
 my wrath shall be kindled against this place, and simll 
 not be qu^nclied. 2 Kings xxii. (G). 
 
 15. If we met with the above narrative, says Bishop 
 Colenso, in any other Book than the Bible, it would be 
 natural to wish to examine more closely into the state- 
 ment, and see what this occurrence really means, by 
 which the young king was influenced to take in hand so 
 strenuously the reformation of religion thronghont the 
 
366 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 land. The high' inkiest Jinds this Book of the Law ia the 
 Temple. If it really had been written by Moses, where, 
 we might ask, had it been lying all this while, dw- 
 ing more tlian eight centuries ? Part iii, s. 547. It 
 may be said that this, however, is not quite accurate; 
 that the law had not been lost for so many centuries, but 
 that it appears to have been used about 300 years befoi'e. 
 For we read in 2 Chron. xvii. Also in the third year of 
 his reign he sent to his 2>^^inces, eveii to Ben-hail, and to 
 Ohadiah, and Zechariah, and to Nethaneel, and to Mi- 
 chaiahf to teach 171 the cities of Judah. And with them 
 he sent Levites, even Shemaiah, and Nethaniah, and 
 Zebadiah, and Asahel, and Shemiramoth, and JehonM- 
 than, and Adonijah, and Tooijah, a/nd Tohadonijahf 
 Levites ; and with them Elishama and Jehora/m, priests. 
 And they taught in Judah, and had the hook of the law of 
 the Lord with thenn, and went about throughout all the 
 cities of Judah, and taught the j?:><?o;:»/e. It cannot be 
 denied that this is recorded, but it is recorded by the same 
 writer, who says that this king Jehoshaphat had one 
 million six hundred thousand men of valour, who waited 
 on him, besides those whom the king put in the fenced 
 cities throughout all Judah; and as the poj)ulation of 
 the whole little kingdom probably did not amount to 
 so many as are said to have been armed soldiers, the 
 authority of this royal panegyrist does not go for much. 
 Ho is besides the same scribe who records this blas- 
 phemous vision, of God sending forth from heaven a 
 lying Spirit to deceive a man ! Again he said : / saw 
 the Lord sitting u^yori his throne, and all the host of 
 heaven standing on his right hand and his left. And 
 he I^ord said, Who shall entice Ahah king of Israel, 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 367 
 
 that he may go up and fall at Eajiwtli-gilead ? And one 
 spake saying after this manner, and another saying after 
 that manlier. Then there caiiie out a Spirit, and stood 
 before tlie Lord, and said, I will entice him. And the 
 Lord said unto him, WJieremith 1 And lie said, I will 
 go out, and be a lying Spirit in the mouth of all his 
 propliets. And the Lord said. Thou slialt entice him 
 and tliou shall also prevail ; go out, and do even so. 
 Now therefore, behold, the Lord Jmth 2^ut a Lying Spirit 
 in the mouth of these thy prophets, and tlie Lord luUh 
 spoken evil against thee. It is true a similar story, and 
 almost in the same words, is given by tlie writer of^ 
 1 Kings xxii., and if one be unreliable the other also 
 is. But a» we are bound to reject them, when they make 
 God a Father of lies, as in these passages, we may if 
 we choose, receive their testimony as to the historical 
 events where it is not their plain interest to deceive ; 
 and their narrative here is perhaps true. Any per- 
 son, however, who chooses to believe this tale about 
 Jehoshaphat may do so : it can make very little diflfer- 
 ence as to the matter now under discussion, and it leaves 
 untouched the fact that it is the fii-st mention of such a 
 Book for a period of more than 400 years since the death of 
 Moses, and that it undoubtedly appears to have been wholly 
 lost for several centuries afterwards, when it was found in 
 the Temple as related above. 
 
 16. This story of its being accidetiially found in the 
 temple, says Norton, p. 430, may be thought to have been 
 what was considered a jusiifahle artifice, to account for 
 the appearance of a book hitJierto unknown. Not a few 
 of the German critics have in like manner traced the ori- 
 gin of the Pentateuch to the transaction in question. If 
 
868 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 the Pentateuch were before in existence, it was impossible, 
 they allege that Josiah and the high priest should have 
 been ignorant of it, or destitute of it (Stuart, Old Tesla- 
 ment, p. 68). This is an observation which it is not easy 
 to answer. The transaction recorded is of such a nature 
 as for ever to destroy anything like certainty regarding^ 
 the authenticity of the Hebrew books. Yet, if they be 
 not authentic, in what plight are the believers 1 and how 
 do the everlasting interests of their immortal natures 
 stand 1 Terrific questions ! — and not to be disposed of 
 by the flippancy of schoolmen. I place them before the 
 world in the fullest earnestness, and Avith the most pro- 
 found conviction of their solemnity. I implore my readers 
 with all energy and seriousness to apply their minds to 
 the duty of investigating these important matters. The 
 questions of the day, on which so many waste the mighty 
 energies which God has given, are petty and evanescent : 
 but the issues raised by this Volume are entwined with 
 the everlasting condition of the human race. 
 
 17. In the historical passages above cited, it will be 
 observed that there is no mention of any other book than 
 the Law, that is, what is now called the Pentateuch, or five 
 books of Amosis. Supposing that the copy which this 
 priest produced was a genuine coj^y, it was nevertheless 
 of little or no use to the people. If an original copy, it 
 was probably in the old Hebrew, a language of which, as a 
 people, they at that period knew absolutely nothing. The 
 only language which they knew and spoke was the Chal- 
 dee : none but the very learned rabbis, as we may suppose, 
 knew Hebrew — though even of this there is no evidence. 
 When, therefore, the people assembled for prayer, it be- 
 came the custom to read three verses out of the book 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 3G9 
 
 that had been found, and certain persons called Interpre- 
 ters, who were specially appointed for that purpose, then 
 stood up and explained and paraphrased in dial dee the 
 meaning of what, to the community at large, was nothing 
 but an unknown tongue (7). It must be obvious at a 
 glance to what innumerable opportunities for fraud, for 
 forgery, for interpolations and excision such a practice 
 would open the way. We cannot but perceive, says the 
 reverend author of Nimrod, what immense power the 
 prophet, or those who employed hirriy must have enjoyed : 
 he had abundant opportunities to suppress, interpolate, or 
 forge (ii. 75). An artful or evil-minded teacher in a syna- 
 gogue, under the influence of a wicked king, or his own 
 ambition, might preach what he pleased, or interpret as he 
 deemed fit, or forge as he thought convenient, and give to 
 the most odious notions the sanction of what was regarded 
 as a holy book, while detection from his hearers would be 
 absolutely impossible. The Book of Judith, which like 
 those already cited, justifies assassination for political 
 purposes is an instance of this. And this mode of read- 
 ing continued for some hundred years until the days of 
 Esdi-as, when there was a general revision of the Jewish 
 writings, under supernatural influence, as already de- 
 scribed by that historian {ante, p. 78) ; but of what the 
 204 chapters consisted, and whether they included what are 
 called the historical, or prophetical, or didactic writings, 
 Esdras supplies no information whatever, nor does any 
 other annalist of the time give us any (8). 
 
 18. In the face of this utter disappearance of 
 the Book for so long a period, and of these admitted 
 and universal idolatries of the nation, one of the 
 most noted biblical commentators, dares thus to write : 
 
 b3 
 
370 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 How could an alteration or forgery of the Penta- 
 teuch succeed 1 Let it be considered that these books 
 were sacred ; that the Jews revered theui as contain- 
 ing the divine law ; that all the tribes considered 
 them as the only rule of their religion and government ; 
 and that in all ages the whole nation shewed a respect 
 for these books which bordered even upon superstition. Let 
 it be remembered with what care the Pentateuch solemnly 
 deposited in the ark of the covenant, was there preserved 
 till the time of King Josiah ; let it be considered that 
 under pain of the divine malediction, it was forbidden to 
 add to, or take anything from it ; let it be considered 
 that if ever work was made public, dispersed and known, 
 it is this ; not only the great men, t//e priests and people 
 were bound to read it every day of their lives, not only had 
 they scribes or writers whose profession it was to multiply 
 the copies of it ; not only was it enjoined by an express 
 law tliat they should have it publicly read every seven 
 years, but besides all this, it is certain that from all anti- 
 quity, that is to say from the commencement of the Mosaic 
 dispoisation, there were persons who read and who preached 
 the Pentateuch every Sunday. Therefore the books of 
 Moses must be as well known among the Jews, as the 
 gospels have been since among Christians. I was about 
 to ask can the force of dishonesty farther go ? but re- 
 membering that there is no limit to the frauds of these 
 writers, I hesitate to put the question. So far from it 
 being true, that the Jews revered them, or regarded them 
 as their rule : that they were made public, or dispersed, and 
 known ; that they were read every day, or read publicly 
 every seven years, and preached every Sunday, the direct 
 contrary is the truth, as this writer very well knew. The 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 371 
 
 Jewe, as we have seen were living in the grossest idolatry 
 for centuries, they utterly trampled on the Laws of Moses ; 
 and the fact that only one copy of their legislator's writ- 
 ings existed throughout all Jewry, is perhaps the most 
 damning and conclusive proof of their paganism, that 
 can be cited. But what are we to say of a class of 
 writers, who like this Paulite, deliberately falsify the 
 records of the Past, and publish to the world what they 
 know to be untrue ? (9.) 
 
 19. Josephus, who as an historian of his own people 
 may be credited in matters where he can have no object 
 in deceiving, in his Tract against Apion, says that in his 
 day the Jews acknowledged 22 Books, which are justly 
 believed to be divine. Five of them, he says, belong to 
 Moses, which contain his Laws, and the traditions of the 
 origin of mankind till his death. From the death of 
 Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes King of Persia who 
 reigned after Xerxes, the prophets wlio were after Moses 
 wrote down what was done in their times in thii-teen 
 books. This is the king who was sumamed Longimanus, 
 and who reigned about 490 years B.C., according to 
 common chronology. Now the thirteen historical books, 
 (for Josephus expressly says they related only what was 
 done), are Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 
 1 Chronicles, 1 Kings, 2 Chronicles, 2 Kings, Jeremiah 
 (the historical chapters), Esther, Ezra, and Nehemiah, 
 The remaining four books, he says, contain hymns to 
 God, and precepts for the conduct of human life. There 
 are the Psalms, the Songs of Solomon, Proverbs, and 
 Ecclesiastes — so that the whole of what are now called 
 Prophets, with the exception of Jeremiah, were utterly 
 repudiated or ignored by the historian of the Jews. I 
 
372 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 myself, however, believe that in place of Jeremiah, we 
 should put the Book of Judith, now called apocryphal ; 
 but only called so when the detestable doctrine which it 
 advocated had excited the abhorrence of the whole world. 
 It was in the reign of this Artaxerxes that Esdras made 
 his compilation of the Jewish Scriptures : and Josephu» 
 evidently had this in view, for he excluded everything 
 that was not comprised in that. What we now call the 
 prophetical books, were some of them, or rather their 
 fragments, laid up in secret crypts together with the 
 Apocalypse, on which they were a species of commentary ; 
 and they were never published to any but the most 
 trusted priests; by whom their contents were used as 
 occasion required among the populace. From these 
 broken fragments various compilers have stitched them 
 into their present form. Josephus himself, it may be 
 observed, was so ashamed of the precepts of Judith, that 
 he does not name in his history, either her, or the general 
 whom she assassinated, but the Romish Church acknow- 
 ledges its canonicity, for the pious purpose of putting 
 kings like Henry IV., and others out of the way, when- 
 ever they become inconvenient; Grotius, as may be sur- 
 mised from his character, endeavours to avoid the diffi- 
 culties of this book, by surmising that it is a parable ; 
 but it does not matter much whether it is so or not ; for 
 if the Jews as a nation recommend assassination in para- 
 bles, it is just as bad, as if they did so in any other 
 way. 
 
 20. The present version of the Hebrew-Chaldee Pen- 
 tateuch, if we possess that which was then made, depends 
 absolutely, therefore, on the veracity of two men ; Hilkiah 
 and Shaphan, for it is traced exclusively into their sole 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 373 
 
 possession ; and it appears to have existed no where else, 
 if the Old Testament itself can be relied on. Where 
 Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, and the others wbc 
 are called Minor Prophets, or Minor Poets, come from, 
 nobody knows ; it is perfectly certain that they are not- 
 traced to either of the two who alone had possession of 
 the acknowledged Hebrew Scriptures or the Law, in those 
 remote days. But can we safely rely, either upon the 
 men, or upon their successors 1 What warranty have we, 
 or what decent semblance of warranty, that the Hebrew 
 Scriptures have not been coriiipted over and over again^ 
 until only a fragment of the original remains. There ai^e 
 800,000 various readings in the MSS. of the Old Testa- 
 ment, siiys Stuart, p. 192. Spinosa, I think, has proved 
 from the following passage in Joshua viii., that the Book 
 of the Law, or the Book of the Covenant which Moses 
 wrote, was much less than the present Pentateuch. A» 
 there are one or two curious differences between our 
 authorized vei-sion from the Hebrew, and the Septuagint, 
 I insert both. 
 
 Protestant. Roman. 
 Then Joshua built an altar Then Joshua built an altar to 
 unto the Lord God of Israel in the Lord, the God of Israel in 
 mount Ebal, as Moses the ser- mount Ebal ; as Moses the ser- 
 vant of the Lord commanded the vant ofOie Lordhad commanded 
 children of Israel, as it is writ- the children of Israel, and it is 
 ten in the book of the law of written in the Book of the Lai9 
 Moses, an altar of whole stones, of Moses, an altar of unhewed 
 over which no 7nan hath lift up stones which iron had not touch- 
 any iron : and they offered there- ed, and he offered upon it, holch 
 on burnt offerings unto the Lord, causts to the Lord, and immolcc- 
 and sacrificed peace offerings. ted victims of peace offerings. 
 And he wrote there upon the And he UTote upon stones the 
 atones a copy of the law of Moses, Deuteronomy of the Law of 
 which he wrote in the i>r€sence of Moses, which he had ordered be- 
 
^74i 
 
 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 Protestant. 
 ihe children of Isreal. And all 
 Israel, and their elders, and 
 officers, and their judges, stood 
 on this side the ark and on that 
 jBide before the priests the Levites, 
 ■which hare the arJc of the cove- 
 nant of the Lord as well the 
 stranger, as he that teas born 
 among them ; half of them over 
 Mgainst mount Gerizim, and half 
 jof them over against mount 
 Mbal; as Moses the servant of 
 the Lord had commanded before 
 jLhat they sJiould bless the people 
 j)f Israel. And afterwai^ds lie 
 read all the ivords of the law, 
 '.the blessings and cursings, ac- 
 /wording to all that is written in 
 Me booh of the laio. There was 
 ■not a tvord of all that Moses 
 commanded, which Joshua read 
 not before all the congregation of 
 Israel, zvith the women, and the 
 Mttle ones, and the strangers that 
 acere conversant among them. 
 
 If therefore tlie Pentateucli is to be regarded as embrac- 
 ing the Laws of Moses, it must have been all transcribed 
 x)n these stones. 
 
 *21. The event here recorded, as having been done in 
 the days of Joshua, was in the fulfilment of the command 
 ^f Moses himself, as detailed in the fictitious Deuteronomy , 
 jxxvii. And it slmll he on the day wJien ye shall pass over 
 Jordcm unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, 
 that thou shalt set tJiee up great stoTies, and plaister them 
 with plaister : and thou shalt write upon them all the words 
 of this law, lohen thou art parsed over, that t/iou mayest go 
 in unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, a land 
 that floweth with milk and honey j as ilie Lord God of 
 
 Roman. 
 fore the children of Israel, and 
 all the people and the ancients 
 and the princes and the judges 
 stood on both sides of the arh, 
 before the priests that carried 
 the ark of the covenant of the 
 Lord, both the stranger and he 
 that was born a^nong them ; half 
 of them by Mount Gerizim, and 
 half by mount Ebal, as Moses 
 the servant of the Lord had com- 
 manded. And frst he blessed 
 the peojile of Israel, after this 
 he read all the words of the 
 blessing and the cursing, and all 
 things that ivere written in the 
 Book of the Law. He left out 
 nothing of those things which 
 Moses had commanded, but he 
 repeated all before all the people 
 of Israel with the ivomen and 
 children and strangers that dwelt 
 among them. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 375 
 
 thy fathers hath promised t/iee. Ther^/we it sliall he ivlien 
 ye he gone ovzr Jordan tJiat ye sIuxU set up tliese stones, 
 which I commcmd you Urn day, in mount Ehal, and thou 
 ahalt plaisler tlieon with ^;?ais^r. Aiid t/iere shalt thou 
 build an altar unto the Lord Uiy God, an altar of stories : 
 Hiou shalt not lift up any iron tool upon tliem. Thou sluilt 
 build the altar of the Lord thy God of whole stories : and 
 thou shalt offer burnt offerings tJiereon unto the Lord thy 
 God : and thou shalt offer peace offerings, atid slmlt eat t/iere, 
 and rejoice before the Lord thy God. And thou sJudt write 
 upon the stones all ifte toords of this law very plahdy. 
 From this extract it would appear that it was only 
 Deuteronomy, which was to be graven <ai stones, and so 
 indeed the Seventy ti-anslate it, as is shewn above. If 
 this be so, it militates greatly against the value of the 
 othei' books, for the plain inference is, that the Jews re- 
 garded Deuteronomy alone as the true Law-Book, and 
 the others of no consideration ; for as the people were to 
 abide by that which was written and by that only, the 
 others may be looked on as repealed or superseded. How- 
 ever the matter may be viewed, it is full of difficulty for 
 • the orthodox believer. If the whole Pentateuch were 
 graven it seems an impossibility — ^if only one book, the 
 value of the rest as statute books of God seems nearly 
 worthless. 
 
 22. The Talmudists, however, maintain that not only 
 were the whole five Books of Moses graven on these 
 stones, but they further affirm that they were written 
 in sevienty languages. Rabbi Moses, of Ndliman, who 
 tells this legend, testifies that he had found in a book 
 which treats of the Crowns of the Law, that all the 
 words of the five books of the Law were engraven upon 
 
376 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 these pillars with all the crowns. By these crowns the 
 Jews understancl little strokes or points, which they write 
 in fashion of a horn or crown upon certain letters for 
 ornament sake. These crowns are not to be found but in 
 the Hebrew copies reserved for the use of the synagogues, 
 and not in those which belong to particular persons ; 
 and, if we are to credit the fancies of these Kabbis, 
 Moses received these crowns on Mount Sinai, at the 
 same time as he received the Law, and God taught 
 him during the 40 days he staid there how to make them. 
 It may be asked here, how is it, if these stones were thus 
 graven with the Law, that the Jews in the days of Josiah 
 should have no knowledge whatever of them, and should 
 have been in the most complete ignorance of what Moses 
 had commanded, until Hilkiah found a Book of the Law 
 in the accidental way described in 2 Kings xxii., and 2 
 Ghron. xxxiv. ? but this is a question more easily asked 
 than answered. 
 
 23. It is not difficult, says father Simon, to bring other 
 proofs to shew that Moses is not the only author of 
 the whole Pentateuch after the manner in which we 
 now have it. S. Jerome, as before remarked, durst not 
 ascribe it wholly to him ; and Massius, who is one of 
 the most learned and judicious interpreters of the Scripture 
 we have had in these last ages, has not hesitated to 
 say that several things have been added to the books 
 of Moses ; he acknowledges those public writers of w^hom 
 we have before spoken ; and Pererius, the Jesuit, is of 
 the same opinion as Massius, because it seemed to him 
 that nothing could be more reasonable. This Jesuit 
 indeed, believes that some of the works of those public 
 writers have been culled out, and inserted into the holy 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 377 
 
 scriptures tvhich we have at present. He does not 
 likewise reject the reason which Massius brings to 
 prove that the books of Moses are not now in the 
 same condition they were when Moses writ them, but 
 his reasons consist chiefly in that we see in the Penta- 
 teuch, other books, proverbs, and verses or sentences 
 quoted, which none can doubt but were after Moses. The 
 authoi-s of tliose verses or sentences are called Moscelim, 
 that is to say, elegant and subtile writers, who writ book* 
 in verse, or rather in a short and sententious style : Bonfre- 
 rius, the Jesuit, attributes to other writings than Moses"^ 
 many things which this legislator could not have writ but 
 by the spirit of prophecy. Shall we say for example that 
 Moses is the author of the last chapter of Deuteronomy, 
 where his death and burial is described ? I know Jose^ 
 phus and Philo upon this occasion /tave recourse to prO' 
 phecyj but we ought not to believe them more than ot|ier 
 Jews who Inscribe the whole Law to Moses to render it- 
 more authentic. We have already observed that Joshua- 
 added something to the Law; and, moreover, if Moses 
 was the author of the Pentateuch, after the manner in 
 which it is at present writ, would behave used this way of 
 sj)eaking : The Canaanite was tlien in the land. Gen. xif. 
 6, xiii. 7. It is known that the Canaan ites continued in 
 possession of the country here spoken of all the time of 
 Moses [and were not expelled until long after his death], 
 so that this could not have been writ but after they had 
 been driven out. The names of Hebron and Dan, and 
 some othei-s which are in the Pentateuch, were not ia 
 being in the time of Moses ; it is likewise probable that 
 he could not have writ these words : And tJiese are tfie 
 Icings tJuit reignnd in the land of EJom before tJur^ 
 
578 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 ■reigned any king over the children of Israel. Gen. xxxvi. 
 51. This manner of speaking supposes the establishment 
 of kings among the Hebrews, and Bonfrerius, the Jesuit 
 in expounding some Interpreters on this passage, adds 
 .these words : I had rather say that another writer has 
 added to the book of Moses than make him pass con- 
 tinually for a Prophet ! F. Simon, lib. 1, cap. 5. 
 
 24. We find in the Book of Joshua the same additions 
 .-and changes as in the Books of Moses. Theodoret affirms 
 that this volume was collected long after Joshua, and that 
 it was but an abstract of an ancient commentary named 
 -the Book of Just Men. Massius, who has wiit a learned 
 •commentary upon this history, explaining the 10th chap- 
 iter of Joshua, shews at full that what is related in that 
 ^ook could not be his, and he confirms at the same time 
 .by very good reasons, what we have said touching the 
 manner of making the collection of the Holy Scriptures. 
 Don Isaac Abravanel wholly rejects the opinion of his 
 jancient doctors, who have in the Talmud attributed to 
 Joshua the book that bears his name, and he proves the 
 contrary by many actions and ways of speech which 
 =could not proceed from him. As when it is said : {chap. 
 iv. 9) And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of Jor- 
 dan, and they are tJiere unto this day. And again {chap. 
 V. 9), Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal 
 unto this day. And again {cap. x. 27), Joshua laid great 
 jstones in tlie cavers mouth, which remain until this day. 
 from Avhence it is easy to conclude that one part of the 
 3ook w^as written some time after these things happened. 
 JMoreover, the history of the division of the sons of Dan, 
 who took the city of Lescem {chap. xix. 47), happened 
 jiot likewise till after the deatli of Joshua. Massius be- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 379 
 
 lieves that it Las been inserted into tlie collection of 
 Joshua, that the place where the Danites were fixed 
 might be known. So likewise we find that the same 
 stoiy is related more at large in the Book of Judges, 
 which is its proper place {chap, xviii, 29, more than 300 
 years after the days of Joshua, according to Bible Chrono- 
 logy). As to the history of the Judges, as it bears no 
 name of any particular author, some, with the doctors of 
 the Talmud, have ascribed it to Samuel and others to 
 Esdras. It may be that Samuel may have composed it, 
 and that Esdras, or he who made the last collection of the 
 Holy Scripture, has added many things. However it is, 
 it is certain that this history, or at least some pai-t of it, 
 was not composed till long after the deeds there spoken 
 of had happened. There were not yet kings who governed 
 the Hebrews, and yet there is mention of them, as 
 wliere it is said (cliap. xvii. 6, xviii. 1) : In those days 
 there was no king in Israel : which plainly supposes that 
 the Israelites were then under the government of Kings. 
 One may fai-ther observe that the genealogies of this 
 history are sometimes only set down in short ; whether 
 that proceeds from negligence of transcribers, or the de- 
 sign of the author of the collection, or leather from both 
 together. The books which we have under the name of 
 Samuel cannot likewise be wholly his, by reason of certain 
 ways of si)eaking which were not in his time : besides, 
 they contain histories which happened not till after his 
 death. When he speaks of the Ark, which was taken by 
 the Philistines, he says (1 Sam. v. 5) : TJierefore neitlier 
 iJie priests of Dagon^ nor any that come into Dagon's 
 house, tread on ilie tJiresJiold of Dagon in AsJulod wntil this 
 day : and in another place he adds (1 Sam. vi. 18) 
 
380 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 which stone remaineth unto this day in the field of Joshua^ 
 the Bethemite : Samuel could not report after this 
 manner deeds which he was witness of. He could not 
 have' said in speaking of himself (chap. ix. 9) : Before- 
 time in Israely when a man went to enquire of God thus 
 he spake ; Come and let us go to the Seer : for he that is 
 now called a Prophet was before time called a Seer; and 
 it is moreover related in the same book {chap. vii. 2). And 
 it came to pass, while the ark abode in Kirjath-jerim, 
 that the time ivas long, for it was twenty years. How, 
 says Abravanel, could that be, since the ark remained but 
 thirteen years in that place in the life of Samuel, and 
 that seven years after his death, David brought it from 
 thence ? It is certain that in Samuel's time there were 
 yet no kings of Judah, and nevertheless we read in this 
 book (chap. vii. 6), Wherefore Ziklag pertaineth unto the 
 kings of Judah unto this day. There are also several 
 other such like examples in the second book, from whence 
 Abravanel, upon the same reasons, concludes that this 
 history cannot be ascribed to Gad and Nathan, because 
 they lived at the same time as Samuel. Bonfrerius, the 
 Jesuit, acknowledges that Samuel could not write all the 
 history that goes under his name, and he ascribes to 
 him only the first 24 chapters of the first book, which 
 nevertheless cannot be wholly true. As to the other 
 chapters of this same book, and the history of the 
 Kings, he judiciously observes, that we cannot assert 
 that one and the same jDcrson is the author, but that 
 several prophets or priests have had a hand in it, every 
 one writing what happened in his own time, although 
 what they had writ was not so soon published. Sixtus 
 of Sienna, and several others, have ascribed these books 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 381' 
 
 part to Samuel, and part to the prophets Kathan and 
 Gad, because it is said in the Chronicles, the actions of 
 David have been writ in the books of Samuel, Nathan, and 
 Gad. (1 Chron. xxix. 29, 2 Chron. ix. 29). But, although 
 that agi-ees with the principles we have already set 
 down concerning the Prophets who collected every one 
 the acts of their times, there are nevertheless in these 
 books several ways of speaking which clearly demon- 
 strate that the last collection was not made till long 
 time after most of these prophets, and by authors who 
 could not possibly be cotemporary with them. It would 
 be unnecessary to relate the opinion of several other 
 authors upon a subject upon which we can affirm 
 nothing certain : and it is not certainly known even whe- 
 ther Esdras was the undoubted author of the last collection 
 of the canonical scriptures, as is commonly believed : it 
 is probable that the Jews at their return from captivity 
 made a collection out of the records which they had, 
 part of which they gave to the people, and the other 
 part they kept in their registeries. They called this 
 part which they made public canonical scripture. As 
 there are many records joined together, and that they 
 are not of a chain, we ought not to regard so much 
 the order and time as the things, for there are some 
 things which are related in the same place, although 
 they happened in different times : for this reason like- 
 wise it is that several histories have been inserted into 
 the Prophecies, which were not writ by the Prophets wJiose 
 names they bear. We find, for example, in the prophecy 
 of Jeremiah, the history of the destruction of Jei-usalem, 
 which is writ in the second of Chronicles. 
 2b. There are several omissions, adds Simon, both in 
 
882 THE BOOK OF GOD, 
 
 the Prophecies and other books, which I dare not attribute 
 to the authors of the collection, being persuaded that they 
 proceed from the negligence of the Jews, who have not 
 preserved the text of the Bible with sufficient care. 
 There are, for example, in the text of Jeremiah many- 
 phrases so curtailed that the sense of them cannot 
 be found out but by supplying many words, or reversing 
 the order of periods, and placing them in their proper 
 station, which may nevertheless in some measure proceed 
 from the particular style of the writers. For there is a 
 great deal of difference between the style of Isaiah and 
 Jeremiah. This last puts indifferently one preposition 
 for another, the feminine for the masculine, the plural 
 for the singular, and the singular for the plural ; the 
 prseterperfect tense for the future, and the future for the 
 prseterperfect tense, etc. And in this way this deeply 
 learned priest manfully discusses the whole subject with a 
 depth and acuteness very far above that of many who 
 have obtained greater notoriety. I may add here that 
 the Rev. Joseph "VVolf {Journal, 200) mentions the fol- 
 lowing conversation which he had with a learned Sama- 
 ritan named Israel. W. Are you in the possession of the 
 Prophets and the Psalms of David? 7^. We do not 
 acknowledge any other Prophet beside Moses; we do 
 neither acknowledge Isaiah, nor Jeremiah, nor Ezekiel, 
 nor the Psalms of David ; nothing, nothing, nothing, but 
 the Books of Moses. We also despise the Talmud and 
 the Mishna. There is much to be found in the Books of 
 Moses; not every one is able to understand them, or 
 enter into the depth of them. W. Why do you not 
 believe in the Prophets ? Is. Ye shcdl not add unto the 
 word wTiicIi I command you, neither shall ye diminish 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 88^ 
 
 might from il, tJiat ye may keep the commaiidments of the 
 Lord your Godj which I command you, — Dent. iv. 2. 
 
 26. The great majority of people, that is, people who- 
 know nothing at all, think when they see a Hebrew Bible, 
 that they are looking at an exact copy of the veiy words- 
 and characters that the ancient Hebrew writers used ; 
 but this is not so. The Hebrew Bible is precisely as if 
 Homer were printed not in Greek but in English lettere; 
 or as if Shakspeare's works were phonographed in Bur- 
 mese. The letters are not Hebrew letters at all ; they 
 are modem Chaldee, between which and Hebrew there is: 
 no more analogy than between the Greek and English 
 alphabets ; so that instead of knowing or reading what- 
 the Hebrew writers wrote, there is only a Chaldee phono^ 
 graph of their words ; as one might print in English type 
 what he supposed to be the sounds of Shanscreet or 
 Chinese. To what imperfections, errors, and absurd 
 mistakes such a course would lead, even in the present- 
 days when printing is universal, may easily be imagined ; 
 but what it would produce in the days of manuscripts- 
 can hardly be surmised. Yet it is on a work of this- 
 nature, a phonograph of a dead and almost unknown 
 language, as abstruse as the cuneiform lettei*s on the 
 mountains of Assyria, that both Jew and Paulite rely 
 implicitly, as if it alone were the sole, perfect, and infalli- 
 ble production on the whole earth. 
 
 27. The gi'eat oriental scholar, Klaproth, does not 
 admit any antiquity in these mysterious characters. It is 
 very likely, he says, that the square Hebrew characters, iii 
 which th6 Biblical manuscripts are written, and which we 
 use in prititiug, were derived from the Palmyrenian 
 writing, 6r Some other Semitic alphabet similar to it. 
 
S84 THE BOOK OF GOD 
 
 Attempts have been made, it is tme, to carry back the 
 antiquity of the square Hebrew character to the time of 
 the prophet Esdras (B.C. 458), and it is asserted that the 
 Jews adopted it from the Babylonians, at the period of 
 their captivity amongst them. But these assertions are 
 unsupported except by hypotheses, or the vague tradi- 
 tions of the rabbis ; they are entitled to no regard, and 
 we may assume, almost with certainty, that the existing 
 Hebrew writing is no older than the fourth century of our 
 era. A mere inspection of this alphabet demonstrates 
 that it has been shaped and made regular, in doing which 
 the characteristic marks of some of the letters have been 
 retrenched, in order to render them more square and 
 uniform. — Asiatic Journal^ N. S., vii. 275. Higgins, 
 who is one of the most candid and deeply read of writers, 
 speaks thus of the imperfectness of this dialact, on whose 
 authenticity and understanding so many millions of 
 people unhesitatingly build all their future. In the He- 
 brew language, he says, some words have no vowels, and in 
 almost every word consonants come together without them. 
 The cause of this cannot at this day be certainly known ; 
 but it may have arisen either from a wish in the priests 
 to conceal or render difficult the art of reading, or 
 merely from a habit of abbreviating words for the sake of 
 ^expedition, or of reducing works to as small a size as 
 possible. This was similar to a practice which took place 
 in the Latin language some centuries ago, by which it 
 would have been brought to the same situation as the 
 Hebrew if it had been continued. Thus for rnanum they 
 -vnrote mnm. In this state the Hebrew was found when 
 the Jews began to recover after the ruin of their country ; 
 and to obviate the inconveniences of it, points, as vowels, 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 385 
 
 vere invented instead of the vowels being restored, as 
 they ought to have been. But nothing simple or plain 
 •was likely to suit the followei-s of the modern cabala, the 
 most childish fooleiy that ever men of common sense 
 permitted themselves to be deluded with. — Geltic Druids, 
 (10.) In this language, indeed, punctuation is almost 
 everything, and by a judicious placing of the points, a 
 Hebrew scholar might make whatever he pleased out of 
 the Old Testament. A couple of instances will suffice. 
 In Gen. xlix. 21, we read, Napthali is a hind let loose; he 
 giveth goodly loords : by only a slight alteration of the 
 points Bochart changes this into : Nap'hali is a spreading 
 tree, shooting forth beautiful brandies ! ! So, again, in 
 Ps. xxix. 9, instead of. The voice of the Lord maketh tin 
 hinl to calve, and discovereth the forests ; Bishop Lowth 
 gives. The voice of the Lord striketh the oak, and dis- 
 covereth the forests. The same word in Hebrew signifies 
 God and Nothing ; so wonderful is the adaptability of this 
 dialect ! 
 
 28. As to what has been said, says Bishop Walton, 
 Prolegomena, iii. 13, by some persons who will have it 
 that the Hebrew is the same as the Syriac or Chaldaic, I 
 will only put forward this single answer, from Jeremiah 
 V. 15, where the Chaldaeans or Assyrians, whom God, by 
 his prophet, threatens that he will bring against Judea, 
 are calh d an ancient nation, and a strong, a nation whose 
 language the 2^€ople of Israel knoweth not, neither do they 
 iinderstand their speech : What can be brought forward to 
 prove more clearly that these languages were different, 
 when the vernacular of one could not be understood by 
 the other 1 . . But during the captivity of seventy years, 
 a great change succeeded, so that the Jews, wholly for- 
 
 S 
 
386 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 getting their own language, brought back into their own 
 land the language of Chaldsea, with a slight tincture only 
 of Hebrew, from which period Hebrew ceased to be their 
 spoken language, according to the unanimous consent of 
 almost all their doctors. Wherefore we read in Nehe- 
 miah viii. 7, 8, (11,) that Esdras and the Levites, when 
 they read the Law to the people, expounded the same 
 and explained the meaning (to wit, in the vulgar tongue), 
 so that the people should understand it. And hence 
 arose their Paraphrases^ when, after they had read the 
 Law and prophets in their synagogues, they gave an 
 explanation in the vulgar tongue. For the Hebi^ew, 
 therefore, the Chaldaie thenceforth became the vernacular 
 langTiage of the Jews ; and it was at first pure, but after- 
 wards it grew corrupted and vitiated with various dialects 
 and idioms, according to the diversity of nations by whom 
 they were enslaved. 
 
 2^. This cori'uption of the language is thus alluded to 
 by a very erudite priest. The most recent researches, 
 says Donaldson, incline to the conclusion that the view 
 of Elias Levita, that the Massorah was committed to 
 writing in 506 after Christ, is correct. Jolowictz has un- 
 dertaken to show that the Talmudists and the later 
 Rabbis, as well as the Chaldee paraphrast, Jonathan Ben 
 XJzziel, not only knew various readings most strikinglif 
 dljf'erent frmn our canonical text, but also determined by 
 the interpretations of the same, the most important 
 usages of life. And in his postcript (p. 15) he gives 
 specinl pix)ofs that the Talmudists had copies of the 
 Pentateuch containing different readings, and that they 
 sometimes used one M S. roll to correct many others. If 
 then we take into consideration the variations of the He- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 387 
 
 Ijrew MSS., none of which can boast any great antiquity, 
 the discrepancies between the Hebrew text and that of 
 the Samaritan and Greek versions, the evidences of dif- 
 ferent readings furnished by the Talmud, Targumim, and 
 other Rabbinical authorities, the change of the Hebrew 
 character from the older Phoenician form to the square 
 lettei-s borrowed from the Syrians after the Captivity, 
 the late introduction of points, and the distinctions be- 
 tween medial and final letters, the probability that the 
 Jewish editors may have accommodated the Hebrew text 
 to the Septuagint, and the evidence furnished by the 
 very remarkable fact that some of the Jewish computa- 
 tatiotis of time in tlie text of the Old Testament, involve 
 the date of tJie destruction of Jerusalem, and therefore 
 presume a tampering with the text subsequent to this 
 date — all this and a gi'eat deal more that might be alleged, 
 shows that we cannot place implicit reliance on the Ma- 
 soretic text, and that if conjectural emendation is allow- 
 able in the case of the classical authors, it is a still more 
 legitimate instrument in the case of tliese compiled, re- 
 vised, and perpetucdly re-edited remains of the ancient 
 Jewish literature. — Chr. Orth. (12.) 
 
 30. The reverend Dr. Prideaux, Dean of Norwich, does 
 not disguise, but admits, and appeai-s rather to justify 
 taking liberties with the Sacred Volume. Speaking of 
 Ezra, he says ; He added in several places throughout the 
 books of this edition what appeared necessary for the 
 illustmting, connecting or completing of them ; wherein 
 he was assisted by the same Spirit, by which they were at 
 fii-st wrote : of this sort we may reckon the last cha])ter 
 of Deuteronomy, which giving an account of tlie deatli 
 and burial of Moses and of the succession of Josluui 
 
 s 2 
 
3S8 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 after him, could not be written by Moses himself, who 
 undoubtedly was the penman of all the rest of that book. 
 It seems most probable that it wa!j added by Ezra at this 
 time. And such also may we reckon the several in- 
 terpolations which occur in many places of the holy scrip- 
 tui'es, jor that there are such interpolations is undeniable : 
 there being many passages through the whole sacred writs 
 which create difficulties that can never be solved without 
 the allowing of them, -f * * Qf which interpolations 
 undoubtedly Ezra was the author, in all the books which 
 passed his examination, and Simon the priest, in all the 
 rest, which were abided afterwards. — Sacred Connect. Part 
 I., Book 5, s. 4. 
 
 31. These falsehoods, interpolations, additions, corrup- 
 tions, corrections, or transcriptions from others, to which 
 I have above alluded, and which Prideaux defends, are 
 thus spoken of by Home, in his Introduction^ (10th ed., 
 vol. ii., p. 33,) which seems to convey the idea that when 
 a Hebrew writer found a writing of anybody else, he was 
 entitled if he thought fit, being " conscious of the aid of 
 the Holy Spirit," to do exactly as he pleased with it, to 
 cut it up, or copy it, or use as much of it as he deemed 
 right, and so incorporate it with his own compositions. 
 This, though not an entirely new, is a very startling view 
 of the authenticity of Holy Scripture ; it appears also to 
 be a most important admission from this writer, from 
 whom indeed, it is almost impossible fo get any admission 
 at all that makes against his church, so remarkably 
 guarded is he in his phraseology, and so wonderfully dis- 
 creet in the use of words. His language like a diplomatic 
 letter, perpetually suggests to the mind ideas other than 
 those which he really means ; I defy any unlearned per- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 
 
 son to read his chapter on " Hebrew characters," and to 
 derive any knowledge from it whatever of the subject on 
 which he professes to treat, namely the present form of 
 the Chaldee-Hebrew biblical text, and how it came to be 
 used. Tlie passage which I cite is as follows. We are 
 persuaded, he says, that the things to which reference is 
 made, proceeded from the original writei*s or compilers of 
 the books. Sometimes they took other writings, annals, 
 genealogies, and such like, with which they incorporated 
 additional matter y or which they put together with greater 
 or less condensation. The Old Testament authors used 
 the sources they employed (that is the ^vl•itings of other 
 people) with freedom and independence. Conscious of 
 the aid of the Divine Spirit, they adapted their own pro- 
 ductions, or the productions of others, to the wants of the 
 times. But in these respects they cannot be said to have 
 con-upted the text of Scripture. They made the text. But 
 of what did they make it 1 Why from the writings of 
 other persons. And this is Home's notion of what the 
 Old Testament is — a cento from the writings of unknown 
 persons, collected and put together by those, who, he says, 
 were divinely inspired. No infidel that I know of, has 
 ever made so damaging a charge as this against the au- 
 thenticity of the Old Testament ; yet it is the confession 
 of a clergyman of the most approved Church of England 
 pattern, who made the work the study of his whole life, 
 who never makes an admission until it seems absolutely 
 wrung from him, and whose Introduction to Scripture has 
 become almost a standard work. I do not go so far as he 
 does ; but it will be seen that his admission exactly sup- 
 ports my view, as to the use which the priests made of 
 the primeval Apocalypse. 
 
390 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 32. Home, having thus begun, is forced to confess, that 
 the Pentateuch has been so constructed. What is called 
 the supplement hypothesis, he says, is now the most 
 approved one in Germany respecting the Pentateuch. 
 According to it, an ancient document forms the essential 
 basis of the work, which received very considerable in- 
 sertions and supplements. Tlie Pentateuch arose out of 
 the primitive or older document, hy means of a supplemen- 
 ta/ry one. In consequence of this twofold ma,terial of 
 which the work consists, critics have attempted to trace 
 the gi-oundwork document and the supplementary matter, 
 distinguishing tlij:-oughout the one from the other. The 
 two principal documents are usually called the Elohim 
 and Jehovah documents. (13). The former is closely 
 connected in its parts, and forms a whole, while the latter 
 is thought to be complementary, supplying details at the 
 points where the former is abrupt and defective. They 
 were subsequently combined by the hands of an editor , so 
 skilfully as to render their separation very difficult, indeed 
 almost impossible in some instances. * * * How 
 different the language of Deuteronomy is from that of 
 the other four books every critical scholar perceives, . 
 which is an evidence that the whole Pentateuch could 
 not have been written by Moses. * * How the writer 
 of all in the present Pentateuch that was not composed 
 by Moses himself, proceeded, is a question which can be 
 answered very imperfectly at this distance of time. As- 
 suming at present what will be discussed and adopted 
 hereafter, that the time when the Pentateuch appeared as 
 a whole, was in the reign of the early kings, we believe 
 that two easily recognised authors appear in the first four 
 books, the Elohist and Jehovist, so called from the name^ 
 
THE APOCALYPSB. 39 1 
 
 they severally give to the Supreme Being. The on«i 
 terms the Almighty, Elohim ; the other, Jehovah, or Je- 
 hovah Elohim, After the origin and import of Jehovah 
 is described in the sixth chapter of Exodus, the Elohist 
 also employs the name Jehovah, and so the external 
 characteristic ceases. But though the outward mark dis- 
 appears, there are internal chamcteristics which separate 
 both. The manner, style, and phraseology differ. The 
 Elohist employs a style, simple and unpoKshed : he is 
 distinguished by breadth, circumstantiality, repetitions, 
 verbosity. He belonged to tliA priestly order ^ (14), was 
 fcimiliar with primitive history, genealogical, and ethno- 
 graphical registers, and the laws immediately affecting 
 religion or religious worship. There is also a uniform and 
 consistent plan in what he composed. His work is per- 
 vaded by unity of purpose. On the other hand the 
 Jehovist writes in a more compact, regular, connected 
 manner, and though shorter is clearer and smoother in 
 style and diction. He evinces more reflectiveness and 
 skill in composition ; and probably belonged to the proplie- 
 tic order. The Elohist document forms the groundwork 
 of the Pentateuch, and is evidently older than the Jeho- 
 vist one. Whether the author of the latter had the other 
 document before liim, which he merely supplemented and 
 interpolated, is not agreed. We believe that the one 
 writer had not the other's document before him, and that 
 he did not write with a view towards it. The sources 
 from which both drew were old documents, registers and 
 tradition, (not the law of Moses.) It is very difficult to 
 determine the time or times when the two respectively 
 wrote. Nothing but conjecture has been advanced upon 
 the point. Thus Ewald and Von Lengerke place the 
 
392 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 Eloliist in the time of Solomon, (500 years after Moses, 
 according to Bible chronology) the Jehovist under Heze- 
 kiah, (800 years after Moses). After mentioning other 
 dates, which are merely conjectural, he resumes. Pro- 
 bably the interval between the two was greater than that 
 assumed. Neither was the Pentateuch completed by the 
 Jehovist, or so early as his day. After him the substance 
 of it had appeared in writing; but it existed in two 
 pieces separately composed. Some one must have subse- 
 quently put them together, digesting and arranging them 
 as they now are. The final editor, if we may use the 
 word, lived some time after the Elohist and Jehovist. 
 This will appear from an examination of the time when 
 the Pentateuch as it now is, was composed. The passage 
 ill 2 Kings xxii., 8, which speaks of Hilkiah, finding the 
 Book of the Law in tJie house of the Lord, has been already 
 referred to. Notwithstanding the opinion of some that 
 the Book of the Law, there means the present Pentateuch, 
 we cannot think it reasonable or probable, (vol, ii., cap. 2. 
 And with an apparent candour which certainly is not 
 imitated by his reverend readers, for they never teach, or 
 allude to these things from the pulpit, he immediately 
 after, scatters to the winds all notions of the authenticity 
 of Isaiah, Jeremiah or Daniel, while Dr. Adam Clarke 
 does the same kind office for some others of the pro- 
 phets. If there be any truth in these remarks, says 
 Home, the collecting and arrangement of the various 
 pieces (of Isaiah) were the loorks of a later hand. The 
 collection was begun by the prophet himself and completed 
 after his death — how long after it is impossible to tell. 
 Perhaps a considerable time elapsed, affording occasion 
 for tlie ^insertion of a i>iece, (xxxvi — xxxix) which did 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 393 
 
 not originate with Isaiah himself, in its present form. So 
 also he writes of Jeremiah's Prophecies. The ari'ange- 
 ment as it now exists is different in some places from 
 what it originally was. The pieces against foreign na- 
 tions have been thrown to the end of the book. Various 
 interpolations have also been made (15). Some person or 
 peraons put their hands to the prophecies and made 
 different alterations in them^ after the decease of the pro- 
 phet. The final redactor was not Baruch, as Keil thinks. 
 We must look for him at a later time : how long after W6 
 cannot tell. And again : A question now remains whether 
 Daniel himself put the book he wrote into its present 
 form. It is probable he did not. Some of his country- 
 men put the prophecies together and prefixed introductory 
 notices respecting the author's person. What leads to 
 this conclusion is the existence of various particulars here 
 and there indicating another hand &c., &c. Of Hosea, Dr. 
 A. Clarke, says : We read in the introduction to this pro- 
 phecy that he prophesied under the Kings of Judah, 
 Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, and under Jeroboam 
 II., king of Israel. If he prophesied in the reigns of all 
 these princes he must have lived a very long time, for there 
 are 112 years from the beginning of Uzziah' s reign to the 
 end of Hezekiah's. In the whole collection of Hosea's 
 prophecies we find nothing which proves that he prophe- 
 sied so long : and besides, why should his prophecies be 
 dated in the title of the reigns of the Kings of Judah 
 when he did not live under their name 1 Why indeed ? 
 But he accounts for it by that imaginary transcriber, who 
 is always called in to account for every mistake that is 
 pointed out in these writings, and who is a mythical per- 
 sonage of entirely modem invention. Nobody ever heard 
 
 s3 
 
394 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 of him, until tlie mistakes were shewn. The part which 
 this suppositious scapegoat plays in all biblical commen- 
 taries strikes laymen with surprise. He is perpetually 
 brought on the stage to account for everything. Of Oba- 
 diah, Dr. Clarke sa,js': Who was this prophet? where 
 bom 1 of what country ? at what time did he prophesy 1 
 who were his parents ? when and where did he die 1 are 
 questions which have been asked from the remotest anti- 
 quity, and which to this day have received no answer. 
 Of Habakuk, he says : We know little of this prophet : 
 f(5r what we find in the ancients concerning him is evi- 
 dently fabulous. Of Malachi, he says : Several have sup- 
 posed that Malachi is no other than Ezra under the feigned 
 name of angel of the Lord. Thus it appears that all 
 that we know, is that we know nothing ; yet these ima- 
 ginary characters are alluded to every day as historiccd 
 persons, about whom there is or can be, no doubt at all. 
 Of Zechariah (Chapters ix. to xiv. inclusive) he says : 
 Most learned men are of opinion that this and the suc- 
 ceeding chapters are not the work of Zechariah, but 
 rather of Jeremiah, Hosea, or some one before the Cap- 
 tivity. It is certain that chap. xi. 12, 13, is quoted 
 Matt, xxvii., 9, 10, as the language of Jeremiah the pro- 
 phet : the six last chapters are not expressly assigned to 
 Zechariah, and are unconnected with those that precede : 
 the three first of them are unsuitable in many parts to the 
 time when Zechariah lived: all of them have a more 
 adorned and poetical turn of composition than the eight 
 first chapters. He concludes that part was written by 
 Jeremiah, part by Hosea, and the rest by some unknown 
 person or thirteenth prophet ! 
 
 33. Home and Dr. Clarke, it may be here added, d,e- ' 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 895 
 
 serve no credit for caudour in the admissions that they 
 make — nor could any candour be expected from so dis- 
 honest a wi-iter, as any unprejudiced reader will find the 
 first named of these two to be. There is nothing in the 
 above extracts from his Introduction which was not known 
 and confessed before, and published to the world; though 
 the world — with few exceptions — takes good care to re- 
 main in ignorance of that which most vitally afiects its 
 deai'est interests, and prefers its money to its immortal 
 soul. Father Simon, one of the most learned priests of 
 Rome, in his Critical History of the Old Testament, pub- 
 lished so long ago as the 17th Century, had already put 
 before the world in that erudite work, the conclusions at 
 which some of the most profound commentators on Scrip- 
 ture, Hebrew as well as Christian, had already been forced 
 to arrive. I make no apology for the length of these 
 extracts in consequence of their relevancy to the present 
 matter. Having established, says Father Simon, in the 
 Hebrew Commonwealth, the Prophets or public writers 
 who took care of collecting faithfully the acts of what 
 passed of most importance in the state, we need not 
 too curiously enquire, as usually men do, who were the 
 authors of each particidar book of the Bible, because it is 
 certain (?) that they were all writ by Prophets, which the 
 Hebrew commonwealth never wanted as long as it lasted. 
 Besides, as these same prophets, which may be called 
 public writers, for the distinguishing of them from other 
 private writers, had the liberty of collecting out of the 
 ancient acts which were kept in the registers of the re- 
 public, and of giving a new form to these same acts by 
 adding oi; diminishing, what they thought fit, we may 
 hereby give a very good reason for the additions and alte- 
 
 S 3 
 
896 THjil BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 rations iu the Holy Scriptures without lessening of their 
 authority, since the authors of these additions or alterations 
 were real Prophets directed by the Spirit of God. Where- 
 fore their alterations in the ancient acts are of as great 
 authority as the rest of the text of the Bible. St. Jerom, 
 Theodoret, and several other Fathers who were of this 
 opinion, thought not that they hereby lessened the autho- 
 rity of the Holy Scriptures, supposing at the same time 
 that the authors of these corrections were insjnred by God ! 
 By this principle we may also easily answer several objec- 
 tions which are usually made to show that Moses is not 
 the only author of the books which we have under his 
 name, for they prove only that somethmg has been added 
 in series of time, which destroys not the authority of the 
 ancient acts which were writ in Moses's time. — {Preface.) 
 And in his first chapter this excellent priest coolly writes : 
 Wherefore we ought not to search with too much curiosity 
 who have been the particular authors of every book of 
 the Bible ; it sufficeth, according to the maxim of Gre- 
 gory the Great, that these Books were written by the 
 Prophets — which indeed takes for granted every thing 
 really in dispute. 
 
 34. It is, moreover, certain, he adds, that the books of 
 the Bible that are come to our hands, are but abridgments 
 of the ancient records which were more full and copious 
 before the last abridgment was made for the public use of 
 the people : this opinion, which is Origen's and some 
 other Fathers', is conformable to the Scripture, which veiy 
 often refers the reader to the ancient acts more at large 
 recited, which the Jews no doubt did for some time pre- 
 serve in their registeries. Eve^i Tertullian thought that 
 the Jews have suppressed many books of the Bible for par- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 397 
 
 ticvlar reasons. However, it is, none can doubt, but that 
 we want at present whole histories and prophecies which 
 the Scripture makes mention of. The Jew who com- 
 posed the Book entitled Cozriy is of the same opinion 
 with Origen, that those who made the collection of the 
 Holy Scrij)tures, put down nothing but what tliey thought 
 necessary for the instruction of the people, and that the 
 rest remained in their registeries. * * * gt. Jerom 
 wi'ites that the Book of Esther, as it was read in the 
 Church, was full of errors, and he affirms that there were 
 wanted near 700 or 800 verses in the Book of Job. 
 Their collections for all this, continues our learned priest, 
 had never the less authority, as Theodoret has judiciously 
 observed on the 10th of Joshua, where he assures us that 
 the History that we have under the name of Joshua is 
 not his, but that it was extracted from ancient records, 
 which the author cites that we might give credit to his 
 collections. Massius, who wrote a learned commentary 
 on the same history, shows that Joshua could not have 
 written all that is recorded in his Book, because facts are 
 mentioned which did not happen till long after his time ; 
 and it is tJie same thing with most part of the other books 
 of the Bibley so that it is not absolutely necessary that all 
 the passages which we find in the Bible should be entirely 
 written by Authors of the same age, and who were wit- 
 nesses of the things which they report, otherwise we shall 
 give no credit to what is written in Genesis. [Book i., 
 c. 1.] (16.) 
 
 35. The common opinion of the Fathers who believe 
 that the collection of the Old Testament as now extant 
 was composed by Esdras, confirms what I have been 
 saying. For Esdras could not re-establish those Books 
 
898 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 which according to them had been corrupted in time of 
 captivity, but in quality of Prophet or public writer, so 
 is he termed in Scripture the Scribe, or Writer, by way 
 of eminency : most of the Jews agree that the records 
 which Esdras made use of in his collection, were corrupted 
 by reason of the confusion which happened to their Books 
 ill the time of their captivity. It is probable that there 
 were from Moses's time these sorts of Prophets, which 
 were necessary in the State to collect the acts which passed 
 in the republick. This being supposed, we shall distinguish 
 in the five Books of the Law, what has been writ by 
 Moses, from what has been writ by those prophets or 
 public writers. We may attribute to Moses the com- 
 mandments and ordinances which he gave to the people, 
 and allow these same public writers to be the authors of 
 the greatest part of the History. Moses, in quality of 
 Legislator, writ all which relates to the Statutes, and left 
 to the scribes or prophets the care of collecting the acts 
 of the most material transactions. * * * Whence it 
 is that Isaac Abravanel, a learned Spanish Jew, strongly 
 maintains the principle which we have mentioned touch- 
 ing these prophets or public writers ; and he pretends 
 moreover that they did not only write the history of their 
 times, but that they took the liberty of adding or dimi- 
 nishing what they thought fit from the records of the other 
 prophets who went before them. This is likewise the sen- 
 timent of Procopius, Theodoret, and some other Fathers. 
 Procopius observes in his Scholias upon the Books of the 
 Kings, that the authors of these books and those of the 
 Chronicles have taken their history from more ancient 
 acts, from whence they have composed their works. Theo- 
 doret, who explains himself more at large upon this sub- . 
 
THE APOCALYPSB. 399 
 
 ject, assures us that the history of Kings, as it is now, 
 has been drawn from many other prophetic writings, so 
 that it is nothing but a collection of the acts which had 
 been compiled by the prophets or public writers, who had 
 gone before, and who were charged to put into writing 
 what happened in their times. These sorts of collections 
 are called in the Scripture Dihri Hcbsamin^ or Day-Books, 
 and it is in this sense we ought to understand the words 
 of the first Book of Kings — The rest of the Acts of Solo- 
 moTif are tliey not written in tlie Book of the Acts of Solo- 
 mon ? There is nothing more ordinary in the Book of 
 Kings and Chronicles than this last expression, whence 
 it evidently appears that the most part of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures that are come to us are but abridgments and as 
 summaries of ancient acts which were kept in the regis- 
 teries of the Hebrews. Abravanel is so far persuaded of 
 the truth of his principle that he does not scruple to deny, 
 contrary to the sentiment of certain doctors in the Tal- 
 mud, that Joshua and Samuel are the authora of the 
 books which bear their names ; and he assures us that 
 notwithstanding the testimony of his fathers, Samuel is 
 the author of the Book of Joshua and that of Judges : 
 he ascribes moreover the Book of Samuel and Kings to 
 the Prophet Jeremiah, who, according to him, did com- 
 pile them out of the records of Samuel, Nathan, Gad, and 
 other prophets or public writers who lived before him. 
 However, this is most certain, that Joshua and Samuel 
 could never put down in their books acts and expressions 
 which manifestly suppose them to be dead ; and conse- 
 quently, if they composed those histories wliich we have 
 under those names it is absolutely necessary that some- 
 thing has been added, and we cannot, methinks, justify 
 
400 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 these additions but bj establishing the prophets or public 
 writers of whom we have already treated. — [Father 
 Simon, lib. i., chap. 2.] 
 
 36. The variety of the style, he adds, which we meet 
 with in the Books of Moses, seems to be a convincing 
 argument that one and the same man was not the author. 
 Sometimes we find a very curt style, and sometimes a 
 very copious one, although the variety of the matter does 
 not require it : we ought, nevertheless, to acknowledge 
 that the Hebrews very often speak but by halves, and 
 that they sometimes begin a matter without ending it, 
 and that they are not exact in the placing of their words. 
 * * * Nevertheless, it would be very difficult to jus- 
 tify the Books of Moses, and the rest of the Bible where 
 this happens, otherwise than by having recourse to those 
 who have new modelled the Hebrew copies, and to trans- 
 cribers who through negligence have omitted whole words 
 and periods. The authors of the Mazoret seem to agree 
 to this, since they have left certain void spaces, as if they 
 would give notice that in those places the Hebrew text is 
 defective : moreover, the Babbins are so much persuaded 
 of this truth, that they make insertions in some places 
 where there seems no necessity to require it, and what 
 no doubt they never would have done, if they thought 
 the Hebrew text was complete. Thus where the Babbis 
 interpret what the Serpent said to Eve in Gen. iii. 5, they 
 pretend that in the text there is only part related of the 
 discourse between the Serpent and Eve, because there are 
 several particulars in the Hebrew which, according to 
 them, signify much more, whence they infer that the 
 discourse is wholly imperfect, and that what went before 
 has been passed over in silence. Babbi Moses Cotsi, a 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 401 
 
 learned Jew, that lie might solve those difficulties, has 
 had recoai-se to a second Law, which he calls the oral 
 law, or the interpretation of the written Law which God 
 gave to Moses, according to their opinion npon Monnt 
 Sinai : he believes that the written Law has errors which 
 can be rectified only by the oral, and this last the Jews 
 pretend has been entirely preserved down even nnto 
 them : and he gives for an example, Exod. xiL 40, where 
 it is said, Now the srjourning of the children of Israel who 
 dwelt in Egypt^ was four hundred and thirty years. How 
 can one explain that, says this author, without the help of 
 oral law, since ifc is certain that Kohath, son of Levi, who 
 was one of those that went into Egypt lived but 133 
 years; that Amram, lived only 137 years, and that 
 Moses was but 80 years old when God spake to him, 
 which makes in all only 350 1 The second example which 
 he gives is taken from Genesis xlvi. 27. And the sons of 
 Joseph which were born to him in Egypt were two souls; 
 all the souls of tlie Icouse of Jacob which came into 
 Egypt where three score and ten : and nevertheless in 
 counting the number there related they are found to 
 be but 69. Moreover, it is observed in Numbers iii. 
 39, that there are reckoned 2200, but if we join all the 
 the numbers together, there remain 300 above that ac- 
 count. This Eabbin brings many other examples to 
 shew that the text of scripture alone cannot be under- 
 stood without the help of oral law or tradition, and the 
 Fathers seems to agree with him in this opinion (17). 
 And thus far it seems sufficient to cite from Father Simon, 
 whose entire work is well worthy of perusal. 
 
 37. Returned from Babylon as a Pers'an colony, says 
 a learned writer, and authorized by a royal edict, the 
 
402 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 priesthood replaced the aiioient kings. A priest of the 
 Sun and Fire-God Azara ( Kzra) replaces or restores the 
 ancient Sacred Books, and is the Satrap. Here began 
 the temptation for priestly persons to grasp the power 
 and to reform the Scriptures with this aim perpetually 
 before them — to found a government of priests in which 
 a priest should be Ethnarch. Their hand may be traced 
 in every provision, every statute, and almost every nar- 
 rative contained in their Scriptures : everything, even 
 the accounts of the prophets, is turned in favour of the 
 priests and prophets, the highest order of sacerdos. But 
 the chief object was to extend the power of Jerusalem 
 beyond the city and the province of Judaea. The aim 
 was to exercise authority over the other cities and tribes 
 of Palestine. The whole Old Testament agrees with this 
 view. Their jealousy of the Baal or Bacchus worship as 
 celebrated on the hills of Palestine, and under every 
 green tree is abundantly evidenced in their writings. 
 Their prophetical books are loud in their denunciations of 
 all shrines except that in Jerusalem, and prophecies of 
 the coming greatness of the Jewish State are thickly 
 strewn upon the record. Their scriptures claim the 
 country over the Jordan, the land of the Sabseans (18). 
 And lest their scriptures themselves should not suffice 
 they supplemented them by traditions. But the ti*adi- 
 tions themselves are hardly more vague and mysterious 
 than the allegories which they are fabled to conceal : and 
 it is impossible not to feel the fine mockery with which 
 Erasmus treats not only the body of the corrupted Jewish 
 writings, but also the '* wisdom" which he sarcastically de- 
 clares that they conceal. In Veteri Testamento, he says, 
 si praeter Historiam nihil spectes, et audias, Adam ^ limo 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 403 
 
 conditura, uxorculam e dorinientis latere furtim subtrac- 
 tam, serpentem illecebra pomi solicitantem mulierculam ; 
 Deum ad auram inambulantem, Rompliseam foribus prse- 
 sidentem, nonne putes ex Homeri officina profectam fabu- 
 1am ? At sub his involucris quam splendlda latet Sapien- 
 tia ! ! Ei*asmus, Chiliad iii. But he has nowhere un- 
 veiled that " splendid wisdom " in the allegories or fables 
 of which he thus sarcastically speaks. (19.) 
 
 38. Sir Isaac Newton, the greatest of astronomers, but 
 the shallowest of theologians, did not fail to perceive, 
 even in his time, the way in which these books were 
 hashed up. The race of kings of Edom, he says (06- 
 aervations on Daniel, p. 4), before there reigned any 
 king over Israel, is set down in the Book of Genesis 
 (xxxvi 3), and there/ore that book was not written en- 
 tirely in the form now extant before the reign of Saul. 
 The writer set down the race of those kings, till his own 
 time, and tlierefore vyrote before David conquered Edom. 
 The Pentateuch is composed of the Law and the history 
 , of God's people together : and the history Ivath been collected 
 from several books, such as were the histoiy of the crea- 
 tion composed by Moses (Gen. ii. 4) ', the book of the 
 generations of Adam {Qen. v. 1) ; and the book of the 
 Wars of the Lord (Num. xxi, 14). The book of wars 
 contained what was done at the Red Sea, and in the jour- 
 neying of Israel through the wilderness, and therefore 
 was begun by Moses. And Joshua might carry it on to 
 the conquest of Canaan. For Joshua wrote some things 
 in the book of the Law of God (Josh, xxi v. 26), and there- 
 fore might write his own wars in the book of wars, 
 these being tJie principal wars of God ! ! ! And Samuel 
 had leisure in the reign of Saul to put them in the 
 
404! THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 form of the books of Moses and Joshua now extant, in- 
 serting into the book of Genesis, the race of the kings 
 of Edom, &c. The first chapter of Daniel, adds Sir Isaac, 
 as if the thing were a trifle, and of no religious moment 
 whatever, was written after his death ! I This Daniel, 
 who is said to have been prime minister of the King of 
 Babylonia, and especially accomplished in the writing and 
 speaking of Chaldsean {Ban. i. 4), is supposed to have 
 written a book which is not Chaldee at all, but a vulgar 
 lingua franca of Hebrew and Aramaic. Eichhom and 
 Bertholdt suppose the work, which we now have, to be 
 written by different persons, and cite i. 21, as contradict- 
 ing X. 1 : and i. 5 — 18, as contradicting ii. 1. Porphyry, 
 Bleek, Michaelis, De Wette, Lengerke, and a variety of 
 others, dispute the authenticity of the book. The Greek 
 words recurring (iii. 5, 7, 10), betray that part of it to 
 have been written in a later age, when Greek words 
 began to be introduced into Asia. A variety of other 
 circumstances might be added to prove that it is a 
 forgery. 
 
 39. In the vereion of the Seventy, and of Theodorion, 
 are found some considerable additions to the Book of 
 Daniel, which are wanting in the present Hebrew. These 
 are the prayer of Azarias (^Dan. iii. 24 — 25), the Song of 
 the Three Children (iii. b2 — 90), the History of Susannah 
 (Dan. xiii.), the narrative of Bel and the Dragon (xiv.) 
 The question arises where did the heaven-inspired 
 seventy-two translators find the original of those myths 
 which they translated into Greek ? They are not to be 
 found in Hebrew now— but will it be denied that they 
 existed in Hebrew then ? De Wette adduces several 
 proofs from the style to show that cei'tain parts of it had 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 405 
 
 a ClialJee original. Bel and the Dragon is read in the 
 Roman ofBce on Ash Wednesday, and in the Church of 
 England on the 23rd of November ; Susannah is read in the 
 Anglican Church on the 22nd of November, and in the Ro- 
 man on the vigil of the fourth Sunday in Lent. The Book of 
 Esther, says Luther, I toss into the Elbe : I am so an 
 enemy to the Book of Esther that I would it did not 
 exist : for it Judaises too much, and hath in it a great 
 deal of heathenish naughtiness : and in his work, De Serv. 
 Ai'b., addressed to Erasmus, after saying, In regard to 
 Ecclesiasticus, although I might justly refuse it, yet I re- 
 ceive it in order not to lose time in involving myself in a 
 dispute concerning the books received into the canon of 
 the Hebrews, he adds : Which canon you do not a little 
 reproach when you compare the Proverbs and the Love 
 Song (as you sneei-ingly call it), with the two books of 
 Esdras and Judith, Susannah, the Dragon and the Book 
 of Esther ; but, though they have this last in their canon, 
 it is, in my judgment, more worthy than all of being ex- 
 cluded from the canon. 
 
 40. But even upon these unsatisfactory versions, com- 
 pilations, centoes, or whatever they were, doubts are 
 thrown. The days of persecution did not end with the 
 return from captivity. As if to destroy every vestige of 
 a book, which was supposed by the nations to have stirred 
 up the Jews to every species of animosity, malignity, 
 and unrighteousness against all other people, Antiochus 
 Epiphanes disgusted with his discoveries in the Temple, 
 of the atoning victim and the ass-head, resolved utterly 
 to destroy every copy of the Law that could be found ; 
 iind to compel by violence, a total abandonment by the 
 Hebrews of their rite«, their customs, and their very 
 
406 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 creed. Nor were many of the Jews themselves unwilling 
 to conform. Their money was their God, and paganism was 
 an abundant source of gold. (20). I cite from the 
 writer of the first of Maccabees, who is more to be de- 
 pended on than Joseph us ; though the latter does not 
 contradict but rather abridges the account, which the 
 former has left us. In those days, he says, went titer e out 
 of Israel wicked men, who persuaded many, saying ; let 
 us go and make a covenant unth the Jieathen, that are round 
 about us, for since we departed from theyn, we have had 
 mucli sorrow. So this device pleased them well. Then cer- 
 tain of the Jews were so forward herein that they went to 
 the king, who gave them license to do after the statutes oj 
 the heathens. Whereupon they huilt a school at Jerusalem, 
 according to the customs of the heathens ; and made them- 
 selves uncircumcised and forsook the lioly covenant, and 
 joined themselves to tlie heathen and were sold to do mis- 
 chief And after that Antiochus had smitten Egypt, he 
 returned again in the hundred and forty third year, and 
 went up against Israel and Jerusalem with a great multi- 
 tude ; and entered haughtily into the sanctuary and took 
 away the golden altar and the candlestick of light and all 
 the vessels thereof: and the table of the shew bread and tlie 
 pouring vessels, and the vials, and the censers of gold and 
 tJte veil; and the crowns and the golden ornaments that 
 were before the temple, all which he pulled off. He took 
 also tlie silver and the gold, and the precious vessels ; also 
 he took the hidden treasures which he found : and when lie 
 Jiad carried all away, lie went into his own land, Imving 
 made a great ma^ssacre and spoken very p'oudly. And 
 after two years fully expired, the king sent his chief collec- 
 tor of taxes into the cities of Juda, who came also to 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 407 
 
 JermcHem with a great multitude; cmd spoke peaceable 
 ivo7'ds unto them, but all was deceit; for when tliey had 
 given him credence, he fell suddenly upon (he city, and 
 smote it very sore, and destroyed much people of Israel, and 
 when he had taken tJie spoils of the city he set it on fire, and 
 pulled down the houses and walls thereof on every side ; 
 but the wom^n and children took they captive and possessed 
 themselves of their cattle. Thus they shed innocent blood 
 on every side of the sanctuary and defiled it ; insomuch 
 that the inliabitants of Jerusalem fled be/^ause of them ; 
 whereupon tfie city was made an Iiabitatian of strangers 
 and became strange to those that were born in her, and her 
 ovyn children left her, her sanctuary was laid waste like a 
 wilderness; her feasts were turned into mourning ; her 
 sabbaths into reproach; her honour into contempt. As had 
 been Iter glory, so was her dishonour encreased ; and her 
 excellency was turned into mourning. Moi'eover King 
 Antiochus wrote to his wliole kingdom, that all shotdd be 
 one people : a7id that every one should leave his laws ; so 
 all tJie heathens ayreed, according to the commandment oj 
 tJie King : yea many also of the Israelites consented to his 
 religion and sacrificed unto idols, and profaned the sabbath. 
 For tJie King had sent letters by messengers into Jeruscdeni 
 and the cities ofJuda, that tJtey should follow the strange 
 laws of the laml ; and did forbid bamt offerings and sac- 
 rifice and dnnk offerings in the temple ; and that they 
 sfumldprofane the sabbatlis and festival days : and pollute 
 the sanctuiiry and holy people, set up altars and groves aiul 
 chapels of idols ami sacrifice stvine's flesh and unclean 
 beasts : tliat t/tey should also leave tlieir children imcircum- 
 ciaed, and maJce their souls abomiiuible vnth all manner of 
 uncleanness and j)r<fanation : — to the end that they might 
 
408 THE BUCK OF GOD. 
 
 forgtt the Laiv, and change all their statutes : and ivhoso- 
 ever ivould not do accordiiig to the cummandments of the 
 king, he said, he should die. In the self-same manner 
 wrote he to the whole kingdom,, and ajjpointed overseers 
 over all the people, commanding the cities of Juda to sacri- 
 fice city hg city. Then m,any of the Jews %mre gathered 
 unto them, to wit, every one who forsook the Law, and so 
 they committed evils in the land ; aTid drove the Israelites 
 into hiding places, even wheresoever they could fee for 
 succour. JSom on the fifteenth day of the month Gas- 
 leu, in the hundred and forty fifth year, they set up the 
 abomination of desolation upon the altar and huilded idol 
 altars throughout the cities of Juda on every side : and 
 burnt incense at the doors (f their houses and in tlte streets. 
 And when they had rent in pieces the Books of the Law 
 which they found, they burnt them, in fire : and ivheresoever 
 was found with any the Book of the Covenant (tlie Pen- 
 tateuch) or if any consented to the Lata, the king's com- 
 mandment was that they should put him to death : thus 
 did they by their authority to the Israelites every month. 
 So utter a destruction as this, must well nigh have 
 annihilated every copy of the Jewish sacred writings. 
 Assuming that the copies or rather phonographs, which 
 had been made by Hilkiah and Esdras, and the various 
 other anonymous editors, were really true and genuine, 
 they must have been wholly exterminated by Antiochus ; 
 and the version of the Old Testament which now sub- 
 sists, must have been made by Judas, or by some unknown 
 compilers, probably from the Greek of the -Seventy, long 
 after the appearance and death of Jesus. (21). In this, 
 or in the preceding proscriptions of their sacred books, 
 perished the following Jewish volumes which were per- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 409 
 
 Laps of the same character as those which we now pos- 
 sess — realizing that creed of hate which Philo the Jew 
 tells us was the genuine Hebrew faith. The Sacred 
 Writings, he says, prescribe what we ought to do, and 
 what will contribute to our advantage ; commanding us 
 to hate the heatliens and their laws and institutions. 
 
 1. Book of the Wars of the Lord, Numbers xxi. 14 
 
 xxvii. 30. 
 
 2. Book of Jaslier the Upright, Joshua x. 13, 2 Sam. 
 
 i., 18. 
 
 3. Book of the Constitution of the Kingdom, 1 Sam., 
 
 X. 15. 
 
 4. Solomon's Three Thousand Proverbs, his Thousand 
 
 and five Songs, and his Works on Natural His- 
 tory, 2 Kings, iv. 32, 33. 
 
 5. Book of the Acts of Solomon, 1 Kings, xi. 41, 2 
 
 Chron. ix. 5. 
 
 6. Chronicles of the Kings of Israel, 1 Kings, xiv. 19 
 
 xvL 5, XX. 27, xxii, 39, Micah, \4. 16. 
 
 7. Chronicles of the Kiugs of Judah, 1 Kings, xv. 7. 
 
 8. Book of Samuel the Seer, 1 Chron. xxix. 29*. 
 
 9. Book of Nathan the Prophet, 1 Chron. xxix. 2, 
 
 2 Chron. ix. 29. 
 
 10. Book of Gad the Seer, 1 Chron. xxix. 29. 
 
 1 1 . Nathan the Prophet's Life of Solomon, 2 Chron. ix. 
 
 29. 
 
 12. Prophecy of Ahijal the Shilonite, 2 Chron. ix. 29. 
 
 13. Visions of Iddo the Seer, 2 Chron. ix. 29. 
 
 14. Book of Shemaiah the Prophet, 2 Chron. xii. 15. 
 
 15. Iddo the Seer on Genealogies, 2 Chron. xii. 15. 
 
 16. Isaiah's Acts of Uzziah, 2 Chron. xxvi. 22. 
 
 T 
 
410 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 17. Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah, 1 Cliron. ix. 
 
 1, 2 Chron. xvi. 11, xxviii. 26, xxxiii. 18, xxxv. 
 27, xxxvi. 8. 
 
 18. Book of Jehu, 2 Chron. xx. 34, 1 Kings, xvi. 17. 
 
 19. Isaiah the Prophet's Life of Hezekiah, 2 Chron., 
 
 xxxii. 32. 
 
 20. Lamentations of Jeremiah over Joshua, 2 Chron. 
 
 xxxv. 25. 
 
 21. A Book, Exod. xvii. 14, xxiv. 7. 
 
 22. A Book of the Lord, Isaiah xxxiv. 16. 
 
 23. Story of the Prophet Iddo, 2 Chron. xiii. 21. 
 
 24. Sayings of the Seei-s, 2 Chron. xxxiii. 19. 
 
 25. Book of the Covenant, Exod. xxiv. 7. 
 
 26. The Book of Enoch, Jude 14. 
 
 27. Songs of Praise, Nehemiah, xii. 46. 
 
 28. A Book of Remembrance, Malachi iii. 16. 
 
 29. Chronicles of King David, 1 Chron. xxvii. 24. 
 
 30. Books of Jason, 2 Maccab. ii. 23. 
 
 41. It may not be inappropriate to cite here what the 
 Jews themselves say of the composition of their scrip- 
 tures. It will be seen that they, who ought to know 
 better than Christians, who were the real writers, of the 
 works that now pass under prophetic names, differ in 
 many particulars from Home and the critical divines, 
 but do not pretend, and never did profess that they had 
 the genuine and original writings, but only recollections 
 as it were, of them : or at all events only such fragmen- 
 tary materials as enabled recent compiler to put them 
 into one. I quote from the Babylonian Talmud, Megil, 
 fo. 10, c. 2. And who wrote them 1 Moses wrote his 
 books and the section of Balaam and Job, (this it has 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 411 
 
 been shewn cannot possibly be true.) Joshua wrote his 
 book, and eight verses in the Law. Samuel wrote his 
 book, Judges and Ruth. David wrote the book of 
 Psalms, with the assistance of ten of the elders ; by the 
 aid of Adam, the fii-st man, of Melchizedeck, of Abraham, 
 of Moses, of Heman, of Jeduthun, of Asaph, of the 
 three sons of Korah. Jeremiah wrote his book, and the 
 Book of Kings, and Lamentations. HezeJdah and his 
 assistants wrote Isaiah, Proverbs, Canticles, and Coheleth 
 (Ecclesiastes.) The men of the great Synagogue wrote 
 Ezekiel and the Twelve, Daniel and the volume of Esther, 
 Ezra wrote his book, and the genealogy of the book of 
 Chronicles down to himself. Whether, therefore, we go 
 upon the statements of Hilkiah and Esdras, and the 
 author of Maccabees : or upon the authority of the 
 Talmud, or upon the almost unanimous agreement of all 
 the most learned critics and divines of the present day, 
 one thing is clear, that upon neither of them can any 
 argument be based for the autlienticity of the present 
 Hebrew-Chaldee scriptures ; but that on the contrary, if 
 they (who are unquestionably, the only reliable authori- 
 ties) are to be trusted, there are very few remains of 
 ancient composition, which are more justly open to doubt 
 or disbelief ir'^-) 
 
 42. And here I may as well advert to an argument, 
 which is constantly put forward by the advocates for the 
 unquestionable authenticity of eveiy part of the Old and 
 New Testament ; and put forward too, with a pertinacity 
 of purpose against all objections, whether derived from 
 history or philology, that shews the reliance which those 
 who use it, place upon its apparent strength. But the 
 truth is, there is no force in it at all, though I have no 
 
 T 2 
 
412 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 doubt many persons are deceived by its fallacious aspect. 
 The argument is this. You have the same reasons for 
 believing Homer to be genuine, that you have for the 
 authenticity of Scripture : both are ancient works : the 
 original manuscript of neither exists : why then should 
 you accept the one as an undoubted original, while you 
 require proof of the other 1 Is not this against all rea- 
 son ? and does it not shew that there must be some con- 
 cealed or dishonest motive lurking in your mind, that 
 causes you at once to receive the profane writer's produc- 
 tion, without any question of its being genuine, while you 
 demand from us, proof, step by step, of the genuineness 
 of those writings which we on equally good grounds 
 believe to be the inspirations of God. This is not con- 
 sistent ; neither is it fair or just. I think I have herein 
 stated the argument in all its force. I meet it in this 
 way. What possible interest can any man have in forging 
 a splendid epic like the Iliad or the Odyssey, and then 
 assigning it, with all the glory which must for ever accom- 
 pany it, to another man who is a stranger to its produc- 
 tion ? The supposition is incredible and absurd. The 
 man who can compose a poem like that, will never suffer 
 it to go forth in a false name, but will only be too glad to 
 demand and await all the laurels which the world is ever 
 ready to bestow on those who either delight or teach it. It 
 is therefore unlikely that the poems of Homer can be the 
 work of any other man than him whose name they bear^ 
 But is this so with a work that purports to be a divine 
 inspiration given to Ezekiel or Daniel. Why should any 
 man forge it ? say the believers. There is no reason 
 why he should forge a new prophecy if the original 
 exists ; and is known to the world. But if the original 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 413 
 
 has been lost or destroyed in the coui-se of ages, and if 
 the interests of a mighty hierarchy depend upon the 
 supposed existence of that original, and if they derive 
 their authority from it, and enormous gains, and all pow- 
 erful influence, I can see abundant reason why a close 
 body coq)orate composed of men of learning like the 
 priests, should agree together to put forth as genuine to 
 the world, by a species of " pious fraud," as good an imi- 
 tation of that original as they can invent ; and indeed if 
 they did not do so, they would be fools to their own 
 interest, which I never yet heard that any sacred congi*e- 
 gation was. There is, therefore, no analogy between the 
 two cases ; and the argument relied on is dissipated into 
 air. Now that the greater number of the sacred writings 
 of the Hebrews were destroyed, must I think be apparent 
 to all who have read these pages. (23). It was 
 the direction of Amosis that every ruler should himself 
 transcribe a copy of the Law with his own hand : he set 
 apart also a tribe of Levites who were to multiply copies 
 and thus preserve it for all time. But if we believe the 
 historical extracts which I have copied from the Old Tes- 
 tament itself, this duty was grossly neglected, and the 
 sole memorial of their illustrious founder was that single 
 most suspicious copy which Hilkiah said he met with in 
 the Temple, and which appears (if genuine) not only to 
 have been the only copy in existence of the writings of 
 Amosis, but also to have been a new light dawning \ipon 
 the priests, and amazing them, as if not only the Book 
 itself, but the very memory of it had ,died away out of 
 their minds. And if this could happen to the Law of 
 their great legislator, the very corner stone on which all 
 their power, ecclesiastical and political, was founded. 
 
414 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 what must it not have been with the minor writers, their 
 priests or prophets, nearly every one of whom, while he 
 lived, was treated as a madman, or a malefactor, and 
 punished as such (24), and whose productions could con- 
 sequently have never been deemed sacred until hundreds 
 of years had passed away, when the writings themselves 
 were utterly lost, and no means existed of restoring 
 them ? The priests would then come forward with their 
 fiction, and say, We have found the prophecies that Daniel 
 wrote, or Isaiah gave ; and the people^ who knew abso- 
 lutely nothing, would be deceived with the greatest ease. 
 These facts being premised, it is obvious that no person 
 can, with any certain assurance, say the writings in the 
 Old Testament are the genuine writings of the persons 
 whose names they bear. When, therefore, I find passages 
 in Isaiah and Ezekiel, and Daniel, which, by internal evi- 
 dence, show clearly that they have been interpolated by 
 compilers, whether by Hilkiah, or by Esdras, and his 
 inspired subordinates, or by the various unknown persons 
 who meddled with these matters, I care not, I at once 
 lay hold of them, and transfer them to their proper place 
 in that work with which it is obvious that they have a 
 clear connection, and from which I entertain no doubt 
 that they were cited, either by the original priest or pro- 
 phet (for the Hebrew priest and prophet were synony- 
 mous), or else interpolated by the copying compilers of 
 the text, as it now stands. With the latter part of the 
 four prophecies of Daniel, says Faber, the Revelation of 
 St. John is immediately connected, being, in fact, only a 
 more minute and comprehensive prediction of the same 
 events. As Sir Isaac Newton justly observes, it is 
 written in the same style and language with the prophe- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 415 
 
 cies of Daniel, and hath the same rehxtion to them which 
 they have to one anotlier, so that all of them together make 
 but one complete propliecy. When, again, I find such 
 passages as those in Zecharias, chap. L 8 — 11, chap. iii. 
 1—10, chap. iv. 1—5, and 11— U, chap. vi. 1—7 (25), 
 which have no connection whatever, nor any harmony 
 Mdth tlie place in which they are found, nor any uni- 
 formity with the writer's tone of mind, but which have a 
 manifest connection with cei*tain portions of the common 
 Apocalypse, I have no difiiculty in assigning them their 
 place in it, and restoring them to that situation from 
 which they have been removed. This is all that I think 
 it necessary to say at present, as to the principle on which 
 this edition of the Apocalypse is framed. Those who 
 look deeper, will probably discover other and more con- 
 vincing reasons than any that I think it fitting to put 
 forth at this time or in this place. 
 
 43. The account which we have received from Jose- 
 phus and Pliilo, of the Septuagint version is nearly as 
 unsatisfactory as that which we have of the Hebrew 
 Chaldee ; and Butler, in his Horce Bihlicce treats it as an 
 exploded fable. Josephus is the only ancient historian 
 of name who gives it ; Philo follows him, and seems to 
 add to the legend : the whole may be summarized thus. 
 Ptolemy Philadelphas, King of Egypt, hearing from his 
 librarian an account of the Hebrew Law which moved 
 his curiosity, wrote to Eleazar, the high priest of the 
 Jews, t<> send him six men from each of the twelve tribes, 
 who should ti-anslate the Law for him into Greek. Ten 
 of the tribes had wholly disappeai'ed for ages before, and no 
 traces of them had ever been found : the high priest, how- 
 ever, sent six out of each of the twelve tribes to the king. 
 
416 THE BOOK OF GOD, 
 
 and by these seventy-two the Greek version was made. 
 Inspired with a species of prophetic enthusiam, they 
 were shut up in an island : Aristeas relates some miracu- 
 lous legends of these holy men, for which Whiston 
 vouches, but Josephus wisely declined to be responsible : 
 the result of their labours, which were completed in ex- 
 actly seventy-two days, remains in one of two Greek 
 translations of the Pentateuch, to which Jesus and his 
 followers, and the first Christian Fathers, referred, but 
 where, when, how, or by whom, the other books were 
 translated, is involved in mystery and never can be cleared 
 up. The Greek is somewhat superior to New Testament 
 Greek, which does not say much for it ; but indifferent as 
 it is, few scholars, who are not paid priests, will deny that 
 it is more authentic, as far as it is genuine, than the 
 Hebrew-Chaldee phonograph. The plain truth, however, 
 is, that not one single sacred volume of the Past is free 
 from corruption ; but all are disfigured by figments, which 
 lend only to degrade the true idea of God to a level which 
 the truly wise are grieved to contemplate. 
 
 44. Nor are the fables connected • with the finding, 
 transcription, and translation of the Pentateuch less 
 absurd than many of the narratives which those pretended 
 revelations from God, themselves contain : narratives 
 which to all honest minds are instantly repugnant ; and 
 which to not a few that are dishonest, are corrupting in 
 the extreme. The Rev. David Jennings, D,D., a strictly 
 orthodox writer, in his chapter on the Prophets • (Jewish 
 Antiquities, page 250) has the following suggestive sec- 
 tion : That Isaiah should walk naked and barefooted 
 three years together, summer and winter, even if you un- 
 derstand by his being naked, merely being without his 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 417 
 
 upper garment; that Jeremiah should send yokes to the 
 King of Edom and to the King of Moab, and to the King 
 of the Ammonites, and to the King of Tyrus, and to the 
 King of Sidon (Jerem. xxvii. 3), and that he should take 
 so long a journey as from Jerusalem to the Euphrates, 
 which is about 500 miles, to hide his girdle in a rock, 
 and that after it was rotted he should take the same long 
 journey to fetch it back again (Jerem. xiii, 4, 6, 7), and 
 that he should take a wine cup from God and carry it up 
 and down to all nations, far and near, even all the king- 
 doms which are upon the face of the earth, and make 
 them drink it, is more than improbable. (Jerem. xxv. 
 15 — 29.) So likewise that Ezekiel should actually eat a 
 roll which God gave him (Ezek. iii. 1 — 3), and that he 
 should lie upon his left side three hundred and ninety 
 days together, and after that forty days together on his 
 right side, with bands upon him, that he could not turn 
 from one side to the other (Ezek. iv.) is not only ex- 
 tremely improbable upon sevei-al accounts, but hardly pos- 
 sible to be done in the time allotted to this whole affair ; 
 for it all passed betwixt the prophet seeing his first vision 
 at the river Chebar, which was on the fifth day of the 
 fourth month, in the fifth year of King Jehoiachin's cap- 
 tivity (Ezek. i. 1 — 2) and his sitting in his house with 
 the elders of Judah on the fifth day of the sixth montli, 
 of the sixth year (Ezek. viii. 1), that is, within a year 
 and two months. Now, the Jewish year being lunar, 
 consisted of three hundred and fifty-four days, and their 
 month of twenty-nine days and thirty days alternately ; 
 therefore a year and two months (three hundred, fifty -four, 
 twenty-nine, and thirty) added together, would amount to 
 no mor^ than four hundred and thii-teen days, which falh 
 
418 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 short of the number of days during which the prophet 
 is said to lie on his side — (namely, 430 days) — by 17 
 days. And if you deduct also from the 413 days, the 7 
 days which he sat among the captives at Telabib {Ezek. 
 iii. 15) there remain but 406 days, which are 24 days 
 short of 430. * * To this head of impossibles we may 
 refer God's bringing Abraham abroad into the field, and 
 showing him the stars {Genesis xv.) since it appears that 
 it was not yet sunset, " when the sun was going down," 
 it is said, a great sleep fell upon Abraham (v. 12). * '" 
 The prophet Hosea is said at the command of God to 
 take a wife of whoredom, that is, a whore, and to have 
 three children by her, which are called the children of 
 whoredom, that is, bastards. (Hosea i. 12.) Those who 
 will have this to be the real fact, alledge that she is called 
 a wife of whoredom, which intimates, they say, that 
 though she had been a lewd person, yet the prophet was 
 legally married to her ; but they forget that the children 
 which she bore him are called " children of whoredom ; " 
 besides, he is ordered to love another woman, an 
 adulteress {Hosea iii. 1), and is said to have bought or 
 hired her for fifteen pieces of silver, and a homer and a- 
 half of barley, to abide with him many days (verses 2 and 
 3), circumstances w^hich evidently point out a lewd mis- 
 tress not a lawful wife. Now, can it be supposed that 
 the prophet Hosea, the chief scope of whose prophecy is 
 to discover sin, and to denounce the judgments of God 
 upon a people that would not be reformed, would him- 
 self be guilty of such an immoral and scandalous practice, 
 as to cohabit with one harlot after another; much less 
 can it be thought that God would have commanded him 
 so to do ? 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 419 
 
 45. Sncli is, in brief, one important section of the dif- 
 ficulties with which a student of the Hebrew bible is 
 met : those that beset an English reader of the autho- 
 rized version are not less formidable, when it is remem- 
 bered that his very faith, or that opinion on which he 
 bases his all for the future, is founded upon them. The 
 authorized version is made, not in accordance with He- 
 brew, or the literal meaning, or the spirit of the original, 
 but simply and solely in accordance with the thirty-nine 
 articles, and the general notions of religion which per- 
 vade protestants, or woi^shippers of Paul. Never indeed 
 was there a book which in essential particulars more 
 thoroughly misrepresents, and even falsifies its original, 
 than the authorized version. Home, who is the most 
 orthodox of wiiters, and whom therefore I cite in prefer- 
 ence to other and greater scholars, and far deeper 
 thinkers, on whom a shade of a suspicion of heterodoxy 
 may fall, gives for an example one important falsification 
 of the many hundreds that exist. The preceding account 
 of the principal topics, he says, connected with the book 
 of Job, would be thought impei-fect without some notice 
 of the remarkable passage in xix., 25 — 29, a passage 
 which has been much contested among critics. As every 
 attempt at a true explanation of it must be based on a 
 faithful version, and as the English translation is very 
 incori'ect in this instance, we shall preface our remarks 
 with a faithful version of the original words : — 
 
 BiU I knoiv my vindicator lives , 
 
 And toill stand at last upon tlie earthy 
 
 And though after my skin this [body] he destroy edj 
 
 Even loithout flesh shcdl I see God. 
 
 Yetty I shall see him /or myself. 
 
420 TflE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 Mine eyes shall behold him : none other [shall do 5o]. 
 
 My reins pine away [with longing] within me. 
 The term translated " Redeemer," means Vindicator, 
 Avenger, and applies to God. Job expresses a confident 
 expectation that God would yet appear and vindicate the 
 justice of his cause, as well as his integrity, which is done 
 accordingly. (Vol. ii., p. 733.) He adds that it cannot 
 with any truth he said to apply to a Messiah^ yet it is to 
 him it ever has been applied by all orthodox writers ; and 
 I have heard the passage repeatedly cited by priests and 
 bishops in the puljjit, as a positive prediction by Job 
 of the coming of Jesus. When therefore the English 
 translators have not hesitated to corrupt a passage of this 
 description, and to make it read in accordance with 
 Paulite views, namely, an atoner for human sin, and a 
 hodily resurrection of the dead (than which nothing can 
 be conceived more gross for a celestial paradise), the text 
 itself expressly negativing a body, those who hold that 
 upon their belief in this life depends their future with the 
 Divine, may well pause in solemn terror, and ask them- 
 selves this question : If I am thus misled by my teachers 
 upon a vital article of belief, and if I base all my conduct 
 upon earth on that article, how awful will be my condi- 
 tion when after death I find myself to have been in error ; 
 and what answer shall I make, when God asks me, why 
 I sought not knowledge of the truth, for myself, without 
 depending upon others for its teaching ? This is a ques- 
 tion indeed of the most fearful magnitude. I leave it to 
 be answered by those whose everlasting welfare it 
 involves. 
 
 46. The orthodox version of this famous passage, which 
 indeed people seem to have off by heart, is as follows : / 
 
ME APOCALYPSE. 421 
 
 know that my Redeemer livethy and that he shall stand at 
 the latter day upon the earth, and though after my skiuj 
 worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I shall see God. 
 The literal translation of the Hebrew is, / know that my 
 avenger {ov kinsman /K^, Gal) he whose right it was, 
 and still is, among the Orientals to vindicate the honour, 
 or avenge the death of a relative) liveth and shall stand at 
 last over the dust (the dead) and after my skin destroy this 
 yet without my flesh I shall see God^ whom I shall see myself 
 (without a mediator), and mine eyes shall behold him, and 
 no other (he is the One Sole God — there is no other : the 
 Arabic faith). Home, it will be observed, is wi'ong in 
 his interpretation of "no other," by adding [shall do 
 so]. Job was a pure monotheist, and so expresses himself 
 He never could have intended to say that he alone of all 
 other human or angelic creatures should see God. Such 
 a notion would be manifestly absurd. This word is used 
 also in Gen. xlviii. 16. " The angel who redeemed me 
 (SX^ gra^) that is, recovered me, vindicated me from, 
 avenged me oi, delivered me) from all evil, bless the lads : 
 — " meaning, say the commentators, the preserving, pro- 
 tecting, guiding providence of God, which I have expe- 
 rienced during my life." Was this Redeemer Jesus 1 No 
 one ever pretended that it was — by what reasoning there, 
 fore is the passage in Job refeiTed to him; and why 
 should not one interpretation serve for the first as well as 
 for the second? Take again the following hymn as an 
 instance : the composition either of Adam himself, or of 
 Enoch : Give thanks unto the Lord, call upon his nam^y 
 make known his deeds among the people. Sing unto him, 
 sing psalina unto him, talk ye of all his rjoondrous works. 
 Glory ye in hia holy name : let tJie heart of them rejoice 
 
422 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 tJmt seek the Lord. Seek tJie Lord and his strength^ seek 
 his face continually. Rememher his marvellous works 
 that he hath done, his wonders, and the judgment of 
 his mouth : He is the Lord, our God ; his judgments are 
 in all the earth. Be ye mindful always of his cove- 
 nant \ the word which he commanded to a thousand 
 generations : Saying, Touch not Mine Anointed Ones, 
 and do my prophets no harm. And when they went from 
 nation do nation, and from one kingdom to anotlier 
 2^eople : He suffered no man to do them, wrong : yea, he 
 reproved kin^s for their sakes. Sing unto the Lord, all 
 the earth] shew forth from day to day his salvation. 
 Declare his glory among the heathen ; his marvellous 
 works among all nations. For great is the Lord, and 
 greatly to be praised : he also is to be feared above all 
 gods. Glory a7id honour are in his presence ; strength 
 and gladness are in his place. Give unto the Lord, ye 
 kindreds of the people, give unto the Lord glory and strength. 
 Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name : bring an 
 offering, and cowjC before him : worship the Lord in the 
 beauty of holiness. Fear before him, all the earth : the world 
 also shall be stable, that it be not moved. Let the heavens 
 be glad, and let the earth rejoice : and let men say among 
 the nations, The Lord reigneth. Let the sea roar, and the 
 fuhiess thereof: let the fields rejoice, and all that is therein. 
 Then shall the trees of the wood sing out at tJie presence of 
 the Lord, because he cometh to judge the earth. give 
 tlianks unto the Lord ; for he is good ; for his mercy 
 endureth for ever. 1 Chron. xvi., 22 Ps. ex. 15. The 
 word which, in the common version, has been tran- 
 slated mine anointed, as if it referred to only one, is in the 
 plural ^n^ti^D!! Bemeshiai; but as usual it is fraudulently 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 423 
 
 rendered in the common bibles as if it -were in the singular. 
 Yet even the miserable Eusebius had not so much bold- 
 ness as our reverend changers into English ; for he tran- 
 slates it, Touch not my anointed ones {niy Messiahs), and 
 do my jyrophets no harm. And it is in this false and felo- 
 nious style that the Old and New Testaments have been 
 translated ; and in this deceitful manner they have been 
 circulated over the earth : the object, as the reader sees, 
 being in this place to conceal from men that there are 
 other Messiahs and other Messengers from God to earth, 
 than the one \diom the Paulites pretend to be the sole 
 Angel after the days of Amosis. How will the men who 
 are parties to these frauds answer for them before God % 
 or do they indeed believe in God at all 1 
 
 47. Nor less awful has been the crime of them who have 
 in other respects, and for other reasons, interpolated and 
 interpreted the Old Testament according to their own base 
 notions. For hundreds and hundreds of years Christians 
 and Jews have alike treated the negro races with the 
 most fiend-like cruelties on the ground that they are the 
 accursed progeuy of the accursed Ham, and that God 
 himself has pronounced upon them his malediction. They 
 have been shot, stabbed, flogged, crucified, tortured, 
 drowned, and their wives and daughters torn from them 
 and i-avished before their eyes, by reason of this execra- 
 ble creed : and Paulites have thought that they were but 
 ministers of their Maker's vengeance, in inflicting barba- 
 rities upon this fated race. Yet see how Faber disposes of 
 this monstrous faith. An opinion, he says, has I know 
 not how, very generally prevailed, that a cui-se was pro- 
 nounced upon Ham, which, devoted his posterity to ser- 
 vitude ; hence the epithet " accursed " has been liberally 
 
424) THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 bestowed upon that patriarch, as his stated and appropriate 
 designation. Nor has this notion been taken up merely 
 by ordinary and superficial theologists : even such writers 
 as Bochart and Mede are to be found among its advocates. 
 Bochart in one place styles Ham accursed : and in an- 
 other he represents Noah as execrating him, and as fore- 
 telling that his children should he slaves ; while Mede, 
 not content with calling upon us to tremble at the horrible 
 curse of impious Ham, and with intimating that he was 
 destined to he a servant of servants to all his brethren, 
 roundly asserts that there hath never yet been a son of 
 Ham that hath shaken a sceptre over the head of Japhet ; 
 that Shem hath subdued Japhet, and Japhet hath subdued 
 Shem, but Ham never subdued either ! Yet notwith- 
 standing this general persuasion, Scripture contains not a 
 single syllable respecting either any curse pronounced 
 upon Ham, or any prediction of the general servitude of 
 his posterity ! Canaan, indeed the youngest of the four 
 sons of Ham, is the subject of an imprecatory denuncia- 
 tion ; but Ham himself was never cursed ; consequently 
 neither the curse nor the prophecy can affect any of his 
 descendants except the Canaanites. Those writers, who 
 have been most zealous in applying the curse and the 
 prediction to Ham, were sensible that Scripture, as it 
 stands at present, directly opposed their opinion : but so 
 fully were their minds pre-occupied with the common 
 idea, that rather than relinquish it, they have with mis- 
 chievous ingenuity attempted to make the Bible speak 
 the language which they had concluded it ought to speak. 
 Hence, because the Arabic version reads, cursed he the 
 father of Canaan, and because some copies of the 70, sub- 
 stitute Ham in the place of Canaan, they would, through- _ 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 425 
 
 out the prophecy, wherever the word Canaan occurs, cor- 
 rect it to Ham, the father of Canaan. With respect to 
 this supposed improvement of the text, it not only runs 
 directly counter both to the Hebrew and the Samaritan 
 copies of the Pentateuch, which perfectly agree in their 
 i-eading of the prediction, to say nothing of the common 
 reading of the 70 : but it seems to me to bear also the 
 strongest internal marks of spuriousness. Why should 
 Ham throughout the whole prophecy be called the father 
 of Canaan^ rather than the father of Cush, or of Mizir, 
 or of Phut ? Why should this long unmeaning title be 
 thrice repeated ? Wliy should Ham be particularized as 
 the father of Canaan, rather than Japhet as the father of 
 Gomer, or Shem as the father of Elam % When I com- 
 pare the projected emendation with the commonly received 
 reading, and when I consider the joint high authority of 
 the Hebrew and Samaritan Pentateuchs, I cannot hesi- 
 tate long in determining where to fix my choice. But I 
 have yet an additional reason in protesting most strongly 
 against any correction or rather alteration of the text. 
 I have termed such critical ingenuity mischievotcs ; nor 
 was the epithet applied lightly and without cause. If 
 the i)rophecy had realli/ been penned in the form which 
 has been recommended instead of its present form, its 
 falsehood would have been clearly evinced by the testi- 
 mony of history. So far from Ham never having shaken 
 a sceptre over the head either of Japhet or Shem, as 
 Mr. Mede most incautiously asserts, it may be clearly 
 proved that his posterity in the line of Cush have been 
 at the head, not only of the Babylonian empire of Nim- 
 rod, but of the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman em- 
 pires. Nor did their sway cease with the downfall of the 
 
426 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 last mighty power : the Goths or Souths, penetrating into 
 the west from their original settlements in Touran and 
 Cashgar, have established and retained their sway over 
 the fairest provinces of Europe ; and thus to the intrepid 
 and freeborn children of the Hammonian Gush or Gusha, 
 are committed the destinies of the world. Pag. Idol. i. 90. 
 (26.) We cannot be surprised to find among our Ameri- 
 can cousins, who, with our wicked and blasphemous forms 
 of belief have inherited all our vices, and have even out- 
 done us in many modes of crime, a remnant of this old 
 Paulite- Jewish notion, that the whites alone are the 
 people of God ; and that all other peoples may be ex- 
 terminated as ruthlessly, as we of England massacre the 
 New Zealanders of the present day for the sake of their 
 lands. I read in the Times newspaper of April 23, 1866, 
 the following extract, which is appropriately headed " A 
 Community of Monsters," but which is only the old 
 spirit of Judaism and Paulism, and perverted Biblicism, 
 under a new aspect. We find, it says, the following 
 horrid paragraph in an American exchange. A town 
 meeting at Owyhu, Idaho, recently resolved that three 
 men be appointed to select 25 men to go Indian hunting, 
 and all those who fit themselves out shall receive a nomi- 
 nal sum for all scalps they may bring in ; and all who 
 cannot fi.t themselves out shall be fitted out by this com- 
 mittee ; and when they bring in a scalp it shall be de- 
 ducted out. That for every buck scalp shall be paid 100 
 dollars, and for every squaw scalp 50 dollars, and 25 for 
 everything in the shape of an Indian undei' ten years of age. 
 That each scalp shall have the curl of the head, and each 
 man shall make oath that the scalp was taken by the 
 company. The worst Indians of Idaho, says the Toronto 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 427 
 
 Globe f commenting on this fiend-like community, must be 
 civilized when compared with the white savages who held 
 the " town meeting " at which such barbarous resolutions 
 were adopted. Yet, if we could go among them, we should 
 no doubt find them very pious believers in Paul, the re- 
 demption, and the Thirty -Nine Articles. 
 
 48. In the 2nd Kings (xxiii. 5,) it is said that Josiah 
 put down them that burnt incense unto Baal, to the Sun, 
 and to the Moon, and HIvID Mazaloth. This word sig- 
 nifies literally, the flowings, or distillations, that is the 
 incarnate Messiahs, who emanated from the Spirit of 
 Waters. The Rabbins suppose that it means the zodiacal 
 signs : in reality it means the Twelve Messengers who 
 were associated with their parents the Sun and Moon, 
 and who were thus adored by the ancient Jews. Jos. iv. 
 Isaiah Ivii. 3 — 6. This word is the same as Mazaroth, 
 which also means the Crowns, for the Twelve are as 
 crowned kings. [See aiUe, p. 58.] Again in Isaiah Ixv. 
 11, we read : but ye are they that prepare a table for that 
 troop, and that furnish a drink offering for that number. 
 Tliis is a curious specimen of translation, the real version 
 is : Ye are they that prepare a table for God, and that 
 furnish a drink offering for Meni, ^J/^ ; that is the Holy 
 Spirit of the Heavens, called plurally the Dispensei*s or 
 Distributors of the Yt^ mannah, or bread from heaven. 
 She was adored by the Arabians under the name of Ma- 
 Nah : and the English word Moon, and month, and 
 many, come from her. She was the Mona, and Mon 
 (Welsh) or Sacred Mountain of Paradise ; and the Mens, 
 or Everlasting Mind, or Logos of the Gentiles. And in 
 order to conceal all this, the parsons who translated the 
 Bible for King James, gave tlie above absurd and false 
 
428 THE BOOK OF GOB. 
 
 interpretation. Anothei' instance is to be found in Psalm 
 ii. 7, thus translated l%ou art my son : this day have I 
 begotten thee, which is triumphantly quoted by all Biblical 
 controversialists as conclusive evidence of the Trinity, and 
 of an exclusive Messiahship of Jesus. But the word, 
 translated begotten, really means to appoint to an office, or 
 in a figurative sense to bring forth ; [See Parkhurst 
 •^7^ yalad\, so that the real version is, 
 / will decla/re the decree, 
 
 The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son, 
 This day have I appointed thee to thine office, 
 an allusion either to the Jews collectively, or a compli- 
 ment paid to King David by one of his bards. By the 
 Arabian doctors it is rendered " I have educated thee." 
 
 49. And here I may premise that in my Introduction 
 to the True Testament of Jesus, I shall shew how the 
 gospels and writings of those who are called apostles 
 have been interpolated and corrupted : at present I need 
 only refer to that well known passage of the three wit- 
 nesses in John v. 7, than which a more impudent forgery 
 was never committed ; and which is now given up (when 
 it is no longer tenable), by all divines — though of course 
 the Bible Society still publish it, without note or com- 
 ment, as if it were really part of the Testament, and well 
 meaning persons leave them large fortunes little knowing 
 that they are to be disbursed in the diffusion of falsehoods. 
 The Hebrew gospel of Matthew, says Olshausen remained in 
 Phrygia and in Palestine with all sorts of heterogeneous 
 additions on the part of the Jew-Christian's. His disci- 
 ples coming by night stole him while we (the guard) were 
 asleep. And this Mory has circulated among the Jews 
 down to the present day. Matt, xxviii. 1 3. This expres; 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 429 
 
 sion down, to tJie present day^ indicates rather a late 
 date for the Greek Matthew. Olshausen himself, much 
 against his will is constmined to confess that Matthew 
 after the Hebrew Evangel, made a free translation of 
 it into Greek. There is a well-known passage in the 
 writings, which are vulgarly or fraudulently assigned to 
 Isaiah, which furnishes another instance of the matchless 
 audacity with which the Old Testament translators pre- 
 sumed on the ignorance of their readers. It is in vii. 14. 
 The Lord himself shall give you a sign ; lo tlie Virgin 
 shall conceive and bear a son. What Virgin? The 
 word in the Hebrew is emphatic nDb^H Ha-Almah. 
 The answer is evident : it meant some particular young 
 person then in the mind of the speaker. The vulgate 
 translation a virgin, is as usual deceptive : such a word 
 might apply to Mary, if used by a writer who lived nearly 
 a thousand years before her ; but could not apply with the 
 definite article prefixed ; hence the artfulness of so render- 
 ing it in the English. Upon this falsification Eammohun 
 Roy makes the following remark : As to the word " a 
 virgin," found in the English ti-anslation, I request my 
 readers to advert to the original Hebrew nO^VH " ^^^ 
 Virgin," as well as to the Greek both of the Septuagint 
 and the gospel of Matthew, 17 Trap9€vo<s, the Virgin, 
 leaving it to them to judge whether a translation which 
 so entirely pei'veiis the meaning presei-ved throughout, 
 by men whom we cannot suspect of ignorance of the ori- 
 ginal language, must not have proceeded from a previous 
 determination to apply the terra "virgin," as found in 
 the Prophet to the mother of Christ, in order that the 
 high titles applied to Hezekiah might in the most unquali- 
 fied manner be understood of Jesus (p. 283). The Jews in 
 
430 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 ^/ieir Hellenistic version of this passage, in order to spite the 
 Christians, translated it veavts, a young woman. The 
 whole passage however it will be seen is mtsconstrued, or 
 misrepresented, for " the child" at the end of it, does not 
 mean Jesus, but the child Shear-Jashub. Then said the 
 Lord unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet A haz, thou, and 
 Shear-jashuh thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper 
 pool in the highway of the fuller' s field ; and say unto him, 
 Take heed, and he quiet ; fear not, neither he fainthearted 
 for the two tails of these smoking firehrands, for the fierce 
 anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah. 
 Moreover the Lord spake again unto Ahaz, saying, Ask 
 thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either in the depth, 
 or in the height above. But Ahaz said, I ivill not ask, 
 neither will I tempt the Lord. And he said, Hear ye now, 
 house of David ; Is it a small thing for you to weary 
 men, hut will ye weary my God also 1 Therefore the Lord 
 himself shall give you a sign ; Behold, the virgin shall con- 
 ceive, and hear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. 
 Butter and honey shall he eat, that he mjxy know to refuse 
 tlie evil, and choose the good. For hefore this child (that is 
 Shear- jashub) shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the 
 good, the land that thou ahhorrest shall he forsaken of 
 hoth her kings. Yet this is one of the prophecies which 
 are perpetually cited to prove that Jesus was foreseen 
 by the Jews ; though such an interpretation is absolutely 
 false, as any one who reads it all with even ordinary at- 
 tention can see. 
 
 50. For these, or a large majority of these interpola- 
 tions, the Church of Rome stands guilty ; the Jewish 
 sanhedrim are alike flagitious ; and the Church of England, 
 which knowingly adopts and circulates over the earth. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 481 
 
 tJie fraiululent forgeries and glosses of both is equally 
 cvimiiial before the judgment seat of God. The first of 
 those hierarchies having unlimited power, destroyed 
 almost all vestiges of the tiiie religion which Jesus 
 tiiught, and which was only a renovation of the first and 
 oldest creed that God gave to man. For Jesus himself 
 left Judsea at an early age ; he quitted the workshop) of 
 his reputed father, and abided in Egypt, where he was 
 initiated iuto the Mysteries, and brought with him to 
 Jerusalem many of the Apocalyptic volumes of the eight 
 Sacred Messengers who had preceded him. He com- 
 menced preaching in his 49th year — (7 X 7, a mystic 
 number) — (John viii 57), and was put to death in about 
 3 years after ; and as there has been an error of 5 years 
 in the computation of the Christian Chronology ( Whis- 
 toJis Sacred History, vol. v. 10), and Jesus was born 
 about the middle of June (not on the 25th of December, 
 as the easy-going public is taught to believe), these five 
 yeai's added to the true period of his life — namely, 52, 
 give the date of his death. Anno J. C. 57. That he be- 
 queathed to his Apostles his foreign books seems certain ; 
 and this is what is really meant by Acts ii. 8, 9, 10 11, 
 where men of all nations are reported to have heard their 
 own tongue, that is, the truths of their own religious 
 volumes, from the assembled Twelve. And this absence 
 of the Sacred Messenger in Egypt, and his journey 
 farther eastward, is the time mode of accounting for that 
 singidar disappearance, which is mentioned in the gos- 
 pels of him who at twelve yeara of age astonishetl the 
 Kabbis by his knowledge, yet who, we are told, continued 
 for the fol'owing thirty one, working as a common car- 
 penter, mending chairs and tables, while he was during 
 
432 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 all that period, as Bishop Pearson says, the Supreme, 
 Almighty, and Eternal God ! But why he came to waste 
 so many years on earth in utter idleness and abandon- 
 ment of his celestial mission, the priests of error do not 
 say. The truth is, Jesus did not do so : he travelled as 
 a pilgrim in search of knowledge, and acquired all the 
 Oriental sciences. But when Paul, the old enemy of 
 Christianity (Acts viii. 1, 3 ; ix. 1 ; xxii. 4, 20), wearied of 
 his persecutions, imprisonments, and slaughters of the meek 
 disciples of Jesus, determined by other, though not less cri- 
 minal means to destroy his divine religion, and to change it 
 into mongrel Judaism under a new mask, he gradually 
 brought back his less energetic brethren, whom the Mes- 
 senger had enlightened and converted, to their own original 
 narrow notions ; and thus the broad and splendid views 
 of the Ninth Messiah gradually disappeared from the 
 faith. Yet Peter retained some ; and we have seen that 
 he unquestionably borrowed from the Indian Bhaga-Yad- 
 Geeta. (Ante, page 163.) But when the accursed Church 
 of Rome and Satan arose, the real creed of Jesus stood in 
 its way ; and so it brought all things back to ancient 
 Paganism, and altered all the books which it did not care 
 to destroy. Thus may be explained the disappearance 
 from the Hebrew and Christian volumes of allusions to 
 the Holy Spirit, of which we nevertheless find vestiges, 
 and of which once universal faith traces are to be found 
 all over the earth (27). Yet the passage which I have 
 cited from Genesis (ante page 189), is so conclusive as to 
 be worth a thousand ordinary allusions ; and if the reader 
 will examine it, he will find it to be so. And this was 
 part of that theology, which, as we know, was guarded so 
 closely in the Mysteries ; which the Ninth Messenger 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 433 
 
 dared not publish openly, but whicli he felt himself at 
 liberty to expound to the disciples when they were alone. 
 (Mark iv. 34:.) Nor does this assertion stand without 
 record : Jesus himself once said : Mi/ Mother, the Holy 
 Spirit^ took me just now by one of the hairs of my head, 
 and carried me up into the Great Mountain, Thahor. 
 This is quoted by Origen. (Horn, xv., in Jerem., p. 148, 
 and Tom. ii., Comment in Johannem, p. 58.) And it is 
 twice quoted by Jerom also. (Whiston.* Sacred History 
 of the New Testament, v. 127.) It is only one of many 
 passages which the half Pagan, half Jewish church of the 
 early ages, dared to expunge from the authentic sayings 
 of the Ninth Messenger ; and of which " the faithful" at 
 the present day are kept in entire ignorance. Yet even 
 Mosheim admits that there was " a secret doctrine ;" and 
 what could it be but this 1 Clement, of Alexandria, has 
 these words : For it was not out of envy that our Master 
 [Jesus] said in a certain Gospel : My secret is to me, and 
 to the children of my family. {Strom, y. 578.) But what 
 this Gospel was, Clement does not inform u°. It was one 
 of those which the Paulites have destroyed ; and, acting 
 on the same accursed example that had been set them by 
 Paul himself {Acts xix. 19), they burned most of the 
 Sacred Volumes of the Messengei's, impudently excusing 
 themselves by calling them magical. The wonder only 
 is, that in the prosecution of their unhallowed conspiracy 
 they spared the Apocalypse ; but not comprehending it, 
 they took it in its castrated form, nor fancied that i t 
 would ever again be restored to its pristine shape, and 
 arise, as if from the dead, to blast their pretensions to 
 sole and universal sway. Thus, while in the Old Testa- 
 ment we find eveiy crime applauded or forgiven, we find 
 
 U 
 
434 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 in the New, apologies for adulteresses and the canoniza- 
 tion of harlots (28) ; the exaltation of the ignorant, and 
 the beatification of the lowest cheats and wretches, the 
 publicans, who gathered the taxes for the Roman Govern- 
 ment. For the Church has never, heeded of v/hat its 
 members consisted, so long as it could swell its numbers, 
 and thus by the mere force of mobs, overawe the rest of 
 the communit}'-, and seduce the weak and wealthy to endow 
 it with gold. And it has ever pursued that satanic 
 policy ; preaching that the poor and ignorant are the 
 assured favourites of heaven, and will inherit its ever- 
 lasting glories ; while there can be no truth more certain 
 than that the voluntary ignorance of the many is not 
 only one of the greatest crimes, but is also their heaviest 
 calamity. (29.) The writings of Paul himself afford 
 proof of the character of the first proselytes ; and I cite 
 an extract here for the purpose of showing by unanswer- 
 able testimony the truth of what I have just stated ; and 
 also because it is another of the many passages with which 
 the forgers have been at work. In 1 Corinthians we read 
 as follows: Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor 
 idolators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor sodoinites, 
 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revellers, nor 
 extortioners, shall inherit the Jcingdom of God ; and of 
 these things brethren ye are not ignorant, for ye also were 
 such{yi. 9, 10, 11). A.nd out of these reeking horrors 
 were the early followers of Paulism raked, and these are the 
 wretches who are called martyrs, and saints, and fathers 
 of the church. In our present version it is- translated : 
 And such were some of you; and even the original Greek 
 has been altered from what it originally was. In the 
 fragments presers-ed by Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, (one 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 435 
 
 of the Papal saints), of the Emperor Julian's treatise upon 
 the Christians, the original passage is cited thus : Kal 
 v/Mis roiovToi i}t€, i. e., ye also tcere such : but in our 
 modem New Testament, this has been altered Kal ravra 
 Ttv€s 'i}T€, i. e., and sicch wei'e some of you. We have it, 
 ho-wever, as a certain fact, that it stood in its fii-st shape 
 in the days of Julian and Cyril : the latter does not ques- 
 tion the authenticity of the extract ; and the Emperor 
 adds : opas ori Kal tovtovs ycvecrdai <f>rja't tolovtovs. Yoic 
 see that he [Paul] says they tvere s^tch characters as these. 
 (See Cyril contra Julian, lib. vii., p. 245.) Infamous, 
 however, as they were, they were of course assured by 
 Paul, that they were thenceforth the children of heaven. 
 But ye are ivashed, he tells them ; lut ye are become holy, 
 hut ye are made righteous hy tlie name oftJie Master Jesus, 
 and hy the spirit of our God. This is what the mur- 
 derers and villains of the jiresent day are told ; and it is 
 assuredly Satan's creed, not God's. No wonder that Paul 
 follows it up by remarking. All things are lawful unto 
 me, hut aU things are not expedient, that is, I may lie, 
 rob, ravish, and slay ; it is perfectly lawful for me, who 
 am saved by the scapegoat Jesus ; the only thing I shall 
 have to consider is whether it is expedient ; whether I 
 shall be found out, and so be punished ! And the whole 
 spirit of this teaching has entered into what is called 
 Christianity ; and fathers defend themselves for cohabit- 
 ing with their daughters, and brothera for the same 
 crime with their sistei-s, on the gi'ound that it has 
 been sanctioned by the Old Testament ; or if not, that 
 every crime is atoned for in the New. They are houglit 
 with a 2>rice, as Paul frequently assures them ; and God 
 
 u 2 
 
436 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 is bound by the bargain : He dare not, and He cannot 
 recede from it, wbatever they may commit. 
 
 51. Yet it is not without a grim satisfaction that one 
 may see even in the writings of Paul, that there were times 
 when he felt the weight of his own past actions ; when 
 their hideous horrors rose up against him ; when the ac- 
 cusing phantom of Stephen stalked all bruised and bloody 
 before his eyes, and pointed to this inflamed and pauper 
 fanatic as one of those who stoned him to his death ; when 
 his various persecutions and murders of other unhappy and 
 unresisting followers of the gentle Jesus tortured his 
 waking thoughts, and even he felt that for the work of 
 undermining and destroying the stately plan of Chris- 
 tianity as propounded by the Master, and poisoning all its 
 beautiful doctrines with the odious venom of degenerated 
 Judaism, he was " accui^ed of Christ," although, indeed, 
 labouring in the service of his brethren. / speak the 
 truth, he says, in Christ [the Anointed One], I lie not in 
 the Holy Sph'it, and in this my conscie7ice beareth me wit- 
 ness; that I have great sorrow and pain without inter- 
 mission in my heart ; For I myself have prayed to he 
 [or boasted that I was], accursed hy Christ [the Anointed], 
 because of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh. 
 Komans ix. 1, 2, 3. And the employment to which he 
 had addressed himself, must indeed have appeared accursed 
 in what remained of conscience to this professing believer 
 in Jesus. Bribed in all probability by Caiaphas and the 
 other members of the priesthood, to abandon his trade of 
 tent-making and become a common informer, he, when he 
 was now satiated with persecution and its attendant blows, 
 perjuries, imprisonments, and bloodshed, devised another 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 437 
 
 and more despemte policy — that of sapping by poison 
 imder the aspect of an ally, that sacred life which he had 
 failed to extinguish by his assaults as a foe. He assumed 
 therefore the name of Christian ; and step by step infusing 
 his malignant venom into the blood of Truth, he at last 
 succeeded in utterly destroying the doctrine of the heaven- 
 sent Man. So that of true Christianity there now re- 
 mains little but the ghost ; and its spiiit may be said 
 to have disappeared for centuries. For though it has, 
 indeed, existed in the hearts of a few, yet from the great 
 mass of Christendom, it has been altogether absent ; nor 
 will it again appear lovely and renewed, until Paulism is 
 dead for ever, and has sunk with shrieks into the horrible 
 Abyss. 
 
 52. The only apology that can be offered for this man, 
 if he can at all be thought to be sincere, is, that he was 
 insane; and to this affliction the natural violence and 
 ferocity of his chai-acter may have reduced him. The 
 story of his vision (Acts ix.), if it be not all a falsehood, 
 was probably the first indication of his madness; the 
 passages cited, antCj page 238, seem wild in the extreme ; 
 and he appears eventually to have brought himself to the 
 notion that in all he did he was only a blind insti*ument 
 in the hand of the Jewish Lar or God ; and that as he 
 sinned only with his body, while he dissented from sin in 
 his mind, he was tottilly guiltless in the eyes of heaven. 
 This is the clear meaning of his words : although I con- 
 fess that there is an incoherency about them highly indi- 
 cative of a disordered brain. We know, he says, tluit the 
 law is spiritual : hut I am carnal, sold uiuler sin. For 
 that which I do, I allow not: for what I loould, that I do 
 not; hut what I hate, tlutt do I. If t/ien I do that lohich 
 
438 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 / would 7iot, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now 
 ilien it is no more I that do it, hut sin that dwelleth in me. 
 For I know that in me {that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no 
 good thing : for to will is present with one : but how to 
 perform that which is good I find oiot. For tlie good that 
 I would I do not : but the evil which I would not, that I 
 do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that 
 do it, but sin that dwelleth in one. I find then a law, that, 
 when I would do good, evil is present ivith me. For I de- 
 light in the law of God after the inward man : But I see 
 another law in my onembers, warrioig against the law of 
 my mind, and bringing one into captivity to the law of sin 
 which is hi my membeo^s. wretched man that I am ! who 
 ■^hall deliver mefroon the body of this death 1 I thank God, 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I 
 myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the laiv of sin. 
 Romans vii. And tliis same frantic doctrine is held by 
 considerable sects, who maintain on this authority, that 
 it is of no consequence what crimes are perpetrated by 
 the body, for that the body is a perishable thing ; and 
 that the soul being a spirit, is in no way defiled by that 
 which its carnal vehicle commits. Murder and robbery are 
 therefore perfectly innocent amusements. This appears 
 to have been the salve for his accusing conscience which 
 Saul or Paul professed to have ; and by this doubtless, if 
 he were not in reality, a bribed emissary, he justified to 
 himself, like all madmen, the career of hypocritical pre- 
 tence, and moral assassination of Jesus, in which his 
 ^atter days were spent. As to the story of his martyrdom 
 it must, of course, be set down with the other figments 
 of the Eomisli Church ; there is no proof of it, though 
 plenty of conjecture ; it is impossible to believe it, or in- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 439 
 
 deed any of the tales which this congregation of Satan 
 has handed down. 
 
 53. The foregoing observations would probably appear 
 incomplete if I did not allude to the fell and awful foi-ms 
 of superstition and disbelief, which a blind adherence to 
 works which are now confessed by the learned to be the 
 compilation of designing, ignorant, or wicked men, has 
 produced among mankind. To what what can we attri- 
 bute the innumerable opposing creeds which fill Europe, 
 America, and Australia, with religious rancour, and con- 
 vert the divine revelations of religion into conduits of 
 the most bitter hatred and malignity that the human heai-t 
 can possibly contain ? — to what indeed, but to the vague 
 and fallible and wicked notions of God which these con- 
 gregated priests of old dared to put forth under a divine 
 sanction ? To what but this can we attribute the debas- 
 ing ideas of God and his Government which pollute the 
 earth, and reduce to the lowest level the Divine Master of 
 the Universe, the Infinite, the One, the All-Beautiful? 
 To what can we attribute wars, robberies, and villainy of 
 every kind, but to the horrid examples which these 
 wretched imposters have preserved in liLstory, and ren- 
 dered holy by the express permission or command of God 
 himself? There is scarcely a crime that cannot find its 
 excuse or pallLation in these strange centos from the 
 writings of dead and unkno^vn men. I should be sony 
 to say that that is the reason why they have been always 
 hugged to the hearts of the profane as a hallowed trea- 
 sure ; but we know well that mortal men will even die in 
 defence of what delights their evil passions, and will wage 
 war for it to the cannon's mouth ; thinking only of the 
 present, and heedless of the solemn future. Can we won- 
 
440 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 der, therefore, that tliey have been always doubted by the 
 ■wise j or that we should find the Old Testament thus 
 mentioned by writers, far more capable of a true un- 
 biassed and reliable opinion, than any of the hireling sol- 
 diers of the church 1 The subject itself, the credulity of 
 mankind, says Lord Kingsborough, in the Mexican Anti- 
 quities, vi. 116, is calculated to excite our sorrow rather 
 than our mirth, at beholding reason so fallen from her 
 throne ; and the great, the good, the wise of ancient 
 days, deemed nought in comparison with an outcast race 
 of jugglers, who still pretend that they have " have an 
 oath in heaven," for ever constituting them the favourite 
 people of God, and ratifying for ever the articles of the 
 Old Covenants which comprises all the items of the old 
 law which Christians assert has been long since abolishedj 
 and which even if Christianity had never been esta- 
 blished, or the old superseded by the new covenant, it 
 might be argued on the grounds of fitness ought to have 
 been abolished, since those laws were certainly not fit to 
 be everlasting, some of which we are told in the Old Tes- 
 tament itself, were not good. And also on the ground of 
 expediency, because many of the Mosaic laws would have 
 been quite unsuitable to the present age ; and one which 
 the Jews were strictly commanded to obey, enjoins an act 
 which we find registered in our statute books as a crime 
 to which both legal penalties and infamy are equally 
 attached. Idolatry, he continues, has existed in many 
 countries in many forms, and it must be confessed that, if 
 the fine arts have greatly contributed by the splendour of 
 architecture, the perfection of statuary, and inimitable 
 paintings, to elevate the religious feelings of the soul, 
 their proper use has not unfrequently been perverted. But 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 441 
 
 there is a great deal of difference between what are called 
 the idolatries of heathen nations : the Egyptian interests 
 the mind by its mysteries ; that of the Brahmins by the 
 sacred solitude of their contemplative life ; and the images 
 in the Grecian tem])les by the more than mortal beauty 
 with which the sculptor sought to invest them. But it is 
 idolatry accompanied with living sacrifices, altars reeking 
 with gore, Jewish and Mexican idolatry that excite our 
 feelings of abhorrence and disgust. If the Jews were 
 forbidden to make graven images, it was probably on ac- 
 count of their moral debasement, and because Moses could 
 not tell under what figures they might have represented 
 Jehovah himself — a reason which has been assigned by 
 Lyra, a celebi-ated commentator on Scripture, for God's 
 having chosen to appear to them in the burning bush 
 rather than in any other manner ; and lastly, because he 
 knew they were a nation utterly destitute of taste for the 
 fine arts. Of this we may be sure, judging from the Talmud 
 (that deformed web of sacred history and traditions which 
 the Jews assert to be the mirror of God), that if once 
 they had been permitted to consign the allegories of Scrip- 
 ture, and the miraculous events of their own history to 
 painting and sculpture, the most monstrous productions 
 would have emanated from their school, and devils rather 
 than angels would have been the offspring of the imagi- 
 nations of a people disordered with visions, and ever pry- 
 ing into futurity through dreams. Mexican Antiquities^ 
 vl 358. 
 
 54. Upon the history and sale of Joseph by his bre- 
 thren, he remarks : It is evident from this account, that 
 ten out of the twelve patriarchs of the twelve tribes of 
 Israel were implicated in the same degree of guilt ; an(? 
 
 U 3 
 
442 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 in vain do we seek for arguments to urge in palliation of 
 their conduct : they were all grown up men, and had 
 long before arrived at years of discretion : nor can it 
 even be said that some of them from fear might have 
 followed the multitude to do evil, since their two elder 
 brothers, (and primogeniture carried with it great weight 
 amongst the Jews) felt some !?entiments of commiseration 
 for their younger brother, and for the affliction into which 
 they knew that their father would be thrown on receiving 
 ihe intelligence of his death ; and they differed in opinion, 
 from the others wlio projyosed to murder him, and to throw 
 him into a pit. Reuben indeed seems to have acted a 
 proper part on the occasion : and his exclamation on not 
 :finding his brother in the pit : The child is not, and I — 
 whither shall I go 'i proves that he was not devoid of 
 every feeling of humanity. But what a scene of hypoc- 
 risy was afterwards acted by them all, when all his sons 
 and daughters rose up to comfort their sorrowing father 
 after having shewn him the coat dipped in the blood 
 which he believed to be his son's ! How, after reading 
 this history can we feel or pretend to feel any reverence 
 for the Jewish patriarchs 1 Their moral characters were 
 not only bad, but infamous ; and to praise them would be 
 to insult virtue. The Bible records many other crimes 
 which at a subsequent period they committed, and the 
 evil report — true it cannot be doubted — which before this 
 time Joseph had brought to his father about them, was 
 the cause of their originally hating him. Beuben alone 
 is presented to us under favourable colours, but how great 
 must be the enormity of which he afterwards became guilty, 
 to have been deprived by his father of his birthright, and 
 to have been cursed by him on his death bed as is re- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 443 
 
 corded in the fourth verse of the forty-ninth chapter of 
 Geuesis. — Mex. Ant^ vi. 324. 
 
 b5. I think myself at liberty to observe, says Sir 
 William Driimmond, that profound and splendid scholar, 
 in the Preface to his CEdipus Judaicus^ that the manner 
 in which Christian readers of the Old Testament generally 
 choose to understand it, appears to me to be a little sin- 
 gular. While the Deity is represented vrith human pas- 
 sions, and those none of the best, while he is described as 
 a quarrelsome, jealous, and vindictive being, while he is 
 shewn to be continually changing his plans for the moral go- 
 vernment of the world, and while he is depicted as a mate- 
 rial and local god who dwelt in a box made of shittim wood 
 in the temple of Jerusalem — they abide by the literal inter- 
 pretation. They see no allegoiy in the first chapters of 
 Genesis ; nor doubt that far the greater portion of the 
 human race is doomed to suffer eternal torments, because 
 our first parents ate an apple, after having been tempted 
 by a talking serpent. They find it quite simple, that the 
 triune Jehovah should dine on veal cutlets at Abraham's 
 table ; nor are they at all surprised that the God of the 
 Universe should pay a visit to Ezekiel in order to settle 
 with the Prophet, whether he should bake his bread with 
 human dung, or with cow's dung. In these examples the 
 Christian readers of the Hebrew Scriptures understand 
 no allegoiy. They believe the facts to h^ive happened 
 literally as they are stated ; and neither suspect nor allow, 
 that the language of the sacred wi'iters upon such occa- 
 sions may be entirely figurative. Yery different is their 
 mode of interpreting these same scriptures when they 
 think there is any allusion made to the kingdom of Christ; 
 Then they abandon the literal sense without scruple, and 
 
4414 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 sometimes it may be thought without consideration. The 
 Rabbins learn with astonishment that the Song of Solomon 
 for example is a mere allegory, which represents the love 
 of Jesus for his church ; that the lady whose navel was 
 like a round goblet not wanting liquor — whose belly was. 
 like a heap of wheat set about with lilies, whose nose was 
 as the tower of Lebanon which looketh towards Damascus, 
 and who jn-omised to her well-beloved that he should lie 
 all night betwixt her breasts — was not Solomon's mis- 
 tress, but the Church, the spiritual spouse of Christ. 
 But since the Christians do admit allegory — since they 
 even contend that the Old Testament abounds with figu- 
 rative and symbolical language descriptive of the advent 
 of the Messiah ; why will they so strenuously insist upon, 
 the strict interpretation of the text in other examples? 
 Be their decision what it may, the Theist is bound to 
 vindicate the majesty of the Deity. Cicero has said that 
 it is easier to tell what God is not than what he is. Now 
 every Theist is surely prepared to say that the Deity is 
 neither unjust, nor cruel, nor liable in any manner to the 
 frailties of human nature. Is it possible for the literal 
 interpreter of the Hebrew scriptures to aver this of Je- 
 hovah ? T/te Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh — was 
 it just then to afflict Egypt with so many calamities on 
 account of Pharaoh's obstinacy % The destruction of the 
 seven nations ordained in the ninth chapter of Deuter- 
 onomy, appears to be utterly irreconcileable either to 
 justice or to mercy. Their crime was idolatry — but this 
 Wc\s the crime of all mankind with the exception of the 
 Hebrews : and the seven nations seem to have merited 
 their fate less than the Egyptians, who beheld all the 
 miracles performed by Jehovah, and who yet continued 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 44-5 
 
 to worship the gods of their country. But we cannot 
 wonder at these things, since the passions of anger and 
 jealousy, and the feeling of repentance or regret which 
 are human infirmities, are frequently attributed to the 
 God of the Hebrews. Is there a mind capable of form- 
 ing just notions of the Deity, that can believe any testi- 
 mony which records that the Divine, Infinite, and Eternal 
 Being is affected by accident, or is subject to passion 1 
 It is impossible for the Theist to admit that anything is 
 moi-e powerful than God ; and therefore he cannot allow 
 that God -can ever be in a state of passion ; for passion 
 must always be the effect of action, and of action which 
 cannot be resisted. Passion is sufferance, and no being 
 suffers of its own accord. If anything could put the 
 Divine Mind into a state of passion, that thing would act 
 independently and in spite of God. From this view of 
 the subject then I am not afraid to state, that if the 
 writers of the Old Testament were really inspired, they 
 must be supposed to have spoken figuratively on all those 
 occasions, when they have ascribed human passions to the 
 Supreme Being. It may be objected to me, tliat as the 
 Hebrew scriptures contain little else than the histories of 
 squabblings and bickerings between Jehovah and his people, 
 we might come in this way to allegorize the greater part, 
 if not the whole of the Old Testament. I confess for 
 my own part I would rather believe the whole to be an 
 allegory, than think for a moment that Infinite Wisdom 
 could ever waver in its judgments ; could ever be dis- 
 turbed by anger ; or could at any time repent of what it 
 had ordained, (pp. \ i — xii). There are, however, some yet 
 graver objections v hich I have to make against them. I 
 cannot reconcile to my notions of the perfectly Wise and 
 
446 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 Good Being, tlie literal interpretation of the verse in 
 Exodus, And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought 
 to do unto his peoi^le. Perfect wisdom cannot repent of 
 its intentions, any more than perfect goodness can think 
 of doing evil. When it is stated in Genesis that it re- 
 pented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and 
 that it grieved him at his heart, we can scarcely suppose 
 that this was literally meant. The prescient God cannot 
 be imagined to do anything which he foreknows he will 
 afterward be grieved at his heart for having done. I 
 have no doubt that the Jewish Rabbins firmly believe 
 that the Deity conversed with their ancestors, upon the 
 very various, but not always very important topics, which 
 the Infinite God is said to have discussed with his priests 
 and his prophets. It is difficult, however, not to observe 
 that some of the divine discourses are dictated by an ex- 
 traordinaiy spirit of vindictive jealousy, while others are 
 marked by a prolixity, a garrulity and a familiarity of 
 style, not altogether characteristic of the wisdom and 
 majesty of the Supreme Being. The Platos, the Ciceros, 
 and the Senecas of the Pagan world would probably have 
 been astonished, if they had been assured, that the follow- 
 ing sentences had proceeded from the Highest Intelligence. 
 For /, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God. (Exod. xx.) 
 I will bring evil upon this 2^^<^i<^^' (2 Icings xxii.) Toe- 
 hold my anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this 
 place, upon man, upon beast, upon the trees of the field, 
 &c. {Jer. vii.) It repenteth me that I have set up Saul 
 to he King. (1 Sam. xv.) The sages of antiquity would 
 have thought the tongue to be impious, which had pro- 
 nounced that the God of the Universe could be in a state 
 either of fury, or of repentance. These are opinions, he 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 417 
 
 adds, which I have no wish of promulgating to the mob : 
 but I call upon the Theist who has contemplated the Uni- 
 verse as the work of intelligence to consider whether the 
 Old Testament if literally interpreted, present him with 
 such exalted notions of the Deity as natural religion itself 
 is capable of inspiring, I must acknowledge that the 
 Jewish scriptures thus understood appear to me to be 
 conti*ary to all true theology. It is monstrous to be told 
 if the sense be taken literally, that the infinite Mind 
 showed its back parts to Moses. I read with pain, if there 
 be no allegory, that the God of Nature revealed himself to 
 Jacob in order that that Hebrew shepherd should make a 
 journey to Bethel — ^that this same keeper of kine and 
 sheep after having wrestled with a man all night, boasted 
 in the morning that he had seen God. Am I really to 
 believe in the .existence of such singular conversations as 
 are said in the Book of Job to have taken place between 
 God and the Devil 1 " Skin for skin," said Satan to Je- 
 hovah. The expression is not very elegant, and it does 
 not sound very spiritual. The story of Jonah in the fish's 
 belly if it be not allegorical is a most surprising one, and 
 the whole must be a little puzzling to the natural histo- 
 rian. I shall leave the literal interpreters to explain 
 these things as they can : and the literal interpreters do 
 so by a series of explanations more absurd and stupid 
 than the juggleries of Mumbo-Jumbo. (30). 
 
NOTES TO BOOK Y. 
 
 Note 1 (page 332). — They were as ready to destroy, as to forge : 
 in this resembling the early Paulite writers, who seem to me to 
 have been as wicked and unscrupulous a crew as the Mormons 
 themselves. It will be here also fit to observe, says that most 
 honest of all theologians, Whiston, a farther greater instance of the 
 ■wickedaess of the Jewish rabbins, in that fatal period after Jeru- 
 salem was destroyed, which has not yet been taken notice of by 
 any that I know of ; and that is, the su'ppression of such of their 
 ancient Hebrew records as contained the history of that nation, 
 from the conclusion of their 22 books till the days of Josephus. 
 'Tis evident those were all extant in the days of Josephus ; for he 
 not only, as we have seen, speaks of them as extant, but all along 
 makes use of them in his histoiy. On the Old Testament, Ap. 46, 
 The forgery by the Paulites of the following passage, (which they 
 absurdly represent to have been written by the most bigoted of 
 Jews, Josephus), is as good as any other example which I could 
 select. "About the same time there was a certain Jesus, a wise 
 man, if indeed it is proper to call him a man. For he was a 
 performer of extraordinary deeds ; a teacher of men that received 
 liis doctrine with delight ; and he attached to himself many of the 
 Jews, many also of the Greeks. This icas the Chr'ist. Pilate 
 having inflicted the punishment of the cross upon him, on the 
 accusation of unprincipled men, those who had been attached to 
 him before, did not however afterwards cease to love him : for he 
 appeared to them alive again on the third day, according to the holy 
 prophets, who had declared these and innumerable other wonderful 
 things respecting him." The great alterations, says Father Simon, 
 which have happened to the copies of the Bible since the first 
 originals have been lost, utterly destroy the Protestants' and So- 
 cinian's principle, who consult only these same copies of the 
 Bible as we at present have them. If the truth of religion 
 remained not in the Church, it would be unsafe to search for it 
 at present in Books which have been subject to so many altera- 
 tions, and have in many things depended on the pleasure of 
 
NOTES TO BOOK V. 449 
 
 transcribers : it is certaiu that the Jews who have writ out these 
 Books have taken the liberty of adding and leaving out certain 
 letters according as they thought fit and yet the sense of the text 
 often depends upon these letters. 
 
 Note 2 (page 335).— One argument against the present form of 
 the Mosaic books ought to be by all believers in the immortal 
 nature of mau, regarded as conclusive— that these books give no 
 intimation of the immortality of the soul. Can it be for one 
 moment imagined that a Messenger divinely accredited by God, 
 would be ignorant of, or would not promulgate this sublime 
 ennobling doctrine ; and in an age too when as in the present, the 
 multitude were but the blind cattle of priests, who had enslaved 
 them under every form of sacerdotal despotism ? Such an idea 
 cannot be entertained. If Moses were the Messenger of God, as 
 I believe he was, he taught the immortality of the soul. But the 
 books whicli now jmss under his name do not teach tliis immor- 
 tality, Ergo : They are not the books of Moses. I see no escape 
 from tliis dilemma. Warburton's Theory cannot of course, and I 
 should suppose is not, now believed in by any churchman: he wrote 
 it for a bishopric and he got one, but scholars from the first 
 rejected it. The logical consequence therefore is irresistible — 
 that Moses was not the Author of the books that bear his name — 
 though undoubtedly they contain much that he revealed. Some 
 of the priests who have been confounded by the omission of all 
 allusion to a future life in the so-called writings of Amosis, 
 pretend that the legislator for motives of policy and for the 
 better government of a particular people, had made public a 
 system which he himself was too wise to believe : and they fortify 
 themselves by the authority of Ezekiel, who introduces God as 
 saying: I gave them {ih^ Jews), statutes that xccre not good, and 
 judgments whereby they should not live : to such miserable subter- 
 fuges have these forged volumes driven even pious men. It is 
 almost painful to see the straits into which some of the Ciirly 
 Christian fathers were forced, by some of the questionable matters 
 which were incorporated with the text. Thus St. Ambrose can 
 find no better excuse for Abraham taking a concubine, than this, 
 that he lived before Moses had declared adultery to be a breach 
 of law, and consequently this holy patriarch committed no sin ! 
 The truth is that Joshua the accursed, and the abominable hie- 
 rarchy which he founded, did all they could to destroy the true 
 Mosaic Law, as Paul and the Papists did the GosikjI, and the 
 fierce warriors who succeeded Mohammed did the Koran. One 
 might arg\:e from Ix)ngiuu8, to support the view, that in his day, 
 
450 NOTES TO BOOK V. 
 
 • 
 the Hebrew version was diflFerent from the present one. So 
 likewise, he says, the Jewish lawgiver, who was no ordinary man, 
 liaving conceived a just idea of the divine power, he expressed it 
 in a dignified manner, for at the beginning of his Laws, he thus 
 speaks, God said— what ? " Let there be light and there was light- 
 Let there he earth and there was earth." (sect, ix.) The latter clause 
 it will be seen has disappeared. Usher, Archbishop of Armagh, 
 not knowing how to escape from all the wretched difficulties and 
 doubts that are suggested by the matters to which I have adverted, 
 declares that there were tivo Septuagint translations, one (the 
 best) of which has perished, but that the other, has survived : a 
 conjecture said to be utterly absurd and groundless by M. Vallois 
 in a letter to Usher on this subject : but which Whiston felt him- 
 self compelled to adopt. {On the Old Testament, passim.) And the 
 very rational supposition, says poor old Keightley in his Mytho- 
 logy, of some learned and pious divines that it did not suit the scheme 
 of Providence to give the Israelites more correct ideas on natural 
 subjects than other nations, relieves Scripture from many dif&- 
 culties ! ! ! He alludes probably to the Jewish notion that their 
 heaven might be made of brass, and their earth of iron. Deut. 
 xxviii. 23. 
 
 Note 3 (page 350). — Many persons are misled by the scriptural 
 names given by the ignorant Arabs or the fraudulent monks, to 
 various places in the East. Are they not all of equal value with 
 the grave of Abel near the river Bassada, which is 30 yards long, 
 corresponding with his stature ! Quaresmius, Elucid. Terrce Sanctce, 
 vii, 7, 1, Maundrell under May 4th. The same remark applies 
 to Abraham's tomb ; and a host of similar names given to places in 
 the East, originally by artful priests, and perpetuated by the simple 
 children of the desert. There is in the church of St. Dominic at 
 Bononia, says Prideaux, a copy of the Hebrew Scriptures kept 
 with a great deal of care which they pretend to be the original 
 copy written by Ezra himself : and therefore it is there valued at 
 so high a rate that great sums of money have been borrowed by 
 the Bononians upon the pawn of it, and again repaid for its redemp- 
 tion. It is written in a very fair character upon a sort of leather, 
 and made up in a roll according to the ancient manner ; but it hav- 
 ing the vowel points annexed, and the writing being fresh and 
 fair without any decay, both these particulars prove the novelty 
 of that copy. But such forgeries are no uncommon things among 
 the papistical sect. {Connect, ii. 519.) Prideaux might have added 
 among all sects ; and a very singular instance of it occurs to me 
 at this moment. That the Jews meant by the word Son of God, a 
 
NOTES TO BOOK I. 451 
 
 member of the Hebrew faith is shewn by John xi, 52, where we 
 read. A7id not for (hat nation only, hut that also he should gather 
 togetlier in one, the Sons of God that were scattered abroad ; mean- 
 ing the rest of the ten tribes. The translators of the Testament 
 for the piirix)se of disguising this from their readers, artfully 
 translate it " Children of God," as if it applied to all the world. 
 The reader should observe that it was in this strictly Jewish sense, 
 and perhaps in this only, that Jesus is said on a few occasions to 
 have alluded to himself as son of God : his most usual title for 
 himseK was Son of Man. 
 
 Note 4 (page 354). — The priests and scribes, says Donaldson 
 (Chr. Orth. ), who were the literary men of the nation reduced to 
 a complete and elaborate system the ritual observances which had 
 gradually come into vogue. It woiddbe a waste of words to show 
 that the priestly caste who took it upon themselves to say what 
 books should be regarded as sacred, and what excluded from the 
 Canon, did not during the period from 400, B.C. to 150. B.C. abstain 
 from remodelling, perhaps re-ioriting some of the older books ! ! 
 
 Note 5 (page 363). — The Christians copied the Jews in this, as 
 in other abominations. It never was known, says the learned 
 Jortin, by whom the Emperor Julian was killed. Possibly it was 
 a Christian, says Sozomen, who was animated by considering how 
 the destroyers of tyrants had been celebrated in ancient times. 
 Scarcely can any one blame him, if for the sake of God and of re- 
 ligion, he performed so heroic an action, (vii. 2). An odd sort of 
 doctrine this that a Christian subject and a soldier might assassi- 
 nate his Emperor and his general. Six Dissertations, p. 283. If 
 any unprejudiced person, says Higgins (Anacalypsis,\\. 105) would 
 read the accounts of the plagues of Egypt, the passage of the Angel 
 over the houses of the Israelites, when the first-born of the Egyp- 
 tians was slain, the hardness of Pharaoh's heart, &c, &c., and 
 give an honest opinion, he certainly must admit that thej' are 
 absolutely incredible. One of the biblical commentators says that 
 the reason why the Jews were directed to feed on lambs, sheep, 
 doves, &c., was, because these animals were emblems of gentleness, 
 and it was thought that those who fed on them would grow gentle 
 also. As the Jews were among the most blood-thirsty people of 
 whom we have any record, this explanation seems inappropriate : 
 though it is one of these far-fetched subtleties on which pious 
 Paulites lay great stress. 
 
 Note 6 (page 365). — The Samaritans acknowledge and possess 
 no other book than the Pentateuch. The hatred between the 
 Jews and Samaritans was just as rancorous, as that which prevails 
 
452 NOTES TO BOOK V. 
 
 among Christians of different sects. The former called the Sa- 
 maritan temple the Dunghill Temple, and "^ptJ^ Sicha?- (instead 
 of Schechem) a lie. And the Samaritans in return called the 
 Temple of Jerusalem, the House of Dung ; and after its destruc- 
 tion the House of Misfortune. 
 
 Note 7 (page 369). — How rapidly the learning of a people may 
 be destroyed is noticed by Niebuhr ; When the higher classes of the 
 Mexicans he says, had been extirpated, the few survivors being 
 either allowed to attach themselves to the conquerors, or sinking 
 into contempt, the science and learning of this remarkable people 
 toere lost in less than a century. 
 
 Note 8 (page 369). — The following discrepancy would convince 
 any reasonable person that the same person was not the author of 
 Exodus, and of Leviticus. In Exod. xxi. 16. it is said ; If any 
 one steal a man he shall he put to death. Onkelos in his Targum 
 translates it : If any one steal an Israelite; an interpretation which 
 considerably limits the sense of the law. But this paraphrase is 
 confirmed by Deut. xxi v. 7, where the narrow-minded Jew, who 
 hated all mankind but his own clan, is apparent. If any man he 
 found stealing any of his brethren of the children of Israel lie shall 
 die. Maimonides in his decisions on Questions relating to the 
 Hebrew laws, denies that a Jew would be justified by the written 
 law of God in killing an idolator simply because he was an idolator, 
 admitting at the same time that if he saw such a person drowning, 
 it mightbe a question in their law whether he would have a right to 
 save him if he refused to become a proselyte ! A new command- 
 ment I give unto you, says Jesus, that ye love one another — 
 implying that in his day they did nothing but hate. 
 
 Note 9 (page 371).— When the advocates for the accuracy of the 
 Hebrew text, speak of the great care which the Jews always took 
 in transcribing their sacred books, they should also add that this 
 care was confined exclusively to synagogue manuscripts (which 
 would be the very first that would necessarily be destroyed in 
 days of persecution) but not to those which were for the use of 
 private individuals. These were and are still full of inaccuracies. 
 There is no Hebrew manuscript now known that professes to be 
 older than the eleventh century, though I very much question 
 whether there is any so old : those that are used in the synagogue 
 are without vowel points, which are of modern invention. Joseph 
 Scaliger in his notes upon the Chi'onicon of Eusebius, thinks it so 
 evident that the sacred books were originally wnritten in the Sa- 
 maritan character, at least those of them written before the cap- 
 tivity, that he saith it is luce clarius (clearer than light), and calls 
 
NOTES TO BOOK V. 453 
 
 those of the contrarj' opinion, semi-dodi, 8emitheologi,semi-homineSy 
 and asitii. Note that among the great numbers of inscriptions of 
 cliflferent kinds found in the ruins of Chaldaea, one in the Hebrew 
 Chaldee letter and language has never been found : nor has a single 
 authentic medal or gem in this new-fangled character been ever 
 discovered, which could carry it even to the days of Jesus. 
 
 Note 10 (page 385). — Take the following as an example of the 
 evils to which this leads. In the beginning God created {bara in 
 Kal) the heaven and the earth. The introduction of another 
 votvel completely alters the sense. In the beginning God was 
 created {bora in Pual) with the heaven and the earth. In the 
 text the word is bra, so that no one really knows what was meant. 
 Yet upon this we read as follows, in Hutchinson : We may justly 
 say, as John Nierenberg does, that Moses has given us more 
 philosophy in one single chapter, the first of Genesis suppose, than 
 all tliej^hilosophers and explainers of nature put together. — Principia. 
 Such nonsense will Theologians dare to write : and such extrava- 
 gancies will their disciples believe. And I might swell the cata- 
 logue of great names who have believed in the wildest follies, until 
 the list extended almost to infinity. Much speculation, says 
 Nimrod, has been raised because the earth has not been found as 
 full of dead men's bones, as of dead beasts and fishes, (iv. 341.) 
 That learned priest, however, soon disposes of the objection, telling 
 us that the earth was visited during the deluge by a mimber of 
 ferocious sea-monsters, who were not intended to form a part of 
 the post-diluvian inhabitants of the sea. Having been reared in 
 the Oceanian caverns below, and having disported themselves 
 above only under the thick clouds of darkness, they were killed 
 by the re-appearance of the Sun. Their business was to devour 
 the bodies of the drowned, so that no trace should be found of 
 them ! ! Poor Faber who saw in every thing that the world con- 
 tains, a symbol of Noah in his Ark ! winds up by declaring in the 
 supreme degree of lunacy, as follows : In short the Man in the 
 Moon, is really no other than Noah concealed in the j)reservin<j 
 Arh ! ! (i. 275.) There is something wonderful, but humiliating 
 also, in the madness of two such highly accomplished men and 
 scholars as Faber and Herbert. That both were thoroughly sin- 
 cere in all they wrote, I fully believe ; but it was the sincerity of 
 the Bedlamite, who fancies that his rags are robes, and his straw a 
 sceptre of royalty. 
 
 Note 11 (page 386). — And Ezra opened the booh in the sight of all 
 Uie people, and rchen he opened it all the i^eople stood up : and Ezra 
 blessed the Lord, the great God ; and all the people answered Allien^ 
 
454) NOTES TO BOOK V, 
 
 Amsn, loith lifting up their hands: and they turned their heads and 
 worshipped the Lord, xoith their faces to the ground. A Iso Jeshua 
 and Bani and Sherehiah, Jamin, Akhuh Shabbethai, Hodijah, 
 Maasiah, Kelita Azariah, Jozabad, JETanwi, Pelaiah and the 
 Levites, caused the people to understand the Law, and the people 
 stood in their place. So they read in the booh, in the law of God 
 distinctly, and gave the sense and caused them to understand the 
 reading. Walton, it will be seen, thougli he cites this passage, 
 adds to the word law ' ' prophets, " in the extract which I have 
 translated from him without the slightest gi-ound from the text. 
 This is a common practice with those writers, who usually assume 
 a great deal, and gravely publish it, without a shadow of autho- 
 rity. The " prophets" do nob appear to have been read at all : 
 nor did their writings exist, as I have shewn. That the priests 
 haA''e ever stuck at no falsehood to maintain their systems of im- 
 posture, is exemplified by one of their historians, who relates the 
 following incredible fiction. The Oracle at Delphi, having become 
 dumb at the birth of Jesus, Augustus Caesar, who was a great 
 votary of Apollo, desired to know the reason of its silence — the 
 Oracle answered as follows : — 
 
 Me puer Hebrseus, divos deus ipse gubemans, 
 Cedere sede jubet, tristemque redire sub orcum, 
 Aris ergo dehinc nostris abscedito Caesar. 
 
 An Hebrew child a god, whom Gods adore, 
 Has bid me leave these shrines and go to hell, 
 
 So that my oracles you'll hear no more ; 
 Away, then, from my altar and farewell. 
 
 Note 12 (page 387). — In the same fraudulent spirit, the wretched 
 Dr. Dodd, in his preface to the Bible, boldly says : " These books 
 have constantly been acknowledged as authentic : and no one, 
 whether Christian, Jew, Mahometan, or Pagan, ever doubted of it 
 till the tioelfth century ! I It is a pity this man was hanged for 
 forgery : he had every qualification to be a bishop. The number 
 of years from the division of the Promised Land in the 47th year, or 
 46th complete from the Exodus to the beginning of the First Ser- 
 vitude under Cushad Rishathaim, is not to be found in the pre- 
 sent text of the Scriptures, although from the words of Clemens 
 in the Stromata, ws Se to f^i^Xiov tov Jrja-ov Tr^puyei St€- 
 Sc^aro TOV Mwvo-ea 6 Trpoeip-rj/xevos avqp err) k^ (according to 
 the Book of Joshua he succeeded Moses for 27 years), lib. i. xxi. , it 
 cannot be doubted that it was the Book of Joshua which he used. 
 
NOTES TO BOOK V. 455 
 
 There is another chasm, of which we have no record either — 
 namely, from the end of the captivity of the Ark at Kirjath jearim 
 [1 Sam. vii. i. 2] to the accession of David. 
 
 Note 13 (page 390). — This question has for the first time in 
 England been honestly brought before the public, and fairly dis- 
 cussed by Bishop Colenso in his second Tract, entitled Elohiatic 
 amlJehovktic Writers. The critical theological student will not find 
 anything new in the Bishop's pamphlet : but the general reader 
 may peruse it with advantage : and may be assured that the facts 
 stated in it cannot be contradicted. 
 
 Note 14 (page 391) — In the Jewish Antiquities of the Rev. 
 D. Jennings, D.D., occurs the following passage: "It should 
 seem that the word HNI roeh, was the more ancient de- 
 nomination of a prophet ; but, in the days of Samuel, the word 
 f^^^i ndbhi^ was grown into more common use, as appears from 
 the following passage : ** He that is now a Prophet J*^**^^ nabhi icas 
 before time called a Seer, HJ^*! roeA." 1 Sam. ix. 9. Here a con- 
 siderable difficulty ariseth, for we do not anywhere meet ■v\*ith the 
 word Hi^l ^<^^^'' ^^ *^^ Scripture history before this time, whereas 
 the word J^^^^ nabhi is common in the writings of Moses— W<a 
 is therefore by some supposed not to have been the author of the 
 Pentateuch, a loord commonly occurinff therein, ivhich it seems icas 
 not used till long after his days {page 235). Whether you choose to 
 say, says Jerom, that Moses was the author of the Penta- 
 teuch, or Esdras, the renewer of that work, I have no objection. 
 {Ilehr, c. iii.) Clement, of Alexandria, says: When the Scriptures 
 had been destroyed in the Captivity of Nebuchadnezzar,^ in the 
 times of Artaxerxes, the king of the Persians, Esdras, the Levite, 
 the priest, having become inspired renewed again, and produced 
 prophetically all the ancient Scriptures {Stro7?i. xxii. 149). The 
 Catholic doctors, conscious that the inspiration of the ivliole Bible 
 can no longer be maintained, and that tlie binding authority of 
 the book is gone, have invented the subtile notion that as the 
 Church of God was antecedent to the Old and New Testament, it 
 is of higher authority than either ; and therefore that the teach- 
 ing of the Church of Rome ! ! (which they thus confound with 
 the Church of God), is to be considered as superior to these Books, 
 and that if they no longer existed, their loss would consequently 
 be of no account. 
 
 Note 15 (page 393).— T/tew icas fulflled that which teat spoken 
 by Jeremy the Prophet, saying : Ami they took thirty jneces of silver, 
 tlie price of him that was valued, whom tliey of the children of 
 
456 NOTES TO BOOK IV. 
 
 Israel did value, and gave them for the potter'' s field, as the Lord 
 appointed me. Matt, xxvii. 9. This passage is not in any part of 
 Jeremiah now extant. Was it expunged by the Kabbis after the 
 publication of Matthew ? or was it found in some copy of Jere- 
 miah which is no longer extant ! Another prophecy has disap- 
 peared which is cited by the same writer (ii. 23). And became 
 and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled 
 which was spoken by the prophets : He shall he called a Nazarene. 
 It may be added here, that whosoever will fairly and critically 
 study Isaiah, will come to the conviction that it is the work of at 
 least a dozen different writers, and that in its present form it is 
 a mere unconnected rhapsody. There is no continued stream of 
 thought or narrative in it : the style of the various parts is sin- 
 gularly contrasted ; the language is not uniform ; the doctrines 
 are not in harmony : to assign it to one man is a figment worthy 
 only of Jews : to believe it to be one man's work belongs only to 
 Christians, the most ignorant of theology of nearly all other sects. 
 The so-called Book of Daniel, and its prophecies, which come 
 down to the period of Antiochus Epiphanes, is a modern figment, 
 compounded of parts of the true Apocalypse, and of predictions 
 written hundreds of years after the things predicted had happened. 
 St. Jerom says the prophecies relate to Antiochus typically, and 
 ultimately to Antichrist ! ! The Jews wholly reject the Book. 
 There are 200 verses in Daniel which are in Chaldee— the rest is 
 Greek. After these things, says Newton, Antiochus Epiphanes 
 spoiled the temple, and commanded the Jews to forsake the Law 
 upon pain of death, and caused the sacred books to be burnt 
 wherever they could be found, and in these troubles the bulk of 
 the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel was entirely lost. But upon 
 recovering from this oppression, Judas Maccabseus gathered toge- 
 ther all their writings that were to be met with (2 Maccah. ii. 14), 
 and in reducing them into order part of the prophecies of Isaiah, 
 or some other prophet, have been added to the end of the pro- 
 phecies of Zechariah, and the book of Ezra has been separated 
 from the Book of Chronicles, and set together in two diffei-ent 
 orders ; in one order in the book of Ezra received into the canon ; 
 and in another order in the first book of Esdras. The authenticity 
 therefore of the present canon depends absolutely on the infalli- 
 bility of Judas Maccaba3us as an honest or inspired compiler of 
 what he supposed to be sacred writings, while his oini chronicles 
 are ignored as being neither inspired nor canonical. 
 
 Note 16 (p. 397.) — I have declared truly, says Grotius, that all 
 the books which are in the Hebrew Canon, are not dictated by the 
 
NOTES TO BOOK V. 457 
 
 Holy Spirit : that they were written with a pious motive I do not 
 deny. But there is no necessity that history sliould be dictated 
 by the Holy Spirit (why is there not ?), it was enough that the 
 writer sufficiently remembered what he had himself seen, or used 
 due diligence in compiling the commentaries of the ancients. If 
 Luke wrote his gospel by the dictation of the Divine Spirit, he 
 would have preferred that authority, as the old prophets did, to 
 that of the witnesses whose account he followed. So in writing 
 those things which he saw Paul doing, there was no need of a 
 divine inspiration. 
 
 Note 17 (page 401). — If written history cannot be relied on, how 
 can ti-adition ; yet it is on tradition that most of the mysteries 
 of what is called Christianity exist. The Jews seem to be equally 
 blinded by this folly. The Eev. Joseph Wolf, in his Joimmly 74, 
 details a conversation which he had with Rabbi Gaby (whom the 
 Jews called "the wise man"), to the following effect: W. Has 
 Targum Jonathan the same authority among the Jews here as the 
 Targum Onkelos ? — O. Yes, for Targum Jonathan is written by 
 inspiration of the Holy Ghost. W. How may this be proved ? — 
 O. By tradition. IF." By what tradition ?-Gf. Of the Pvabbis. 
 W. How do you prove the truth of this tradition of the Rabbis ? 
 Gabay here broke off, and turned the conversation to another 
 subject ! ! ! 
 
 Note 18 (page 402). — Where is the empire of Solomon the Mag- 
 nificent ? It is not noticed by Herodotus, Plato, or Diodorus 
 Siculus. It is a most extraordinary fact that the Jewish nation, 
 over whom but a few years before the mighty Solomon had 
 reigned in all his glory with a magnificence scarcely equalled by 
 the greatest monarchs, spending nearly ehjht thousand milliom of 
 ffold on a temple, was overlooked by the historian Herodotus writ- 
 ing of Egypt on one side and of Babylon on the other — visiting 
 both places, and of cotirse almost necessarily passing within a few 
 miles of the splendid capital of the national Jerusalem ? How can 
 this be accounted for ? Suleymftn was a Persian title equivalent 
 to the Greek Aiolos, and meant universal emi)eror. Like Pharaoh, 
 it was not a name, but a designation of rank. The Jews aiming at 
 universal empire, feigned that one of their kings bare this name ; 
 and it is with this petty pilfered thane (for in a little place like 
 Juda;a, he could be no other), that the mighty Suleym&ns of the 
 Orient are confounded alike by the civilized European and the 
 ignorant Bedoween. 
 
 Note 19 (p. 403). — Itwasoncea tradition or a custom when those 
 miserable analogies or resemblances between the Jews and Gen- 
 
 X 
 
458 NOTES TO BOOK V. 
 
 tiles were pointed out, to say that the the Devil had done it all : 
 for the purpose of bringing true religion into contempt ; or that 
 the Gentiles themselves had travestied the faith, which Amosis 
 received from God. This has been well disposed of by Faber, 
 Some, he says, have imagined that the Gentiles were servile copy- 
 ists of the Israelites, and that each ]3oint of similitude was immedi- 
 ately borrowed from the Mosiacal Institutes. But this theory will 
 by no means solve the problem : both, because we find the very 
 same resemblance in the ceremonies of nations far different from 
 Palestine, as we do, in the rites of those who are in its more im- 
 mediate vicinity : and because it seems incredible that all should 
 have borrowed from one lohich was universally disliked and despised. 
 Others have fancied that the Devil was the copyist, and that various 
 nations in diflferent parts of the globe pervertedly though unwarily 
 adopted certain parts of the Levitical ceremonies in consequence 
 of his infernal suggestion or inspiration. Such, at one period, 
 was deemed no contemptible theory, particularly as some of the 
 early fathers seem inclined to favour it ; or at least to favour the 
 notion of the imitiitive propensity of the Evil Spirit ; but since it 
 appears to have died a natural death, I shall only say may it rest 
 in peace {Pag. Idol. i. 104). 
 
 Note 20 (page 406). — Aben Esra, one of the ablest interpreters 
 of the Scriptures among the Jews, has made no question but that 
 there have been many additions to the Books of Moses, but he 
 dared not publicly declare it, although he has sufficiently shewn 
 his opinion on this point. When these sort of difficulties occur, 
 he says, it is a mystery which those who understand do not divulge. 
 — Aben Esra. sup. 12, cap. Gen. 
 
 Note 21 (page 408). — Tiberius, says De Pauw, succeeded so 
 completely in destroying the annals of Cremutius Cordus, through 
 the whole extent of the Boman empire, that whatever Tacitus and 
 Dionysius may say to the contrary, not a single copy has been 
 preserved. The classical reader need not be reminded that his 
 works were sentenced to be burned by the senate. {Tacit. Annal. 
 iv. 35.) The Biblicals, who have been utterly confounded by these 
 statements of the Talmud, are obliged to say that the word wrote^ 
 means copied, though nothing can be farther from the exact 
 truth. 
 
 Note 22 (page 411).— Stuart, it should be noted; argues with 
 great want of candour, when he cites certain ancient fathers, in 
 support of the present volume of Sacred writings ; for their testi- 
 mony is confined to the genuineness of the Septuagint or Greek 
 version ; while he leaves it to be inferred that they mean the 
 
NOTES TO BOOK V. 459 
 
 Hebrew. How saddening then it is to find a respectable compila- 
 tion like Kittd's Cyclopadiay speaking thus of the present Old 
 Testament, with its innumerable errors. We believe with Haver- 
 nick, it says, that Ezra in unison with other distinguished men of 
 his time completed the collection of the sacred writings. He revised 
 the various books, corrected inaccurracies that had crept into 
 them, and rendered the Old Testament text perfectly free from 
 error. Thus a correct and genuine copy was finished under the 
 sanction of Heaven ! Ezra, Nehemiah, and those with whom he 
 was associated, were infallibly guided in the work of completing 
 the canon. It may be asked, were they infallible, when they de- 
 clared, according to the computation of Villapandus, that Solomon's 
 temple cost at least six tJtousanil nine hundred millions ofj^oiuids 
 sterling ? This argument, for the authenticity of the Jewish and 
 New Testament scriptures is equally valid it will be seen, when 
 used in favouring all other notoriously false and forged scriptures 
 of all the idolators in the world : who have books and miraculous 
 legends as well attested and authenticated by witnesses, 
 martyrs, and ancient documents, as the most devout believer of 
 the transmigration of devils into swine could desire, or could him- 
 self produce in support of that strange narrative. 
 
 Note 23 (page 413). — Baron Bunsen finds himself compelled to 
 adopt the alternative of gradual growth of the Pentateuch under 
 various hands. He makes the Pentateuch Mosaic, as indicating 
 the mind and embodying the developed system of [Moses, rather 
 than as written by the great lawgiver's hand. Nimierous fragments 
 of genealogy, of chronicle, and of spiritual song go up to a high 
 antiquity, but are embedded in a crust of later narrative the allu' 
 sions of which betray at least a time when Kings were established in 
 Israel. Hence the idea of composition out of older materials must 
 be admitted ; and it may in some cases be conceived that the com- 
 piler's point of view diflfered from that of the older pieces. ** llvat 
 there was a Bible before our bible, and that some of our present books, 
 as certainly Genesis and Joshua, and perhaps Job, Jonah, Daniel, 
 are expanded from simpler elements is indicated in the book before 
 us, rather than proved as it might be. * • He rightly rejects the 
 perversions which make the cursing psahns evangelically insijired." 
 Essays ami Reviews, page 60. A more thoroughly orthodox 
 churchman than Baron Bunsen never lived ; and it may be taken 
 as perfectly certain that nothing but conviction and proof of the 
 most decided and Irresistible nature, could ever have brought him 
 to the conclusion, that the present Pentateuch was a orgery. 
 Yet we see that such was his view : and that with true German 
 honesty he did not hesitate to publisli it. 
 
 X 2 
 
460 NOTES TO BOOK V. 
 
 Note 24 (page 414). — Thus the Eabbis tell us that Isaiah was 
 sawn to death ; Jeremiali was stoned to death ; Ezekiel (according 
 to Epiphanius), was condemned and murdered also ; Zachariah 
 was slain by the very people between the temple and the altar j 
 Amos was slaughtered by Uzziah, son of Amaziah. How unlikely 
 therefore is it that the Jews who hated and punished them as 
 impostors, rebels and disturbers of the community, should im- 
 mediately after they had killed them, elevate them to the rank of 
 Prophets, and deposit their writings in the temple ! 
 
 Note 25 (page 415). — The last six chapters of Zechariah have 
 been denied to be his composition, because they differ from the 
 opening chapters, which I assert not to be the work of Zechariah 
 at all, but copied from this Apocalypse. Those who hsive jyroved 
 this dissimilarity, are Dr. Mede, Hammond, Kidder, Wbiston, 
 Bridge, Seeker, and Newcome in this country ; Flugge, Doderlein, 
 Michaelis, Seiler, Eichorn, and indeed a host of others, most 
 learned and orthodox scholars and divines on the Continent, 
 will be seen that the dissimilarity is at once accounted for, if we 
 admit tliat the person who transcribed them under the name of 
 Zechariah transcribed them out of the Apocalypse : if it be not 
 accounted for in this way, the only answer is, that there were 
 several who wrote in the name of Zechariah at different eras, and 
 that some one dovetailed the tracts together : an answer which 
 does not do much for the orthodox. See Dr. Henderson's Minor 
 Prophets, p. 362. The truth is no part of them was vvTitten by 
 Zechariah. So in Daniel, one considerable part is in the Hebrew 
 phonograph and the rest in Chaldee, an entirely different language. 
 
 Note 26 (page 426). — If I covered my transgressions as Adam, 
 •says Job, by liiding mine iniquity in my bosom. No such passage 
 is now to be found in any part of Genesis, or the Old Testament ; 
 as the writer of Job evidently had before him when he penned 
 ihis. Joseph us, in the first chapter of his History, relates that 
 Ood deprived the serpent of speech, out of indignation at his ma- 
 licious disposition towards Adam ; besides this he inserted poison 
 under his tongue and made him an enemy to man ; and suggested 
 to them that they should direct their strokes against his head, 
 that being the place wherein lay his mischevious designs towards 
 men and it being easiest to take vengeance on him that way : and 
 when he had deprived him of the use of his feet, he made him to 
 go rolling all along and dragging himself upon the ground. Here 
 it may be asked did Josephus find all this in a Hebrew scripture 
 of his day ? and if so, what has become of it ? It is however more 
 likely to be talmudical foolishness. The Holy Ghost, says Hut- 
 chinson (vi. 313.) choosed to ivrite the New Testament in Greek, a 
 
KOTES TO BOOK V. 461 
 
 heathen language, for many reasons : perhaps one, because all the 
 other languages which the apostates had used, were so poisoned 
 by them that they could not be used ; and if any one of them had 
 been used, we should have been at their mercy for the construc- 
 tion of it. The titles to the Psalms, the preface to Jeremiah, and 
 Ecclesiasticus, the additions to Esther, Isaiah, and Daniel, and 
 the prologue to Job, are all well known to be spurious. The 
 Samaritans do not seem to be better off than Jews or Christians 
 in respect of their Sacred Scriptures. M. Dulaure [Des Divinites 
 Generatrices, p. 29), speaks of a Samaritan Bible which commenced 
 thus : In the beginning the Goat Azima created the Heaven and the 
 Earth : but this is said to have been a forgery of one of the Jewish 
 Eabbis to spite the Samaritans. In a manuscript of the l2th cen- 
 tury the Apocaljrpse was entitled, 'AttokoAv^is tov aycov Kau 
 h'So^araTOv* Airoa-ToXov Kal 'EvayyeXta-TOv, HapOevov i)yai- 
 Trqfiivov eTTLO-TqOtov Itaavvov OeoXoyov The Apocalypse of the 
 holy and most glorious Messenger, and Herald of good tidings, of 
 the Virgin beloved, who lay in the bosom of loannes, the Word 
 of God. Was this the ancient and genuine heading ? and does 
 the Virgin mean the Holy Spirit? That the common loannes 
 is an entirely mythical personage, may be proved from the follow- 
 ing outline of his life taken from Cave's Lives of the Apostles 
 and Fathers. He was of noble birth, but brought up to the trade 
 of a fisherman. He lay on the bosom of the Messenger of God. 
 He confined his teaching to Asia : and had penetrated as far as 
 Bassora in India : he was cast alive into a caldron of boiling oil, 
 which did him no harm. He lived to the age of 120 years ; a 
 mystical number. Ephrem and Saint Cyril say he never died, but 
 is on earth still, because Jesus said of him : If I will that he tarry 
 till I come what is that to thee ? (John xxi. 22), and again : Verily I 
 say unto you, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of 
 death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. (Matt, 
 xvi. 38), a prophecy which was used freely to terrify the cotempo- 
 raries of the ajwstles into conversion by the threat of the world's 
 approaching end, })ut which in the following age was pretended 
 to mean only the destruction of Jerusalem. Augustine reports 
 of loannes as follows : He was not dead, but rested like a man 
 asleep in his grave at Ephesus, as jjlainly api>cared from the dust 
 sensibly boiling and bubbling up, which they accounted to be 
 nothing else, but the continual motion of his breath. This report, 
 Augustine says, that he had received /row very credible hands. 
 He further adds, what was generally known and reported, that, 
 when S. loannes, then in health, had caused his grave to be dug 
 
462 NOTES TO BOOK V. 
 
 and prepared, he laid Limself down in it, as in a bed, and, as they 
 thought, only fell asleep. By another writer it is related more at 
 large. St. John, foreseeing his translation into heaven, took the 
 presbyters and ministers of the Church of Ephesus, and several 
 of tLe faithful, along with him out of the city, carried them unto 
 a cemetery near at hand, Avhither he himself was wont to retire 
 to prayer, and very earnestly recommended the state of the 
 churches to God in prayer. Which being done, he commanded 
 a grave to be immediately dug ; and, having instructed them in 
 the more recondite mysteries of theology, tlie most excellent pre- 
 cepts of a good life, and, solemnly taking his leave of them, he 
 signed himself with the sign of the cross, and before them all 
 "went down into the grave ; strictly charging them to put on the 
 grave stone, and to make it fast, and the next day to come and 
 open it, and take a view of it. They did so, and having opened 
 the sepulchre, found nothing there but the grave clothes which 
 he had left behind him. Ephrem, adds Cave, relates that from 
 this grave wherein he rested for so short a time, a kind of sacred 
 oil or unguent was wont to be gathered. Gregory, of Tours, says, 
 *Twas manna which even in his time, like flour, was cast up from 
 the sepulchre, and was carried up and down the world for the 
 curing of diseases, {Life of St. John.) 
 
 Note 27 (page 432).— How far and wide this divine creed 
 of the existence of the Holy Spirit in Heaven, has spread, 
 is exemplified in an anecdote by the missionary Braiuerd, 
 which almost startled me -when I read it. Far away in the 
 wildest forests, that intrepid and puremmded enthusiast went 
 and sojourned that he might teach what he believed to be 
 the tnith. Here amid the wildernesses he relates that he 
 once met a wild Indian enchanter who gave liim the follow- 
 ing strange narrative. The manner in which he says, he got 
 the spirit of divination was this : He was admitted into the pre- 
 sence of a Great One, who was clothed with the day of many 
 years, yea, of everlasting continuance. This whole world, he 
 says, was drawn upon him, so that in him the earth and all things 
 upon it, rocks, mountains, and seas might be seen. By the side 
 of this Great One, stood a Shadow or Sj^irit. The Shadow was 
 lovely and filled all places. After this he saw that Being no 
 more ; but the Spirit or Shadow appeared to him often in dreams 
 and other ways. If from the savannah and the prairie we pass to 
 the centre of civilization, Athens, we find this creed still preva- 
 lent. You inform me, says Plato, writing to Dionysius, that the 
 nature of The F'n'st has not been sufiiciently revealed to you. I 
 must write to you in riddles ; in order that if my letter should 
 
NOTES TO BOOK V. 463 
 
 miscarry either by sea or land, the reader may not understand it. 
 All things are round about The King of All Things : and all 
 things exist for his sake, and that is the Cause of all excellent 
 things ; and around the Second are the thiugs secondary ; and 
 around the Third are the third class of things. The human soul 
 endeavours to learn the nature of these, looking for what is ho- 
 mogeneous with itself, and consequently imperfect ; but in the 
 King, and in these others whom I mentioned, there is nothing 
 such. « • * The greatest precaution is not to write but to 
 learn by word of mouth, for it is hardly possible for what is 
 written not to come abroad. For which reason I have written 
 nothing upon these topics, — no such book of mine exists or ever 
 shall {Epist. 2.) If we go from Greece into the forests of Hin- 
 dostan, we find the same belief in the Brahmin's teaching : 
 wherein he calls his Hindu Paradise Ila Vratta, or the Circle of 
 Ha ; and Ida- Vratta, or the Circle of Ida. But this Ila, is Ala or 
 God, and Ida is Ad, the Father, and Ada the Beautiful. So that 
 Paradise is the Circle of God, the Father and the Beautiful, which 
 is in harmony with the Sanctuary or Tabernacle mentioned in the 
 Apocalypse. The name Eden seems preserved in Ida : and Ely- 
 sion in Ila. When we proceed to China, we find that the name 
 of one of their Scriptures is Y-King, which word signifies the 
 Book of Y : and the Book received its name from the mystery of 
 which it treats ; for the mystery in question was hieroglyphically 
 represented by a figure representing the Greek Y, or the Eoman 
 Y : that is the Two Powers and Essences ; and the Third which 
 proceeds from them. So also the Rainbow round the Throne in 
 the Apocalypse, has given rise to the nimbus of glory, which 
 from the first ages has been attached to the heads of the blessed. 
 In Didron's Christian Iconography, published by Bohn, Jesus is 
 seen in a miniature of the 14th century, surrounded by an oval 
 nimbus of glory supported by six angels wliich represent the 
 Naros. The oval Q I need hardly say is a mystical allusion to 
 the Holy Spirit, (i. 24.) In the same work we learn that 
 in a stained glass window of the 12th centiuy, the Blessed 
 Virgin [Holy Spirit] and a Man, whom it calls John the 
 Baptist, but who is really God, stand beside Jesus on the 
 cross. Both figures wear the nimbus, and from the top of 
 each nimbus rise two sun-Jloicern (emblems of the sun), crossing 
 each other. They are therefore crowned with the sun ; just as on 
 the heads of the Egyptian di^nnitie8 two lotus flowers rise in a 
 similar manner, (i. 29.) The nimbus is sometimes a circle, some- 
 times a trianjle. See ante, pp. 14^ 3S. Moutfaucon gives an out- 
 
464 NOTES TO BOOK V. 
 
 line, copied into Didron, from an engraved gem called Abraxas^ 
 used as an amulet by the Gnostics, it is shewn to be celestial by 
 the sun and moon introduced into the field on which he is en- 
 graved ; terrestrial by the lion's head ; aquatic by the serpent- 
 like tail; divine by the nimbus of twice seven luminous rays. 
 {Ant. Exp. iv., 363.) It w^as a primitive type of the Messenger. 
 So in the coins of the Antonine period, we see the Phoenix, with 
 its head encircled by a nimbus. On the coins of Faustina, Eter- 
 nity, [the Eternal] is represented with a peacock wearing a similar 
 nimbus. This peacock has puzzled the christian antiquaries, whO' 
 do not recollect that Juno the Queen of Heaven was always sym- 
 bolized by this bird ; and that in these coins it represents the 
 Holy Spirit, the beloved of the Eternal. Those among the na- 
 tives, says Krantz, who are more struck with the beauty and 
 majesty of the heavenly bodies seek for the happy residences of 
 the dead in the highest heavens, above the Rainbow. This is a 
 singular allusion. {Hist, of Greenland, i., 187.) Didron also gives 
 a sketch of the Hindu Holy Sj^irit or Maya, pressing her breasts 
 from which flow those copious streams of milk by which all living 
 creatures are nourished and supported. A veil of Ideas, the pro- 
 totypes of creation surrounds her richly- attired figure. Maya is 
 represented in a semi-aureole, or large nimbus, the circumference 
 of which is indented with zigzags, and the field striated with 
 luminous sparks, parallel with the temples and forehead, and 
 stretching beyond the circumference, three clusters of rays dash 
 forth, corresponding exactly with the cross lines in the nimbus 
 of Christian archaeology, (i. 40). In. the same w^ork, Oannes as 
 a type of the Messenger, is represented in a sitting posture, with 
 a roll in the left hand, and his right arm extended as if he were 
 teaching, his head is surrounded with a globular nimbus bearing 
 the inscription, 12 ov, which is his name, the Mundane Egg, and 
 also o (ov, the I am that I am, of the Apocalypse and the Mosaic 
 book. (i. 46). Figure 18, in the same work represents the Messiah 
 supported on the rainbow-like veil of a Beautiful Woman, and this 
 is said to be taken from one of the sarcophagi in the Vatican, 
 belonging to the first ages of Christianity. The allusion is here 
 apparent — the Holy Spirit or Shekinah is as clearly manifested, 
 as she is in the Hina of the Polynesians, ante p. 169. In a fresco 
 in the church at Montorio, Jesus is represented bearing on his 
 head a sort of sphere or Egyptian disk, divided into circles like 
 those on the globe of the world. The Egyptian Harpocrates, is 
 constantly figured with a nimbus. In the paintings found at 
 Herculaneum, Circe appearing to Ulysses, is depicted wearing a^ 
 
NOTES TO BOOK V. 465 
 
 nimbus, precisely as the Virgin Mary and saints of the Romish 
 church are usually represented. Virgil referred to the nimbus 
 when he spoke of the flame descending from heaven upon the 
 head of the little Iulus,'aa if to caress and kiss his hair. The 
 passage explains the nature of the aureole, and recalls to mind the 
 two luminous horns which Moses had upon his brow, and that 
 resplendent countenance by which the Hebrews were dazzled and 
 alarmed when their lawgiver descended from Mount Sinai after his 
 long conference with the Deity. Exod. xxxiv., 35. 
 
 Ecce levis summo de vertice visus luli 
 Fundere lumen apex, tactuque ianoxia molli 
 Lambere flamma comas, et circum tempora pasci. 
 Nos pavidi trepidare metu, crinemque flagrantera 
 Excutere, et sanctos restinguere fontibus ignes, {lib. ii). 
 The aged Anchises, who was ^'ersed in Egyptian lore and oriental 
 symbolism, far from being alarmed at the sight, like the other 
 persons who were present, was filled with great joy. He raises 
 his eyes and hands to heaven, imploring Jupiter to grant that the 
 happy fortune presaged by this augury may be realised. An- 
 chises well knew that that aureole of light, or terrestrial apotheo- 
 sis, announced that his grandson should be the future sovereign of 
 a great kingdom. The famous Umbrella which was part of the 
 Peacock Throne of the Great Mogul, and which was a blaze of 
 diamonds, emeralds and rubies, was a symbol of the Eainbow in 
 the Apocalypse, and is another proof that the Volume was known 
 in tbe East. It signified that the Monarch was under the Holy 
 Spirit, and that She was round his Throne, while the golden and 
 jewelled peacock which was the Bird of the Queen of Heaven » 
 standing at either side disclosed the meaning of the whole to the 
 Initiated. The Umbrella, was not only arched like the Rainlww, 
 but it was also an inverted patera, and in this also a type of the 
 Holy Spirit. In Abyssinia there is still an officer named Kal 
 Hatze, the " Word of the King," who stands upon the steps of the 
 throne at the side of a lattice window, where there is a hole 
 covered on the inside with a curtain of green taffeta. Behind 
 this curtain the king sits unseen, and speaks through the aper- 
 ture to the Kal JIatze, who communicates his commands to the 
 officers, judges and attendants. "We cannot traverse any portion 
 of either this vast continent, or of the East or "West, without dis - 
 covering proofs like the above of the distinction always recog>- 
 nisetl by the ancients between God and the Wortl of God, his 
 Holy Spirit, and the Messenger. She, as well as He, is a Sx>irit of 
 Tongues : and from their mouths all excellence proceeds. So in 
 
 X 3 
 
466 NOTES TO BOOK V. 
 
 the analogous Hindu mythos, when Chrishna (the Incarnation) 
 opened his mouth, his foster-mother (the Earth) saw within the 
 cavity, the boundless Universe in all its plenitude of magnificence. 
 That is, when the Messenger speaks, he developes the whole sys- 
 tem of the Creator ; or the Apocalypse : it is beheld in his 
 mouth. In our cathedrals, says Didron, the western porch is fre- 
 quently pierced by an immense circular opening, to which is given 
 the name of Rose window. The bay of the v>indow is filled with 
 coloured glass, arranged in four, five, or six concentric circles, 
 diminishing in extent in proportion to their proximity to the 
 centre. God seated on his throne, or the Virgin holding in her 
 arms the infant Saviour, shines resplendent iu the central circle. 
 A cordon of angels surrounds the central group : then the patri- 
 archs ; after them apostles, martyrs and confessors, each in sepa- 
 rate rings or cordons ; lastly, the external cordon or outer edge of 
 the circumference is filled by virgins. All these persons are 
 framed in medallions of glass, as transparent and luminous as the 
 saints themselves, and resembling circles of rubies, emeralds, or 
 sapphires, studded with diamonds. These rose windows are 
 glories, embracing an entire world, encircling a multitude instead 
 of girdling a single individual. They are symbols thus of the 
 Holy Spirit. Dante has himself given the name of Eose to those 
 circular expansions of light, in which the saints are represented 
 ranged in a divine effulgence emanating from the Centre, which is 
 filled l)y the splendour and brilliancy of God himself, I close 
 this paragraph with an extract from the Paradise of Dante, which 
 will suffice to prove that the nimbus, aureole, and glory are 
 images of light, reduced to form by the pencil, and that they are 
 all types of the Sacred Spirit, the Queen of Heaven, in whom all 
 existence finally centres. 
 
 I looked. 
 And in the likeness of a River, I saw 
 Light flowing, from whose amber-seeming wave 
 Plashed up effulgence, as they glided on 
 'Twdxt banks on either side, painted with spring, 
 Incredible how fair : and from the tide 
 There ever and anon outstarting flew 
 Sparkles instinct with life : and in the flowers 
 Did set them like to rubies chased in gold ; 
 Then, as if drunk with odours, plunged again 
 Into the wondrous Flood, from which as one 
 Re-entered, still another rose. * * * 
 
 In fashion as a snow-white Rose lay then 
 
NOTES TO BOOK V. 467 
 
 Before ray view the saintly multitude, 
 
 Which in his own blood Christ espoused. Meanwhile 
 
 That other host that soar aloft to gaze 
 
 And celebrate His glory whom they love, 
 
 Hovered around, and like a troop of bees 
 
 Amid the vernal sweets alighting now. 
 
 Now clustering where their fragrant labour glows, 
 
 Flew downward to the mighty Flower ; a rose 
 
 From the redundant i)etals streaming back 
 
 Unto the stedfast dwelling of their joy. 
 
 Faces had they of flame, and wings of gold : 
 
 The rest was whiter than the driven snow. 
 
 And as they flitted down into the flower, 
 
 From range to range fanning their plumy loins 
 
 Whispered the peace and ardour which they won 
 
 From that soft winnowing. Shadow none, the vast 
 
 Interposition of such numerous flights 
 
 Cast from above, upon the Flower, or view 
 
 Obstructed aught. For through the Universe 
 
 Wherever merited, Celestial Light 
 
 Glides freely, and no obstacle prevents. 
 
 Cai-ys Dante ParadisOy xxxi. 
 
 And as the Holy Spirit was this Central Rose, or blaze of glory» 
 and Lotus, so also whenever the Moon is mentioned by the old 
 theosophists, we are always to understand the Sacred Spirit of 
 Heaven, the fountain and receiver back of all life. Lucian says that 
 some placed Elysium in the Moon ; and in his Dream he cites the 
 mystic proverb, kpxri r}IJ'i'(rv 7ravro<s. Arclia Is Jialf of the All. 
 Psellus commenting on the old Chaldaean Oracles, teaches us that 
 the abode of souls after death was a region about the Moon, re- 
 splendent with marvellous light, while all beneath was gloom and 
 darkness. Macrobius describes it as being an essential jxirt of 
 the mysticizing philosophy of the Platonists, to consider the 
 Moon as the abode of human souls ; and he adds that souls passed 
 from the Moon to the Earth when they were bom in fleshy bodies, 
 and returned from the Earth to the Moon, when they were de- 
 livered from their carnal prisons. So Porphyry tells us that the 
 Moon was to be esteemed as presiding over generation, because the 
 souls of men were born from it : and that tliere was a constant 
 migration of those souls, ascending and descending tlirough the 
 two astronomical gates. The Paulite and biblical commentators 
 have been much puzzled by all this, and have made it not unf requently 
 
468 NOTES TO BOOK V. 
 
 a ground of ridicule ; but wlien we remember that the Holy- 
 Spirit was the Fountain which diffused Life throughout the Uni- 
 verse, and that she was as universally symbolized as the Moon, alL 
 cause of laughter is at an end. The Paulite notion that the Holy 
 Ghost [Spirit], whom they call a Man, should be symbolized by a 
 Dove however is more ludicrous than any other ; a Dove being 
 from the beginning a Female emblem of the Beautiful, and 
 Divine. 
 
 Note 28 (page 434). — These harlots, the favourites of the 
 Churches, are not so fortunate in Siam. There is a certain day in 
 the year, in which the Siamese practise a ceremony somewhat re- 
 sembling that of the Scape-Goat. They single out a woman 
 broken down by debauchery, and carry her on a litter through 
 all the streets to the sound of drums and hautboys. The 
 mob insult her and pelt her with dirt : after having sufi&ciently 
 exposed her through the whole city, they threw her on a dung- 
 hill, and sometimes on a hedge of thorns without the ramparts, 
 forbidding her ever to enter them again. This inhuman and super- 
 stitious ceremony is founded on the belief that this woman thus 
 draws upon her all the malign influences of the air and of evil 
 spirits. — Pinkerton's Voyages, ix., 579. 
 
 Note 29 (page 434^. — Hence it was that so many of the Pagans 
 objected that the impurities, impieties, absurdities, inexplicable 
 doctrines and incomprehensible mysteries contained in the books 
 of the Old and New Testament, rendered Christianity so incredi- 
 ble, that they thought it ridiculous to embrace it, and renounce 
 their own creeds and doctrines which were in their opinions, more 
 rational and intelligible. The doctrine of a dying God was re- 
 jected by their philosophers with disdain and contempt. This and 
 many other of the mysteries of Christianity gave to the Gentile 
 philosophers, and to so great a number of Pagans sucli an aversion 
 to Christianity that Mons. Claude, a French Protestant refugee 
 teacher avers, that had it not been for the severe edicts of Con- 
 stantine and his son against Paganism, or the old Gentile religion, 
 three parts in four of all Europe woiUd have been at this day 
 Pagans. No wonder this should be the case when one of 
 the Fathers observes, that if the doctrines of the Old Tes- 
 tament were to be taken literally, he should blush to own it : 
 the laws contained in it being far inferior to heathen institu- 
 tions. — The Morality of the New Testament, xvii. 
 
 Note 30 (page 447).— I close these notes by referring to a 
 Pamphlet, which has just reached me, Adam not the First Man, 
 by a Believer in the Bible ; and from which the following extracts 
 
KOTES TO BOOK V. 469 
 
 seem pertinent to tlie matter in' hand. The reader may refer to 
 the pamphlet itself for further information : it is a valuable one, 
 and it is published by May, 30, Spencer Street, Goswell Road : — 
 In the portion of the Word of God from the 2Cth verse of the 
 first to the 3rd verse of the second chapter of Genesis, the prophet 
 is undoubtedly continuing his relation of the general creation of 
 the universe, and of all the worlds contained therein. It is 
 indisputable that the expression, ** Let us make man," is used in 
 the generical sense, meaning maiikhid, and it is, throughout the 
 whole of this recital, or history, accompanied by the pronoun 
 ** thein,'^ which gives evidence that it must be received in the 
 plural number, except, indeed, in one particular instance ; the 
 intention of the change, in that instance, is most obvious ; the 
 alteration is important and impressive ; and it tends to give 
 additional force and value to all the other portions, in all of which 
 the plural number prevails without exception. God said, "Let 
 us make mankind in our own image, after our likeness, and let 
 them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of 
 the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over 
 everything that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man- 
 kind, in his own image created he him (the male of all mankind) ; 
 male and female created he the7u (both sexes of all mankind) ; and 
 God blessed them ; and God said unto them, * Be fruitful and 
 multiply and replenish the earth ; and subdue it, and have do- 
 minion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl, and over every 
 living thing that moveth upon the earth.' And God said, * Be- 
 hold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the 
 face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree 
 yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.' And God saw 
 every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good, and 
 the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Thus the 
 heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them." 
 It must be perfectly apparent that the whole of the first chapter 
 of Genesis, and the three first verses of the second chapter, con- 
 tained one complete history, the statement of the creation of the 
 universe, including all the hosts of the earth, and the general 
 creation of mankind thereupon ; that in our version the three last 
 verses have been most injudiciously separated from the preceding 
 portion of the recital, tending materially to interfere with, and to 
 break up the meaning of this portion of Scripture, and (as we shall 
 hereafter see) to carry the summing up of this magnificent work to 
 another individual creation, with which it has decidedly not the 
 slightest connexion. If the whole of that portion of the word of God 
 
4*70 NOTES TO BOOK V. 
 
 last quoted, be read with a mind uninfluenced by any preconceptions, 
 and by any persons unswayed by impressions which might have been 
 the effect of general and powerfully inculcated doctrines, hostile 
 thereto, every idea conveyed by the expressions therein used, 
 must and will be of a general and widely extended character ; 
 there cannot arise any consistent conception that this recital could 
 possibly be intended to represent the creation of one individual, 
 upon one particular portion of the globe ; there is not one single 
 expression that can have a sense of limitation properly attached 
 thereto ; there are no means emploj'-ed beyond the mandate of 
 Almighty God. He says "Let us make mankind," — he speaks 
 alone — and it is done : — and where ? — not upon this earth alone, 
 but upon "all the hosts of worlds," at one and the same period 
 of time ; and in one and the same manner ; the Prophet says, 
 "thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host 
 of them;" the "thus" declares distinctly that the whole of the 
 preceding portion of the recital, both as to time and as to simi- 
 liarity of means, was the history of the creation of the universe, 
 including the general population of this earth ; that the general 
 history of the world is there commenced, and that it is there 
 terminated ; it is so full and so complete that it does not require 
 the aid of any additional statement or recapitulation ; and it will 
 not permit of a dissimilar or of a contradictory explanation of any 
 of its parts which have therein been so positively defined, and 
 which have been therein laid down with such peculiar, and with 
 such dignified emphasis. Every lesser or every contracting thought 
 must be considered to be a misconception of, and a degradation 
 from, this bright and glorious portion of the Word of God ; and 
 verse after verse, and word upon word, come thunder-tongued, 
 rolling upon the ear (and thence displaying before the eye), in 
 wonderful and most sublime rapidity, the great and mighty acts 
 whereby Jehovah made his millions of worlds, and gave thereto 
 millions of millions of souls, for whom they were designed, and 
 for whom they were brought, as we have seen, to their appro- 
 priate states of perfection; he who conceives this scene in 
 anywise aright, will have the majestic vision, and the most 
 magnificent array presented to his imagination, of the eternal 
 and the omnific God, seated upon his throne (the circuit of 
 the heavens, (declaring thus the fiat of his will — "Let us 
 make mankind;" and, without any other process, as soon as 
 that omnific voice goes forth into infinitude, he will as in- 
 stantly behold a simultaneous burst of thousands upon thousands 
 of human beings, not only upon this world, but upon thousands 
 
NOTES TO BOOK V. 471 
 
 of thousands of other worlds, aiid ujx)!! "all the host of them," 
 througliout God's vast immensity, thiis, and by this mandate 
 alone, furnished with all their varieties of mankind, having im- 
 mortal souls, with destinies as great and as important as our own ; 
 he will behold the Infinite Lord God, ** making of one blood all 
 nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth, determin- 
 ing the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habita- 
 tions ;" he will see that the "times of their appearance" have 
 been well, and wisely, and mercifully appointed ; that the 
 "bounds of their habitations" had already been determined by 
 the separation of the various lands by the seas, by the intervention 
 of other minor waters, and by the impassable mountains, originated 
 in the more early processes of the creative works ; he will be 
 brought to the admission that the language of Scripture is too 
 wide for any lesser thought ; that the whole recital gives the sub- 
 stance of a scene as grand, as glorious, and as universal, too, as 
 must have been the simultaneous population of all the host of 
 worlds, the mode of which the prophet has thus described as being 
 an instantaneous respondence to the voice of Deity ; and that 
 there is a breadth, a grandeur, and a simplicity in such divine 
 truths, which men's minds should struggle to conceive, which 
 they shoiUd be encouraged to admire as worthy of, and as appro- 
 priate to, the last recorded act and the most important work of 
 Heaven's eternal God. ♦ ♦ » « 
 
 All who examine carefully the evidences adduced in the various 
 races of mankind, which even yet populate the diflferent portions 
 of the surface of the globe, not with the desire to establish former 
 prejudices, nor to confirm long-imbibed opinions (although such 
 may be considered devout and reverential), but with a desire to 
 learn the truth, will issue from such study with the con\action 
 fastened upon their minds that there are even yet to be found in 
 the features and in the physical conformations of the human races 
 who inhabit the various jwrtions of the globe certain positive and 
 arbitrary distinctions ; that such are clearly indicative of a variety 
 of origins, exhibiting a fitness for those peculiar climates wherein 
 their tri])es yet dwell as portions of distinct early races, to which 
 all of similar feature and confirmation are most clearly traceable, 
 of which they are justly termed the natives, or the aborigines, 
 and where many of them yet exist in their unmixed features, as 
 perfect evidences of their peculiar descent. The diligent inquirer 
 after truth will be enabled to discover that it is an invariable 
 effect, showing the presence of a positive law of Natura, that all 
 removals of original races to other climates (whether the change 
 
472 NOTES TO BOOK V. 
 
 be from temperate or inclement latitudes, or from those which 
 men would consider hostile to health and longevity, to others 
 which would be considered more congenial), have ever been mani- 
 festly injurious to their individual systems, and that such trans- 
 portations are in many instances absolutely destructive of life ; 
 that their physical peculiarities are an evidence that the varieties 
 of men were undoubtedly designed for continued existence in such 
 various portions of the earth as formed their iirst abodes ; and 
 that the obsei'vable impairment and destruction of vital powers, 
 by removal to other climates, discountenances the probability 
 that the Almighty ever did originally design to produce, or that 
 the earth, in her long series of centuries, ever has been capable 
 of producing, a healthful and uniform race of beings (different in 
 complexion and stature from those from whom they emanated), 
 simply by the operation of a change of station, or by the influence 
 of climate, however much such change may be held to have been 
 aided by a lapse of time of any conceivable duration. I believe 
 that every sincere examiner will be ready to admit, that there is 
 an absolute impossibility (according to any laws of Nature yet 
 exhibited to man's comprehension), of producing a conformation 
 involving such mental and physical powers, and such a complexion 
 as the European displays, from the Ethiopian stock, or from Afri- 
 can parents, wherever such might have been located ; or of culti- 
 vating the features of the Tartaric or of the Northern tribes from 
 the Esquimaux of the Arctic Regions, or from the Red Indians of 
 North America, wherever, or however long they may have been 
 removed ; but I believe he will be ready to admit that the inverse 
 consequence, that of a blending of original characteristics, is not 
 only perfectly conceivable, as a possible event, but that he will 
 assent to the fact, that it has also been continually and exten- 
 tensively in operation ; that man can break down original distinc- 
 tions by amalgamations ; but that he never can rebuild nor restore 
 original classes, when such have been invaded by admixture, ope- 
 rating as a taint ; that the admission will be, that the former not 
 only can be done, but that such has been done ; and that such 
 means are now in extensive operation, amalgamating, and thus 
 breaking down the original distinctions of mankind, by inter- 
 course ; that the effects of such intercourse are clearly traceable 
 to such an extent as to have already caused the original and dis- 
 tinct features of mankind to slide into each other by almost im- 
 perceptible degrees ; such mixed and intermediate races now form- 
 ing the greater portion of the inhabitants of the earth, and being 
 more and more blended by coming daily into nearer and more ordi- 
 nary intercourse with each other. * « * * 
 
NOTES TO BOOK V. 473 
 
 "We will now proceed to follow up the cliaiu of evidence presented 
 by the recital of the prophet, in the shape of actual historical 
 events occurring in the race of Adam, to convince us that Adam 
 positively was not the first man of all the earth, but that he was 
 absolutely placed, at the time of his creation, in a populated 
 globe ; that such world was old, in matters appertaining to man's 
 skill and knowledge, at that very period ; and that Adam and his 
 descendants knew that they were surroimded by, and that they 
 were dwelling nigh to, human beings of a different and of a prior 
 origin. We are informed that, immediately after the fall, there 
 were bom to Adam and Eve two male children ; that at au early 
 period of the lives of these two sons of Adam and Eve, the elder- 
 born, Cain, slew his brother Abel ; that the punishments de- 
 nounced by God for this offence, were such a curse upon the 
 ground as would withhold from Cain the mode of existence to 
 which he had been accustomed by its cultivation, and such a ban- 
 ishment from the land of his birth as would make him a fugitive 
 and a vagabond. It is evident that this sentence was understood 
 by Cain to be a banishment into a populated region ; such is evi- 
 denced by his reply — '* My punishment is greater than I can bear ; 
 thou hast driven me out from the face of the earth, and I shall 
 be a fugitive and a vagabond, and it shall come to pass that every 
 one that fiudeth shall slay me." It must be here admitted that 
 this is a positive record that Cain, at least, fully imagined that 
 there were neighbouring tribes living around liim ; that, from 
 such, he imagined he would be subjected to acts of violence ; that 
 he therefore supposed, or knew, that they were men of strength, 
 perhaps of gigantic stature, and indulging in blood shedding ; 
 that the dread of such violence being exerted against him, (such 
 being recorded as being greater than the gloomy prospect of tlie 
 difficulty of his sustaining life under the curse upon the ground 
 affecting his daily subsistence,) would have been groundless and 
 inconsistent, had not Cain then jx)ssessed a vivid conception of the 
 tenancy, by mankind, of the surrounding regions of the earth ; 
 that we have, in fact, the culprit Cain suggesting the probability 
 of his being destroyed by the neighbouring tribes, into contact 
 with whom a banishment from the laud of his parents would in- 
 evitably bring him ; but we have infinitely more than this, we 
 have a far more important being giving his testimony to the fact, 
 and joining in the correctness of the assumption contained in this 
 declaration ; in the following verse, and in immediate reply to 
 such expressed fear, we have the Great Lord God, who is not the 
 author of confusion, and who does not inculcate error by vague 
 expressions of admission of matters, and of things, and of persons. 
 
47tfc NOTES TO BOOK V. 
 
 the wLicli and the who have never been in existence ; — we have 
 the Almighty God, admitting the reasonableness of such dread, 
 and assenting to the consistency of Cain's fears, — "therefore," 
 he says, "will I set a mark upon thee, lest any, finding, shall slay 
 thee;" — and then we find him denouncing vengeance, in a seven- 
 fold degree, upon any who should slay Cain. Now, I believe that 
 no possibility exists of giving other than a literal conception to 
 these words — than of making them supply other than an absolute 
 marking of the murderer, for the object then expressed, such con- 
 stituting his protection from those beings then in existence, who 
 otherwise could or w^ould have slain the fratricide ; — I believe that 
 to attempt to withdraw from this portion of God's Word, any one 
 atom of its literal force and meaning, as a relation made of 
 solemn and important facts, as a veritable history of the first 
 assize held upon earth, in the presence of the Eternal Judge, who 
 there gives sentence on the prisoner, must have the effect of 
 attempting to lessen down, and to degrade, a most awful scene, 
 and a denouncement made, and a visitation shewn by God, for and 
 against the greatest sin that man's hand could commit, into a 
 most unmeaning and into a most unnecessary farce ; and that 
 such breaking down of a plain declaration of Scripture, because 
 we will not set our minds to the task of diving deepl}'', to find 
 indeed that it truly had the accompanying personages which its 
 words declare to have necessarily involved in such contemplated 
 catastrophe, far exceeds all I know of wnlful blindness, and of 
 bold temerity, in an unwillingness to admit that God knew, and that 
 God intended it to be known by all to whom such language was then 
 addressed — by him especially who then received his protective 
 mark — and also that it should kno wn by all for whose instruction 
 such history is recorded, that there were persons, then in exist- 
 ence, by whom Cain would indeed be liable to be put to death as 
 an alien and as a vagabond, in the land of Nod, or in any other 
 neighbouring land, whereunto the erratic life to which he was 
 then doomed might lead his steps, were he found -without the pro- 
 tective mark by which God made him mysteriously, and I have no 
 doubt, awfully distinguished, as a living spectacle, and as an ex- 
 ample of his wrath against the sin of murder to all the then sur- 
 rounding tribes, and, I believe, to subsequent generations through 
 many of the earth's succeeding times. * ♦ - * * 
 
 Other very brief, but very important statements of facts soon 
 follow, all tending to establish the same point ; and if such state- 
 ments be duly weighed in all that they most positively declare, 
 they must lead the mind of every diligent examiner, to the 
 assumption of the mode of life adopted by Cain, whereby he ob- 
 
NOTES TO BOOK V. 475 
 
 tained such power over the labours of others, as to enable him 
 build a city, and whereby men should be taught to withdraw their 
 attention from the only natural occupation then known (the 
 chase), to cause them to congregate in large communities ; to de- 
 vote themselves to the erection of such structures as we find that 
 city did certainly contain ; and to concentrate such an abundant 
 population, as should tend to constitute such a city's occupants ; 
 such city or cities being undoubtedly the habitations of the 
 heathen demi-gods, whose myths yet crowd, with hieroglyphic 
 characters, the fragments of the bygone world ; and of giant races, 
 admitted by the Word of God, but described not in the history 
 of the race of Adam, because beyond its intended range. The 
 Word of God imdoubtedly points either to Cain or to some of 
 those people who preceded him as the discoverers of mineral 
 wealth ; the imerring authority telling us that Jubal, an early de- 
 scendant of Cain, was so far advanced in the acquisition and in 
 the appropriation of mineral property, '* that he was skilful both 
 in the harp and on the organ ;" and that Tubal Cain was *' an in- 
 structor of every artificer in brass and in iron." These state- 
 ments, being introduced with wondrous brevity, have not obtained 
 the weighty consideration which their characteristics for the con- 
 vej-ance of truthful ideas so justly deserve ; and which, if looked 
 at steadily, in connection with all other matters, which are here 
 produced for the reader's attention : viz. the building of "a 
 city," — the finding of inhabitants to occupy that city,— the erect- 
 ing therein of an organ or organs, — the making of harps, — the rais- 
 ing of minerals, — the appropriating of such minerals to various 
 purijoses, — the teaching of the use of all these to other persons 
 then existing around and with them, — must, upon mature reflec- 
 tion, lead to the admission that these statements are inserted for 
 no other purpose than to lead our minds to the conception of the 
 fact of an older and surrounding population ; that at any rate, 
 the Word of God declares that whilst Adam and his first descen- 
 dants, in the line of Seth, were existing in a most primitive state, 
 considerable advancement was made in arts and sciences by the 
 races with whom Cain came in contact at the time of his banish- 
 ment ; that it is not likely that he could be the sole originator or 
 the possessor of properties which are spoken of in such wide 
 terms ; that, as an individual, or as surrounded by persons to 
 whom they would become desirable, such minerals would have 
 been valueless as the dust of the earth ; that it is evident that 
 such substances were miraculously placetl within his reach, and 
 that they at that time did obtain, or ha<l perhaps even previously 
 obtained, a value in the eyes of mankind ; that it is evident that 
 
476 NOTES TO BOOK V. 
 
 either prior to Cain, or else assisted by him, and subsequently per- 
 fected by his family, the attention of mankind, in the land of 
 Nod, was so turned to the conversion of minerals into delicate 
 uses and to artificial enjoyments, that instruments of music were 
 constructed of vast magnitude, and such as would only have been 
 erected in, or would only have been suited to buildings or to 
 chambers of much architectural importance ; or, at any rate, as 
 would be incompatible with the dwelling in tents, or in other rude 
 habitations, such as it has been usual to assign to the inhabitants 
 of the earth at this time, and such as Adam, and his descendants 
 in the line of Seth, did most certainly only enjoy for many cen- 
 turies beyond the time during which they are recorded in the few 
 verses which are devoted to the history of Cain — the disinherited 
 — the murderer— the henceforth heathen-blended man. Moreover, 
 the Word of God multiplies its facts, tending to prove upon us, 
 whether we be willing to receive such truths or not — that there 
 were other races of men upon the earth at this time than the de- 
 scendants of Adam ; and it is a fallacy to presume that the Bible 
 does not lead us so to assume, that it does not wish us (connect- 
 ing such work with the intention of its Divine Author) to be con- 
 vinced thereof, and that it does not require us to make such truths 
 a portion of our harmonious worshipping of him as ' ' the God of 
 the souls of flesh ;" — it tells us — " there were giants on the earth 
 in those days j" it is quite evident tliat these beings (here most 
 pointedly named and admitted in Scripture as then existing) did 
 not proceed from the race of Adam ; they are here most clearly 
 mentioned in such a manner as positively manifests the intention 
 of setting them up most conspicuously in contradistinction to the 
 race of Adam; the object of God in giving such statement, 
 through his prophet, is clearly for the alone piu-pose of denoting 
 a peculiar and different race, as one of the many varieties of man- 
 kind by which Adam was then surrounded ; the recital is plainly 
 introduced for the purpose of showing that such beings were not 
 accidental productions from parents of ordinary stature, but that 
 they were a race of men abundant in those days, but now extinct ; 
 the Word of God proceeds to tell us that " the Sons of God " (or 
 the males of the race of Adam, who acknowledged the true God) 
 came in unto the daughters of these giants, that they bare chil- 
 dren unto them and that such became mighty men of renown ; it 
 says further, that " the sons of God (still the males of the tribe 
 of Adam) saw the daughters of men (other races not gigantic) 
 that they were fair, and that they took them wives of all whom 
 they chose." ««**«•* 
 
 It is said, immediately after the banishment of Cain, that " Adam 
 
NOTES TO BOOK V. 477 
 
 knew his wife again, and she bare a son, and called his name Seth, 
 ' for God,' she said, ' hath appointed me another seed instead of 
 Abel, whom Cain slew ;' and to Seth also there was a son born, 
 and he called his name Enos ; then began men to call upon the 
 name of the Lord." This statement of the prophet has been 
 generally explained, as though it was not to be received in its 
 literal sense, but as though it were there declared that " then began 
 men to call themselves after or by the name of the Lord," signify- 
 ing that the men of the earth in their distinguishing appellations 
 then began to assume the titles or the names of Jehovah, Such 
 alteration has been made to endeavour to evade the diflficulty of 
 attaching such a statement of " beginning to call on the name of 
 the Lord " to Adam, to Seth, or to Enos, who were then the only 
 men upon the earth, (if Adam's race be considered the only ongi- 
 nal one,) and who had certainly been always taught to call upon 
 the name of the Lord ; that is, to worship the true God ; this 
 text therefore stood in most perplexing opposition to the solitary 
 family of Adam, then numbering but the three individuals I have 
 named ; therefore, modern commentators felt that there was an 
 absolute necessity of supplying to the prophet a more suitable 
 mode of expressing the truths which he intended to declare, than 
 that which he had adopted; the text, therefore, became amended 
 in the margin to suit the modern views ; but no better effect fol- 
 lowed ; because we do not find that men did then generally name 
 themselves after God ; that such appellations were either assumed, 
 or were given to them by their parents ; the facts of the bible, 
 therefore, continued to stand in opposition to the more modem 
 translation ; then, I am obliged to return to my former concep- 
 tion of the word of God, as to the pre-existence of heathen 
 nations, provided in the general creation ; I can then and without 
 mutilation, I find a perfect harmony in all these points of sup- 
 posed discrepancies ; I perceive clearly that the men here intended 
 are the vast heathen tribes then contemporaneous with the small 
 family of Adam ; I can perceive, by Seth having then had a son 
 born to him, that he, and doubtless Adam too, as well as Cain, 
 had evidently even then obtained an intercourse with the families 
 of these men ; that Seth thence took his wife, from whom ho 
 begat Enos ; that Adam and Seth had, in great probability, 
 already spoken to these races of men and giants then around 
 them, of Jehovah as the true God ; and that, already, the proba- 
 bility is (as here recorded in fact) that some of these men had 
 received the light of the truth, conveyed by such teaching, and 
 had *• begun," in prayerful mind, " to call upon the name of the 
 Lord." *.••♦•♦ 
 
478 NOTES TO BOOK 7. 
 
 The prophet having made this demarking period, between the first 
 general and the second and individual creation, immediately pro- 
 ceeds to enter upon the liistory of the first Adam, or the first man 
 of the important race now about to be created ; in introducing 
 such history he makes use of two expressions, or he makes two 
 statements, both of which have had a considerable influence upon 
 the minds of commentators, and also upon the minds of persons 
 in general ; and have caused them to arrive at conclusions which 
 are not consistent with the truth of God. The prophet, in the 
 fourth verse of the second chapter of Genesis, begins his new re- 
 lation of circxunstances, by briefly referring to the former periods 
 of creation, and by informing the reader that his past recital " is 
 the history of the heavens and of the earth when they were 
 created ;" he then proceeds to state that " the Lord God had not 
 caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till 
 the ground, but there went up a mist from the earth, and watered 
 the whole face of the ground. Upon the two points here named, 
 much misconception has arisen, the expression " that there was 
 no man to till the ground," being presumed to mean that "there 
 was no man existing on the whole face of the earth," has appeared 
 to give a sufficient authority for transferring the whole of this 
 statement, through the intervening Sabbath, into the former 
 series of incidents, and for making the whole of the circumstances 
 connected with Adam's creation, to be a recapitulation of works 
 performed upon the latter of the creative days. I hesitate not to 
 say, that to my mind, the authority for such transposition ought 
 to be of the most clear and of the most satisfactory character, to 
 permit of such a liberty being taken with the word of God, as to 
 shift a whole volume of circumstances out of the position in which 
 they are evidently placed, into any other recital. Now when 
 these two recitals are minutely dissected and examined, it will 
 be admitted that it will scarcely be possible to find any two 
 statements having more numerous points of dissimilarity and dis- 
 agreement, save in the one point— that they both treat of a crea- 
 tive act of Almighty God. The explanation often given to this 
 passage, that there was not *' a man upon the whole face of the 
 earth," appears perfectly contradictory to the whole intention of 
 the Scriptures ; it is in perfect opposition to the recital in the 
 former chapter, of the creation of mankind, which general crea- 
 tion had as undoubtedly taken place before the Sabbath as this 
 approaching creation of Adam undoubtedly succeeds that de- 
 marking period of time. The alteration of the simple words of 
 the prophet, or the removing of either portion out of its assigned 
 a posii«ion, is taking most un\«arrantable liberty with the word of , 
 
NOTES TO BOOK V. 479 
 
 God ; the tnie intentiou of Scripture is to be found in the literal 
 interpretation of the recital ; the whole scope and meaning of the 
 statement is to show a coming change in God's economy, as be- 
 tween the natures of the former human beings whom God had 
 created, and the nature of a new human being whom he is now 
 about to create. God, who bestowed the gift of speech and the 
 powers of conception on man, and who made each word to become 
 sufficiently significant for the conveyance of distinct ideas to the 
 himian mind, did, by this announcement, as surely purpose to 
 induce the very thought the letter of his language should convey, 
 and it does require that we should take God at his word, and that 
 we should acknowledge that he knows how rightly to pronounce 
 the sum and the substance of his facts ; we have no right to warp 
 the word of God, to any views, however they may claim the 
 authority of antiquity ; the mind must try and try again, until 
 it arrives at the knowledge of all truth, until it becomes enabled 
 to receive each part and portion of Scriptural evidence in its 
 manifest sense, and the literal sense of the bible must ever be 
 considered to be its true sense, imless we have (clearly and fully 
 defined within that book itself) the authority which distinctly 
 ghows that such mode of speech was a figurative passage, or that 
 it certainly was an idiom of Eastern phraseology. God (as we 
 have seen) had, prior to this time, created the numerous varieties 
 of mankind upon the earth ; he had commanded them (as before 
 observed) to feed upon its uncultivated fruits ; they had remained 
 fully obedient to God's command in this respect, therefore, the 
 prophet truly speaks when he declares "there was not a man to 
 till the groiind," therefore, we are told that God is now about to 
 introduce another man who should be commanded and instructed 
 by him to i)erform— w^ho should therefore do — and who should 
 teach others of mankind to continue to fulfil— the very act for 
 which God's word declares that there was the want of a human 
 being to effect before ; for this puqwse, we shall shortly see, a 
 man was created, and was placed in a garden, previously pre- 
 pared to dress it and to keep it, who also we shall find (when 
 expelled thence for disobedience) is again brought out into the 
 uncidtivated wilderness, and commanded "to till the ground 
 from whence he was taken," such clearly -ex pressed deficiency, 
 combined with all the consequences which w-e shall shortly see 
 defined in the history of this indh'idual (as we proceed to trace 
 it in its minor features), the correcting of this declared want of an 
 industrial being by the creating of another man, who should have 
 those habits naturally implanted within him by the command of 
 
480 NOTES TO BOOK V. 
 
 God rather than by changing the former habits (which were 
 equally permanently implanted in all mankind originally,) do 
 tend materially to the easy and to the consistent reception of the 
 truth of the record of the absolute existence of each preceding 
 work, and of each stedfast law which was then attached thereto ; 
 such announcement in the word of God, as giving cause for a new 
 creation, seems to declare, fully, that the habit of the cultivation 
 of the soil does not proceed from any natural desire residing in 
 the breast of all the races of mankind, but that it is, in truth, a 
 law proceeding solely from God, and therefore a habit implanted, 
 and a beneficial occupation taught by him, originally to one pecu- 
 liar being ; and it is evident that the word of God, which de- 
 clared to Adam that " in the sweat of his face he should eat his 
 bread," did make *'the tilling of the soil" to commence with 
 that peculiar man, and that in Eden it was an easy and a 
 pleasurable occupation, but that on his being thrust thence, it 
 became laborious and less productive ; the research into the his- 
 tory of all mankind does positively show us that the cultivation 
 of the soil proceeds from the spot of Adam's residence ; that it 
 has been thence disseminated amongst other races of mankind 
 who did not previously practice it ; that we do find that in this 
 race were the first "keepers of sheep" and the first "tillers of 
 the ground ;" and that such natural and such historical evidences 
 do tend to convince us of God's eternal truth, in the most minute 
 word, and in the most brief expression found within the book, 
 which is a transcript of his most almighty will ; and that these 
 evidences do thus make his meaning and his intent to be both 
 audible and visible to man, when engaged in rimning his thought 
 and his most diligent research through all the lengthened stages 
 of earth's olden times unto the abiding testimonials of the present 
 clay. 
 
€f^t 93oj)k of 00^4 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 1. One word before I conclude on the commonly re- 
 ceived Chronology, respecting which the greatest igno- 
 rance prevails in all European countries, and in which 
 indeed they seem to possess only the intellects of chil- 
 dren. It of course, differs materially from the true chro- 
 nology which the Apocalypse developes ; but that will not 
 be wondered at by those who know how all the chronolo- 
 gei*s from Bede downwards have differed among themselves. 
 The chronology of the Hebrew Text, says the learned 
 Whiston, has been grossly altered, especially in the inter- 
 val next after the deluge {Old Teat. p. 20). The Chrono- 
 logy of Scriptui*e, says Malcolm (Hist, of Persia, i. 233), is 
 unsatisfactory from the scantiness of facts, the confusion 
 of dates, the errors arising from the writing of proper 
 names in different languages, and the variety of appella- 
 tions, often used to designate the same person. Bryant 
 
 Y 
 
482 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 shews how some of the best chronologers have differed 
 with respect to the age of a most important character in 
 history, Semiramis ; Syncellus placing her before the sera 
 of Jesus, 2177 years; Petavius, 2060; Helvicus, 2248; 
 Eusebins, 1984; Jackson, 1964; Usher, 1215; Philo- 
 Byblius, 1200 ; and Herodotus, 713. What credit, 
 asks he, can be given to the history of a person, the 
 time of whose life cannot be ascertained within 1535 
 years? So Newton places Shishak about the middle of 
 the 10th century before our sera ; Usher fixes him at B.a 
 1489. One chronologer determines the epoch of Mene^ 
 first king of Egypt, at about B.C. 2231. Champollion de- 
 duces from the same authorities that he lived 6000 years 
 before Mohammed. Horner's researches, says a late 
 writer, have rendered it in some degree probable that man 
 sufficiently civilized to have manufactured pottery, existed 
 in the valley of the Nile thirteen or fourteen thousand 
 years ago : and who will pretend to say how long before 
 those ancient periods savages like those of Terra del 
 Fuego, or Australia, who possess a semi-domestic dog, may 
 not have existed in Egypt % (Darwin, Origin of Species, 
 
 V- 18-) 
 
 2. Sir William Drummond, in his Essay on the Zodiacs 
 of Esn^ and Dendera, thus alludes to the uncertainty on 
 this subject. The world, he says, as I have just stated, 
 has been created 5824 years according to the received 
 chronology ; it has been created 6065 years according to 
 the Samaritan text ; 7210 yeai-s according to the Septua- 
 gint ; and 7508 years according to the testimony of Jose- 
 phus. The received chronology is founded on a literal, 
 but as I conceive, a mistaken interpretation of the Hebrew 
 text. * * It appears, both from the version of the 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 483 
 
 Seventy and from Josephus, that some error has crept 
 into the Hebrew text in fixing the number of years be- 
 tween the creation and the deluge, and that a similar error 
 has occuiTed in reckoning the number of years from the 
 deluge to the birth of Abraham, is still more apparent. 
 * * The Masters in Israel are not agreed among them- 
 selves about the chronology of the Bible, the age of the 
 world being now [a.d. 1820], 5571 years according 
 to the Seder 01am Sutha ; 5878 according to Maimo- 
 nides ; 5574 yeara according to Gersom ; about 6000 
 years according to the Asiatic Jews. * * Those, 
 then, who adhere to the present Hebrew text, but who 
 read it, as I think it ought to be read, will reckon not less 
 than 6562 years from the creation to the present time. 
 For my own part; however, I do not scruple to adopt the 
 chronology of the Seventy, and to assign a period of 
 7210 years from the creation to the year 1820 of the 
 Christian sera. Had Sir "William lived to our own time, he 
 would probably have been constrained to own the true 
 chronology of the age, not of the earth, but since the 
 advent of man upon the earth, to be very different from 
 that which he surmised. What Dr. Ferguson writes of 
 th« Great Sewers of Rome, is not inappropriate here. 
 These works, he says, were in the midst of the Koman 
 greatness, and still are reckoned among the wonders of 
 the world. And yet they are said to have been works of 
 the elder Tarquin, a prince whose territory did not ex- 
 tend in any dii'ection above sixteen miles : and on this 
 supposition they must have been made to accommodate a 
 city that was calculated chiefly for the reception of cattle, 
 herdsmen, and banditti. Rude nations sometimes exe- 
 cute works of great magnitude, as fortresses and 
 
 y2 
 
484 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 temples for tlie purposes of war and superstition, but 
 seldom palaces ; and still more seldom works of mere 
 convenience and cleanliness^, in which, for the most 
 part, they are long defective. It is not unreasonable 
 therefore to question the authority of tradition in re- 
 spect to this singular monument of antiquity, which 
 so greatly exceeds what the best accommodated city of 
 Europe could undertake for its own conveniency. And 
 as these works are still entire, and may continue so for 
 thousands of years, it may be suspected that they were even 
 prior to the settlement of Komulus, and may have been 
 tJie remains of a more ancient city, on the ruins of which 
 the followers of Bomtdus settled, as the Arabs now hut or 
 eucamp on the ruins of Palmyra and Baalbec. Livy 
 owns that the common sewers were not accommodated to 
 the plan of Rome as laid out in his time : they were car- 
 ried across the streets and passed under buildings of the 
 greatest antiquity. This derangement he imputes to the 
 hasty rebuilding of the city after its destruction by the 
 Gauls. But haste, it is probable, would have determined 
 the people to build on the old foundations, or at least not 
 to change them so much as to cross the directions of 
 former streets. Dr. Ferguson, adds Nimrod, from 
 whom I cite this passage, has omitted to notice one 
 remarkable passage of Lactantius, which shows that 
 the sewers were in existence before the time of Komulus, 
 and were an object of ignorant veneration to that founder 
 and his colleague. Cloacinxe simulacrum in cloacdmnximd 
 repertum Tatius consec7'avit, et quia cujus effigies esset 
 iijnorahat, egc loco illi nomen imposuit. Yet we are asked 
 to believe that they were made by the fourth king after 
 Romulus ! (iii. 75). The reader is referred back to Book 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 485 
 
 II, for many curious historical facts that corroborate the 
 view of the vast antiquity of those wonderful remains 
 which exist in almost all the old world. Thus Chitor, the 
 supposed capital of Pourava, the Porus of the Greeks, 
 was seen in ruins by Terry in 1615, crowded with 
 stately pagodas and beautiful palaces, statues, and columns, 
 exquisitely wrought, magnificent gates and vast reser- 
 voiis then mouldering in decay, with 100,000 atone Iwibses 
 totally uninhabited except by storks and owls, and en- 
 closed with a strong wall ten miles in circumference. 
 Maurice Hist, of Hindostan, i. 19. 
 
 3. And what was this image of Clo-ac-lna, found in 
 this subterraneous ancient city 1 Clo, we have already 
 seen, was 600 — the Naros ; A, Ag, and Ac, was a name 
 for God, and the Spirit ; and Kina, or Ina, is the Hina, 
 or the Holy Spirit of the Polynesians, which is a part of 
 the compound word Shekinah. The image, therefore, that 
 was found, was an image of the Tri-Une All, which pro- 
 bably belonged to the primeval inhabitants of Hesperia, 
 or Latium, where Saturn, Sat-Ur-Nous, the Pure Fire- 
 Mind, the Messenger, lay concealed. And the Romans 
 having read the inscription, supposed it to be an image 
 of the Goddess, to whom the disentombed city was con- 
 secrated ; and called their Sewers after the name in- 
 scribed upon it. To such base uses may even the most 
 holy things descend. The world, Bays Celsus, according 
 to Moses, was created at a certain time, and has from 
 its commencement existed for a period far short of ten 
 thousand years. There is no such system of chrono- 
 logy as this in the present Hebrew scriptures. Celsus 
 wrote 1700 years ago ; and assuming at the farthest, that 
 in the Mosaic books of that period, the age of the race of 
 
486 THE BOOK Of GOD. 
 
 man was said to be 7500, this would bring it very nearly 
 to that which I assert to be about the true period of man's 
 advent on the earth. Did Celsus use a different copy of 
 Genesis from that which we have ? It seems clear enough 
 from the above passage. (See Arguments of Celsus, &€.■> 
 hy T. Taylor, p. 3.) 
 
 4. There is a tradition, says Mitchell, in his Exposition 
 of St. John, mentioned by one of the Jewish rabbis, 
 that the world is to last 6000 years, and be under the 
 dominion of the wioked ; but that the seven thousandth 
 year is to be the beginning of a grand jubilee, wherein 
 God will restore all things to their original beauty, and 
 men shall enjoy peace and happiness. The Scriptures 
 know nothing of this tradition ; it seems to have arisen 
 from the mode of commenting on the sacred writings, 
 which was so much in vogue among the ancient rabbis j 
 and although it may be adopted as a truth, yet there is 
 no advantage to be gained from it, in knowing when the 
 seven thousandth year would commence, for the age of 
 the world cannot be told with any certainty. The chro- 
 nology of the Seventy, or Greek translation of the Bible 
 which was in use at the Apostles' time, differs from the 
 original Hebrew, and makes the world at the birth of 
 Abraham older by more than 1 400 years than the Hebrew 
 does. Those who contend for the truth of the Hebrew 
 chronology say that the Seventy translators added these 
 years that they might surpass in antiquity the traditions 
 of the Egyptians, and that this error in chronology arose 
 from a pious fraud in the Seventy. This allegation 
 against the Seventy might be of some weight, did the 
 Samaritan Pentateuch, or Five Books of Moses agree in 
 the main with the Hebrew; the Pentateuch was sup- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 487 
 
 posed to be written in the time of Shalmanazer, 700 years 
 before Christ, some hundred years before the Seventy : 
 the Pentateuch, notwithstanding, does not agree with the 
 Hebrew ; but for the most part, especially after the Flood, 
 with the chronology of the Seventy. From this, and 
 many other considerations y it Tnay he safely said tJiat t/ie 
 age of the world, at this present time cannot be knoion by 
 some hundred years ; and that our usual reckoning is no 
 more than the most likely conjecture, (p. 73) 
 
 5. Little or no dependence can in truth be placed on 
 any of their systems : the compilers of the Old Testament 
 have been guity of wilful fabrications to support their 
 particular views. The chronology of the Alexandrine 
 text of the Mosaic Scriptures differs from the Masoretical 
 Hebrew text by 1 376 years. Klaproth i^Asie Polyglotte) 
 quotes a passage from Kennicott, in which that profound 
 Hebraist avows a reluctant conviction that of the three 
 oldest versions of the Old Testament, the Jewish, the Sep- 
 tuagint, and the Samaritan tlie former lias been desigiudly 
 falsified. (Bjornsterna on tJie Hindoos, page 133.) It is 
 cei'tain, says Father Simon, that the ancient Jews not 
 finding in their histories genealogies enough to fill up the 
 time, made one single 2)er8on to live during many ages ; 
 wherefore there is nothing more common in their histo- 
 ries than these long-lived men. We ought therefore to 
 reflect upon this principle, that we may not so easily give 
 belief to the Jewish histories which make their doctors 
 survive, till such time as they can find another to join 
 them. I speak here only of those Jewish doctors wlio 
 lived at the captivity of Babylon, and not of the ancient 
 patriarchs, although it appears that some Jews have also 
 called in question the great number of years, which are 
 
488 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 given them in the Books of Moses. Thus Kabbi Gedalia 
 . in the beginning of his history, where he makes mention 
 of several opinions touching this matter, avers that there 
 ■were some who believed that one of our years contained 
 ten of those other years, which St. Augustine was not un- 
 acquainted with, as may be seen in his Books of the City 
 of God. {Lib. ii. c. 4.) How unlike is English to Welsh, 
 and Greek to Sanskrit, says a well-known writer, yet all 
 indubitably are of one family of languages. What years 
 were required to create the existing divergence of mem- 
 bers of this family. How many more for other families, 
 separated by a wide gulf from this, yet retaining traces of 
 primeval aboriginal affinity, to have developed themselves 
 either in priority or collaterally ! The same consonantal 
 roots, appearing either as verbs inflected with great variety 
 of grammatical form, or as nouns with case-endings in 
 some languages, and with none in others, plead as con- 
 vincingly as the succession of strata in geology for enor- 
 7twus lapses of time. When again we have traced our 
 Gaelic and our Sanskrit to their inferential pre-Hellenic 
 stem, and when reason has convinced us that the Semitic 
 languages which had as distinct an individuality four 
 thousand years ago, as they have now, require a cradle of 
 longer dimensions than Archbishop TJ shelf's chronology , 
 what farther effort is not forced upon our imagination, if 
 we would guess the measure of the dim background in 
 which the Mongolian and Egyptian languages, older pro- 
 bably than the Hebrew, became fixed, growing early with 
 the type which they retain % Do we see an historical 
 area of nations and languages extending itself over nearly 
 ten thousand years ; and can we imagine less than another 
 ten thousand^ during which the possibilities of these 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 489 
 
 things took body and form 1 {Essays and RevieioSj p. 55.) 
 By astronomical calculations found in the Pyramid of 
 Gizeh, it appears to have been built 4950 years before 
 Jesus lived, 
 
 6. Care must be taken, says Butler, to distinguish be- 
 tween the Pentateuch in the Hebrew language, but in 
 the letters of the Samaritan alphabet, and the version of 
 the Pentateuch in the Samaritan language. One of the 
 most important differences between the Samaritan and 
 the Hebrew text, respects the duration of the period be- 
 tween the deluge and the birth of Abraham. The Sama- 
 ritan text makes it longer by some centuries than the 
 Hebrew text; and the Septuagint makes it longer by 
 some centuries than the Samaritan. It is observable that 
 in her authentic translation of the Latin vulgate, the 
 Roman Catholic Church follows the computation ex- 
 pressed in the Hebrew text ; and in her Martyrology 
 follows that of the Seventy. (Horce Biblicce.) This is 
 certainly accommodating. Father Simon in his Critical 
 History, mentions the same fact. 
 
 7. The learned and candid Du-Halde has the following 
 observation on the astounding discrepancy between the 
 chronology of the Vulgate and the Septuagint versions of 
 the Old Testament. Thus, says he, we see the points of 
 chronology that are, or ought to be, most certain, are con- 
 tested every day by the ablest men : and this diiFerenco of 
 opinion, together with the liberty that is allowed of saying 
 what one will, within certain bounds, has sometimes embar- 
 rassed the missionaries in answering questions put to tliem 
 on this subject. The late Emperor Kang-hi, perceiving this 
 diversity, in reading the religious books written by dif- 
 ferent missionaries, some of whom followed the Septua- 
 
 Y 3 
 
490 THE BOOK OP GOD. 
 
 gint, others the Yulgate : How comes it, said he, that your 
 King (Sacred Books), are not clear ? Don't you affirm 
 that they contain nothing, but what is sure and indubi- 
 table 1 They did not want solid answers to satisfy an 
 European j but what effect could such have on a Prince 
 who was but little acquainted with our religion, and 
 could not conceive how its doctrines could be true and 
 its chronology false ? {Hist, of China.) 
 
 8. With these observations I send into the world, this 
 great. Revelation from God : satisfied that there is no 
 Book in the whole world better calculated to give it light, 
 or to fill mankind universally with a true idea of the 
 Benign Father, and a vivid sense of the confraternity of 
 all His creatures j convinced also that there is no other 
 Book on earth, which tends more to enlarge the under- 
 standing with those grand ennobling views of God's pro- 
 vidence, which it seems to be the object of all mere sects 
 to pare down to the meanest and most miserable standard. 
 Contemplated as a whole I believe it to be a Divine and 
 Perfect Poem, worthy of the Soul that inspired it, and 
 utterly beyond the invention of any mere man, whose 
 faith was partial ; whose religion was confined. Every 
 sentence, yea sometimes every word carries in it a world 
 of divine mysteries, reminding one of that golden saying : 
 There is not the least letter in the Law, on which great 
 mountains of doctrines depend not. The mystic hallowed 
 song that baffled Luther, and has been a stumbling block 
 to millions, reduced into its plain and natural order, 
 appears as simple and as beautiful as every work of God 
 is ; and fills the mind with those consolatory reflections, 
 that as from the very first, the Eather regarded man and 
 human affairs with a consideration worthy of His provi- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 491 
 
 dence, so will He ever continue so to regard them, until 
 the fulfilment of all things ; that there is a future life of* 
 glory and of happiness, exceeding in transcendency all 
 that the most imaginative can fancy ; and that this life is 
 positively assured herein to the virtuous and wise ; and 
 that if we study for ourselves the writings of the Holy 
 Messengers of Heaven, we shall be more certain of attain- 
 ing that Paradise, which God reserves for those who seek 
 Him, than if we were assured by all the hierarchies on 
 earth, that ignorance alone is perfect bliss, and that the 
 road to heaven is open only to those who are in that con- 
 dition of slavish blindness, which the good and wise 
 deplore, but which the priests of darkness have called 
 faith. 
 
 9. The vast, magnificent and subKme notions which 
 our Apocalypse gives of the Divine Economy, are indeed 
 unequalled by any Book ever written, and would alone 
 prove by internal testimony, if others were wanting, 
 its superiority to all other works on earth. Contrasted 
 with the rhapsodical mixture, which has so long usurped its 
 name, and which might well have puzzled its thousand 
 commentatoi*8 to unfold its meaning, it must flash con- 
 viction upon all who are not wilfully blind. Regard it 
 as a Poem, and it transcends the highest flights of Homer 
 or ^schylus, of Dante or Yalmiki ; contemplate it as a 
 Prophecy, and its predictions so literally fulfilled, must 
 strike the reader with astonishment and awe : view it as 
 a Picture of the Supreme Government, and it is impossi- 
 ble not to be convinced by its grandeur, its stupendous 
 images, and above all by its universality. All other 
 revelations purport to be given to certain peoples who 
 are supposed to be the exclusive favourites of heaven : 
 
492 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 and the All-Father is wickedly represented as confin- 
 ing a knowledge of His celestial laws to a few, while 
 He leaves the rest of His children in the abyss of utter 
 darkness ; a pretence, which even a Pagan Poet holds 
 up to merited scorn. God he says, has not chosen the 
 parched sands of Libya to bury truth in those deserts, 
 tliat it might he known only hy a small number. He 
 makes himself known to all the world : He fills all 
 places, the earth, the sea, the air, the heavens. He makes 
 his abode in the soul of the just : why then should we 
 seek him elsewhere? Pharsalia ix. 566. Such narrow 
 notions find no place in this all-embracing Revelation ; 
 they are worthy only of such as are alluded to by Socrates 
 in his sublime discourse. The Universe is immense, he 
 says ; we know and we inhabit only a small corner of 
 it. The ethereal Sphere the antient abode of Souls, is 
 placed in the pure regions of heaven, where the fixed 
 stars are seated. We that live in this low abyss are apt 
 enough to fancy that we are in a high place, and we call 
 the air, the Heavens : just like a man that from the bottom 
 of the sea, should view the Sun and Stars through the 
 water, and fancy the ocean to be the firmament itself. 
 But if we had wings to mount on high, we should see 
 that there is the true heaven, the true light, and the true 
 earth ; and as in the sea everything is changed and dis- 
 figured by the salts that abound in in it, so in our pre- 
 sent earth every thing is deformed, corrupted, and in a 
 ruinous condition. 
 
 10. In the Apocalypse, says Herder, everything is in 
 rapid motion : everything hastens and urges on towards 
 a goal : it is a messenger of the swiftly-coming Lord, of 
 lightning, of the Judge ; at one time the image is that 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 493 
 
 of the sharp sword of the spirit; at another the snow- 
 white locks on the head of the conqueror : here a fiery 
 look of Jehovah ; there the rushing of his approaching 
 feet ; a cry, a breath, a voice of the S[)irit. In the whole 
 book is rapidity, presence, amval ; a seal to be broken, 
 the sound of flying trumpets, signs and messengers, and 
 visions passing through the air, which hasten on and 
 almost present themselves at one and the same time. 
 Were it possible that the Four living Creatures shonld 
 cry out together and the four seals be broken in rapid 
 succession, and the four first trumpets root up the ele- 
 ments at once, and could I put all these visions toge- 
 ther, so that seven churches should flame up around 
 one Son of man, so that the Lamb on the loftiest heights 
 of the blessed should appear at the same time with the 
 beast from the pit of destruction below, and great Babylon 
 impress itself at once on the mind, as harlot, as city, as 
 beast, and as monster, all this and unspeakably more, 
 were it possible, and possible for me, then might I count 
 upon one entire impression of the meaning and explana- 
 tion of this Book. But it is beyond my reach. The 
 meaning soars on wings, but words can merely creep. 
 I can conceive, says Stuart, of no more magnificent and 
 ennobling view of the Creator and Lord of all things, 
 than that which regards him as delighting to multiply 
 even to an almost boundless extent, beings made in his 
 own image, and therefore, rational and moral, and immor- 
 tal like himself. How difierent from representing him as 
 the Master of a magnificent puppet show, all of which he 
 manages by merely pulling the wires witli his own hands. 
 To make him the only real ageut in the Universe, and all 
 else as mere passive recipients of hLs influence, is to take 
 
49 i THE BOOK OF GOD, 
 
 from him the gloiy that results from the creation of num- 
 berless beings in his own image : beings which reflect the 
 brightness of their great Original. It is this intelligent 
 and rational creation in which the Prophet of the Apoca- 
 lypse lives, moves, thinks, and speaks. The universe as 
 viewed by him is filled with ministers swift to do 
 Jehovah's will. They stand before his throne : they pre- 
 side over nations ; they guide the sun in his shining 
 course ; the moon and stars send forth radiance at their 
 bidding ; the very elements are watched over by them : 
 even infants are committed to the guidance of presence 
 angels : and the Angel of the Lord encompasseth round 
 about all that fear him. Such is the Universe which the 
 God who is, and was, and is to come, has created and 
 governs : and amid the contemplation of productions and 
 arrangements such as these, were the glowing pages of 
 the Apocalypse written. 
 
INVOCATION OF THE SUPREME. 
 
 God ! thou glorious and divine One, grant that the 
 day may now dawn, when all thy children shall be em- 
 braced in the one fold of Truth ; when knowledge and 
 reason shall take the place of prejudice and ignorance, 
 and Thine Universal Church shall be established on the 
 rains of sects, denominations and creeds. Great indeed 
 and strong is their power ! They are mailed in wealth 
 and helmetted in bigotry, and shielded most of all by that 
 fearful ignorance of Thee and of Thy Nature, of the past 
 and of the present, in which the large majority of human 
 kind allow themselves to be ; for interest of self is their 
 ruling passion, and following it, they lose the sight of 
 thine immortal splendours that beam on them from 
 heaven, and becken them to Thee. Yet even amid the 
 mass are there many who are fair, and pure, and snow 
 white : who would fain emerge from the surrounding 
 slime, in which they know and feel that their virgin love- 
 liness is dimmed ; men, in whose ethereal souls all beauty 
 js not deadened by the lust of gold, or the fear of their 
 fellows ; women in whose stany spirits bum those 
 fires which are akin to the celestial lights of Paradise, 
 and are as flashing mirrors of their purity. On these 
 O Holy One, may the rays of truth descend, that they 
 may now come forth, and in sublime faith confess Thee ; 
 on these O Holy One, may thy beam of loveliness fall, that 
 their minds may open like the flowera to the sunray, and 
 
496 THE BOOK OF GOD. 
 
 the immortal essence which they derive from Thee, may 
 be led into that One True and Splendid Path, which like 
 the constellated sphere enfolds the globe within its grasp ; 
 which like thine own Sun, and thiue own Rainbow, shines 
 over all alike j the lowly and the great, the slave and 
 the sovereign ; a symbol of beauty, a herald of happiness, 
 an emblem of love. And unto Thee also, O thou Bright 
 and Holy Spirit of God, may it be permitted unto me, 
 to raise my prayer. Thou art the Queen — the splendid 
 Virgin of the Heavens, everlasting in divine loveliness 
 and purity; the ever-producing Mother of all ethereal 
 natures. Upon me may thy benign blessing fall, while 
 labouring thus to bring back the children of men to the 
 One Faith, which was revealed of old, and in which God, 
 and Thou were the bright prevailing Stars of Glory, by 
 whose light the world was directed. Ages have passed 
 on ages, since this most blessed Creed prevailed ; and 
 Thou hast long been ignored, or hast yielded up thy place 
 to earth-born idols, whom it were profane to name. May 
 it be that this infidelity shall now give way to Truth, and 
 that the Holy Religion which is developed in this Work, 
 may be substituted for the irreverent superstitions which 
 universally prevail, and which have led the footsteps of 
 the world into that practical rejection of God, which is 
 the source of all evil. Amen ! Amen ! 
 
SUMMARY. 
 
 1. The prologue to the Sacred Vision. 
 
 2. The splendid symbol of the Messiah of God, whose 
 
 light was to shine forth in heavenly Messengers. 
 
 3. The initiation of the Prophet. 
 
 4. Vision of the Four Living Creatures. 
 
 0. The Prophet is uplifted into the Glory of God. 
 
 6. Heaven opens — the Throne and the 24 Ancients. 
 
 7. The Book of Heaven opened by the Lamb. 
 
 8. The Holy Spirit of God, and the Red Dragon. 
 
 9. The Sacred Hymn of Victory. 
 
 1 0. Explication of the Red Dragon. 
 
 11. The four races of mankind. 
 
 12. Adam, the Fii-st Messenger of God, A.M. 3000. 
 
 13. Enoch, the second Messenger of God, AM. 3600. 
 
 14. Fo-Hi, the third Messenger of God, A.M. 4200. 
 
 15. The submersion of Atlantis foreshewn. 
 
 16. Brigoo, the fourth Messenger of God, A.M. 4800. 
 
 17. Vision of an Univeraal Church which followed this 
 
 Avatai-a. 
 
 18. Vision of the flying sickle. 
 
 19. Rise, growth, and condemnation of Serpent-wor- 
 ship. 
 
 20. Zaratusht, the fifth Messenger of God, A.M. 
 
 5400. 
 
498 SUMMARY. 
 
 21. The vision of the archangel Michael. 
 
 22. Thoth, the sixth Messenger of God, A.M. 6000. 
 
 23. Symbolic vision of this great Messenger's 'teach- 
 
 ing. 
 
 24. Amosis, the seventh Messenger of God, A.M. 
 
 6600. 
 
 25. Symbolic vision of the glory that was to follow. 
 
 26. The first four great monarchies of the Earth : the 
 
 Indo-Ethiopic, the Scythian, the Hindu, the Chi- 
 nese. 
 
 27. The Medo-Persian, and the Greek-Macedonian mo- 
 
 narchies. 
 
 28. Lao-Tseu and Jesus, the eighth and ninth Messen- 
 gers of God, A.M. 7200 and 7800. 
 
 29. The coronation of these two Messengers in Heaven. 
 
 30. Their teaching shewn to be identical with that of 
 
 their predecessors. 
 
 31. Mo' Ahmed, the tenth Messenger, A.M. 8400. 
 
 32. The monotheistic hymn of praise in Heaven. 
 
 33. Chengiz-Khan, the eleventh Messenger of God, AM. 
 
 9000. 
 
 34. The Seven trumpet-bearing Angels. 
 
 35. The French Empire and Napoleon. 
 
 36. The Angels with the Seven last Plagues. 
 
 37. The great hierarchic Capitals of the world described, 
 
 and their fate predicted. 
 
 38. The lamentation of the wicked over their down- 
 
 fall. 
 
 39. The dirge of the Destroying Angel. 
 
 40. The symbolic vision of the British empire. 
 
 41. The symbolic vision of the American empire. 
 
 42. The final overthrow of all evil dominion by the mo- 
 notlieistic power. 
 
SUMMARY. 499 
 
 43. Tlie twelfth Messenger of God, A.M. 9600. 
 
 44. A vision of his followers. 
 
 45. The Voice of Heaven proclaiming his epiphany. 
 
 46. The glorious congregation of believers. 
 
 47. A vision of Angels who follow after the Twelfth. 
 
 48. The command given to the sixth trumpet-bearing 
 AngeL 
 
 49. The sounding of the Seventh Trumpet. 
 
 50. Prologue to the dissolution of the Kalpa. 
 
 51. Another vision of Angels who succeed the Twelfth 
 
 52. The opening of the Fifth Seal. 
 
 53. The commandment to the Seven Angels. 
 
 54. The Seven Angels pour out their vials. 
 
 55. The opening of the Sixth Seal. 
 
 56. The vision of the Martyrs for Truth. 
 
 57. The opening of the Seventh Seal : and the end of the 
 
 Kalpa. 
 
 58. The Majesty of the Lord God is seen. 
 
 59. The day of the Great Judgment. 
 
 60. The day of transmigrations into vaiious life. 
 
 61. The renovation into new beauty. 
 
 62. Vision of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 63. The Messengers claim their followers from God. 
 
 64. The promises of the Holy Spirit to the good. 
 
 65. The vision of the New Paradise. 
 
 66. The same vision continued. 
 
 67. The River and the Tree of Life. 
 
 68. The glorification of the Holy City. 
 
 69. The ambrosial "Watei-s, and the Trees of Heaven. 
 
 70. The great and final Commandmeut. 
 
AnOKAAYTIS 
 fiANNOY, TOY GEOY AOrOY. 
 
 'Ev "Ap)(j^ '^v 6 Aoyos, KOL 6 Aoyos t^i/ rrpos tov 0€ov, Kat 
 ^cos 17V 6 Aoyos* ovTos yjv iv 'o-pxv '''pos tov Geov IlavTa 
 St AvToO iyevero kol xiopls Avtov kykvero ovSe kv 6 ykyovcv. 
 
 *Ev AvTW {(0^ tJv, KOi ^ ^0}rj tJv to cfxSs T(£v dvOpCOTTOyV' KOI TO 
 (jilOS €V TTJ (TKOTL(f. ^aiV€t, Kol 7^ (TKOTttt tt^TO OD KarkXafSiV 
 
 Ey€i/€TO dvdpoiTTOs dTr€(TTa\fJL€vo<s irapa. Geov, ovofxa dvT<d 
 '^dvinj^' ovTOS "qXOev ets fiaprvptav., tva fxapTvprjcrrj Trepl rov 
 ^a>T09, tva 7ravT€S irto-Tcvcrwo-t St dvrov. Ot'K i^v cKctvos 
 TO ^ws, aAA,' tva fxapTvpyjarrj Trepl rov ^wtos • to ^ws to dAr^ 
 
 ^tVOV, 6 cf>(OTi^€l TrdvTa dvOpCDTTOV kpypfXiVOV Its TOV KOCTflOV 
 
 'Ev T(^ KOCTfK^ ^Jv, Kat 6 Koo'lio's 8l dvTOv €(f)<ji)ri(rOrj, kol 6 
 Kocr/jtos ttTJTov ovK eyvo). Ets Ta tSta iJA^e, Kat 6t tStot avrov 
 o^ irapkXafBov. "Ocrot Se e'Aa^ov aiJTov, eSwKCv awots 
 i^ovcriav rkKva 0€ov yevkcrOai' 6l ovk e^ alfidrcDV, 6v8e ck 
 ^cArJ/xaTos crapKos, ovSe €k ^eAi^/xaTos dvS/aos, aAA' Ik 0cov 
 eyyevqOricrav. Kat o Aoyos o-otp^ lyevcTO Kat lo'K'^vcocrev 
 Iv 17/Atv, TrX-jprjs x^ptTOS Kat dAry^etas 'Aixrjv. 
 
 KE$. 1. 
 AnOKAAY'^12 *Io-o-7^s, Kat tov Xpta-Tou, '))V eSwKcv o 
 Gcos, Sei^at TOis SovAots auTov d Set yevecr^at, Kat €<r'i)fMav€V, 
 
THE APOCALYPSE 
 
 OF CANNES, THE WORD OF GOD. 
 
 THE INSCRIPTION BY ENOCH. 
 
 In Archa was the Word, and the Word was in the 
 presence of God, and the Word was a god. This was in the 
 beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and 
 without Him was not anything made that is made. In 
 Him was Life, and the Life was the light of men. And 
 the Light shineth in darkness, and the darkness compre- 
 hendeth it not. There was a man sent from God whose 
 name was Oannes. The same came for a Witness to bear 
 witness of the Light, that all men through him might be- 
 lieve. He was not the Light, but was sent to bear wit- 
 ness of the Light : the true light which enlightens every 
 man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, 
 and the world was enlightened by him, and the world 
 knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own 
 received him not. But as many as received him to 
 them gave he power to become the Children of God ; 
 which were bom not by bloods, nor of the will of the 
 flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God : And the Word 
 became flesh, and dwelt among us full of grace and truth. 
 Amen. 
 
 1. 
 A Revelation of IssA, and the Anointed One, which 
 God gave to make manifest to his Servants, those things 
 
502 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 dvra aTTOO-retAas Sta tov 'AyyeXov avTov t(^ 8ovX(p avrou 
 *Qidvvrj' "Os e/xapTvprja-e tov Aoyov tov 0€Ov, koI tyjv 
 <l>av€p(j}(riv 'lo'orjs^ kol tov X/ato-rov, ocra eiSe. MaKaptos 6 
 dvaytvaKTKWv, koI ol aKovovTes tovs Xoyovs Trjs Ilpo(f>7]T€ias, 
 Kal Tr)povvT€S Ttt Iv OLVTy yeypafifieva. 
 
 KE$. 2. 
 
 *I2avv*y? rats Ittto, l/cKArycrtats rais iv Trj'Acrla.' Xapt? 
 V/AtV Kttt clp'qvrj (XTTO 6 wv Kat 6 ijv Ka6 6 ep)(6ix€vos' koI oltto 
 Twv eTTTo, nv€v/>iaTtov a IcTTtv evtoTTtov TOV Spovov aVTOV' 
 'Afii^v 'ISov, epx^Tai fxcTa twv ve^eAwv, Kat ot/'crat 'Avrov 
 Tras 6<f>6aX[xoS' 'Afi'qv. 'Eyw et^ut A12, Aeyct Kvptos 6 
 Geos, 6 cov, Ka6 6 ijv, Kat 6 epxojJ^evos, 6 rravTOKpaToyp. 'Eyw 
 '12avr>;s, 6 dSeA^os v/xwv, eycvofxrjv iv UvevfxaTL kv Ty KvpiaKy 
 rifikp(i.' KoX rJKovcra ottlcto) fxov (fnovrjv fxeydXrjv ws crdATTiyyos, 
 Aeyov(rrys* *Ey(6 6t/>it AO, 6 ^r/awTos Kat 6 eV^^aros* Kat 6 
 jSAeTTCts ypdxpov els /Sl^Xlov, koI TrefMxpov Tats cttto. ckkXt)- 
 (Tiats. Kat €7r€crTpexpa f^Xkireiv ttjv (fxovrjv tjtls iXaXrjcre 
 fX€T €fiov' /cat eTTLO-Tpexpas cTSov ItttoI Ai;;(vias XP^^^^' Kat 
 €V /AefT^ Twv ItttoL Xvxviiov o/xotov Yt(^ dvdpiOTTOv, evSeSvfxivov 
 7ro8Tf]prj, KOL Trepie^isio-pikvov irpos to is fxaa-Tois ((ovr^v xpvcrrjv 
 *H Se K€(f)aXrj avTov kol at Tpt^^s Xcvkol ws epiov AevKov, ws 
 ^tcov Kat ot 6cf>$aXfM0L avTov a>s <f)Xo^ Trvpos' Kat oi ttoScs 
 avTOV o/xoiot x^'^'^o^'^^'^^? <^5 €v KafXLV(^ 7r€7rvp(j)fj,ivoi' Kat 
 >) ^(ovij avTov ws <^(ov^ vSaTWV ttoAAwi/. Kat c^^*' ^^^ '''27 
 Se^t^ avTOV X^^P' 'A(rT€/oas 'Etttcx' Kat Ik tov crTo/xaTOS auTOV 
 pofxcjiaia Sia-TOfios o^eta €K7rop€voix€vr)' Kal rj oxf^Cs avTOV, ws 6 
 rjXios <f>aiV€L €V Ty Svvd/xet dvTOv. Kat oVe efSov avTov, €Tr€(ra 
 irpos Tovs 7rd8a§ avTOv w? vcKpos' Kal edyKC ttjv Se^udv avTOV 
 ki? kfX€ Aeywv M'^ cfio/Sov' kyio eifxi 6 TrpCiTos Kal 6 €(rxo-Tos, 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 503 
 
 wliich shall come to pass ; and He hath signified them by 
 the sending of his Messenger ; his Servant Cannes, who 
 hath declared the Word of God, and the manifestation 
 of IssA and the Anointed One ; which he beheld also. 
 Blessed is he who knoweth — blessed also shall they be 
 who hear the words of this Prophecy, and shall keep the 
 things that are therein written. 
 
 2. 
 
 Oannes to the Seven Churches which are in Asia ; 
 Gmce be with you, and Peace from Him, who is, and 
 was, and is to come; and from the Seven Spirits that 
 are before his Throne. Amen ! Behold he cometh with 
 the clouds, and every eye shall see Him. Amen ! I am 
 AC. saith the Lord God, who is, and who was, and 
 who will be : (1) — the Almighty. I, Cannes, your bro- 
 ther, was in the Spirit, in the day of the Lord ; and 
 lo ! behind me I heard a great Voice as of a trumpet. 
 Raying : I am AC : (2) the First and the Last : and 
 what thou seest write into a Book, and send it to the 
 Seven Churches. And I turned to see what the Voice 
 was that spake with me ; and, turning, I beheld Seven 
 Golden Lamp-bearers; and in the midst of the Seven 
 Lamp-bearers, I saw one like unto a Son of Man, He was 
 clothed to the foot with a flowing gai-ment ; and was girt 
 about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his 
 hair were pure white like wool ; like snow itself : and 
 his eyes were as a flashing flame ; his feet were like smelt- 
 ing brass, when it burneth brightly in a furnace of fire, 
 and his voice was as the voice of many waters. And in his 
 right hand he held Seven Stars ; and out of his mouth 
 there went a sharp double-edged sword ; and his appear- 
 
504 AnOKAAY^I2. 
 
 Kol 6 ^wi/* KOL eyevofirjv vcKpos, kol iSov ^cov ct/xi ct? tovs 
 dfcwvas Twv atwvwv Kat e^^^ ''"^5 kXcls tov Oavdrov Kal rov 
 A8ov. Vpaxj/ov ovv d efSes, Kat a ettrt, Kat a /AcAAet ytvea-Oac 
 fxera ravTa' to jxvo'T'qpLov twv 'ETrrct 'Ao-tc/qwv (Sv efSes CTri 
 T^S Se^ia? /xov, Kat rots CTrra Avx^'^a? ^as ^P^^^^' ^* 'ETrra 
 *A(rr€/)€9, ayyeAot twv eTrrot eKKAi^criwv ctcri* Kat at Av;;(vtat at 
 
 €TTa, eTTTOt €KKXY]a-LaL €LCrL. 
 
 KE$. 3. 
 KAr e'tSov, Kat tSov x^V €KT€TafX€vr} irpos ftc, Kat ev ai'Tr;, 
 K€(f>aXis f3if3Xiov' Kat dv€iAiyo'€V dvr^v evwTrtov /xov, Kai €V 
 dvTr/ yeypafifxeva to, epLTrpoa-Oev Kat ret o7rto-w Kat kykypairro 
 Opyjvos, Kat /acAos, Kat dvat* Kat ItTrc irpos fi€^ 'Yte dv^/OWTrov, 
 (tttJOl Itti rovs irohas crov, Kat AaA^crw tt/oos cr€' Kat KaTd<f>ay€ 
 TTjv KecfiaXlSa ravT-qv Kat ^A^ev kir ifxe IIvcv/Aa, Kat dve- 
 Aa^€ fJL€, KOL k^fjpk fx€, KOL ecrTrj(r€ fxe CTrt tovs TVoSas /aov, 
 
 Kat YjKOVOV dvTOV AaAoWTOS TT/OOS P'€' Kat 8t^V0t^€ TO (TTOfia 
 
 fiov Kat kiJ/dtixLa-i /x€ rrjv K€^aAt8a' Kat ItTTC tt/oos /a€, *Yt€ 
 dv^pwTTov, TO (TTOfxa (TOV <f)dy€Tai, Kat i) KotAta crov TrXrjO'q- 
 (r€Tat T>;s K€(fiaXi8os TavTrj<s rrjs SeSo/xevrys ets ere* Kat €(j>ayov 
 dvTTjv^ KOL eyeveTo kv t(^ (TTOfiarl fiov, ws fikXi yXvKd^ov. 
 
 KE*. 4. 
 
 KAI ctSov, Kat ISov ^dXy] rjp)(€TO aTro ^oppoi, Kat 
 vc^cAry fxeydXif] kv avri^^ koX <fi€yyo<s kvkX(^ avTOv, Kat Trvp, 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 505 
 
 ance was like the sun when he glittei*s in his full splen- 
 dour. And when I saw him I fell before his feet, even 
 as though I wei*e a dead man : but he laid his right hand 
 on me, saying : Fear thou not ! I am the First and the 
 Last . I am he who lives and dies, yet am I Life unto the 
 ages of ages . and I hold the keys of Death and the In- 
 visible. Write then the things which thou hast seen ; 
 the things that are, and those that are to be hereafter : 
 the sacred mystery of the Seven Stars, which thou didst 
 see upon my right hand ; and of the Seven Golden Lamp- 
 bearei-s. The Seven Stars are the Messengers of the 
 Seven Churches ; and the Seven Lamp-bearers are those 
 Seven Churches. 
 
 3. 
 
 And I looked, and lo, a hand was extended unto me, 
 and behold in it a chapter of a Book, and he spread it 
 out before me, and in it were written the things that are 
 before, and the things that are past : and lamentation, 
 and mourning and woe was written ; and he said to me : 
 Son of Man stand upon thy feet, and I will speak with 
 thee ; and eat thou this roll. And the Spirit came upon 
 me, and uplifted me, and raised me, and set me upon my 
 feet ; and I heard him that spake unto me : and he opened 
 my mouth and caused me to cat that roll, and he said to 
 me, Son of Man, let thy mouth eat and thy stomach be 
 filled with this the roll that I have given : and I did eat, 
 and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness. 
 
 4. 
 
 And I looked, and lo ! a whirlwind out of the North ; 
 and in the whirlwind there was a great Cloud j and a daz- 
 
 Z 
 
506 AnOKAAY^IZ 
 
 e^acrrpaTTTOV koI kv rw IJt'£(r(^ avTOv ws opacri^ 'qXcKrpov Iv 
 
 fl€(TOi TOV TTVpoSy KOL cjiCyyOS €V aVTi^' Kat €V T^ fX€(r(x) ws 
 
 6{JiOi(0}JLa TecrcrdptDV Zwwv Kat avrrj rj opacTLS avrwv ofioiODfia 
 dvOpcoTTov kic avToW KoX rkcr(Tap(x 7rp6cr(o7ra t<j> evl, koI 
 rccrcrapc<5 Trrlprye? no evl' Kat to, aKcXr) avrwv opda^ /cat 
 impiiiTol 01 TToSes at'Twi/, Kat (nnvOyjpes ws i^aa-rpaTrrdiv 
 ^aA)(os, Kat iXa(j>pal at Trrepvyes aiJTWv Kat X^'P ^ Kvdpio- 
 irov v7roKdr(i)$€v rcov TrrepvyiDV avriov cTrt ra recrcrapa />te/37y 
 avTwv Kat ra TrpocnoTra avroyv rQv Tecrcrdpojv ovk kTrca-rpk- 
 <^ovTO €v rw jSaSi^etv dvrd' CKacrroi avrevavrt tov 7rpocr(x>7rov 
 avTcov lirop^vovTO' Kat oixoloxtls twv TrpocrwTTWv auTt3»/, 
 7rp6(r<i)7rov ' AvdpioTrov, Kat 7rp6cro)7rov Acovtos ck Se^ttov rots 
 rka-crapcrtv, kxI Trpoa-oyTzov Mocr^ov !£ dptcTTepiov rots recra-ap' 
 (TLV, Kat TrpocrioTTOv 'Aerov rots rkcrcrapa-Lv. Kat at 7rTepvy€9 
 aiTcuv cKTCTafjL€vaL dvoiOev rots rkcrcrapcrLv^ cKare/JO) Svo 
 0"we^€iiy/xevat Trpos aAArjAas, Kat 8i5o eTTCKaADTTTOV i'lrdvoi 
 TOV o^w/xaros dvTwv Kat kKdrepov Kara irpodoyTrov avrov 
 eTTopevcTO' ov dv rjv to Trvevfxa Tropevofxevov iTropevovro, Kat 
 OVK €7r€orrp€</)ov Kat Iv fxkcrM rwv Zwwv opacn's cos dvOpdKoyv 
 7rvpo<s Kato/x€vwv, ws o^t? Aa/XTraScov arvarTp€(l>oixkvuiV dva. 
 fxkcrov Twv Zcowv Kat cftkyyos rov Tri'pos, Kat €k rov 7rv/)os 
 e^eTTopcvkro do-TpaTrrj. Kat €:8ov, Kat tSou rpo^os cis IttI 
 T^S y^'Js exo/-i€i/o$ Twv Zw(ov Tois Tkcra-apa-LV Kat to cfoos 
 Twv Tpo\Civ (OS €t8o9 6apa-€is, Kat ojxoiOipLa 'kv rots Tk(r(rap(rtv, 
 Kat TO epyov avrCiv ijv, Ka^ws av cf-j^ Tpo)(os €v Tpo)(i5' Kat 
 CTTt ra Tccrcrapa />te/3^; dvTwv e^ropevovTO* ovk iTrkcrrpecjiov iv 
 T(^ TTopcvccrdaL dvTa, Kat v\^os ijv dvTOts* Kat etSoi/ dvTO, Kat 
 ot vwTOt dvTojv TT/Xiypcts o^^aA/xojv kvkAo^cv TOiS rk<T<Tap(Tiv' 
 Kat Iv T(^a TTopevecrOaL to. Zwa, €7ropevovTO ol Tpo)(ol l^o/jtcvot 
 avTwv Kat Iv T(o c^aipciv to. Zwa aTro ttJs y/}? i^rjpovTO ol 
 rpoyoi- Ov dv vjv 7} v€(fikXr), Ikci to Trvev/^ta tov TropeveaOaiy 
 vop€vovTo 01 rpo\ol, Kat i^ypovro <rvv avTois* otoTt Trvivfia, 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 507 
 
 zling splendoui' in the cycle thereof ; and a fire flashing 
 lightniDgs. And in the centre thereof was the appear- 
 ance of a diamond, in the centre of the very fire : and a 
 blinding brightness was in the midst. And out of the 
 central flame appeai'ed the likeness of four Living Beings, 
 and this was the appearance which they showed : the 
 likeness of a Man was over them, and there were four 
 faces in each one ; and there were four Avings to every one ; 
 and their legs were straight ; and their feet were plumed 
 with wings ; and their sparklings were like brass emitting 
 flashes of light ; and light as air were their feathered 
 pinions ; and the hand of a Man was under theii' wings ; 
 a hand upon each of their four sides. And the faces of 
 the four turned not in their goings, but they went every 
 one straightforward ; and this was the likeness of their 
 faces : the face of a Man and the face of a Lion out of 
 the right of the Four, and the face of a young Bull out 
 of the left of the Four, and the face of an Eagle in the 
 Four. And their wings were opened out above the Four ; 
 two wings of each one were entwined with the others ; 
 and two covered their bodies from above ; and they went 
 eveiy one sti-aightforward ; whither the Spirit willed that 
 they should go they went, and they turned not when they 
 went. And in the midst of these Living Splendoui*s I 
 saw as it were the appearance of buniing coals of fire 
 and as the likeness of lamps rajiidly whirled, through 
 the mid centre of these Living Beings; and the clear 
 glittering brightness of flame, and lightning flashed out 
 of that flame. And I looked, and lo ! one wheel was on 
 the eai-th, and it proceeded from the Living Creatures in 
 the Four; and the likeness of the wheels was as the 
 brightness of beryl ; and in the Four there was but one 
 
 z2 
 
508 AnOKAAY^I2. 
 
 ^(nrjs €V TOiS rpoxoiS. Kat ofxoiMfia virep KccfiaXrj^ avrwv 
 
 TWV ZwWV (UOrCt (TT€p€(t)lXa (US OpaCTlS Kpva-ToXXoV €KT€Tafxiv(i)V 
 
 cTTi Twi/ TTTcpvyiov avT(i)V kjravdidiV Kat VTro/carw^ei/ tou 
 crrepew/xaTOS at Trrepvyes avTO)v iKTerafxivai, TTTepva-arofxevat 
 erepa ry ere/o^. cKdorroi 8vo eTrtKaAiVrovo-at ra (T(x)p,ara 
 aiVwv Kat -qKovov r-qv (fiO)vr)V ro)v TTTcpvyoiv avrcov iv TiS 
 7ropev€(rdaL avro, d»s <fi(j)in^v vSaruyv ttoAAwv Kai ei/ t^ IcrTdvat 
 dvra, KaT€7ravov at' Trrepvyes auTwv. 
 
 KE^. 5. 
 
 Kat iSov cfion'-T) inrepdvoiOev tov (TT€p€U)/xaTO<s tov oVtos 
 VTrep K€(fia\rj<s dvTOJV ws o/oaats Ai^ov craTrcfiCtpov ofxoLOjfxa 
 Opovov Itt dvTov^ Kol lirX tov ofMoitofiaros tov Opovov 
 o/xoiw/xa COS € Bos ^ Av$pu>7rov dvioOev Kat dviXafSiv /xe 
 nvcu/xa^/cat t'-Kovara KaTOTna-div fiov cf)(ji)vr)v o"ctcrju,ov /xeyaAov, 
 ivXayopievr) ^ 5o^a KvpLov Ik tov tottov avTOV' Kat ei'Sov 
 (jidyvrjv TTTcpvyiov twv Zwwv TTTepva-a-o/xiviiDV €T€pa irpos tt^v 
 hipavy Kol <j)(avrj tQv Tpo^iav l)(p[xivq avTwv, Kat <^wn) tov 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 509 
 
 radiant brightness : and the form of the wheels and their 
 constiiiction was in this wise ; a wheel within a wheel ; 
 and when they went, they went by their four parts ; and 
 they turned not when they went. The wheels had also a 
 sublimity of greatness ; and I viewed them, and their 
 bodies were full of eyes, (3) round about the Four. 
 And when these Living Splendours moved, the wheels 
 proceeding from them moved also ; and when these Liv- 
 ing Splendoui-s lifted themselves from earth, the wheels 
 were also lifted up with them. And wheresoever was the 
 Cloud, thither did the spirit will them to go ; and thither 
 also went the wheels ; and they were lifted with 
 them on high : for in these wheels there was a living 
 spirit. And the likeness over the heads of the Living 
 Splendours was as the shining starry firmament, and 
 as the radiancy of crystal arched, over their waving 
 wings from heaven. And under the star-canopy were 
 their wings extended, fluttering, waving, one towards the 
 other ; but each one used two, to veil their shining bodies. 
 And I heard the sound of their wings when they went, 
 as the deep voice of many waters ; and when they rested 
 they folded their wings. 
 
 5. 
 
 And behold a Voice came from above ; from the firma- 
 ment of still's arching over their heads ; and I saw as it 
 were the si)lendour of a sappliire stone : and the appari- 
 tion of a Throne was over it : and over the appaiition ot 
 this royal Throne, an apparition as it were of a human being 
 from heaven. And the Divine Spirit lifted me on high ; 
 and I heard behind me the voice of a great rushing ; and 
 the Glory of the Lord in blessing from its place. And 
 
510 AnOKAAY^PIS. 
 
 creicrixov' koX to Ylv^vixa dveXa/Biv /jLCy Kal et'Sov ws o^tv 
 •i^XiKTpov, OiTro opda-cois 6cr(JiVO<5 ical cTrdvio, Kal diro opaareo)? 
 ocr</)Vos Kal ed's Karw et'Sov opaa-iv TrvpoSy Kal to <^€yyo? 
 avToi kvkXo). *fis dpo.(rL<s to^ov, orav y ev t>; vecjieXri iv 
 7]{X£pai<s v€tov, ovtco'5 t) arTaa-LS tov cf^syyovs KVKXoOev Avttj 
 7} opacTLS o/ioiw/zaros S6^y]s ]^vpiov' kol elSov, Kal ttltttco IttI 
 7rp6(roj—6y /xov, /cat t'JKova-a <}iOi}'Yjv XoAovvtos' koI e^eretrei/ 
 ofMOLuypLa ;)(et/5os, Kal dviXafSev /x€ r>^? Kopvifirjs p-ov, Kal ave- 
 Xa/Sev pe Ilvev/xa dva fxia-ov Tyjs yrj<s /cat am fxecrov tov 
 ovpavoV) /cat rjyayev /*€ €ts opdcriv Oeov, Kal So^av KvpLov 
 Qeov- 
 
 KE4\ 6. 
 Kat />t€Ta TttUTtt €t8oV) /cat ^vpa di/ewy^aej/i^ ^^ '^^ 6vpav(3, 
 Kal 17 (jxavYj rj tt/xoti^ 7)1/ rJKov(ra, ws (raATTiyyos AaAovo-^;? 
 /x€T e/xov, Aeywv 'AvdjSa wSe, Kat Set^w crot a Set yei/ecr^at 
 /xera TavTa. Kat €u6^£ws eyevopLrjv iv TLvevpiaTL' Kal ISoV) 
 6p6vo<s c/ceiTO Iv Tw ovpavco, Kal cttI tov Opovov KaQ-qpLevos' 
 Kat 6 Ka6i^p€vo<5 op^OLOs opd<T€L XiOoi lacTTTtSt /cat crayoSto)' 
 Kat T/jis /cv/cAo^er TOV dpovov opbOLos opdcrei cr/>ta/)ay8tVw. Kat 
 Kwc/Xo^ei/ Tou dpovov OpovoL eiKoa-L Teara'apes' koI IttI tovs 
 Opovovs eiKocri Tfcrcra/oas irp^crf^vTepovs Ka9i)piivovs Trept^e- 
 fSXyyxivovs kv lp,aTLOL<s XevKots' Kal €7rt ras K€(jiaXa<s avT<Sv 
 (rT€cj)dvovs XpvcTovs. Kat €k toi) Opovov iK7rop€vovTai dcTTpa- 
 TCfXi Kat (}i(aval Kal fSpovTar Kal cTrra Xap.7rdBes 7rvpo<s Kaio- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 511 
 
 I perceived the sound of the wings of the Living Ones ; 
 waving, fluttering one amid the others : and the sound 
 of the wheels proceeding from them ; and the sound of a 
 rushing host. And the Divine Spirit raised me on high ; 
 and lo, a likeness as the appearance of diamond, from the 
 appearance of the loins upward ; and from the appearance 
 of the loins downwards I saw the appearance as of fire, 
 with a dazzling splendour of light in the midst. As the 
 appearance of the Rainbow in the cloud, when the min 
 falls in the day time ; so was the permanence of that daz- 
 zling Splendour ; breaking out of the inmost centre. This 
 was the manifestation of the likeness of the Lord's Glory. 
 And I beheld, and lo ! I fell upon my face ; and I heard 
 the Voice of one who spake ; and he put forth the appa- 
 rition of a hand ; and took me up by a lock of mine 
 head ; and the Divine Spirit lifted me on high between 
 the earth and heaven ; and brought me into the Vision 
 of God; and before the Glory of the Lord God 
 
 6. 
 
 And after this I looked and saw ; and behold, a Gate 
 was opened in Heaven ; and the heavenly Voice wliich 
 first I heard, speaking with me as in trumpet tones, spake 
 again : Ascend thou by this path ; and I will shew thee 
 future times and things. And in a moment I was before 
 the Spirit of God ; and behold a Throne was set in heaven : 
 and One sat upon the Throne ; like a diamond and fieiy 
 sard beautiful to see. And over and about the Throne was 
 a Rainbow, in sight like unto an emerald. And ciiclcd 
 round the Throne were four and twenty Thrones, and on 
 these four and twenty Thrones, Ancients sat : (4) they 
 were clothed in robes of glittering white, and on their 
 
512 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 fievai ivcoTTiov rov Opovov, at etcrt to. ItttoI Trvevfiara rov 
 Oeov' Kat ivcoTTLov rov Opovov BaXacrcra vaXivrj, ofxoca Kpv- 
 craAAw* Kat iv /xeo-o) rov Opovov kol kvkXo) tov Opovov 
 T€(ra-apa Zwa yefiovra 6cf)0aXp.(Sv e/xTrpoa-Oev kol oVtcr^ev. 
 Kat TO Zioov TO 7rp(jjTov oixoiov XiovTL, Kat TO ^evr^pov ZiSov 
 ofioiov /Aocr^^o), Kat tj rpiTov Zoiov €)(ov to Trp6cro)Trov dv~ 
 Op(07rov, Kat TO riraprov Zcuov o/xotov a€T(5 TreTO/x/vo). Kat 
 Tot ria-a-apa Zcoa, tV Ka^' ei/ avTcov expv dva TTTipvya? e^, 
 kvkAo^cv Kat ecrioOev yefxovcTLv o^OaXpL'SiV Kat dvairavcrLV ovk 
 txovcTLV y)fX€pa<s Kat vvkt^<s, Xiyovrer "Aytos, dycos, ayto? 
 Kvptos 6 Geis 6 TravTOKpoLTOip' dyios-, dyios, aytos Kvptos, 
 o 7jv, Kat 6 (uV, Kat 6 €pxoix€vo'5. Kat oVai' 8wcrovo-fc Ta Z<ua 
 So^ai/ Kat Tiprjv Kat cv)(^apL(rTtav no KaOrjliivi^ lirl rov Opovov, 
 Tw ^(oi/Tt eis Tovs atcovas nSv atwi/wv, Trccrovi'Tat ot eiKocrc 
 T€(ra-ap€<s Trpea-^vrepoi ivcoTrtov rov KaOrjfxivov €7rt tov Opovov^ 
 Kat 7rpo(rKvvrja-ov(Ti rco ^Mvn e's tovs attCvas tc5v atwvwj/, Kat 
 /3aXova-i rov<s crrcffidvovs dvrcov ev'WTTiov tou OpovoVj A-cyovTcs* 
 "A^LOS it, Kv/ote, Xaf3€iv rrjv So^av Kat t^v rLfxrjv Kai tt^i/ 
 Svva/XLv' OTt o-u €KTi(ras to, 7ra;/Ta, Kat 8ta to OiXi]iid <rvo 
 
 ClO't, Kat €KTlO"^^0"aV. 
 
 KE^. 7. 
 
 KAI cfSov eTTt T?);/ 8e£tav tou KaOt]}J^ivov eVt tou Opovov 
 Pl/SXlov yiypaiJi/xivov 'i(T0i6e.v Kat cTna-Oev, KarecrcjipayLcr- 
 p-evov a-ffipayio-Lv kirrd. Kat ci'^ov ayyeXov larxypbv Krjpva- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 513 
 
 heads were golden diadems. And out of the Throne light- 
 nings leaped ; and thunders also, and deep Yoices rolled ; 
 and Seven Lp,mps of Fire blazed before the Throne ; — 
 these are the Seven Spii-iis of God. And before the 
 Throne there was a sea of hyaline, bright and clear as 
 pure crystal : and in the midst of the Throne and the 
 Cycle of the Throne, were four Living Splendours : and 
 they were full of eyes before and behind. And the 
 fii-st living One was like a Lion ; and the second living 
 One was like a Bull ; and the third living One had the 
 face of a Man ; and the fourth living One was like an 
 Eagle when flying. And the four Living Ones each had 
 six wings; and they were full of eyes all round and 
 within ; and they have no rest either in the day or 
 in the night ; saying, Holy ! Holy ! Holy ! is the 
 Lord ; the Lord God who is Almighty. Holy ! Holy ! 
 Holy ! is the Lord ; who was, and is, and is to come. And 
 when these Living Ones give praise and gloiy, and lan- 
 guage of thanksgiving to the Sitter on the Throne, who 
 lives throughout the ages of ages ; then the four and 
 twenty Ancients fall down before the Sitter on the 
 Throne ; and worship the Life that lives throughout the 
 ages of ages ; and cast their diadems before the foot of 
 the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, Sovereign, to 
 receive honour, glory, and dominion : for thou didst 
 form all these things, and by thy will they are and 
 they were formed. 
 
 7. 
 And I saw in the right had of the Sitter upon the 
 Throne, a Book, written within and without ; sealed with 
 seven seals : and I saw a strong Angel proclaiming in a 
 
 z 3 
 
514 AIIOKAAY^IS. 
 
 <rovTa cfxavy fJLcydXrj' Tts icrriv a^tos duot^ai to ^t^Xiov, 
 Kol Xvcra.i ras (T<jipa'y28a^ avrov ; koI ovSels rjSvvaTO iv n^ 
 ovpavi^, ovBe Ittc tvJs yrjs, ovBe vTroKano rrj? yrj<s, dvot^ai to 
 fSi^Xlov, ov8e /SXeTreiv avro. Kai lyw e/cAatoy ttoAXci, ort 
 ovSeis a^tos evpeO^] dvot^ai to jBipXiov, ovtc /SXiTreiv avTo. 
 Kat c?s eK Tc5v TrpecrfSvTepoJV Xiyei fior Mr) KXaie- ISov, 
 €ViKrja-€v 6 Aewj/ 6 e/c rr/s (jivXrj<s '18, ai/ot^at ro fSt^Xlov Kal 
 ras eTTTtt crcj^payLSas avTov. Kat eT8ov ev />ie(r(^ tov Opovov 
 Kat Twv T€crcra/3wv Zwwv, Kat Iv /u-eoro) twv 7rp€(rf3vT€po)v 'Ap- 
 viov ex*^'' KipaTa SwSeKa, Kat ocfiOaXfxovs SwSeKa, oT etcrt ra 
 TTv^viidTa SwScKa Tou Gcov, TO, aTTecTTaXixiva els Tracrav ttjv 
 yrjv. Kat to Kpvlov ^XBe kol €iXr]<fi€ to fSijSXiov €k t^s 
 Se^tas Tou Ka$r)fiivov Itti tov Bpovov. Kat ot€ eXafSe to ^l- 
 pXiov, TO, Tecrcrapa Zwa Kat ot eiKocriTeo-crapes TrpearfivTcpoi 
 hrearov evcoinov tov ^Apviov, €)(ovt€<s cKacrTos Kiddpas, kol 
 <j>idXas xpv(rds yejxova-as ^ii/xta/xaTWi/. Kat ci'Sovo-tv ojSt^v 
 Katnjv, AeyovTes* "A^tos cf XajSetv to /?ty8A,iov, Kat ai/oi^cw 
 Tas crcf>payL8a<s avTov' oVt a-cfiayjcrrj kol dyopdcreis din^Tovs 
 Tip Gew Iv TO) ai[i(iTi (Tov a< Trdcrrjs (fivXyjs Kat yAw(ro-r^s Kat 
 Attov Kat e^vovs, Kat irolrfcreis aiJTOvs t(^ Oc^ rjfiiov f3a(ri- 
 Aets Kat tepcis, Kat f^acnXevo-ovcriv Itti t-^s y^s. Kat cfSov, 
 Kat rJKOvcra cfioyvrjv dyyeXoyv ttoAAwv kvkA<^ tov Opovov koI 
 ro)v Zwwv Kat twv Trpea-jSvTepcov Kat ijv 6 dpiOfxhs avToiv 
 fivptdScs p^vpidBuyv, kol x^^^^iSes x^^'"^^^> AeyovT€S (jxovy 
 fieydXy "A^tov kcrTi to 'Apviov Xa^eiv ttjv Bvvapnv Kal 
 TrXovTov Kat <ro<^iav Kat Icxyv kol TtfMrjv kol So^av Kat euAo- 
 yiai'. Kat ttolv KTia-fia o kcTTiv kv T(^ ovpavi^f kol Itti t^s 
 y^)?, Kat vTTOKdTOi Trj<s yrj<5, Kat Ixt tt}? OaXda-arjs a ka-Ti, 
 Kat Ta €v avTo?? TravTa, rJKovcra XkyovTas' T!(§ KaOr^fxevio kirl 
 TOV Bpovov Kat Ti^'Apviip 17 evAoyta, Kat 17 tlhyi, Kat t^ 8o^a, 
 Kat TO KpdTOS Its Tovs atwvas twv aiwvwv 'Afxrji', 'Afx-qv' 
 Kat Ta TiCTQ-apa Z(aa eXeyoVj *Afirjvy 'Afxi/jv' kol ot ctKOcrt- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 515 
 
 great voice : Who is worthy to open the Book, and to 
 loose the seals that be upon it ? and there was no one 
 able in the heaven above ; nor upon the eai-th, nor 
 under the earth, to open the Book, nor even to look upon 
 it. And I wept much because no one was found worthy 
 to open the book nor even to look upon it. And one of 
 the Ancients spoke unto me, saying : Weep not ! Weep 
 thou not ! Behold ! the Lion of the tribe of Jid ; — he 
 hath conquered and shall open the Book ; and the seven 
 fcjeals that are thereon. And I beheld and saw in the 
 middle of the Throne, and of the four Living Ones and 
 the sacred Ancients, a young Lamb, with twelve horns 
 and twelve eyes, which are the twelve sent unto the 
 whole earth. And the Lamb advanced and took the 
 Book out of the right hand of the Sitter upon the throne ; 
 and when he took the Book, the four Living Ones, and 
 the four-and-twenty Ancients fell before the Lamb : hold- 
 ing each hai'ps and golden vials, filled with sweet and 
 sacred peifumes. And they chanted a new song, saying, 
 Thou art worthy to take the Book, and to imseal the 
 seals thereof ; because thou shalt be sacrificed, and thou 
 shall redeem imto God mortal creatures in thy blood out 
 of every tribe and tongue, and people and nation ; and 
 thou shalt make them kings and priests unto our God, 
 and they shall nile over the whole eai*th. And I beheld, 
 and heard the voice of many Angels, round about the 
 Throne : and of the Living Creatures, and of the An- 
 cients also ; and their number was ten thousand times 
 ten thousand : and they were thousands of thousands : 
 Saying, with a loud voice. Worthy is the Lamb to i-eceive 
 power and wealth and wisdom, and strength and honour, 
 and glory and blessing. And every creatiu-e that is in 
 
516 AnOKAAY^IZ 
 
 r€(r(rap€<s Trpea-jSvTepot cVecrav, kol Trpoa-Kvvrjcrav fwvr* 
 CIS Tovs atwi'tt? Twj/ atoji/(ov Kai^yKovcra dyyeAovs a8ovTa<5, 
 kal avTi^ "^v rj io8^' 'E^eAcucrerat pdf38os €k rrjs pt^rjs 'lorcrct, 
 Kat av^os €K ttJs p^^i^'S dva/^T^creTai, Kat dvaTravo-crat €7r' 
 dvTov Uvevfia rod Oeov, Hvev/jLa cro<jf)ias Kat orvveo-cws, 
 Ilvcu/xa l3ov\rj<s Kal lar)(yo<Sf Ili'cu/xa yvwcrcws Kat evcr€f3eias' 
 'E/ATrAiyo-et a^roi/ nvcu/xa (jiofSov Qeov. ov Kara tt^i^ So^ai/ 
 Kpivli, 01)84 Kara rrjv AaAtav cAey^et, dAAa KpLvii raireivi^ 
 Kpiu-LV, Kat lAey^et tovs raTTCtvov? rrj? yr}?, Kat Trard^et yyji/ 
 Tw Aoyw Tov (TTOfiaros avroVj Kat ev Truev/xaTL Sta ;j(etA€a)v 
 dvcAet acefSr]. Kat ecTTat SiKaLoa-vi'y l^wa-/x,€i/os t>)i/ 6cr(fivv 
 avTov, KOL dXrjOeia. ilXrjixkvo's rds TrXevpds' Kat crvvfiocT' 
 HrjOyjareraL Xvkos fxerd dpvis, Kat irdpS f.X is crvvavaTr- 
 avueTai €pL<{)ii), Kat fiocrxdpiov kol rav pos Kal Aewv d/xa 
 l3oa-K7]$'q(TOVTaij Kal TratStov fieiKpov d^ct avrovs" Kat 
 jSovs Kat d/DKos d/xa f3o(TKr]9'q(TOVTaL, Kal d/xa ret TratSta 
 avTcuj/ icrovTai, Kal Aewv w? ^ovs ^dyerat d)(i'pa' koX 
 ^aiStov vqiTLov ktrl rpoyXdv d(nri8(iiv Kal krrl Koiriyj Ikjo- 
 V(i)v d(T7rL8o)v rrjv X^^P^ iTrifBaXei, Kal ov fxrj KaKOTrotrj- 
 (TOVCTLV, ov8e fxrj 8vyo)VTaL diroXia-aL ov8zva kru to c'^o? 
 TO dytov juov, oTt kv€7rXri(T$r) rj crvixiracra rov yvwvat tov 
 Kvpiov, UJS v8(i)p TToXv KaraKaXvxj/aL OaXdcra-as' Kat eo-Tat 
 €V Trj rj/x€pa cKtivrj 7/ dvBos Io-(ra, Kat o dvicTTdfJievos dp\€Lv 
 Wviov, lir ai'Tcp lOvq kXinovcrLV, Kal ccTTai rj dvaTravcri's 
 dvTOV TLIXIJ, 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 517 
 
 the lieavens ; and over the earth and tinder the earth, 
 and in the sea ; and all those that are in them, and all 
 together, heard I sa^'ing : Blessing, honour, unto the sacred 
 Sitter upon the Throne ; and to the Lamb, praise, and 
 honour, and gloiy, and power throughout ages of ages. 
 Amen ! Amen ! And the Four Living Ones answered 
 and said. Amen ! Amen ! and the Ancients fell down 
 and worshipped Him who lives throughout ages of ages. 
 And I heard angels singing, and this was the song tliey 
 sang. There shall come forth a shoot of the stem of Issa, 
 and a Flower shall grow out of the root, and the Si)irit of 
 God shall rest upon him ; the Spirit of wisdom and un- 
 derstanding : the Spirit of counsel and strength ; the 
 Spirit of knowledge and holiness ; the Spirit of the fear 
 of God shall fill him ; and he shall not judge according 
 to vain opinion, nor shall he administer justice according 
 to idle talk, but with righteousness shall he judge the 
 lowly, and decide with equity unto the meek of the 
 earth ; and he shall smite the earth with the blast of his 
 mouth, and in the breath of his lips shall he cut off the 
 wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his 
 loins, and truth shall gird up his reins. The wo^.f also 
 shall feed with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down 
 with the kid, and the calf and tlie bull and the lion shall 
 pasture together, and a little child shall lead them. And 
 the cow and the she-bear shall feed together, and their 
 young ones shall bo with them : and the lion shall eat 
 straw like the ox : and the sucking child shall piny over 
 the hole of the asp : and the weaned child shall put his 
 hand on the den of the basilisk, and they shall not be 
 mol 3sted. They shall not destroy any on my Holy Moun- 
 tain ; for the whole thereof shall be filled witli the know- 
 
X>18 AHOKAAY^IS. 
 
 KE$. 8. 
 
 KAF (rrjixeiov fieya io<fi9rj iv ri^ ovpavc^' yvinj Trc/otjSt^Ai^- 
 fievT) Tov rjXiov, kol ^ oreX'qv')] vttokcitw twv ttoSwi/ avrvj^, koI 
 eTTL T7]<s K€(f>aX7]<s avTrjs crrecfyavo^ acrrepinv SwSeKa* Kat iv 
 yaarpl €xpva-a Kpa^et wSivovcra, Koi /?ao-avt^o/ji€j/r; tckclv 
 Kttfc wcfidr] aAAo a"rjp.€iov kv to> ovpav<^, koi ISov BpaKtov />teyas 
 'TTvppo'Si e)(Ci}v K€<l>a\a<s cTrra Kat Kcpara ScKa, Kat cTrt rds Ketpa- 
 Aas avTOV eTTTO. SiaS-rjfJiaTa' Kat 07 oi*/oa avrov (rvpei to rpiTov 
 Tiov axTrkpiav tov ovpavov, kol i/SaXev avTOvs eh Trjv yrjv 
 Kat o S/ooKWv €(TT)]K€v cvioTTLOv T^s yvvatKos ttJs /xeAAovo-iy? 
 
 TCKCIV, tVa, OT OLV T€Krj, TO T€KVOV ttVT^S KajCK^dyri' KoX €T€' 
 
 K€v vtbv appeva, os jaeAAct Troip.aiv€LV Trdvra to, e$vrj kv 
 pajSBia (TL^-qp^. Kat rjpTrd(r9i] to rkKvov avrrjs Trpos tov Geoi/ 
 icat w/)os Toi/ Bpovov avTov' Kat i^ yvi'>) etjivyev €is"E/)/xov 
 6V0V €;(ct TOTTOV i^TOt/Aacr/iei/QV i'Tto tov Geov, Ti/a ckci t/3€- 
 ^(ocTLV avT^v riixkpa<s ;)(iAtas SiaKotrtas e^i^KOj/Ta* Kat eye- 
 reTO TToXcfxas kv t(^ ovpaviS- 6 Mi;(a^A Kat ot ayyeAot auTov 
 TOV ?roAe/;t^orat //.€Ta tov S/oaKOJ^TOS, Kat 6 SpdKOiv kiroX^prjcrev 
 KOL ol ayyeAot avTOv* Kat ovk ta-yycriv^ ovSe tottos kvpkdr] 
 avTiov eVt ci' toJ ovpavi^' Kat k/3\rj0y] 6 8pdK0)v 6 fjikyas, 6 
 o<l)is o apxaios, o Ka\ovp.€vos StdfioXos, kol (raTavas, 6 7rXa~ 
 Viov Tiqv OLKovp^kvqv oXrjv, k^X'^Or] els Trjv yyjv, Kat ot ayyeAot 
 avTov ix€T avTOv e^XrjOrjcrav' Kat otc eiSev 6 SpaKcuv, oTt 
 ef^X'qOri els t^v yy}Vy k^ioi^ev Tr^v yvvaiKa rJTis eTeKev toi/ 
 appeva- kol k86$r]crav Ty yvvaiKi 8vo rrTkpvyes tov deTov tov 
 fxeydXov, iva TreTrjTai els "Eppiov, els tov tottov avT^s, oirov 
 rp€<f>y]TaL eKel Kaipov kol Kaipovs Kat TJfXKTv Kaipov, diro irpo- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE 519 
 
 ledge of the Lord, as the watei*s cover the sea. And in 
 that day shall be the Flower of IssA, which shall arise to 
 govern the nations, and in him shall the nations i)ut theii* 
 hope, and his rest shall be glorious. 
 
 8. 
 And there appeared a great sign in the Heaven ; a 
 "Woman clothed around with the sun : and the moon was 
 underneath her feet, and on her head a crown of Twelve 
 Stars : and she, being with child, cried out, travailing in 
 birth, as though she pained to be delivered. And there 
 appeared another portent in the heavens, and behold a 
 fiery red Dmgon ; — vast, with seven heads and ten horns, 
 and upon his heads seven diadems : and his tail drew 
 away the third of the stars of heaven, and flung them 
 down upon the earth. And the Dragon stood before the 
 Woman who was with child, to devour her child as soon 
 as it should be bom : and she brought forth a Man child, 
 who was to rule all nations as a shepherd, but with a rod 
 of iron : and her child was caught up unto God, and 
 before liis very Throne : and the Woman was borne away 
 into Harmon, where she hath a place prepared under the 
 Most High : that they should minister to her needs in 
 that place, one thousand two hundred and sixty days. 
 And there arose war in heaven ; Michael and his angels 
 fought against the Dragon : and the Dragon fought and 
 his angels with him ; but they prevailed not, neither was 
 a place found for them any more in the heaven. And 
 the great Dragon was cast out ; that ancient Serpent, 
 who is called Accuser and Satanas ; he who wandereth 
 over the whole Universe, was cast out headlong unto the 
 earth, and his angels headlong were cast out with him. 
 
520 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 o-wTTOV rov o^cws. Kat c/SaXcv 6 o^t? Ik tov (rro/xaros 
 avTov oTTLCTdi T^? yvi'aiKos v8w/) (OS TTora/xov, tVa dvTT^v Trora- 
 fiO(f)6pr]Tov iroirjcrr)' koI l/So-qOrjcrev rj yrj ry yvvaLKi, Kot 
 ijvot^ev ^} yv} TO o-To/xa aur^s, Kat Karkirt^v rov TroTa/xov, 6v 
 e/SaXev 6 BpaKiov €K tov crrofxaTos avrov' Kat i^pyccrOr) 6 
 SpaKoyv €7ri ti^ yvi^atKt, Kat aTrrjXOev Trot^crat ttoAc/xov /xera 
 Twv AotTTwi' Tou (nrepfxaTos avTrj<s, twj/ TrjpovvTdyv rots tJ^TO- 
 Aas Tou 0eov, Kat Ixoi^twv t^v /xapTvptav lorcra' 
 
 KE^. 9. 
 KAF "i^Kova-a ^odv^v fxeydXrjv h T(^ ovpavio, Xcyova-av 
 apri iyeveTO 17 (TtOTrjpla. kol 17 Svvafiis, Kat rj jSaa-iXeta tov 
 Qeov TjfLtiiv, Kat Yj k^ovo-ia tov yjudTOv avTov- oVt KaT- 
 ejiXyjOrj 6 KaTi/jyopos twv dSeXcfiiov rj/xiov, 6 KaTYjyop^v avTwv 
 eviOTTLOv TOV Qeov -ijfXbjv rjucpas Kat vvkto?* Kat dvTOt IvUrj- 
 orav auTov 8td tov 'A/)vioi/, Kat 8ta tov Aoyov Trjg fiapTvpias 
 dvTQv KatouK riydinqfTav Trjv xj/v^v dvTwv d^t Oavdrov 
 Atd TOVTO €vcf)patvco-9e ol ovpavol, Kat ot ev avTOis o-kt;- 
 vovvTCS ovat Ti; yrj, kol Ty OaXdcrcrrj., oTt KaT€^r) 6 Std^oAo? 
 7r/)os {'/xds* e^wv Ovixov /xlyav, €t8a)s oVt oAtyov Kaipov e^^et* 
 Kat i§ov (^wvt) fioQiVTOS ev Tjy ipij/xca, iTOLjxd(raTe t^v oSov 
 Kvpiov, ivOeias Troieirc Tas rpi^ovs rov Qeov ijfxoiv' Trdcra 
 (f>dpay^ irX-qpoiO-ja-eraL, Kat Trdi/ opos Kat /?ovvos TaTretvo)- 
 ^vJo^CTat, Kat carrai Trdvra to, (TKoAid €ts ivOeiav, Kat 17 T/aa- 
 X^ta €ts TTcSta* Kat 6(f)0i^(r€TaL r^ 8o^a Kvpiov, Kat oxperai 
 Trdcra (rap^ to (rwT^/otov tov Gcov, OTt Kv/atos dvTOS cAdAi^o-cv 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 521 
 
 And wlien the Dragon saw that lie was cast unto the 
 earth ; he persecuted the Woman who brought forth 
 the Man-child ; but they gave to her the two wings of an 
 Eagle to flee into Hermon, where was her place : there 
 should she be nourished a time and times, and half a time 
 from the presence of the Serpent. And the Serpent cast 
 out of his mouth water, like a flood, after the Woman 
 that he might cause her to be carried away : but the earth 
 gave assistance to the Woman, and the earth opened ita 
 mouth and swallowed do\vn the flood, ^vhich the Dragon 
 cast out of his mouth. And the Dragon was violently 
 enraged against the Woman, and departed to make war 
 with the remainder of her seed, who executed the com- 
 mandments of God, and have the witnessing of Issa. 
 
 9. 
 And I heard a great Voice in heaven, saying, Now is 
 come the kingdom of God ; salvation, strength, and the 
 reign of the Anointed ; because the Tempter of our bre- 
 thren is cast out : He who tempts them before our God 
 night and day. And they have triumphed over him 
 through the Lamb, and through the wisdom of their 
 martyrdom ; and they loved not their lives unto 
 death. Therefore rejoice ye, O ye heavens 1 and all 
 ye who do abide in the heavens : but weep ye, 
 who are on lands and watei*s, for now hath the Accuser 
 gone down among you. And he hath great rage, because 
 he knoweth that his time is but short. And behold the 
 Voice of one ci7ing in the wilderness; prepare ye the 
 way of the Lord : make ye straight the path of our 
 God : every abyss shall be filled up, and every mountain 
 and hill shall be made low : and all the crooked shall l»e 
 
522 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 'ISov Kal KvpLos ws TTvp rj^ei, Kal ws Karatyts rot oipfiaTa 
 avrov, aTToSovvai iv Ovfxw iKSiKija-iv avrovy kol aTrocr/co/) a- 
 KLCTfiov avTov h cfiXoyl Trvpos, iv yap rioTrvplKvplov KptQ-Q- 
 treraL vracra rj yrj, Kai ev T'q poix(^ai<^ avrov 7rao"a ardp^. 
 
 KE$. 10. 
 KAP <f)(j}vrj cXeyev* At iTrrot KecftaXai rov SpoKOVTOs, Itttci 
 opy] etcTiv, Kal /Saa-iXets Ittto, etVtv Kal ra SsKa Kepara a 
 £i^€<s Se/ca ^ao-tAeis elarLv oiTcves /JacrtAetav ovTro) eXa.^ov, 
 dXX k^ova-lav ws /^acrtXets /Aiav wpav XafxfSdvovcri /xera tov 
 BpoLKOVTor ovroL fiLav '(Exova-i yvooiirjv, Kal rrjv Svvafiiv Kal 
 TYjV i^ovcTLav kavTwvrcS SpaKOVTO) BiaSiSiacrova-iV' Ovtol /xera 
 
 TOV 'ApvioV TToXcp^T^CrOVU-LV, KO,l TO 'ApVlOV VLKTJcreL aVTOVSf 
 
 OTi KvpLos KvpL(i)v eo-Tt, Kal j8ao-tA€V9 fSaa-iXeiov, Kal ol pLer 
 
 aVTOVy kXtJTOL Kal ^kXcKToI Kal TTICTTOI. 
 
 KE^. 11. 
 KAI^ €7r€crr/3€i/'a, Kal ypa rovs o^OaXfxov^ p,0Vy Kal €?Sov, 
 Kal ISov T€(rcrapa ap/xara iKTropevopeva Ik jxkcrov Suo opmv, 
 Kal TO, op-q rjv oprj )^aXKa' iv t^ appear l tw irp(j^T(a lttttol p.e- 
 Aayes, Kal iv t<^ appLari T(p SevTepi^ ittttol irvppol' Kal iu t^ 
 apixart T(p rpin^ tTnroL XevKol^ Kal iv tw dpfiari n^ Terdprt^ 
 ITTTTOL ttolklXol xj/apoi' Kttt ctTTtt TT/jo? TOV dyyeXov Tuv Xa- 
 Xovvra iv i/iot' rC iarrt Tavrd Kvpu ; koj, dTreKpWev 6 dyy^r 
 Aos o XaXQiv iv ip,OLy Kal ctTrev Tavrd icrriv ol Tea-o-apes 
 irvevp.aTa tov ovpavov, iKTropevovrai Tra^atrr^vat tc^ Kvpi(fi 
 Trda-rj^ Trjs yrjs' Kal ol cttttoi ol fikXaves, i^eiropcvovro art 
 
IHE APOCALYPSE. 523 
 
 made into the straight ; the rough places smooth : and 
 tlie Glory of the Lord shall be revealed ; and all flesh 
 shall see the Saviour sent of God, because the Lord him- 
 self hath spoken it. Behold also the Lord will come as 
 fire, and as a whirlwind shall his chariot roll ; to render 
 justice with a strong will, and his rebuke in flames of fii'e : 
 for in the fire of the Lord, and by his fiery sword, shall 
 all the earth and all flesh be judged. 
 
 10. 
 And a Voice said : The seven Dragon heads are seven 
 mountains and seven monarchs ; and the ten horns which 
 thou sawest are ten kings, and they have received no 
 kingdom as yet, but receive power as kings one hour with 
 the Dragon. These have but one mind, and they shall 
 give their strength and power to the Dragon ; these shall 
 wage war against the Lamb ; and the Lamb shall over- 
 come them in war ; because he is lord of lords and king 
 of kings, and those that are with him are called, and 
 chosen, and faithful. 
 
 IL 
 
 And I turaed and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, 
 and behold there came four chariots; they came out 
 from between two mountains ; and the mountains were 
 mountains of brass. Li the first chariot were black 
 hoi-ses ; and in the second chariot fire-red hoi*ses ; and in 
 the thii-d chariot white horaes ; and in the fourth cha- 
 riot speckled and bay horses. And I said unto the Angel 
 speaking in me : What are these my lord ] and the Angel 
 speaking in me answered and said : These are the foui' 
 Spirits of the Heaven ; they go forth from standing be- 
 
524 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 yrjv /3of)pa, kol ol irvppoL e^CTropevovro KaroirurOcv avTwi/, 
 cTTt yr\v voTov KoX ol XevKol i^CTTopevovTo eis Tqv avaroXrjv 
 
 I-jXlOV Kal ol TTOLKtXot Kttt Ot Xpapol i^€7ropeVOVTO TT/OOS ^6(fiOV. 
 
 Kat Beos cnrcr* TropevecrOc, koI TreptoSeucraTe rrjv yrjv av^d- 
 vecrOe /cat irXrjOvvecrO^ Kat TrX-^pcaa-aTe tyjv yrjv Kat c^ctto- 
 p€vovTO, KoX Tr€pi(i)8€V(rav rrjv yrjv' 
 
 KE#. 12. 
 
 KAP el^ov oT€ 'rjvoi^ev to 'Apviov p-iav Ik twv cTrra (rcf)pa- 
 yi8o)v, KOL rjKovora kvos Ik twv Tccrardpojv Zwwi/ Aeyoi^ro?, ws 
 (^(ov't) f^povrrjs' "^pxov koI iSe. Kat crSov, Kat tSou iWos 
 p.eXa<s Kat 6 KaOrjp^evos €7r auToi/ e;)((ov to^oi/* Kat ISoOrj avT(^ 
 (5) crre^avos, Kat c^rJX^c vtKwi', Kat tVa vLKrj(rjj. 
 
 KE$. 13. 
 
 KAP oT€ TO 'Apvlov rjvoL^ey t^i/ Sevripav (r^payi^a. 
 rJKovora tov SevTepov Zioov XeyovTos' "Ep)(ov Kat t^e* Kat 
 i^rjXOev aA.Aos tWos Trvppos' Kat t(^ Kadr]p.iv(A ctt' auTov 
 ISoOq avTM XajSeiv Tr)v €!pr]vr]v €k t-^? y^?, Kat iBodrj avTio 
 pd^aipa pLcydXr). kol vv^ ^yivero, Kat i8ov 6 aj/^p CTrt^e^T^- 
 Kws €7rt iTTTrov TTvppov, eloTTrJKeL dva fxicrov rcov opiinv twi/ 
 Karaa-KtMv, kol 07rt(ra> avTOv iiriroi TTvppol, kol xpapol, koI 
 ttolklXoi, kol AeuKot. Kat eiVa* Tt ovTot Kvpw, Kal eiirev 
 TT/OOS /A€ 6 dyyeXos 6 XaXiov iv e/xot' cyw Sct^w o-ot Tt lo^Tt 
 TauTa* Kat dircKptOrj 6 dvrjp 6 ccfiecTTqKoys dvd jxicrov twi/ 
 cpeiov, Kal. eTire 7rp6<s fie' ovtoI elo'iv ovs l^airc<mtX€v 
 Kvpios, TrepioSevcrai rrjv yrjv Kat aTreKpiOrja-av tci) 'AT- 
 FEAft Kvpiov T(^o k<^i(Tr(.^TL dvafxicrov t(xv opeioVj Kal c^Vov 
 TTcpioSevcrafiev Trda-av rrjv y^v, Kal ISov Trao'a rj yrj KaTOi- 
 KctTttt, Kat rj(TV)(a^€L' 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 525 
 
 fore tlie Lord ; they go forth over all the earth. And tlie 
 black liorees issued forth unto the North ; and the fire- 
 red followed after them to the South; and the white 
 horses went unto the East : and the speckled and bay- 
 went unto the West. And God said, Go ye forth and 
 ti-avei-se the earth ; be fruitful and multiply and fill ye 
 up the eai-th ; and they went and traversed the earth. 
 
 12. 
 And when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, I 
 looked and heard one of the four Living Ones saying, as in 
 a voice of thunders. Come and see ! And I looked, and 
 behold, a black horse ; and HE who sat on him held a 
 bow (5) ; and there was given unto him a royal crown ; 
 and he went forth conquering and to conquer. 
 
 13. 
 And when the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard 
 the second Living One say : Come and see ! and there 
 went out anotlur horse fiery-red ; and HE who sat on 
 him took away peace from the eai-th ; and there was 
 given to him a mighty sword. And it was night, and 
 the Man who rode the fiery-red horse stood in the middla 
 of shady mountains. And after him were other fiery-red 
 hoi-ses, and speckled and bay and white. Then said I, 
 O my lord, what are these ? And the Angel who spake 
 within me, made answer ; I will shew thee what these 
 things are. And the Man who stood in the midst of the 
 mountain?, made answer and spake unto me : These are 
 they whom the Lord hath sent to travei*se the whole 
 earth. And they made answer to the MESSENGER of the 
 Lord, who stood still in the middle of the moimtains, and 
 
I)2Q AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 KE*. U. 
 KAP 0T€ rjvoi^ev to * Kpviov r-qv cr^/oayiSa riyv TpirrjVf 
 rJKovcra rov rpirov Zwov XiyovroT "^pypv koI iiSe. Kat 
 ctSoVj i<al ISov tWos AevKuS, /<at 6 Ka9'il]iJ.€vo<s ctt' aurov €;(a)y 
 ^vyov €v TTJ X^^P'' ct^TOV. Kat rjKovcra cjaavrjv iv fxicrio tcov 
 Tecrcrdpoov Zwwi/ Aeyovcrav Xo?!/*^ ctltov Srjvaptov, kol T/oets 
 ■XoiviK€<s KpiQi^v 8rjvapL0v' KOi TO eAatov Kai tov oTvov firj 
 a8t,Kiij(Trj<s. 
 
 KE#. 15. 
 
 KAP 0T€ rjvoi^ev to ' Kpviov rrjv (r(f)pay?8a tyjv reTapTrjv, 
 rJK0V(ra rov rerdpTov Zwov Xiyovros. "Ep^ov Kat I'Se. Kal 
 c^Soj', Kat iSov L7nro<s ^Xod/oos, Kat 6 KaO-jfievos iTrdvo) avroVj 
 ovofxa auTw 6 GaraTog* Kat 6 ^'5i7S i]KoXov9iL [ler avrov' 
 Kal iSoOr) avT^ i^ovcrta CTrt to riraprov Trj<s yyjs, aTroKTCivat 
 Iv pofxcjiaLi}, Kat €v At/x(p, Kat li/ Oavdrco, iml v—o rcov Orjpiotv 
 rrjs y^'5. Kat ju€Ta ravra elSov rkcra-apas fieyaXovs eo-TWTa? 
 l-i Tots T€(T(rapas ywutas t^s y^'yS Kparovvras tov<s ricra-apas 
 dvifxovs TTJs 7>Js, iVa /a^ 7rv€>y ai/c/xos €7rt ttJs yijs, /ai^T€ IttI 
 Trjs doXda-ar-qs, fi-jre Itvl Tt SivSpov, 
 
 KE^. 16. 
 KAP et'Sov dXXov 'APPEAON, dvaPalvovra diro dva- 
 ToAry? T^Atov, l\ovra cr^paytSa Geov ^ojvtos* Kat cKpa^e ^wi'^ 
 fxeydXrj roTs Tea-crapcnv yueyaAots, ofs ISo^y; avTor? 8iW/xts 
 €7rt Ti^v y^v Kat ttjv OdXacrcrav, Aeywv M?) dSiK-qcrrjre tyjv 
 yyjv, fiTJTC TYJV OdXacrcrav, /x-qre to, SevSpa, d^fit (T<f>payl(TOijxev 
 Tovs SovAovs Tou Qiov 'qfiiav €7rl T(Sv p,€T(ti7r(ji)v avToiv. Kal 
 
THE APOCALYPSK 527 
 
 said, We have gone to and fro on the whole earth, and 
 behold, the whole earth rests, and is at peace. 
 
 U. 
 And when the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the 
 third Living Creature say : Come and see ! and I looked, and 
 lo ! a ^vhite horse (7) ; and HE that sat on him had a pair 
 of balances in his hand j and I heard a Voice in the 
 midst of the four Living Ones saying; A measure of 
 wheat for a deenar ; and tlu'ee measures of barley for a 
 deenar : and see that thou defi-aud not in oil or wine. 
 
 15. 
 And when tlie Lixmb opened the fourth seal, I heard 
 the fourth Living One say. Come and see ! and I looked, 
 and lo ! a grassy-green hoi-se ; and he that rode upon him 
 was named Death ; and Hades followed after him ; and to 
 him was permitted sway over the fourth part of the earth, 
 (8) and to kill by the sword and famine and ruin ; and 
 by the wild creatures of tlie earth. And after these 
 things I saw four Mighty Ones, standing on the four 
 comers of the earth ; and they held the four winds of the 
 eai-th ; so that not a single blast should blow over the 
 earth, nor ui>on the sea, nor upon any tree. 
 
 16. 
 And Isaw another MESSENGER (9) ascending from the 
 rising of the sun, holding the seal of the living God ; and 
 he cried with a loud voice to the four Mighty Ones, to 
 whom was given jwwer over the earth and sea ; saying j 
 Hurt ye not the earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, until 
 we shall have sealed the seixants of our God upon their 
 
528 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 ytiova-a toi/ dpidnov T(ov lo-c/j^ayicr/AsVwi/* ^Karov r€<rcrapai' 
 KovTo. Tecrcra/)C5 X'-^'-^^^'^ l(T(l>payi.<jpiiv(iiv Ik Trdo-rjs ifivXrjs, 
 Kol €K Traareiov eOvuiv' 
 
 KE*. 17. 
 
 KAF /xcra ravTa eiSoVy Koi ISov o;(Aos iroXvs, ov dpiOfirj' 
 oral avTov ovSels ySvvarOf Ik TravTos iOvovq koI <^vX<j)v KaX 
 XaiJiv KOI yAwcrcrwi/, ko'Tior^'^ evojiriov rov Opovov koI Ij/w- 
 iriov rov Apvlov, TrepL/Sef^Xrj/Mivovs aroAa? AeuK'ag, kol <^ot- 
 viK€<s (V Tttis xcparlv avroiv' Kat Kpa^ovoriv cficavij fxeydXyj^ 
 AeyovTCS* *H oroiTrjpta r(5 Geco ^^//.tui/, Kat rt^ KaOr^ixivci) ctti 
 Tou 6p6vov, Kol TM ^Apuuj), Tip dyyeXo)' Kat Trai/res ot ayyc- 
 Aot eto-rr/KCtcrav kukA(^i) tou Opovov /cat twi' 7rp€(rf3vTipo)v kol 
 roiv reo'crd.pwv Zmov, kol hrecrav ivwmov tov Opovov eTrt to. 
 TrpujcriOTra avriov, Kal irpoo'eKvv^jcrav tw Gcw, Aeyovres* 
 AfiT^V t] evXoyta koi rj 86^a koI rj croffiia kol i) €v)(api(TTLa 
 KoX rj TLfirj KOL rj Svvafxis Kal ■)} i(r)(y'S Tip Qcip rjiiCiv els TOV^ 
 aiiovas twv al(i)V(x)V' 'Afii/jv. *A/xiJi/. 
 
 KE^. 18. 
 KAP iirio'Tpe^a^ KOI ypa. tovs otftOaXfiovs /xov, Kat etSoVj 
 Kal ISov Sperravov TTCTOfxevov Kal eiTrev Trpos fte* Tt crv /3Ae- 
 TTcis ; Kat eiTra lyw, optu Speiravov TreTOfievov, fx-QKOvs Trrj^eiov 
 ciKoari, Kal TrAarovs Trvy^^wv SiKa* Kat eiTrev irpos /xe- dvT-q 
 rj dpa yj iKiropevoixkvq kirl irpocroiTrov Trdcrrjs Trj<s yrjs' Stort 
 Tra? 6 kActtt^? eK tovtov ews OavaTov €K8iKrj9i]0'€Tai, Kat ttcis 
 6 iirtopKos CK TOVTOV iK^LK-qdria-eTaL' Kat k^oiario dvTo, Aeyct 
 Kvptos travTOKpaTiop, Kal ha-eXevireTai els tov olkov tov 
 kAItTTOV, Kat €IS TOV orKOV TOV OfXVVOVTOS Tip oi^o/xaTt ^ov 
 €7rt ipevSei, Kal KaTaXvah iv fxecrip tov olkov avTOv, Kal orw 
 TeXkau avTOK, Kat Tct ^vAa avTOV, Kat tovs At^ovs avTOU. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 529 
 
 foreheads. And I heard the number of those that were 
 sealed, a hundred and forty-four thousand sealed, out of 
 every ti-ibe and out of all nations. * 
 
 17. 
 And after these things I looked, and lo ! a great mul- 
 titude, which no one could number : out of all nations 
 and tribes and i)eoples and tongues, standing before the 
 Throne and before the Lamb : clothed in pure white gar- 
 ments ; and palm branches in their hands. And they cried 
 out with a loud voice, saying, Our salvation is from our 
 God, and from the Sitter on the Throne, and from the Lamb, 
 the Messenger. And all the angels standing in the cycle 
 of the Throne, and of the Ancients, and the four Living 
 Ones, fell before the Throne upon their faces ; and began 
 to worehip the Divine One : saying. Amen ! blessing and 
 glory ! and wisdom and grace and honour and power | 
 and strength unto our God throughout ages of ages I 
 Amen ! Amen ; 
 
 18. 
 And I turned and raised mine eyes aloft, and I looked, 
 and lo, a flying sickle : and he said to me, What seest 
 thou ? and I said, I see a flying sickle : the length thereof 
 is twenty cubits, and the breadth is ten cubits. And he 
 said to me, This is the divine Judgment, that goeth over 
 the face of the whole earth : for all who steal shall be 
 adjudged \mto death on this side ; all who swear falsely 
 shall be adjudged on that. Behold, I bring it forth, saitli 
 the Lord Almighty, and it shall enter into the house of him 
 who steals, and into the house of him who sweareth 
 falsely by my name ; and it shall bring ruin in the midst 
 
 AA 
 
5m AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 KE*. 19. 
 KAP i^rjXOev 6 ayyeAos 6 XaXCiV iv Ifiot, kol €Tir€v Trpoq 
 fX€* dvd^Xeifov rots 6(fi6cL\fiOLS crov, kol tSc to eKTropevoficvov 
 TovTO' Kal €ura ti iamv ; kol eLTrev tovto to iojSi to €/«ro- 
 p€v6fJL€vov' Kal ecTrev avrrj rj dZiKia dvTwi/ kv Trda-y ry yi/* 
 Kat tSov rdXavTOV /xoXl/SSov e^aLpofxevov, Kot IBov fita yvv^ 
 kKadrfTO €V p^cip Tou <f>/3t* Kal eTTrev av-rq kcrrlv rj dvofxta, 
 Kal €ppL\l/€V avTY)v kv fJ'kcna tov wySt, Kat eppuf/ev tov XtOov 
 Tov (moXl/SBov els TO CTTOfxa avrrj<5' koI ypa rovs 6(j)6aXjMOvg 
 pLOVy Kal €i8ov, /cat l8ov 8vo yvvaiKcs kK7rop€v6pL€vaL, Kal 
 7rv€vp,a kv Tats Trrepv^iv dvT^v, Kal avrat elxov Trrepvyas ctto- 
 TTOS, Kat dvkXa/Sov to w^t ava pAarov r?]<i yij?, Kat dva /tecrov 
 Tou ovpavov' Kat ctrra tt/jos tov ayyeAov tov AaAovvTa kv 
 kpLOL' TTOV avrac diroOkpova-i to (u/3t ; Kat ct^rcv Tr/aos pL€' owco- 
 BofXTJcraL avTO) otKtav cv yiy, Kat €T0t/>iacrai, Kat O-qa-ovcrLv 
 dvTO €KCt €7rt T^V kTOifLacTLav aVTOV, 
 
 KE^. 20. - - . - 
 
 KAr aXXo5 "ArrEAOS rJX^c, Kat lo-Ta'^r; cTrt to Ova-ia- 
 (TTyjpLov, 'k)(0)v Xi^avoiTov xpvcrovv' Kal kdodt} avTi^ Bviiia- 
 liara ttoAAo, tva Swo-t^ Tats Trpoa-ivxah twv ayiwv TrdvroiV 
 kirl TO Ova-LacTTrjpLov to ;(/3vo"oi)v to evwTrtov tov Opovov. Kat 
 dvkjSrj 6 Kairvos twv OvfiiapLaTiov rats 7rpo(rev)(aLS twv dyi'wv 
 €K \€ipos TOV dyykXoVy evcoTTtov tov Geov. Kat 6Aey€V* 
 dKovo-aT€ juov v^crot Kat irpocn^kre. eOvrj^ Sua )(p6vov ttoXXov 
 (TTyjcreTat Aeyet Kvptos* €k KotAias p,rjTp6s piov cKaAecrc to 
 ovofxd p.ov' Kal 'kdrjK€ to (TTopia p.ov ws pid^aipav d^crav, Kal 
 VTTo T^v u-Kkirrpf t^s x^'P*^^ avTou iKpvxpe /*€* €^>;K€ /AC o>s 
 
IHE APOCALYPSE. 531 
 
 of his house, and shall destroy him with the wood and 
 stone work thereof. 
 
 19. 
 And again the Angel speaking in me came and said : 
 Lift up thine eyes, and. see what cometh forth : and I 
 said. What is it 1 and he said : This is the Obi that 
 comes forth ; and he said : This is their impiety in all the 
 land. And behold, a mighty weight of lead uplifted ; and 
 I saw a lone woman sitting in the centre of the Obi : and 
 he said : This is indeed a defiance of the law ; and he 
 hurled it down on the heart of the Obi : and he threw the 
 mountain of lead into her mouth. And I lifted up mine 
 eyes and looked, and behold, there were two Women who 
 came forth ; and there was a wind in their wings ; and 
 they had the wings of a Stork ; and they caught up the 
 Obi between earth and heaven ; and I said unto the An- 
 gel speaking in me : whither do they carry the Obi ? and 
 he said to me : To build for it a home on earth ; and there 
 they shall estabEsh it upon its stablishment. 
 
 20. 
 And another MESSENGER came, and stood at the altar, 
 having a golden censer : and there were given unto him 
 many fragrant treasures, that he might ofier them with 
 the prayers of all the holy, upon the golden incense altar 
 in front of the Throne. And the cloud of the perfumes 
 ascended on high, with the prayers of the holy before 
 God, out of the hand of the divine Messenger. And he 
 said : Hearken unto me ye islands ! and heai'ken unto me 
 ye people from afar ! After a long time and it shall come 
 to pass, saith the Lord ; from the womb of my mother 
 
 A a2 
 
532 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 ^lAo? IkA-cktoi/, KOi iv rfj (f)ap€Tp^ avrov cKpvxpe fie- Kat 
 €nre fiol' SovAo? fiov et crv, Kat Iv o"ot €v arol €v8o^a(rOi^crofiai. 
 Kai €i\rj(f)€v 6 ayyeXos rov XijSavtaTdv, Kal iyifxicrev avrov 
 €K Tov TTV/oos Tov 6v(TLa(rTr)piov, Kal tfiaX^v els Trjv yyju^ 
 <3or€t rjv TOV dcrripa rov "Trptatvov Kal iyevovro (jxoval Kal 
 Ppovral Kal do'rpaTral Kal crcLO-fJLoS' 
 
 KE^. 21. 
 KAV fiera ravra €l8ov ayyeXov fieyav, €cf>€(Triora kin rov 
 Ovcnaa-rrjpiov, Kat cTttc Trdra^ov iirl ro iXaarr-qpLOV, Kal are- 
 icr^Tjcrerat ra TrpoirvXa^ Kal BidKoxj/ov els K€c{>aXas Trdvriov 
 Kal rovs KaraXoLTTOvs avrojv ev popic^ala. d-rroKrevc^' ov firj Sia- 
 <j>vyy €^ avriov (^evywv, Kat 6v fir) SLaa-ojOfj e^ avrojv avacrw- 
 ^Qfxevos' ^Eai/ KaraKpv/SojorLv ets dSov eKeWev t) X^^P /^^^ 
 ai/a(r7ra(rct dvrovs, Kat eav dvaf^Qxriv its rov ovpavov, cKcWev 
 Kard^d) dvrovs' Kal idv KaraSv<ro)cnv e^ 6(f)0aX[MO}v [xov €t? 
 ra /3dOr) rr]<s OaXdcrcrrjs Iku ei/TcAou/xat t<^ SpdKovri, Kal 
 S-j^erai avrovs. 
 
 KE«I>. 22. 
 KAI^ l8ov e^ dvBpe<s ^qp^ovro dirb rrjs oSov rrjs irvXt]? rrj^ 
 vrprjXyjs rrj^ pXeirovcnfjs 7rpd<s (3oppdv, Kal eKacrrov ireXv^ Iv 
 rfj X^''P^ avrov ' Kal ets dvrjp ev /xeo-o) avriav cvSeSuKws 
 'n-oSrjpyj, Kal ^(livq (rair (f)€tpov iirl ryjs car(f)vos avrov, Kal 
 iLO-yjXOoaav kol ecrT)/crai/ ixofxevot rod 6v(Tia(m]pCov tou 
 Xpvcrov' Kat 86^a Qeov dvkfSr] diro r(ov X.€povj3€lv eh rov 
 atOepoVy.Kal eKdXeo'e rov dvSpa rov h'SeSvKora rov 7roBy]prjy 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 533 
 
 hath he called my name. He hath made my mouth like 
 a sharp sword : and under the shadow of his hand hath he 
 hid me. He hath placed me as a choice shaft ; in his quiver 
 hath he concealed me. And He hath said unto me, Thou 
 art my servant in whom I shall be glorified. And the 
 divine Messenger took the censer, and filled it with fire 
 from the incense altar, and he cast it out upon the earth, 
 as if it were the morning star : and there arose voices 
 and thunders, and lightnings also, and an earthquake. 
 
 21. 
 
 And after these things I saw a great Angel (11) stand- 
 ing upon the incense altar ; and he said : Smite upon the 
 mercy seat ; and the gate shall be shaken j and cut through 
 into the heads of all : and I will slay the remnant of them 
 with the sword. No one of them fleeing shall escape ; 
 and no one of them striving to deliver himself shall be deli- 
 vered : though they hide themselves in Hades, thence shall 
 my hand di-ag them forth : and though they should mount 
 up to heaven, thence also will I bring them down : and 
 if they should go down from my presence into the depths 
 of the sea, there will I command the Serpent, and he 
 shall bite them. 
 
 22. 
 And behold ! Six Men came from the way of the higher 
 gate that looks towards the North ; and an axe was in 
 the hand of every man ; and there wa^ one Man in the 
 midst of them clothed in a flowing robe down to the feet ; 
 and a sapphii-e girdle was over his loins. And they came in 
 and stood holding the golden incense altar, and the Glory 
 of God ascended from the Cherubim into the aether, and 
 
534 AnOKAAY^IZ 
 
 OS cTxev eTTt r^s 6<rtf>vos avrov t^v ^(avrjv koi c«r€ Trpos 
 avTov SU\9€ fi€cn]v y-qv, Kal So? crrjfieiov X (Tav) iirl to. 
 /ACTWTra tQ>v av^piav twv Karacrreva^ovroiv /cat rwi/ KarwSi;- 
 V(j>iX€VO)v €Trl Trdcruis rais dvopLaLS rais yivofUveui Iv fiecno 
 
 aVTQiV' Kai TOVTOIS crTTCV OLKOVOVTOS flOV, 7rop€.V€(T6i OTTLCTO} 
 
 avrov els rrjv yyjv^ /cat KOTrrcre, Kai fxr] (f>€L8€(rO€ rots 6<j)6a\- 
 fioTs v/Aft>»', Kat firj eXe'qairjTe errl Se Trdvras €(fi ovs ko-rtv to 
 a"r}/JL€tov, fi^ iyyLcrrjTe' Kat tSov 6 dvrjp 6 evSeSv/cws rbv 
 TToSrjprjy Kot i^oxrp^vos ry ^(ovy t^v 6(r<f)vv avrov, aTTEKpLvaTo 
 Xeyiov" TToroi'qKa Ka6(os evcreiAw pot' Kai ctSov, Kat i5ou 
 €7rdv(j) Tov a-T€p€MpaT0<s Tov vTTcp K€(f)aX7J<s Toi; X.€povl3€iv (OS 
 At^os o-aTTcfietpov opoiiapa Opovov eir auTwv. 
 
 KE*. 23. 
 KAI'' ^(ovij kXeycv irpos dvSpa tov IvSeSv/coTa Trjv CToX-qV 
 ticreXOe els to pecrov twv t/oox^v, twv vTroKaTW twv Xepov- 
 ^ctj/, Kat ttXtJo'ov Ttts SpaKas crov dvOpaKiov Trvpos ck peaov 
 Twv Xc/)ov^€ij/, /cat Siaa-KopTTia-ov eirl rrjv y^v koi eia-rjXOev 
 evwTTtov epov. Kat toI ^epov^elv cto'Ti^Kct €k Se^ttov tou 
 ^/)orov ev Tip elcnropevecrOai TOV dvSpa, Kai -q ye^eX-q hrXtjcrev 
 rriv avXriv T-qv IcrtoTcpav Kai aTrrjpev "q So^a Kvpiov aTro 
 Twv Xepov/^elv els to diOptov tov dpovov, Kat eveTrXtjo-ev tov 
 Opovov Yj ve(jyeXrj, Kat rj avXrj eTrXyjo-Orj tov <^€yyOvs Trjs 
 ^o^-qs Kvpiov Kai (jxavri T(av Trrepvytnv tQ>v ^epovjSelv 
 •qKoveTo ews ttJs auATy? t'jJs e^iaTepas, ws ^wr)) Beov 2a65at 
 XaAouvTos, ei/ ov/oavois* Kai eyeveTO ev tw cvTcAAeo-^at 
 aitTov Tw dvSpi T(^j IvSeSvKOTt T'i^r (TToXrjv tyjv dytav, Xeyoiv, 
 XdjSe TTvp €K pearov tmv T/ao^wv eK pecrov rC^v ^epovfieXv, 
 Kai el(TT]XBe Kai enTq e^opevos Twv TpoyCiv Kai e^ereivev 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 535 
 
 it called the Man' clothed in the flowing robe, who had 
 the girdle round his loins ; and it said unto him : Go 
 thou over the mid earth, and mark the sign "f* (Tau) upon 
 the forehead of every man, who groans and grieves for all 
 the iniquities that are committed in the midst of mortals. 
 And to the others it said in mine heaiing, Gro ye after 
 him throughout the length and breadth of the land ; and 
 smite, and spare not with your eyes and pity not : but 
 approach not against any on whom is the sign* And lo ! 
 the Man clothed in the flowing robe, and girt around the 
 loins with the sapphire girdle, answered saying, I have 
 done as thou didst command. Then I looked,- and lo, in 
 the firmament, that was above the head of the Cherubim, 
 there appeared over them, as it were, a sapphire stone, 
 the appearance of a royal seat. 
 
 23. 
 
 And the Voice spake unto the Man clothed in linen ; 
 Enter thou into the middle of the circles, even under the 
 cherubic choii's ; and fill thine hands with fire from be- 
 tween the Cherubim, and scatter the fire on the earth : 
 and he went in before my face. Now the Chenibim stood 
 on the light side of the throne when the Man went in, 
 and a cloud filled the inner court, and the Glory of the 
 Loixl went up from the Clienibim, and stood over the 
 threshold of the throne, and the cloud filled the throne 
 and the court also was filled with the dazzling splendour 
 of the Lord's Glory. And the sound of the Chembim's 
 wings was heard even imto the court that was outside, 
 as the Voice of God the All-powerful, when he sjieaketh 
 high amid his heavens. And when he had commanded the 
 Man clothed in saci-ed rol>e saying, Take fire from between 
 
6S6 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 CIS T(jiv Xfpov^elv TYjv X^^P^ avTov els ficaov tov Trvpos Tov 
 ovTos €:s fxccrov twv Xc/)OD/?etv, kol eAa/Jcv, koI eSwKci/ els 
 Tols xeipas TOV evSeSvKoros ttjv (rroXrjv rrjv dyiav, /cat lAa- 
 /3eVf Kal i^yjXOev Kat e^ypav to, Xepov/Selv ras Trrepvyas 
 avT<i)v, Kal ol rpoxoi e)(6fxevoL aurwi', kol rj 86^a Qeov ctt 
 aura virepdvi^ avriav Tovto to Zwov co-Tti' 6 ei^ov vTroKaTta 
 T^s 5o^>^s TOV 0€ov, Kat cyi^wi/ oTt XepovjSclv ecrrt.' re(r(To.pa 
 TT/ooorwTra tw evl, kol o/cto> TTTc/avyes to) ci'i, Kat bixona^Mk 
 ^ct/owi' av6p(i>7ro)v vrroKariJiBev twv Trrepvyiav avTWv 
 
 KE*. 24. 
 
 KAr €?8ov aAA-ov "ArrEAON la-xypov KaTajSaU'ovra Ik 
 TOV oi'/)ai/ov, Trept^e/SXrjixhov vetfiiXijv, Kal ^ Tpis eirl tyJs 
 K€<j>aXrj'S avTOv, Kat to Trpoo-WTrov avTov ws 6 yjXios, Kal ol 
 TToScs avTov ws o-TvAot TTi'/Dos* Kat c;((oi/ €v ry X^*/"^ avTOv 
 JSi/SXapiSLOv dv€(ayfJL€vov Kal c^ovTa (r<fipayi8a tov Qeov 
 
 {wi/TOS* Kat C^T^KC TOV TToSa aVTOV TOV Se^tOV €7rt TIJ'S 9a\d(T- 
 
 <r7]<s, TOV §€ eviovvjxov evl ttjs yrj<s' Kat eKpa^ev cjiOivy p^eydXy 
 CHxTirep Aewv fivKaTac Kal ore cKpa^ev, cAaArycav at lirra 
 fipovral Tcts lavTwv (fnovds- Kal ore eXdXrjarav at ctttoL (ipov- 
 Tat, c/xcAAov ypd(f>€LV' Kal rJKovcra (fxtyvr^v €K tov oi'y)avov 
 Acyovcrav ^(fypdyio-ov d eXdXrjj-av at eirra JSpovraX) Kal /xij 
 TavTa ypdxj/ris' Kat 6 ayyeAos, ov eT^ov ecnCyra €7rt t^s 6a- 
 Xdo'crrj's Kal eTrl tqs y^')s, yp^v rrjv X^'^P^ avrov rrjv Se^idv els 
 TOV ovpavov, Kat wfiocrev ev tc^ Zwvti els tovs atwvas twv 
 aiwvwv, OS eKTicre tov ovpavov Kal Tot ev avTW, Kat t^v yqv 
 Kal rd ev avry, Kal tyjv BdXaorcrav Kal rd ev avry, oVt 
 ^cvSoo-o^ta ovKeTL edrai' 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 537 
 
 the wheels, and from between the midst of the Cherubim ; 
 the Man went in, and stood holding the wheels. And 
 one of the Cherubim stretched forth his hand from be- 
 tween the Cherubim unto the centre fire ; and took fire 
 and gave it unto the Man, who was clothed in the 
 sacred garment ; and he received it and went forth. 
 Then did the Chenibim lift up their wings, and the 
 wheels proceeding from them j and the Glory of God 
 was over and upon them. This was the Living Splen- 
 dour which I saw under the Glory of God; and I knew 
 it to be the Cherubim : and each one had four faces, 
 and each one had eight (12) wings ; and the likeness of 
 the hands of men under their wings. 
 
 24. 
 And I saw another strong MESSENGER (13) coming . 
 down upon the earth from heaven : he was wrapped 
 around in a cloud : and a Rainhoio arched above hi»- 
 head. His face was like the sun : and his feet were' 
 pillars of fire : and he had in his hand a little Book 
 open, which bare the seal of the living God; and he 
 set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot he set upon 
 the earth. And he cried out with a mighty voice, as a 
 lion roaring was his cry. And when he cried, the Seven 
 Thunders muttered deep Voices among themselves ; and 
 when the Seven Thundei*s had spoken, I was about to 
 write, but I heard a Voice from Heaven saying imto 
 me, Seal thou up the words which the Seven Thunders 
 have spoken ; and write them not at all. And the Mes- 
 senger whom I saw standing upon the sea, and upon the 
 land, raised his right hand to heaven ; and sware in the 
 Living One through ages of ages, who made the heaven, 
 
 A A 3 
 
638 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 KE*. 25. 
 
 KAr ISov 86^a Oeov ripx<^ro Kara t^v 6801/ ti]v tt/oo? 
 avaToXas, Koi ^(avr] rrjs Trapefx/SoXrjs, ws (fxavrj StrAacrta- 
 ^ovroiv ttoWmv Kal rj yrj l^eAa/XTrev a>s (fisyyos aTro Tyj<s 
 S6^r]S kvkXoOcv Kat 8o^a Kv/diov ctcr^X^ep eis tov offcov, 
 Kara ri^i/ oSoi' t^^s TrvXrjs ryjs ^AcTrovcDys fcar dvaroXas. 
 
 KE#. 26. 
 KAP 180V ot Tctrcrapcs avefiot tov ou/aavov 7rpoo-e/?a\Aov 
 CIS T-^v OdXacrcrrjv ttjv fxeydXrjV kol ricrcrcpa Biqpla [xeydXa 
 dve/SePacvev ck t-JJs OaXda-ar)?, 8ia(fi€povTa dXX-qXoiv. To 
 rrptoTOv wcrcl Aeatva, /cat Trrepa avr»/ ws acrov; €$€(apovv 
 ews ov l^€TiXrj ra Trrepa avTrjs* Kat €^yp9r) dirb rrjs yrjs, 
 Kot CTTt TToSwv avSptxyrrov icrrdOr)^ kol KapSta dvdpioirov edoOrj 
 avTQ' K«i tSov Otjptov Sivrepov o/*oiov dpKT(^, Kal els p.€po<s 
 €v kcrrdOi], Kal rpets TrAcv/oai ev tw (TTo/xaTL avr^s, ava-. 
 fiGcrov Tiov oSovriov avTrj<s' ^koI ovtws e'Acyov avrr^' dvdcTTrjOc, 
 <pdy€ crdpKas TroAAas* 'Ottlo-io tovto iOciopovv Kal ISov erepov 
 drjplov (j}cr€L TrapSaAts* Kat avTrj irrepa recrcrepa irereivov 
 V7r€pdv(s) avrrj<s, Kal ria-crapes KecfiaXal tw dt)pli^ Kal k^ovaia 
 c866r] avry' 'OiTiaro) tovto edeojpovv Kal l8ov OrjpCov TeTop 
 TOV ^o/?e/[)ov Kat eK^a/x/?ov, Kat Icrxvpov Trepio-crwSj Kat ot 
 oSovre? avTOv (ri^rfpo'i^ icrOiov Kal Actttvi/ov, Kat ra CTTtAotTra 
 Tots TToa-lv avTOv a-vv€7rdTei, Kal avro 8td<fiopov Treptorcrtas 
 irapa irdvra to. Oi^pia ra e/nrpocOiv ai'TOv* Kat Kcpara ScKa 
 avTiS- TLpoa-evoiovv rots Kipacnv avTov, Kal iSov Kepas ere/oov 
 uiKpov dve^i) iv ficcn^ avrwv, Kat T/oia KepaTa twv cfxirpocrdev 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 539 
 
 and those that are therein, and the earth also, and those 
 that are therein; and the sea also, and those that are 
 therein, that the False shall be no more. 
 
 And behold the Gloiy of God came from the way of 
 the East, the voice of its march was as the voice of 
 many, doubled and i-edoubled into a sound of might, and 
 the earth shone out, as splendour came from the cycle of 
 the Glory, and the Glory of the Lord entered into the 
 House, by the way of the Gate that looks unto the East. 
 
 26. 
 
 And behold ! the four winds of the heaven, struggled 
 hard upon the Great Sea ; and four great Wild Beasts 
 came up from the sea ; different all, each one from the 
 other. The first was like a Lioness and had eagle's wings ; 
 and I looked until her wings were plucked away : never- 
 theless she was lifted up from the earth, and upon the 
 feet of a man she stood : and the heart of a Man was 
 given to her. And behold a second Wild Beast like imto 
 a Bear, I'aised itself up on one side ; and three ribs were 
 in the mouth of it, in the very middle of the Wild Beast's 
 teeth. And thus they said to it : Arise, devour much 
 flesh ! And after this I looked again, and behold another 
 Wild Beast like unto a Leopard ; and she had upon her, 
 four wings like a bird ; and this Wild Beast also had four 
 heads ; and great sway was given unto her. And after 
 this I looked, and beheld a foui*th Wild Beast ; di'eadful 
 and terrible and amazing, and strong exceedingly with 
 teeth of iron, devouring and grinding in pieces, and tread- 
 ing down the residue beneath its feet ; and it was entii-ely 
 
540 AnOKAAY^IZ 
 
 avTOv i^€ppL^ioOi]y drro 7rpo(Tio-ov atrou" Kal ISov ocj^OaX/xoly 
 iiio-el Oi^OaX/xol dvOpwirov, Iv t<^ K^pan tovto>, /cat (TTopLou 
 XaXovv fxeydXa. 
 
 KE*. 27. 
 
 KAP ava/3Xe^a9, etSov Kpibv 'i'va fxeyav ecrrcoTa arrcvavrc 
 T'^S TTvXrjs' Kol €t)(€ K€para Kal ra Kcpara vxprjXd) kol to ev 
 vxfnrjXoTcpov rod Irkpov^ Kal to vxJ/rjXoTcpov dvkf^aiv€' McTct 
 B€ravTa il^ov tov Kptov Kcpari^ovTa Trpbs dvaroXd<s, Kal tt/oos 
 jSoppav, Kal irpos Svcrfxds, Kal irpls ixeo-qix/^piav Kal Trdvra 
 Ttt Orjpia ovK (EorTrjcrav oxtcro) at'Tou, Kal ovk ijv 6 pv6p.€vo<i 
 €K tQv ycipdv ai'Tou, Kal IttoUi ws ydeXe, Kal v\f(Jjdr]' Kat 
 €yd} Suvoov/xrjv, Kal l8ov rpdyos alyoiv y'lp^cTO cItto Bva-piiov 
 <7rl TrpoawTrov rrjs yrjs' Kal 7jv tov rpdyov Kepas ev OiCDprjTov, 
 dva fiecrov tQv o^OaXpL^v avr(av' Kat \XOev IttI tov Kpitv 
 TOV Tot Kkpara iypvra^ 6v efSov ccrTWTa Trpc? rij ttvAt;, Kal 
 eSpape 7rpo<s avrov iv Ovpno cpyr}?' Kat eiSov avrov Trpocrd- 
 yovra 7rp6<s tov Kptov, Kal Wvpa^Or) Itt avTov, Kal kirdra^e 
 TOV Kptov Kal (TVV€TptxJ/e TO, Svo KcpaTa avTOU, Kai ovk eVt 
 "vjv tcr)(ys iv tw Kpioi vT^vai KarkvavTi tov Tpdyov, Kal ccnrd- 
 pa^ev avTcv Irrl Trjv y^f, Kat (TVV€Tpt\p€v avriv^ Kal ovk rjv 
 V pvopLCVos tov K^tov aTTO ToG Tpdyov Kal 6 Tpdyos twv 
 atywv KaTt(TXVcr€. crcf^oSpa, Kal ot€ KaTt(T\v(Ti, (TvveTpt^rj 
 <xt'T0v TO Kepas to ju.eya, Kat dve^rj cTcpa Tecrcrapa Kcpara 
 KaTOTTtcrOev avTov cts TOv<i T€crcrapa<s dvcp,ov<5 tov oxpavov' 
 Kat e^ €V0<s avTwv dv€(}ivr] Kcpas icrxvpov cV, Kat KaTtcrxv(r€, 
 Kat cTTctTa^ev IttI pL€a-r]p,l3ptav, IttI votov, Kat iir avaToAas, 
 Kat cTTt fioppav Kal v\p(aOr) ews rwv dcTTepoiv tov ovpavov' 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 641 
 
 different from all the other Beasts which I had seen pass 
 before it : and it had ten horns. And behold, as I closely 
 watched these horns, there came up amid them another 
 little honi, before which three of the fii-st horns were 
 plucked out, and behold, in this horn were bright eyes, 
 like unto the eyes of a Man, and it had a mouth speaking 
 great things. 
 
 27. 
 
 And lifting up mine eyes, I saw a single mighty Ram, 
 standing before the gate and he had homs ; and his horns 
 were lofty, and one more lofty than the other ; and the 
 loftier of the two was ascending. And after these things 
 I saw the Ram butting, towards the East and the North 
 and the West Jlnd the South : and not one of all the Wild 
 Beasts stood after he went ; nor was there one delivered 
 out of his hand : and he did as he thought fit and was 
 exalted. And I looked carefully, and beheld, a he-Goat, 
 began to aiise out of the West, over the face of the whole 
 earth : and he had one observable horn, in the middle 
 between his two eyes. And he came upon the Ram that 
 had two horns, which I saw standing before the gate : 
 and he ran at him in the fury of his heart : and I saw 
 him bearing down against the Ram ; and he was filled 
 with rajije aijainst him. And he smote the Ram, and 
 bmke up his two honis : and there was no longer any 
 strength in the Ram, so that he could stand against the 
 he-Goat. And he flung the Ram upon the earth ; and 
 he stamped and trampled uj)on him ; and there was none 
 who could deliver the Ram from the Goat. And the he- 
 Goat prevailed wonderfully over the goats : but in hig, 
 mightiest strength, his great horn was broken ; and there 
 
Ci2 AnOKAAY^IZ 
 
 Hoi ippdxOrj €7rt t^v yvjv otto tQv d<TT€p<av, Kot oltto avrwK 
 tcareiraTrjOr]. 
 
 KE*. 28. 
 KAI^ hrefrrp€\l/€V o ayyeAos o AaAwv er e/iot, Kai €^yp^v 
 fL€ ov rpoirov, orav c^€y€p$rj dvdpioiros 1^ virvov avrov' Kal 
 £Tir€v irpos /AC* Tt (TV /3k€Tr€i<5 ', Kttt crTTtt* €(opaKa' Kol ISov 
 Avx^ta XP'^^ ^^V '^^'' "^^ X.ap,ird8tov eirdvo) avvrjs, koI hrra 
 XvxvoL iTrdvb) avT"*}?, kol iirra iirapva-TpiSis tols Xvxvois 
 TOts €7rai/w avTTJs' Kat 8vo lAatai €7rai/(o aiSx'^s, jLtia Ik 
 Sc^twv Tov XafiTraSCov avrrjs, koI fiia i^ €ua)vv//,<oi'* Kat ctd/- 
 pioTr](ra, koI etirov irpos rov dyyeXov tov AaAouvra ei/ ep^ol 
 Acywv* Tt IcTTti/ TavTtt Kvpie; kol d-TreKpiOrj 6 dyyeXos 6 
 AaAwv €v €/xot Kat enrev Trpos ft€, Acywv' ov ytvwo-KCts Tt 
 icTTt TttVTa ; Kat eiTra' ov)(l Kvpu. Kat aTreKpidr], koI eTire 
 5r/)os jue, Aeywi/- cTTTa ouTOt 6<fi6aX.p,ot Geov etcrtv ot eTTifSXe- 
 -TTOvres €7rt Tracrai/ t>)i/ y^v* Kat aTreKpidev Kal cfTra Trpo? 
 auToi/* Tt at Svo cAaiat avrai at Ik Se^twv t^s Av}(vias, Kat 
 £^ €V(i>vvp,(i)v avrrjs ', Kat eirrjpiorrjo'a Ik Sevrepov, Kat eura 
 ^/)os avTov Tt ot 8vo KAaSot tiov eAatwv ot ev Tats xepcrlv 
 
 TWJ/ Svo p,V^0)T7]p(Ji)V Tti)V )(/3V(rc3v TWI/ iTTl^eOl'TWy, Kat CTTttl/a- 
 
 -yoi/TWi/ Tols €Trapv(Trpi8as tols xp^<^cis ; Kat crTrc tt/oo? jmc ovk 
 otiSas Tt lo-Tt TavTa; Kat ctrra, ovx} Kvpte. Kat enrev, ovtol 
 ol Bvo viol rrjs ttlott^to's TrapicrTi^Kacnv Kvp'na .'n-dcrrjs Trj<s y^s* 
 SvTOL ela-Lv at 8vo lAatat, Kat at 8vo Av^vtat at kvwTLOv tov 
 Vivpiov T^s yrjs eo-TWT€S* Kat 8w(rw Tots 8vo-i pidipTval fiov, 
 Knt Trpo(jyrjT€vcrov(ri,v rjixepas xtAias 8iaKoo-ias l^-^KovTa, Trepi- 
 
THE APOCALYPSE 543 
 
 arose up four other horns after it, towards the four winds 
 of heaven : and out of one of them arose one strong horn, 
 which waxed great and extended towards the South ; and 
 to the South-west, and to the East also, and to the North ; 
 and it was uplifted even to the stai's of heaven ; and it 
 bi-ought down to earth some even of the stars, and over 
 them it walked. 
 
 2a 
 
 And the Angel that spake in me, turned towards me ; 
 and he wakened me as one wakens a man fi-om sleep : 
 and he said unto me : What seest thou 1 And I said, I 
 have looked ; and behold a candlestick all golden : and a 
 glittering light (14) is on the top of it : and there are Seven 
 Lamps depending therefrom ; and there are seven pipes 
 to the Seven Lamps. And there were two Olive Trees 
 near it : one was upon the right side of the glittering 
 Light, and the other upon the left side. And I asked and 
 said unto the Angel that spake in me ; What are these 
 my lord ? and the Angel speaking in me answered and 
 said : Knowest thou not what these are 1 And I made 
 answer. No my Lord. And he answered me and spake, 
 saying : These are Seven Eyes of God that look over the 
 whole earth. And I made answer and said to him. What 
 be those two Olive Trees, on the right hand and on the 
 left of the Light ? and I enquired again and said to him, 
 What be those two Branches of the Olive Trees, which 
 through the two golden pipes empty the golden oU out of 
 themselves 1 And he said to me : Knowest thou not 
 what these be ? I said : No my lord. And he said : 
 These are the two Anointed Ones, (15) who stand before 
 the Lord of the whole earth : these are the two Olive 
 
544 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 /SejSXrjixhol (raKKov?. ,Kai c? ns avrovs OeXci dSiKrjo-atf 
 
 TTVp iK7rOp€V€Tai €K TOV (TTOfiaTOS aVT(i)V, KOL KaT€(r6t€L TOV<S 
 
 €)(6povs auTtuv Kal h ns avrovs deXct d8iKrj(raL ovt(os Set 
 avTov OLTroKTavdyjvaf Ovrot exovcriv i^ovoriav KXeta-aL tov 
 ovpavbv i'va firj veros (^p^XO '^^'^ rjfxcpas rrjs Tr/Do^ryretas 
 avToiv' Kal l^ovaiav €)(ov(tlv eirl riiov vSarwi/, <rrp€(fi€LV avra 
 els a?/xa, kol Trard^aL Trjv yrjv, co-aKts ^ay $€Xrjcr(i>(rLV, kv 
 iracrrj TrXrjyrj* Kai orav TeXca-iocn Trjv paprvptav avTWv to 
 d-qpiov TO dva/Satvov ck rrjs djSvcrcrov TTOii^crcL fX€T aiJTWv 
 TToXcfiov, KOL vtKrjareL avrovs, Kal aTTOKTevet avrovs' Kal to 
 TTTw/xa avTwi/ cVt TYjs TrAttTcias Trjs ttoAcws ttJs fJLeydXrjs, 
 7]rLS KaXetraL TrvevfxaTLKios 2o8w/xa. Kal ^Xkirovcriv Ik twi/ 
 XaiZv Kal cfivXoiv Kal yAw(ro"cCv kol eduMv ro TTTiofxa avroiv 
 iiyxipas Tpets Kal rlfiLo-v, Kal ra TTTW/xa avTcov ovk dtfi-qcrovcri 
 TC$7JvaL CIS /JLvrjfxa. Kat ot KaroiKovvTiS liri t^s y^s X*'~ 
 povcTiv CTT* avTOLs, Kal €v<f)pav9-qcrovTaij Kal 8(Spa irefixl/ovo'iv 
 dXXr^Xois, on ovtol ot 8vo 7rpo(fjyjTaL ilSaardvLcrav rov<s Karoi- 
 Kovvras crri rrjs yrj<s' Kat /actcx tols rpccs -^/xepas Kal -^fjucrv, 
 JIv€v/xa ^(OTJ<s Ik tov Qeov iia-yjXOev Iv avTois, Kal €(TTrj(rav 
 IttI tovs TToSas avTwv, Kat (fiojSos ficyas errea-ev Itti tovs Oeo)- 
 povvTa<s avTOvS' Kat rJKovcra cfioyvrjv fxeydXr^v Ik tov ovpa- 
 vov, Xeyovcrav avTois' 'Avdf3rjTe wSe. Kat dv€/3r]crav ets 
 TOV ovpavuv iv Ty v€(^kXrj- Kal iOeioprjcrav avTOVS ot €\dpol 
 avTuiy. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 545 
 
 Trees; and these are the Two sliining Lamp-bearers be- 
 fore the Lord. And I will give power to these two 
 Witnesses of mc ; and they shall prophecy twelve 
 hundi-ed and sixty days, (16) clothed in garments of sack- 
 cloth. (17) And if any man willeth to do them hurt, 
 behold! fire cometh out of their mouths: (18) and it 
 shall devour their enemies : and if any man willeth to do 
 them wrong, it is meet that in this manner he shall 
 perish. These have power to shut up the heaven, (19) so 
 that even a shower of rain fall not to earth, during the 
 days of theii- prophecy. And they have power also over 
 the watei's, so as to change them into blood ; and to smite 
 the eai-th if they think fit. (20) And when they shall 
 be finishing their testimony, the "Wild Beast that riseth 
 out of the Abyss, shall make war upon them, and shall 
 overcome them and slay them. And the dead body of 
 one of them (21) shall lie in the streets, of the great city, 
 which is mystically called Sodom : and men from peoples 
 and tribes and tongues and nations, shall see the body 
 three days and a-half; and shall not suffer the wreck to 
 be put in a grave. And they whose whole lives are in 
 the eailh, shall rejoice over them and shall make meiTy, 
 and shall send gifts to one another, because those two 
 Prophets tormented the dwellers on the eai-th. But after 
 three days and a-half, (22) the Spirit of Life from God 
 shall enter into them : and they stood upon their feet, 
 (23) and great fear fell upon those who si\w them. And 
 I heard a mighty Voice from Heaven, saying unto them. 
 Come up hither ; and they ascended into Heaven in thQ 
 Cloud j and they who hated them beheld it. (24) 
 
546 AnOKAAY^IZ 
 
 KE*. 29. 
 KAr ISctJey ixoi *Ia(ro)v rov Upea rov jueyav, IcTTwra trph 
 irpoa-ioTTOv dyyeAov Kr/oiov, kol 6 Bidf3o\os €i(TrrjK€i €*c 
 Se^LiZv avTou, tov dvTiK€i(rOat avn^' koI ehrev Kv/otos irposi 
 rov Sid/BoXov' iTrLTifiT^crai Kv/oto? Iv croi Sid/SoXe, ovk tSov 
 rovTO (OS SaXos i^ea-TraarfiiVOS €K Trvpos ; Kat 'Idcrtov -j^ v €v5€- 
 Bvix€vo<s t/ActTta pvirapa Kat etcm^Ket tt/oo ffpoo-<u7rov tov dyyi- 
 Xov Kal 6 dyyiXos cittcv irpds tov? eo^Koras 7rp6 irpcKnoTroVf 
 Aeywv dcfycXere rot l/xdruf, ra pvTrapa dir avrov' Kal iTircv 
 Trpos avTOV tSov d(f>rjp7jKa rds dvofita^ (rov, Kal evSvcrarc 
 avTOV TToBi^pr}' Kal €irt^€T€ Ktdapiv KaOapavkirl tiJv KC<^aA.>^i/ 
 avTOV* Kat iireOrjKav KtBapiv KaBapdv IttI rrjv K€(j>aX7Jv avTou, 
 Kat irepL€^aXov avrov i/xctrta, Kat 6 dyyeAos Kv/otov eto^T^- 
 KCf Kat 8i€fxaprvparo 6 ayyeAos Kvpiov irpos *ldar(t)V, 
 Xiydiv. HdSe Aeyet Kr/)t05 TravroKpdnop' idv rats oSois /aou 
 vop€V€, Kal kv TOts Trpocrrdyp-aorLv ftov (fivXd^rj^ koI (rv Sta- 
 /cpii'ers TOF otkov ftov icat Idi/ StacjivXacrcrys rrjv avXiljv fiov, 
 Kal BiocTio croi dva<rrp€(fiOiJLivovs kv fxka-oi twi/ ka-rrjKonav rov- 
 Ttov "Akovc 8^ *Id(T(av 6 Upevs 6 fi^yas, (rv Kal 6t 7rAr/o-iov 
 (Tov 01 KaSriix^voi rrpo TrpocratTrov, Stdrt av8p€<s r€paro(rK6iroi 
 iicTL' StoTt iSou lyoj ay(o toj/ SovAoi/ ^ov di/aroA^v* Siort o 
 XiOoSf ov ISwKa Trpo vpocrioTrov *Ido-(uv, €7rt tov Ai^ov tov cVa 
 JKTTa oc^daXjxol cto-iV tSov lyw opvcro-a> jSoOpov, Aeyct Ki;/>tos 
 Oeos iravroKpdrtap, Kal ^r;Aa^^o-a> rracrav r-qv dSiKtav t^s 
 y^s €v riiikpa /At^* 'Ev t^ "^/^P^ kKcivy, Aeyci Kv/)tos Geos 
 TravroKpdrdip' cvvKaAccrcTe cKacrTos tov ttXtjctlov avrov vtto- 
 icctTw dixtrkXov Kal vTTOKardi (Tvk^s" 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 547 
 
 29. 
 And he shewed me Jah-son the great Priest, standing 
 before the face of the Lord's Angel ; and the Accuser 
 stood at his right hand, ready to resist him. And the 
 Lord said to the Accuser: The Lord rebuke thee, O 
 Accuser ! seest thou not this one as a brand plucked out 
 of the fire ? Now Jah-son was clothed in wretched gar- 
 ments, as he stood before the face of the Minister : and 
 the Minister spake to those that were about : Take away 
 these wretched garments from him : and the Minister 
 said to him : Behold ! I have taken away thy wretched- 
 ness; and clothe ye him from head to foot, and put ye a 
 fair mitre on his head ; so they set a fair mitre on his 
 head, and clothed him with bright garments, and the 
 Minister of the Lord stood by. And the Minister of the 
 Eord said unto Jah-son : These things, saith the Lord, 
 who is Almighty ; if thou wilt walk in my ways, and if 
 thou wilt keep my charges, then thou also shalt judge 
 mine house, and thou shalt keep my courts : and I will 
 give thee some of those who are now present, who shall 
 walk also with thee. Hearken then Jah-son ! thou gi-eat 
 Priest ; thou and those who sit near before thy face; for 
 they indeed are wonder seeing men : Behold, I biing my 
 servant the Awakener; and the stone which I have 
 placed before the face of Jah-son, upon that one stone 
 there are seven eyes : behold I will engrave its graving, 
 saith the Lord God Almighty ; and I will remove all the 
 iniquity of earth in one day. Li that very day saith the 
 Lord God Almighty, shall ye summon every man his own 
 neighbour, under the vine and under the fig tree. 
 
548 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 KEf. 30. 
 KAP rj (fiiovrj r)V rJKovcra Ik tov ovpavov^ eAeycv avrois' 
 YTrayc, Aa/?€ to ^t/SXapiSiov to av€ioyfiivov €v rfj x^^P' 
 Toi} (iyyeAov tov co-tcoto? €7rt t^s OaXaxra-rjs Kal iirl Trjs yrjs. 
 Kat uTTi^XOev irpos tov ayyeXov, Xiyiov avT(S, Sovvai to 
 fiifiXapL^LOv. Kai Aeyct avTw* Aa/?€ Kat KaTct^ayc avTo* 
 Kat TTinpavet <rov t^jv KoiXtav, aAA* li/ t<^ (TTOfxaTL aov eo^Tat 
 yXvKv ws /xcAi. Kat cAa/Jci/ to /3Lf3Xapi8iov 6K t^s X'^'-P^^ 
 TOV dyy^Xov, Kat KaTecj)ay€v avTo' Kat vjv ci' tw crTOfiaTL 
 avTOv to? /xeAt yAvKv- Kcft otc l^aycv avTo, iTTLKpdvdrj -^ 
 KoiXia avTOV' Kat Aeyet avT^* Act ce TraAiv irpocfiT]- 
 TeC-o^at cTTt Aaor? Kat 10v^(tl' koX yAwcr<7ais Kat jSacriXiva-L 
 TToAAots. 
 
 KE$. 31. 
 
 KAP /x€Ta Taura efSov AFFEAON KaTaf3 a ivovTa Ik tov 
 ovpavov, e)(0VTa i^oxxriav ficydXrjv koI rj yyj €(fi(OTco-0rj Ik 
 Trj<s 86^r]s avTOv. Kat cycvcTO Aoyos Kvpiov Trpos jxe, 
 Acyojv TaSc Atyet Kvpios iravTOKpaTiup' 'IBov dvrjp, 'Ai/a- 
 ToXtj ovojxa dvT(o^ Kat vTTOJKdTioOev dvTOV avaTcAet, Kat otKo- 
 
 ^Ojl'lCTCl TOV OLKOV Kx'piOV. Kttt dvTOS Xl]XptiTai dpcTfjv, Kat 
 
 KaOuLTai, Kat KaTdp^ti iirl tou Opovov dvTov Kat lo-Tat 
 t£/)crs CK 5e^t(ui/ dvTov Kat cAlye Kv/atos 6 TtavTOKpdTMp' 
 €TL (xTra^ lyu) o'ctcrw Toi/ ovpavov, koI tyjv y^v^ Kal ttjv Od~ 
 XarrcTaVj Kal tijv ^"ijpav, Kat (rvvcr€i(TO) TrdvTa to. iOvq, Kat 
 
 'i}^€t Ttt IkXiKTO. TrdvTlOV TWl/ idviOV, Kol TrA^yCTO) ToV OLKOV 
 
 TOVTOV 5o^v;?, Acyet Ki'pto? iravTOKpdTwp' 'Epcov to a/ayu/jtov, 
 Ktti f/Jtoi' TO \pv(TL0V, Aeyet Kt'/3io5 TravTOKpdTwp' Siotl fieydXyj 
 t(TTai t) So^a TOV OLKOV dvTOVj i) l(T\dTr] vTrep Trjv TrpojTTjV, 
 Acyct KvpLos TravTOKpaTiDp, Kal kv Tw tottw tovtlo St^a-d) 
 €ipi]i'-)]v, Aeyci KvpLOS iravTOKpdTiap, Kal hpyvrjv ^vxrjs ci's 
 TrepLTronjcrLv TravTt T^ ktl^ovtl, tov dva(rTrj(raL tov vaov 
 
THE APOCM.YPSE. 549 
 
 30. 
 And the Voice which I heard from Heaven said unto 
 them : Up, and take the little Book, which is open in the 
 hand of the MESSENGER who stands on the sea and 
 over the land. And he went unto the Messenger saying 
 unto him : Give me the little Book : he said ; Take it and 
 eat it up : and it shall make thy belly bitter ; but in thy 
 mouth it shall be sweet as honey. And he took the little 
 Book out of the hand of the MESSENGER and ate it ; 
 and it was in his mouth sweet as honey ; but when he had 
 eaten it his belly was bitter. And he said to him ; Now 
 it becomes thee to utter prophecies to many peoples ; and 
 before nations and tongues and kings. 
 
 31. 
 
 And after these things I saw a MESSENGER, (25) 
 coming down from the high heaven ; and having great power 
 and strength : and the earth was lightened with his glory. 
 And the Word of the Lord came to me saying, Thus saith 
 the Lord of hosts — Behold a Man, the Orient is his name. 
 and under him shall he spring up, and shall build a Tem- 
 ple to the Lord : yea, he shall build a Temple to the 
 Lord, and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule 
 upon his throne ; and he shall be a priest upon his throne. 
 And the Lord, the All-Ruler proclaimed : Yet again 
 will I shake the heaven and the earth ; and the sea and 
 the diy land; and I will shake all nations; and the 
 Desire of all nations shall come. And I will fill this his 
 house with gloiy, says the Lord Almighty : mine is the 
 silver and mine is the gold, says the Lord Almighty — 
 for the glory of his house sliall be gi'eat ; the latter more 
 than the former, says the Lord Almighty. And in this 
 
550 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 Oeov* 'Ev rc^ ovpav(S i^ fjLd)(aipa dvTOv i/JLeOvaOr]' l8ov Kara- 
 j8^(r€Tat cTTt To{;s (3acriX€LS Kal Aaovs t^s aTTwAetas ficra 
 Kpt(T€OiS' DaATrtVare crdXTriyyi kv Zecciiv, Krjpv^are kv opei 
 ayii^ jxov, Kal (Tvyxv6i^T<x)a-av Trdvres ol KaroLKovvre? rrjv 
 yrjv, Sloti irdpea-Tiv ^fiepa Kvpiov, on iyyvs rip^kpa crK6rov<s 
 Kal yvocfiovj ^fxepa vc^cAt^s Kal 6/>tt;(Ar^s' *fls opOpo? X^^V~ 
 (rerai gttI ra oprj Aao? ttoAi^s Kal Icrxvpos, ofioLOs avri^ ov 
 ykyov€V aTro rov aiwj/05, Kal fi€T avrbv ov irpocrreOrja-eTat 
 €0}s Itwv CIS yci/eas y€V€(ov^ Ta eixTrpocrOev avrov Trvp dva- 
 XiOTKov, Kal Tot oTTtcrw avToO dvaTTTOfievr] <^Ao^* ws irapd- 
 ScLcros Tpv<f)^^ r^ yrj Trpb Trpocr^irov avTOV^ Kal rot oTncrOev 
 avTov TreStof difiavLorfxov, Kal dvacno^ofjievos ovk ecrrai avr(^* 
 *fts opacrii tTTTroyv rj opaais avrQv, Kal ws iWets outws Kara- 
 Btio^ovrar ws (f>o)vrj app^drbiv IttI rag Kopv<^a<s twv opiiov 
 e^aXovvrat, Kal ws <^wv^ cfiXoyos Trvpos KaTecrdtova-rjs KaXd~ 
 jxrjv, Ka\ ws Aaos ttoAi;? Kat l(T\vpo<$ Traparacra-oficvo^ cis tto- 
 Xefxov 'Atto Trpoa-iOTTOv avrov (Tvvrpi/3rjcrovTai Aao6, Trau 
 TrpotroyTTOV ws Trpoa-Kavfia -^^vrpas' ws fxa^rpral Spafiovvrat, 
 Kal ws dy8p€<s TToXefiLG-TaL ava/^i^a-ovTaL CTrt rot r€i\r], Kal 
 €Ka(rro<s Iv ry oSo) avrov Tro/aevcrerat, Kai ov /a^ iK/cAcivwtrtv 
 Tas rptjSovs avTiov. Kai iKaa-ros diro rov dSiXcfiOv avrov 
 OVK d(f>€^erai' KarafBapvvofXivoL kv rots o7rAot5 avrwv Topev- 
 aovrai, Kal kv roTs ^kXecriv avTwv Trecrovvrat, Kat ov />ti) 
 crvvTcAco-^wcrtv T-^? ttoAcw? cttiXt^ /x^ovrai, Kal kvl t(3v 
 rctx^'^'^ ^papLovvrai, Kal kirl rais otKiats dvafBrjo-ovrai^ koX 
 8ia Ovpi8MV etcreXevcrovrai w? KAeTrraf Upo TrpocrioTrov avrov 
 (TvyxvO'qo-craL 7) yrj, Kal orcLcrOrja-erai 6 ovpavos' 6 yjXios Kal 
 "^ creX'jvy} (Tva-Korda-ova-iVy Kal dcrrpa 8v(rov(Tiv to ff^yyo9 
 avTWV Kat Kv^fcos Swo-et cfioyvrjv avrov rrpo irpocrtiyTrov 8vvdr' 
 fi€(as avrov, oVt ttoAA-*^ ka-riv (T<^68pa rj TrapepifSoXrj avrov, 
 on ia-xvpa epya Aoywv avrov, Siort fieydXr] rjpikpa Kvpiov 
 ficydXr] Kol €Trt<f>avris cr^oS/oa, Kat rt's ecrrai TKavos o-vryl 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 561 
 
 place will I give peace, says the Lord Almighty ; ev^i 
 peace of soul for a possession, to every one that builds to 
 raise up a temple to God. In the heaven is his sword 
 baptised ; — behold ! it shall descend with heavy judgment 
 upon the kings and peoples of perdition. Sound ye, 
 sound ye the trumpet in Zion ; and sound an alarm on 
 my holy mountain ; let all the inhabitants of the land be 
 confounded, for the Day of the Lord is near. A day of 
 darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds, and of thick 
 darkness. As the morning spread upon the mountains, a 
 gi-eat people and a strong ; there hath not been ever the 
 like ; neither shall there be any more after it, even unta 
 the years of many generations. A fii'e devoureth before 
 them, and behind them a flame burneth ; the land before 
 their face is as a Paradise, and behind them a desolate 
 wilderness; yea, and there shall nothing escape them. 
 As the appearance of horses is their appearance, and a» 
 hoi'semen even so shall they run. Like the noise of 
 chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like 
 the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble ; as- 
 a strong people set in battle array. Before their face the 
 people shall be afflicted ; all faces shall gather blacknessr 
 They shall run like mighty men : they ' shall climb the 
 wall like men of war, and they shall march eveiy one on 
 his ways, and they shall not break their ranks : and not 
 one shall stand aloof from his brother. They shall go on 
 weighed down with their arms ; and even though they 
 fall u^wn their weapons, yet shall they be in no wise de- 
 stroyed. They shall seize upon the city and run upon 
 the walls ; they shall climb up upon the houses ; they 
 shall enter the windows as thieves. Before them the 
 earth shall be confounded, and the sky shall be shaken ; 
 
S52 AnOKAAY^IZ 
 
 AAA,* 6 <^o/3€/305 Ktti €7rt<^av^s ecTTLV, i^ avTOv TO Kpiixa 
 dvTOV eorat, Kat to Xyjixna avrov k^ avTOv l^eAcvcreTaf koX 
 i^aXovvrai inrep TrapSdXeis ot i'lnrot dvTov, /cai o^vTf/oot 
 {nrcp rovs Av^ov? ttJs 'ApajSias, Kat l^unrdcrovTaL ot iTTTreis 
 aiVou, Kat bpfxiqcrovo-LV p-aKpoO^v^ koX 7r€Ta(r$rj(TOVTaL 0}<s 
 dcTo^ Trp60vp,os €ts TO ^ayer^' 2vvTcAcfca ets do-ejSets 'J^et, 
 dvOio-T-qKoras 7r/3oo-(o7rots avTWi/ €^€vavTLa<s, Kal (Tvvd^€L a»s 
 cLpLpLOV di)(jj,aX(o(rLav' Ko,t dvTos €v /SaariXevcnv evTpvt^^cret, 
 Kat Ti'/)avvot TTUtyvia avrov, koI avTos els Trdv o^vpoyp^a ip.- 
 TTttt'^eTat, Kat ^aXei ^iopa Kat KpaTqcrei avrov. Tore p^era- 
 /3aXet ro irvevp^a, Kal StcAcvcrcTai Kat l^etAacrcTaf avrrj ^ 
 icr)(ys Tw 6co> p.ov. 
 
 KE^. 32. 
 TA'AE Aeyct 6 *A/x^v, o p.dprvs 6 ttio-to? Kat dA>^^ti/os, ^ 
 'Ap)(r) rrjs K/otcr^ws tov 0eov* Kat />i€Ta TavTa rJKOva-a ws 
 ^(ovrjv p,€yd\rjv o^Aov ttoAAov cv tw ovpavcoj Xeyovroyv 
 'AAAaAovta, 'AAAaAovia, 'AAAaAovta, t) o-oyrrjpia kol "q 
 So^a, Kat t) SvvapLLS rov Qeov rjpuiv' "Ort dXi^dival Kat 
 StKatat at Kpi(r€i<s avrov' oVt eKpive rrjv Tropvrjv rrjv pLeydXrjVj 
 yjns ecfiOeipev rrjv yrjv iv ry Tropveia. avTqs, Kat i^eSUrjcre rb 
 atju-a ro)v SovXiov avrov €K xctpos avT'^s* Kat Bevrepov efprjKav 
 'AAAaAovi'a, AAAaAori'a, AAAaAovi'a, Kal 6 vp,vos avrQ>v 
 dvajSatvci els rovs almas ru)v aliovo}v. Kat eirea-av ol TrpecT' 
 BvrepoL ot eiKocTL reacrapeSj Kal ra T€<r<ra/)a Zwa, Kat irpo* 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 553 
 
 the sun and the moon shall be darkened; and 
 the stars shall veil their brightness; and the Lord 
 shall utter his voice before his host, for his camp is very- 
 great : for the execution of his words is mighty. Yea, 
 the Day of the Lord is great — veiy glorious ; who shall 
 be able to resist it 1 But he— HE is terrible and famous : 
 his judgment shall proceed of himself, and his dignity 
 shall come out of himself, and his horses shall bound over 
 leopards ; they are more fierce than Arabian wolves, (26) 
 and his horsemen shall ride and rush from afar ; and they 
 shall fly as an Eagle hasting to eat. Destruction shall 
 come upon ungodly men, resisting with an adverse front ; 
 and he shall gather captives as the sand ; and he shall 
 treat kings with derision, and tyrant princes shall be his 
 toys : and he shall mock at eveiy stronghold, and shall 
 raise a mound, and take possession of it. Then shall 
 he change his spirit and he shall make an atonement 
 saying ; All this strength belongetli to my God. 
 
 32. 
 These things saith the Amen, the Witness ; the faithful 
 and the true, the Sovereign of the Judgment of God. And 
 after them I heard, as it were, a great voice, as of a vast 
 multitude in heaven ; saying, Allalouia ! AUalouia ! Alla- 
 louia ! Salvation, glory and honour of our God with us ; 
 true and righteous are his judgments. For he hath con- 
 demned the Great Harlot who did cornipt the earth with 
 her impureness, and he hath taken vengeance for liis 
 servants' blood, who suffei'ed wrong at her hands. (27.) 
 And again they said, Allalouia ! Allalouia ! Allalouia ! 
 and their hj^mn ascendeth through ages of ages. And 
 the four and twenty Ancients; and the Four living 
 
 BB 
 
554 AnOKAAY^IE. 
 
 (r€Kvvrjcrav tw Ge(^ no KaOrifxevi^ IttI tov Opovov, Acyovrcs* 
 'AfJLYjV' A^XaAovta, AAAaAovia, AWaXovia. Kal <f)(i)v^ €K 
 TOV Opovov i^rjXde, Aeyovcra* Alv€iT€ rov Qebv rnxdv TrdvT€<s 
 ot BovXoi avTOVj Kal ot (fiOJSovfievoL avTov ot ficKpol kol ol 
 jxeydXoL. Kal rJKovcra ws 4>(j)vrjv oxXov ttoAAov, Kal ws 
 ^(Dvrjv v8dr<ji)v TroXXiov^ Kal u>s <f)(ovrjv /SpovTcov tcr^vpwv, 
 XeyovTC'g. 'AXXaXovl'a, AXXaXovia, AAAaAovia- otl ijSacri- 
 Xevcrev Kvpios 6 Geos rjfjiQv, 6 tt avr OKpdroip, Xat/owjuev Kal 
 dyaXXiiofieOaf Kal Sw/x€v t^v So^av avr^* ort >^A^ev 6 ydfio? 
 TOV 'Apviov, Kal 17 yw'^ avrov rjTOtfMacrev kavTiljv' Kat eSo^?; 
 avT^ tVa TrepijSdXrjraL /Svcrcrivov XafiTrpov Kat KaOapov' To 
 yct^ (BvcrcTLvov to, ScKaiiofiaTd ka-ri twv dytwv. Kat Alyet 
 /AOf Vpdxpov MaKccptot ot et's to ScrTTVOV tov ydfxov tov 
 'Apvtov K€KXrjfx€VOL' Kat Aeyet /xof OvTOt ot Aoyot dXt]OivoC 
 ctVt TOV Geov. Kat eVeo-ov cfxirpoa-dev twv ttoSwv avTOV 
 Trpoa-Kwrjarai avr^' Kal Aeyet /xof "Opa /z?J' crvvSovAos crov 
 €t/>tt, Kat Tcov dSeA^wi/ o-ov twi' e;(ovTa)v t^v fxapTvpiav 
 'Icrcra, to Ilvev/xa t^s Trpoj>ryrda<S' T(^ Gc^ /xor^ Trpocr- 
 Kvyrjcrov 
 
 KE$. 33. 
 
 KAP cfSov TOV oupavov avewy/xevov, Kat iSov tTTTTos AevKo?, 
 Kat 6 Kad'qixevo'S e7r' auTov, KaAov/xevos 7rto-Tos Kat dXiqOivo'i, 
 Kal kv SiKaiocrvvrj Kptvet Kal TroXep-eT. Ot Se 6(j>6aXpLol avrov 
 ws (f)Xo^ 7rvpo<s, KaL irrl tyjv Ke^aA^v avTOv SiaSy'jp.aTa 
 TToXXd' €)((i)v ovo/xaTtt x^ypa/x/xeva, Kat 6vop,a yey/oa/x/xevov 
 o ovSets ©rSev, et /a?) auTos* Kat rrepifB^fBX'qp.kvos IpLdriov 
 /3€l3ap,p,€vov atpari' Kai KaAeiTat to ovopa avrov' '0 
 Aoyos TOV Geov. Kat to, crrpaTivp^ara ra ei/.ToJ ovpav*^ ^kO' 
 XovOiL avTi^ €(f> tiTTroLS AevKots, evSeSv/Aevot fSva-crivov XevKov 
 KaOapov. Kat Ik tov (rroparos avrov cKTro/ocvcTai po/A<^aia 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 555 
 
 Creatures fell down and adored God, who sitteth upon his 
 throne ; saying, Amen, Allalouia ! AUalouia ; Allalouia ! 
 And a Voice came out of the Throne, saying ; Praise our 
 God, all ye his sei'vants ; and ye who fear him both small 
 and great. And I heard the voice as of a vast multitude; 
 and as it were the voice of many watei's ; and as the voice 
 of strong thundera, saying ; Allalouia ! Allalouia ! Alla- 
 louia ! the Lord our God the Almighty reigueth. Let us 
 be glatl and rejoice ; and let us give glory imto Him : for 
 the bridal of the Lamb hath come, and his bride hath 
 made hei*self ready. And to her was gi-anted that she 
 should be arrayed in fine linen, pure and shining : for 
 this fine linen is the righteousness of the holy. And he 
 said unto me, Write ! Blessed are the called to the 
 maiTiage supper of the Lamb. And he said to me : 
 These are the ti-ue words of God. And I fell before his 
 feet to woi'ship him ; and he said unto me : See thou do 
 it not ; I am thy fellow servant, and the servant also of 
 thy brethren, who have the testimony of Issa, the divine 
 Spirit of Prophecy ! Worship God alone. 
 
 33. 
 And I saw Heaven opened, and behold a white horse 
 and He that sat on him was called Faithful and True 
 (28) ; and in righteousness did he judge and make wai*. And 
 his eyes were as a flame of fire ; and on his head were 
 many diadems, having names written upon them, and he 
 had a name (29) written, which no man knew but him- 
 self. And he was clothed in a vesture dipped in 
 blood ; and his name Is called the Messiah of God ; and 
 heavenly armies followed him on white horses, clothed in 
 fine linen, white and pure. And out of his mouth there 
 
 BB2 
 
556 AnOKAAY'^12. 
 
 Bio-TO/ios o^eia iva kv avrr] irara^rj ra eOvrj' Kai avro<s 
 TTOifiavei avTOvs iv /5a/3Sa) cridrip^' kol avTos irard ry\v 
 X-qvov Tov oivov rov Ovfxov ry]s opyrjs tov 9cou tov Travro- 
 
 KpOLTOpOS. Kat €)(€L eTTt TO I/XOLTIOV Kttt €7rt TOV fXI/JpOV 
 
 avTov ovop-a yeypap.p,€vov' BaatAeus ^acrtXecov Kat Kvptos 
 Kvpl(i)v. Kat elBov €va ayyeXov ccrrioTa Iv tw ^Xi(^' Kat 
 €Kpa^€ ({i^vrj p^eydXyy Aeywv Tracrt Tots opveoLs tois Trero/xe- 
 vots €1/ p.ecrovpav'jp.aTt' A^vre, a-vvd\6r]T€ eis to SeiTrvov 
 TOV p^kyaXov rov avaKTOS. "Iva cfidyrjre crdpKas Paa-tXeoyv, 
 Kat crapKas \iXidpy({iiv Koi crdpKas l(r\vp(av.) kol crdpKas tV- 
 wwv Kat TMv KaOr]p€voiv kir avTwv, Kat a-dpKas TravTWv lAev- 
 O^piiiv Tc Kat SovAwv, Kat pLiKpQv Kat neydXojv* 
 
 KE*. 34. 
 
 KAP efSov eTTTa ayyeAov?, ot' cvdwrtov TOV Gcov Ictt?;- 
 Kaoriv KOL kSoOrja-av avTOis eTTTa (rdXTnyycs' Kat ot IvrTa 
 ayycAot ot e^ovTes tcIs cTTTa crccATrtyya?, 'qTotp^acrav kavTOvs 
 Xva craXiria-iaa-L' Kat 6 TrpwTOS co-aATTio-ev, Kat lyeveTO 
 XaAa^a Kat tti;/) jU,c/xty/X€va li/ aipLari, Kat i/SX-qOrj els rrjv yrjv. 
 Kat TO rpiTov T^s y^s KaTCKdrjy Kat to Tptrov twv SevS/awv 
 j<aT€Kdr], KOL TTois xopTos x^^P^^ KaTCKdr). Kat 6 Sevrepos 
 -ayyeAos eo-aA7rtcrei/, Kat ws o/oos /xeya 7ri'/3t Kaio/xevov if^Xrj- 
 -Or] eis T>)v ddXacrcrav Kat lyercTO to rpirov Trjs OaXdcrcrrjs 
 <u/jLa' Kat afl-€^av€ to Tptrov rCiv KrL(rp.dr<i)v twv ev tjJ ^aAao*- 
 OTT^, TO, e^o^'^'^* ^^v^as* Kat to rpirov twv TrAotwv SiecjiOdpr]. 
 Kat 6 rpLTOS ayyeAos lo-aATrto-ev, Kat 'iireo-ev Ik tov ovpavov 
 d(rrr)p fxeyas Kai6p.€vo<s ws Aa/X7ras, Kat eVco-cv Itti to rpirov 
 Twv TTorapojv, Kat €7rt Tas Tnyyas twv TuSaTWi/. Kat to ovopLa 
 rov acrrepos Xiyerat 6 axj/Lvdos-, Kat kykvero to rpirov twv 
 rSaTwv €ts axpivOov. /cat TroAAot twv av^/0(07rwv dirWavov Ik 
 twv rSttTwv, oTt k7nKpdv$r]<Tav. Kat 6 TCTa/jTos ayycAos 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 657 
 
 went a sharp two edged sword, that with it he should strike 
 the nations ; and he ruleth them like a shepherd, with 
 an iron rod ; and he treadeth the wine press of wine, of 
 the just judgment of God, the All-Ruling. And on his 
 vesture and on his thigh, he hath written, this name : 
 King of kings and Lord of lords. And I saw a single 
 Angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud 
 voice ; saying unto all the fowls that fly in mid-heaven ; 
 Come and flock to the supper of the great King, That 
 ye may eat the flesh of kings and princes, and the flesh of 
 mighty men and horses ; and of them that sate on the 
 hoi*ses ; and the flesh of all, both free and slave ; and of 
 the mean and of the mighty. 
 
 34. 
 And I saw Seven Angels stand before God; and to 
 them were given seven trumpets ; and the Seven Angels 
 who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to 
 sound. And the fii'st Angel sounded, and straight 
 there followed hail and fire mingled with blood : and 
 they were hurled down upon the earth : and the 
 third part of the land was burnt up ; and the third 
 pai-t of trees was burnt up; every green garden was 
 destroyed in fire. And the second Angel sounded ; and 
 as a great mountain burning with fire (30), it was 
 hurled down into the sea ; and the third part of the sea 
 became blood ; and the third pai*t of the inhabitants of 
 the sea, having living souls, were killed ; and the third 
 part of ships was destroyed. And the third Angel 
 sounded (31), and there fell from heaven a mighty star, 
 blazing like a bright lamp ; and it fell upon the thii'd 
 part of the rivera ; and upon the fountains of waters ; 
 
t^5S AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 ia-dXTnorev koI iirXrjyy] to rpirov rov rjXiov koI to rpirov 
 rrjs creXrjvr]? Kal to Tplrov twv d(TT€p(t)v, I'va (TKori(r$rf to 
 rpirov avTwi/, koX rj rjucpa firj cfmvrj to rpirov avrrjs, Kal -q 
 vv^ ofioLias. Kat €i8oVy Kal rfKovcra Ivos d^rov irerofxevov 
 iv fiea-ovpavrjfxarL, Xeyovros cfioivy fieyaXrj' Oval, oval, oval 
 TOiS KaroiKovcriv iirl rrjs yrj<s, iK twj/ AotTrwi/ (fiCdvQv tws 
 irdXinyyos twv rpiuiv dyyeA-cov r(ov fieXXovraiv (raXiri^uv, 
 
 KE$. 35. 
 KAr o TT^fJLTrros ayyeAos ecrdXTncrev, Kal eiBov da-repa 
 €K Tov ovplavov TTCTrroiKora els rrjv y^v, Kal eSoOr) avrio r^ 
 icXcts Tov <}>p€aros rrjs dpva-crov' Kal rjvoi^ev ro <^pkap 
 rrjs djBva-cTov, Kal dv€/3r] KaTrvos €k rov (})p€aros ws KaTrvos 
 KafJLivov ii£ydXr]<s KaL0fi€vr]<s, Kal ecrKorLO-Or) 6 iJAios Kat o 
 drjp €K rov Kairvov rov <^pkaros. Kat Ik rov Karrvov i^rjX- 
 6ov aKpiSes CIS rrjv yrjv, Kal iBoOr] arTar? I^orcrta ws e'x^vcrtv 
 e^ova-iav oi a-KopTrtoi ryjs yrjs' Kat kppkO-q avrah, I'va fx^ 
 dScK'jo-ojcnv rov xoprov rrjs yrjs, ov8e Trav \X(jipQV, ov8e irav 
 SevSpov, et fjirj rovs dv9p<im-ovs otVu'cs ovk exovorl rrjv cr^pa- 
 •yiSa TOV Gcov eirl rQ>v (JLeratTroyv avro)v. Kal 6 /^acravia-fibs 
 avrojv o)S ftaa-avio-fios (TKopTrlov, oTav Traio-r) dvdpiairov. Kat 
 kv Tats 'qfiepais cKeiVats ^rp-yja-ovo-LV ol dvOpioTroL rov Odvarov, 
 Kal ov [xri ivprjcrovdiv avrov Kal eTnOvfJL'qa-ova-iv aTroSa- 
 Veiv, Kal ^ev^erai d-jr avrOiv 6 Odvaros. Kat ra 6/Aotw- 
 
 fiaTa TWV (XKptSwV OpLOlCL ITTTTOIS '^rOlfiaO'fXeVOLS CIS TToXcfJiOV' 
 
 Kal €7rt Ttts K€(fiaXas avrwv cos 0'T€<^avofc ojxolol ^pvai^, Kal 
 Ta 7rp6a-(t)7ra avrQv ws 7rpoo-(07ra dvOpmrisiv, Kal el^ov T/ot^as 
 ws rpixas yvvaLKOJV, Kal ot oSovres avr<j}v ws Acoj/twv '^(rav, 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 559 
 
 and the name of the star is called "Wonnwood ; and the 
 thiixl part of the waters became wormwood ; and many 
 men died of the waters, because they were changed to 
 poison. And the fourth Angel sounded, and the third 
 part of the sun was smitten ; and the third of the moon 
 and stars was made dark ; and the day shone not for a 
 thiixl part, and the night likewise. And I beheld, and I 
 heard an Eagle flying through the mid-heaven, proclaim- 
 ing aloud in mighty voice, "Woe ! Woe ! Woe ! to the 
 dwellei'S on the earth ; for the voices of the trumpets of 
 the three Angels which are destined yet to sound. 
 
 35. 
 And the fifth Angel sounded, and I saw a Star fall 
 from heaven to eaiiih ; and to him was given the key of 
 the bottomless pit. And he opened the pit of the bot- 
 tomless deep. And there arose a smoke out of the pit, 
 as the smoke of a great blazing furnace ; and the sun and 
 the firmament were made dark, by reason of the smoke 
 of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts 
 over the earth; and they had power like scorpions of 
 the earth ; and it was commanded them to do no harm, 
 to the gardens of the earth, or any green thing ; nor to 
 any tree, but to those men only, who had not the seal of 
 God upon their foreheads ; and their sting was as the sting 
 of a scorpion, when he strikes a man. And in those days 
 men shall seek death, and they shall not find it; and 
 they shall desire to die, and death shall flee away from 
 them. And the appearance of these locusts was that of 
 war-hoi*ses prepared for battle ; and on their heads were 
 like, as it were, crowns of gold ; and their faces were as 
 the faces of men; and they had hair as the hair of 
 
560 AnOKAAY^I2. 
 
 Hai eTxov OcapaKas ws 9copaKa<s (TiSrjpovs, koI y cjioyvr) Tiov 
 ^rrepvyiov avrwv cos <})0)vri apfidroyv iTnroiv ttoXXiov rpeypvroiv 
 cts TToAc/jtov. Kat e^ovo"iv ovpas ofiota's crKopTTLots, Kat 
 K€VTpa' Kat kv rais ovpais avTiou ^ i^ovcria avrCiv dStKrja-aL 
 Tovs dvOpijOTTovs fxrjvas Trevre. "Yi)(ov(tlv i<fi avrwv f^acTiXka 
 ayycAov t^? d^varcrov ovofia avri§, ^A^aSSwv, Kal ovojxa 
 €XeL 'ATToXXviav, *H orat oj Z^*^ aTTT^XO^v l8ov €p)(ovTat 
 €TL Bvo oval fJL€Ta ravra. 
 
 KE^. 36. 
 KAI^ eiSov aAAo (r7]fJL€iov iv t^ ovpav(^ /ilya Kat 
 OavfJLacTTov, dyycXovs kina e^^ovra? TrA^^ya? cTrra ras 
 la'\dra<Sj ort ti^ avrats kTiXkcrBr) 6 dvpZs rod Qcov, 
 Kat yuera ravra eiSor, Kat rjvoiyrj 6 vacs t^? o-Kr^v^Js tov 
 fiaprvpiov kv rc^'ovpavi^. Kat k^rjXdov ol eTrra ayyeAot 
 ot €XOVT€S Tcis CTTTo, TrAr^yas cK TOV vaov, evSeSi'/Aei/ot 
 Ai^oi/ KaOapov XapLTrpbv, Kal irepte^iacrfikvot inpl to, arrjOrf 
 {(uvas )(pv(ras- Kat eV Ik twv recrcrdpoiv Zwwv e3o>K€v rots 
 €7rTa dyyeAoi? eTrra ^taAas ^pvtras, yefiovcras rov Ovfioi) 
 TOV Ocov TOV {^wv'TOS €ts TOVS atwvas Ttov atwi'wv. Kat 
 eyefiLO'O'ri 6 vaos KaTriov £K t^s So^rjs rov Qiov^ Kal kK ttJs 
 8vva/xc(os avTOv Kat ovSets rySviaro cto-eA^etv et? tov vaov, 
 o-XP'' reXccrdiSa-tv at eTTTot TrA^^yat tojv eTTTo, ayyeAwv. 
 
 KE*. 37. 
 
 KAP yXOev its €K Twv cTTTot (xyycAwv rwv l^o^Twy rol? 
 
 Ittto, cfiidXas, Kttt eAaAT^o-ev />tCT* kfiov, Aeywv ' AeOpo, Sei^w 
 
 cot TO Kpljxa T'^s TTopvT^s T^S fi€ydXr)s, rrjs KaOrjfxkirjS 
 
 CTTt Twv vSaro)!/ Twi/ TToAAcov /i€^' 7^5 cTTO/avevo-av ot 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 561 
 
 women ; and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. And 
 they had breastphites, as breastplates of iron ; and the 
 sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots, of 
 many hoinses charging to battle. And they had tails like 
 scorpions, and sharp stings, and in their tails was their 
 power to hurt men during five moons. And they had 
 a king set over them, an angel out of the abyss ; whose 
 names are Abaddon and Apollyon. One woe is past, and 
 behold there come two more hereafter ! 
 
 36. 
 And I saw another sign in heaven ; great and won- 
 derful it was : Seven Angels, having the seven last 
 plagues, that in them might be perfected the justice of 
 God. And after these things I looked, and behold the 
 Temple of the tabernacle of the testimony was opened in 
 Heaven : and the Seven Angels came out of the temple, 
 having the seven plagues : they were clothed in stone 
 pure and shining, and their breasts were girt around 
 with golden girdles. And one of the Four living Ones, 
 presented unto the Seven Angels, seven golden vials, 
 filled with the justice of God, the Eternal Life through 
 ages of ages ; and the Temple was filled with a cloud 
 from the Glory of God and from His power; and no one 
 was able to enter into the Temple, till the seven plagues 
 of the Seven Angels were fulfilled. 
 
 37 
 And there came one of the Seven Angels, who bare 
 the seven golden vials ; and he talked with me, saying 
 Come hither, and I will shew unto thee the judgment of 
 the Mighty Harlot that sitteth upon many watei-s : with 
 
 BB 3 
 
562 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 fSaa-iXets t^s y>}?, kol e/xeOva-Oyja-av ol KaToiKovvres tyjv 
 yrjv eK tov olvov rijs iropvetas avrrjs. Kut dTrrjveyKe 
 fie CIS €pr]fjt,ov kv TrvevfiaTL' kol elBov yvvaiKa KaOrniivriv 
 CTTt Orjpiov KOKKivov, ycfiov 6vofxdr(j)v /3\a<Tcf)r]fXLa<;, e'x^^ 
 K£<Pa\ds eTTTot Kal KepaTa 8iKa. Kat rj yvvrj rjv irepL- 
 fSe^XyjUevT) Tropcjivpovv kol kokkivov, /cat Kexpva-oi/J^vq 
 y(pv(rlo) Kol Xl6(^ TtfiLip koI fiapyapiTatSy e^ovcra TroTiJptov 
 )(pv(T0vv kv Ty X^'P' aw"^? yifiov (SSeXvyfiOLTiov, Kal ra 
 OLKoiOapTa T-^s TTopveCas avrrjs, kol €7rt to fxeroiTTOv a^rrjs 
 ovofxa yeypafxfxivov' M.vcrr'qpLov' ^a-BeX-Ov 17 fieydXrj 
 firJT^^p Tt5v TTopviSv KOL Tojv /38eAvy/>taTO>v t^s yrjs. Kat 
 etSov rrjv ywaiKa fiedvovcrav kK tov at/AaTOS TtSv dyiCDV, Kat 
 €K TOV al'fxaTOS TOiv jxapTvpiov 'larcra' Kat kOavjxa(ra, iSwi/ 
 avT7jv, OavfJLa fxeya. Kat ctTre /Aot 6 ayyeAos. AtaTt 
 kdavixacras ; ky<o (rot kpiS to fJLvcTTrjpLov ttjs yvi^ai/cos, Kat 
 TOV Orjptov TOV f^aa-Ta^ovTOS avT-qv^ tov e^ovTos tols cTTTct 
 K€(jia\as Kal Ta SeKa KepaTa. to Orjpiov o elScs, ^v, Kat 
 OVK ecTTtv Kat fxkWei avaf^aivetv kK Trjs djSvcrcrov, Kal els 
 aTTioXeiav xnrdyeiv Kat Oav/xdarovTaL ol KaTOiKovvT€<s kirl 
 TTJs yyjs, (Sv ov yeypa-n-Tat to. ovofxaTa kirl to /3t/3Aiov Trjs 
 ^lorjs, /SXeTTOvToyy to Oyjptov otl tJv, Kat ovk co-tl, Kal irdpea-Tai. 
 Kat Xkyu fJLOL' to, vSaTa a etSes ov rj iropvt] KaO'QTai, Xaol 
 Kal oxXoL kio-lv, Kal 'kdvr] Kal yXujcra-at' Kal rj yvvrj ^'jv ItSc? 
 ^'a"Ttv TToAts fxeydXy] e^ovara f^acTiXelav e:rt T(av /Saa-tXciDV 
 Trjs yrjs' Kat cKpa^ev kv l(T)(yp^ 4'^^'U) Xeyujv "^TrecreVj 
 €Tr€<T€v ttoXls rj fieydXrj, Kal kykveTO KaTOiKrp-rjpLov SaipiovoiVj 
 Kal cf>vXaK^ TravTGS Trvev/iaTOS dKaddpTOVj Kat cjivXaKrj 
 TravTos opvkov dKaOdpTOv Kal fxeixtarrjfxkvov' otl kK tov 
 oivov'TOV Ovfiov Trj<s TTopvdas avTTjS TrkTTWKaa-LV irdvTa Ta 
 edvrjy Kal ot jSaa-iXds Tys yrjs /act' avT^s k7r6pv€va-aVf Kal 
 ol efXTTopoL Trjs yrjs kK t^s Svvdfxem tov a-Tprjvovs avT^s 
 kirXovTrjo-av, 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 563 
 
 whom the kings of the earth have harlotted ; and the 
 inhabitants of the earth liave made themselves drunken 
 with the wine of her evil wantonness. And he carried me 
 away in the spirit into a desert place, and I saw a Woman 
 sitting on a scai'let-coloured Wild Beast, full of the names 
 of blasphemy ; having seven heads and ten horns. And 
 the Woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and gilded 
 with gold and precious stones and pearls ; having a golden 
 chalice in her hand, full of the abominations and corrup- 
 tions of her filthiness. And on her front was this name 
 wiitten. A Mystery ! Ba-Bel-On, the great Mother of the 
 filthiness, and of the foul abominations of the whole 
 eai-th. And I saw the Woman, and she was drunken 
 with the blood of the holy and with the blood of the 
 witnesses of IssA : and I wondered, seeing her, a great 
 wonder. And the Angel said unto me : Wherefore dost 
 thou marvel 1 I will reveal to thee the Mystery of this 
 Woman ; and of the Wild Beast on which she rides ; 
 which hath the seven heads and ten horns : the Wild 
 Beast which thou seest, was and is not ; and shall ascend 
 out of the bottomless pit : and shall pass away into utter 
 nrin. And they who dwell upon the earth shall wonder, 
 they whose names are not enrolled in the Book of Life, 
 when they see the Wild Beast that was and is not, and 
 yet Ls (34:). And he saith unto me : The waters which 
 thou lookest upon, wherein this odious Harlot sitteth, are 
 peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues : and 
 the Woman which thou sawest is a mighty city, having 
 dominion over the rulers of the earth. And he cried 
 mightily with a strong voice, saying : She is fallen ! She 
 is fallen ! the mighty city is fallen ! She is become the 
 habitation of demons, and the hold of every unclean spirit; 
 
564 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 KE*. 38. 
 KAF rJKOVcra aXXr)v cj)(ovrjV e/c tov ovpavov, Xcyova-av, 
 E^eA^€TC c^ avTrjs, 6 \a6s fJ.ov, I'va fir] crvyKOtvoivrjcrrjTe rats 
 a/xaprLai<s auri}?? ko-I ck twv TrA^ywy ce^r^Js tVa firj Xd/Srjre' 
 on iKoXX'qOrjcrav avrrjs at afxapTiau ^yjpi rov ovpavov, koI 
 ifivrjfjLovevorev 6 Geos rot dBiK7]fiaTa avTTJs. 'AttoSotc avrfj., 
 u)s Kol avTri aTreSwKei/, kol 8L7rXw(raT€ avry SnrXd, Kara toL 
 epya avrr]<s. h t^ TrorrjpLc^ dvTrjs (^ CKc/aacrer, Kcpdcrare avry 
 BnrXovv. "Ocra cSo^acrcv 'iavrrjv koI icrTprjvlacrev rocrovrov . 
 S6t€ dvTrj f3acravL<Tfibv kol TrevOos. "On kv rfj Ka/oSict avrrjs 
 Xiya' Ka^7;/x,at j8a<riAto-cra, Kat x^P°^ ^^'^ ^^i"'^? '^*^ irivdo's 
 ov firi tSio. Ata TOVTO Ir fXL^ VH'^P'} "^^ovcriv at TrAT^yat 
 avTrjsy $dvaTOS kol 7rivOo9 koI At/xos' Kat iv irvpl Kara- 
 Kttv^^crcTaf oTt to-x^pos Kv/oios 6 Gcos 6 Kpiva5 aiViJv. 
 Kat KXavcrova-LV kol Ko^ovrat Itt' avryv oi jSaariXets t^s 
 yJJ?, ot jU€T* a^T^s 7ro/)V€VcravTes Kat CTTprjvidcravTes, orav 
 jSAeTTWcriv TOV KaTrvov ti}s Trv/awcrews avr^s. otto fxaKpodev 
 loTT/^Kores Stot TOV cfio^ov rov /Saa-avKr/xov avrrjs, Ae'yovTcs* 
 Ouat, ovat, ^7 TroAts 17 />i€yaAr;, 17 ttoAis 17 to"X^/>S oVt /At^ 
 <op^ T7A^cv 17 KpCcris (TOV. Kat ot efiTropot rrj<s yrjs KXalovcriv 
 KoX TTCvOovcTLV Itt' ttUTTy OTt TOV yofxov avTiov oi'Sets 
 dyopd^€t ovK err yofiov XP"^^^^ '^^^ dpyvpov, kol XiOov 
 ri/xLov Kat fxapyapLTOV, kol /Svcra-Lvov kol ' Tropcjivpas, koI 
 crrfpiKov Kat kokklvoV Kat Trav ^vAov ^viVov, Kat Trav (rK€vo<s 
 cAc<^avTtvov, Kat Trav ctkcvos €k ^vXov nfXKordrov koI xc-Xkov 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 565 
 
 and the retreat of every impure and hateful bird : for 
 of the wine of the passion of her foul impurity, have 
 all the nations drank : and the kings of the earth have 
 harlotted with her ; and the traffickers of the earth have 
 been enriched through the abundance of her odious 
 things. 
 
 38. 
 And I heard another Voice from Heaven, saying : Come 
 out of her, O my people, that ye be not made partakei-s 
 of her sins : that ye receive not of the plagues that come 
 upon her ; for her iniquities have reached to heaven ; and 
 God hath borne in mind her evil doings. Give ye ivito 
 her, even as she gave unto you ; and double unto her 
 double, according to her works : in the cup which she hath 
 mixed mix ye up a double portion. By so much as she 
 hath glorified herself, and lived sumptuously, repay ye 
 her with sorrows and affliction. For she said in her 
 heart : I am a throned queen ; I am no widow and shall 
 see no soitow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one 
 day : death and mourning and famine : and she shall 
 be utterly burned with fire ; for strong is the Lord God 
 who judgeth her. And they shall lament, and they shall 
 be aggrieved ; those kings of the earth who have har- 
 lotted with her : wlio have feasted with her in her luxu- 
 ries ; when they shall see the smoke of her burning, and 
 shall stand afar oflf for the terror of her toiment. They 
 shall cry out, Alas ! alas ! thou great city, thou mighty 
 city ; in one hour is thy judgment come. And the traf- 
 fickers of the eai-th mouni and wail over her, for no man 
 shall buy her merchandize any more : merchandize of gold 
 and silver and precious stones and pearls, and fine linen and 
 
566 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 Kol (TL^ripov KOI fjLapfxdpov. Kat KLvdfxoifxov, Kot afioifioVf 
 Kol Ovixid/xaray Koi fxvpoVj Kal Xl/So^vov, kol otVov, Kat 
 ^Xaiov, KOL arefiLSaXLv, koI (tltov, kol Kn^vrj^ Kal TrpofSaTcn, 
 
 KOL LTTirOiV, KOL p^SiOV, Kol CTCO/AaTWV KOL ^^V^ots dv6pU)7r(OV. 
 
 Kat 1^ OTTiopa TTJs CTTt^v/Atas rrjs ^v)(rj<s crov aTrrjXOev dirb 
 crovy Kot Trdvra rot Xnrapa kol to, Xa/nrpa aTrwAero (xtto crov, 
 icat ovKen dvTa ov firj evpyja-ys. Ot cfnropot tovtwv, ot 
 TrXovTrjcravres dir' avrrjsy d'Jrb fxcLKpodev orTT^crovTaL, Sea 
 rov (fiofSov rov (^acravKTixov avT7]<5, KXaiovr€s Kal TrevOovvreSf 
 Aeyoi/T€S* Ovaly oval' rj ttoXh tj fieydXr], rj 7repi/3epXrjp.€vrj 
 
 f^'VO'diVOV Kal TTOp^VpOVV Kal KOKKIVOV, Kal K€)(pV(T(i)[JLevr] Iv 
 
 yjiV(TL(^ Kal XlOo) Tifju(^ Kal fiapyapiTais' OTt />itct cupa rip-qiK^Ori o 
 Toarovros ttAoiJto?. Kat Tras KvfB€pvi^Tr)<5, Kal Trds 6 C7rt tottov 
 "TrXiwv, Kal vaiJrat, Kat ocrot rrjv OdXacrorav epyd^ovrai, aTro 
 fxaKpoBev 'icrrrjcraVy Kal diro fiaKpodev Kal iKpa^ov jSXeirovTCS 
 rov KaiTvov rrjs TTV/owcrctDS avryjs, Aeyovrcs" Tts 6/Aota ry 
 TToAet TTJ fieydXy ; Kat c/SaXov x^^^ ^''"^ '''^^ K€(fiaXa<s 
 avTiov, Kal eKpa^ov KXatovres Kal irevdovvres, Aeyovres* Ovat, 
 ovat- -^ TToAts t) fieydX-q, kv 'q iTrXovrrja'av TrdvTes ol €)(Ovt€S 
 Tct TrAota ev Ty OaXdcrarri Ik t^s TLfiiOTrjTos avTyj<s, on 
 fiL^ (vpa rjprjixioOr}. ¥tvcfipaLvov irr' o.vt'Qj ovpavl, Kal ot 
 ayioL Kal ot aTrocTToAot Kat ot TrpocjirJTaL, oTt eKpivev 6 
 Oeos TO KpifLa vfiuiv 1^ avT^s. 
 
 KE#. 39. 
 KAI^ ypev eis ayyeXos l(Txvpb's XiOov cos {xvXov fieyav^ 
 Kal e/SaX€v eis rr^v ^oAacrcrav, Aeywv Ovto)? opp^-qptari 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 567 
 
 purple and silk and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and eveiy 
 ivory vessel ; and every ornament of the most precious 
 material ; of fine wood and brass and iron and marble ; 
 (35) and cinnamon and amomum and pei*^umes and oint- 
 ment ; and fn\nkincense and wine and oil and fine floiu* ; 
 and wheat and cattle and sheep ; horses and chariots and 
 bodies ; yea, and even the very souls of men. And the 
 autumn fruits of the lust of thy soul, — these also have 
 departed from thee ; and all thy priceless and thy shining 
 treasures ; — these also have departed from thee : and thou 
 shalt find them never again. The trafficker of those 
 things, who were made rich by her, shall stand afar oflf, 
 for the fear of her torment ; weeping and wailing, and 
 saying pitifully, Woe ! "Woe ! that glorious city, that was 
 clothed in fine linen and pui*ple and scarlet ; and gilded 
 with gold and jewels ami pearls ; in one hour her riches are 
 come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all who were 
 sailing to that place, and mariners, and all who work by 
 sea, stood afar ofi', and afar off; and cried out when they 
 saw the smoke of her burning, sajdng : Wliat city was 
 like unto this great city ? and they cast dust upon their 
 heads ; and cried aloud, weeping and wailing, saying : 
 Woe ! woe ! the city that was so great ; wherein were 
 enriched all who had ships ui:)on the sea, by reason 
 of her costly luxuries ; — that in one hour she should be 
 made desolate ! Rejoice over her, thou heaven 1 and ye 
 O holy ones ! the Apostles and the Prophets; for God hath 
 judged your judgment upon her. 
 
 39. 
 And a strong Angel took up a stone, like a great mill- 
 stone, and cast it into the sea, saying : Thus with vio- 
 
568 AnOKAAY^IZ 
 
 pXr]di]o-ira.i rj fieydXtj TroAt?, Kal ov /xr} evpeOy ere. Kal 
 4>iovr} KiOapwSiov Kal fiovcTLKiov Kal avXrjTiov Kal (raXiTLcrTiav 
 ov firj (XKovcrOy iv (rol ert, Kal ira? nxyiTYjs Trdcrrj's T€)(vrj^ 
 ov firj €vpe6rf ev (rol ert, Kal cfxavrj fJ^vXav ov fxrj dKov(rdr} Iv <toI 
 €Ti, Kal cjiiaS Xv)(yov ov firj cfiavy kv crot €tl, koI (ficovrj vv/xcfiLov 
 Kal vvix^rj<s ov /xyj aKOvo-drj iv Col ert. ol efxiropoL a-ov ycrav ol 
 jub€yicrrdv€STy]S yrj<s, dXX* ev ry (fiapfxaKet^. (rov iTrXavT^drjarav 
 irdvra rd eOvrj. J^alivavTrjatfiara 7rpo<liT]TU)v Kaldytoiv cvpeOrj, 
 Kal 7rdvT(i)v twv ka-cfiayiiivcav IttI ttJs yrjs' Ov KaroiKYjOi^creTai 
 It? rov al(ova xP^^^^-> ^^'^^ f'l ha-eXdcocrLV hs avrrjv Stcc 
 TToXXQv y€V€(Jov ovSk 7rot/x€V'C5 ov fXTj dvaTravcrovTai iv dvry. 
 Kal dvairavo-ovrai Ik^l Orjpta, koI €fJL7rXrjcr$'j(rovTaL at ol)(iai 
 •qypv Kal dvaTravcrovrai €K€l o-€ip>Jv€s, Kal Saifiovia €K€i 
 opXQCovTav Kal ovoKivravpoi €K€l KaroiKr^a-ovcriv Ka\ 
 vo(T(T07roiri(Tov(TLv k-)((avoi kv rots or/cots avrOtv' Kat kv eKeiinj 
 ry oipa eyivcro a-6i(r/xos /xeya?, Kat to BiKarov t-JJs TroAews 
 eireore, Kal direKTdvdya-av kv t^ crcicrfii^ oi/o/xara dvOpiarroyv 
 ^lAtaSc? eTTTct' Kal 6t AotTTOt €ix(f>ofSoi kykvovro, koI cSdyKav 
 Bo^av T(^ 0ew Tov ovpavov. 'H ovat i^ Bevrkpa aTrrjXdev 
 iBov, y oval rj rpiTq €p\€raL ra^v. 
 
 KE^. 40. 
 KAP ka-TdOyv wcrct Itti ttIjv dfifJLOV rrjs OaXdcTcrrjq, kol 
 eiSov kK TYJs OoAda-arjs Orfpiov dvapdivov exov Kepara BeKO, 
 Kal K€^aAas kirrd' koI €7rt twi/ Kepariov dvTOv BcKa StaSry/xara, 
 Kat cTTt ras Kc^aAas avTOv ovofiara ^Xacrcf)r]iiias. Kat 
 TO Orjptov o eTBov, yv o/xoiov irapBdXei, Kal ot ttoScs avrov ws 
 dpTKovj Kal TO (TTOfia avTOv ws CTTOfia AcovTOS. Kat IScoKev 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 569 
 
 lence shall this great city be cast, and shall no more be 
 found at all. And the voice of harpers and musicians 
 and pipers, and trumpeters, shall never more be heard in 
 thee ; and no craftsman of whatsoever craft shall ever 
 again be found within thy walls ; and the sound of the 
 millstone shall not be hdUrd within thee ever again ; and 
 tlie light of a lamp shall not be seen within thee ever 
 again ; and the voice of the bridegroom and of his young 
 bride, shall never more be heard within thy dwelling : 
 thy traffickei's were princes on the earth, but by thy sor- 
 ceries were all nations deceived. And in her was found 
 the blood of prophets, and of holy ones, and of all who 
 were slain on earth. She shall not be inhabited for an 
 everlasting time ; neither shall any enter her for many 
 genei-ations : nor shall any shepherds pasture in her : but 
 wild beasts shall rest there ; and doleful creatures shall 
 abide there ; and devils shall dance there ; and tailless 
 apes shall dwell there ; and hedge hogs shall make nests 
 in thine houses. And in that same hour there was a great 
 earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell : and there 
 were slain in the earthquake names of men, seven thou- 
 sand : and the remnant became afraid, and gave glory to 
 the God of Heaven. The second woe is past : and behold 
 the third woe cometh quickly. 
 
 40. 
 And I stood as it were upon the sand of the sea ; and 
 I raw out of the sea a Wild Beast (3G) ascending, having 
 ten horns and seven heads ; and upon his horns ten dia- 
 dems ; and upon his heads the names of blasphemy. And 
 the Wild Beast which I saw was like a Leopard ; and his 
 feet were as the feet of a Bear ; and his mouth was as the 
 
570 AIIOKAAY^IS. 
 
 avTi^ 6 SpaKtav rrjv SvvafMLv avTov^ Kdi tov Bpovov avroVy 
 Ka\ e^ovcrtav fieydXrjv, koc fitav e/c t(ov Kc^aAwv avrov ws 
 ia-({)ayiJL€vr}v els ddvarov koI 17 trXriyri rov Oavdrov avrov 
 iOepairevdr], koI l^av/xacrcv oA>; 07 yrj oTricro) tov QrjpLOVj 
 Kal TrpocreKvvrjcrav T(f SpaKovri, 6tl eSco/ce rrjv k^ova-iav T(^ 
 6r)piOi, Kal 7rpo(T€Kvvr)(rav Tt^ OrjpLii}, Xeyovres' Tts o/xotos 
 T(§ OrjpLO) ; Kal Tts Svvaros TroXe/xyja-at fxer avTOv ; Kal eSoOrj 
 avTi^ a-rofia XaXovv fxeydXa Kal /3Aacr<^i^/x,ia9 Tvpos Geov 
 fiovov Kai iSoOrj avT(^ k^ovcria TroXe/xov Trotrycrat 
 /Ji.yjvas Tecra-apdKOvra 8vo. Kat 'qvot^e to crTojxa avrov els 
 /SXaa-cfirjfiLav Trpos rov Qeov [xovov, fSXacr(}>rjiJt,rja-aL to ovofia 
 avrov, Kal rrjv a-K-qvrjv avrov, Kal rovs ev tw ovpav(§ 
 CTKrjvovvras. Kat eSoOrj a^JTw TroXcfxov TroLrja-at fxera rQv 
 dyiwv, Kat viKrjcraL avrovs' Kal eSoOr] avr(S e^ovcria iirl 
 iraQ-av <j)vXrjV Kal Aaoi/ Kat yXayaaav Kal edvos. Kal 
 7rpo(TKvvi^(Tov(rLv avrov Trdvres ol KaroiKovvres eirl rrj<s yrj?, 
 &v ov ykypairrai ro 6Vo/Aa ev toJ jSi/^Xiii) rrjs ^o)rj<s' rov 'Ap- 
 VLOV Tou icr(fiayiJL€vov, dirb Karaf3oXii]<s Koa-fiov. Et Tts 4'xct 
 ovs, aKovirdro}. Et tis Its al)(jiaX(i)(riav virdytj ets 
 alxfiaXoxriav vnrdyei' eu Tts ev /aa^ai/o^ aTroKTevei, Set avrov 
 iv /xa^at/o^ aTroKTav^^vat. '^Q.Be ecrriv ^ VTrofiovrj Kal ij 
 vtcrris riav dylmv. 
 
 KE*. 41. 
 
 KAI^ eiSov aAXo 6y)pi0v dvafialvov eK rrjs yqs, Kal €?j(€ K€- 
 para Bvo o[xoia dpvio), Kal eXdXei wsS/oaKwv. Kat rrjv e^ovaiav 
 rov lTp(orov B-qpiov Tracrav Trotet. Kat Trotcr rrjv yrjv Kal rovs 
 iv avrrj KaroiKovvras, Tva 7r/300-Kvi/»/(rwcrt to Orjpiov to Trpw- 
 TOVf ov edepairevdrj ^ irXrjyrj rov davdrov avrov. Kat 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 571 
 
 mouth of a Lion. And to him the Dragon gave his 
 ix)wer, his throne, and his great dominion. And I saw- 
 one of his heads as it were wounded to death ; yet was 
 this wound of death healed ; and the whole earth won* 
 dered in the train of the Beast ; and they adored the 
 Dragon which gave power to the Beast (37), and they 
 adored the Beast also, saying : Who is like unto this 
 Beast ? and who is able to make war against him ? And 
 there was given to him a mouth speaking great things 
 and blasphemies against the One God ; and there was 
 given to him power to make war for the space of forty 
 and two months (38). And he opened his mouth in blas- 
 phemy against the One God; to blaspheme His name 
 and his Tabernacle ; and those also who dwell with Him 
 in heaven. And it was permitted him to make war 
 against the holy ; and even to overcome them in war : 
 and he had sway over every tribe and tongae and people and 
 nation. And all who dwelled on earth adored him ; those 
 whose names are not enrolled in the Book of Life : and of 
 the Lamb who was sacrificed from the foundation of the 
 world. He that hath an ear let him hear ! If any man 
 leadeth into captivity, he also shall be led into captivity : 
 if any man killeth with the sword, he also shall be slain 
 by the sword : — this is the endurance and the faith of the 
 holy. 
 
 41. 
 
 And I saw another Wild Beast ascending out of the earth 
 (39), and he had two horns like a Lamb ; but lie spake 
 as a Dragon. And he exercised all the power of the first 
 Beast (40) ; and made the earth and all who dwelled 
 upon the earth, that they should adore the first Wild 
 
572 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 TTOiet (rrjfi€ta jxeydXay Iva /cat rrvp ttovq Kara^atvctv Ik tou 
 ovpavov €ts Tr)v yr^v Ivwinov rCiv avOp^iav. Kat irXav^ 
 rov<s KaroiKovvras Itti rrjs yrjs, Sia rot a-qfida a iSodr] avrw 
 iroirjo-aL' Xiyiov tol<s KaTOiKovcnv cTrt t^s y^S? irotrjcrai clKova 
 T(^ O-rjpici)^ o e'x^t rrjv TrXrfyrjv, Koi €(rj(T€v airo Tq<s [JLayalpa<5' 
 Kai cSo^r; aiJT(p 80 v vat Trv^vpLa t^ clkovl tov Orjpiov, tVa Kal 
 X,aXil]crrj rj eiKwi/ tov Orjpcov, koI Troirjcrrj^ iva ocroi av firj 
 Trpoa-Kvvria-iiiO-iv rij €lk6vi tov Orjplov, aTroKTavOQa-LV Kat 
 TTotet TrdvTas, tovs fiLKpovs Kal tovs fieydXovs, kolI tov? 
 
 TtXoVO-LOVS Kat TOVS TTTOiXOVS, KOL TOVS eXivOepOVS Koi TOVS 
 
 SovAovs, iva Siticrtv avTOis \dpayixa rj an tyJs xeipos avTtov 
 Trjs Sepias, "q Vt to /xeTwrrov avTwv Kat tVa firj tis 
 dvvrjTai dyopda-ai rj inaXrjcraL, ct firj 6 €)((j)v to ^dpayp,a^ rj 
 TO ovofxa TOV 6r)p lov, ij tov dpiOp^ov tov Orjpiov^ rj tov 
 dpiOfJLov ovofiaTOS avTOv. '^Q.Se ^ (To<j>ia €(ttlv' 6 e^^^ ^^^^ 
 ^7j(fiLa-dT0) TOV dpiOpLov TOV Brjpiov dpiOfJios ydp dvOpunrov 
 lo^Tt, Kat 6 dpiOfios avTOv x^s. 
 
 KE$. 42. 
 
 KAP €lSov to driplov.) Kat tovs ^ao-iXcts t^s y^S, Kat rot 
 (TTpaT€VfiaTa avTwv (Tvvrjyfxeva, Troirja-ai rroXefiov fiCTa tov 
 
 KaOy]fl€VOV 67rt TOV LTTTTOV XeVKOV Kol fJl,€Ta TOV CT/OaTCV/XaTOS 
 
 avTOV. Kat eTrida'Or] to drjpiov, Kat ot /ieT avTOv ^cvSott- 
 poffirJTo.L 61 TTOi^o-avTCS Ta arjfieia Ii/wttiov avTov, €v ofs 
 C7rAav^o-€ TOVS Aa/3ovTas to ydpo.yixa tov OrjpioVy Kat Tots 
 Trpoa-KvvovvTa? Trj etKovt dvTOv, ^wvtcs e^X-qdrjcrav ol ct'sT^v 
 Xipivrjv TOV TTvpos Trjv Kaiofievqv iv deci^. Kat ot AoiTTOt 
 d'ir€KTdvdrj(rj.v €v Ty poiJL(f)ai<} tov Kadiqiikvov €7rt rov ittttov 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 573 
 
 Beast, whose wound of death was healed. And he pro- 
 duced gi'eat signs (41), and that even fire should come 
 down from heaven, unto the earth, in the sight of men. 
 And he deceived those who dwelled upon the earth by 
 the signs which it was permitted him to do : command, 
 ing those who dwelled upon the earth to make an image 
 to that Wild Beast, which had the wound and lived by 
 the sword (42). And it was permitted to him to give 
 life to the image of the Wild Beast, so that the image of 
 the Beast should both speak and do ; that as many as 
 adored not the image of the Wild Beast should (43) 
 suffer death. And he caused all, both small and great, 
 and the rich and the poor, and the free and the bond, 
 that they should receive a mark either on the right hand 
 or upon tlie foreheads of them (44) : and tlia^ no man 
 should buy or sell unless he possessed that mark : either 
 the name of the Wild Beast or his number, or the num- 
 ber of the Wild Beast's name. Herein is -svisdom to be 
 shewn ! let him who is wise calculate the number of the 
 Beast ; for it is the number of a man ; and his number is 
 Chi-xi-bau. (45.) 
 
 42. 
 And I saw the Wild Beast, and the rulers of the earth ; 
 and theii- armies gathered together to make war against 
 him who rode upon the white horse; and against the 
 armies that were with him. And the Beast was taken, 
 and with him his false priests, who wrought their jugglery 
 before him, wherein they deceived those who wore his 
 bi*and, and who adored the image of the Wild Beast. 
 They were cast alive into the Lake of Fii-e, the lake that 
 burns with brimstone : the rest were slain by the sword 
 
574 AnOKAAY^IZ 
 
 XcvKov, Ty i^eXOova-y €k tov (TTOfiaros avTOV, kol vdvro. Tol 
 6pv€a k\opT<x(T9yi(Tav Ik twv (rapKiav o.vT(iiV. 
 
 KE*. 43. 
 KAI' €?6oi/ 'ArrEAON KaraPalvovra U rov ovpavovy 
 exovra Trjv kXciv rYJ<s d/3vcrcrov, kol aXvcriv fieydXrjv IttI tyjv 
 X^ipo. avrov. Kai eKpaTrjcre rov SpaKOvra, rov 6<f>iv tov 
 dpxatov^ OS ccTTt Sta/^oAos koI araro,vd<s, koi eSr/crcv arrov 
 ^tAta €Tr)' Kac cjSaXcv avrov €ts t^v dfSvcra-ov, kol 
 cKAetcrc Kttt icrcfypdytcrev eTrdvo) avrov, iVa //,^ TrAavot eVi ra 
 c^i/>;, d-^pi TeX€(r6y to, }(iAta €TTy* 
 
 KE*. 44. 
 KAI^ elSov, Kal l8ov to 'ApvCov icrrjKos €7rt to o/oosZeiwv, 
 KOL /X€T avTOU €KaTov T€(T(T apdKovTa Tecrcrapes x*'^*^^^^> 
 c^ovcrat to ovofia avrov, Kat ro ovofxa tov Uarpos yeypap." 
 p.kvov h:\ rwv jUcrwTrwv avrwv. Kai 7JKov<ra ^(ov^v iK rov 
 ovpavov a>s <fi(j)vrjv vSarwv ttoAAwi', /<at ws <}>(ovrjV /SpovTrjs 
 U€ydXr]S' Kol rj (fioyvrj yv rJKovcra ws KiOapioSiov KL0apL^6vT(i)V 
 ev rais KiOdpais avrwv Kat ^'Sovofti/ (^5t)i/ Katvi)i/ kvwriov 
 TOV Opovov, Kal cviOTTLOv T(av Tidcrdpoiv Ztaiov, Kal rwv 
 TrpeajSvTepoiv. Kal ovScis ^Svvaro padeiv tyjv (^Srjv, cl fi^ 
 at €Karov TeorcrapdKovTa Tecrcrapcs xtAtaScs, ot ^yopaa-phot 
 aTTo Trjs yrjs- Ovrot eiaiv ot /xcra y waiKwv ovk ipLoXvyOrjcrav 
 irapdkvoi ydp cicrtv ovTOt cto^tv ot aKoAov^ovi/rcs t<^ 'Apvi<fi 
 oTTov dv virdyy. Kat kv t<^ o-ro/Aar* avrwv ovx ivpkdri 
 ^€v8os* dfxoyfioi ydp elcriv. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 575 
 
 of him, wlio sat upon the white horse ; by the sword that 
 came out of his mouth : and all the fowls were filled with 
 their flesh. 
 
 43. 
 And I saw a MESSENGER come down from Heaven 
 having the key of the bottomless pit ; and a gi'eat chain 
 was in his hand. And he grasped the Dragon, that old 
 Serpent, who is the Accuser*, and Satanas ; and he bound 
 him for a thousand years ; and cast him into the bottom- 
 less pit ; and shut him up, and set a seal on him, that he 
 might not wander any more among the nations, until the 
 thousand years should be completed. 
 
 44. 
 And I looked, and behold the Lamb stood upon Mount 
 Zion ; and with him a hundred and foi-ty-four thousand^ 
 having his name, and the name of the Father (47) written 
 full upon their foreheads. And I heard a Voice out of 
 Heaven, as the voice of many waters ; and as the voice 
 of pealing thunder. And the voice which I heard was 
 as the voice of harpers, haq^ing sweetly on their hai-ps y 
 and they sang a new song (48) before the Throne, and 
 before the Four Living Ones ; and the Ancients ; and 
 none could learn that song, but the hundred and forty 
 and four thousand, who had been purchased from the 
 earth. These are they who are undefiled with womeiiy 
 for they are as pure virgins (49). These are they wha 
 follow the Lamb, whithersoever he goeth ; and in their 
 mouths was found no lie, for they are without fault. 
 
676 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 KE^. 45. 
 KAP 7JK0V(ra (fxDVTjv €K Tov ovpavov' 'Oirros 6 Tra?? fioVj 
 dvTiX'q\poixai dvTOV' ovtos 6 I/cAcktos fxov TrpocrcSe^aTO 
 dvTov rj ^v\-j /xov, cSwKa to Hvcvjxa fxov eir avrov, Kpicriv 
 
 TOIS idv^diV i^OL(T€L' Ov K€Kpd^€TaL, OvBe dvT^(T€i, OvSg 
 
 dKOVcrdrjcreTat e^oi 'q (faovrj dvTOV' KdXafxov Te^Aacr/xcvov ov 
 cwTpt^pcL, Kol Xlvov KaTTvi^o/xevov ov crf^€(r€L dXXa its 
 dXi^Oeiav i^oLcreL Kptcnv' 'AvaAa/A^et, koI ov dpavordrja-erat, 
 ecus dv 6y irrL ttJs yrjs KpiorLv, Kol iirt t^ dvo/xart avrov edvrj 
 lA^rtovo-tv. 
 
 KE#. 46. 
 KAP rJKovcra cfxavyjs dXXyjs eK tou ovpavov, Xeyovcrrj^ 
 Vpdipov MaK'aptot ot v€Kpol ot €V Kv/jiw dTrodvrjo'KovTes dir 
 dpri. Nat, Aeyet to Uvevfiaf tva avaTraucrwvTat Ik twv k6~ 
 TTWv avTOJv' TO, §6 cpya avrQv dKoXovOei fi€T auTwv. Kat 
 etSov 0)9 ^aAacrorav vaXtvrjv ixe/xiyixevyjv irvpl, kol tovs vikQv- 
 
 TttS €K TOV OrjptOV Kal €K T^S CIKOJ/QS ttVTOV, K'ttt Ik TOV dptO/XOV 
 
 TOV ovofxaTOs avTOV, ecrTtopas ctti t^v ^aAa(ro"aj/ Tr)v vaXtprjv, 
 €)(0VT€s KiOdpas TOV Qcov. Kttt dSovo'c Trjv tj^Brjv SovXov 
 Tou Qeov, Koi TYjv (^Sqv tov ^Apviov, X^yovTes' MeyaAa 
 Kal Bavfiao-Ta to, epya (rov, Kvpie 6 0€os o iravTOKpdTuyp' 
 SUataL Kal dXrjStvac at 68ol crov, 6 /JacrtAevs twv WvQv, 
 Tts ov fJLi^ 4^o(^'^0rj (re, Kv^otc, Kat So^du-y to ovofxd (rov; 
 OTi fi6vo<s oVtos* OT? Traj/Ta Ta eOvq yj^ova-i Kat tt/joo"- 
 Kri^^ycrovo-tv I^WTTidi' o-ov oTt Ttt SiKaKofiaTd (TOV iffiaveptO' 
 6r](Tav» 
 
 KE^. 47. 
 KAP efSov aAAov ayyeAov TrcTOfievov Iv fxecovpav-qfiartf 
 eXO^'To. cvayyeAtoi/ aiioviov cmyyeAicrat tovs Ka6t]ii(V0VS 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 577 
 
 45. 
 And I heard a Voice from Heaven ; This is my son : 
 1 will help him; this is my chosen one; my soul has 
 accepted him ; I have put my spirit upon him ; he shall 
 bring forth judgment to the nations. He shall not cry, 
 nor lift up his voice ; nor shall his voice be heard with- 
 out ; a bruised reed he shall not break : and smoking 
 flax he shall not quench ; but he shall bring forth judg- 
 ment unto truth. He shall shine out and shall not be 
 diacoiiraged ; until he shall have set judgment upon the 
 earth ; and in his name shall the nations trust. 
 
 46. 
 And I heard another Voice from Heaven, saying unto 
 me. Write : blessed are the dead who die in the Lord hence- 
 forth. Yea, said the Spirit (50), that they may rest from 
 their labours ; but their good works do follow them. And 
 I saw as it were a sea of hyaline mingled with fire ; and 
 those who had conquered the Wild Beast and his image ; 
 and had abjured his mark, and the number of his name, 
 standing upon that fiery sea of glass, holding the harps 
 of God- And they sang the song of the servant of God ; 
 and the song of the Lamb, saying : Great and wonderful 
 are thy works, O Lord God Almighty ; just and true are 
 thy ways, thou King of all nations. Who shall not re- 
 vere thee, O Lord ; and glorify thy name, thou only 
 Divine One 1 All nations shall come and adore Thee ; 
 for now thine ordinances are made manifest. 
 
 47. 
 And T saw smother Angel (51) flying in mid-heaven, 
 baving the everlasting evangel to (52) evangelize those 
 
 c c 
 
578 AnOKAAY^IZ 
 
 en-l rrj<5 yrjs, KoiTrav €6vo<s Kal rfivXrjv Koi yXwa-crav kol XaoV 
 Aeycov Iv ^wvry fJLGydXrj' ^o/3i^6rjT€ tov Geoi/ koI 86t€ 
 avTi^ So^av, oTt yX6ev rj iopa Trj<s /cptVcws avrov' Kal 
 TrpoarKvvTJa-are ri§ TTotijcravTL tov ovpavov Koi rrjv yrjv kol 
 rrjv OdXaara-av Kal 7r7/yas vSaroiu. Kat aXAos ayyeXo? 
 oevrepos rjKoXovOycre., Xkyiav "ETTCo-ev, cTrecre Ba-BeX-Ov 17 
 fieydXy -tj e/c tov otVov tou Ovfxov T'jJs Tropvetas avrrj? 
 TTeTTOTt/ce TTcovTa e^j/r;. Kat aAXos ctyyeAos rptros '/JkoAov- 
 Orjcrev avrois, Aeycuv €V <^o;v^ p^eydXy Et Tts 7rpo(TKvv€t rb 
 Biqpiov Kal ttjv eiKova avrov, Kal XaixjSdvei ydpayp^a iwl tov 
 /xeTcoTTOV avTOv, '^ IttI rrjv X^^P^ avrov, Kal aiJTos TrUrai, 
 Ik tou oiVov rov QvpLOv rov Geov, tou K€Kepao-{JL€VOv aKpdrov 
 iv Tw 7rorr]pt(^ ryj<s opyrj<s avrov, Kal jSaa-avLaO'^a-eraL iv 
 TTvpi Kol 6^11^ ivfjiTTLov Tcov ttytwv dyykXisiv Ka\ kviainov rov 
 'ApvLov. Kat €ts rrjv yrjv Kdr(a IpLf^Xkij/ovrai, /cat l^ov 
 airopta cr^vr], koX ct/cotos OXlxI^ls koI crTevo^wpta, Kat otkotos 
 c«;<7T€ ju.'J] j^Xareiv Kat 6 Ka;n/os Tou (SacravifTiiov avrCiV 
 £ts atwvas aiwi/coi/ dvafSatvcL' koI ovk €)(ovariv avdiravariv 
 rjpL^pas Kal vvKros ot TrpocrKWOWTCS to drjpiov Kal rrjV 
 eiKova avrov, Kal €t Tts Xafx^dvei to ^Apayiia tov ovo/AaT05 
 arTov. '^fiSe vTroixovrj ro)V dytwv Icrriv ot rrjpovvres Tols 
 IvToAds TOV Geov Kat t^v Trto-Ttv *Io-cra* 
 
 KE*. 48. 
 KAP TJKovcra cfxavrjv /xiav Ik twv T€(T(rdpo)V Kcpdrtdv TOV 
 Ovcriacrrrjptov rod xP'^^ov rov ivo^inov rov .Oeov, Alyovcrav 
 T^ €KT^ dyy€X<^ 6 €;^(ov t»;v crdXTnyya' Avcrov tovs 
 Tccro-a/oas dyyeAovsr rovs ScScftevovs IttI t^ 7rorap,(^ t^ {xcyd- 
 Xi^ E^p' Kat 6 cktos ayyeXos lo"aA,;riar€ Kat iXvOrjcav Of 
 
THJB APOCALYPSE. 579 
 
 who rested upon the earth, and every nation and tribe, 
 and tongue, and people ; saying in a loud voice : Fear ye 
 God, and give Him glory, because the hour of his judg- 
 ment is near : and adore ye Him who made the Heaven 
 and the earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. 
 And another Angel (a second) followed, saying : She is 
 fallen Ba-Bel-On is fallen : the great city has fallen, has 
 fidlen : because of the wine of the passion of her impurity, 
 did she make all nations drink. And another Angel (a 
 third) followed them, saying in a loud voice : If any wor- 
 ship the "Wild Beast and his image, and receive his mark 
 upon liis forehead, or upon his hand ; he also shall drink 
 of the wine of the justice of God, which is poured out 
 unmixed into the cup of his fierce wrath ; he shall be 
 tormented in fire and brimstone before the face of the 
 Holy Messengers of the Lamb. And they shall look to 
 the earth, and behold trouble and darkness, weakness and 
 distress and a mist following them, and they cannot fly 
 away from their distress. And the smoke of their tor- 
 ment ascends upward throughout ages of ages : and they 
 have no rest, in the day nor in the night who do adore 
 the Wild Beast and his image : and who have received 
 the bi-and of his name. This is the endurance of the 
 holy, who keep the commandments of God and the faith 
 of EssA. 
 
 48. 
 And I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden 
 incense altai' before God; saying to the sixth Angel who 
 held the trumpet ; Loose the four angels that are bound in 
 tlie gi-eat river Ephr. (53 .) And the sixth Angel sounded ; 
 and the four angels were let loose, who were reserved, 
 
 c c 2 
 
580 AnOKAAY^I2. 
 
 r€(r(rap€s ayyeXoi ol ^TOifxa(r/x€VOL els rr^v <^pav koi ^fJL€pav 
 Kal jxrjva kol evtavrov, iva diroKTeiviocriv ro Tplrov tQv 
 dvOpioTTiov. Kat 6 dpi9^o<s ro)v a-rpaTevfidToyv tov ittttikov 
 8v6 fxvpid8€<s fivpidSuyv ■^Kovcra tov dptOfxov dvriov Kal 
 ovTWS eldov rovs tWovs ev rfj opda-et, kol tovs Ka9r]fiivov<s 
 hr dvTiav^ i\ovTa<5 6(i)pa.Kas irvpivovs Kal vaKivOtvovs Kal 
 OeioySeis' kol at Ke^aXat twv iinriav ws Ke(f)aXal Xeovroyv, 
 Kal €K Twi/ (TTop.dTO)v avToHv eKiropeverai irvp Kal Kairvos Kal 
 deiov. 'Atto Twi/ rpiiov TrXrjyojv rovroyv direKTavdrjcrav to 
 rpiTov Twy dv9p(i)7ro)v, Ik tov irvpos Kai tov Kairvov koI tov 
 Oeiov TOV iKTVopevopikvov €K Twv (TTOfidTiav avTwv. 'H yap 
 i^ovcTLa Twj' tTTTTOov h T(^ CTTo/xaTfc avTOJV kcTTiv Kal kv rais 
 ov/oats avTwi/* ac yap ovpal aiJTwi/ o/Aotat 6(ji€(rLV, exova-at 
 Ke(f>aXaSy Kal iv avTai<s dSiKovcTLV. Kal ol XolttoI twi/ dvOpw- 
 TTiov, o? ouK dir€KTdv6i](rav Iv rais ;rA>;ya6s rai^Tats, ou />i€T€- 
 vorja-av Ik twi/ epycov Twi/ ;(ci/3c3v aiVwi/, tVa /xi) TrpocrKvvq- 
 crbio-LV Tct SaifxovLa, Kal ra etScoAa ra ;(/)vcra Kat to, dpyvpa 
 Kal ra xaXKoi Kal to. XlOiva Kal ra ^uAtva, a oi?t€ (BXiiretv 
 SwavTttt, ovVe (XKOvetv, ovVe irepnraTeLV Kat ou fieTevorjcrav 
 Ik twv cjiovoyv a^JTCov, oy're e/c tcuv (papfiaKcuSv aiJTCoi', ovVc 
 Ik t^s TTopveias arrcGi', ovrc e/c rtov KAe/x/xarwi/ avrcT v. 
 
 KE<I>. 49. 
 KAI^ 6 e^So/xo9 ayyeAos eo-aATrtcrci/' Kat kykvovTO (fxaval 
 fxeydXai kv tw oupavw, Aeyovrcs' 'Eycrcro ^ /JacrtAeta tou 
 Koa-fJLOv, TOV Kvptov rjfJLoiv Kal rov xpurTov aurov, Kat 
 PaonXevcret ei's rovs atwvas tc3j/ aiwvwv. Kat ot crKocrt 
 rea-crapes 7rpecr(3vT€poL ol evwTriov tou 0€ou KaO'qp.evoL arl 
 Tovs ^/oop'ov? auTcSv, eTTCcrav i?v; Tci Trpoo-wTra auT<^i', Kat 
 TrpocreKvvrjcrav t(^ Q^^, Aeyovrcs" Evxapicrrov/jtli/ crot, 
 Kvptc o Geos o TravTOKpaTiop, 6 (Sv, Kal 6 '^v, Kal 6 ipxop'evos' 
 or* €LXrj(fias ty^v ^vva^itv crov Tr}i/ p,€ydXrjv Kal e/3ao-iA€i»cras,' 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 581 
 
 unto that hour and day, and month and year, to slay the 
 third of men. And the number of the army of the horse- 
 men was two myriads of myriads; and I heard their 
 number. And thus I saw the horses in the apparition, 
 and those who rode upon the horses : they had corslets 
 of fire and jacinth and brimstone ; and the heads of the 
 horses were as the heads of lions ; and out of their mouths 
 came fire and smoke and sulphur. By these three plagues 
 was the third of men destroyed; by the fire and the 
 smoke and the brimstone that issued forth out of their 
 mouths. For their powers were in their mouths and 
 tails ; and their tails were like unto headed serpents with 
 stings ; and with these they worked iniquity. And the 
 rest of men who sank not under these blows, neverthe- 
 less repented them not of the works of their hands ; nor 
 turned them away from the adoration of demons ; nor 
 from their images of gold and silver ; nor from their idols 
 of brass and wood and stone : which see and hear not, 
 neither can they walk. Neither did they repent them of 
 their murders, nor of theii* sorceries, nor impurities, nor 
 thievings. 
 
 49. 
 And the seventh Angel sounded ; and there were great 
 Voices in the Heaven ; and they said : The kingdom of 
 the world of men is become the kingdom of our God and 
 his Anointed ; and He shall rule them imto ages of ages. 
 And the four and twenty Ancients, who sat on thrones 
 before the face of God, fell down upon their faces before 
 Him, and adored the God of Heaven : saying, We give 
 thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which ai*t and wei*t 
 and art to come ; because thou hast assumed thy great 
 
582 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 Kat TO, e^j^iy ii)pyLcr6r]craVj koI rjXO&v 7] wpa crov, KOt 6 Kat- 
 pos T(Bv v€KpQ)v KpLQyjvai, KOi Sovvat rov [xicrOov rots SovAot? 
 (rov roti Trpoffn/jruiS Kat roTs ayiois Kat rots cfio^ovpAvois to 
 6Vo/ia crov roTs pt-LKpots koI rots pitydXoLS, Kat hia^Sexpai 
 rovs StacjiOeLpovTas rrjv yTj^- ^^'' "^volx^V o ^"^s rov GcoG 6 
 iv TiS ovpavi^, Kol (i)({>Orj 'q Kif3(OTos rrjs Bia$rJKy]s rov K-v- 
 ptov iv TO) vaw avrov- Kat iyevovro dcrrpaTral Kat cfiOival Kat 
 /Spovral KOL crcLcrp^os kol ;;(aAa^a p^eydX^q. 
 
 KE^. 50. 
 KAI' eSo^T^ dirr(^ KctAa/xos o/xotos pdf38(p, koi 6 ayyeXos 
 eicrrr]KeL XeycDv. "Eycipat Kat pLerprjirov rov vahv rov Oeou, 
 Kat TO ^v(ria(rT>J/)iov, Kat tovs TTjOoo-Kvi/owTas ei' auTw* Kai 
 T^^v auX-^i/ T>)v €^(i}$ev rov vaov eK/SaXe e^cu, Kat /x^ avr^v 
 p^erpqa-fj'Sy on cSoOrj rocs Wvecn' Kat erSov, Kat iSov vecji^Xr} 
 XevKT], Kat Itti ttJv vej)kXr]v KaOyjp^evov opioiov vl(^ dvOpioTTOV, 
 e^fjjv €7rt rrjs KecfiaXrjs avrov arecfiavov xp^^odi/, Kat ev Tjy 
 X^tpt auTov SpcTravov o^v. Kat Aeyet, l^aTToo-TetAaTe Sperava, 
 OTi 7rapecrrrjK€v rpvyqros' ii(ro7rop€V€(r6e, Traretre, Siort 
 TrXrip-qs rj Xrjvls. '^X^'' ^^XW^^ ^^ 'HI '^o^AaSt rqs 8lk7]<s, 
 OTt iyyvs ^)pikpa Kvpiof '0 7JXlo<s kol rj creX'qvq crva'Kordi' 
 (TovcTLv, KOL ol acTTe/jes SvcrovcTLv (fiiyyos dvrwv' 6 8e Kvptos 
 £K Zetwi/ dvaK€Kpd^cTaLj Kat crctcr^^jcreTat o ov/oai/os Kat 
 rj yrj. 
 
 KE*. 51. 
 KAI' aAAos dyyeXos €^rjX6<v Ik rov vaov, Kpd^mv iv 
 <ji(>)vrj pLcydXy no Ka6r)p€V(ji eTTt ttJs vecjiiXrjS' Jlep,\pov to 
 S/Deirai/oi/ crov, Kat dkpLfroVf on. tiXdcv "q i^pa tov $epl(raL' 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 583 
 
 power and hast reigned. And the nations were enraged, 
 but thine hour is come ; and the time of the dead that 
 they should be judged ; and that thou shouldst give thy 
 reward to thy servants the Prophets, and to the holy and 
 to those who revered thy name : and to the little and to 
 the great; and shouldst cut off the corrupters of the 
 earth. And the Temple of God was opened in the 
 heaven; and there was seen the Ark of his Covenant in 
 the Temple : there were lightnings and voices and peals 
 of thunder ; and an earthquake and great hail. 
 
 go. 
 
 And there was given to him a reed like unto a rod ; 
 and an Angel stood saying ; Rise and measure the Temple 
 of God ; and the incense altar and those who worship on 
 it : but the court, which is without the Temple, leave 
 out (54) ; measure it not, for it belongeth to the nations. 
 And I looked, and behold a white Cloud ; and on the 
 Cloud, One sitting like a Son of Man ; having on his 
 head a golden crown ; and in his hand a sharp sickle. 
 And he said : Bring forth the sickles for the vintage is 
 come, go in ; tread the grapes, for the press is full ; noises 
 have i-esounded in the Yalley of Judgment, for the Day 
 of the Lord is close at hand. The sun and the moon 
 shall be dai-kened : and the stars shall withdraw their 
 light ; and the Lord shall cry out of Zion ; and the 
 heaven and the earth shall be shaken. 
 
 51. 
 And another Angel came out of the Temple ; crying 
 out with a loud voice, to him who sat upon the Cloud : 
 Thrust in thy sickle and reap ; for the time is come fob 
 
584 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 OTt i^7)pdv6r] 6 Oepicrnos rrjs yrjs- Kat cfSaXev 6 KaOr^^iivo^ 
 kirl Trjv v€(fi€\7]V to Sp^Travov avrov iirl ttjv yrjV kcu kOipiv&tf 
 ri y^. Kat aAAos ayyeAos l^riXdev kK rov vaov rov Iv n^ 
 ovpaviSj €)(0)v Kat avro<s Bpetravov o^v. Kat aXAos ayytXos 
 i^rjXOev €K rov OvcriacrTrjpCov, e)(<ji)v c^ovcriav cTrt tov irv/aos* 
 KOI €<f><j!)vrj(T€ Kpavyy fxeydXr) ri^ c^ovrt to SpcTravov to c'£v, 
 Aeywi/* Heixxpov (rov to SpeTravov to o^v, koI Tpvytp-Qir 
 rovs ^orpvas rrjs dfnreXov ttJ'S yyjs, on rj/c/xacrav at o-Ta^vAol 
 avT^S. Kat cjSaXev 6 dyyeXos to SpeTravov avrov eh rrpr 
 y^v, Kat irpvyrja-e rr^v d/xTreXov rrjs y^s, Kat ejSaXiv els rr^v 
 Xrjvov rov dvp.ov rov Qeov rov fxeyav. Kat eTranq^ y 
 Xrjvbs e^o}$ev rrjs TroAews, Kat e^rjXdev al^xa Ik tt}? Xtjvov 
 dxpL riav xaXivQv roHv LTnriov aTro <Tra8L(i)v \iXl(dv I^okoctuov- 
 
 KE*. 52. 
 KAI' rjvoi^e ro 'Kpviov rr)v 7rifnrrr)v (T(f)payt8a, k(u etSo^ 
 VTroKaro) rov Ovcriacrrrjpiov rds xj/vx^-s roiv ea-^ay^ivb^v SkI 
 Tov Aoyov TOV 0COV, Kat 5ta rrjv [xaprvptav rjv cri^ov* Kal 
 £Kpa^av <}novy ixeydXrj, Xeyovres' "Ews ttotc, 6 A€<r7i'OTi|S 
 o aytos Kat aAT^^ivos, ov KpCveis Kat eKStKets to aTfia, viyuSnt 
 fK TWi/ KOTOiKOvvTWV CTTt T^s yrj'S ', Kat cSo^r] avTOts <rToAi| 
 XevKri^ Kat eppeOrj avroi<s, tVa avaTrai^crtovTat CTt )^ovok, 
 Kat dTreKpiO-q els Ik twv Trpecrfivrepoiv, Xiyayv fiou OvTot ofc 
 Trepi^elSXrjfJLevoL ras (rroXas ras XevKas, rtves eio-t, KatTTo^cv 
 ^JA^ov; Kat el'prjKa avr(^' Kvpie [xov, crv oT8a<s. Kat eTiri [lOiT 
 OvroC ela-LV ot ep^op-evoi €K t^s 9XLxl/eo)<s rrjs /xcycIAi^s, Kol 
 tTrXvvav Tas CToAas avroiv, Kat iAcvKavav o-ToAas avTwv iv 
 r(§ aifxarL rov * Kpviov, rov dytov. Ata tovto cicrtv evc^tov 
 rov Opovov rov 0€ov, Kat AaTpcvovo-iv avr(^' '^iiepa<i koX 
 yvKros ev r<^ va(p avTOV* Kat 6 KaOi^fievos kirl rov Opovov 
 tTKqviii(T€i kir avTOvs. Ov ^rcivacrovcriv Iti, ovSe 8L\pi\(rov(Tiv 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 585 
 
 thee to reap : the harvest of the earth is ripe. And he 
 that sat upon the Cloud, cast his sickle upon the earth ; 
 and behold, the earth, it was reaped. And another Angel 
 came out of the Temple in Heaven ; and he also had a 
 sharp sickle : and another Angel came out of the incense 
 altar, having power over fire. And he cried with a loud 
 voice to him who held the sharp sickle, saying : Thrust 
 in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of 
 the earth ; for her gi'apes are fully ripe. And the Angel 
 thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine 
 of the earth : and cast it into the great wine-press of 
 God's Justice : and the wine-press was trodden outside the 
 city, and blood came out of the wine-press, even unto the 
 horse-bridles, for the space of sixteen hundred furlongs. 
 
 52. 
 And the Lamb opened the fifth seal, and I saw under 
 the incense altar the souls of those who had been sacri- 
 ficed for the Word of God, (55) and for the testimony of 
 Him which they bare. And they cried out with a loud 
 voice saying : How long, O Lord, thou Holy and True, 
 dost thou not judge and avenge our blood upon those who 
 dwell over the earth ? And white robes were given to 
 them, and it was said to them, that they should rest yet 
 a little while. And one of the Ancients spake unto me, 
 saying : Who are these clothed in white robes ? and 
 whence also have they come ? and I said to him. My lord, 
 thou knowest And he said to me : These are they who 
 have come forth out of the depth of great tribulation : 
 and they have washed their robes and made them white 
 in the blood of the Holy Lamb. Therefore are they now 
 before the Throne of God ; and they serve Him day and 
 
586 AHQKAAY^IS. 
 
 €Tt, oi?8t" /jfj) Tricry €7r avTovs 6 rj\t,os,<ov^ ieav Kavfia' On 
 TO *ApvLOV TO ava fxecrov tou Opovov -TTQifiavu avTovs, /<at 
 oS^y^o^et auTovs cttc ^w^s Trrjyas vSaroiV' Kal k^oKiixpfjL 6 
 Oeos avTos TToiv SaKpvoy 4k twv o^^aA/^iwv.aTrrwi'. 
 
 KE#. 53. 
 KAP TjKovcra cjxovrjs iJ.eyd\7)<s Ik tov vaov, Aeyovtny? 
 Tois €7rTa dyyiXoLS. 'ISov K.vpio'S KaracfiOeipeL rrjv qikov- 
 jxivrjv, Kol €p-i]ix6<T€L avTr^v, Kal avaKaXvrpei to TrpocrwTrov 
 avrrjs, Kal SLacnrepeL rovs evoiKovvTas ev dvTy' Kal ecTTat o 
 Aaos (OS 6 ie/oevs, Kal o Trat? cos 6 KvpCos, Kal rj O^pdiraiva Ci'5 
 7] Kvpla' €0-Ta6 6 ayopa^cov ws 6 ttwAwi/, 6 Savei^wv ws o 
 Sai/et^o^ei/QS, Kal 6 o(}iei\o)v ws ^' oc^etAet. ^Oopai cf^daprjcreTaL 
 ri yfjf Kal irpovoiiri 7r/)ovo/x€v^'^creTat 17 y-^, to yap arofxa 
 Kvptov iXdXrjcre ravTa. ISiTrevdrja-ev rj yfj «at ecpOdprj 'q 
 OLKovfievrj) eTrivOfja-av olvij/rjXol Trjsyr]?, rj Sey^ '^voixtjo-gv Bia 
 Tovs KaTOiKov.vTas avTrjv, Siotl Trap'qXOocrav rov vofiov, Kal 
 -^'AAa^av Ta irpoa-Tdyjxara. *Y7raycT€ TOLyapovv taoX .kK-)(i(kr€ 
 To.s c-ra <f)id\as rov dviiov rov Qcou cts T^i^ y^i^. 
 
 KE$. 54. 
 
 KAI^ (XTT^A^ev 6 ;r/3WT0?, Kat l^e^ce T^yi/' (judXrjv avTov, 
 
 cttI ry)v yrjv Kal iy€V€To cAkos KaKov Kal irovrjpov cts tovj 
 
 dvOpwTTovs Tovs €xovTas TO ^dpayjia rov 6r]ptov, Kal rovs 
 
 Trpoa-Kvvovvras rrj ciKovt a^Tov. Kat o Sevre^os ayyeAos 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 587 
 
 night in his Temple; and the Sitter on tlie Throne shall 
 dwell among them. They shall not hunger or thirst aliy 
 moi-e ; neither shall the sun bum them, nor any heat ; 
 for the Lamb who is in the midst of the Throne feeds 
 them ; and leads them unto living fountains of waters ; 
 and God himself shall wipe away every tear out of their 
 eyes. 
 
 53. 
 
 And I heard a great Voice out of the Temple, giving 
 a command to the Seven Angels : Behold the Lord lays 
 waste the world, and He will change it into a wilderness ; 
 and He will lay bare the face thereof; and He will dis- 
 perse the dwellers therein ; and the people shall be as the 
 priest ; and the boy shall be as the master ; and the 
 maidservant shall be as the mistress. The buyer also 
 shall be as the seller ; and the lender as the borrower, and 
 the debtor as his creditor. The earth shall be utterly laid 
 waste ; and the earth shall be utterly made desolate : for 
 the mouth of the Lord hath spoken these things. The 
 land mourns and the earth is ruined : the lofty ones of 
 the land mourn ; for the land has sinned by the dwellers 
 thereon ; because they transgi'essed the Law ; and have 
 broken the Ordinances. Go ye forth therefore and pour 
 out the Seven Vials of the justice of God upon the earth. 
 
 ff4. 
 
 And the first went and poured out his vial on the land ; 
 and there fell a sore, evil and dreadful upon those men, 
 who bare the brand of the Wild Beast ; and upon all those 
 who did adore his image. And the second Angel poured 
 his vial on the sea ; and it became as the blood of a dead 
 
58a AnOKA AY^IS. 
 
 «^€X€€ rrjv <f)LdX'>]v avTov els rrjv OdXaa-a-av. koI iyivero 
 aT{Ma ws vcKpov, koI iracra '/'^x^ C^l'^ diriOavev kv tj^ 
 BaXdcra-Q. Kal 6 rpiros ayyeAos k^^xee rrjv cfudXrjv avrov cty 
 Tovs "TTorafiovs Kot cts TttS Trrjyas twv vSarwv Kal e-yereTo* 
 a^^a. Kat rJKovara rov dyyiXov nov vSdrcjv Xeyovros" 
 
 AtKtttOS €?, 6 uJv Kttt 6 7]Vj 6 0(rtO?, OTt TttVTa Cfcptvas* OTI- 
 
 o^a dytwv Kat irpocjirjroiv k^€)(€av, Kal atfia avrois eSoMcas. 
 TTULv d^LOL elariv Kat rJKovcra dXXov €K tov Ova-cao-rrjptov 
 XeyovTOS* Nat, Kv/oic 6 0eos o TravTO/cparo)/), aAy^^ti/at Kal 
 St/catat at Kpta-eis crov. Kat o Terapros ayycAo? €^e)(€ev 
 rrjv (f)idXY)v avrov e^rt toi/ ^'Atov Kat iSoOrj auToJ KavfiaTCa'at' 
 kv TTvpl rovs dv9p<o7rov<s' Kat tKav/xarto-^r^aav oi dvOpiOKov 
 Kavfia /Aeya, Kat e^Xaa-cjirj/xTja-av ol dvOpioiroi to ovo/ta tov 
 Gcov TOV exov'Tos €^ovo-iav trrt Tots TrAi^yas Tavras* koa qu 
 fieTevoTjcrav Bovvai avT(^ Bo^av. Kat 6 ttIjocxtos- ayyeAos: 
 l^€xc€ T^i/ cfadXrjv avrov cTrt tov Bpovov tov Orjpiov koI 
 lyevcTO 17 jSaa-iXeta avrov ea-Konojxevr]' Kat efxacrcrCivro Tas 
 yAwaaas avTwv €K tov ttovov, Kat ijSXojcrcfirifjirjp-av rbv' 
 Oeov rov ovpavov Ik rdv ttovojv avTWV Kat Ik twv cAxoiir 
 avTwi/* Kat ov ixerevorjcTav Ik rOtv epyoyv avrtov, Kat » 
 CKTOS ayycAos c^cx^^ dvrov tt^i/ cfudXrjv irrl tov TreAayoK 
 TOV iikyav E^p* Kat i^rjpdvOrj to vSw/) avTOV, tVa kroip-atrOff 
 rj 680s Twv /Jao'tAlwv twv drro dvaroAwv i^Atov. Kat etiSov 
 CK TOV (Trofiaros rov SpdKovros, Kat ck tov cro/^taros tou 
 Orjpcov Kat Ik tov aro/xaTOS tcov ^ev8oTrpo(f>rir(ixv dvriiiv^ 
 irvevp.ara aKdOapra rpta ws ftdrpayot,' IktI Kat Trvcv/xara 
 Sat/Aovwv TTOiovvTa orrjfieia' d eKTropeverai IttI rovs /JaortActj 
 T'ijs OiKovficvrjs oXr]<s, o"vvayay€tv avTOvs CiS tov ttoAc/xov t^? 
 rjixepas Ikc'v^s t>}5 ficydXrj's rov Qeov rov TravroKpdropo^ 
 Kat (Tvv^yayev avTovs ets tov tottov tov KaXovfxcvov'Apfia-^ 
 ■ycSwv. Kat 6 eySSo/Aos dyyeAos ^^X^^ ''"*V 4"''^^W a'-'^ow 
 CTTt TOV dcpa* Kat lylvovTO dcTTpaTrat Kat ^wvat Kat Ppov» 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 589 
 
 man ; and every living soul died in the sea. And the 
 third Angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and upon 
 the fountains of waters ; and they all became blood. 
 And I heard the Angel of the Waters saying : Thou art 
 just, O Holy One, who art and wert, because thou hast 
 judged thus : for they have shed the blood of saints and 
 prophets; and blood thou hast given them to drink; 
 worthy are they thereof. And I heard One say, from the 
 incense altar : Yea, O Lord God, who ait the Almighty, 
 just and ti-ue are all thy judgments ! And the fourth 
 Angel poured out his vial on the sun ; and power was 
 given to it to scorch men with fire : and men were 
 scorched with great heat ; and these men blasphemed the 
 name of God, who had power over these plagues; yet 
 they repented not, to give him honour. And the fifth 
 Angel poured out his vial upon the throne of the Wild 
 Beast : and his kingdom was wrapped in darkness ; and 
 they gnawed their tongues in agony ; and they blasphemed 
 the God of Heaven, because of their agonies and their 
 grievous sores ; yet did they not repent them of their evil 
 works. And the sixth Angel poured out his vial upon 
 the vast ocean Ephr : and the water thereof was dried up ; 
 that the way of the kings of the sunrise might be ready. 
 And I saw out of the mouth of the Dragon, and out of the 
 mouth of the Wild Beast, and out of the mouth of their 
 false priests, three unclean spirits like frogs : and they 
 are the spirits of demons working signs ; which go forth 
 over the i-ulers of the whole earth ; to bring them together 
 imto the battle of the great day of the Lord Almighty: and 
 He gathered them into the place called Armagedon ! And 
 the seventh Angel poured out his vial on the air, and there 
 were lightnings and voices, and thunders ; and there was 
 
590 AHOKAAY^IS. 
 
 rat, Kol creia-fJLds eyivero fiiyas, oTos ovk eyevero dcji ov ot 
 avOpcoiroi eyivovro iTrl rrjs 7^5, 'njkiKovTOS trctcr/*^? ovtod 
 fxiyas. Kal x^^^C^ fieydXr] d>s TaAai/Ttata KarafSaCvei 
 £K Tov ovpavov €7rl rovs dv0p(i)7rov<s' Kal e/SXacrdi-jfxyjcrav 
 01 dvdpcoTTOt TOV Qeov €K rrjs TrXrjy^s ttjs X^^^CO'^j ^''^* 
 fiiyaXr) ecTTLV ^ TrXrjyrj avrrjs, 
 
 KE^. 55. 
 KAP cTSov ore to *ApvLov rjvoi^e rrjv cr^paytSa rrjv 
 €KTr]v, Kol o-€icr/>tos fJ-^yas lyei/cro, kol 6 rjXio<s /xeAa? iyevero 
 tos craKKos rpixi'Vos, kol rf creXrivy} oXt] kykvero ws af/xa* 
 Kat ot d(TT€pes TOV ovpavoh €7rco"av els Trjv yyjv, ws O'vktj 
 JSaXXcL Tovs 6Xvv9ovs avrrjs vtto dve/xov fxeyaXov creLoixivrj* 
 Kal ot ^aa-iXeis rrjs yrjs Kal ot fxeyta-Taves /cat ot xtAra/);(ot 
 Kat ot 7rAovo-tot Kal ot Icrxypol, Kat ttccs SouAo? Kat Tras 
 iXevdepos iKpvxJ/av eavrovs eis to, crTr-qXaia Kal els ras 
 Trerpas Ttov opiwv Kat Aeyovo-t Tots opecn. Kal rats irerpais' 
 Ileo-eTe e^' "J^z-ta?, Kat Kpv\par€ r^xas diro irpoa-ixmov tou 
 KaOy]fJL€vov €irl tov Opovovy Kal (xtto t^? opyrjs tov *Apvtov 
 "On rjXOcv 17 rjfjLepa 17 fxeydX-^] ttjs opyyjs avTov' Kal tls 
 SiiyaTac OTTa^^vat j 
 
 KE$. 5G. 
 KAT eTBov Opovovs, Kal iKaOto-av Itt avrovs, Kal Kpi/xa 
 eSoOr] at'Tois Kai to,? ^i'vxas T(ov TreTreXcKicrfiiviov Sia ttjv 
 jxaprvplav *Io-o-a, Kat Sta tov Aoyov rov Geov Kat oitlvcs ov 
 TrpocreKvvrjorav to Orjpiov, ovt€ ttjv ciKoi/a avroi;, Kat ovk 
 e'Aa/Jov TO ^apay/ia €7rt to fieTioTVov koI Itti rrjv X^^P^ 
 avTwv Kat e^craVf Kal i^au-iXeva-av /xcTa tov ^pio-Toi; Tct 
 )(tAta 'irrf Ot 81 AotTrot twi/ veKpQv ovk e^i](rav a;(pt TcXecrO^ 
 TO. x^Xia ^TTj. AvTT] ri dvao-Tao-ts y irpioTr]. MaKapLos kq.1 
 
THE APOCJAIiYPSE. ' .S91 
 
 a mighty earthquake such as was not seen since men 
 J>egan to live .upon the earth ; so terrible was that mighty 
 earthquake. And there fell upon.men a great hail out of 
 Heaven; each stone weighed a talent: and men hlas- 
 ^emed God because of the plague of the hail, for .the 
 plague thereof was .exceeding heavy. 
 
 55. 
 And I looked, when the Lamb opened ihe sixth seal, 
 and the mighty earthquake continued; and the sun be- 
 came black as haii- sackcloth ; and the entire moon became 
 as blood : and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, 
 even as a fig tree casts her untimely fruit, when she is 
 shaken by a jnighty wind : and the kings of the ^rth 
 and the chief princes, and the commanders of thousands, 
 and the rich men, and the valiant men and the slave and 
 the free, hid themselves into dens ; and into the caverns 
 of the mountains. And they said to the mountains and 
 the caverns : Fall ye upon us, and hide us from the face 
 of Him who sitteth upon the Throne, and from the indig- 
 nation of the Lamb, far 1?he great day of his anger is 
 come ; and wlio shall be able to stand. 
 
 5G. 
 And I saw thrones, and those who sat upon them ; and 
 a judgment was pronounced unto them; and I saw the 
 souk of tliese who had been cut with an axe, through the 
 witnessing of IssA, and the Messiah of God : and who 
 had uot bent themselves to the wild Beast ; nor adored 
 his image, nor taken his mark upon their front, nor into 
 their hand : and they lived and reigned with the Anointed 
 One, a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived 
 
592 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 aytos 6 €X<»v l^-^po^ ev ry dva(Trd(r€i ry Trptary cirt tovtwv 
 o Sevrepos Odvaro? ovk €\€l e^ovcrCav, dXX Icrovrat lepeis 
 Tov Qcov Kot Tov yjucTTOVf KoX PacrL\€V(rov(TL jUCT avToC 
 XtAia cTTj' Kat orav TeXccrOy to. -^^iXia hr], X-vOi^areTaL o 
 craTavas Ik t^s cfivXaKrj^ avrov' kol c^eAevcrcrat irAai/jJcrat 
 Ta WvT) ra iv rat? TGcro-apcnv ywvtais t>}s yi}s, tw Fwy Kat 
 TOV Maywy, crwayayctv avrovs cts ttoAc/xov, toi/ o dpiOpios 
 avrOtv (OS 1^ dixfJLOs rrjs 6aXdcr(rr]<s. Kat dvijSyjcrav €7rt to 
 TrAaTOS T^s y^5, Kat eKwAwo-av t^v TrapeixfioXrjv tcov dytiov^ 
 Kat T?^i/ TToAii/ T'^v "^yaTrrjfxivrjv Kat KarejSrj irvp Ik tov 
 ovpavov dTTo TOV 0€ov Kat KaT€^ay€v avrovs. Kat o 
 Sta^oAos o TrAavwi/ avTOvs, f./SXrjOrj els Trjv Xifivrjv tov 
 TTvpos KOI BeioVf OTTOV Kat TO Orjpiov Kat ot \l/€vSo7rpo<f>'QTal' 
 Kat /Saa-avia-dyja-ovTai rjfiepas Kat vvktos cts tovs aiwms 
 Tiav ai(av(av. 
 
 KE$. 57. 
 
 KAP 0T€ rjvoL^e TO *Api/tov T^i/ (r<f)pay\Ba Ttjv kfSBoixYfv 
 iyev€To criy-q kv T(3 ovpavo) cos T^/itwptov Kat I^tJA^c ^wv^ 
 fieydXr] diro tou vaov tov ovpavov, aTro tov Opovov Xeyovca. 
 Fcyove* Kat 7rao-a vrja-os c</>vy€, Kat opr; ovx evpidrjorav' 
 Kat o ov/oavos dTreyoipla-Oy) ws /3i^Atov eiAio-o-o/tevov, Kat 
 Trai/ 0/30S Kat v^o-os €k twj/ tottwv avTwv kKivridy](Tav' 
 'FtTre/iXcxpa iirl ttjv y>}v, Kat tSov ovdkv, koX els Toi/ ov/aavov, 
 Kat OVK ijv Ttt ^(OTa a^TOV. ciSov Ta opr;, K<xt i^v Tpe/JLovTa, 
 Kat TrdvTas tovs fSovvovs Tapacrcrofikvovs' '^Tre^Xerpa, Kat 
 tSov OVK i^v dvOpwTTOS, Kat TrdvTtt Tct TTCTCti^a TOV ovpavov 
 
 CTTTOCITO. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 593 
 
 not again, until the thousand yeai's had been fulfilled ; 
 this is the first ascension. Blessed and holy is he who 
 hath a part in the first ascension unto God : over them 
 the second death hath no power ; but they shall be priests 
 of God and his Anointed ; and shall reign with him a 
 thousand years. And when the thousand years are ex- 
 pired, Satanas shall be loosed out of his prison ; and shall 
 go out to deceive the nations, that are in the four quarters 
 of the earth, Gog and Magog ; and shall collect them to 
 battle, and their number shall be as the sands of the sea. 
 And they ascended up on the breadth of the earth, and 
 compassed the camp of the holy ones, and the beloved 
 city ; and fire came down from heaven from God ; in this 
 fire were they consumed. And the Accuser who had de- 
 ceived them, was cast into the Lake of fire and brim- 
 stone, where were the "Wild Beast and his false priests ; 
 and there shall they be racked day and night, even unto 
 ages of ages. 
 
 57. 
 And when the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there 
 was silence in Heaven for the space of half an hour (56)y 
 and a great Voice came out of the Temple of Heaven from 
 the Throne, saying : It is done. And every island fled 
 away; and the mountains were not found : and the 
 heaven departed, as a scroll when it is rolled together ; and 
 eveiy mountain and every island was removed out of its 
 own place. I looked upon the earth and it was void ; and 
 upon the heaven, and it had no lights ; I beheld the moun- 
 tains, and they were trembling ; and all the hills were 
 disturbed and shaken. I looked, and behold, there was 
 no man ; and all the birds of the heaven were fled. 
 
594: AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 KE^. 58. 
 KAP ctSov Opovov [xkyav X^vkov koX TrXrjprjs o ovpavo? 
 rrjs So^T^s avTOv' kcli Scpa^ei/A €lcrTy]K€L(To.v kvkXio avrov, 
 €^ irrepvyes to> evl, kol rats fc.€i/ Svcrlv KareKaXvirrov to 
 TrpocrcoTTOJ/, rats Se Svcrlv KareKaXvirrov rovs TroSas, Ka\ rats 
 dvcr'iv CTreravro' Kat iK€Kpay€V erepos Trpos rbv erepov^ Kal 
 eXeyov : aytos, aytos, aytos Kvptos Zaf^atoO, TrXyjpr]^ rracra rj 
 yrj rrjs So^rjs avrov' Kat Inrov a> rdXas eyw, ort Karavewixai, 
 on avdpiDTTOs (01/, Kat aKadapra X^^^V e^wv li/ /aIctw Aaov 
 MKoidapra X^^'^V ^^ovros lyto otfcw, Kat rbv f^au-iXka KvpLov 
 ^ajBaoiO etSov rots ocfiOaXfiois fiov Kal aTrecrrdXr] Trpos fic 
 cv Twi/ 2epa^et/>t, Kat Ivt5J X^^/'^ ^^X^*' avOpaKa^ ovrfj Xa/SiSc 
 eXa/Scv aTTo tov Ovcnaxnripiov' Kal yxj/aro rod a-rofxaros 
 fiov, Kal €iTrev: l8ov 'qxj/aro rovro twv x^iA-ewv crov, Kat a^cAct 
 Tcts dvop-Cas (Tov, Kal ras dfiaprlas (rov ir^pLKadapm. 
 
 KE*. 59. 
 
 KAr etSov TOV KaOriixevov lirl 6p6v(^, ov a7ro Trpoa-toTrov 
 i(j)vy€v 17 y^ Kat o ovpavos-, Kat tottos ovx €i'p€^>7 auTots. 
 "E^€(o/)ovv €0)5 OTOV ot dpovoi hWrjcrav, Kal TraAato? rjp,€p(j}V 
 iKdOrp-o, Kal ro ev^vfia avrov axrct x''^^ KevKov, Kal rj Opl^ 
 TTJs KecfiaXrjs avrov wcrei tpiov KaOapov, 6 Opovos avToiJ 
 4>Xo^ TTvpos, ot rpoxol avrov Trvp ^Xeyov Trorafxos 7rvpb<s 
 €TXk€v epLTTpoa-dev avrov" x''^'^' X'^'^^^^ lActTov/cryow 
 nvr<^, Kal [ivpiai fivptdSes TTipiecrrriKUu-av dvrio- Kpirripiov 
 iKdOta-ev, Kal I3l/3Xol -^veifx^W^^' -^^^ itSov rovs veKpovg^ 
 rovs fXLKpovs Kal rov<s fieyaXovSy ecrTWTas li/w7rtoi/ tov dpovov, 
 Kal Pi/3Xia 'qvoixOrja-av Kal PifBXiov dXXo i}v€^X^, o €o-Tt 
 r-rjs ^0)^9" Kat iKpiOTja-av ot veKpol Ik tc3v yeypafifxeviov iv 
 TOLS l3t/3Xlois, Kara ra epya avr^v. Kal kB(aK€v rj 6dXa(r(ra 
 
THE AFOCALYPBE. Wm 
 
 58. 
 And I saw a gi-eat Throne, white and splendid ; and 
 heaven was filled with the glory of it ; above it stood the 
 Seraphim in a circle ; and each oneTiad six wings : with 
 two they covered the face ; with two they covered the 
 feet ; and with two they did fly. And they cried one to 
 the other : Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord Zabaoth : the 
 whole earth is full of his Glory. And I said : Woe is me, 
 for now I am undone ; for T am a man and have unclean 
 lips J in the midst of a people with unclean lips I dwell ; 
 and I have seen the majesty of the Lord Zabaoth witTi 
 mine eyes. And one of the Seraphim came near me, and 
 in his hand he held a coal of fire, whidh he had taken 
 with a pincers from fhe incense altar; and hei;onched 
 my mouth, and touching said : Behold, this has touclied 
 thy lips; and it takes away thine iniquities from thee, 
 and cleanses all thy faults. 
 
 69. 
 And I saw One sitting upon the Throne, from whose 
 face had fled the earth and heavens ; and there was no 
 place found for them. I beheld till the thrones were set 
 in order ; and the Ancdeirt of Days did sit ; and his robe 
 was white like snow; and the hair of his head as pure 
 wool : his throne was a flame of fire ; his wheels were 
 burning fire : a river of "fire flowed forth before Mm ; 
 thousand thousands ministered unto him ;; and ten thou- 
 sand times ten thousand stood in his presence : the judg- 
 ment was set : the Books were opened. And I saw the 
 dead, small and great, standing full in front of the throne : 
 and lo ! the Books were opened: and one Book was 
 opened, which is the Book of Idfe, and the dead were 
 
596 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 Tovs V€Kpovs Tovs €V avTrj, Kol 6 OoLvaTO^ Kot 6 ^Sr)<s eSwKttv 
 rovs V€Kpovs T0V5 €V ttVTOts, Kol €KpLdr)(Tau 'iKa(rTO<s Kara ra 
 €pya aiJTWv Kat 6 Odvaros koI 6 aSrjq iJSXrjO'qa-av Its rrjv 
 XLfJLvrjv Tov TTvpos' ovTOS o BdvaTOS 6 Seurc/oos ^(tti, 17 Xifxvrj 
 
 TOV TTVpOS. 
 
 KE$. 60. 
 
 KAP Iv Tw Ktttpcp cKcti/O) avao-T^crcTat 6 Mtxct"*?^ o ap)((j}v 
 6 /Acyas, Kat co-rat Kaipos OXtrfecas, OXlxI/ls ota ou yeyovci/ dcfi 
 ^s yeyevrjTai €9vo<s ^VTrjyy, ews tov Kaipov €K€lvov. *Ev t^ 
 Katp(p €K€tVw crw^^o-crat 6 Aaos iras o yeypa/i/xevos ev tt^ 
 piPXi^j Kat TToXAot Twv Ka^crSoi/Twi/ €v y^s \(iiiiarL 
 i^cyepO'qcrovTaLj ovTOi cts (w^v attoj/iov, Kat ouTOt Its ovctStcr- 
 uov Kat Its atcrx^v^v atwvioy Kat ot crvvtei/res XdfJLxl/ovu-tv 
 ws 17 XafxirpoTr]? tov crTC/oew/AaTOS, Kat (xtto twv SiKaLiDV twv 
 TroXAwv (OS 01 aorrl/jcs Its rovs ai'wvas Kat €Tf Kat et rts 
 oi5x evpi6r} iv ry fSi/SXi^ rrjs fw^s ycy/)a/A/A€vos ipXrjOrj Its 
 T'))v Xiiivqv TOV ;rvpos. 
 
 KE^. 61. 
 KAI' €?8ov ovpavov Kaivov Kat y^i/ Kaivrjv 6 yap irpCyTOS 
 ovpavos Kat 17 Trpiarr] yrj drrrjXOov, Kat 17 ^aAao-o-a ovk eo-rii/ 
 €Tt. Kat TTjv ttoXlv rrjV aytav Kaivijv ciSov Kara/?atVovo-av 
 Ik toC ovpavov, drro tov 0€OV, rjTOtfiaa-fiivrjv ws vvix<f)T]v 
 K€Kocrixr)iM4vyjv Ti§ dvSpl avT^S. Kat iQKova-a <f)0)V7Js fieydXrjs 
 iK TOV ovpavov, AcyovoTjs* 'I80V, 17 o-KT^vi; TOV Geov /xera 
 Twv dv^pwTTCov, Kat (TKiyvwo-ct fiCT avTwv, Kat avTot Aaos 
 avTOV ecrovTat, Kat avTOS o Beds /act avTwv eo-Tat, Geds 
 avTwv Kat l^aAct^ct Tav Scwcpvov dW twv o^OaXjxIav 
 avTwv, Kat 6 BdvaTOS ovk co-Tat cTt, ovtc jtcv^os ovtc Kpavy^ 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 597 
 
 judged by tlie writings in the Books ; according to their 
 own works. And the sea gave up the dead which were 
 in it ; and Death and Hades delivered up their dead ; and 
 they were each judged according to their works. And 
 Death and Hades were thrown headlong down into the 
 Lake of Fire : this is the second death — the Lake of Fii'e. 
 
 And at that time shall Michael stand up, that prince 
 of might among princes ; and it shall be a time of tribu- 
 lation, such as never was, since there was a nation on the 
 earth up to that time. And at that very time there shall 
 be salvation for all whose names are wi'itten in the Book ; 
 and many of those who sleep in the dust of earth shall awake 
 and shall arise again ; some to everlasting life, and some 
 to everlasting pain and shame ; and the wise shall shine 
 as the brightness of the firmament; and the just as the stars 
 of ages ; and if there be any found, who is not in the Book 
 of Life, the same shall be flung into the Lake of Fire. 
 
 61. 
 
 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth ; for the 
 first heaven and the first earth were past away ; and there 
 was no longer any sea. And I saw the Holy City, the 
 new City, descending down from the God of Heaven ; 
 ready as a young bride adorned for her husband. And I 
 heard a gi'eat Voice from Heaven, saying : Behold the 
 Tabernacle of God is with men : and he shall abide 
 among them : and they shall be his people ; and God 
 himself shall be with them ; and he shall be their 
 God : and God shall wipe away all tears from their 
 eyes ; and there shall be no more death : neither sorrow, 
 
o9S AnOKAAY^IS.. 
 
 01?T€ TToVoS OVK CCTTai eVf 0T4 TO, TT/aWTa aTTiJA^OV. Kal 
 
 CiTTCV 6 Ka6rjfJL€V0i cTTt T^ Op6v(^' 'IBoVy Kaiva TrdvTa ttolio. 
 Kat Acyet /AOf Tpd^l/QV ort ovrot ot Aoyot ttlo-toI koI 
 
 KE<I>. 62. 
 KAP eiire fiot' Tiyovav ^Eyw elixt Afi, 17 -^PXV '^^^ 
 TO TcAos. ^Eyo) T^ SlxJ/c^vtl Swo-w dvTtS, €k rrj<s Tnyyijs- tqu 
 vSaros T^s ^w^s 8o}pedv. '0 viKwv KXr)pQvofX'i^cr€L ravTO,^ 
 Koi €(ToiJ,aL avT(^ Geos, Kat avros eo-rat //.ot 6 vios. Tors Se 
 fietAois Kal aTrMTTOts, Kat e^SeAvy/Aci/ots, Kal <fiov€va-L Kal 
 TTopvois, Kol (fiapfULKOLS Kol dixapr(oXoLs Kol eiScuAoAciT/otats,, 
 Kal TTOcri TOiS ij/evSea-L, to jxepos avTcov iv rrj Xifivy ry 
 KaLopievQ 'TTvpl KOL Qdi^-^ 6 loTTty 6 OdvaTO^ 6 8evTepos. 
 
 KE$. 63. 
 ' KAF iSov jaero^ Tt3i/ wc^eAwj/ tov ovpavoVyUtz mos dvOpxa^ 
 TTOV ipxpp'Gvos, Kal €(3s TOV TTaAtttou Twv rjfJL€p(ov ecjiOacrev, 
 Kal TTpocTT^x^V ai^r^* Kat avT<^ eSo^r; 17 "PX^ '^*^ ^7 ^'/'i') Kal 1^ 
 jSaxriXew^ Kal iravTCS- 01 Aaol, <l>vXal Kal yAaxrcroi SovAcvoi;- 
 ctv auTw* rj i^ovcria avTOV i^ovcria dtwi/tos, 'J7Tts 6v Trape- 
 AcvorsTaty Kal 97 /3aoiAeta avTov ov Sia^Oapija-erat,' Kal to 
 (Tw/Ao. duToS (uorel Bapa-ls, Kal to Trp6(T(airov dvTau ws 1} 
 Spacris d(rTpaTrij<s, kol 6l offiOaXfiol dvrov oKrel Aa/A^rdScs 
 '!rvpo?, Kal ot ppax^oves dvrov Kal Ta crKeXrj ws opaa-ii 
 XoAkgu orTtA^ovTos, Kal ^ ^wv^ twv Adywv dvrou ws ^wi^ : 
 6S(Aov. 
 
 KE*. 64. 
 KAI^ <li(ayrf fi^yaXtj eKpa^' *0 cx^** ^^ aKova-drta rl to 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 509 
 
 nor crying, nor pain any more ; for the former things are 
 passed away. And the Sitter upon the Throne said 
 Behold, I make all things new; and he said unto 
 me : Write — for these words are true and faithful. 
 
 62. 
 
 And one said to me : It is done ; I am AO — the begin- 
 ning and the end (58). I will give to him that is athirst, 
 of tlie Fountain of the "Water of Life freely ; he who' 
 overcometh shall inherit all things : I will be his 
 God, and he shall be my son. But the cowardly and 
 fe-ithless and the abominable of soul, and murderers, 
 and the impure and sorcerers, and idol-worshippers and 
 all the false, shall have their part in the Lake that 
 bums with fire and brimstone which is the second death. 
 
 63. 
 
 And behold one like the Son of Man came with the clouds 
 of heaven (59) ; and stood before the Ancient of Days j 
 and they brought him near before him. And to him was 
 given rule and honour and a kingdom ; and all i^eoplea, 
 tribes, and tongues, serve him : his dominion is an ever- 
 lasting dominion, which shall never pass away ; and his= 
 kingdom shall not be destroyed. And his body was like 
 the beryl ; and his face as the appearance of lightning.; 
 and his eyes as lamps of fire ; and his arms and his feefc 
 like glittering brass ; and the voice of his words like the 
 voice of a midtitude. 
 
 64, 
 • And a great Voice cried ont r Let him who hath as 
 
600 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 Tlvivfia Aeycf t^ viKwvTt 8(00-10 avri^ ^ayctv €K tov ^vXov 
 TTJs C^yjs, o €(rTLv €v T(p JTapaSeioTOi TOV Oeov [xov' Tcvov 
 TTLO-Tos oLXpt- OavaTOv. Kat to) viKiovTL Sioo-io dvT(^ (fiayeiv 
 drro rov fxavva tov KCKpvfxcvov, Ka\ h(oo'io olvti^ xj/yjcfiov XevKrjVy 
 Kal cTTt T^i^ ^prjcfyov 6Vo/xa Kaivov yeypafijxevov, 6 dvSets eyv(a 
 elfXYf 6 XafijSdviov Kat 6 vlkcoVj Trot^cro) avrov aTvAov ev t(^ 
 vau) TOV Oeov fxov, Kot €^(o ov [xyj l^kXdrj €Tl' koI ypdxpio eir 
 avTov TO ovofia tov Oeov /xov, Kat to ovofxa Trj^ ttoAcw? tou 
 Oeov /xov, TToAews T^s Katv^s rj KaTaJSaivova-a Ik tou ovpavov 
 d^o Tou 0€ou jJLOVj Kal to ovofid fiov TO Katvoi/. Kai o 
 viKiov, ovTos irepi/SaXciTaL kv l/xaTioLS XevKoTs' koI ov p,^ 
 i^aXeixJ^o} to 6Vo/xa a^TOv €K Trj<s (HfiXov ttJs {(t>>Js, Kal 
 o/zoAoy>Jo-a> to ovofxa avTOv €V(OTriov tov UaTpos pLOv^ Koi 
 ivioTTiov T(ov dyyeXiov avTov. Kal 6 vlk<ov, koI 6 T-qpiov 
 o.)(pL TeAovs Tot epya /xov, S(0(ra> avTio €^ov(Tiav C7rt t(ov 
 idviov Kat TTOipLavec avTovs cv pa/38c^ cri8r]p^' (os tol (TKevq 
 TO. K€pap.LKd 6 TTOvyjpoi o-WT/oi)8cTat, (OS Kayo) €iXr](f)a irapa, 
 TOV TiaTpos piov Kat Swo^w avT^ tov daTepa tov 7r/)wiVov. 
 *I8ov, iOTTrjKa cTTt t^v dvpav, Kat Kpov(o' idv Tts dKova-rj t^s 
 ^lovrjs piov, Kat dvoi^r} Trjv Ovpav, eto-cAevo-o/tat tt/oos avTOK, 
 Kat SctTrr^co) /act aTJTOv, Kat auTos /x€t' e/xov. Kat 6 vtKtuv, 
 Swo-w avT^ Kadiorai pL€T kp.ov kv t(^ Opovcp p.ov, (os Kayw 
 kviK-qcra^ Kat eKa^taa i/vv /X€Ta tou TiaTp6<s p.ov kv T(^ 
 Op6v(^ avTOV. TaSc Aeyet 6 KpaTiov tovs hrTa da-Tcpas kv 
 ry Septet avTOV, 6 irepiTraTt^v kv p.€or(p t(ov cTTTa Xvxvkov Tiov 
 ■)(pva-iov. "ISov eVe^a^a tov dyyeXov pLov piapTvprjo-at vpnv 
 ravTa krrl Tats kKKXrjortaLS. 'Eyw €t/xt 17 pi^a Kat to' yevos 
 Tov "18, 6 dcTTYip 6 XapLirpos kol opdivos' Kat to TrvevpLa Kot 
 ^ vvp<l>7] XkyovciVy 'EA^€" Kat 6 aKorcov knraTio, 'EA^e* Kal 
 6 St^(uv JA^€TO, Kat 6 ^cAwv XapLJSavkTO) to v8iop ^(oyjs 
 Stopedv 6 c;(a)y ovs dKovcraTO) rl to ITveu/ia Aeyet Tats 
 cKKA)jo-tats* MaKdpioi 6t TrotovvTCs ras IvToAds avTOV, ivok 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. COl 
 
 ear hear what the Spirit saith. To him who conquers I 
 will give to eat of the beauteous Tree of Life, that stands 
 in the midst of the Paradise of God ; be thou faithful 
 unto death. To him who conquers will I give to eat of 
 the manna that is laid up in secret ; and I will give to 
 liim a white stone, and on that stone a new name written, 
 which none shall know but the receiver. And he who 
 conquer I will make of him a pillar in the glorious Tem- 
 ple of my God ; and outside he shall never go ; and I will 
 wi-ite upon him the name of my God (60) ; and the 
 name of the City of God, the new City which descends 
 from the heaven, wherein my God dwells : and the new 
 name that is mine. And he who conquers — the same 
 shall be enrobed in wliite and glittering garments : and 
 I will not blot his name from the Book of Life : and 
 I will confess his name before my Father's face; and 
 before all his angels. And he who conquers, fulfilling 
 my works unto the end, shall have power over nations : 
 and he shall rule them as a shepherd with an iron sceptre ; 
 as the vessels of a pott3r shall the wicked be broken ; 
 as I also have received from my Father. And I will 
 give to him the Morning Star. Behold ! I have stood 
 at the door and knock ; if any shall hear my voice and 
 open his door, I shall enter in iiuto him ; and I will feast 
 with him and he with me. And he who conquei's — to 
 him will I give to sit down with me on my throne ; 
 as I have conquered and now sit down with my Father 
 upon his Throne. These things saith he, who holds the 
 seven Stars in his right hand ; who walketh in the midst 
 of the seven golden Lamp-bearei-s. Behold, I have sent 
 mine Angel unto thee, to testify to you these things in 
 the Churches : I am the root and the offspring of Jid : and 
 
 D D 
 
602 AnOKAAY^IS, 
 
 ecrrat 07 i^ovcTLa avTW eirl to ^vXov rrjs ^w'^?, Kal Toh 
 7rvX(j)arLv ha-kXOiaa-iv ct? t'^v ttoXlv "E^w Se 06 kvv€<s, koX ot 
 cf)apfJLa.Kol, Kal ol Tropvot, Kal ol <^ovets, /cat ot etScoXoXarpafc, 
 Kat Tras 6 ^tAcoy Kai ttoiwi/ ^evSos' Kat Aeyet //.ot. Miy 
 (Tcfipaytcrris rov^ Xoyovs T7J<s 7rpo(firjTeias rov /SifSXiov tovtov 
 '0 dSiKOJv dScKTjcraTd) en. Kal 6 pvTvapos pvTrapevOyjro) eVf 
 Kat 6 SiKatos StKaLocrvvrjv 7T0ir](rdT(i) ere Kal 6 dyios 
 dyLacrOrjTio en' 'ISov €p)(Ofiai. raxv, ^at 6 ficarOos p-ov p,€T 
 ifiov aTToSovvat eKacTTO) ws to 'ipyov avrov eWaf Eyw ct/xt 
 Ai2. -^PXI ^^'^ TeAoS) 6 TT/awTOS Kat 6 ecrxaTos. 
 
 KAI'' ^XOev ets Ik twj/ Ittto, ayycAwv twv I^ovtcov raj 
 CTTTot (^taAas Tas yc/Aovcras twv Itttci TrAi^ycov twi/ lo-xaTWv, 
 Kat lAaA^o-e /xct I/aov, Aeywv AeOpo, Set-to o-ot T'))v vvp,cl>r)v 
 Tov 'Kpviov rrjv yvva'cKa' Kal diri^veyKk p.€ kv irvevp^aTt Itt 
 opos /xeya Kat vxprjXov, Kal 4'Sei^e /xot rrjv ttoXlv rrjv dylav 
 KarajSaivovcrav Ik tov ovpavov diro tov QeoVj e'xovcrai/ ttjv 
 Bo^av TOV Qcov' 6 <ji(j)(rTr]p avTrjs op,OLOS Xi6(^ Tt/xt(i)TaT(^, 
 ws At^o) tacTTTtSt KpvcTTaXXi^oyTL' 'ixpvQ-a Tel^os /xeya Kat 
 v\pr]Xov, €)(0va-a TrvAwras B(i)SeKa^ Kal cTrt .TOts TrvXioa-Lv 
 ayylAovs SwSeKo, Kat ovo/xaTa €7riycy/Da/x/x€va, a lo-Tt twi/ 
 ScoScKa vtwv TOV 0COU' 'Atto ai'ttToAwv, TTvAwvcs rpeis' Kat 
 (XTTO (ioppa^ TTvAwves Tpets* Kat aTro votov, 7rvAwi/es Tpets' 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. G03 
 
 tbe bright and Morning Star. And the Spirit and the 
 bride say : Come ! and let him who heareth say : Come ! 
 and let him who is athirst come ; and whosoever will shall 
 have the Water of Life. He that hath ears let him hear 
 what the Spirit saith unto the Churches. Blessed are they 
 who do his commands ; that they may have a right to the 
 Tree of Life ; and may enter in through the gates into the 
 City : for outside are dogs and sorcerers and the impure ; 
 and idol worshippers and murderers ; and all who love and 
 make a lie. And he said unto me : Thou mayest not seal 
 the words of the prophecy of this Book. He that is un- 
 just let him be unjust still : and he that is defiled let him 
 be defiled still ; and he that is righteous let him work 
 righteousness still ; and he that is holy let him be holy 
 still. Behold, I come soon : and my reward is with me ; 
 to give to every man according as his work shall be. I 
 am AO. the Beginning and the Ending, the First and 
 the Last. 
 
 65. 
 And there came unto me one of the Seven Angels, who 
 held the seven golden vials, filled with the seven last 
 plagues. And he spake with me, saying : Come hither ; 
 and I will shew thee the Bride, the spouse of the 
 Lamb ; and he raised me in the spirit to a Mountain, 
 great and lofty, and shewed me the Holy City, descend- 
 ing down from the Heaven of God ; gloriously beautiful 
 with the splendour of God. And her light was like the 
 most precious jewel ; like a diamond stone, flashing bright- 
 ness ; and it had a wall vast and lofty ; and it had 
 twelve gates ; and at the gates the Twelve Messengers ; 
 and their names were written on the gates ; the names of 
 
 D D 2 
 
604 AnOKAAY^O. 
 
 KOi dirb BvcTfXiov, rvAwj/es rpetS' Kai to tci^os rrjs TroXeojs 
 c^ov OeixeXiovs SwSeKa, kol Itt' avTiov 8w8e/<a ovofiaTa twk 
 6(u8€/<a aTTOo-ToAwv Tou *ApvLOV. Kat ctcT'/^yayei/ /xe c/cei, 
 Kat l8ov dvr]p, kol rj opacrLs dvTov rjv oxtcl opacns x<^^'*^ou 
 (TTiX/3ovTOSj KJ.I iv rrj X^^P^ avTOV ^]v cnrapTtov otKoSd/xcov 
 Kat KaAa/zos fiirpov, koI avrus hcm^KeL Ittl rrj^ TrvXrj';. Kat 
 liTrei/ 7r/3os fi€ 6 dvi^p' 6 €(opaKa<s vu dvdpioirov iv tois 
 OffiOaXfJiots crov tSe, /cat ei/ rois (Lctlv (tov a/cove, Kat ra^oi/ 
 lis TTjv KapSiav (TOV irdvTa ocra iyo) SetKvvo) o^ot, Store 
 iveKa TOV Se-^at crot lt(r€A'>^Av^as (oSe, Kat Sei^ets TrdvTa 6<Ta 
 (TV 6/oas Tw otKO) T7JS 'I(rcra. 
 
 KE*. 66. 
 
 KAF iSov 7repL/3oXos e^oiOev t>5? TToAews* Kat 6 AaAwi/ 
 ^€T €jU,ov efxe ndXajiov xp^croiOv, tVa fxeTpiija-ri ttjv ttoXlv, Kat 
 Tors TTvAwi'as auT^?, Kat ro t€?)(^os a^r^s. Kat "^ TroAts 
 TCT/Jaywvos Kerrat, Kat to firJK0<s avTTJs^ ocrov kol to TrXdros. 
 Kat ifieTprjcre tyjv ttoXlv tw KaAa/xo)" Itti (TTaStovs SiuSeKa 
 XiAiaScov TO fJLrJKos i<al to TrXdros Kat to •u^os ai'T^Js icra 
 IcTTt. Kat efxiTpy](r€ to Tcrxos avT^s €KaTov TecTa-apdKovTd 
 recTcrdpiov iri^yQiVy fierpov dvOptorrov, 6 iorTcv dyy^Xov. Kat 
 ^v rj ivBojxrjcris rov Tetxpvs avTTJs, lacnns' Kat ^ ttoAi? 
 Xpvcrtoi/ KaOapuv o/xoia ixiA^ KadaptS, kol ot OcfieXtot 
 rov TCtxovs T^? TToAews TravTt Ai^w Tt/xt(^ K€Kocrixr]ix€voL' 
 6 ^e/xeAtos 6 irptaTos, TaaTrts* 6 Sevrepos, 0"a7r</)€i/)os' o 
 
 TptTOS, X*^'^^^^*'* ^ T€TapT0S, tT/XapaySoS* - O Tre/XTTTOS, 
 
 crapSovv^* 6 ckto?, crdpScos' 6 e/?8o/xos, )(pv(r6Xidos' o 
 6yS6o<s, fSi^pvXXos' 6 'iwaTOS, TOTrd^iov 6 8eKaT0<s, XPV- 
 o-07r/3a(ros* 6 ei/ScKaTOS, vaKivOos' 6 SwSeKaTos, dpikOva-TOS^ 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 605 
 
 the Twelve Sons of God. On the East, three gates ; on 
 the North, three gates ; on the South, three gates ; on 
 the West, three gates. And the wall of the City had 
 twelve foundations ; and in them the names of the Twelve 
 Apostles of the Lamb. And he brought me thither, and 
 behold a Man ; and his likeness was the likeness of glit- 
 tering bmss. And in his hand he held a builder's line, 
 and a measuring rod, and he stood at the gate. And the 
 Man said to me, Son of man ! what thou hast seen with 
 thine eyes, behold : and what thou hast heard with thine 
 ears, hear ; and gi'ave upon thine heart all these things, 
 which I shall now shew thee ; for unto this end hast thou 
 come hither, and that thoii shouldst also shew all that 
 thou beholdest to the House of Issa. 
 
 66. 
 
 And lo, an enclosure outside the City. And he who 
 spake had a golden reed, that he might measure the City, 
 and the gates and walls. And the City lieth foursquare ; 
 and the length is as large as the breadth ; and he mea- 
 sured the City with the reed, for twelve stadia of chiliads ; 
 the length and the breadth and the height are equal. And 
 he measured the wall thereof; one hundred and forty 
 and four cubits ; the measure of the Man, who was an 
 Angel. And the building of the wall of it was diamond ; 
 and the City was pure gold, like bright glass ; and the 
 foundation stones of the wall of the City were adorned 
 with all precious jewellery. The first foundation was 
 diamond ; the second, sapphire ; the third, chalcedony ; 
 the fourth, an emerald ; the fifth, sardonyx ; the sixth, 
 fiery sard ; the seventh, chrysolite ; the eighth, . beryl ; 
 the ninth, topaz ; the tenth, chrysophrasus ; the eleventh, 
 
C06 . AIIOKAAY^IS. 
 
 Kat ol SwSe/ca TrvXaJve?, SioSeiw. fxapyaptrai' dva els eKacrTOS 
 Twv TTvAwywv ^Jv €^ €i^os fiapyaptTov, KOI rj TrAarcra r^? 
 TToAeco?, yjivdlov KaOapuv ws i'aAos Stavyi^s. Kat vaoi/ 
 ovK €l8ov kv avr-Q' 6 yap Kvptos 6 Geo? 6 iravroKpaTOip vao? 
 auT>ys kcrriv Kax i} TroAi? ou )(peiav 'ixei rau 'i]Xiov ovSe 
 TYJs creA-zJi^i/s, 6Va ^atVwcrti/ Iv arrT^' 17 yap So^a rou Geov 
 ecjiOiTLorcv avTYjVy kol 6 Xv)(i'0? avrrjs To 'Apvtov. Kai 
 TrepiTraT-qcrovcri rd 'iOvrj Slol rov ^cutos avrrj-s. Kat ol 
 jSacrtXeis ttJs yvjs (jiepovcTLv rrjv So^av kol rrjv np^rjv avT<xiv 
 CIS avTrjv, KOL ol TTvAwi/es avrrjs ov jxrj kXclctOwctiv rjfxepas' 
 vv^ yap OVK eWat iKet Kat ol'crovcrt rrjv 86^av kuI 
 TTjV TipL-qv iravrOiV r(iiv idi'ojv els avT'qv, I'va eicreA^wcrtv 
 Kat ov /Mr] ela-eXO-Q els avTrjv irdv koivov^ Kat ttoiovv 
 fSSsXvypa Kat ^evdos' el pirj ol yeypap^iievoi h rw /St/BXlo} 
 T^5 C^irjs. 
 
 KE«I». G7. 
 KAP eScL^e pLOL TTOTapMv vSaros ^(arjSi XapLTrpov tos 
 KpvcTTaXXov, eKTropevopLevov Ik rov Opovov rov Qeov' 'Ev 
 p-eaio rrjs irXareias avrrjs Kat rov irorapiov evrevdev kol ev~ 
 revOev ^vXov ^ojrjs, ttolovv Kapirovs ScuScKa, Kara p.yjva 
 eKaa-rov diroStBovv rov Kaprrov avrov' /cat to. <f)vXXa rov 
 ^vXov els depaTTctav twv edi'oiv, kol Trdv icardOepLa ovk earai 
 eri' /cat 6 Opovos rov Qeov /cat rov 'Apviov ev avry ccrTat, 
 Kat ol SovXoi avrov Xarpevo-ovcnv avri^' Kat oxpovrai to 
 7rp6(T0i7rov avroVf Kat to 6Vo/xa avToi; eirl rwv /xctwttwi/ 
 aL'Twi/. Kat vv^ OVK earaL' Kat ov XP^^^ Xv)(vov Kat 
 ^(OTcs i^Aiov, OTt K.vpLos 6 Qeos ^WTiei Itt avrovs' Kal 
 fSaa-LXevcrova-iV els rovs alwvas twi/ aiwvcov. JCat e?7re jxoi' 
 OvroL ot Aoyoi TrtaTOt Kat dXiqOiVoi' Kat Kv/atos 6 Qeos Tiav 
 TTvevpidroiv rdv 7rpo(fir]ru)v aTTcorreLXev rov dyyeXov avrov 
 Bel^ai rols SovAots avTov a Set yeveo-^at. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 607 
 
 jacinth ; the twelfth, amethyst. And the Twelve Gates 
 were twelve pearls ; each one of the Gbtes was but one 
 pearl ; and the streefc of the City pure gold like transpa- 
 rent glass. And I saw no Temple in it ; for the Lord 
 God, the Almighty, He is its Temple. And the City 
 hath no need of the sun, nor of the moon that they should 
 shine in it ; for the Glory of God enlightens it ; and the 
 Lamp thereof is the Lamb. And the nations shall walk 
 in the light of it. And the kings of the earth bring their 
 glory and honour into it ; and the gates thereof are not 
 closed by day ; for there is no night there. And they 
 shall bring the gloiy and honour of all nations into it, 
 so that they may enter : and there shall not enter it 
 aught that is defiled, or practising abomination or false- 
 hood j but they only who are written in the Book of Life. 
 
 67. 
 And he showed me a River of Water of Life, bright as 
 crystal, flowing out of the Throne of God : and in the 
 midst of the street of the City, and on either side of the 
 River was the Tree of Life, which bare Twelve blooming 
 fruits ; and yielded her fruit every moon. And the 
 leaves of the Trees were for the healing of nations; and 
 there shall be no more affliction ; but the Throne of God 
 and the Lamb shall be in it ; and his servants shall sei*ve 
 Him. And they shall behold his face : and his name 
 shall be upon their foreheads. And there shall be no 
 night there ; and they need no lamp or sunshine, for the 
 Lord God shines upon them; and they shall be kings 
 to ages of ages. And he said to me : These words are 
 faithful and time, and the Lord God of the Spirits of the 
 Prophets hath sent his Messenger to show unto his ser- 
 vants things which shall come to pass. 
 
608 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 KE^. 68. 
 
 KAP €^'/]pav ra X€povf3€Lv rd<s Trrc/ovya? arTwv, Kot ov 
 ^po)(ol €)(0fx,€V0L avTwv, Kol rf So^a Qeov ctt avra v7repdv(o 
 dvTcoi/* KOL dvefBrj ^ So^a Kv/diov Ik fxio-rjs rrjs iroAcws, koI 
 €(TTrj IttI tou opov 6 'qv a,TrkvavTi t^s TroAews. 
 
 KE^. 69. 
 KAP kLa"qyaykv fie errl to. irpodvpa t/]s ttoAcw?, kol iSov 
 v^iap e^€7ropev€TO viroKaTiadev rov dL6€po<s Kar dvaroXas 
 bri TO TrpodOiTTOv T>j5 TToAecos €/5A€7rev Kar ai/aroAas, kol to 
 rSwp Kare/SaLvev (xtto tou kAitovs tov Se^tov aTTo votov cttI 
 TO dvcnacTT-jpiov XP^^J'ovv' Kal i^i^yayev ue KaTct Tr^i^ 68w 
 ttJs TTvAry? ttJs Trpos fSoppdv, koI irepL-qyaykv fie tyjv oSvv 
 Trpos TYjV TTvXrjv rrjs dv\7]<s rrjs /^XeTrovcrrjs Kar aj/aToAas 
 
 KOL l8oV TO vSiOp KaT€(fi€pCTO ttTTO TOV kAiTOVS TOU Sc^LOV' 
 
 Kat ixkrpov kv rrj x^'-P'' dvToVj Kal BiefxeTprjcreu x^tAiovs kv 
 T(^ fxkrpoi, Koi 8L7J\d€v kv tw vSari, v8(ap a^eo^ews* Kat 
 8L€ixkTpr](r€v xtAcov?, Kat St^A^ei/ ci/ tw vSaTt, vSwp ews twv 
 firjpCiv' KOL BujxkTp-qcrev xiXiovs-f kol 8LrjX6€V vBwp ews 
 OCTAVOS* Kat 8L€fxkTpy]crev x^Xlovs, kol ovk T^SwaTO SteA^eiv, 
 oTt k^vfipi^ev (US xufidpfiov 6v ov Btafiqcrovrat' Kat efTrei^ 
 Trpos /xe, kwpaKas vlk dvdpiOTrov ; Kal ^Jyayev fxckirlTo ^^cFAos 
 Tou TTorafxov kv ttj kTria-Tpoffyi^ jxov Kat i5ov Itti tov ;)(€tAovs 
 Tov TTOTafJLOv 8kv8pa TToXXd cr(f)68pa evOev Kal kvOev kol 
 eiTrev Trpos ftc* to v8o}p tovto kcTTL dfxf^poTov, v8(i}p tyjs ^wtJs* 
 Kat ccTTat TTcccra ^vx^ twi/ ^ojcuv twv Ik^coi/tcov kirlirdyTa k(f) 
 d dv kirkXOri kKci 6 Trorafios {^crcTaf Kat kv rrj 8i€Kr]f3oXy 
 auTOv, Kat kv rrj kTrLcrrpoffirf dvTov, Kat kv tyj vTrepdpcreL 
 avTov, dv fxrj vyLdanacriv' Kal irdv ^vXov dfxfipocrLov dv firj 
 TTaXaioidy kir a^TOV, dv8k jxrj kKXiTrrj 6 Kapiros dvrov, ryjs 
 Ko.LvoTrjTO<s avTOv 7rp(i)To/3oX7J(r€L eis atwrag tmv aiiovtcov, 
 
' THE APOCALYPSE. 609 
 
 68. 
 Then did the Cherubim lift up their wings, and the 
 ■wheels that were attached to them : and the Glory of 
 God was over them above ; and the Glory of the Lord 
 rose from amid the City, and rested on the mountain 
 which is opposite to the City. 
 
 69. 
 And he brought me to the entrances of the City, and 
 behold Water flowed down from the aether above, towards 
 the East, which the front of the City faced. And the 
 "Water descended from the right side, from the South unto 
 the golden incense altar. Then he brought me out of 
 the way of the Gate which lietli towards the North ; and 
 he led me round by the way to the gate of the court that 
 looketh towards the East ; and behold, Waters ran down 
 also from the right side. And he had a measure in his 
 hand, and with it he measured the banks ; and he went 
 into the Water — Water of Liberation, and he measured 
 a thousand ; and pa.ssed into the Water, until the Water 
 reached to his thighs ; and he measured a thousand ; and 
 passed through Water to the loins ; and he measured a 
 thousand ; and could not pass, for it rose as a torrent 
 which could not be crossed. And he said to me, Son of 
 Man, hast thou seen this 1 And he brought me to the river 
 bank as I returned ; and behold upon the bank of the 
 River were Trees, very numerous on this side and on 
 that. And he said to me : This Water is Ambrosial 
 Water, Water of Life ; and it shall be that every soul of 
 the living upon whom this Water cometh shall exist. 
 But in the outlet of the Water and its turning, and in 
 its ovei-flowing they shall not have help. And every 
 
 D D 3 
 
610 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 oTt TO, vSara dvTwv €k twi/ dyiwv ravTa eKiropevcrai^ koI 
 ccrraL 6 Kaprros avTiov ei's jSpojoriv, kol dvd^acn^ dvTiov ei? 
 vyietav Kai iSov Svo hepoL ela-T-qKctcraVf eT? evTevOiv rov 
 ^(etAeos rov Trora/xov, nal Its ivrevdev rov )(^eLX.eos rmj 
 TTorapjOV' Koi eiirev r(^ 6s r^v iTrdvio rov vSaros rov Trorafxov 
 €0)5 TTore TO Trepa?, cov €tpr]Kas TtSi/ ^au/xacrtcuv ; /cat -qKOvcra. 
 rov dvSpos OS ''Jt' GTrdvoi rov vSaros rov rrorapLOV' koI vxpoicrev 
 r'qv Septal/ dvrov Kal rrjv dpiarepdv avrov lis rov ovpavov^ 
 KOL 6jio)(r€v kv TO) ^dvri rov dtwi/ct, ort Its Katpov Kaipia.Vj Kal 
 -ijlxLcrv Katpov, yv6(rovrai Trdvra ravra. 
 
 KE«I>. 70. 
 KAr lyo) ildvvqs o f:iXe7r(ov ravra Kal dKovwv Kal ore 
 ^Kovcra Kal e^Xeif'a, eVecrov TrpoorKvvyjcrac €fnrpcf(r$€v rwv 
 TToSiov rov dyyeXov rov SetKvvovros fiot ravra. Kat Aiya 
 /xof "Opa fxiy avvBovXos cov yap eijjii, Kalrojv dBeXcfytov (Tov 
 riov 7rpo({>r]r(iiv, Kal riSv rrjpovvrtiiv rovs Xoyovs rov /it/SAtou 
 rovrov r<^ 0ew f^ovc^ irpouKvvqaov. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. -611 
 
 ambrosial tree shall bloom ^vitllOllt old age ; neither shall 
 its fruit ever fail ; its freshness shall put forth into ages 
 of ages ; for these their waters, flow out of the Holy ; 
 and their fruit shall be for food ; and their spreading for 
 an enjoyment. And behold ! there stood two othei-s, the 
 one on this side of the bank of the River ; the other on 
 that side of the bank of the River. And one said to the 
 Man above the waters of the River : How long to the 
 end of these wonders ? And I heard the Man above the 
 waters of the River, when he held up his right hand, 
 and his left also unto Heaven : and sware by him who 
 liveth for ever, that it shall be a time and times and half 
 a time, when all these things shall be accomplished. 
 
 70. 
 
 And I, Oannes, saw and heard these things ; and when I 
 heard and saw them I fell on my face ; before the feet of 
 the Angel who shewed them, and he said to me : Do it 
 not, for I am thy fellow sei-vant ; and the sei-vant of thy 
 brothers, the Prophets : those who do the words of this 
 Book. WORSHIP ONLY GOD. 
 
612 AnOKAAY^I2. 
 
 *AI *EnTA BPONTAI. 
 1. 
 'OYAP oval ttXtJOos iOiiov ttoXAwi/' u)<s OoXacrcra. 
 KVfiatvova-a, ovtio TapaxOi^a-ea-Oe, /cat vojtos iOvujv TrokXQvy 
 m v8(Dp yxW^''' "^5 vSwp TToXv iSvr] 770 XXa, (u? {jSaros 
 TToXXov fSia (fi€pofM€vov' KOi aTTOo-KopaKUi dvra, Kal 7r6ppo> 
 dvTa Siio^eraL, ws x^^^^ a-xvpov XiK/xiovroiv aTrkvo-vTi- 
 dvcfxov, Kol ws KovLoprlv rpoxov Karatyi? (fjepovcrav' II/jcs 
 £(nr€pav kol eorrat ttcvOos, irpivrj tt/dwi, Kal ovk carat crt' 
 ^o/3os Kal I360vvos Kal Trayts e^' vfxd<s rovs ivoiKovvras cttI 
 T^9 yrjs' Kal ecrrat 6 (fievyojv rov (fiofSov efXTrea-eirat eis rov 
 /366vvov, Kal 6 iK/Saivcav Ik rov /3odvvov dAdjcrcTat V7rb t-^^ 
 TTayiSos* OTL dvpiSes eK rov ovpavov aveioxOt^arav, Kal 
 o-€i(T6rj(r erai to. Oe/xeXia t^s yrjs' Tapa^^ rapax0'i]O-CTai ri 
 yrj, /cat aTropta d77opy]9rja-€Tat t) yrj' €KXe(,v€v u)S 6 fxeOvdyv 
 Kal KpanraXioVj Kal cretcr^vyo-erat ws oTvwpocfivXdKiov rj y?^ 
 Karto-^^VQ-ei/ yap ctt' avr-JJ? 17 dvofita, Kal Trea-eirat, Kal ov fxri 
 SvvrjTaL dvacTT'fjvai' Kal itra^ei 6 0€os cTrt rov Koor/xov rov 
 ovpavov rrjv x^"p") '^^^ ^'''^ '^*^^5 ^ao-tAet? t^s y^s* '0 5e 
 5roTa/jios CKAct^et, Kat ^ripavdrjcrcTaiy Kal iKXeixpovuLV oi 
 TTOTafxol, Kal at Sicopvx^S rov Trorapiov, Kal ^-qpavOria-erai. 
 TTaca avvayoiyrj {JSaros, Kat ei/ Travrl e'Aet KaXdfxov Kal Tra- 
 TTvpov Kal TO a;(t to x^iapov Tzdv to kvkXco tov TTorafxoVj 
 
 Kol Trdv TO (TTTiipOfX^VOV Stct TOU TTOTafJiOV ^r]pav67](T€TaL 
 
 dv€iJj6(f>6opov. Kat (rreva^ovcrii/ ot dAtets, Kat (TTevd^cvo'c 
 TrdvTCS 6t fSdXXovTcs dyKia-rpov hs tov TTOTafxov, Kal ot 
 ^dXXovT€<s (rayqva'S, Kal ol dfX(j)il3oX€is TrevOT^a-ovai- 'ISov 
 ^ficpa Kvpiov epx^rai, dveiaTOS Ov/xov Kal 6py7J<s, Odvat t^jv 
 mKovfxkv'qv ep^y/xov, Kat toi;s dfjLapT(j}Xov<s drroXfa-at e^ dvT-^s. 
 'Ot ydp do-Tepes tou ovpavov^ Kal *Qp€i(i)V, Kal Tras o Koa-fios 
 rov ovpavov, to </)a)s cv Sioa-ova-iv Kal a-KOTLa-Oyja-erai rov 
 ^Aiov dvaTcAAovTOS, Kat rj aeXrjvTj ov 6wo-ct to <^a)s dirr^s* 
 
THE APOCALYPSE, 613 
 
 THE SEVEN THUNDERS. (61) 
 1. The Destruction of Atlantis. — Woe ! woe ! 
 to the multitude of many people ; as the rolling waves 
 of the sea, even so shall they be in confusion, and 
 the back of many peoples shall make a tumult like the 
 ocean. As the great billows are many nations ; as of a 
 body of waters borne on with violence : but He shall 
 rebuke them, and shall put them to flight afar off, as the 
 dust of chaff when men winnow before the wind, and as a 
 storm whirling the dust of the wheel. In the evening time, 
 and there was sorrow ; and early in the morning, behold 
 it was not any more. Fear and the pit, and the snare are 
 upon ye, O inhabitants of the land ; and it shall come to 
 pass that he who flees from the fear, shall fall into the 
 pit ; and he that shall rid himself out of the pit, shall be 
 taken in the snare ; for the windows of the heaven are 
 opened, and the foundations of the earth shall be shaken. 
 With desolation shall the earth be desolated ; with break- 
 ing shall the earth be broken. As a drunken man, and 
 giddy with strong drink it staggereth : the earth shall be 
 shaken as the hut of a harvest watcher ; for its lawless- 
 ness shall be heavy upon it, and it shall sink, and it shall 
 not be able to rise again. And God shall lay his hand 
 upon the order of the heaven, and upon the rulers of the 
 eai-th. And the river shall be wasted and dry ; and the 
 rivers and their canals shall fail : and every reservoir of 
 water shall be dried up : in every marsh also of reed and 
 papyiiis. And all the gi-een herbage round about the 
 river and eveiy thing sown by the side of the river 
 shall be blasted with the wind and dried up. The 
 fishers also shall mourn and all that cast a hook 
 into the river shall lament ; and they that spread nets 
 
CU , AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 Kat ecrovrat ot KaraXeAci/x/Aevot cvTeLfioi fxaXXov rj to 
 \pv(TL0V TO airvpov Kat avOpojTros fxaXXov evrifios eWat ^' 6 
 At^os 6 ei/ 2ov^€tp' '0 yap ovpavos ^v/xw^^crcTat, Kai 17 y^ 
 (reicr6'^(T€TaL €K tw;/ OeixeXtiav dvTTJs' Kat ccrovTat ot Kara- 
 AeAet/Aevot wsSopKaStov cfyevyov, kol cos Trpofiarov TrXo.vion€vov, 
 KoX ovK ea-rai 6 o-vvdyo)Vf <^(tt€ dvdpoyn-ov Its toi/ Aaov dvTOU 
 aTTOcrrpaffirjvaL, Kat dvdp(i>iros eis tt)]/ ^tapav kavrov Stw^CTaf 
 *0v KaroLKrjdi^a-eTaL ets tov ataJya ^poj/oi/, wSejuij eio-eA^wa^ti/ 
 €ts aT;T7)v 6ta ttoAAwj/ yei'ewi', ovSe /xt) SuXdojcTLV avTrjv 
 'Apa/?es, ovSe TrotpAves ov pLrj avaTravcrovTat iv dvTT]. Kat 
 ava7rai;o-ovTat Ikci Orjpla, Kat epLTrX-^crBi^crouTaL at' otKtat ^yx^^> 
 Kat avaTravo-ovTat €K€i creipyjves, kol haip.ovia CKei opx'jo'OVTai, 
 Kat dvoKei/Tavpot l/cet KaratKr/orovo-t, Kat vocrcroTrot^Jo-ovorti/ 
 i)(^LVOL kv TOis oiKots dvT(x>v' Ta;)(i) e/D}(€Tat Kat ov xpoi'LU. 
 
 2. 
 
 nPO^AFA^'rETE e^K:;, Kat aKovo-aT€ dpxovres' dKOV(raT(a 
 V 7^' '^^^ °' ^^ avTT^, ")} otKov/jtci'^, Kat 6 Aaos 6 ei^ avr?}. 
 AtoTt OvpLos K.vpiov €7rt TravTa to, edmr], Kat cpyT^ CTrt tov 
 d.piOpLov dvTOiv, Tov (XTroAecrat avTovs, Kat Trapadovvat dvTovs 
 c's a-cj:)a'yrjv. *0t Se rpavpLartai dvroiv pL<j)7](rovTac^ kol ol 
 vei<poL, Kat dva/^rja-erat dvrwv -q octju-t), Kat j3pct.\'t](TeraL to. 
 opt] airo tov dip.aro'S dvTcov. Kat TaKr^croi/rat Trdcrai at 
 
THE APOCALYPSE, 615 
 
 and snares npon the watei*s shall languish away. Behold 
 the day of the Lord shall come ; a cniel day and full 
 of wrath and fury, to lay the earth desolate ; and to 
 destroy the sinners thereof even from its face. For 
 the stars of heaven, and Orion, and all the brightness 
 of heaven shall not give their light ; the snn shall be 
 darkened in his rising, and the moon shall not shine with 
 her lustre. And they who are left shall be more precious 
 than fine gold ; yea, a man shall be more in honour even 
 than the stone wedge of Syphir. For the heavens shall 
 be filled with fury, and the earth shall be shaken out of 
 her place, and they who shall have escaped, shall be as a 
 chased roe, and as a sheep that wandereth away : and 
 there shall be none to gather them together. Every man 
 shall turn to his own people : and every one shall flee to 
 his o^vn land. It shall no more be inhabited for ever, 
 neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation : 
 neither shall the Arab pass through it, nor shall shep- 
 herds rest there. But wild creatures shall abide there, 
 and the houses shall be filled with howling, and sirens shall 
 cry there, and devils shall dance there. And monstrous 
 creatures shall live therein ; and sea-urchins shall make 
 their nests in their desolate houses ; and the time is near, 
 and shall not be deferred. 
 
 2. The Judgment on evil doers. — Come near, ye 
 nations, and ye O princes, hear: let the earth hear, and 
 all that arc therein ; the whole world and the people that 
 be in it ; for the justice of the Lord is upon every nation, 
 and his wrath is upon their multitudes, to destroy them, 
 and to give them over to the sword. Their wounded 
 shall be cast forth, and their slain ones ; and there shall 
 arise out of them a stink ; and the mountains shall be 
 
616 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 Svvdfxu^ T(ov ovpavoyv, koI iXiyrjcreTai 6 ovpavos ws ^ijSXioVj 
 Kal TTOLvra rot aa-rpa TTicreiraL ws cfivWa c^ afXTreXov, koI lo? 
 TTiTTTet ifkvXXa aTTo (rvK7J<s. '^fiedva-drj 17 fxd)(aipa fxov Iv t(^ 
 ovpavo)' I80V Kara/S rjoreraL cttI rov Aaov Trj<s dinoXeias fiera 
 Kpicr€(i)<5. 'H p.a\atpa rov Kvpiov kveirX-qa-Or) at/Aaros, 
 e7ra-)(yv9'q aTro crreaTos, aTTo at/iaros rpdyiov Koi dpcvoiVj Kal 
 airo o-rearos rpdyiov Kal KpiMv. ^Kp^epa yap fcptVcws KvpioVy 
 Kal ivLavros avraTroSocrcws Kptcrco)? 2ia)i/. Kat (rrpa(^r](rovTai 
 al <^dpayye<i dvrrjs €ts Tricrcrav, Kat 17 yrj dvTrj^ eis ^eior. 
 Ka6 karat rj yrj avr^s tos Trtacra KaLopevr], vvktos Kat 
 '^[xepas, Kal 6v (r/^ecOrjcrerai els rov aloiva ^povov, Kal 
 avaj3r](r€rat 6^ KaTrvos avrrj'? dvu)' ets yeveas avr7J<s ipy]/jni)~ 
 6i^(T€raL, Kal ets xpovov ttoXvv "Opvea Kal t^^ivot, Kat t'^ei? 
 Kat KopaK^s KaroiK-qcrovcriv kv avry]. Kai €7r ilSXrjOrjcreraL lir 
 dvrrjv cnraprlov yeto/xer/aia? €pr]iiov, Kat 6voK€vravpoi 
 oiKi^dova-Lv kv avry]. "Ot dp^ovr€<s dvrr]<s ovk eVovrat, 6t yap 
 fSacTiXeis, Kat 6t /xcyiTTavcs dvry]? kfrovrai eis aTrwAetav. 
 Kat avacfivrjcrec cts ra? TroAet? avTWi/ aKavdiva ^vAa, Kat 
 cts ra oxvpoyfiara avrrjs' Kal co-rat CTravAct? (rcLp-qvoiV., Kal 
 avXr] (rrpovOdSv. Kat (rvvavrr)(rov(rL 8at/xovta ovoKej/ravpots, 
 Kat f^oiicrovrai cVepos Trpo? rov erepov, €K€l dvaTravcrovraL 
 6voK€vravpoL, €vpovr€<; avroL<s dvaTravcnv. ^EKct kvocra-evcrev 
 k\LVO<s, Kal 'karcocrev 1) yrj ra TraiSia avrr]<5 pera ao-c^aAetas* 
 CK€t crvv7]vrY)(Tav kXacfiOt Kal €l8ov ra TrpoorwTra dAAr^Awv. 
 'ApiBpio TraprjXdov, Kal pta ai'rwv ovk aTTCuAeTo erepa rrjv 
 erepav ovk k^yjrr^a'aVy orb J^vpuos avrots kveretXaro, Kal to 
 Uvevpa dvrov Grvvrjyaycv dvrd. Kat avros kirifSaXet 
 dvroL<; KXrjpovs, Kal •>/ X^'P dvrov Ste/xeptcre f36(TK€(rdaL' cts 
 Toi'attova;)(/ooi'o;/KAiy/)oi/OjU,7^cr€TC, yei^eas yct'etoi/ ava7rav(rovTat 
 CTT avrrj's. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 617 
 
 made wet with their blood. And all the powers of the 
 heavens shall waste away, and the heavens shall be rolled 
 together as a scroll ; and all the stars shall fall as the 
 leaves from the grape vine, and as the leaves that fall 
 from the fig tree. My sword hath been made drunk ia 
 the heavens : behold it shall descend with judgment upon 
 the people of destruction. The sword of the Lord is- 
 filled with blood ; it is fattened with fatness from the 
 blood of goats and he-lambs, and from the fatness of he- 
 goats and rams. For it is the day of the judgment of 
 the Lord ; the year of recompenses of the justice of Sion, 
 And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch ; and 
 the ground thereof into brimstone : and the soil thereof 
 shall be buraing pitch night and day, and it shall never 
 be quenched ; but the smoke thereof shall ascend for ever ; 
 it shall be made desolate throughout her generations, 
 and for a long time. Birds and sea-urchins, the 
 ibis and the raven shall make their homes therein : and 
 the measuring line of desolation shall be stretched out 
 upon it : aud wild monstera shall have their habitation in 
 its recesses. Its princes shall not be ; its kings shall 
 cease : and its mighty men shall pass into destruction : 
 and thorns and nettles shall grow up in its cities and in, 
 its strong fortresses : and there ehall be the dwelling of 
 sirens, and the court of ostriches. And demons shall 
 consort with monsters, and they shall howl one to ano- 
 ther ; there shall savage creatures live, and in it shall they 
 find a resting place. There shall the sea-urchin make her 
 hole, and the earth has safely presei-ved its young ones. 
 There the wild deer meet, and look upon each others* 
 faces. In their herds they pass along : and not one of 
 them shall perish : they seek not after each other : for 
 
-618 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 3. 
 
 *0 GEO'S €K Oat/Aav rj^€i, Kal 6 "Aytos €^ o/oor? 
 ^apav KaTacTKLOv 8ao-cos* Std^aXfjia' €KdXvxf/€V ovpavovs 
 'Q dperrj dvTOVf Kal atvccrews avrou TrXi^prjs "q yrj. Kat 
 fjieyyos dvrov ws <^ci)S eo-raf Kcpara €k ^epcrtv dvrov, /cat 
 W^TO dydTrrjCTLV Kparaidv tcr^vos avTov. IIpo Trpodiairov 
 dvTov TTo^evcrcTat Aoyos, Kat e^eAevcrerat Its TreSta Kara 
 iroSas dvTov' "IStcrTrj, /cat eo-aAev^?^ 17 yrj, eirel^Xexpe /cat StcraKT^ 
 e^v-j^, ^leOpyf^-q to. opr) f3ia^ iraK-qorav /Sovvol atwviot Tropetas 
 aiwi/tas avrov Avrt kottwi/ erSov <TKr]V(x>iiara 'Ai6i67r(av, 
 TTTor^di^a-ovTaL /cat at crKT/vat yijs MaSta/x* Mrj Iv 7roTa/x.ots 
 (opyta-dyjs J^vpie ; rj ev Trora/xots o Ovjxos crov ; rj iv OaXdircrj 
 TO opfMrjfia (Tov ; on eTTi/^i^crrj iirl rovs ittttovs crov, /cat ^ 
 tTnrao-ta crov a-iorrjpCa' 'EvretVwv li/erctvas toJov <roi/ Ittc 
 (TKrJTTTpa, Acyet Kvptos* Staxf/aXfxa' Trorapnov payrjcreraL yrj, 
 ^Orpovrai <tc /cat toSivi^crov(rtAaoi. a-KopTn^ovra vSaTaTropeia? 
 ISw/cei/ 17 d/3v(ra-os (piovrjv dvT'j's yxj/oi ^avracrias dvTrJs' 
 'FtTTT^pOrj 6 rjXios, /cat 17 creXrjvq €(rrq iv rrj ra^et dvTi]S' els 
 <^a>s ^oXiSes crou Tropevorovrai, cts (fiiyyos d(TTpa.7rrjs ottAwv 
 crov 'Ev aTTCtAr/ oAtywo-cts yT^v, Kat ei/ ^v/x^ Kdra^eis Wvt], 
 *Fi^rjXd€S ets (TOiTrjpicjiV Aaou (tov, tov (rdHa-aL rovs cSwKas tov 
 Xpio-Tovo-ov* /?a Acts cts K€cfiaXa<s dvofiiov Odvarov, e^rjyeipas 
 Bea-fiovs cojs Tpa)(r]Xov' Sta^aA/xa' Kat €7n7nf3ds eis 6dXa<r- 
 crav Tov<s ittttovs 0*0 v, rapa.(T(T0VT0.<s vSwp ttoAv. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 619 
 
 the Lord hath given them a command, and his Spirit hath 
 brought them together. And he himself casteth their 
 lots for them, and his hand hath divided for them their 
 pastures ; inherit ye it for an everlasting time ; it shall 
 be theii-s from generation to generation. (Q^-) 
 
 3. The Adtent of the First Cabir Predicted. — God 
 shall come from Thserman, and the Holy One from the 
 dark shady Mount Pharan, Selah. His glory covered the 
 heavens, and the earth was fidl of his praise. And his 
 brightness was as the light ; he had horas coming out of 
 his hand ; and he caused a mighty love of his strength. 
 Before Him went the Word and it shall go forth in the 
 plains on foot. The earth stood at his feet and trembled : 
 he beheld, and drove asunder the nations ; and the 
 mountains were crushed to pieces ; the perpetual hills 
 were bowed down by the joumies of his eternity. I saw 
 the tents of Cushan in affliction ; and the curtains of the 
 land of Midian did tremble. "VYert thou displeased 
 against the livers, O Lord? was thine anger against 
 the livers ? was thy wrath against the aea, that thou 
 didst ride upon thine horses, and thy chaiiots of sal- 
 vation? Straining, thou didst stretch thy bow over 
 sceptres, says the Lord. Pause ! The land of rivers shall 
 be torn asunder. The people shall see Thee, and they 
 shall tremble ; they shall see Thee scattering the waters 
 of the way; the deep put forth its voice ; the sublimity of 
 her madness. The sun and the moon stood still in their 
 habitation ; into the light shall thine aiTOws go ; into the 
 brightness of the splendour of thine arms. Thou wilt 
 bring low the land with threatening ; and in wrath Thou 
 wilt break down the nations. Thou didst go forth unto 
 the salvation of tliy people ; for theii' salvation thou liast 
 
620 AnOKAAY^IS. 
 
 4. 
 
 'En* opovs TTcStvoi; apare (rrj/xctov, vifiocrare rrjv (fiiovrjV 
 
 dvTOLSj irapaKaXeLTC rfj X^'-Ph avoi^are 6i ap^ovres' 'Eyw 
 
 crvvToicro-o), kol iyoi ayco dvTOvs' i^ytacr/xevoi eicrt, Kal cyo> 
 
 ayo) dvTovs' ytyavre? cpxovrai TrXrjpiScrai tov Ovfiov fxov 
 
 XO^tpOVT€<S djXa KoX v/3pL^OVT€<5' ^(OVYJ idvCOV TToXXiSv €776 
 
 Tcov opiiov, ofioia iOvtSv ttoAAwv, cf)(i)vrj ^acriXeoiV Koi 
 i$vwv (Tvvrjyuevoiv. Kvpios 'Za/SaoiO evTcraXrai Wvet 
 67rXofxd)(^c^ €py€crdaL Ik yrjs TroppoiOev (xtt dnpov 6€[X€Xlov 
 TOV ovpavov, Kvptos koi 6l oirXoiid^ot dvTOv, KaracjiOcTpai, 
 Trdcrav rrjv oiKovfievrjw 'OAoAv^erc eyyvs yapr^iepa Kvpiov, 
 Kal (TvvTpijBr] nrapa rov Qeov r]^€i' Aia tovto urdcra X^V 
 £KXv6r](T€raLj Kal Trdcra '^vyrj dvOputTrov SeiXidcreL' Tapaxdrj- 
 (TOVTac 6i Trpea-jSets, Kal (oSfves avrovs e^ovcriv w? ywaiKos 
 TLKTOV(Tr]<s, KOL (rvpicf)opa<TOV(rLV €T€po<5 Trpos TOV eVepoi/ Kal 
 IkCTTT^ (TO VTttt, Kai TO 7rp6(T<t)7rov dvTO)v ws </)Xo^ /x€Ta/3aXoi)o-tV 
 'Os yap av dAo) i^TT^^rycrcTat, Kat oiTtves a-vvyyixivoi hicrl 
 ixayaipa. Treu-ovvraL' Kal rd rcKva dvrwv pa^ovcriv €VW7rtov 
 dvTWV, Ka6 Tots otKtas dvTOiv 7rpovofX€V(TOVcn,' Kal Tas 
 ywarKas auTcov e^ovcnv. 
 
 5. 
 11122 ; dvaTreTravrai 6 aTraiTwv/ Kat dvaTrcTravTai 6 Ittio-- 
 TTovSacTTrjS ; ^vvkrpixpe Ki'/oios tov ^vyov twv d/xa/OTwAwv, 
 TOV ^I'yov Twv d^xot'Tcov' ITaTa^a? i6vo<5 Ov/xi^ TrXrjyfj 
 dvidrM Traiwv e^vov? irXrjyrjv dvjxov^ yj ovk ccfieicraTO, dv€7rav- 
 araro TrcTTOt^ws. Ilao'a 7) yrj /3oa fier lv<f>po(Tvvr]S. '0 dBrfs 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. 621 
 
 given tliine Anointed One. Thou didst strike death 
 upon the heads of the lawless ; thou didst enchain them 
 even to the neck. Thou didst make a way for thine 
 horses over the sea, amid the boiling and disturbed 
 watei-s. (63). 
 
 4. The Three Cabiri of God. — Upon the mountains 
 of the plain lift ye up a banner, exalt the voice to them ; 
 beckon ye with the hand, and open ye, your gates, O 
 Princes. I give command, and I bring them ; they are 
 my sanctified ones, and I lead them ; giants are coming 
 to fulfil my wrath, rejoicing at the same time and in- 
 .sultiug. The voice of many nations in the mountains, 
 even as that of many nations ; a voice of kings and 
 nations gathered together. The Lord of hosts hath given 
 charge to the troops of war, to come from a land afar off, 
 from the utmost foundation of the heaven ; the Lord and 
 bis warriors are coming to destroy all the world. Howl 
 ye, for the day of the Lord is near ; and destruction from 
 God shall arrive. Therefore shall all hands be faint; 
 and every man's heart shall melt. The elders shall be 
 troubled, and pangs shall seize them, as of a woman in 
 labour ; and they shall mourn one to another, and shall 
 be amazed, and shall change their countenance as a flame. 
 Every one that shall be found shall be slain ; and they 
 that are gathered together shall fall by the sword ; and 
 tliey shall dash their children before their eyes ; and they 
 shall spoil their houses, and take their wives (6-t.) 
 
 5. The Judgment upon the Great Earth Conquerors. 
 — How ] hath the oppressor come to nothing 1 and hath 
 the driver ceased 1 The Lord hath broken the yoke of 
 the wicked, the yoke of the rulers. Having smitten a 
 nation in wi-ath with an incurable wound, smiting a 
 
622 AnOKAAY^I2. 
 
 KaroiOev kiriKpavOr) crvvavrria-ct/s crof crvvrjyepOrjardv dvT(^ 
 7rdvT€S 6t ytyavTe'S 6l dp^avres ti]S y^?, ot iyetpavres €K twv 
 dpovQiV avrOiv Trdvra^ ^acrtA-ets kOv(av' Trdvres diroKpidric-ovTai 
 
 KoX ipOVCTLV CrOL' Kol (TV IttAo)? (30-776/) Kttt T^/ACtS, kv r^puV Sc 
 
 KarekoytcrOr]'? ; KaT€f3i] et<s dSov rj So^a crov, rj ttoXX^ 
 ev^pocrvvrj crov vTroKdro) (rov (rrpcdarova-Lv cryji/yiv, Kal to 
 KaraKaXvix/xa crov crKOiXr]^. Uws ; l^eTreo-ej/ Ik rov ovpavov 
 6 eitio-cjiopos 6 TTpijJL dvareXX.(i)V ; (rvveTpif^r] e's Tqv yr^v 6 
 diroarTeXXiiiv Trpos Travra rot Wvrj' 2v Se €LTTa<s rfj ^lavol^ 
 crov, et? Tov ovpavov dvaj37](rofiai, eTrdva) tQv dcrrepiov rov- 
 ovpavov Orjcro) tov Opovov fiov YLadiOt kv Spec vxf/rjXiv, kirt ra 
 opr] rd vxj/rjXd rd Trpo<s /Soppdv, dvaf^-qa-ofxaL kirdvia rQ>v ve^wi/, 
 ecrojxaL o/xotos tw vif/ia-TO). Nvv Se els dS-qv KaTaf3i]crr], Kal 
 els rd dejMeXio. tt^s yyjs' Ot ISovres ere 6j.vfxd(T0VTai kiri a-o\ 
 Ka\ kpovcTLV ovTos o auOpoiTTOS 6 irapo^vvoiv r-qv y^v, oreioiv 
 Paa-iXets ; 6 $els rrjv oiKovpbevrjv oXrjv eprjfJLOv, Kal rds TToXeis 
 avTov KaBelXev, rovs kv eirayoyy fj ovk eXvcrev. ILdvres ol 
 jSacnXeis twv eOvoiv kKOL/M-qOrja-av kv Tt/zr/, dvOpioiros kv r(§ 
 oIko) dvTOv' 2t; 8e pLcfyrjcrr) kv toos opecrtv, ws veKpos k/^SeXvy- 
 fievos p^erd ttoAAwv TeOvrjKOTiov eKK€KevTr]fj,€V(ov pLa^aipais 
 Kara/3aLv6vTOiv Its aSoi;* 6v rpoTTOv Ipdriov kv dijxari 
 7re(fivpp.€Vov ovk eoTai KaOapov ovt(ds ovSe crv ecrr) KaOapos. 
 AtoTi T-rjv yyjv pov aTTioXearas, Kal rov Xaov pt,ov aTreKTCtva?, 
 ou pr] pLeivris-) els rov alo)va ^(povov cnreppa 7rovt]pov' 
 *ETOt/zao-ov Tct reKva crov (r<f)ay7]vai rats dpLaprtais tov 
 Trarpos dvriDV, I'va pirj dvaa-rojcrL, Kal KXiqpovopria-oidL r'qv 
 yrjv, Kal e/ATrAoJo-wo-t rrjv yrjv TroXep^iav. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. G23 
 
 nation with a wrathful plague, which spared not^ He 
 rested in quiet. All the earth cries aloud with joy. 
 Hades from beneath was in an uproar to meet thee at 
 thy coining. All the giants who have ruled over the 
 earth, have risen up together to thee ; they who have 
 lifted up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. 
 All shall answer and say unto thee : Thou also hast been 
 taken even as we ; thou art numbered amongst us. Thy 
 pride is brought down to Hades, and thy great mirth ; 
 under thee they shall spread corruption, and the worm shall 
 be thy covei-ing. How ? has lie fallen from heaven, Lucifer 
 that rose in the morning ? He who did send forth unto 
 all the nations is crushed to the earth. For thou saidst 
 in thine heart, I will ascend to heaven : I will set my 
 throne above the stars of heaven. I will sit in the 
 exalted mountain, in the lofty mountains that be towards 
 the north. I will ascend above the clouds ; I will be like 
 the Most High. But now thou shalt go down to Hades 
 and even unto the foundations of the earth. They that 
 see thee shall wonder at thee, and say, Is this the man 
 tliat troubled the earth % that made kings to shake ? 
 that made the world a wilderness, and destroyed its cities ? 
 that loosed not those who were in captivity ? All the 
 kings of the nations lie in honour, every one in his own 
 house. But thou shalt be cast forth on the mountains 
 as an abominable corpse, among many of the dead who 
 have been pierced with the sword, and have gone do^vn 
 into Hades. In the same manner as a garment polluted 
 with goi*e is mere filth iness, even so art thou all unclean ; 
 because thou hast destroyed my land, and hast slain my 
 people, thou shalt not stand for ever, thou evil seed. 
 Prepare thy chiklren to be slain for the sins of their 
 
6-24 AnOKAAY^I2. 
 
 6. 
 
 OYAr 'ApLTjX' kK$\i\poi yap 'AptrJX' Koi kcrrai avrri<? 
 r) la-)(v<i Koi 6 ttAovto? e/xot" koi KVKXdoaru) ere, Kai f3a\o} 
 Trepl (re -^dpaKa, Kal O'qcro) Trcpl crk Trvpyovs, kol raTrctvw- 
 OrjcrovTat e's rrjv yrjv 6l Xoyoi crov, Kal els Trjv yrjv ot 
 XoyoL crov SvcrovTaf Kal tcrovrai ws ot ^wvovvres Ik 
 Tri<s yri<s 17 <j)(Dvrj crov, koI tt/oos to cSacfiOS rj cfnovq crov 
 da-Oevrjcrei' Kat 'kcrrai ws Kovtopros diro Tpo)(ov 6 
 ttXovtos Tiov dcref^cov, Kal wg ^voiJs (^ep6}X€vo<i to ttAtJ^os 
 rlav KaTa^vvacrrevovTisiV ere, kol 'icrrai cos crTiyjiri Trapa- 
 ■)(prjfxa irapa K.vpLov ^a/3ao)6' 67riarK07rrj yap kcrrai 
 lx€Ta j3povTrj<s Kal (rcicrixov, Kal (fi(ji)vrj<s fX€ydXrj<i Karaiyi<s 
 <jiepo[X€vrj, Kal cjiXl^ Trvpos KarecrOiovcra' Kat ecrrai ws 
 ivvTTv la^o fievos KaO' vttvovs vvktos-, 6 ttXovtos aTravTiov ro)V 
 eOviaVj ocroi iTrecrTpdrevc^v kirl 'AptT^A, Kat 7rdvT€<s ot 
 (rvvrjyfxevoi Itt a^Tr^v, Kat ot OXC^ovres dvrrjv, Kat ws ot 
 €V T<^ VTTVW TTivovTcs Kat €cr6ovT€<s, Kal e^avacTTavTiov fxaraiov 
 
 TO kvVTTVLOV' Kal 6v TpOTTOV IvVTTl/ta^eTat 6 St^tOV COS TTLVdiV, 
 
 Kal e^avacrras eVt St^a, ^ 8e 4'^XV dvTOv ets kcvov rlXirLcrcv 
 ovTws eoTTai 6 ttAovtos twv eOvciiv TravTWv ocot kiirecTT par ever av 
 errl 'Apir^X. '^KXvOrjre Kal iKcrrrjre, kol KpacTraX'qcrare oik 
 aTTO CTLKcpa ovSe d-jro ocvov, oTt TreTroTtKer v/xas Kvyotos 7ri/ev- 
 /AaTt KaTavu^ccos, Kat Ka/x/xiVet tovs 6(fiOaX/JLOvs dvriov, Kat 
 Tc3v Trpocfi'qroyv dvr(i)v, Kal rcov dp)(ovrci}v dvrcov 01 optovTC? 
 to, Kpvirra' Kat 'icrrac vfxtv ra pyj/xara Trdvra ravra, to? ot 
 Aoyot Tov (^ifiXiov Tov €cr<f)payL(Tfi€VOv rovrov, 6 idv Swo-tv 
 dvTo dv6p(x)Tr(a eTncrra/xevoi ypafifxara, Xeyovres- 'Avdyv(x}$t 
 ravra- Kal epel, 'Ov SvvafiaL dvayvcovat, kcrcjipdyicrraL yap. 
 Kat So^T^crcTai to ^tfiXlov rovro els x^P^'^ dvOpioTTOv fxrj 
 eincrraiikvov ypa/x/xaTa, Kat epel dvrc^' *Avdyvii)6t rovro' Kal 
 ep£i' 'OvK eTTLcrrafjLaL ypafxixara. Kat ciTre Kvpcos' 'Eyyt^et 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. C25 
 
 fdther, that they ai'is3 not, and inherit th« earth, nor fill 
 the earth with wars. {Qo.) 
 
 6. The Ovehthrow of the Chinese Empire. — Woe 
 to Ariel : for I will distress Ariel, and its strength and 
 treasure shall ho mine; and I will enclose thee in a 
 circle, and I will cast a trench round thee, and I will 
 raise towers about thee; and thy vauntings shall bo 
 humbled to the dust, and unto the earth thy words shall 
 sink ; and they shall be as the words of one who speaketh 
 out of the earth, and thy voice shall be lowered to the 
 ground. But the wealth of the ungodly shall be as dust 
 from a wlieel ; and the multitude of them who oppress 
 thee as flying chaff; and it shall be suddenly as a moment 
 from the Lord of Hosts ; for there shall be a visitation 
 with thunder, and earthquake, and great outcries ; a 
 tempest hurrying on, and the all-devouring flame of fire. 
 And the multitude of all the nations together who shall 
 pitch their tents against Ariel, and all who are leagued 
 together against it, and who join themselves so as to bring 
 affliction upon it, shall be as the dream of one who 
 dreameth in the night. And as they who in their sleep 
 drink and eat, and when they have arisen, their dream is 
 vain ; and in the same way as a thii'sty man dreams 
 as if he drank, but when he hath awakened he still thirets, 
 and his soul hath hoped in vain; so shall be the multitude 
 of all the nations who have pitched their tents against 
 Ariel. Stay yourselves and wonder : stagger ye, but not 
 from strong drink, nor from wine ; for the Lord hath 
 mingled for you the spirit of a profound sleep, and he will 
 shut up the eyes of them, and of their prophets, and of 
 their princes who see the hidden things. And all these 
 things shall be to you as the words of this Sealed Book ; 
 
 E E 
 
e^6 - AIIOKAAY^IS. 
 
 fjLol 6 Aaos ovTO'S iv TO) crro/Aart dvTOv, /cat iv tols ^ciAeo-iv 
 dvTOiv Tiixdcn fxe, r] 8e Kap^ia avnav Tropfno dTre^et utt ifMov' 
 fxar-qv 8e a-kfiovrai fie, SiSao-Kovrc? evrdX/jLaTa dvOpcoTrwv 
 Kal StSao-KaAi'a?. Ata tovto tSov TrpocrOyjcro} rov pLcraOcivac 
 tov \aov TovTov, Kal /zera^y^crw dvTov<s, kol aTroAw rrjv (rocf)Ltiv 
 Twv (TO(f>(ov, KOL rrjv crvvecriv rwv o-vverMv Kpvipu)' 'Oval ot 
 PaOkws f^ovXrjV iroLovvres, Kal ov Sia K.vpiov' omt 6l Iv 
 Kpv(f>rj fSovXrjV ttolovvtcs, Kal ecrrat iv crKoTei rd epya dvrwv 
 Kal ipovcri' Tt's ktapaKcv rjfxds ; Kal tls rjfxds yi^wcrerat y a 
 ^fieiS 7roLov{JLev ; 'Ovx ws ttt^Xos rov Kepa/xkios XoyL(TOy(T€cr$€ ; 
 fJLrj ipei TO 7rXd.(TfJia rw irXdcavri dvro' 'Ov crv p.€ l/XTrAacras ; 
 i] TO TTonjfia TO) TTOtT^travTfc, 'Ov crwcTws yite i7roir](Tas ; Kal 
 aKot'o-oi/rat ev ttJ ^)fX€pa kKuvrj K(D<f)ol Xoyovs f^ifiXiov^ Kal 
 01 iv TO) (TKorei, Kal ot ei' tt^ op^L^Xy ocjiOaXp^ol tv^Xcov 
 oxj/ovrai' Kal dyXiacrovTaL tttmxoI Sia Kvpiov iv iv(f>po(Tvvrjy 
 KOL ofc d'n-r]Xz-L(rp.ivot tCjv dvOp^irisiv ip.irXrjo-Orja-ovTaL 
 iv(f>po(rvv'^rj<s. 
 
 '7. 
 
 OYT12!2 Aeyet K.vpios, iSov to) €Acy/>i(p ^ov k^eprjjJno(r(i> 
 rrjv OdXacra-av, Kal Orjcro) Trora/xovs iprjpLOVSy /cat ^-qpavOrj- 
 (TOVTai ot t;)(^u€S avrwv aTro rou /At) civai v8o)p, Kal 
 aTToOavovvTaL iv St^et. 'Ej/Svo-a> rov oi-pai/oi/ <tk6tos, /cat to? 
 crdKKov dqcTdi to TrepifioXalov avrov. Tis ci/ vpiiv o 
 (})o/3ovp.€vos Tov Kv/otov ; vTraKovcraTb) Tr)<s ^(ovrjs rov, 
 TratSos avrov* ot 7rop€v6p.€voi iv crKorei, /cat ovk cariv avroT? 
 
THE APOCALYPSE, 627 
 
 which, if they shall give to a learned man, sayings Eead 
 this ; he then shall say, I cannot read it, for it is sealed. 
 And this same Book shall be delivered into the hands of 
 a man who is not learned, and they shall say to him ; Read 
 this : and he shall answer, I know not letters. Where- 
 foi-e the Loixl has said ; This people dmw near to me with 
 their mouth, and with their lips do give me prjiise, bufc 
 their heart is far from me, and their worship is as nought, 
 being founded on the commandments and teachings of 
 men ; therefore will I proceed to remove this people, and 
 I will remove them : and I will destroy the wisdom of 
 their sophists, and I will wrap np the understanding of 
 their prudent men. Woe to them who devise deep 
 counsels without the Lord ; woe to them wlio work their 
 plots in secret ; and whose deeds are done in darkness. 
 And they say, Who hath seen us, and who shall know 
 us, or what we do ? Is it not as if the clay should cry 
 out agcxinst the potter ? and the work exclaim against the 
 maker thereof, Thou didst not make me 1 or the thing 
 framed should say to him who fashioned it, Thou hast not 
 made me wisely 1 And in that day the deaf shall hear 
 the words of this Book ; and out of the darkness and out 
 of obscurity the eyes of the blind shall see : and the 
 meek shall increase their joy in the Lord ; and the hope- 
 less among men shall be filled with gladness. (QQ.) 
 
 7. BEFOIiS THE FiXAL APOCASTASIS OF THE EaRTU. 
 
 — Thus saith the Lord : Behold at my rebuke, I will 
 make the sea a desert; and I will change the rivers into 
 a wilderness, and the fishes shall rot for want of water, 
 and they shall perish in their thirst. I will cloathc the 
 heaven with darkness, and I will make its covering like 
 gackcloth. Who is there amrng you that fearcth the 
 
 E E 2 
 
G28 AIIOKAAY^IS. 
 
 <^S, TreTroiOare Ittl to> wo/xari Kvptov, kol avTia-T-qplcraa-Oe 
 €Trl TO) Oeo). ISov Travre^ I'/xeis Trvp KauTC, Kal Karicr^verc 
 ^Aoya* TTopevecrOe ro) t^wrt rov rrvpos vfiCivj Kal rrj <f)Xoyly 
 •L^iKavcrare 8l Ifxl €yev€.TO ravra vfxlv, iv Xvtttj KOLixa$r](T€a-$€. 
 ^•Eyyt^et Ta)(y t) StKaiOJ-vvrj fjLOv, Kal c^eXevcrerai ws <^w§ to 
 ■<riorr]ptov [xov, Kal eis tov f3pa)(€Lova fxov idvrj kXiriova-Lv' 
 c/x€ vrfiToi v7rofi€vov(rLV, Kai eis tov fipay^iova fxov eXTnovcTLV. 
 "Aparc els tov ovpavov tovs d<^^aX/xovs vfiCiv, Kal i/xf^XiipaTC 
 c*S T>;i/ y^i/ Kara), ort 6 oi'/odvos ws Ka7ri/os icTTepecodyj. rj Se 
 yrj cos IfxaTLov TraAatw^'^crerat, ot 5c KarotKowres (^(nrep 
 TavTa aTToOavovvTaiy to Se crojT'qpiov fxav e's tov atwva 
 inTai, rj Se StKaLoo-vvT] fxov 6v firj eKXeiTrYj. UopevcTe ayyeXoL 
 KovcjiOL Trpos eOvos fJL€Tecopov, Kal ^evov Aaov Kal xaXeirov 
 TLS dvTov c7r€K€Lva ; Wuos dveXTTLO-Tov Kal KaTa~€7raTy]fJi€V0V 
 yvv 01 TTOTaiiol ttJs y^s. IIai/T€s, ws X'^V^ KaToiKovp^ei'i], 
 KaroiK-qOy^a-eTai -q Xfapa dvTOiv wcret o-rjfxeiov aTro opovs apO'ijj 
 X09 (TaXiriyyos ^tov?) aKova-Tuv ecTTat, Aiojt outws e?7rc 
 sKv/)tos /xot. 'Aa-cfydXeta eo-rat ev T17 e/A^ ttoAci, ws ^ws 
 KarfxaTOS iJL€uy]pifSpLaSy Kal ws vecfikXr] Spoa-ov rj/x^pas dfJLrjTOV 
 co-rat Trpo rou Oepta-fiov orav (rwreAeo-^^ av^os, Kat o/x^a^ 
 c^avOyjcrri o.vOos o/xtfiaKL^ova-a' koI dc^eAet ra /SoTpvSia to. 
 ^LKpa TOis SpeTrdvois, Kal ras KXrj/xaTiSas d^eAet, Kal 
 
 ra7rOKOl/'€t. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE. C29 
 
 Lord ? let liim hcaikcn to the voice of his Son : ye who 
 walk in darkness, and nnto whom there is no light; 
 tnist ye in tlic name of the Lord, and turn yourselves 
 unto God. I>L'h(»ld all ye who kindle a fire, and prevail 
 with flame; walk yo in the light of your fire, and in the 
 flame whicli ye have kindled : this ye shall have of mo, 
 that yo shall lie down in sorrow. My righteousness is 
 near at hand, and as light my salvation shall go forth, and 
 in mine arm shall the nations hope ; the islands shall 
 wait upon me, and in my arm shall their trust be placed. 
 Lift up your eyes to heaven, and cixst them down upon 
 the earth bcneatli ; for the heaven shall fade away like 
 smoke, and the earth shall wax old as a garment, and 
 they that dwell therein shall die in like manner, but my 
 salvatiori shall be for ever, and my justice shall nc^t fail. 
 Go ye swift messengers to a nation rent and torn in 
 pieces, to a strange and hai-sh people. For thus saith 
 the Lord to me : For there shall be security in my cicy, 
 even as the nooji-light is clear, and it shall be as a cloud 
 of dew in the day of harvest. Before the reaping-time, 
 when the flower has been completely formed, and the 
 unripe giapc has i)ut furth its flower and blossomed, then 
 shall he take away iho little clusters with pruning hooks, 
 and shall takr away tlio small branches and cut them 
 oir. (07.) 
 
C30 THE ATOCALYPSE. 
 
 PSALM OF ADAM, 
 
 It is a good thing to give thanks unto Yu-voIj/- 
 And to sing pniiscs unto tliy name, Eli-oun,t 
 To proclaim thiuo abuMcUmt mercy in the luoriiing, 
 And thy faithful loving-kindness in the night. 
 Upon the aser, upon the nebel, 
 TJlK)n the higgayou, and sweet kinnOr. 
 For tliou, O Loixl, luxst made me glad through thy crea- 
 tions ; 
 I rejoice in the works of thine liand.:;. 
 How mighty are thy works, O Lord 1 
 And thy thoughts — they arc very deep. 
 A brutish man will not know, 
 And a senseless man will not undcr.stand tliis : 
 Wlien the wicked spring as the grass, 
 And when all the workei-s of iniquity do flonrisli, 
 It is that they shall be destroyed for e^'er. 
 But thou, O Lord ! art most high for evermore : 
 For, behold ! thine enemies shall perish 
 All the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. 
 Uut my liorn slialt thou exalt like the rccym : 
 r shall be anointed with fresh oil ; 
 The righteous shall flourish us the phceiiix. 
 Tlioso that be planted in the House of the Lord 
 Shall blossom in the courts of our God. 
 They shall bring forth fruit in a fine old ago ; 
 Tliey shall prosper and flourish, 
 To show that the Lord is just. 
 He is my rock, 
 And there is no unrighteousness in Him. (C8.) 
 
 * leue, tbe Lord A 0. t The Most High. 
 
GM 
 
 THE PSALM OF ADAM AKD EVA. 
 He. 
 O Loixl iMV God, Adonai, 
 Have inei-cy on inc, in thy great mercifulness, 
 Because thy love and pity are abounding. 
 Hearken unto me, all ye heavens, 
 And yc, children of heaven, hear my voice — 
 Let the Angels report all I think and say ; 
 Let the Ccle.stial rov/ei-s repeat them ; 
 Let God himself open out his eai*s. 
 To this, my prayer. 
 O my God, thou art very bright, 
 True light, and splendour the most gloiious ; 
 All other things are mixed with darkness ; 
 Thou art as a Sun which sets not ; 
 Inhabiting light inaccessible ; 
 Thou ai-t the goal and end of all ; 
 Thou art the only happiness of the Blessed. 
 
 She. 
 O Lord, n^y God, Adonai, 
 
 ]favc mercy on mo in thino j».bounding mercy; 
 Givut indeed i.j V.ry mercifulness. 
 And thy comj)a.s.-:ion hath no limit. 
 Before all other things thou didst form the heavens, 
 Thy pure, sublime, immoveable habitation ; 
 Thou did<t beautify it with Angel-Spirits ; 
 Tliou didst make manifest all tliat thou didst make. 
 In it were tlie -iForning Stai-.^, 
 AVliich praised tlicc fttr so many ages ; 
 Tliou didst make the moveable heavens also. 
 And didst name the waters that be above the heavens. 
 
G32 
 
 All things obey tbine ordinance, 
 And by their own motion are other heavens moved ; 
 And the waters that be under the immoveable heaven. 
 Biit above all other things that are moved, 
 Thou didst create the Light — the Sun : 
 Thou didst form the Moon and fine planets ; 
 And didst set the firmament around them ; 
 In wliich thou didst collect the constellations, 
 And the beauty of the powerful stars. 
 Thou didst give forth the four elements, 
 And thou didst animate all things from them by thy 
 wisdom. 
 
 Both. 
 The Lord is my shepherd ; I shall not want, 
 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures j 
 He leadeth me beside the still waters ; 
 He rcstoreth, he makes strong my soul : 
 He goeth with mc in the way of i-ighteousness, 
 Yeii, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of 
 
 death, 
 I will fear no evil. 
 For thou art with mc ; 
 Thy rod and thy staff do comfort me ; 
 Thy mercy shall follow me all my days : 
 I will abide in thine house for ever. 
 
G33 
 
 NOTES TO APOCALYPSE. 
 
 Note 1 (page 503). — This is the sentiment, though not the actual 
 form of the ancient Greek oracle, quoted by Pausauias, lib. x, c. 12. 
 Zcv? -ijVj Zcu? lart, Zei's €cra-€Tai. w jxeydXi Zev. Zeus was, 
 Zeus is, Zeus will be. mighty Zeus ! In commemoration of 
 this Revelation to the Seven Churches, a most majestic temiile 
 was built at Maha-Bali-poor-aum, or the City of the Great God 
 Bel, about 38 miles south of Madras. This was called the Sevea 
 Pagodas. It was destroyed in the great Atlantean Deluge. As.. 
 Jies. V. 
 
 Note 2 (page 503).— AH Greek words ending in these two vowels; 
 have a mystic reference to the Holy Spirit, B-aw, I proceed from t 
 T-aoi, I am born ; I come forth ; I bring forth ; Z-ao>, I live : 
 K-ao), I kindle : N-aw, I flow : T-aw, I extend ; ^-a(o, I shine 
 fo. th ; I declare, &c. To this word also may be referred a€t,. 
 always ; and A-IO, I say. In the missionary accounts of the: 
 South Sea Islands, Tao means the dearest and most intimate 
 friend, analogous to the AO. of the Etruscans, ante page 190. In 
 Mexico Tao-Calli, is the House of God. The word ^t^ [Shadai] 
 in the title page to this Volume, is a noun, plural in regimen, and 
 has also a dual termination. It means the Two Powers— GoJ 
 and the Holy Spirit ; but it more particularly alludes to the- 
 latter ; its roots having an affinity to words that mean wine- 
 lK)uring or wine-bestowing ; a productive field that yields abundant- 
 nutriment ; symbolically the All-Bountiful ; a breast that pours 
 forth milk (hence Mamma) ; the Genial Powers of Nature, tJie- 
 MuUimammice, or many bosomed, like Egyptian Isis aut\ 
 Ephesian Diana ; on which Montfaucon observes, "all the learned 
 agree that all these (i.e., the various symbols which accompany 
 the goddess) signify nature, or the Kosraos with all its produc- 
 tions"— in other words, the Holy Spirit. The English word to 
 shed comes from this root : She is the Power who sheds fniitful- 
 ness and beauty over all things. 
 
 Note 3 (page 509).— In the ancient Egyptian theology, Osiris, 
 as we are told by Diodorus, and Horus-Aix)llo, meant iroXvo^- 
 OaXfioSf or many-eyed. Jablonski's Lexicon gives a derivation of 
 
 E E 3 
 
634! NOTES TO APOCALYPSE. 
 
 the word Osiris, which he deduces from 6sh-Iri, that is, He who 
 makes time. Osiris holds in one hand a key with a circular han- 
 dle ; this is the crux ansata. On the obelisk at San the cmx 
 ansata, or sacred T, with the circle attached to the top, is sus- 
 pended from the middle part of the Serpent. The same key mys- 
 tically alludes to the key with which the Twelfth Messenger opens 
 and reveals all the secrets hitherto undisclosed. 
 
 Note 4 (page 511). — Those were the 24 Boodhoos, or Patri- 
 Archas (images of the All), who preached in succession the reli- 
 gion of Boodh (Wisdom), anterior to the coming of the First 
 Messiah. They are called in the East, Maha-Bads and Solymi. 
 
 Note 5 (page 525). —This was Adim Oannes, the First of the 
 Twelve Holy Messengers or Messiahs of God. 
 
 Note 6 (page 525). — Enoch, Enosh, or Anush, the Second Mes- 
 siah. The ancient Irish had a god whom they called Aonach, 
 Eoghna, and Ao-Anu, or the second Ith : this was Enoch : it is 
 interpreted Fire from A : God and the Spirit. 
 
 Note 7 (page 527).— Fo-hi, the Third Messiah. 
 
 Note 8 (page 527). — The submersion of the vast continent 
 Atlantis, which is predicted in the first of the Seven Thunders. 
 
 Note 9 (page 527). — Brigoo, the Fourth Messiah. 
 
 Note 10 (page 531).— Zaratusht, the Fifth Messiah. 
 
 Note 11 (page 533).— Thoth, the Sixth Messiah. 
 
 Note 12 (page 537).— So, in the best MSS. 
 
 Note 13 (page 537). — Amosis, the Seveuth Messiah. 
 
 Note 14 (page 543). — Jesus, knowing that this prophecy ap- 
 plied to him, said : I am the Light of the World. 
 
 Note 15 (page 543). — Lao-Tseu and Jesus. 
 
 Note 16 (page 545). — This means an indefinite period. It may 
 allude to the double Naros in which they would appear. 
 
 Note 17 (page 545).— Their humble condition is indicated. 
 
 Note 18 (page 545).— Jesus, again alluding to this prophecy, 
 said : / am come to send fire on the earth, Luke xii. 49. The same 
 allusion is in Jer. v. 14 : Because ye speah this word, Behold I tvill 
 Tnahe my words in thy mouth fire, and this peojAe icood, and it shall 
 devour them. 
 
 Note 19 (page 545). — And I ivill give unto thee 'the keys of the 
 kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt hind on earth shall 
 he hound in heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall 
 be loosed in heaven. Matt. xvi. 19. The key is always an indica- 
 tion of Messiahship : so the Twelfth Messenger brings the key 
 that opens all secrets. The Hand of Might and the Key of ' 
 
NOTES TO APOCALYPSE. C35 
 
 Knowledge are carved in tlie Albambra ; but none of the ex- 
 plorers ever knew that both alluded to the Apocalyptic mysteries. 
 
 Note 20 (page 545). — IVdnh not that I am coine to aendjieace on 
 earth: I came not to send 2ieace, but a sword, Matt. x. 34. The 
 Messengers may if they think it necessary, change even water 
 into blood, that is, use the sword, and baptize in it, in place of 
 peace and gentleness. 
 
 Kote 21 (page 545). — This is the true translation: it is an 
 astonishing prediction of the death of Jesus. The peculiar lan- 
 guage of the Greek text intimates that Lao-Tseu and Jesus were 
 really one and the same order of spirit. 
 
 Note 22 (page 545). — After death the animating principle is in 
 torpor for three days, when it arises again into full existence. 
 This interval is called by the Arabs al Bezzakh. It is alluded to 
 bj' the Jewish priest, Jlosca vi. 2. After two days will He revive 
 vs : in the third day He will raise us up, and toe shall live in his 
 sifjht. Like all the other sublime but subtle mysteries of the 
 heavenly ordinances as connected with man, it is wholly unknov^ii 
 in Western theology, as administered by the priests ; and it is 
 connected by them with the fable of the resurrection of Jesus 
 with which it has nothing to do. If Jesus were God, it is clear 
 he could not die : if he were a man, it is equally certain he could 
 not live as a man after death. Another of those legends, the 
 flight into Egypt, is thus alluded to by an ancient anti-Paulite. 
 What occasion, says Celsus, was there, while you [Jesus] were yet 
 an infant, that you should be brought to Egypt in order that you 
 might not be slain ? For it was not fit that a god should be afraid 
 of death. But an angel came from heaven, ordering you and y5ur 
 associates to fly, lest being taken you should be i)ut to death. 
 For the Great God (it seems) could not preserve you, his own son, 
 in your own country, but sent two angels on your account. Here, 
 it may be asked : In what gospel did Celsus find this story of the 
 two angels ? 
 
 Note 23 (page 545). — The change of tense here vividly images the 
 eudden rising again of these Divine Ones. It is an oriental idiom. 
 
 Note 24 (page 545).— In this originated the legend of a bodily 
 ascension into heaven, which all but Paulites know to Ix) impos- 
 sible. The splendid-shining Cloud that enwrapped their ascending 
 spirits was the Spirit of (iod. 
 
 Note 25 (page 549). — Ahmed, or Mo* Ahmed, i.e., the Illustrious, 
 the Desired of all nations, the Tenth Messiah. 
 
 Note 26 (page 553). —A wolf was a sacred symbol, and meant 
 Light, ante, page 107. Isis, appears in ancient cai-viugs with a 
 
636 NOTES TO APOCALYPSE. 
 
 wolf's head — fhat is, crowned with the Sim, for the AVolf was 
 emblematic thereof. Romulus was divinely fed by a Wolf. There- 
 is a mystic meaning therefore in the text. 
 
 Note 27 (page 553). — The Great Harlot is a personification of 
 idolatry, which Mo- Ahmed did more to destroy than any other of 
 the Messengers. 
 
 Note 28 (page 555). — Chengiz-Khan, the Eleventh Messiah. 
 
 Note 29 (page 555). — This is the Naros, which no one but the 
 Messiah, and his initiated ones, ever knew in its mystic meaning 
 until now. 
 
 Note 30 (page 557).— Timur. 
 
 Note 31 (page 557). — This preludes the discovery of the great 
 American Continent, and the consequent butchery of its peoples. 
 
 Note 32 (page 559). — Nadir Shah is here symbolized. 
 
 Note 33 (page 559). — The French Empire. 
 
 Note 34 (page 563). — Alludes to the transitory nature of all siix 
 and the pleasure which it aflfords— it was, yet is not. 
 
 Note 35 (page 567).— The fine artistic manufactures of Ba-Bel- 
 On, and of Saturnian Hesperia, or Italy at a later x^eriod, are her© 
 distinctly alluded to. - . , 
 
 Note 36 (page 569).— England. 
 
 Note 37 (page 571). — The Paulites in effect worship the Dragon, 
 Every loord of this prophecy applies with singular felicity to 
 England and lier characteristics. 
 
 Note 38 (page 571). — 1260 days— an indefinite period. 
 
 Note 39 (page 571). — The American empire, whose beginning 
 w-as very humble : the two horns are North and South. It pro- 
 fesses to be religious, but is in reality the servant of Evil ; its 
 bragging insolence is well shown by the text, He spake as a 
 dragon. 
 
 Note 40 (page 571). — It will eventually succeed to the influ- 
 ence which England now has. In the exhaustion of her minerals, 
 England's weakness will be shown. 
 
 Note 41 (page 573). — Spirit-rapping and other blasphemous 
 wonders. 
 
 Note 42 (page 573). — The American empire will in every way 
 imitate the mother from which she sprang ; and after it is dead 
 she will re-vivify, as it were, its image on the earth, in cruelty, spo- 
 liation, selfishness, and superstition. 
 
 Note 43 (page 573). —Those who did not in all respects con- 
 form to her crimes she slew, or persecuted, or proscribed. 
 
 Note 44 (page 573).— She used the right hand (force) and the 
 forehead (intellect) to uphold her wicked power ; and in those two 
 
NOTES TO APOCALYPSE. G37 
 
 bare the unmistakeable mark of the mother from which she 
 sprang. Obsen-e the Beast always leaves its mark upon its fol- 
 lowers. To buy and sell, that is to make money by any and 
 every kind of traffic, seemed the main object of her existence. 
 Money was her God. She worshipped the dollar, and called ifr 
 the Almighty. If this be not the indubitable mark of the Beast, 
 I know not what is. 
 
 Note 45 (page 573). — This is the primeval name of the 
 Americas. 
 
 Note 46 (page 575).— The Twelfth Messiah. 
 
 Note 47 (page 575). — Not the name of Jesus, or any of the 
 Messengers : but the name of the One God, the Father, who alone 
 is to be adored. 
 
 Note 4S (page 575). — A new Revelation, that of the Twelfth, 
 Messenger. 
 
 Note 49 (page 575). — The word in the text is TrapOcvoi — 
 the masculine form. The word signifies male-virgins, and is 
 deeply mystic. It has puzzled all the commentators, particularly 
 the married oues, who think that if the words are literally taken, 
 they must be excluded from heaven. 
 
 Note 50 (page 577). — Here is a j)Ositive declaration that God 
 and his Sacred Spirit are distinct existences. 
 
 Note 51 (page 577). — This is a Messenger of Truth, who shall 
 preach the Word revealed by the Twelfth Messiah. 
 
 Note 52 (page 577). — The Book of God, collected into one 
 Volume, and free from all human corruptions : the sacred reve^ 
 Ihtions of the Twelve. 
 
 Note 53 (page 579). — These are four Conquerors, who are yet 
 to come. 
 
 Note 54 (page 583). — There arc in all Seven Messianic Angels 
 from the appearance of the day of the Twelfth Messenger, not 
 including him who sate upon the Cloud. A long interval of time 
 necessarily elapses in the intervals of the appearajices of these 
 Angels. 
 
 Note 55 (page 585), — This does not mean absolutely killed, but 
 all who sacrifice their worldly prospects for the sake of God and 
 his Holy Truth, are likened to martyrs who are slain. 
 
 Note 5G (page 593). — This indicates another long interval 
 before the dissolution of the Kalpa. 
 
 Note 57 (page L^l). — The Children of Heaven who are on 
 the caith, must expect to meet with trials, persecutions, and 
 
<)38 NOTES OK APOCALYPSE. 
 
 iifflictions ; but in tlie end they shall overcome, their enemies and 
 be crowned in Paradise by their Lord and Father. 
 
 Note 58 (page 599). — This is the same Holy Spirit who ap- 
 peared at first. I have shown that She is the same as Isis, the 
 tutelary Goddess of the Egyptians. This is lo, the Virgin-Spouse 
 of Zeus — the Holy Spirit —the loved One of God. Isis, says Plu- 
 tarch, is the Feminine part of Nature, and the recipient (or She- 
 kinah) of all generation ; accordingly she is called by Plato the 
 Nurse and Receiver of all things ; and by many others Myriono- 
 mos, that is, having an infinity of names. In her is implanted a 
 love of the First and Principal, or God, the Good : him she de- 
 ^eires and pursues. 
 
 Note 59 (page 599). — Each of the Incarnations comes before the 
 Ancient of Days to demand his own followers, so as to lead them 
 into that Star-Paradise, which he had prepared for them. 
 
 Note 60 (page 601). — In commemoration of this the Hebrew 
 priests had written on their foreheads. Holiness to the Lord. 
 
 Note 61 (page 613). — These Seven Thunders were graveu on 
 l)rass, and kept in brazen caskets — hence they were called the 
 Seven Brazen Pillars of Cham. (See ante, p. 312.) 
 
 Note 62 (page 619). — In this prediction is wonderfully shown 
 the confusion which should prevail after the submersion of At- 
 lantis. The sandy deserts which now exist were before that time 
 covered with inland seas or lakes, which all flowed down over 
 that unhappy continent. 
 
 Note 63 (page 621). — In this prediction God. specially appears 
 
 -with his Holy One (the Sacred Spirit, bearing with her the first 
 
 •Cabir) who came as the 3"udge to execute j udgment upon the evil. 
 
 Note 64 (page 621). — The Three Cabiric Messengers are pre- 
 
 .dicted in this jDrophecy. 
 
 Note 65 (page 625), — Cyrus, Csesar, Attila, Aureng-Zebe, Na- 
 -poleon, and such odious man-slayers, who for their own selfish- 
 ness, massacre and pillage the sons of men, are here spoken of. 
 
 Note 66 (page 627). — The fall of the Chinese empire, the 
 greatest the world has yet seen, is here predicted. Its magnitude 
 .and importance seemed to require a special prediction. 
 
 Note 67 (page 629). The transformation of the earth of man 
 is here foreshown. The whole human race will perish ; and 
 there will be a new creation of creatures of a higher order. 
 
 Note 68 (page 630). — Eabbi Levi said, Adam composed this 
 psalm, and they who cam£ after him forr/ot it. A^nosis came and re- 
 newed it in the name of Adam. I have removed a manifest inter-' " 
 Violation. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Ab, Abba, a name of God, 18 ; 
 Note iipon, 95 ; anagramma- 
 tically BA and Dl, BAD, 
 BUD, or Holy Father. 
 Hence Abad. 
 
 Abondana Rabbi, cited 72. 
 
 Abraham, see Ibrahim. 
 
 Acts of the Apostles, cited 63, 
 99. 
 
 Actoeon, a symbol of Messiah, 
 99. 
 
 Ad-Ad, note upon, 97. 
 
 Adali, 97. 
 
 Adam, the name in Hindostaii, 
 327; Tract on, cited in Notes, 
 4(38. 
 
 Adam's riddle, 321. 
 
 Adam Kadmon, 263, 
 
 Adam-Oannes, wrote the Apo- 
 calypse, 233 ; tradition of the 
 Arabs, 240, 242 ; Books fonnd 
 in his chest, 243 ; vestiges of 
 the name, 262, 265 ; his Vision 
 mentioned in Genesis, 269 ; 
 Berosus alludes to, 292. 
 
 Adamas Gemma, 265. 
 
 ^han on an Aiwcalyptic Book, 
 244. 
 
 .^sar, a divine name, 44, 114. 
 
 Ag, tlie radical explained, 107. 
 
 Ahmed and Mo' Ahmed, 37, 93, 
 260 ; prctlicted by Haggai, 
 261. 
 
 AiN, the radical, exjdained, 98, 
 188, 190. 
 
 Al, the radical, explained, 96. 
 
 Alexander the Great : why he 
 destroyed Chehid Minar, 306. 
 
 Aleim, absurdly defined by Park- 
 hurst, 96. 
 
 Al-Ham-Bra, a mystic word, 
 188. 
 
 Allegorical nature of the O.T., 
 238. 
 
 Alm, explained 10 ; it is akin 
 to Ailm, i. €., the First. 
 
 Almas-Cherk, the Talisman of 
 Fate, a name for the Apoca- 
 lypse, 307. 
 
 Ambrose, St., his excuse for 
 concubinage, 449. 
 
 American community of mur- 
 derers, 426 ; Indian idea of 
 final dissolution, 153. 
 
 Amosis, one of the Twelve, 59 ; 
 called Osarsiph, 68, 98 ; pre- 
 dicts a successor, 93 ; legend 
 of, 274 ; His law lost, 364. 
 
 Ancients, the Twenty- Four, 51. 
 
 Aima Perenna, 98. 
 
 Antiochus Epiphanes, 106 ; on- 
 slaught on the Jews and their 
 books, 406. 
 
 Ac, T'Ao, lo. On Ao, 10, 14 ; a 
 Kock, 16, 35, 99. 
 
 Am, the radical, explained, 
 178. 
 
 Ajwcalypse, the ritual of the 
 Mysteries, 107 ; ])roird to l)o 
 primeval by internal evidence, 
 187 ; doubted by various 
 authors to bo the work of 
 John, 216 i used by the Gnos- 
 tics, 241 ; names by which it 
 was symbolized, 248, 255, 
 256, 273, 276, 297, 307, 312 j 
 
C40 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 mentioned in Book of Joshua, 
 280 ; in Mexico, 308; among the 
 Indians, 309 ; in Egypt, 312 ; 
 ancient inscription on it, 461 ; 
 its surpassing grandeur, 490. 
 
 Apocalyptic Cherubim at Mm- 
 roud and Persepolis, 305. 
 
 Apocryphal books, miracle re- 
 lating to, 109. 
 
 Apollo, mythos of, taken from 
 Apocalypse, 87. 
 
 Apuleius on the Holy Spirit, 
 23. 
 
 Arab tradition of an Apoca- 
 lypse, 242. 
 
 Arc, Ark, Area, Archa, ex- 
 plained, 9, 288, 324, 467. 
 
 Architectural wonders of the 
 Past, 118. 
 
 Argha, note upon, 116, 189. 
 
 Ariyan, name for God, 35. 
 
 Aristides on the Mysteries, 74. 
 
 Arrius Babinus, vow of, to the 
 Holy Spirit, 97. 
 
 Art, ancient, 118, 128,138,187. 
 
 Article, Jewish, of belief, 99. 
 
 Arrow-headed writing, 186. 
 
 Arthur, a Messianic name, 283. 
 
 Asa, note upon, 113. 
 
 Ash, the Holy Spirit, 58. 
 
 Ashre, 114; the orrery, 123. 
 [See Az, and Asa, 113]. 
 
 Assassination advocated by the 
 Jews, 361, 
 
 Ass-woiship of the Jews, 355. 
 
 Astronomy, antiquity of, 120 ; 
 iincient instruments, 123, 
 186. 
 
 Atlantis, the pontifical empire 
 of Enoch, 122. 
 
 Atonement, ancient notions of, 
 100 ; Jewish cock and goat, 
 103 ; Hindu, 104 ; Samorin, 
 105; Brahmin, 105; Phillip- 
 pine Islands, 105 ; Paulite, 
 105; South Sea Islands, 106 ; 
 Jesus cracitied by the Jews 
 as their scapegoat, 106; in 
 Peru, 188 ; at Athens, 191 ; 
 in Siara, 468. 
 
 Augustine citing Varro, 50 ; on 
 the S3ptuagint, 332. 
 
 Aum, Hindu name of God, 99 ^ 
 
 same as Om, 109, 110. 
 Aun (the One), defined, 108. 
 
 See Ain andOn, 283, 298, 304. 
 AuR, the radical, explained, 
 
 107, 192. 
 Awen, a name for the Naros, 
 
 77, 108, 284. 
 
 Baal-worship, 185. 
 
 Bacon (Lord) on Holy Myste- 
 ries, 18. 
 
 Bac, Bagha, 107. 
 
 Bagha-Vad-Geeta cited, 114, 
 163 ; on the Seraphim, 167. 
 
 Bailly on ancient science, 120. 
 
 Bal, note upon, 193. 
 
 Bathsheba, 341. 
 
 Bayle on Prseadamites, 237. 
 
 Berosus' tradition of Cannes, 
 292. 
 
 Beth, the radical, explained, 11. 
 
 Bible forgeries, 448, 450, 458. 
 
 Bjornsterna (Count) on Hebrew 
 Chronology, 487. 
 
 Blood, circulation of the, known 
 to the ancients, 131. 
 
 Books, lost Hebrew, 409. 
 
 Brahm, 34 ; probable deriva- 
 tion, 97. 
 
 Brainerd, the missionary, 462. 
 
 Bruce's Apocalypse, 232. 
 
 Buddha atonement, 100. 
 
 Bull of Tanjour, 131. 
 
 Bunsen, M. de, 325. 
 
 Bunsen, Baron, 459. 
 
 Burmese theology, 150. 
 
 Butler on the Hebrew Chrono- 
 logy, 489. 
 
 Cabiri, the, 95; a name forThree 
 Messiahs, 198, 214. 
 
 Cabiric Messengers distinguish- 
 ed from Messianic, 294. 
 
 Csesar Augustus destroys Sacred 
 Books, 314. 
 
 Caduceus of Hermes, 188. 
 
 Cali, the Hindu Holy Spirit, 1 1 1 ; 
 Cal-Hatze, the Word of the 
 King, 465 ; Calli-ope the 
 Voice of Beauty, or the Holy . 
 Spirit of Heaven. 
 
I^'DEX. 
 
 C4i 
 
 Callimacbns alludes to the Mys- 
 teries, 75. 
 Calvinism, wickedness of, C9. 
 Canada, Tartar inscription 
 
 found in, 125. 
 Captivities, Jewish, 344. 
 Car, note upon, 115. 
 Casmilos, Cadmus, Kadmon, 
 
 Chatlmel, 37. 
 Cave's account of loannes, 
 
 461. 
 Cedrenus on the Apocalypse of 
 
 Adam, 240. 
 Celsus on the age of the earth, 
 
 485. 
 ChaJdee oracles, 37. 
 Charistia, a feast, 115. 
 Chengiz-Khan, a ^Messiah, 202. 
 Cherubim explained, 11. 
 Chinese orrery, 124 ; renewal 
 
 of worlds, 147. 
 Chrestos, Chrishna, 115. 
 Chronologj', common, utterly 
 
 unworthy of belief, 481. 
 Chrysostom on the Mysteries, 
 
 107. 
 Cicero on the Mysteries, 75; 
 
 ignorance of, 107. 
 Circumcision, origin of, 58. 
 Clarke, Dr. Adam, on some of 
 
 the Prophets, 393. 
 Clo, equal to GOO ; the Karos, 
 
 174. 
 Clo-Ag-Hina, 485. 
 Cock, Jew sacritice of a, C9, 
 
 103, 192. 
 Codex Nazaraeus, 10, 44. 
 Colebrooke cited, 34. 
 Coleiiso, Bishop, 338, 365. 
 Cow, a symbol of the Holy 
 
 Spirit, 130. 
 Creation, its beginning, 30. 
 Credner doubts the Apocalypse, 
 
 217. 
 Crescent, Arabic symbol of the, 
 
 explained, 9. 
 Crocodile, a symbol of God, 
 
 135. 
 Cudworth on the Trinity, 38 ; 
 
 on Sibylline books, 279. 
 Cyclopes, meaning of, 118, 
 
 184. 
 
 Daniel, Book of, a forgery, 404^ 
 456. 
 
 Dante, mystical allusion to the 
 Holy Spirit, 466. 
 
 Darwin cited, 482. 
 
 Death defined, 11. 
 
 Definitions, 9. 
 
 Desatir, the, 52. 
 
 Devil, vulgar belief in, errone- 
 ous, 89 ; Paulite notion of hi* 
 phagiarisms, 458. 
 
 De-Wette doubts the Apoca' 
 lypse, 216, 218. 
 
 Di, 97 ; note upon, 194. 
 
 Dionysius doubts the Apoca* 
 lypse, 219, 226. 
 
 Dodd, Dr., 454. 
 
 Donaldson on the Hebrew lan- 
 guage, 386 ; admits that the 
 Jews re-wrote their books^ 
 451. ' 
 
 Dove, an emblem of the Holy 
 Spirit, 20, 57, 96, 468. 
 
 Druids, their opinions, 160 ; 
 derivation of the name, 
 195. 
 
 Drummond, Rt. Hon. Sir W. 
 on Hebrew Testament, 103, 
 443 ; on ancient art, 131 ; oa 
 Chronology, 482. 
 
 Druses' silver box, 269. 
 
 Du-Halde on Hebrew chrono' 
 logy, 489. 
 
 Edda, theology of the, 156. 
 Eden, Garden of, 98 ; mystic 
 
 meaning, 270, 325. 
 Egy])t ancient carvings in, 128 ; 
 
 had its knowledge frcm a- 
 
 more ancient people, 129. 
 E^ptian Trimourti, 35. 
 Eichorn doubts the Apocalypse, 
 
 216. 
 Elohist and Jeh ovist writings in 
 
 the O.T., 390. 
 Enoch's short preface to tLe 
 
 Apocalypse, 288, 601. 
 Epiphaniuson thcGnostic ApO' 
 
 calypse, 241. 
 Erasmus doubts the A pocalypf«, 
 
 225 ; ironical allusion to lL« 
 
 O.T., 402. 
 
<)4.2 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Esdras cited, 65 ; re- writes tlie 
 
 lost Scriptures of the Jews, 
 
 78, 
 Essays and Eeviews cited, 459, 
 
 488. 
 Eucliarist, when ce derived, 115. 
 Euhanes, same as Cannes, 293. 
 Ewald doubts the Apocalypse, 
 
 216. 
 Evil, origin of, 40. 
 Ezra, forged copy of, 450 ; cited. 
 
 453. 
 
 .Faber, Rev. Mr., on God and 
 the Holy Spirt, 109 ; on uni- 
 versal religion, 139 ; on Ham, 
 423 ; his delusions, 453 ; de- 
 nies that the Devil aped God, 
 in religious matters, 458. 
 
 Falsehood of priests, 109. 
 
 Feet, beautiful, symbols of the 
 Messiah, 108. 
 
 Ferguson, Dr., on Roman 
 Sewers, 483. 
 
 Fire, the first principle, 1 15, 
 
 Fish, bridge built by, for the 
 Son of God, 247 ; a sacred 
 symbol, 294, 327. 
 
 Free will, the necessity of, 39. 
 
 -Garden, a mystic word, 270. 
 
 <Jenesis, 26, 33 ; mutilated, 333. 
 
 'Oeorge, Saint, a Messianic sym- 
 bol, 299. 
 
 "German honesty in theological 
 criticism, 336. 
 
 -Giamasp, prediction of a Mes- 
 siah, 87. 
 
 ^jriordano Bruno cited, 271, 
 
 «God, ancient belief in, 18 ; de- 
 fined by the Hindus and 
 Greeks, 19 ; by the rabbis, 
 54; various names of, 35, 36 ; 
 He foreknows, but predes- 
 tines not, 198, 214 ; repre- 
 sented by the Hebrews as a 
 Father of Lies, 366. 
 
 Ooths, origin of the, 140 ; their 
 theology, 153. 
 
 ■Greek Church doubts the Apo- 
 calypse, 227. 
 
 CJrotiusou G. T,,456. 
 
 Haggai, prophecies Mohammed, 
 261. 
 
 Hawk, an emblem of the Mes- 
 siah, 244. 
 
 Heaven defined, 11. 
 
 Hebrew allusions to the Holy 
 Spirit, 25 ; their atonement 
 for sin, 67 ; their language, 
 99, 384, 453. 
 
 Herder on the Apocalypse, 
 492. 
 
 Herbert, Rev. Mi'., delusions 
 of, 357, 453. 
 
 Hercules, a name for the Mes- 
 siah, 47, 99, 296. 
 
 Herm, meaning of, 112. 
 
 Hei-maic books, 189. 
 
 Hermes, 99 ; Trismegistus 
 [Thoth] on God, 145. 
 
 Higgins on Stoneheuge, 119 ; 
 on Hebrev/ letters, 384 ; on 
 the Plagues of Egypt, 451. 
 
 Hina, 98 [See Shekinah], 
 
 Hindu definition of God, 19 ; 
 Veda, hov/ compiled, 51; the- 
 ory of the Messiahs, 62 ; ring 
 found in Scotland, 136 ; tri- 
 plication of God, 143, 
 
 Hoi well, affinity of religions, 
 142. 
 
 Holy Ghost, how the word 
 arose, 29. 
 
 Holy Spirit (the) 20, 21 ; Statue 
 of, causes the Trojan war, 
 249 ; called Ceridvv'en, 282 ; 
 is the mermaid Atergatis, 
 295 ; the Ash Ydrasil, 323, 
 427 ; traces of Her all over 
 the world, 462. 
 
 Homer and Hesiod feigned to be 
 in hell, 50. 
 
 Home, Rev. T. H., on the O.T,, 
 388, 
 
 Hos-Anna, 109, [See Ain, Auu, 
 On, and its cognates], 
 
 Hosea, God's supposed com- 
 mand to, 418, 
 
 Humboldt on races and unity of 
 religion, 124 ; on a Mexican 
 Apocalypse, 309, 
 
 Hurd on cock atonement ,for 
 sin, 103, 
 
INDEX. 
 
 G43 
 
 Ibrahim, the Ijook of, 245. 
 Imaum, derivation of, 246. 
 Incarnation. [See Messiali]: 
 lonas, Yonas, It)annes, 328 ; a 
 
 mythical person, 461. 
 Iranian doctrine of the renewal 
 
 of worlds, 148. 
 Irenjuus, his reference to the 
 
 Apocalypse, 231. 
 Irish invocation of God, 98 ; 
 
 Antiqnity of the language, 138. 
 Isaac's Hyam on cock atone- 
 ment for sin, 103. 
 Isaiah, a forgerj', 284, 456. 
 Isis Queen, means the Ancient, 
 
 21 ; many-named, 23 ; the 
 
 Holy Spii-it, 29, 633. 
 
 Jablonski, 10. 
 
 Jah-son, a Messianic name, 47. 
 
 Jamblichus on the Trinity, 37. 
 
 Janus or I- Anus, a Messianic 
 name, 99. 
 
 Jennings, Rev. D., cited, 416, 
 455. 
 
 Jeremiah cited, 300. 
 
 Jericho, harlot of, 100, 341. 
 
 Jeroni on Pentateuch, 455. 
 
 Jesnlmer, a Sacred Book kept 
 in, 265. 
 
 Jesus, his pantheism, 31 ; re- 
 coiiunends secrecy to his dis- 
 ciples, 73, 433; rebuke of 
 the scribes, 79 ; fallible, 99 ; 
 Love, the basis of his reli- 
 gion, 137 ; on the Cabirs, 203 ; 
 travels to the East, 431 ; calls 
 the Holy Spirit lus mother, 
 433. 
 
 Jew priesthood, their ambitious 
 projects, 402. 
 
 Jews, Yadds from Oudo, 265 
 their criminal excesses, 354 
 worship of the Ass-head, 355 
 did not know Chaldee, 385 
 their MSS., 452. 
 
 Jewish fast on account of the 
 Septuagint version, 109; their 
 article of belief, 99 ; hatred of 
 mankind, 452. 
 
 Job, 58 ; wicked mistranslation 
 of a passage in, 448. 
 
 John, Gospel of, cited, 106 ; 
 apocryphal writings under 
 his name, 321 ; a mythical 
 personage, 461. 
 
 Jones, Sir W., 60, 64. 
 
 Josephus, 16 ; alludes to an Apo- 
 calypse, 254 ; on the Jewish 
 Scripturrs, 371 ; forged pas- 
 sage in, 448. 
 
 Joshua cited, 102. 
 
 Judas Maccabjeus describes the 
 pei'secution of Antiochus Eiji- 
 phanes, 406 ; re-writes the 
 Scriptures, 456 ; Judaja, size 
 of, 57, 102. 
 
 JuliaUjthe Emperor,citesagainst 
 the Faulites their own fomi- 
 der's character of them, 435 j 
 assassinated by them, 451. 
 
 Juvenal on the Naros, 57. 
 
 Kabbalista (the) on religious 
 I secrecy, 80; tradition of an 
 : Apocalypse, 243. 
 ■ Kalmuck Triad. 37. 
 Kan and Ken, 112. 
 Keightley's excuse for Provi- 
 dence, 450. 
 Khoun, 303. 
 Khin, Khina, the solar beauty, 
 
 96. 
 Kiuai, the Fire of God, 96. 
 Klingsborough (Lord) cited, 37, 
 104 ; on Jewish idolatry, 351 ; 
 on the Patriarchs, 441. 
 Kirdni, a mystic volume, 257. 
 Kitto (Dr.) on the orthodox, 
 
 337. 
 Kidn, a name of Juno, the Holy 
 Spirit, 112. 
 ' Klaproth on Hebrew letters, 
 I 382. 
 
 Knight Payne on the Mysteries, 
 I 75 ; on ancient art, 127 ; on 
 I the falsehoods of the Fathers, 
 I 332. 
 , Kan, a mystic word, 10, 21, 112. 
 
 Lactantius on Nero, 85; cited, 
 
 484. 
 Lakshmi, the Holy Spirit, 28, 
 
 115. 
 
644 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Lara, Lama, Maiter Lam, 299. 
 Landseer, on the orrery, 123. 
 Language, primeval, 51 ; not 
 
 Hebrew, 99 ; affinity of all 
 
 languages, 124, 137. 
 Laos peojDle of, their mythos of 
 
 Creation, 24 ; their name for 
 
 the Messiah, 46. 
 Lao-Tseu defines God, 36. 
 Light, creation of, typical of the 
 
 Holy Spirit, 23, 33. 
 Lily, a type of the Naros, 186. 
 Logos defined, 12 ; the Proto- 
 
 gonos, 20 ; the Burmese Log- 
 
 hea, 45 ; the Chinese, 102. 
 Longinus quoted, 450. 
 Lucian on Hercules Ogmius, 48. 
 Liicke doubts the Apocalypse, 
 
 216, 224. 
 Luke, Gospel of, 58. 
 Luther rejects the Apocalypse, 
 
 220, and Esther, 405. 
 
 M. a sacred Monogram, 13. 
 
 M' Ahmed, or Mohammed, pre- 
 dicted by Jesus, 93, and by 
 Haggai, 261. 
 
 Magian Trivamz, 37. 
 
 Mahommedan notions of Mes- 
 siah, 64, 66. 
 
 Maimonides cited, 71, 270. 
 
 Male-Female, 191. 
 
 Mallet, M,, summary of Gothic 
 mythology, 155. 
 
 Martyrdom of the Messiahs, 
 63, 99, 100. 
 
 Manetho's Sacred Book, 265. 
 
 Matthew, Gospel of, 31, 79. 
 
 Maurice, Rev. Mr,, cited, 22, 
 51, 485. 
 
 Mary Magdalene, 341. 
 
 Mayo on number Six, 60. 
 
 Mazaloth, 427. 
 
 Melicart, 48 ; meaning of, 99. 
 
 Memnon, a Messianic name, 
 256. 
 
 Meni, 427. 
 
 Menu-Taur, a Messianic symbol, 
 108. 
 
 Messiah, called Hermes, 37 ; 
 nature of the, 42, 43 ; Egj-p- 
 tian and Brahmin names of. 
 
 45 ; called Vul-Khan, 46 ; and 
 Apollo, 47 ; Hercules, 48 ; 
 how he comes to descend on 
 earth, 56, 63 ; Moslem the- 
 ory of the, 64, 66 ; Hebrew 
 description of, 65 ; predicted 
 by Amosis, 93 ; fallible in se- 
 cular things, 99 ; Parkhurst 
 on, 101 ; traces of in 0. T., 
 101 ; Scythian mythos of, 
 102 ; symbolized by Virgil, 
 193 ; Amphissian.196 ; Pagau- 
 Welsh, 283 ; Hebrew, 422. 
 
 Metathronos, the Holy Spirit, 
 26. 
 
 Mexican Holy Spirit, 171 ; their 
 notion of the Kosmic changes, 
 171 ; why the people sub- 
 mitted to Spain, 172 ; tradi- 
 tion of Cannes, 302 ; rapid ex- 
 tinction of their books, 452, 
 
 Michaelis doubts the Apoca- 
 lypse, 222. 
 
 Milton's degrading ideas of the 
 Divine, 100. 
 
 Money scorned by Jesus, 339. 
 
 Moon, a type of the Holy Spirit, 
 467. 
 
 Moses, Amosis, his original 
 name, 98. 
 
 Mosheim cited, 357. 
 
 MuUer, Max, on Hindu atone- 
 ment, 100 ; on languages, 137. 
 
 Murder and pillage, the Hebrew 
 creed, 359 ; of the Eed Indian 
 tribes, 426, 
 
 Mysteries, the Greater, 73; 
 known in Wales, 76 ; Chry- 
 sostom on, 101. 
 
 Nara-Yana, 57. 
 
 Narad, a name for the Messiah, 
 60. 
 
 Naros, the, 52 ; Bailly on, 59 ; 
 various alllisions to, 59; the- 
 flower Nerio, 61 ; why guard- 
 ed as a secret, 70, 81 ; called 
 Awen, 77 ; symbolized in 
 India and Iran, 91 ; in Solo- 
 mon's Temple, 92 ; on Etrus- 
 can coins, 114 ; symbolized 
 by the Phoenix, 174. 
 
IXDEX. 
 
 645 
 
 Negro persecution, how de- 
 fended, 423. 
 
 Nemesis, a great unknown 
 Power, 209. 
 
 Nemroud, sculpture of Oanues, 
 304. 
 
 Neri, meaning of, 102. 
 
 Nero, why considered to be im- 
 mortal, 82. 
 
 New Testament miracles, 103 ; 
 mistranslations, 428 ; forgery 
 in, 434. 
 
 Newton, Sir T., on atonement, 
 quoted, 104 ; his account of 
 some of the 0. T. books, 
 403. 
 
 Nicephorus Callistus cited, 
 287. 
 
 Nimrod quoted, 103, 317, 357, 
 484. 
 
 Nounus cited, 256, 322, 326. 
 
 Cannes, same as Phanes, GOO, 
 102, 195 ; of Berosus, 292 ; 
 of Egypt, 303, 325, 464. 
 
 Ogmius, Og, Ogham, 99. 
 
 Old Testament notions of God, 
 103 ; Allegories in, 238 ; Mis- 
 
 . translations, 25, 58, 101, 189, 
 236, 419, 422, 427, 428, 
 429. 
 
 Olshausen, on the doubtful na- 
 ture of the New Testament, 
 428. 
 
 Om, the radical explained, 
 110. 
 
 Omid, 37 [See Ahmed]. 
 
 On, note upon. 111. 
 
 One, the, 19. 
 
 Oph-Ion, a name for the Apoca- 
 lypse, 111, 255, 264. 
 
 Origen on Genesis, 80. 
 
 Oracle forged, 454, 
 
 Orion, the Bird, a name for the 
 Apocalypse, 256. 
 
 Orpheus defines the Triad, 36. 
 
 Orphic Phanes, 98, 102. 
 
 Orrery, an ancient invention, 
 123. 
 
 Orus, 107. 
 
 Osiris, the All-Seeing, 21 ; 
 whence derived, 1 14, 634. 
 
 Pantheism of Jesus, 31. 
 
 Paradise defined, 13. 
 
 Patera, a symbol, 96, 108. 
 
 Patriarcha, 97, 634. 
 
 Paul, wickedness of, 432 ; his 
 followers, 434. 
 
 Paulism, the root of all crime, 
 439. 
 
 Pearson, Bishop, blasr^hemy of. 
 99, 432. 
 
 Pererius, on Adam, 251. 
 
 Periclyte, Mohammed the, 93. 
 
 Persepolitau images fashioned 
 from the Apocalypse, 305. 
 
 Peter, on the Apocastasis, 1 63. 
 
 Phanes, same as Oauncs, 600, 
 102. 
 
 Pharos, the, 184. 
 
 Phoenician inscription near Bos- 
 ton, 126; and in Mexico, 126. 
 
 Phojnix, the, 98 ; a remarkable 
 symbol, 172, 193, 256. 
 
 Pherecydes, publislied an Apo- 
 calyj)se, 255. 
 
 Phi, a mouth, 1 10 ; Note upon, 
 195. 
 
 Philce, ancient temples of, 127. 
 
 Phineus, blinded for divulging 
 the Naros or Pha?nix, secret 
 of the mystic palm, 283, 3',)2. 
 
 Philo-BybliusontheGreeks 101. 
 
 Philo-Juda}us, names the Mes- 
 siah, 47 ; on the Essenes, 79. 
 
 Plato, on Messiah, 49 ; banishes 
 poets from his Republic, 50; 
 alludes to an Apocal3'pse, 253, 
 254 ; on the Holy Spirit, 462. 
 
 Polynesian idea of the Holy 
 Spirit, 169. 
 
 Pra'adamites, 235, 468. 
 
 Predestination, 106. 
 
 Pre-existence, 176. 
 
 Prideaux, l)r., apology for 
 scripture interpolations, 387. 
 
 Priests, falsehood of, 109. 
 
 Priestley, Dr., on modern infi- 
 delity, 102. 
 
 Proclus, cited, 74. 
 
 Proi)het8, Jewish, fate of, 460. 
 
 Ptha, the Holy Spirit, 97, 179. 
 
 Pythagoras, vision of Homer iu 
 heU, 50. 
 
64.Q 
 
 INBEX. 
 
 Eabbinical traditions of an 
 Adaniic Book, 272. 
 
 Rainbow, a type of the Holy 
 Spirit, 28, 170, 264, 511. 
 
 Ramses Mi-Amtin, a Messianic 
 name, 45. 
 
 Ramuiohim Roy on the Trini- 
 ty, 182; on 0. T. mistran- 
 slation, 429. 
 
 Rasi-El brings a book to Adam, 
 272. 
 
 Rasit or Wisdom, same as Ar- 
 clia 9 25. 
 
 Red Dragon, 87, 110, 246. 
 
 Religion, traces of an nniversab 
 139 ; affinity of, 142. _ 
 
 Revelation, the necessity of, 
 42 ; must be universal, 55. 
 
 Rhoea, a name of the Holy Spi- 
 rit, 36. 
 
 Rose-window, a symbol of the 
 Holy Spirit, 466. 
 
 Samarcand, library in, 266. 
 
 Samaritan hatred of the Jews, 
 451. 
 
 San, the radical, explained, 
 14. 
 
 Sancon^'athon on the Holy Spi- 
 rit, 147. 
 
 Sarapis, oracle of, to Nicocreon, 
 146. 
 
 Satan, a symbolic name, 14, 
 SB. 
 
 Saturn, dethronement of, what 
 it means, 100, 116; devour- 
 ing his children, 184; ele- 
 ments of the name, 485. 
 
 Scaldic theology, 153. 
 
 Scapegoat, [See Atonement], in 
 Siam, 468. 
 
 Secret nature of ancient reli- 
 gion, 70, 79. 
 
 Septuagint version detested by 
 the Jews, 109 ; fabulous 
 story of, 415. 
 
 Seraphim defined, 14; men- 
 tioned by Taliesin, 166. 
 
 Serpent hooded, of Egypt and 
 India, 129. 
 
 Seven Thunders, 285, 312. 
 
 Sharistani on the origin of evil, 
 89. 
 
 Shekinah defined, 14, 20, 97, 
 called in the Polynesian is- 
 lands, Ilina, 98, 1 16. 
 
 Shem explained, 15. 
 
 Shiloh, a Chinese word, 102. 
 
 Siamese theology, 152; scape- 
 goat, 468. 
 
 Siberia, vestiges of ancient art 
 in, 122. 
 
 Sibylla, a name for the Holy 
 Spirit, 28. 
 
 Sibylline Books, 70, 277. 
 
 Sibylline oracles on the Messia- 
 nic Epiphany, 167. 
 
 Sibylline year, 53. 
 
 Sigalion, a type of silence, 70. 
 
 Simon, P., on Jewish secrecy in 
 religious things, SO ; on 0. T., 
 376, 395 ; on Hebrew Chro- 
 nology, 487. 
 
 Six, the number, 60, 186. 
 
 Socrates hopes for a Messiah, 
 54 ; his notion of, 63. 
 
 Sohar, definition of God, 34; 
 on the Law, 72 ; on secrecy 
 in matter of religion, 80. 
 
 Solomon on the Holy Spirit, 21, 
 25, 23 ; his Temple and King- 
 dom imaginary, 457. 
 
 Solon, in Egypt, 146. 
 
 Son of God, meant a Jew, 360, 
 451. 
 
 Sozomen justifies assassination, 
 451. 
 
 Spirit defined, 16. 
 
 Spirit, the Holy, 10, 12, 13, 14, 
 15, 16; the Second Divine 
 Being, 20 ; her various names 
 and attributes, 20, 21, 23, 26, 
 28 ; symbolized by a Cow, 
 130; by Water, 136; by 
 Light and Air, 147 ; Polyne- 
 sian. 169 ; Mexican, 171 ; 
 present at the Creation of 
 Man, 1S9; under the type of 
 a Mermaid, 295 ; a Siren, 
 296 ; and V^enus Anadyo- 
 men6 
 
 Staff, a secret name for' a 
 Book, 274. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 647 
 
 standard newspaper, Jan, 25, 
 1860, 266. 
 
 Stoic Theology, 158. 
 
 Stonehengc, 119; similar struc- 
 ture in India, 185. 
 
 Suetonius on Nero, 83. 
 
 Sun, the, a symbol of the Mes- 
 senger, 97. 
 
 Sweden borg, curious vision of, 
 289. 
 
 Syene, Well of, 118, 184. 
 
 Symbolic language, 92, 249. 
 
 Tacitus on Xero, 84 ; a perfect 
 copy of his works in Samar- 
 cand, 268 ; on the Jews, 
 355. 
 
 Taliesin on the Mysteries, 76 ; 
 on the Seraphim, 106; on the 
 Messiali, 170 ; various allu- 
 sions to the Apocalypse, 281. 
 
 Talmud cited, 20, 26, 34, 72, 
 79, 375; its account of the 
 O. T. Books, 410. 
 
 Tao-callis in Mexico, 135, 633. 
 
 Tartar inscriptions in Canada, 
 125 ; in Africa and ifamar- 
 caud, 135. 
 
 Telescopes known to the An- 
 cients, 131. 
 
 Tertullian on the Holy Spirit, 
 96. 
 
 Thamar the Harlot, 341. 
 
 Thammuz, Book of, 324. 
 
 Tlirace, ancient gold mines of, 
 130. 
 
 Times newspaper, April 23, 
 1866, cited, 420. 
 
 Tombs, ancient, 300. 
 
 Tradition of the Rabbis, 457. 
 
 Tree, a symbol for a Book, 247. 
 
 Tree of almonds, 274. 
 
 Tree of Knowledge, meaning of, 
 70. 
 
 Tree of Life, the Holy Spirit 
 compared to, 26. 
 
 Trinity, the [See Logos], 13, 16,, 
 23 ; nature of the, 30 ; univer- 
 sal belief in, 35, 39 ; Irish, 98 ;• 
 Bammohun Roy on the, 182, 
 
 Tsabajan tradition of an Ada- 
 mic Book, 247 ; their sacred 
 books, 250. 
 
 Twelve Messiahs, 44. 
 
 Universal Church founded ii» 
 early days, 117. 
 
 Vallancey on Orion, 162; oit 
 the Phoenix, 179. 
 
 Varro on the Pagan Gods, 50 ; 
 on Isis, 71. 
 
 Ved, how it begins, 36 ; its- 
 compiler, 51. 
 
 Virgil on tlie Holy Spirit, 24 ; 
 on the Sibylline Year, 53 ; on 
 Messiah, 193 ; bribed by 
 Augustus, 317. 
 
 Vishnu Purana on the Naros, 
 61 ; on the Apocastasis, or 
 final dissolution, 164. 
 
 Walton, Bishop, on the lan- 
 guage of the Jews, 385. 
 
 Waiburton, Bishop, on Jewisb 
 Idolatry, 345. 
 
 Water, a symbol of the Hoi/ 
 Spirit, 136. 
 
 Welsh cronileachs, 118. 
 
 Whiston, on 0. T., 329. 
 
 Wilford, Colonel, cited, 65, 131^^ 
 
 Wine, a sacred symbol, 16, 111,' 
 112, 322. 
 
 Wolf, a sacred type, 107. 
 
 Yezdan, a name of God, 114. 
 Yuneli [secAin, Ann, On,IIinay 
 Shekiuah], 112, 113. 
 
 Zaratusht on God and the 
 
 Holy Spirit, 36. 
 Zechariah, 394, 456, 430. 
 
 8. AXD J. ERAWK, PUINTER.S, 13, I'RIXCES STUEET, LITTLS Ql'EEN STREET, 
 IIOLBO:iN, W.C. 
 
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