While this was the theory, the first perons in the Godhead was practically overlooked. As the
Great Invisible, taking no immediate concern in human affairs, he was "to be worshipped
through silence alone," that is, in point of fact, he was not worshipped by the multitude at all.
The same thing is
strikingly illustrated in India at this day. Though Brahma, according to the sacred books, is the
first person of the Hindoo Triad, and the religiion of Hindostan is callec by his name, yet he is
never worshipped, and there is scarcely a single Temple in all India now in existence of those
that were formerly erected to his honour. So also is it in those countries of Europe where the
Papal system is most completely developed. In Papal Italy, as travellers universally admit
(except where the Gospel has recently entered), all appearance of worshipping the King Eternal
and Invisible is almost extinct, while the Mother and the Child are the grand objects of worship.
Exactly so, in this latter respect, also was it in ancient Babylon. The Babylonians, in their
popular religion, supremely worshipped a Goddess Mother and a Son, who was represented in
pictures and in images as an infant or child in his mother's arms. (Figs. 5 and 6) From Babylon,
this worship of the Mother and the Child spread to the ends of the earth. In Egypt, the Mother
and the Child were worshipped under the names of Isis and Osiris. * In India, even to this day, as
Isi and Iswara; ** in Asia, as Cybele and Deoius; in Pagan Rome, as Fortuna and Jupiter-puer, or
Jupiter, the boy; in Greece, as Ceres, the Great Mother, with the babe at her breast, or as Irene,
the goddess of Peace, with the boy Plutus in her arms; and even in Thibet, in China, and Japan,
the Jesuit missionaries were astronished to find the counterpart of Madonna *** and her child as devoutly worshipped as in Papal Rome itself; Shing Moo, the Holy Mother in China, being
represented with a child in her arms, and a glory around her, exactly as if a Roman Catholic artist
had been employed to set her up.


Osiris, as the child called most frequently Horus. BUNSEN.
** KENNEDY'S Hindoo Mythology. Though Iswara is the husband of Isi, he is
also represnted as an infant at her breast.
*** The very name by which the Italians commonly designate the Virgin, is just
the translation of one of the titles of the Babylonian goddess. As Baal or Belus
was the name of the great male divinity of Babylon, so the female divinity was
called Beltis. (HESYCHIUS, Lexicon) This name has been found in Nineveh
applied to the "Mother of the gods" (VAUX'S Nineveh and Persepolis); and in a
speech attributed to Nebuchadnezzar, preserved in EUSEBII Proeparatio
Evangelii, both titles "Belus and Beltis" are conjoined as the titles of the great
Babylonian god and goddess. The Greek Belus, as representing the highest title of
the Babylonian god, was undoubtedly Baal, "The Lord." Beltis, therefore, as the
title of the female divinity, was equivalent to "Baalti," which, in English, is "My
Lady," in Latin, "Mea Domina," and, in Italina, is corrupted into the well known
"Madonna." In connection with this, it may be observed, that the name of Juno,
the classical "Queen of Heaven," which, in Greek, was Hera, also signified "The
Lady"; and that the peculiar title of Cybele or Rhea at Rome, was Domina or "The
Lady." (OVID, Fasti) Further, there is strong reason to believe, that Athena, the
well known name of Minerva at Athens, had the very same meaning. The Hebrew
Adon, "The Lord," is, with the points, pronounced Athon. We have evidence that
this name was known to the Asiatic Greeks, from whom idolatry, in a large
measure, came into European Greece, as a name of God under the form of
"Athan." Eustathius, in a note on the Periergesis of Dionysius, speaking of local
names in the district of Laodicea, says the "Athan is god." The feminine of Athan,
"The Lord," is Athan, "The Lady," which in the Attic dialect, is Athena. No
doubt, Minerva is commonly represented as a virgin; but, for all that, we learn
from Strabo that at Hierapytna in Crete (the coins of which city, says Muller,
Dorians have the Athenian symbols of Minerva upon them), she was said to be
the mother of the Corybantes by Helius, or "The Sun." It is certain that the
Egyptian Minerva, who was the prototype of the Athenian goddess, was a mother,
and was styled "Goddess Mother," or "Mother of the Gods."
**** CRABB'S Mythology. Gutzlaff thought that Shing Moo must have been
borrowed from a Popish source; and there can be no doubt, that in the individual
case to which he refers, the Pagan and the Christian stories had been
amalgamated. But Sir. J. F. Davis shows that the Chinese of Canton find such an
analogy between their own Pagan goddess Kuanyin and the Popish Madonna,
that, in conversing with Europeans, they frequently call either of them
indifferently by the same title. DAVIS' China. The first Jesuit missionaries to
China also wrote home to Europe, that they found mention in the Chinese sacred
books--books unequivocally Pagan--of a mother and child, very similar to their
own Madonna and child at home.


One of the names of the Chinese Holy Mother is Ma Tsoopo; in regard to which,
see3 below.


Sub-Section I
The Child in Assyria:


The original of that mother, so widely worshipped, there is reason to believe, was Semiramis, *
already referred to, who, it is well known, was worshipped by the Babylonians, and other eastern
nations, and that under the name of Rhea, the great Goddess "Mother."


* Sir H. Rawlinson having found evidence at Nineveh, of the existence of a
Semiramis about six or seven centuries before the Christian era, seems inclined to
regard her as the only Semiramis that ever existed. But this is subversive of all
history. The fact that there was a Semiramis in the primeval ages of the world, is
beyond all doubt, although some of the exploits of the latter queen have evidently
been attributed to her predecessor. Mr. Layard dissents from Sir. H. Rawlinson's opinion.


It was from the son, however, that she derived all her glory and her claims to deification. That
son, though represented as a child in his mother's arms, was a person of great stature and
immense bodily powers, as well as most fascinating manners. In Scripture he is referred to (Eze
8:14) under the name of Tammuz, but he is commonly known among classical writers under the
name of Bacchus, that is, "The Lamented one." *

* From Bakhah "to weep" or "lament." Among the Phoenicians, says Hesychius,
"Bacchos means weeping." As the women wept for Tammuz, so did they for Bacchus.


To the ordinary reader the name of Bacchus suggests nothing more than revelry and
drunkenness, but it is now well known, that amid all the abominations that attended his orgies, their grand design was professedly "the purification of souls," and that from the guilt and
defilement of sin. This lamented one, exhibited and adored as a little child in his mother's arms,
seems, in point of fact, to have been the husband of Semiramis, whose name, Ninus, by which he
is commonly known in classical history, literally signified "The Son." As Semiramis, the wife,
was worshipped as Rhea, whose grand distinguishing character was that of the great goddess
"Mother," * the conjunction with her of her husband, under the name of Ninus, or "The Son,"
was sufficient to originate the peculiar worship of the "Mother and Son," so extensively diffused
among the nations of antiquity; and this, no doubt, is the explanation of the fact which has so
much puzzled the inquirers into ancient history, that Ninus is sometimes called the husband, and
sometimes the son of Semiramis.


* As such Rhea was called by the Greeks, Ammas. Ammas is evidently the Greek
form of the Chaldee Ama, "Mother.


This also accounts for the origin of the very same confusion of relationship between Isis and
Osiris, the mother and child of the Egyptians; for as Bunsen shows, Osiris was represented in
Egypt as at once the son and husband of his mother; and actually bore, as one of his titles of
dignity and honour, the name "Husband of the Mother." * This still further casts light on the fact
already noticed, that the Indian God Iswara is represented as a babe at the breast of his own wife
Isi, or Parvati.


* BUNSEN. It may be observed that this very name "Husband of the Mother,"
given to Osiris, seems even at this day to be in common use among ourselves,
although there is not the least suspicion of the meaning of the term, or whence it
has come. Herodotus mentions that when in Egypt, he was astonished to hear the
very same mournful but ravishing "Song of Linus," sung by the Egyptians
(although under another name), which he had been accustomed to hear in his own
native land of Greece. Linus was the same god as the Bacchus of Greece, or
Osiris of Egypt; for Homer introduces a boy singing the song of Linus, while the
vintage is going on (Ilias), and the Scholiast says that this son was sung in
memory of Linus, who was torn in pieces by dogs. The epithet "dogs," applied to
those who tore Linus in pieces, is evidently used in a mystical sense, and it will
afterwards been seen how thoroughly the other name by which he is known--
Narcissus--identifies him with the Greek Bacchus and Egyptian Osiris. In some
places in Egypt, for the song of Linus or Osiris, a peculiar melody seems to have
been used. Savary says that, in the temple of Abydos, "the priest repeated the
seven vowels in the form of hymns, and that musicians were forbid to enter it."
(Letters) Strabo, whom Savary refers to, calls the god of that temple Memnon, but
we learn from Wilkinson that Osiris was the great god of Abydos, whence it is
evident that Memnon and Osiris were only different names of the same divinity.
Now the name of Linus or Osiris, as the "husband of his mother," in Egypt, was
Kamut (BUNSEN). When Gregory the Great introduced into the Church of Rome
what are now called the Gregorian Chants, he got them from the Chaldean
mysteries, which had long been established in Rome; for the Roman Catholic
priest, Eustace, admits that these chants were largely composed of "Lydian and
Phrygian tunes" (Classical Tour), Lydia and Phrygia being among the chief seats
in later times of those mysteries, of which the Egyptian mysteries were only a
branch. These tunes were sacred--the music of the great god, and in introducing them Gregory introduced the music of Kamut. And thus, to all appearance, has it
come to pass, that the name of Osiris or Kamut, "the husband of the mother," is in
every-day use among ourselves as the name of the musical scale; for what is the
melody of Osiris, consisting of the "seven vowels" formed into a hymn, but--the
Gamut?


Now, this Ninus, or "Son," borne in the arms of the Babylonian Madonna, is so described as very
clearly to identify him with Nimrod. "Ninus, king of the Assyrians," * says Trogus Pompeius,
epitomised by Justin, "first of all changed the contented moderation of the ancient manners,
incited by a new passion, the desire of conquest. He was the first who carried on war against his
neighbours, and he conquered all nations from Assyria to Lybia, as they were yet unacquainted
with the arts of war."


* The name, "Assyrians," as has already been noticed, has a wide latitude of
meaning among the classic authors, taking in the Babylonians as well as the
Assyrians proper.


This account points directly to Nimrod, and can apply to no other. The account of Diodorus
Siculus entirely agrees with it, and adds another trait that goes still further to determine the
identity. That account is as follows: "Ninus, the most ancient of the Assyrian kings mentioned in
history, performed great actions. Being naturally of a warlike disposition, and ambitious of glory
that results from valour, he armed a considerable number of young men that were brave and
vigorous like himself, trained them up a long time in laborious exercises and hardships, and by
that means accustomed them to bear the fatigues of war, and to face dangers with intrepidity." As
Diodorus makes Ninus "the most ancient of the Assyrian kings," and represents him as beginning
those wars which raised his power to an extraordinary height by bringing the people of
Babylonia under subjection to him, while as yet the city of Babylon was not in existence, this
shows that he occupied the very position of Nimrod, of whom the Scriptural account is, that he
first "began to be mighty on the earth," and that the "beginning of his kingdom was Babylon." As
the Babel builders, when their speech was confounded, were scattered abroad on the face of the
earth, and therefore deserted both the city and the tower which they had commenced to build,
Babylon as a city, could not properly be said to exist till Nimrod, by establishing his power there,
made it the foundation and starting-point of his greatness. In this respect, then, the story of Ninus
and of Nimrod exactly harmonise. The way, too, in which Ninus gained his power is the very
way in which Nimrod erected his. There can be no doubt that it was by inuring his followers to
the toils and dangers of the chase, that he gradually formed them to the use of arms, and so
prepared them for aiding him in establishing his dominions; just as Ninus, by training his
companions for a long time "in laborious exercises and hardships," qualified them for making
him the first of the Assyrian kings.


The conclusions deduced from these testimonies of ancient history are greatly strengthened by
many additional considerations. In Genesis 10:11, we find a passage, which, when its meaning is
properly understood, casts a very steady light on the subject. That passage, as given in the
authorised version, runs thus: "Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh." This
speaks of it as something remarkable, that Asshur went out of the land of Shinar, while yet the
human race in general went forth from the same land. It goes upon the supposition that Asshur
had some sort of divine right to that land, and that he had been, in a manner, expelled from it by
Nimrod, while no divine right is elsewhere hinted at in the context, or seems capable of proof.
Moreover, it represents Asshur as setting up in the IMMEDIATE NEIGHBOURHOOD of Nimrod as mighty a kingdom as Nimrod himself, Asshur building four cities, one of which is
emphatically said to have been "great" (v 12); while Nimrod, on this interpretation, built just the
same number of cities, of which none is specially characterised as "great." Now, it is in the last
degree improbable that Nimrod would have quietly borne so mighty a rival so near him. To
obviate such difficulties as these, it has been proposed to render the words, "out of that land he
(Nimrod) went forth into Asshur, or Assyria." But then, according to ordinary usage of grammar,
the word in the original should have been "Ashurah," with the sign of motion to a place affixed
to it, whereas it is simply Asshur, without any such sign of motion affixed. I am persuaded that
the whole perplexity that commentators have hitherto felt in considering this passage, has arisen
from supposing that there is a proper name in the passage, where in reality no proper name
exists. Asshur is the passive participle of a verb, which, in its Chaldee sense, signifies "to make
strong," and, consequently, signifies "being strengthened," or "made strong." Read thus, the
whole passage is natural and easy (v 10), "And the beginning of his (Nimrod's) kingdom was
Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh." A beginning naturally implies something to succeed,
and here we find it (v 11): "Out of that land he went forth, being made strong, or when he had
been made strong (Ashur), and builded Nineveh," &c. Now, this exactly agrees with the
statement in the ancient history of Justin: "Ninus strengthened the greatness of his acquired
dominion by continued possession. Having subdued, therefore, his neighbours, when, by an
accession of forces, being still further strengthened, he went forth against other tribes, and every
new victory paved the way for another, he subdued all the peoples of the East." Thus, then,
Nimrod, or Ninus, was the builder of Nineveh; and the origin of the name of that city, as "the
habitation of Ninus," is accounted for, * and light is thereby, at the same time, cast on the fact,
that the name of the chief part of the ruins of Nineveh is Nimroud at this day.


* Nin-neveh, "The habitation of Ninus."


Now, assuming that Ninus is Nimrod, the way in which that assumption explains what is
otherwise inexplicable in the statements of ancient history greatly confirms the truth of that
assumption itself. Ninus is said to have been the son of Belus or Bel, and Bel is said to have been
the founder of Babylon. If Ninus was in reality the first king of Babylon, how could Belus or
Bel, his father, be said to be the founder of it? Both might very well be, as will appear if we
consider who was Bel, and what we can trace of his doings. If Ninus was Nimrod, who was the
historical Bel? He must have been Cush; for "Cush begat Nimrod" (Gen 10:8); and Cush is
generally represented as having been a ringleader in the great apostacy. * But again, Cush, as the
son of Ham, was Her-mes or Mercury; for Hermes is just an Egyptian synonym for the "son of
Ham." **


* See GREGORIUS TURONENSIS, De rerum Franc. Gregory attributes to Cush
what was said more generally to have befallen his son; but his statement shows
the belief in his day, which is amply confirmed from other sources, that Cush had
a pre-eminent share in leading mankind away from the true worship of God.
** The composition of Her-mes is, first, from "Her," which, in Chaldee, is
synonymous with Ham, or Khem, "the burnt one." As "her" also, like Ham,
signified "The hot or burning one," this name formed a foundation for covertly
identifying Ham with the "Sun," and so deifying the great patriarch, after whose
name the land of Egypt was called, in connection with the sun. Khem, or Ham, in
his own name was openly worshipped in later ages in the land of Ham
(BUNSEN); but this would have been too daring at first. By means of "Her," the synonym, however, the way was paved for this. "Her" is the name of Horus, who
is identified with the sun (BUNSEN), which shows the real etymology of the
name to be from the verb to which I have traced it. Then, secondly, "Mes," is
from Mesheh (or, without the last radical, which is omissible), Mesh, "to draw
forth." In Egyptian, we have Ms in the sense of "to bring forth" (BUNSEN,
Hieroglyphical Signs), which is evidently a different form of the same word. In
the passive sense, also, we find Ms used (BUNSEN, Vocabulary). The radical
meaning of Mesheh in Stockii Lexicon, is given in Latin "Extraxit," and our
English word "extraction," as applied to birth or descent, shows that there is a
connection between the generic meaning of this word and birth. This derivation
will be found to explain the meaning of the names of the Egyptian kings,
Ramesses and Thothmes, the former evidently being "The son of Ra," or the Sun;
the latter in like manner, being "The son of Thoth." For the very same reason Her-
mes is the "Son of Her, or Ham," the burnt one--that is, Cush.


Now, Hermes was the great original prophet of idolatry; for he was recognised by the pagans as
the author of their religious rites, and the interpreter of the gods. The distinguished Gesenius
identifies him with the Babylonian Nebo, as the prophetic god; and a statement of Hyginus
shows that he was known as the grand agent in that movement which produced the division of
tongues. His words are these: "For many ages men lived under the government of Jove
[evidently not the Roman Jupiter, but the Jehovah of the Hebrews], without cities and without
laws, and all speaking one language. But after that Mercury interpreted the speeches of men
(whence an interpreter is called Hermeneutes), the same individual distributed the nations. Then
discord began." *


HYGINUS, Fab. Phoroneus is represented as king at this time.


Here there is a manifest enigma. How could Mercury or Hermes have any need to interpret the
speeches of mankind when they "all spake one language"? To find out the meaning of this, we
must go to the language of the Mysteries. Peresh, in Chaldee, signifies "to interpret"; but was
pronounced by old Egyptians and by Greeks, and often by the Chaldees themselves, in the same
way as "Peres," to "divide." Mercury, then, or Hermes, or Cush, "the son of Ham," was the
"DIVIDER of the speeches of men." He, it would seem, had been the ringleader in the scheme
for building the great city and tower of Babel; and, as the well known title of Hermes,--"the
interpreter of the gods," would indicate, had encouraged them, in the name of God, to proceed in
their presumptuous enterprise, and so had caused the language of men to be divided, and
themselves to be scattered abroad on the face of the earth. Now look at the name of Belus or Bel,
given to the father of Ninus, or Nimrod, in connection with this. While the Greek name Belus
represented both the Baal and Bel of the Chaldees, these were nevertheless two entirely distinct
titles. These titles were both alike often given to the same god, but they had totally different
meanings. Baal, as we have already seen, signified "The Lord"; but Bel signified "The
Confounder." When, then, we read that Belus, the father of Ninus, was he that built or founded
Babylon, can there be a doubt, in what sense it was that the title of Belus was given to him? It
must have been in the sense of Bel the "Confounder." And to this meaning of the name of the
Babylonian Bel, there is a very distinct allusion in Jeremiah 50:2, where it is said "Bel is
confounded," that is, "The Confounder is brought to confusion." That Cush was known to Pagan
antiquity under the very character of Bel, "The Confounder," a statement of Ovid very clearly proves. The statement to which I refer is that in which Janus "the god of gods," * from whom all
the other gods had their origin, is made to say of himself: "The ancients...called me Chaos."


* Janus was so called in the most ancient hymns of the Salii. (MACROB, Saturn.)


Now, first this decisively shows that Chaos was known not merely as a state of confusion, but as
the "god of Confusion." But, secondly, who that is at all acquainted with the laws of Chaldaic
pronunciation, does not know that Chaos is just one of the established forms of the name of Chus
or Cush? * Then, look at the symbol of Janus, ** (see Fig. 7) whom "the ancients called Chaos,"
and it will be seen how exactly it tallies with the doings of Cush, when he is identified with Bel,
"The Confounder." That symbol is a club; and the name of "a club" in Chaldee comes from the
very word which signifies "to break in pieces, or scatter abroad." ***


* The name of Cush is also Khus, for sh frequently passes in Chaldee into s; and
Khus, in pronunciation, legitimately becomes Khawos, or, without the digamma,
Khaos.


** From Sir WM. BETHAM'S Etruscan Literature and Antiquities Investigated,
1842. The Etruscan name on the reverse of a medal--Bel-athri, "Lord of spies," is
probably given to Janus, in allusion to his well known title "Janus Tuens," which
may be rendered "Janus the Seer," or "All-seeing Janus."
*** In Proverbs 25:18, a maul or club is "Mephaitz." In Jeremiah 51:20, the same
word, without the Jod, is evidently used for a club (though, in our version, it is
rendered battle-axe); for the use of it is not to cut asunder, but to "break in
pieces." See the whole passage.


He who caused the confusion of tongues was he who "broke" the previously united earth (Gen
11:1) "in pieces," and "scattered" the fragments abroad. How significant, then, as a symbol, is the
club, as commemorating the work of Cush, as Bel, the "Confounder"? And that significance will
be all the more apparent when the reader turns to the Hebrew of Genesis 11:9, and finds that the
very word from which a club derives its name is that which is employed when it is said, that in
consequence of the confusion of tongues, the children of men were "scattered abroad on the face
of all the earth." The word there used for scattering abroad is Hephaitz, which, in the Greek form
becomes Hephaizt, * and hence the origin of the well known but little understood name of
Hephaistos, as applied to Vulcan, "The father of the gods." **


* There are many instances of a similar change. Thus Botzra becomes in Greek,
Bostra; and Mitzraim, Mestraim.
** Vulcan, in the classical Pantheon, had not commonly so high a place, but in
Egypt Hephaistos, or Vulcan, was called "Father of the gods." (AMMIANUS
MARCELLINUS)
Hephaistos is the name of the ringleader in the first rebellion, as "The Scatterer abroad," as Bel is
the name of the same individual as the "Confounder of tongues." Here, then, the reader may see
the real origin of Vulcan's Hammer, which is just another name for the club of Janus or Chaos,
"The god of Confusion"; and to this, as breaking the earth in pieces, there is a covert allusion in
Jeremiah 50:23, where Babylon, as identified with its primeval god, is thus apostrophised: "How
is the hammer of the whole earth cut asunder and broken"! Now, as the tower-building was the
first act of open rebellion after the flood, and Cush, as Bel, was the ringleader in it, he was, of
course, the first to whom the name Merodach, "The great Rebel," * must have been given, and,
therefore, according to the usual parallelism of the prophetic language, we find both names of the
Babylonian god referred to together, when the judgment on Babylon is predicted: "Bel is
confounded: Merodach is broken in pieces" (Jer 1:2).
* Merodach comes from Mered, to rebel; and Dakh, the demonstrative pronoun
affixed, which makes it emphatic, signifying "That" or "The great."
The judgment comes upon the Babylonian god according to what he had done. As Bel, he had
"confounded" the whole earth, therefore he is "confounded." As Merodach, by the rebellion he
had stirred up, he had "broken" the united world in pieces; therefore he himself is "broken in
pieces."


So much for the historical character of Bel, as identified with Janus or Chaos, the god of
confusion, with his symbolical club. *



* While the names Bel and Hephaistos had the origin above referred to, they were
not inappropriate names also, though in a different sense, for the war-gods
descending from Cush, from whom Babylon derived its glory among the nations.
The warlike deified kings of the line of Cush gloried in their power to carry
confusion among their enemies, to scatter their armies, and to "break the earth in
pieces" by their resistless power. To this, no doubt, as well as to the acts of the
primeval Bel, there is allusion in the inspired denunciations of Jeremiah on
Babylon. The physical sense also of these names was embodied in the club given
to the Grecian Hercules--the very club of Janus--when, in a character quite
different from that of the original Hercules, he was set up as the great reformer of
the world, by mere physical force. When two-headed Janus with the club is
represented, the two-fold representation was probably intended to represent old
Cush, and young Cush or Nimrod, as combined. But the two-fold representation
with other attributes, had reference also to another "Father of the gods,"
afterwards to be noticed, who had specially to do with water.


Proceeding, then, on these deductions, it is not difficult to see how it might be said that Bel or
Belus, the father of Ninus, founded Babylon, while, nevertheless, Ninus or Nimrod was properly
the builder of it. Now, though Bel or Cush, as being specially concerned in laying the first
foundations of Babylon, might be looked upon as the first king, as in some of the copies of "Eusebius' Chronicle" he is represented, yet it is evident, from both sacred history and profane,
that he could never have reigned as king of the Babylonian monarchy, properly so called; and
accordingly, in the Armenian version of the "Chronicle of Eusebius," which bears the undisputed
palm for correctness and authority, his name is entirely omitted in the list of Assyrian kings, and
that of Ninus stands first, in such terms as exactly correspond with the Scriptural account of
Nimrod. Thus, then, looking at the fact that Ninus is currently made by antiquity the son of
Belus, or Bel, when we have seen that the historical Bel is Cush, the identity of Ninus and
Nimrod is still further confirmed.
But when we look at what is said of Semiramis, the wife of Ninus, the evidence receives an
additional development. That evidence goes conclusively to show that the wife of Ninus could be
none other than the wife of Nimrod, and, further, to bring out one of the grand characters in
which Nimrod, when deified, was adored. In Daniel 11:38, we read of a god called Ala Mahozine
*--i.e., the "god of fortifications."

* In our version, Ala Mahozim is rendered alternatively "god of forces," or "gods
protectors." To the latter interpretation, there is this insuperable objection, that
Ala is in the singular. Neither can the former be admitted; for Mahozim, or
Mauzzim, does not signify "forces," or "armies," but "munitions," as it is also
given in the margin--that is "fortifications." Stockius, in his Lexicon, gives us the
definition of Mahoz in the singular, rober, arx, locus munitus, and in proof of the
definition, the following examples:--Judges 6:26, "And build an altar to the Lord
thy God upon the top of this rock" (Mahoz, in the margin "strong place"); and
Daniel 11:19, "Then shall he turn his face to the fort (Mahoz) of his own land."


Who this god of fortifications could be, commentators have found themselves at a loss to
determine. In the records of antiquity the existence of any god of fortifications has been
commonly overlooked; and it must be confessed that no such god stands forth there with any
prominence to the ordinary reader. But of the existence of a goddess of fortifications, every one
knows that there is the amplest evidence. That goddess is Cybele, who is universally represented
with a mural or turreted crown, or with a fortification, on her head. Why was Rhea or Cybele
thus represented? Ovid asks the question and answers it himself; and the answer is this: The
reason he says, why the statue of Cybele wore a crown of towers was, "because she first erected
them in cities." The first city in the world after the flood (from whence the commencement of the
world itself was often dated) that had towers and encompassing walls, was Babylon; and Ovid
himself tells us that it was Semiramis, the first queen of that city, who was believed to have
"surrounded Babylon with a wall of brick." Semiramis, then, the first deified queen of that city
and tower whose top was intended to reach to heaven, must have been the prototype of the
goddess who "first made towers in cities." When we look at the Ephesian Diana, we find
evidence to the very same effect. In general, Diana was depicted as a virgin, and the patroness of
virginity; but the Ephesian Diana was quite different. She was represented with all the attributes
of the Mother of the gods (see Fig. 8), and, as the Mother of the gods, she wore a turreted crown,
such as no one can contemplate without being forcibly reminded of the tower of Babel. Now this
tower-bearing Diana is by an ancient scholiast expressly identified with Semiramis.*


* A scholiast on the Periergesis of Dionysius, says Layard (Nineveh and its
Remains), makes Semiramis the same as the goddess Artemis or Despoina. Now,
Artemis was Diana, and the title of Despoina given to her, shows that it was in the
character of the Ephesian Diana she was identified with Semiramis; for Despoina is the Greek for Domina, "The Lady," the peculiar title of Rhea or Cybele, the
tower-bearing goddess, in ancient Rome. (OVID, Fasti)
When, therefore, we remember that Rhea or Cybele, the tower-bearing goddess, was, in point of
fact, a Babylonian goddess, and that Semiramis, when deified, was worshipped under the name of Rhea, there will remain, I think, no doubt as to the personal identity of the "goddess of
fortifications."
Now there is no reason to believe that Semiramis alone (though some have represented the
matter so) built the battlements of Babylon. We have the express testimony of the ancient
historian, Megasthenes, as preserved by Abydenus, that it was "Belus" who "surrounded Babylon
with a wall." As "Bel," the Confounder, who began the city and tower of Babel, had to leave both
unfinished, this could not refer to him. It could refer only to his son Ninus, who inherited his
father's title, and who was the first actual king of the Babylonian empire, and, consequently
Nimrod. The real reason that Semiramis, the wife of Ninus, gained the glory of finishing the
fortifications of Babylon, was, that she came in the esteem of the ancient idolaters to hold a
preponderating position, and to have attributed to her all the different characters that belonged, or
were supposed to belong, to her husband. Having ascertained, then, one of the characters in
which the deified wife was worshipped, we may from that conclude what was the corresponding
character of the deified husband. Layard distinctly indicates his belief that Rhea or Cybele, the
"tower-crown" goddess, was just the female counterpart of the "deity presiding over bulwarks or
fortresses" and that this deity was Ninus, or Nimrod, we have still further evidence from what the
scattered notices of antiquity say of the first deified king of Babylon, under a name that identifies
him as the husband of Rhea, the "tower-bearing" goddess. That name is Kronos or Saturn. *


* In the Greek mythology, Kronos and Rhea are commonly brother and sister.
Ninus and Semiramis, according to history, are not represented as standing in any
such relation to one another; but this is no objection to the real identity of Ninus
and Kronos; for, 1st, the relationships of the divinities, in most countries, are
peculiarly conflicting--Osiris, in Egypt, is represented at different times, not only
as the son and husband of Isis, but also as her father and brother (BUNSEN);
then, secondly, whatever the deified mortals might be before deification, on being
deified they came into new relationships. On the apotheosis of husband and wife,
it was necessary for the dignity of both that both alike should be represented as of
the same celestial origin--as both supernaturally the children of God. Before the
flood, the great sin that brought ruin on the human race was, that the "Sons of
God" married others than the daughters of God,--in other words, those who were
not spiritually their "sisters." (Gen 6:2,3) In the new world, while the influence of
Noah prevailed, the opposite practice must have been strongly inculcated; for a
"son of God" to marry any one but a daughter of God, or his own "sister" in the
faith, must have been a misalliance and a disgrace. Hence, from a perversion of a
spiritual idea, came, doubtless, the notion of the dignity and purity of the royal
line being preserved the more intact through the marriage of royal brothers and
sisters. This was the case in Peru (PRESCOTT), in India (HARDY), and in Egypt
(WILKINSON). Hence the relation of Jupiter to Juno, who gloried that she was
"soror et conjux"--"sister and wife"--of her husband. Hence the same relation
between Isis and her husband Osiris, the former of whom is represented as
"lamenting her brother Osiris." (BUNSEN) For the same reason, no doubt, was
Rhea, made the sister of her husband Kronos, to show her divine dignity and
equality.


It is well known that Kronos, or Saturn, was Rhea's husband; but it is not so well known who
was Kronos himself. Traced back to his original, that divinity is proved to have been the first king of Babylon. Theophilus of Antioch shows that Kronos in the east was worshipped under the
names of Bel and Bal; and from Eusebius we learn that the first of the Assyrian kings, whose
name was Belus, was also by the Assyrians called Kronos. As the genuine copies of Eusebius do
not admit of any Belus, as an actual king of Assyria, prior to Ninus, king of the Babylonians, and
distinct from him, that shows that Ninus, the first king of Babylon, was Kronos. But, further, we
find that Kronos was king of the Cyclops, who were his brethren, and who derived that name
from him, * and that the Cyclops were known as "the inventors of tower-building."


* The scholiast upon EURIPIDES, Orest, says that "the Cyclops were so called
from Cyclops their king." By this scholiast the Cyclops are regarded as a Thracian
nation, for the Thracians had localised the tradition, and applied it to themselves;
but the following statement of the scholiast on the Prometheus of Aeschylus,
shows that they stood in such a relation to Kronos as proves that he was their
king: "The Cyclops...were the brethren of Kronos, the father of Jupiter."


The king of the Cyclops, "the inventors of tower-building," occupied a position exactly
correspondent to that of Rhea, who "first erected (towers) in cities." If, therefore, Rhea, the wife
of Kronos, was the goddess of fortifications, Kronos or Saturn, the husband of Rhea, that is,
Ninus or Nimrod, the first king of Babylon, must have been Ala mahozin, "the god of
fortifications."4


The name Kronos itself goes not a little to confirm the argument. Kronos signifies "The Horned
one." As a horn is a well known Oriental emblem for power or might, Kronos, "The Horned
one," was, according to the mystic system, just a synonym for the Scriptural epithet applied to
Nimrod--viz., Gheber, "The mighty one" (Gen 10:8), "He began to be mighty on the earth." The
name Kronos, as the classical reader is well aware, is applied to Saturn as the "Father of the
gods." We have already had another "father of the gods" brought under our notice, even Cush in
his character of Bel the Confounder, or Hephaistos, "The Scatterer abroad"; and it is easy to
understand how, when the deification of mortals began, and the "mighty" Son of Cush was
deified, the father, especially considering the part which he seems to have had in concocting the
whole idolatrous system, would have to be deified too, and of course, in his character as the
Father of the "Mighty one," and of all the "immortals" that succeeded him. But, in point of fact,
we shall find, in the course of our inquiry, that Nimrod was the actual Father of the gods, as
being the first of deified mortals; and that, therefore, it is in exact accordance with historical fact
that Kronos, the Horned, or Mighty one, is, in the classic Pantheon, known by that title.
The meaning of this name Kronos, "The Horned one," as applied to Nimrod, fully explains the
origin of the remarkable symbol, so frequently occurring among the Nineveh sculptures, the
gigantic HORNED man-bull, as representing the great divinities in Assyria. The same word that
signified a bull, signified also a ruler or prince. *


* The name for a bull or ruler, is in Hebrew without points, Shur, which in
Chaldee becomes Tur. From Tur, in the sense of a bull, comes the Latin Taurus;
and from the same word, in the sense of a ruler, Turannus, which originally had
no evil meaning. Thus, in these well known classical words, we have evidence of the operation of the very principle which caused the deified Assyrian kings to be
represented under the form of the man-bull.


Hence the "Horned bull" signified "The Mighty Prince," thereby pointing back to the first of
those "Mighty ones," who, under the name of Guebres, Gabrs, or Cabiri, occupied so
conspicuous a place in the ancient world, and to whom the deified Assyrian monarchs covertly
traced back the origin of their greatness and might. This explains the reason why the Bacchus of
the Greeks was represented as wearing horns, and why he was frequently addressed by the
epithet "Bull-horned," as one of the high titles of his dignity. Even in comparatively recent times,
Togrul Begh, the leader of the Seljukian Turks, who came from the neighbourhood of the
Euphrates, was in a similar manner represented with three horns growing out of his head, as the
emblem of his sovereignty (Fig. 9). This, also, in a remarkable way accounts for the origin of
one of the divinities worshipped by our Pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors under the name of
Zernebogus. This Zernebogus was "the black, malevolent, ill-omened divinity," in other words,
the exact counterpart of the popular idea of the Devil, as supposed to be black, and equipped
with horns and hoofs. This name analysed and compared with the accompanying woodcut (Fig.
10), from Layard, casts a very singular light on the source from whence has come the popular
superstition in regard to the grand Adversary. The name Zer-Nebo-Gus is almost pure Chaldee,
and seems to unfold itself as denoting "The seed of the prophet Cush." We have seen reason
already to conclude that, under the name Bel, as distinguished from Baal, Cush was the great
soothsayer or false prophet worshipped at Babylon. But independent inquirers have been led to
the conclusion that Bel and Nebo were just two different titles for the same god, and that a
prophetic god. Thus does Kitto comment on the words of Isaiah 46:1 "Bel boweth down, Nebo
stoopeth," with reference to the latter name: "The word seems to come from Nibba, to deliver an
oracle, or to prophesy; and hence would mean an 'oracle,' and may thus, as Calmet suggests
('Commentaire Literal'), be no more than another name for Bel himself, or a characterising
epithet applied to him; it being not unusual to repeat the same thing, in the same verse, in equivalent terms." "Zer-Nebo-Gus," the great "seed of the prophet Cush," was, of course,
Nimrod; for Cush was Nimrod's father. Turn now to Layard, and see how this land of ours and
Assyria are thus brought into intimate connection. In a woodcut, first we find "the Assyrian
Hercules," that is "Nimrod the giant," as he is called in the Septuagint version of Genesis,
without club, spear, or weapons of any kind, attacking a bull. Having overcome it, he sets the
bull's horns on his head, as a trophy of victory and a symbol of power; and thenceforth the hero
is represented, not only with the horns and hoofs above, but from the middle downwards, with
the legs and cloven feet of the bull. Thus equipped he is represented as turning next to encounter
a lion. This, in all likelihood, is intended to commemorate some event in the life of him who first
began to be mighty in the chase and in war, and who, according to all ancient traditions, was
remarkable also for bodily power, as being the leader of the Giants that rebelled against heaven.
Now Nimrod, as the son of Cush, was black, in other words, was a Negro. "Can the Ethiopian
change his skin?" is in the original, "Can the Cushite" do so? Keeping this, then, in mind, it will
be seen that in that figure disentombed from Nineveh, we have both the prototype of the Anglo-
Saxon Zer-Nebo-Gus, "the seed of the prophet Cush," and the real original of the black
Adversary of mankind, with horns and hoofs. It was in a different character from that of the
Adversary that Nimrod was originally worshipped; but among a people of a fair complexion, as
the Anglo-Saxons, it was inevitable that, if worshipped at all, it must generally be simply as an
object of fear; and so Kronos, "The Horned one," who wore the "horns," as the emblem both of
his physical might and sovereign power, has come to be, in popular superstition, the recognised
representative of the Devil.


In many and far-severed countries, horns became the symbols of sovereign power. The corona or
crown, that still encircles the brows of European monarchs, seems remotely to be derived from
the emblem of might adopted by Kronos, or Saturn, who, according to Pherecydes, was "the first
before all others that ever wore a crown." The first regal crown appears to have been only a
band, in which the horns were set. From the idea of power contained in the "horn," even
subordinate rulers seem to have worn a circlet adorned with a single horn, in token of their
derived authority. Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller gives examples of Abyssinian chiefs thus decorated (Fig. 11), in regard to whom he states that the horn attracted his particular attention,
when he perceived that the governors of provinces were distinguished by this head-dress.*


* See KITTO'S Illustrated Commentary, vol. iv. pp. 280-282. In Fig. 11, the two
male figures are Abyssinian Chiefs. The two females, whom Kitto has grouped
along with them, are ladies of Mount Lebanon, whose horned head-dresses
Walpole regards as relics of the ancient worship of Astarte. (See above - and
WALPOLE'S Ansayri, vol. iii. p. 16)


In the case of sovereign powers, the royal head-band was adorned sometimes with a double,
sometimes with a triple horn. The double horn had evidently been the original symbol of power
or might on the part of sovereigns; for, on the Egyptian monuments, the heads of the deified
royal personages have generally no more than the two horns to shadow forth their power. As
sovereignty in Nimrod's case was founded on physical force, so the two horns of the bull were
the symbols of that physical force. And, in accordance with this, we read in Sanchuniathon that
"Astarte put on her own head a bull's head as the ensign of royalty." By-and-by, however,
another and a higher idea came in, and the expression of that idea was seen in the symbol of the
three horns. A cap seems in course of time to have come to be associated with the regal horns. In
Assyria the three-horned cap was one of the "sacred emblems," in token that the power
connected with it was of celestial origin,--the three horns evidently pointing at the power of the
trinity. Still, we have indications that the horned band, without any cap, was anciently the corona
or royal crown. The crown borne by the Hindoo god Vishnu, in his avatar of the Fish, is just an
open circle or band, with three horns standing erect from it, with a knob on the top of each horn
(Fig. 12). All the avatars are represented as crowned with a crown that seems to have been
modelled from this, consisting of a coronet with three points, standing erect from it, in which Sir
William Jones recognises the Ethiopian or Parthian coronet. The open tiara of Agni, the Hindoo god of fire, shows in its lower round the double horn, made in the very same way as in Assyria,
proving at once the ancient custom, and whence that custom had come. Instead of the three
horns, three horn-shaped leaves came to be substituted (Fig. 13); and thus the horned band
gradually passed into the modern coronet or crown with the three leaves of the fleur-de-lis, or
other familiar three-leaved adornings.


Among the Red Indians of America there had evidently been something entirely analogous to the
Babylonian custom of wearing the horns; for, in the "buffalo dance" there, each of the dancers
had his head arrayed with buffalo's horns; and it is worthy of especial remark, that the "Satyric
dance," * or dance of the Satyrs in Greece, seems to have been the counterpart of this Red Indian
solemnity; for the satyrs were horned divinities, and consequently those who imitated their dance
must have had their heads set off in imitation of theirs.


* BRYANT. The Satyrs were the companions of Bacchus, and "danced along
with him" (Aelian Hist.) When it is considered who Bacchus was, and that his
distinguishing epithet was "Bull-horned," the horns of the "Satyrs" will appear in
their true light. For a particular mystic reason the Satyr's horn was commonly a
goat's horn, but originally it must have been the same as Bacchus'.


When thus we find a custom that is clearly founded on a form of speech that characteristically
distinguished the region where Nimrod's power was wielded, used in so many different countries
far removed from one another, where no such form of speech was used in ordinary life, we may
be sure that such a custom was not the result of mere accident, but that it indicates the wide-
spread diffusion of an influence that went forth in all directions from Babylon, from the time that
Nimrod first "began to be mighty on the earth."
There was another way in which Nimrod's power was symbolised besides by the "horn." A
synonym for Gheber, "The mighty one," was "Abir," while "Aber" also signified a "wing."
Nimrod, as Head and Captain of those men of war, by whom he surrounded himself, and who
were the instruments of establishing his power, was "Baal-aberin," "Lord of the mighty ones."
But "Baal-abirin" (pronounced nearly in the same way) signified "The winged one," * and
therefore in symbol he was represented, not only as a horned bull, but as at once a horned and winged bull--as showing not merely that he was mighty himself, but that he had mighty ones
under his command, who were ever ready to carry his will into effect, and to put down all
opposition to his power; and to shadow forth the vast extent of his might, he was represented
with great and wide-expanding wings.


* This is according to a peculiar Oriental idiom, of which there are many
examples. Thus, Baal-aph, "lord of wrath," signifies "an angry man"; Baal-
lashon, "lord of tongue," "an eloquent man"; Baal-hatsim, "lord of arrows," "an
archer"; and in like manner, Baal-aberin, "lord of wings," signifies "winged one."


To this mode of representing the mighty kings of Babylon and Assyria, who imitated Nimrod
and his successors, there is manifest allusion in Isaiah 8:6-8 "Forasmuch as this people refuseth
the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah's son; now therefore,
behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and mighty, even the king
of Assyria, and all his glory; and he shall come up over all his banks. And he shall pass through
Judah; he shall overflow and go over; he shall reach even unto the neck; and the STRETCHING
OUT OF HIS WINGS shall FILL the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel." When we look at such
figures as those which are here presented to the reader (Figs. 14 and 15), with their great extent
of expanded wing, as symbolising an Assyrian king, what a vividness and force does it give to
the inspired language of the prophet! And how clear is it, also, that the stretching forth of the
Assyrian monarch's WINGS, that was to "fill the breadth of Immanuel's land," has that very
symbolic meaning to which I have referred--viz., the overspreading of the land by his "mighty
ones," or hosts of armed men, that the king of Babylon was to bring with him in his overflowing
invasion! The knowledge of the way in which the Assyrian monarchs were represented, and of
the meaning of that representation, gives additional force to the story of the dream of Cyrus the
Great, as told by Herodotus. Cyrus, says the historian, dreamt that he saw the son of one of his
princes, who was at the time in a distant province, with two great "wings on his shoulders, the
one of which overshadowed Asia, and the other Europe," from which he immediately concluded
that he was organising rebellion against him. The symbols of the Babylonians, whose capital Cyrus had taken, and to whose power he had succeeded, were entirely familiar to him; and if the
"wings" were the symbols of sovereign power, and the possession of them implied the lordship
over the might, or the armies of the empire, it is easy to see how very naturally any suspicions of
disloyalty affecting the individual in question might take shape in the manner related, in the
dreams of him who might harbour these suspicions.
Now, the understanding of this equivocal sense of "Baal-aberin" can alone explain the
remarkable statement of Aristophanes, that at the beginning of the world "the birds" were first
created, and then after their creation, came the "race of the blessed immortal gods." This has
been regarded as either an atheistical or nonsensical utterance on the part of the poet, but, with
the true key applied to the language, it is found to contain an important historical fact. Let it only
be borne in mind that "the birds"--that is, the "winged ones"--symbolised "the Lords of the
mighty ones," and then the meaning is clear, viz., that men first "began to be mighty on the
earth"; and then, that the "Lords" or Leaders of "these mighty ones" were deified. The knowledge
of the mystic sense of this symbol accounts also for the origin of the story of Perseus, the son of
Jupiter, miraculously born of Danae, who did such wondrous things, and who passed from
country to country on wings divinely bestowed on him. This equally casts light on the symbolic
myths in regard to Bellerophon, and the feats which he performed on his winged horse, and their
ultimate disastrous issue; how high he mounted in the air, and how terrible was his fall; and of
Icarus, the son of Daedalus, who, flying on wax-cemented wings over the Icarian Sea, had his
wings melted off through his too near approach to the sun, and so gave his name to the sea where
he was supposed to have fallen. The fables all referred to those who trode, or were supposed to
have trodden, in the steps of Nimrod, the first "Lord of the mighty ones," and who in that
character was symbolised as equipped with wings.
Now, it is remarkable that, in the passage of Aristophanes already referred to, that speaks of the
birds, or "the winged ones," being produced before the gods, we are informed that he from whom
both "mighty ones" and gods derived their origin, was none other than the winged boy Cupid. *


* Aristophanes says that Eros or Cupid produced the "birds" and "gods" by
"mingling all things." This evidently points to the meaning of the name Bel,
which signifies at once "the mingler" and "the confounder." This name properly
belonged to the father of Nimrod, but, as the son was represented as identified
with the father, we have evidence that the name descended to the son and others
by inheritance.


Cupid, the son of Venus, occupied, as will afterwards be proved, in the mystic mythology the
very same position as Nin, or Ninus, "the son," did to Rhea, the mother of the gods. As Nimrod
was unquestionably the first of "the mighty ones" after the Flood, this statement of Aristophanes,
that the boy-god Cupid, himself a winged one, produced all the birds or "winged ones," while
occupying the very position of Nin or Ninus, "the son," shows that in this respect also Ninus and
Nimrod are identified. While this is the evident meaning of the poet, this also, in a strictly
historical point of view, is the conclusion of the historian Apollodorus; for he states that "Ninus
is Nimrod." And then, in conformity with this identity of Ninus and Nimrod, we find, in one of
the most celebrated sculptures of ancient Babylon, Ninus and his wife Semiramis represented as
actively engaged in the pursuits of the chase,--"the quiver-bearing Semiramis" being a fit
companion for "the mighty Hunter before the Lord."


Sub-Section II
The Child In Egypt:


When we turn to Egypt we find remarkable evidence of the same thing there also. Justin, as we
have already seen, says that "Ninus subdued all nations, as far as Lybia," and consequently
Egypt. The statement of Diodorus Siculus is to the same effect, Egypt being one of the countries
that, according to him, Ninus brought into subjection to himself. In exact accordance with these
historical statements, we find that the name of the third person in the primeval triad of Egypt was
Khons. But Khons, in Egyptian, comes from a word that signifies "to chase." Therefore, the
name of Khons, the son of Maut, the goddess-mother, who was adorned in such a way as to
identify her with Rhea, the great goddess-mother of Chaldea, * properly signifies "The
Huntsman," or god of the chase.


* The distinguishing decoration of Maut was the vulture head-dress. Now the
name of Rhea, in one of its meanings, signifies a vulture.


As Khons stands in the very same relation to the Egyptian Maut as Ninus does to Rhea, how
does this title of "The Huntsman" identify the Egyptian god with Nimrod? Now this very name
Khons, brought into contact with the Roman mythology, not only explains the meaning of a
name in the Pantheon there, that hitherto has stood greatly in need of explanation, but causes that
name, when explained, to reflect light back again on this Egyptian divinity, and to strengthen the
conclusion already arrived at. The name to which I refer is the name of the Latin god Consus,
who was in one aspect identified with Neptune, but who was also regarded as "the god of hidden
counsels," or "the concealer of secrets," who was looked up to as the patron of horsemanship,
and was said to have produced the horse. Who could be the "god of hidden counsels," or the
"concealer of secrets," but Saturn, the god of the "mysteries," and whose name as used at Rome,
signified "The hidden one"? The father of Khons, or Ohonso (as he was also called), that is,
Amoun, was, as we are told by Plutarch, known as "The hidden God"; and as father and son in
the same triad have ordinarily a correspondence of character, this shows that Khons also must
have been known in the very same character of Saturn, "The hidden one." If the Latin Consus,
then, thus exactly agreed with the Egyptian Khons, as the god of "mysteries," or "hidden
counsels," can there be a doubt that Khons, the Huntsman, also agreed with the same Roman
divinity as the supposed producer of the horse? Who so likely to get the credit of producing the
horse as the great huntsman of Babel, who no doubt enlisted it in the toils of the chase, and by
this means must have been signally aided in his conflicts with the wild beasts of the forest? In
this connection, let the reader call to mind that fabulous creature, the Centaur, half-man, half-
horse, that figures so much in the mythology of Greece. That imaginary creation, as is generally
admitted, was intended to commemorate the man who first taught the art of horsemanship. *


* In illustration of the principle that led to the making of the image of the Centaur,
the following passage may be given from PRESCOTT'S Mexico, as showing the
feelings of the Mexicans on first seeing a man on horseback: "He [Cortes] ordered
his men [who were cavalry] to direct their lances at the faces of their opponents,
who, terrified at the monstrous apparition--for they supposed the rider and the
horse, which they had never before seen, to be one and the same--were seized
with a panic."


But that creation was not the offspring of Greek fancy. Here, as in many other things, the Greeks
have only borrowed from an earlier source. The Centaur is found on coins struck in Babylonia
(Fig. 16), * showing that the idea must have originally come from that quarter. The Centaur is
found in the Zodiac (Fig. 17), the antiquity of which goes up to a high period, and which had its
origin in Babylon. The Centaur was represented, as we are expressly assured by Berosus, the
Babylonian historian, in the temple of Babylon, and his language would seem to show that so
also it had been in primeval times. The Greeks did themselves admit this antiquity and derivation of the Centaur; for though Ixion was commonly represented as the father of the Centaurs, yet
they also acknowledge that the primitive Centaurus was the same as Kronos, or Saturn, the father
of the gods. **
* See Nineveh and Babylon, p. 250, and BRYANT, vol. iii. Plate, p. 245.
** Scholiast in Lycophron, BRYANT. The Scholiast says that Chiron was the son
of "Centaurus, that is, Kronos." If any one objects that, as Chiron is said to have
lived in the time of the Trojan war, this shows that his father Kronos could not be
the father of gods and men, Xenophon answers by saying "that Kronos was the
brother of Jupiter." De Venatione
But we have seen that Kronos was the first King of Babylon, or Nimrod; consequently, the first
Centaur was the same. Now, the way in which the Centaur was represented on the Babylonian
coins, and in the Zodiac, viewed in this light, is very striking. The Centaur was the same as the
sign Sagittarius, or "The Archer." If the founder of Babylon's glory was "The mighty Hunter,"
whose name, even in the days of Moses, was a proverb--(Gen 10:9, "Wherefore, it is said, Even
as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord")--when we find the "Archer" with his bow and
arrow, in the symbol of the supreme Babylonian divinity, and the "Archer," among the signs of
the Zodiac that originated in Babylon, I think we may safely conclude that this Man-horse or
Horse-man Archer primarily referred to him, and was intended to perpetuate the memory at once
of his fame as a huntsman and his skill as a horse-breaker.5
Now, when we thus compare the Egyptian Khons, the "Huntsman," with the Latin Consus, the
god of horse-races, who "produced the horse," and the Centaur of Babylon, to whom was
attributed the honour of being the author of horsemanship, while we see how all the lines
converge in Babylon, it will be very clear, I think, whence the primitive Egyptian god Khons has
been derived.
Khons, the son of the great goddess-mother, seems to have been generally represented as a full-
grown god. The Babylonian divinity was also represented very frequently in Egypt in the very
same way as in the land of his nativity--i.e., as a child in his mother's arms. *


* One of the symbols with which Khons was represented, shows that even he was
identified with the child-god; "for," says Wilkinson, "at the side of his head fell
the plaited lock of Harpocrates, or childhood."


This was the way in which Osiris, "the son, the husband of his mother," was often exhibited, and
what we learn of this god, equally as in the case of Khons, shows that in his original he was none
other than Nimrod. It is admitted that the secret system of Free Masonry was originally founded
on the Mysteries of the Egyptian Isis, the goddess-mother, or wife of Osiris. But what could have
led to the union of a Masonic body with these Mysteries, had they not had particular reference to
architecture, and had the god who was worshipped in them not been celebrated for his success in
perfecting the arts of fortification and building? Now, if such were the case, considering the
relation in which, as we have already seen, Egypt stood to Babylon, who would naturally be
looked up to there as the great patron of the Masonic art? The strong presumption is, that Nimrod must have been the man. He was the first that gained fame in this way. As the child of the
Babylonian goddess-mother, he was worshipped, as we have seen, in the character of Ala
mahozim, "The god of fortifications." Osiris, in like manner, the child of the Egyptian Madonna,
was equally celebrated as "the strong chief of the buildings." This strong chief of the buildings
was originally worshipped in Egypt with every physical characteristic of Nimrod. I have already
noticed the fact that Nimrod, as the son of Cush, was a Negro. Now, there was a tradition in
Egypt, recorded by Plutarch, that "Osiris was black," which, in a land where the general
complexion was dusky, must have implied something more than ordinary in its darkness.
Plutarch also states that Horus, the son of Osiris, "was of a fair complexion," and it was in this
way, for the most part, that Osiris was represented. But we have unequivocal evidence that
Osiris, the son and husband of the great goddess-queen of Egypt, was also represented as a
veritable Negro. In Wilkinson may be found a representation of him (Fig. 18) with the
unmistakable features of the genuine Cushite or Negro. Bunsen would have it that this is a mere
random importation from some of the barbaric tribes; but the dress in which this Negro god is
arrayed tells a different tale. That dress directly connects him with Nimrod. This Negro-featured
Osiris is clothed from head to foot in a spotted dress, the upper part being a leopard's skin, the
under part also being spotted to correspond with it. Now the name Nimrod * signifies "the
subduer of the leopard."


* "Nimr-rod"; from Nimr, a "leopard," and rada or rad "to subdue." According to
invariable custom in Hebrew, when two consonants come together as the two rs in
Nimr-rod, one of them is sunk. Thus Nin-neveh, "The habitation of Ninus,"
becomes Nineveh. The name Nimrod is commonly derived from Mered, "to
rebel"; but a difficulty has always been found in regard to this derivation, as that would make the name Nimrod properly passive not "the rebel," but "he who was
rebelled against." There is no doubt that Nimrod was a rebel, and that his
rebellion was celebrated in ancient myths; but his name in that character was not
Nimrod, but Merodach, or, as among the Romans, Mars, "the rebel"; or among the
Oscans of Italy, Mamers (SMITH), "The causer of rebellion." That the Roman
Mars was really, in his original, the Babylonian god, is evident from the name
given to the goddess, who was recognised sometimes as his "sister," and
sometimes as his "wife"--i.e., Bellona, which, in Chaldee, signifies, "The
Lamenter of Bel" (from Bel and onah, to lament). The Egyptian Isis, the sister and
wife of Osiris, is in like manner represented, as we have seen, as "lamenting her
brother Osiris." (BUNSEN)


This name seems to imply, that as Nimrod had gained fame by subduing the horse, and so
making use of it in the chase, so his fame as a huntsman rested mainly on this, that he found out
the art of making the leopard aid him in hunting the other wild beasts. A particular kind of tame
leopard is used in India at this day for hunting; and of Bagajet I, the Mogul Emperor of India, it
is recorded that in his hunting establishment he had not only hounds of various breeds, but
leopards also, whose "collars were set with jewels." Upon the words of the prophet Habakkuk
1:8, "swifter than leopards," Kitto has the following remarks:--"The swiftness of the leopard is
proverbial in all countries where it is found. This, conjoined with its other qualities, suggested
the idea in the East of partially training it, that it might be employed in hunting...Leopards are
now rarely kept for hunting in Western Asia, unless by kings and governors; but they are more
common in the eastern parts of Asia. Orosius relates that one was sent by the king of Portugal to
the Pope, which excited great astonishment by the way in which it overtook, and the facility with
which it killed, deer and wild boars. Le Bruyn mentions a leopard kept by the Pasha who
governed Gaza, and the other territories of the ancient Philistines, and which he frequently
employed in hunting jackals. But it is in India that the cheetah, or hunting leopard, is most
frequently employed, and is seen in the perfection of his power." This custom of taming the
leopard, and pressing it into the service of man in this way, is traced up to the earliest times of
primitive antiquity. In the works of Sir William Jones, we find it stated from the Persian legends,
that Hoshang, the father of Tahmurs, who built Babylon, was the "first who bred dogs and
leopards for hunting." As Tahmurs, who built Babylon, could be none other than Nimrod, this
legend only attributes to his father what, as his name imports, he got the fame of doing himself.
Now, as the classic god bearing the lion's skin is recognised by that sign as Hercules, the slayer
of the Nemean lion, so in like manner, the god clothed in the leopard's skin would naturally be
marked out as Nimrod, the "leopard-subduer." That this leopard skin, as appertaining to the
Egyptian god, was no occasional thing, we have clearest evidence. Wilkinson tells us, that on all
high occasions when the Egyptian high priest was called to officiate, it was indispensable that he
should do so wearing, as his robe of office, the leopard's skin (Fig. 19). As it is a universal
principle in all idolatries that the high priest wears the insignia of the god he serves, this indicates
the importance which the spotted skin must have had attached to it as a symbol of the god
himself. The ordinary way in which the favourite Egyptian divinity Osiris was mystically
represented was under the form of a young bull or calf--the calf Apis--from which the golden
calf of the Israelites was borrowed. There was a reason why that calf should not commonly
appear in the appropriate symbols of the god he represented, for that calf represented the divinity
in the character of Saturn, "The HIDDEN one," "Apis" being only another name for Saturn. *


* The name of Apis in Egyptian is Hepi or Hapi, which is evidently from the
Chaldee "Hap," "to cover." In Egyptian Hap signifies "to conceal." (BUNSEN)


The cow of Athor, however, the female divinity corresponding to Apis, is well known as a
"spotted cow," (WILKINSON) and it is singular that the Druids of Britain also worshipped "a
spotted cow" (DAVIES'S Druids). Rare though it be, however, to find an instance of the deified
calf or young bull represented with the spots, there is evidence still in existence, that even it was
sometimes so represented. The accompanying figure (Fig. 20) represents that divinity, as copied
by Col. Hamilton Smith "from the original collection made by the artists of the French Institute
of Cairo." When we find that Osiris, the grand god of Egypt, under different forms, was thus
arrayed in a leopard's skin or spotted dress, and that the leopard-skin dress was so indispensable
a part of the sacred robes of his high priest, we may be sure that there was a deep meaning in
such a costume. And what could that meaning be, but just to identify Osiris with the Babylonian
god, who was celebrated as the "Leopard-tamer," and who was worshipped even as he was, as
Ninus, the CHILD in his mother's arms?


Sub-Section III
The Child in Greece:


Thus much for Egypt. Coming into Greece, not only do we find evidence there to the same
effect, but increase of that evidence. The god worshipped as a child in the arms of the great
Mother in Greece, under the names of Dionysus, or Bacchus, or Iacchus, is, by ancient inquirers,
expressly identified with the Egyptian Osiris. This is the case with Herodotus, who had
prosecuted his inquiries in Egypt itself, who ever speaks of Osiris as Bacchus. To the same
purpose is the testimony of Diodorus Siculus. "Orpheus," says he, "introduced from Egypt the
greatest part of the mystical ceremonies, the orgies that celebrate the wanderings of Ceres, and
the whole fable of the shades below. The rites of Osiris and Bacchus are the same; those of Isis
and Ceres exactly resemble each other, except in name." Now, as if to identify Bacchus with
Nimrod, "the Leopard-tamer," leopards were employed to draw his car; he himself was
represented as clothed with a leopard's skin; his priests were attired in the same manner, or when
a leopard's skin was dispensed with, the spotted skin of a fawn was used as a priestly robe in its
stead. This very custom of wearing the spotted fawn-skin seems to have been imported into
Greece originally from Assyria, where a spotted fawn was a sacred emblem, as we learn from the
Nineveh sculptures; for there we find a divinity bearing a spotted fawn or spotted fallow-deer
(Fig. 21), in his arm, as a symbol of some mysterious import. The origin of the importance
attached to the spotted fawn and its skin had evidently come thus: When Nimrod, as "the
Leopard-tamer," began to be clothed in the leopard-skin, as the trophy of his skill, his spotted
dress and appearance must have impressed the imaginations of those who saw him; and he came
to be called not only the "Subduer of the Spotted one" (for such is the precise meaning of Nimr--
the name of the leopard), but to be called "The spotted one" himself. We have distinct evidence
to this effect borne by Damascius, who tells us that the Babylonians called "the only son" of the
great goddess-mother "Momis, or Moumis." Now, Momis, or Moumis, in Chaldee, like Nimr,
signified "The spotted one." Thus, then, it became easy to represent Nimrod by the symbol of the
"spotted fawn," and especially in Greece, and wherever a pronunciation akin to that of Greece
prevailed. The name of Nimrod, as known to the Greeks, was Nebrod. * The name of the fawn,
as "the spotted one," in Greece was Nebros; ** and thus nothing could be more natural than that
Nebros, the "spotted fawn," should become a synonym for Nebrod himself. When, therefore, the
Bacchus of Greece was symbolised by the Nebros, or "spotted fawn," as we shall find he was symbolised, what could be the design but just covertly to identify him with Nimrod?


* In the Greek Septuagint, translated in Egypt, the name of Nimrod is "Nebrod."
** Nebros, the name of the fawn, signifies "the spotted one." Nmr, in Egypt,
would also become Nbr; for Bunsen shows that m and b in that land were often
convertible.


We have evidence that this god, whose emblem was the Nebros, was known as having the very
lineage of Nimrod. From Anacreon, we find that a title of Bacchus was Aithiopais--i.e., "the son
of Aethiops." But who was Aethiops? As the Aethiopians were Cushites, so Aethiops was Cush.
"Chus," says Eusebius, "was he from whom came the Aethiopians." The testimony of Josephus is
to the same effect. As the father of the Aethiopians, Cush was Aethiops, by way of eminence.
Therefore Epiphanius, referring to the extraction of Nimrod, thus speaks: "Nimrod, the son of
Cush, the Aethiop." Now, as Bacchus was the son of Aethiops, or Cush, so to the eye he was
represented in that character. As Nin "the Son," he was portrayed as a youth or child; and that
youth or child was generally depicted with a cup in his hand. That cup, to the multitude,
exhibited him as the god of drunken revelry; and of such revelry in his orgies, no doubt there was
abundance; but yet, after all, the cup was mainly a hieroglyphic, and that of the name of the god.
The name of a cup, in the sacred language, was khus, and thus the cup in the hand of the youthful
Bacchus, the son of Aethiops, showed that he was the young Chus, or the son of Chus. In the
accompanying woodcut (Fig. 22), the cup in the right hand of Bacchus is held up in so
significant a way, as naturally to suggest that it must be a symbol; and as to the branch in the
other hand, we have express testimony that it is a symbol. But it is worthy of notice that the
branch has no leaves to determine what precise kind of a branch it is. It must, therefore, be a
generic emblem for a branch, or a symbol of a branch in general; and, consequently, it needs the
cup as its complement, to determine specifically what sort of a branch it is. The two symbols, then, must be read together, and read thus, they are just equivalent to--the "Branch of Chus"--i.e.,
"the scion or son of Cush." *


* Everyone knows that Homer's odzos Areos, or "Branch of Mars," is the same as
a "Son of Mars." The hieroglyphic above was evidently formed on the same
principle. That the cup alone in the hand of the youthful Bacchus was intended to
designate him "as the young Chus," or "the boy Chus," we may fairly conclude
from a statement of Pausanias, in which he represents "the boy Kuathos" as acting
the part of a cup-bearer, and presenting a cup to Hercules (PAUSANIAS
Corinthiaca) Kuathos is the Greek for a "cup," and is evidently derived from the
Hebrew Khus, "a cup," which, in one of its Chaldee forms, becomes Khuth or
Khuath. Now, it is well known that the name of Cush is often found in the form of
Cuth, and that name, in certain dialects, would be Cuath. The "boy Kuathos,"
then, is just the Greek form of the "boy Cush," or "the young Cush."


There is another hieroglyphic connected with Bacchus that goes not a little to confirm this--that
is, the Ivy branch. No emblem was more distinctive of the worship of Bacchus than this.
Wherever the rites of Bacchus were performed, wherever his orgies were celebrated, the Ivy
branch was sure to appear. Ivy, in some form or other, was essential to these celebrations. The
votaries carried it in their hands, bound it around their heads, or had the Ivy leaf even indelibly
stamped upon their persons. What could be the use, what could be the meaning of this? A few
words will suffice to show it. In the first place, then, we have evidence that Kissos, the Greek name for Ivy, was one of the names of Bacchus; and further, that though the name of Cush, in its
proper form, was known to the priests in the Mysteries, yet that the established way in which the
name of his descendants, the Cushites, was ordinarily pronounced in Greece, was not after the
Oriental fashion, but as "Kissaioi," or "Kissioi." Thus, Strabo, speaking of the inhabitants of
Susa, who were the people of Chusistan, or the ancient land of Cush, says: "The Susians are
called Kissioi," * --that is beyond all question, Cushites.


* STRABO. In Hesychius, the name is Kissaioi. The epithet applied to the land of
Cush in Aeschylus is Kissinos. The above accounts for one of the unexplained
titles of Apollo. "Kisseus Apollon" is plainly "The Cushite Apollo."


Now, if Kissioi be Cushites, then Kissos is Cush. Then, further, the branch of Ivy that occupied
so conspicuous a place in all Bacchanalian celebrations was an express symbol of Bacchus
himself; for Hesychius assures us that Bacchus, as represented by his priest, was known in the
Mysteries as "The branch." From this, then, it appears how Kissos, the Greek name of Ivy,
became the name of Bacchus. As the son of Cush, and as identified with him, he was sometimes
called by his father's name--Kissos. His actual relation, however, to his father was specifically
brought out by the Ivy branch, for "the branch of Kissos," which to the profane vulgar was only "the branch of Ivy," was to the initiated "The branch of Cush." *


* The chaplet, or head-band of Ivy, had evidently a similar hieroglyphical
meaning to the above, for the Greek "Zeira Kissou" is either a "band or circlet of
Ivy," or "The seed of Cush." The formation of the Greek "Zeira," a zone or
enclosing band, from the Chaldee Zer, to encompass, shows that Zero "the seed,"
which was also pronounced Zeraa, would, in like manner, in some Greek dialects,
become Zeira. Kissos, "Ivy," in Greek, retains the radical idea of the Chaldee
Khesha or Khesa, "to cover or hide," from which there is reason to believe the
name of Cush is derived, for Ivy is characteristically "The coverer or hider." In
connection with this, it may be stated that the second person of the Phoenician
trinity was Chursorus (WILKINSON), which evidently is Chus-zoro, "The seed
of Cush." We have already seen that the Phoenicians derived their mythology
from Assyria.


Now, this god, who was recognised as "the scion of Cush," was worshipped under a name,
which, while appropriate to him in his vulgar character as the god of the vintage, did also
describe him as the great Fortifier. That name was Bassareus, which, in its two-fold meaning,
signified at once "The houser of grapes, or the vintage gatherer," and "The Encompasser with a
wall," * in this latter sense identifying the Grecian god with the Egyptian Osiris, "the strong chief
of the buildings," and with the Assyrian "Belus, who encompassed Babylon with a wall."


* Bassareus is evidently from the Chaldee Batzar, to which both Gesenius and
Parkhurst give the two-fold meaning of "gathering in grapes," and "fortifying."
Batzar is softened into Bazzar in the very same way as Nebuchadnetzar is
pronounced Nebuchadnezzar. In the sense of "rendering a defence inaccessible,"
Gesenius adduces Jeremiah 51:53, "Though Babylon should mount up to heaven,
and though she should fortify (tabatzar) the height of her strength, yet from me
shall spoilers come unto her, saith the Lord." Here is evident reference to the two
great elements in Babylon's strength, first her tower; secondly, her massive
fortifications, or encompassing walls. In making the meaning of Batzar to be, "to render inaccessible," Gesenius seems to have missed the proper generic meaning
of the term. Batzar is a compound verb, from Ba, "in," and Tzar, "to compass,"
exactly equivalent to our English word "en-compass."


Thus from Assyria, Egypt, and Greece, we have cumulative and overwhelming evidence, all
conspiring to demonstrate that the child worshipped in the arms of the goddess-mother in all
these countries in the very character of Ninus or Nin, "The Son," was Nimrod, the son of Cush.
A feature here, or an incident there, may have been borrowed from some succeeding hero; but it
seems impossible to doubt, that of that child Nimrod was the prototype, the grand original.
The amazing extent of the worship of this man indicates something very extraordinary in his
character; and there is ample reason to believe, that in his own day he was an object of high
popularity. Though by setting up as king, Nimrod invaded the patriarchal system, and abridged
the liberties of mankind, yet he was held by many to have conferred benefits upon them, that
amply indemnified them for the loss of their liberties, and covered him with glory and renown.
By the time that he appeared, the wild beasts of the forest multiplying more rapidly than the
human race, must have committed great depredations on the scattered and straggling populations
of the earth, and must have inspired great terror into the minds of men. The danger arising to the
lives of men from such a source as this, when population is scanty, is implied in the reason given
by God Himself for not driving out the doomed Canaanites before Israel at once, though the
measure of their iniquity was full (Exo 23:29,30): "I will not drive them out from before thee in
one year, lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By little
and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased." The exploits of
Nimrod, therefore, in hunting down the wild beasts of the field, and ridding the world of
monsters, must have gained for him the character of a pre-eminent benefactor of his race. By this
means, not less than by the bands he trained, was his power acquired, when he first began to be
mighty upon the earth; and in the same way, no doubt, was that power consolidated. Then, over
and above, as the first great city-builder after the flood, by gathering men together in masses, and
surrounding them with walls, he did still more to enable them to pass their days in security, free
from the alarms to which they had been exposed in their scattered life, when no one could tell
but that at any moment he might be called to engage in deadly conflict with prowling wild
beasts, in defence of his own life and of those who were dear to him. Within the battlements of a
fortified city no such danger from savage animals was to be dreaded; and for the security
afforded in this way, men no doubt looked upon themselves as greatly indebted to Nimrod. No
wonder, therefore, that the name of the "mighty hunter," who was at the same time the prototype
of "the god of fortifications," should have become a name of renown. Had Nimrod gained
renown only thus, it had been well. But not content with delivering men from the fear of wild
beasts, he set to work also to emancipate them from that fear of the Lord which is the beginning
of wisdom, and in which alone true happiness can be found. For this very thing, he seems to have
gained, as one of the titles by which men delighted to honour him, the title of the "Emancipator,"
or "Deliverer." The reader may remember a name that has already come under his notice. That
name is the name of Phoroneus. The era of Phoroneus is exactly the era of Nimrod. He lived
about the time when men had used one speech, when the confusion of tongues began, and when
mankind was scattered abroad. He is said to have been the first that gathered mankind into
communities, the first of mortals that reigned, and the first that offered idolatrous sacrifices. This
character can agree with none but that of Nimrod. Now the name given to him in connection with
his "gathering men together," and offering idolatrous sacrifice, is very significant. Phoroneus, in
one of its meanings, and that one of the most natural, signifies the "Apostate." * That name had very likely been given him by the uninfected portion of the sons of Noah. But that name had also
another meaning, that is, "to set free"; and therefore his own adherents adopted it, and glorified
the great "Apostate" from the primeval faith, though he was the first that abridged the liberties of
mankind, as the grand "Emancipator!" ** And hence, in one form or other, this title was handed
down to this deified successors as a title of honour. ***


* From Pharo, also pronounced Pharang, or Pharong, "to cast off, to make naked,
to apostatise, to set free." These meanings are not commonly given in this order,
but as the sense of "casting off" explains all the other meanings, that warrants the
conclusion that "to cast off" is the generic sense of the word. Now "apostacy" is
very near akin to this sense, and therefore is one of the most natural.
** The Sabine goddess Feronia had evidently a relation to Phoroneus, as the
"Emancipator." She was believed to be the "goddess of liberty," because at
Terracina (or Anuxur) slaves were emancipated in her temple (Servius, in
Aeneid), and because the freedmen of Rome are recorded on one occasion to have
collected a sum of money for the purpose of offering it in her temple. (SMITH'S
Classical Dictionary, "Feronia")
*** Thus we read of "Zeus Aphesio" (PAUSANIAS, Attica), that is "Jupiter
Liberator" and of "Dionysus Eleuthereus" (PAUSANIAS), or "Bacchus the
Deliverer." The name of Theseus seems to have had the same origin, from nthes
"to loosen," and so to set free (the n being omissible). "The temple of Theseus" [at
Athens] says POTTER "...was allowed the privilege of being a Sanctuary for
slaves, and all those of mean condition that fled from the persecution of men in
power, in memory that Theseus, while he lived, was an assister and protector of
the distressed."


All tradition from the earliest times bears testimony to the apostacy of Nimrod, and to his
success in leading men away from the patriarchal faith, and delivering their minds from that awe
of God and fear of the judgments of heaven that must have rested on them while yet the memory
of the flood was recent. And according to all the principles of depraved human nature, this too,
no doubt, was one grand element in his fame; for men will readily rally around any one who can
give the least appearance of plausibility to any doctrine which will teach that they can be assured
of happiness and heaven at last, though their hearts and natures are unchanged, and though they
live without God in the world.
How great was the boon conferred by Nimrod on the human race, in the estimation of ungodly
men, by emancipating them from the impressions of true religion, and putting the authority of
heaven to a distance from them, we find most vividly described in a Polynesian tradition, that
carries its own evidence with it. John Williams, the well known missionary, tells us that,
according to one of the ancient traditions of the islanders of the South Seas, "the heavens were
originally so close to the earth that men could not walk, but were compelled to crawl" under
them. "This was found a very serious evil; but at length an individual conceived the sublime idea
of elevating the heavens to a more convenient height. For this purpose he put forth his utmost
energy, and by the first effort raised them to the top of a tender plant called teve, about four feet
high. There he deposited them until he was refreshed, when, by a second effort, he lifted them to
the height of a tree called Kauariki, which is as large as the sycamore. By the third attempt he
carried them to the summits of the mountains; and after a long interval of repose, and by a most prodigious effort, he elevated them to their present situation." For this, as a mighty benefactor of
mankind, "this individual was deified; and up to the moment that Christianity was embraced, the
deluded inhabitants worshipped him as the 'Elevator of the heavens.'" Now, what could more
graphically describe the position of mankind soon after the flood, and the proceedings of Nimrod
as Phoroneus, "The Emancipator," * than this Polynesian fable?


* The bearing of this name, Phoroneus, "The Emancipator," will be seen in
Chapter III, Section I, "Christmas," where it is shown that slaves had a temporary
emancipation at his birthday.


While the awful catastrophe by which God had showed His avenging justice on the sinners of the
old world was yet fresh in the minds of men, and so long as Noah, and the upright among his
descendants, sought with all earnestness to impress upon all under their control the lessons which
that solemn event was so well fitted to teach, "heaven," that is, God, must have seemed very near
to earth. To maintain the union between heaven and earth, and to keep it as close as possible,
must have been the grand aim of all who loved God and the best interests of the human race. But
this implied the restraining and discountenancing of all vice and all those "pleasures of sin," after
which the natural mind, unrenewed and unsanctified, continually pants. This must have been
secretly felt by every unholy mind as a state of insufferable bondage. "The carnal mind is enmity
against God," is "not subject to His law," neither indeed is "able to be" so. It says to the
Almighty, "Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways." So long as the
influence of the great father of the new world was in the ascendant, while his maxims were
regarded, and a holy atmosphere surrounded the world, no wonder that those who were alienated
from God and godliness, felt heaven and its influence and authority to be intolerably near, and
that in such circumstances they "could not walk," but only "crawl,"--that is, that they had no
freedom to "walk after the sight of their own eyes and the imaginations of their own hearts."
From this bondage Nimrod emancipated them. By the apostacy he introduced, by the free life he
developed among those who rallied around him, and by separating them from the holy influences
that had previously less or more controlled them, he helped them to put God and the strict
spirituality of His law at a distance, and thus he became the "Elevator of the heavens," making
men feel and act as if heaven were afar off from earth, and as if either the God of heaven "could
not see through the dark cloud," or did not regard with displeasure the breakers of His laws. Then
all such would feel that they could breathe freely, and that now they could walk at liberty. For
this, such men could not but regard Nimrod as a high benefactor.
Now, who could have imagined that a tradition from Tahiti would have illuminated the story of
Atlas? But yet, when Atlas, bearing the heavens on his shoulders, is brought into juxtaposition
with the deified hero of the South Seas, who blessed the world by heaving up the
superincumbent heavens that pressed so heavily upon it, who does not see that the one story
bears a relation to the other? *


* In the Polynesian story the heavens and earth are said to have been "bound
together with cords," and the "severing" of these cords is said to have been
effected by myriads of "dragon-flies," which, with their "wings," bore an
important share in the great work. (WILLIAMS) Is there not here a reference to
Nimrod's `63 "mighties" or "winged ones"? The deified "mighty ones" were often
represented as winged serpents. See WILKINSON, vol. iv. p. 232, where the god
Agathodaemon is represented as a "winged asp." Among a rude people the
memory of such a representation might very naturally be kept up in connection with the "dragon-fly"; and as all the mighty or winged ones of Nimrod's age, the
real golden age of paganism, when "dead, became daemons" (HESIOD, Works
and Days), they would of course all alike be symbolised in the same way. If any
be stumbled at the thought of such a connection between the mythology of Tahiti
and of Babel, let it not be overlooked that the name of the Tahitian god of war
was Oro (WILLIAMS), while "Horus (or Orus)," as Wilkinson calls the son of
Osiris, in Egypt, which unquestionably borrowed its system from Babylon,
appeared in that very character. (WILKINSON) Then what could the severing of
the "cords" that bound heaven and earth together be, but just the breaking of the
bands of the covenant by which God bound the earth to Himself, when on
smelling a sweet savour in Noah's sacrifice, He renewed His covenant with him as
head of the human race. This covenant did not merely respect the promise to the
earth securing it against another universal deluge, but contained in its bosom a
promise of all spiritual blessings to those who adhere to it. The smelling of the
sweet savour in Noah's sacrifice had respect to his faith in Christ. When,
therefore, in consequence of smelling that sweet savour, "God blessed Noah and
his sons" (Gen 9:1), that had reference not merely to temporal but to spiritual and
eternal blessings. Every one, therefore, of the sons of Noah, who had Noah's faith,
and who walked as Noah walked, was divinely assured of an interest in "the
everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure." Blessed were those bands by
which God bound the believing children of men to Himself--by which heaven and
earth were so closely joined together. Those, on the other hand, who joined in the
apostacy of Nimrod broke the covenant, and in casting off the authority of God,
did in effect say, "Let us break His bands asunder, and cast His cords from us."
To this very act of severing the covenant connection between earth and heaven
there is very distinct allusion, though veiled, in the Babylonian history of Berosus.
There Belus, that is Nimrod, after having dispelled the primeval darkness, is said
to have separated heaven and earth from one another, and to have orderly
arranged the world. (BEROSUS, in BUNSEN) These words were intended to
represent Belus as the "Former of the world." But then it is a new world that he
forms; for there are creatures in existence before his Demiurgic power is exerted.
The new world that Belus or Nimrod formed, was just the new order of things
which he introduced when, setting at nought all Divine appointments, he rebelled
against Heaven. The rebellion of the Giants is represented as peculiarly a
rebellion against Heaven. To this ancient quarrel between the Babylonian
potentates and Heaven, there is plainly an allusion in the words of Daniel to
Nebuchadnezzar, when announcing that sovereign's humiliation and subsequent
restoration, he says (Dan 4:26), "Thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, when thou
hast known that the HEAVENS do rule."


Thus, then, it appears that Atlas, with the heavens resting on his broad shoulders, refers to no
mere distinction in astronomical knowledge, however great, as some have supposed, but to a
quite different thing, even to that great apostacy in which the Giants rebelled against Heaven,
and in which apostacy Nimrod, "the mighty one," * as the acknowledged ringleader, occupied a
pre-eminent place. **


* In the Greek Septuagint, translated in Egypt, the term "mighty" as applied in
Genesis 10:8, to Nimrod, is rendered the ordinary name for a "Giant."
** IVAN and KALLERY, in their account of Japan, show that a similar story to
that of Atlas was known there, for they say that once a day the Emperor "sits on
his throne upholding the world and the empire." Now something like this came to
be added to the story of Atlas, for PAUSANIAS shows that Atlas also was
represented as upholding both earth and heaven.


According to the system which Nimrod was the grand instrument in introducing, men were led to
believe that a real spiritual change of heart was unnecessary, and that so far as change was
needful, they could be regenerated by mere external means. Looking at the subject in the light of
the Bacchanalian orgies, which, as the reader has seen, commemorated the history of Nimrod, it
is evident that he led mankind to seek their chief good in sensual enjoyment, and showed them
how they might enjoy the pleasures of sin, without any fear of the wrath of a holy God. In his
various expeditions he was always accompanied by troops of women; and by music and song,
and games and revelries, and everything that could please the natural heart, he commended
himself to the good graces of mankind.


Sub-Section IV
The Death of the Child:


How Nimrod died, Scripture is entirely silent. There was an ancient tradition that he came to a
violent end. The circumstances of that end, however, as antiquity represents them, are clouded
with fable. It is said that tempests of wind sent by God against the Tower of Babel overthrew it,
and that Nimrod perished in its ruins. This could not be true, for we have sufficient evidence that
the Tower of Babel stood long after Nimrod's day. Then, in regard to the death of Ninus, profane
history speaks darkly and mysteriously, although one account tells of his having met with a
violent death similar to that of Pentheus, Lycurgus, * and Orpheus, who were said to have been
torn in pieces. **


* Lycurgus, who is commonly made the enemy of Bacchus, was, by the Thracians
and Phrygians, identified with Bacchus, who it is well known, was torn in pieces.
** LUDOVICUS VIVES, Commentary on Augustine. Ninus as referred to by
Vives is called "King of India." The word "India" in classical writers, though not
always, yet commonly means Ethiopia, or the land of Cush. Thus the Choaspes in
the land of the eastern Cushites is called an "Indian River" (DIONYSIUS AFER.
Periergesis); and the Nile is said by Virgil to come from the "coloured Indians"
(Georg)--i.e., from the Cushites, or Ethiopians of Africa. Osiris also is by
Diodorus Siculus (Bibliotheca), called "an Indian by extraction." There can be no
doubt, then, that "Ninus, king of India," is the Cushite or Ethiopian Ninus.


The identity of Nimrod, however, and the Egyptian Osiris, having been established, we have
thereby light as to Nimrod's death. Osiris met with a violent death, and that violent death of
Osiris was the central theme of the whole idolatry of Egypt. If Osiris was Nimrod, as we have
seen, that violent death which the Egyptians so pathetically deplored in their annual festivals was
just the death of Nimrod. The accounts in regard to the death of the god worshipped in the
several mysteries of the different countries are all to the same effect. A statement of Plato seems
to show, that in his day the Egyptian Osiris was regarded as identical with Tammuz; * and
Tammuz is well known to have been the same as Adonis, the famous HUNTSMAN, for whose
death Venus is fabled to have made such bitter lamentations.


* See WILKINSON'S Egyptians. The statement of Plato amounts to this, that the
famous Thoth was a counsellor of Thamus, king of Egypt. Now Thoth is
universally known as the "counsellor" of Osiris. Hence it may be concluded that
Thamus and Osiris are the same.


As the women of Egypt wept for Osiris, as the Phoenician and Assyrian women wept for
Tammuz, so in Greece and Rome the women wept for Bacchus, whose name, as we have seen,
means "The bewailed," or "Lamented one." And now, in connection with the Bacchanal
lamentations, the importance of the relation established between Nebros, "The spotted fawn,"
and Nebrod, "The mighty hunter," will appear. The Nebros, or "spotted fawn," was the symbol of
Bacchus, as representing Nebrod or Nimrod himself. Now, on certain occasions, in the mystical
celebrations, the Nebros, or "spotted fawn," was torn in pieces, expressly, as we learn from
Photius, as a commemoration of what happened to Bacchus, * whom that fawn represented.


* Photius, under the head "Nebridzion" quotes Demosthenes as saying that
"spotted fawns (or nebroi) were torn in pieces for a certain mystic or mysterious
reason"; and he himself tells us that "the tearing in pieces of the nebroi (or spotted
fawns) was in imitation of the suffering in the case of Dionysus" or Bacchus.
(PHOTIUS, Lexicon)


The tearing in pieces of Nebros, "the spotted one," goes to confirm the conclusion, that the death
of Bacchus, even as the death of Osiris, represented the death of Nebrod, whom, under the very
name of "The Spotted one," the Babylonians worshipped. Though we do not find any account of
Mysteries observed in Greece in memory of Orion, the giant and mighty hunter celebrated by
Homer, under that name, yet he was represented symbolically as having died in a similar way to
that in which Osiris died, and as having then been translated to heaven. *


* See OVID'S Fasti. Ovid represents Orion as so puffed up with pride on account
of his great strength, as vain-gloriously to boast that no creature on earth could
cope with him, whereupon a scorpion appeared, "and," says the poet, "he was
added to the stars." The name of a scorpion in Chaldee is Akrab; but Ak-rab, thus
divided, signifies "THE GREAT OPPRESSOR," and this is the hidden meaning
of the Scorpion as represented in the Zodiac. That sign typifies him who cut off
the Babylonian god, and suppressed the system he set up. It was while the sun
was in Scorpio that Osiris in Egypt "disappeared" (WILKINSON), and great
lamentations were made for his disappearance. Another subject was mixed up
with the death of the Egyptian god; but it is specially to be noticed that, as it was
in consequence of a conflict with a scorpion that Orion was "added to the stars,"
so it was when the scorpion was in the ascendant that Osiris "disappeared."


From Persian records we are expressly assured that it was Nimrod who was deified after his
death by the name of Orion, and placed among the stars. Here, then, we have large and
consenting evidence, all leading to one conclusion, that the death of Nimrod, the child
worshipped in the arms of the goddess-mother of Babylon, was a death of violence.
Now, when this mighty hero, in the midst of his career of glory, was suddenly cut off by a
violent death, great seems to have been the shock that the catastrophe occasioned. When the
news spread abroad, the devotees of pleasure felt as if the best benefactor of mankind were gone,
and the gaiety of nations eclipsed. Loud was the wail that everywhere ascended to heaven among
the apostates from the primeval faith for so dire a catastrophe. Then began those weepings for Tammuz, in the guilt of which the daughters of Israel allowed themselves to be implicated, and
the existence of which can be traced not merely in the annals of classical antiquity, but in the
literature of the world from Ultima Thule to Japan.
Of the prevalence of such weepings in China, thus speaks the Rev. W. Gillespie: "The dragon-
boat festival happens in midsummer, and is a season of great excitement. About 2000 years ago
there lived a young Chinese Mandarin, Wat-yune, highly respected and beloved by the people.
To the grief of all, he was suddenly drowned in the river. Many boats immediately rushed out in
search of him, but his body was never found. Ever since that time, on the same day of the month,
the dragon-boats go out in search of him." "It is something," adds the author, "like the bewailing
of Adonis, or the weeping for Tammuz mentioned in Scripture." As the great god Buddh is
generally represented in China as a Negro, that may serve to identify the beloved Mandarin
whose loss is thus annually bewailed. The religious system of Japan largely coincides with that
of China. In Iceland, and throughout Scandinavia, there were similar lamentations for the loss of
the god Balder. Balder, through the treachery of the god Loki, the spirit of evil, according as had
been written in the book of destiny, "was slain, although the empire of heaven depended on his
life." His father Odin had "learned the terrible secret from the book of destiny, having conjured
one of the Volar from her infernal abode. All the gods trembled at the knowledge of this event.
Then Frigga [the wife of Odin] called on every object, animate and inanimate, to take an oath not
to destroy or furnish arms against Balder. Fire, water, rocks, and vegetables were bound by this
solemn obligation. One plant only, the mistletoe, was overlooked. Loki discovered the omission,
and made that contemptible shrub the fatal weapon. Among the warlike pastimes of Valhalla [the
assembly of the gods] one was to throw darts at the invulnerable deity, who felt a pleasure in
presenting his charmed breast to their weapons. At a tournament of this kind, the evil genius
putting a sprig of the mistletoe into the hands of the blind Hoder, and directing his aim, the
dreaded prediction was accomplished by an unintentional fratricide. The spectators were struck
with speechless wonder; and their misfortune was the greater, that no one, out of respect to the
sacredness of the place, dared to avenge it. With tears of lamentation they carried the lifeless
body to the shore, and laid it upon a ship, as a funeral pile, with that of Nanna his lovely bride,
who had died of a broken heart. His horse and arms were burnt at the same time, as was
customary at the obsequies of the ancient heroes of the north." Then Frigga, his mother, was
overwhelmed with distress. "Inconsolable for the loss of her beautiful son," says Dr. Crichton,
"she despatched Hermod (the swift) to the abode of Hela [the goddess of Hell, or the infernal
regions], to offer a ransom for his release. The gloomy goddess promised that he should be
restored, provided everything on earth were found to weep for him. Then were messengers sent
over the whole world, to see that the order was obeyed, and the effect of the general sorrow was
'as when there is a universal thaw.'" There are considerable variations from the original story in
these two legends; but at bottom the essence of the stories is the same, indicating that they must
have flowed from one fountain.


Sub-Section V
The Deification of the Child:


If there was one who was more deeply concerned in the tragic death of Nimrod than another, it
was his wife Semiramis, who, from an originally humble position, had been raised to share with
him the throne of Babylon. What, in this emergency shall she do? Shall she quietly forego the
pomp and pride to which she has been raised! No. Though the death of her husband has given a rude shock to her power, yet her resolution and unbounded ambition were in nowise checked. On
the contrary, her ambition took a still higher flight. In life her husband had been honoured as a
hero; in death she will have him worshipped as a god, yea, as the woman's promised Seed,
"Zero-ashta," * who was destined to bruise the serpent's head, and who, in doing so, was to have
his own heel bruised.


* Zero--in Chaldee, "the seed"--though we have seen reason to conclude that in
Greek it sometimes appeared as Zeira, quite naturally passed also into Zoro, as
may be seen from the change of Zerubbabel in the Greek Septuagint to Zoro-
babel; and hence Zuro-ashta, "the seed of the woman" became Zoroaster, the well
known name of the head of the fire-worshippers. Zoroaster's name is also found
as Zeroastes (JOHANNES CLERICUS, De Chaldoeis). The reader who consults
the able and very learned work of Dr. Wilson of Bombay, on the Parsi Religion,
will find that there was a Zoroaster long before that Zoroaster who lived in the
reign of Darius Hystaspes. In general history, the Zoroaster of Bactria is most
frequently referred to; but the voice of antiquity is clear and distinct to the effect
that the first and great Zoroaster was an Assyrian or Chaldean (SUIDAS), and that
he was the founder of the idolatrous system of Babylon, and therefore Nimrod. It
is equally clear also in stating that he perished by a violent death, even as was the
case with Nimrod, Tammuz, or Bacchus. The identity of Bacchus and Zoroaster is
still further proved by the epithet Pyrisporus, bestowed on Bacchus in the Orphic
Hymns. When the primeval promise of Eden began to be forgotten, the meaning
of the name Zero-ashta was lost to all who knew only the exoteric doctrine of
Paganism; and as "ashta" signified "fire" in Chaldee, as well as "the woman," and
the rites of Bacchus had much to do with fire-worship, "Zero-ashta" came to be
rendered "the seed of fire"; and hence the epithet Pyrisporus, or Ignigena, "fire-
born," as applied to Bacchus. From this misunderstanding of the meaning of the
name Zero-ashta, or rather from its wilful perversion by the priests, who wished
to establish one doctrine for the initiated, and another for the profane vulgar, came
the whole story about the unborn infant Bacchus having been rescued from the
flames that consumed his mother Semele, when Jupiter came in his glory to visit
her. (Note to OVID'S Metam.)
There was another name by which Zoroaster was known, and which is not a little
instructive, and that is Zar-adas, "The only seed." (JOHANNES CLERICUS, De
Chaldoeis) In WILSON'S Parsi Religion the name is given either Zoroadus, or
Zarades. The ancient Pagans, while they recognised supremely one only God,
knew also that there was one only seed, on whom the hopes of the world were
founded. In almost all nations, not only was a great god known under the name of
Zero or Zer, "the seed," and a great goddess under the name of Ashta or Isha, "the
woman"; but the great god Zero is frequently characterised by some epithet which
implies that he is "The only One." Now what can account for such names or
epithets? Genesis 3:15 can account for them; nothing else can. The name Zar-
ades, or Zoro-adus, also strikingly illustrates the saying of Paul: "He saith not,
And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ."
It is worthy of notice, that the modern system of Parseeism, which dates from the
reform of the old fire-worship in the time of Darius Hystaspes, having rejected the worship of the goddess-mother, cast out also from the name of their Zoroaster the
name of the "woman"; and therefore in the Zend, the sacred language of the
Parsees, the name of their great reformer is Zarathustra--i.e., "The Delivering
Seed," the last member of the name coming from Thusht (the root being--
Chaldee--nthsh, which drops the initial n), "to loosen or set loose," and so to free.
Thusht is the infinitive, and ra appended to it is, in Sanscrit, with which the Zend
has much affinity, the well known sign of the doer of an action, just as er is in
English. The Zend Zarathushtra, then, seems just the equivalent of Phoroneus,
"The Emancipator."


The patriarchs, and the ancient world in general, were perfectly acquainted with the grand
primeval promise of Eden, and they knew right well that the bruising of the heel of the promised
seed implied his death, and that the curse could be removed from the world only by the death of
the grand Deliverer. If the promise about the bruising of the serpent's head, recorded in Genesis,
as made to our first parents, was actually made, and if all mankind were descended from them,
then it might be expected that some trace of this promise would be found in all nations. And such
is the fact. There is hardly a people or kindred on earth in whose mythology it is not shadowed
forth. The Greeks represented their great god Apollo as slaying the serpent Pytho, and Hercules
as strangling serpents while yet in his cradle. In Egypt, in India, in Scandinavia, in Mexico, we
find clear allusions to the same great truth. "The evil genius," says Wilkinson, "of the adversaries
of the Egyptian god Horus is frequently figured under the form of a snake, whose head he is seen
piercing with a spear. The same fable occurs in the religion of India, where the malignant serpent
Calyia is slain by Vishnu, in his avatar of Crishna (Fig. 23); and the Scandinavian deity Thor was
said to have bruised the head of the great serpent with his mace." "The origin of this," he adds,
"may be readily traced to the Bible." In reference to a similar belief among the Mexicans, we
find Humboldt saying, that "The serpent crushed by the great spirit Teotl, when he takes the form
of one of the subaltern deities, is the genius of evil--a real Kakodaemon." Now, in almost all
cases, when the subject is examined to the bottom, it turns out that the serpent destroying god is
represented as enduring hardships and sufferings that end in his death. Thus the god Thor, while
succeeding at last in destroying the great serpent, is represented as, in the very moment of
victory, perishing from the venomous effluvia of his breath. The same would seem to be the way
in which the Babylonians represented their great serpent-destroyer among the figures of their
ancient sphere. His mysterious suffering is thus described by the Greek poet Aratus, whose
language shows that when he wrote, the meaning of the representation had been generally lost,
although, when viewed in this light of Scripture, it is surely deeply significant:--


"A human figure, 'whelmed with toil, appears;
Yet still with name uncertain he remains;
Nor known the labour that he thus sustains;
But since upon his knees he seems to fall Him
ignorant mortals Engonasis call;
And while sublime his awful hands are spread,
Beneath him rolls the dragon's horrid head,
And his right foot unmoved appears to rest,
Fixed on the writhing monster's burnished crest."


The constellation thus represented is commonly known by the name of "The Kneeler," from this
very description of the Greek poet; but it is plain that, as "Eugonasis" came from the
Babylonians, it must be interpreted, not in a Greek, but in a Chaldee sense, and so interpreted, as
the action of the figure itself implies, the title of the mysterious sufferer is just "The Serpent-
crusher." Sometimes, however the actual crushing of the serpent was represented as a much more
easy process; yet, even then, death was the ultimate result; and that death of the serpent-destroyer
is so described as to leave no doubt whence the fable was borrowed. This is particularly the case
with the Indian god Crishna, to whom Wilkinson alludes in the extract already given. In the
legend that concerns him, the whole of the primeval promise in Eden is very strikingly
embodied. First, he is represented in pictures and images with his foot on the great serpent's
head, and then, after destroying it, he is fabled to have died in consequence of being shot by an
arrow in the foot; and, as in the case of Tammuz, great lamentations are annually made for his
death. Even in Greece, also, in the classic story of Paris and Achilles, we have a very plain
allusion to that part of the primeval promise, which referred to the bruising of the conqueror's
"heel." Achilles, the only son of a goddess, was invulnerable in all points except the heel, but
there a wound was deadly. At that his adversary took aim, and death was the result.
Now, if there be such evidence still, that even Pagans knew that it was by dying that the
promised Messiah was to destroy death and him that has the power of death, that is the Devil,
how much more vivid must have been the impression of mankind in general in regard to this
vital truth in the early days of Semiramis, when they were so much nearer the fountain-head of
all Divine tradition. When, therefore, the name Zoroaster, "the seed of the woman," was given to
him who had perished in the midst of a prosperous career of false worship and apostacy, there
can be no doubt of the meaning which that name was intended to convey. And the fact of the
violent death of the hero, who, in the esteem of his partisans, had done so much to bless
mankind, to make life happy, and to deliver them from the fear of the wrath to come, instead of
being fatal to the bestowal of such a title upon him, favoured rather than otherwise the daring design. All that was needed to countenance the scheme on the part of those who wished an
excuse for continued apostacy from the true God, was just to give out that, though the great
patron of the apostacy had fallen a prey to the malice of men, he had freely offered himself for
the good of mankind. Now, this was what was actually done. The Chaldean version of the story
of the great Zoroaster is that he prayed to the supreme God of heaven to take away his life; that
his prayer was heard, and that he expired, assuring his followers that, if they cherished due
regard for his memory, the empire would never depart from the Babylonians. What Berosus, the
Babylonian historian, says of the cutting off of the head of the great god Belus, is plainly to the
same effect. Belus, says Berosus, commanded one of the gods to cut off his head, that from the
blood thus shed by his own command and with his own consent, when mingled with the earth,
new creatures might be formed, the first creation being represented as a sort of a failure. Thus the
death of Belus, who was Nimrod, like that attributed to Zoroaster, was represented as entirely
voluntary, and as submitted to for the benefit of the world.
It seems to have been now only when the dead hero was to be deified, that the secret Mysteries
were set up. The previous form of apostacy during the life of Nimrod appears to have been open
and public. Now, it was evidently felt that publicity was out of the question. The death of the
great ringleader of the apostacy was not the death of a warrior slain in battle, but an act of
judicial rigour, solemnly inflicted. This is well established by the accounts of the deaths of both
Tammuz and Osiris. The following is the account of Tammuz, given by the celebrated
Maimonides, deeply read in all the learning of the Chaldeans: "When the false prophet named
Thammuz preached to a certain king that he should worship the seven stars and the twelve signs
of the Zodiac, that king ordered him to be put to a terrible death. On the night of his death all the
images assembled from the ends of the earth into the temple of Babylon, to the great golden
image of the Sun, which was suspended between heaven and earth. That image prostrated itself
in the midst of the temple, and so did all the images around it, while it related to them all that had
happened to Thammuz. The images wept and lamented all the night long, and then in the
morning they flew away, each to his own temple again, to the ends of the earth. And hence arose
the custom every year, on the first day of the month Thammuz, to mourn and to weep for
Thammuz." There is here, of course, all the extravagance of idolatry, as found in the Chaldean
sacred books that Maimonides had consulted; but there is no reason to doubt the fact stated either
as to the manner or the cause of the death of Tammuz. In this Chaldean legend, it is stated that it
was by the command of a "certain king" that this ringleader in apostacy was put to death. Who
could this king be, who was so determinedly opposed to the worship of the host of heaven? From
what is related of the Egyptian Hercules, we get very valuable light on this subject. It is admitted
by Wilkinson that the most ancient Hercules, and truly primitive one, was he who was known in
Egypt as having, "by the power of the gods" * (i.e., by the SPIRIT) fought against and overcome
the Giants.


* The name of the true God (Elohim) is plural. Therefore, "the power of the
gods," and "of God," is expressed by the same term.


Now, no doubt, the title and character of Hercules were afterwards given by the Pagans to him
whom they worshipped as the grand deliverer or Messiah, just as the adversaries of the Pagan
divinities came to be stigmatised as the "Giants" who rebelled against Heaven. But let the reader
only reflect who were the real Giants that rebelled against Heaven. They were Nimrod and his
party; for the "Giants" were just the "Mighty ones," of whom Nimrod was the leader. Who, then,
was most likely to head the opposition to the apostacy from the primitive worship? If Shem was at that time alive, as beyond question he was, who so likely as he? In exact accordance with this
deduction, we find that one of the names of the primitive Hercules in Egypt was "Sem."
If "Sem," then, was the primitive Hercules, who overcame the Giants, and that not by mere
physical force, but by "the power of God," or the influence of the Holy Spirit, that entirely agrees
with his character; and more than that, it remarkably agrees with the Egyptian account of the
death of Osiris. The Egyptians say, that the grand enemy of their god overcame him, not by open
violence, but that, having entered into a conspiracy with seventy-two of the leading men of
Egypt, he got him into his power, put him to death, and then cut his dead body into pieces, and
sent the different parts to so many different cities throughout the country. The real meaning of
this statement will appear, if we glance at the judicial institutions of Egypt. Seventy-two was just
the number of the judges, both civil and sacred, who, according to Egyptian law, were required
to determine what was to be the punishment of one guilty of so high an offence as that of Osiris,
supposing this to have become a matter of judicial inquiry. In determining such a case, there
were necessarily two tribunals concerned. First, there were the ordinary judges, who had power
of life and death, and who amounted to thirty, then there was, over and above, a tribunal
consisting of forty-two judges, who, if Osiris was condemned to die, had to determine whether
his body should be buried or no, for, before burial, every one after death had to pass the ordeal of
this tribunal. *


* DIODORUS. The words of Diodorus, as printed in the ordinary editions, make
the number of the judges simply "more than forty," without specifying how many
more. In the Codex Coislianus, the number is stated to be "two more than forty."
The earthly judges, who tried the question of burial, are admitted both by
WILKINSON and BUNSEN, to have corresponded in number to the judges of the
infernal regions. Now, these judges, over and above their president, are proved
from the monuments to have been just forty-two. The earthly judges at funerals,
therefore, must equally have been forty-two. In reference to this number as
applying equally to the judges of this world and the world of spirits, Bunsen,
speaking of the judgment on a deceased person in the world unseen, uses these
words in the passage above referred to: "Forty-two gods (the number composing
the earthly tribunal of the dead) occupy the judgment-seat." Diodorus himself,
whether he actually wrote "two more than forty," or simply "more than forty,"
gives reason to believe that forty-two was the number he had present to his mind;
for he says, that "the whole of the fable of the shades below," as brought by
Orpheus from Egypt, was "copied from the ceremonies of the Egyptian funerals,"
which he had witnessed at the judgment before the burial of the dead. If,
therefore, there were just forty-two judges in "the shades below," that even, on the
showing of Diodorus, whatever reading of his words be preferred, proves that the
number of the judges in the earthly judgment must have been the same.


As burial was refused him, both tribunals would necessarily be concerned; and thus there would
be exactly seventy-two persons, under Typho the president, to condemn Osiris to die and to be
cut in pieces. What, then, does the statement account to, in regard to the conspiracy, but just to
this, that the great opponent of the idolatrous system which Osiris introduced, had so convinced
these judges of the enormity of the offence which he had committed, that they gave up the
offender to an awful death, and to ignominy after it, as a terror to any who might afterwards tread
in his steps. The cutting of the dead body in pieces, and sending the dismembered parts among the different cities, is paralleled, and its object explained, by what we read in the Bible of the
cutting of the dead body of the Levite's concubine in pieces (Judges 19:29), and sending one of
the parts to each of the twelve tribes of Israel; and the similar step taken by Saul, when he hewed
the two yoke of oxen asunder, and sent them throughout all the coasts of his kingdom (1 Sam
11:7). It is admitted by commentators that both the Levite and Saul acted on a patriarchal
custom, according to which summary vengeance would be dealt to those who failed to come to
the gathering that in this solemn way was summoned. This was declared in so many words by
Saul, when the parts of the slaughtered oxen were sent among the tribes: "Whosoever cometh not
forth after Saul and after Samuel, so shall it be done to his oxen." In like manner, when the
dismembered parts of Osiris were sent among the cities by the seventy-two "conspirators"--in
other words, by the supreme judges of Egypt, it was equivalent to a solemn declaration in their
name, that "whosoever should do as Osiris had done, so should it be done to him; so should he
also be cut in pieces."
When irreligion and apostacy again arose into the ascendant, this act, into which the constituted
authorities who had to do with the ringleader of the apostates were led, for the putting down of
the combined system of irreligion and despotism set up by Osiris or Nimrod, was naturally the
object of intense abhorrence to all his sympathisers; and for his share in it the chief actor was
stigmatised as Typho, or "The Evil One." *


* Wilkinson admits that different individuals at different times bore this hated
name in Egypt. One of the most noted names by which Typho, or the Evil One,
was called, was Seth (EPIPHANIUS, Adv. Hoeres). Now Seth and Shem are
synonymous, both alike signifying "The appointed one." As Shem was a younger
son of Noah, being "the brother of Japhet the elder" (Gen 10:21), and as the pre-
eminence was divinely destined to him, the name Shem, "the appointed one," had
doubtless been given him by Divine direction, either at his birth or afterwards, to
mark him out as Seth had been previously marked out as the "child of promise."
Shem, however, seems to have been known in Egypt as Typho, not only under the
name of Seth, but under his own name; for Wilkinson tells us that Typho was
characterised by a name that signified "to destroy and render desert." (Egyptians)
Now the name of Shem also in one of its meanings signifies "to desolate" or lay
waste. So Shem, the appointed one, was by his enemies made Shem, the
Desolator or Destroyer--i.e., the Devil.


The influence that this abhorred Typho wielded over the minds of the so-called "conspirators,"
considering the physical force with which Nimrod was upheld, must have been wonderful, and
goes to show, that though his deed in regard to Osiris is veiled, and himself branded by a hateful
name, he was indeed none other than that primitive Hercules who overcame the Giants by "the
power of God," by the persuasive might of his Holy Spirit.
In connection with this character of Shem, the myth that makes Adonis, who is identified with
Osiris, perish by the tusks of a wild boar, is easily unravelled. * The tusk of a wild boar was a
symbol. In Scripture, a tusk is called "a horn"; among many of the Classic Greeks it was
regarded in the very same light. **


* In India, a demon with a "boar's face" is said to have gained such power through
his devotion, that he oppressed the "devotees" or worshippers of the gods, who had to hide themselves. (MOOR'S Pantheon) Even in Japan there seems to be a
similar myth.
** Pausanian admits that some in his day regarded tusks as teeth; but he argues
strongly, and, I think, conclusively, for their being considered as "horns."


When once it is known that a tusk is regarded as a "horn" according to the symbolism of idolatry,
the meaning of the boar's tusks, by which Adonis perished, is not far to seek. The bull's horns
that Nimrod wore were the symbol of physical power. The boar's tusks were the symbol of
spiritual power. As a "horn" means power, so a tusk, that is, a horn in the mouth, means "power
in the mouth"; in other words, the power of persuasion; the very power with which "Sem," the
primitive Hercules, was so signally endowed. Even from the ancient traditions of the Gael, we
get an item of evidence that at once illustrates this idea of power in the mouth, and connects it
with that great son of Noah, on whom the blessing of the Highest, as recorded in Scripture, did
specially rest. The Celtic Hercules was called Hercules Ogmius, which, in Chaldee, is "Hercules
the Lamenter." *


* The Celtic scholars derive the name Ogmius from the Celtic word Ogum, which
is said to denote "the secret of writing"; but Ogum is much more likely to be
derived from the name of the god, than the name of the god to be derived from it.


No name could be more appropriate, none more descriptive of the history of Shem, than this.
Except our first parent, Adam, there was, perhaps, never a mere man that saw so much grief as
he. Not only did he see a vast apostacy, which, with his righteous feelings, and witness as he had
been of the awful catastrophe of the flood, must have deeply grieved him; but he lived to bury
SEVEN GENERATIONS of his descendants. He lived 502 years after the flood, and as the lives
of men were rapidly shortened after that event, no less than SEVEN generations of his lineal
descendants died before him (Gen 11:10-32). How appropriate a name Ogmius, "The Lamenter
or Mourner," for one who had such a history! Now, how is this "Mourning" Hercules represented
as putting down enormities and redressing wrongs? Not by his club, like the Hercules of the
Greeks, but by the force of persuasion. Multitudes were represented as following him, drawn by
fine chains of gold and amber inserted into their ears, and which chains proceeded from his
mouth. *


* Sir W. BETHAM'S Gael and Cymbri. In connection with this Ogmius, one of
the names of "Sem," the great Egyptian Hercules who overcame the Giants, is
worthy of notice. That name is Chon. In the Etymologicum Magnum, apud
BRYANT, we thus read: "They say that in the Egyptian dialect Hercules is called
Chon." Compare this with WILKINSON, where Chon is called "Sem." Now
Khon signifies "to lament" in Chaldee, and as Shem was Khon--i.e., "Priest" of
the Most High God, his character and peculiar circumstances as Khon "the
lamenter" would form an additional reason why he should be distinguished by
that name by which the Egyptian Hercules was known. And it is not to be
overlooked, that on the part of those who seek to turn sinners from the error of
their ways, there is an eloquence in tears that is very impressive. The tears of
Whitefield formed one great part of his power; and, in like manner, the tears of
Khon, "the lamenting" Hercules, would aid him mightily in overcoming the
Giants.


There is a great difference between the two symbols--the tusks of a boar and the golden chains
issuing from the mouth, that draw willing crowds by the ears; but both very beautifully illustrate
the same idea--the might of that persuasive power that enabled Shem for a time to withstand the
tide of evil that came rapidly rushing in upon the world.
Now when Shem had so powerfully wrought upon the minds of men as to induce them to make a
terrible example of the great Apostate, and when that Apostate's dismembered limbs were sent to
the chief cities, where no doubt his system had been established, it will be readily perceived that,
in these circumstances, if idolatry was to continue--if, above all, it was to take a step in advance,
it was indispensable that it should operate in secret. The terror of an execution, inflicted on one
so mighty as Nimrod, made it needful that, for some time to come at least, the extreme of caution
should be used. In these circumstances, then, began, there can hardly be a doubt, that system of
"Mystery," which, having Babylon for its centre, has spread over the world. In these Mysteries,
under the seal of secrecy and the sanction of an oath, and by means of all the fertile resources of
magic, men were gradually led back to all the idolatry that had been publicly suppressed, while
new features were added to that idolatry that made it still more blasphemous than before. That
magic and idolatry were twin sisters, and came into the world together, we have abundant
evidence. "He" (Zoroaster), says Justin the historian, "was said to be the first that invented magic
arts, and that most diligently studied the motions of the heavenly bodies." The Zoroaster spoken
of by Justin is the Bactrian Zoroaster; but this is generally admitted to be a mistake. Stanley, in
his History of Oriental Philosophy, concludes that this mistake had arisen from similarity of
name, and that from this cause that had been attributed to the Bactrian Zoroaster which properly
belonged to the Chaldean, "since it cannot be imagined that the Bactrian was the inventor of
those arts in which the Chaldean, who lived contemporary with him, was so much skilled."
Epiphanius had evidently come to the same substantial conclusion before him. He maintains,
from the evidence open to him in his day, that it was "Nimrod, that established the sciences of
magic and astronomy, the invention of which was subsequently attributed to (the Bactrian)
Zoroaster." As we have seen that Nimrod and the Chaldean Zoroaster are the same, the
conclusions of the ancient and the modern inquirers into Chaldean antiquity entirely harmonise.
Now the secret system of the Mysteries gave vast facilities for imposing on the senses of the
initiated by means of the various tricks and artifices of magic. Notwithstanding all the care and
precautions of those who conducted these initiations, enough has transpired to give us a very
clear insight into their real character. Everything was so contrived as to wind up the minds of the
novices to the highest pitch of excitement, that, after having surrendered themselves implicitly to
the priests, they might be prepared to receive anything. After the candidates for initiation had
passed through the confessional, and sworn the required oaths, "strange and amazing objects,"
says Wilkinson, "presented themselves. Sometimes the place they were in seemed to shake
around them; sometimes it appeared bright and resplendent with light and radiant fire, and then
again covered with black darkness, sometimes thunder and lightning, sometimes frightful noises
and bellowings, sometimes terrible apparitions astonished the trembling spectators." Then, at
last, the great god, the central object of their worship, Osiris, Tammuz, Nimrod or Adonis, was
revealed to them in the way most fitted to soothe their feelings and engage their blind affections.
An account of such a manifestation is thus given by an ancient Pagan, cautiously indeed, but yet
in such a way as shows the nature of the magic secret by which such an apparent miracle was
accomplished: "In a manifestation which one must not reveal...there is seen on a wall of the
temple a mass of light, which appears at first at a very great distance. It is transformed, while
unfolding itself, into a visage evidently divine and supernatural, of an aspect severe, but with a touch of sweetness. Following the teachings of a mysterious religion, the Alexandrians honour it
as Osiris or Adonis." From this statement, there can hardly be a doubt that the magical art here
employed was none other than that now made use of in the modern phantasmagoria. Such or
similar means were used in the very earliest periods for presenting to the view of the living, in
the secret Mysteries, those who were dead. We have statements in ancient history referring to the
very time of Semiramis, which imply that magic rites were practised for this very purpose; * and
as the magic lantern, or something akin to it, was manifestly used in later times for such an end,
it is reasonable to conclude that the same means, or similar, were employed in the most ancient
times, when the same effects were produced.


* One of the statements to which I refer is contained in the following words of
Moses of Chorene in his Armenian History, referring to the answer made by
Semiramis to the friends of Araeus, who had been slain in battle by her: "I have
given commands, says Semiramis, to my gods to lick the wounds of Araeus, and
to raise him from the dead. The gods, says she, have licked Araeus, and recalled
him to life." If Semiramis had really done what she said she had done, it would
have been a miracle. The effects of magic were sham miracles; and Justin and
Epiphanius show that sham miracles came in at the very birth of idolatry. Now,
unless the sham miracle of raising the dead by magical arts had already been
known to be practised in the days of Semiramis, it is not likely that she would
have given such an answer to those whom she wished to propitiate; for, on the one
hand, how could she ever have thought of such an answer, and on the other, how
could she expect that it would have the intended effect, if there was no current
belief in the practice of necromancy? We find that in Egypt, about the same age,
such magic arts must have been practised, if Manetho is to be believed. "Manetho
says," according to Josephus, "that he [the elder Horus, evidently spoken of as a
human and mortal king] was admitted to the sight of the gods, and that
Amenophis desired the same privilege." This pretended admission to the right of
the gods evidently implied the use of the magic art referred to in the text.


Now, in the hands of crafty, designing men, this was a powerful means of imposing upon those
who were willing to be imposed upon, who were averse to the holy spiritual religion of the living
God, and who still hankered after the system that was put down. It was easy for those who
controlled the Mysteries, having discovered secrets that were then unknown to the mass of
mankind, and which they carefully preserved in their own exclusive keeping, to give them what
might seem ocular demonstration, that Tammuz, who had been slain, and for whom such
lamentations had been made, was still alive, and encompassed with divine and heavenly glory.
From the lips of one so gloriously revealed, or what was practically the same, from the lips of
some unseen priest, speaking in his name from behind the scenes, what could be too wonderful
or incredible to be believed? Thus the whole system of the secret Mysteries of Babylon was
intended to glorify a dead man; and when once the worship of one dead man was established, the
worship of many more was sure to follow. This casts light upon the language of the 106th Psalm,
where the Lord, upbraiding Israel for their apostacy, says: "They joined themselves to Baalpeor,
and ate the sacrifices of the dead." Thus, too, the way was paved for bringing in all the
abominations and crimes of which the Mysteries became the scenes; for, to those who liked not
to retain God in their knowledge, who preferred some visible object of worship, suited to the
sensuous feelings of their carnal minds, nothing could seem a more cogent reason for faith or practice than to hear with their own ears a command given forth amid so glorious a manifestation
apparently by the very divinity they adored.
The scheme, thus skilfully formed, took effect. Semiramis gained glory from her dead and
deified husband; and in course of time both of them, under the names of Rhea and Nin, or
"Goddess-Mother and Son," were worshipped with an enthusiasm that was incredible, and their
images were everywhere set up and adored. *


* It would seem that no public idolatry was ventured upon till the reign of the
grandson of Semiramis, Arioch or Arius. (Cedreni Compendium)


Wherever the Negro aspect of Nimrod was found an obstacle to his worship, this was very easily
obviated. According to the Chaldean doctrine of the transmigration of souls, all that was needful
was just to teach that Ninus had reappeared in the person of a posthumous son, of a fair
complexion, supernaturally borne by his widowed wife after the father had gone to glory. As the
licentious and dissolute life of Semiramis gave her many children, for whom no ostensible father
on earth would be alleged, a plea like this would at once sanctify sin, and enable her to meet the
feelings of those who were disaffected to the true worship of Jehovah, and yet might have not
fancy to bow down before a Negro divinity. From the light reflected on Babylon by Egypt, as
well as from the form of the extant images of the Babylonian child in the arms of the goddess-
mother, we have every reason to believe that this was actually done. In Egypt the fair Horus, the
son of the black Osiris, who was the favourite object of worship, in the arms of the goddess Isis,
was said to have been miraculously born in consequence of a connection, on the part of that
goddess, with Osiris after his death, and, in point of fact, to have been a new incarnation of that
god, to avenge his death on his murderers. It is wonderful to find in what widely-severed
countries, and amongst what millions of the human race at this day, who never saw a Negro, a
Negro god is worshipped. But yet, as we shall afterwards see, among the civilised nations of
antiquity, Nimrod almost everywhere fell into disrepute, and was deposed from his original pre-
eminence, expressly ob deformitatem, "on account of his ugliness." Even in Babylon itself, the
posthumous child, as identified with his father, and inheriting all his father's glory, yet
possessing more of his mother's complexion, came to be the favourite type of the Madonna's
divine son.
This son, thus worshipped in his mother's arms, was looked upon as invested with all the
attributes, and called by almost all the names of the promised Messiah. As Christ, in the Hebrew
of the Old Testament, was called Adonai, The Lord, so Tammuz was called Adon or Adonis.
Under the name of Mithras, he was worshipped as the "Mediator." As Mediator and head of the
covenant of grace, he was styled Baal-berith, Lord of the Covenant (Fig. 24) - (Judges 8:33). In
this character he is represented in Persian monuments as seated on the rainbow, the well known
symbol of the covenant. In India, under the name of Vishnu, the Preserver or Saviour of men,
though a god, he was worshipped as the great "Victim-Man," who before the worlds were,
because there was nothing else to offer, offered himself as a sacrifice. The Hindoo sacred
writings teach that this mysterious offering before all creation is the foundation of all the
sacrifices that have ever been offered since. *


* In the exercise of his office as the Remedial god, Vishnu is said to "extract the
thorns of the three worlds." (MOOR'S Pantheon) "Thorns" were a symbol of the
curse--Genesis 3:18.


Do any marvel at such a statement being found in the sacred books of a Pagan mythology? Why
should they? Since sin entered the world there has been only one way of salvation, and that
through the blood of the everlasting covenant--a way that all mankind once knew, from the days
of righteous Abel downwards. When Abel, "by faith," offered unto God his more excellent
sacrifice than that of Cain, it was his faith "in the blood of the Lamb slain," in the purpose of
God "from the foundation of the world," and in due time to be actually offered up on Calvary,
that gave all the "excellence" to his offering. If Abel knew of "the blood of the Lamb," why
should Hindoos not have known of it? One little word shows that even in Greece the virtue of
"the blood of God" had once been known, though that virtue, as exhibited in its poets, was utterly
obscured and degraded. That word is Ichor. Every reader of the bards of classic Greece knows
that Ichor is the term peculiarly appropriated to the blood of a divinity. Thus Homer refers to it:


"From the clear vein the immortal Ichor flowed,
Such stream as issues from a wounded god,
Pure emanation, uncorrupted flood,
Unlike our gross, diseased terrestrial blood."


Now, what is the proper meaning of the term Ichor? In Greek it has no etymological meaning
whatever; but, in Chaldee, Ichor signifies "The precious thing." Such a name, applied to the
blood of a divinity, could have only one origin. It bears its evidence on the very face of it, as
coming from that grand patriarchal tradition, that led Abel to look forward to the "precious
blood" of Christ, the most "precious" gift that love Divine could give to a guilty world, and
which, while the blood of the only genuine "Victim-Man," is at the same time, in deed and in
truth, "The blood of God" (Acts 20:28). Even in Greece itself, though the doctrine was utterly
perverted, it was not entirely lost. It was mingled with falsehood and fable, it was hid from the
multitude; but yet, in the secret mystic system it necessarily occupied an important place. As
Servius tells us that the grand purpose of the Bacchic orgies "was the purification of souls," and
as in these orgies there was regularly the tearing asunder and the shedding of the blood of an
animal, in memory of the shedding of the life's blood of the great divinity commemorated in
them, could this symbolical shedding of the blood of that divinity have no bearing on the
"purification" from sin, these mystic rites were intended to effect? We have seen that the
sufferings of the Babylonian Zoroaster and Belus were expressly represented as voluntary, and as submitted to for the benefit of the world, and that in connection with crushing the great serpent's
head, which implied the removal of sin and the curse. If the Grecian Bacchus was just another
form of the Babylonian divinity, then his sufferings and blood-shedding must have been
represented as having been undergone for the same purpose--viz., for the "purification of souls."
From this point of view, let the well known name of Bacchus in Greece be looked at. The name
was Dionysus or Dionusos. What is the meaning of that name? Hitherto it has defied all
interpretation. But deal with it as belonging to the language of that land from which the god
himself originally came, and the meaning is very plain. D'ion-nuso-s signifies "THE SIN-
BEARER," * a name entirely appropriate to the character of him whose sufferings were
represented as so mysterious, and who was looked up to as the great "purifier of souls."


* The expression used in Exodus 28:38, for "bearing iniquity" or in a vicarious
manner is "nsha eon" (the first letter eon being ayn). A synonym for eon,
"iniquity," is aon (the first letter being aleph). In Chaldee the first letter a
becomes i, and therefore aon, "iniquity," is ion. Then nsha "to bear," in the
participle active is "nusha." As the Greeks had no sh, that became nusa. De, or
Da, is the demonstrative pronoun signifying "That" or "The great." And thus
"D'ion-nusa" is exactly "The great sin-bearer." That the classic Pagans had the
very idea of the imputation of sin, and of vicarious suffering, is proved by what
Ovid says in regard to Olenos. Olenos is said to have taken upon him and
willingly to have borne the blame of guilt of which he was innocent. Under the
load of this imputed guilt, voluntarily taken upon himself, Olenos is represented
as having suffered such horror as to have perished, being petrified or turned into
stone. As the stone into which Olenos was changed was erected on the holy
mountain of Ida, that shows that Olenos must have been regarded as a sacred
person. The real character of Olenos, as the "sin-bearer," can be very fully
established.6


Now, this Babylonian god, known in Greece as "The sin-bearer," and in India as the "Victim-
Man," among the Buddhists of the East, the original elements of whose system are clearly
Babylonian, was commonly addressed as the "Saviour of the world." It has been all along well
enough known that the Greeks occasionally worshipped the supreme god under the title of "Zeus
the Saviour"; but this title was thought to have reference only to deliverance in battle, or some
suck-like temporal deliverance. But when it is known that "Zeus the Saviour" was only a title of
Dionysus, the "sin-bearing Bacchus," his character, as "The Saviour," appears in quite a different
light. In Egypt, the Chaldean god was held up as the great object of love and adoration, as the
god through whom "goodness and truth were revealed to mankind." He was regarded as the
predestined heir of all things; and, on the day of his birth, it was believed that a voice was heard
to proclaim, "The Lord of all the earth is born." In this character he was styled "King of kings,
and Lord of lords," it being as a professed representative of this hero-god that the celebrated Sesostris caused this very title to be added to his name on the monuments which he erected to
perpetuate the fame of his victories. Not only was he honoured as the great "World King," he
was regarded as Lord of the invisible world, and "Judge of the dead"; and it was taught that, in
the world of spirits, all must appear before his dread tribunal, to have their destiny assigned
them. As the true Messiah was prophesied of under the title of the "Man whose name was the
branch," he was celebrated not only as the "Branch of Cush," but as the "Branch of God,"
graciously given to the earth for healing all the ills that flesh is heir to. * He was worshipped in
Babylon under the name of El-Bar, or "God the Son." Under this very name he is introduced by
Berosus, the Chaldean historian, as the second in the list of Babylonian sovereigns. **


* This is the esoteric meaning of Virgil's "Golden Branch," and of the Mistletoe
Branch of the Druids. The proof of this must be reserved to the Apocalypse of the
Past. I may remark, however, in passing, on the wide extent of the worship of a
sacred branch. Not only do the Negroes in Africa in the worship of the Fetiche, on
certain occasions, make use of a sacred branch (HURD'S Rites and Ceremonies),
but even in India there are traces of the same practice. My brother, S. Hislop, Free
Church Missionary at Nagpore, informs me that the late Rajah of Nagpore used
every year, on a certain day, to go in state to worship the branch of a particular
species of tree, called Apta, which had been planted for the occasion, and which,
after receiving divine honours, was plucked up, and its leaves distributed by the
native Prince among his nobles. In the streets of the city numerous boughs of the
same kind of tree were sold, and the leaves presented to friends under the name of
sona, or "gold."
** BEROSUS, in BUNSEN'S Egypt. The name "El-Bar" is given above in the
Hebrew form, as being more familiar to the common reader of the English Bible.
The Chaldee form of the name is Ala-Bar, which in the Greek of Berosus, is Ala-
Par, with the ordinary Greek termination os affixed to it. The change of Bar into
Par in Greek is just on the same principle as Ab, "father," in Greek becomes Appa,
and Bard, the "spotted one," becomes Pardos, &c. This name, Ala-Bar, was
probably given by Berosus to Ninyas as the legitimate son and successor of
Nimrod. That Ala-Par-os was really intended to designate the sovereign referred
to, as "God the Son," or "the Son of God," is confirmed by another reading of the
same name as given in Greek. There the name is Alasparos. Now Pyrsiporus, as
applied to Bacchus, means Ignigena, or the "Seed of Fire"; and Ala-sporos, the
"Seed of God," is just a similar expression formed in the same way, the name
being Grecised.


Under this name he has been found in the sculptures of Nineveh by Layard, the name Bar "the
Son," having the sign denoting El or "God" prefixed to it. Under the same name he has been
found by Sir H. Rawlinson, the names "Beltis" and the "Shining Bar" being in immediate
juxtaposition. Under the name of Bar he was worshipped in Egypt in the earliest times, though in
later times the god Bar was degraded in the popular Pantheon, to make way for another more
popular divinity. In Pagan Rome itself, as Ovid testifies, he was worshipped under the name of
the "Eternal Boy." * Thus daringly and directly was a mere mortal set up in Babylon in
opposition to the "Son of the Blessed."


* To understand the true meaning of the above expression, reference must be had
to a remarkable form of oath among the Romans. In Rome the most sacred form of an oath was (as we learn from AULUS GELLIUS), "By Jupiter the STONE."
This, as it stands, is nonsense. But translate "lapidem" [stone] back into the sacred
tongue, or Chaldee, and the oath stands, "By Jove, the Son," or "By the son of
Jove." Ben, which in Hebrew is Son, in Chaldee becomes Eben, which also
signifies a stone, as may be seen in "Eben-ezer," "The stone of help." Now as the
most learned inquirers into antiquity have admitted that the Roman Jovis, which
was anciently the nominative, is just a form of the Hebrew Jehovah, it is evident
that the oath had originally been, "by the son of Jehovah." This explains how the
most solemn and binding oath had been taken in the form above referred to; and,it
shows, also, what was really meant when Bacchus, "the son of Jovis," was called
"the Eternal Boy." (OVID, Metam.)


The Two Babylons
or The Papal Worship Proved to be the Worship of Nimrod
and His Wife
By the Late Rev. Alexander Hislop
First published as a pamphlet in 1853--greatly expanded in 1858.

Hier (18-11-2013) pendent que je réfléchissais sur le fait qu'un enfant de Dieu devait obligatoirement passer par le désert avant d'obtenir les bénédictions de YHWH, l'Esprit de Dieu me disait: Tu vois un père Juif lorsque sa femme donne naissance à un garçon, il est heureux, il prend son fils dans ses bras et béni Elohim de lui avoir donner un fils, cependant malgré toute cette joie, il devra emmener son fils bien-aimé chez les sacrificateurs huit jours après sa naissance pour le faire circoncire, le couteau passera dans la chair de son fils, et l'enfant criera de douleurs et souffrira pendent quelques jours et le père aura de la compassion pour son fils sans pouvoir arrêter ses souffrances, le père attendra avec patience la cicatrisation de la plaie et sera fière de dire: "Mon fils est circoncis". BIEN-AIMES C'EST LA MÊME CHOSE QUE LE SEIGNEUR FAIT AVEC NOUS LORSQUE NOUS ACCEPTONS YESHOUA (JESUS) DANS NOTRE VIE, IL SERA AVEC NOUS DANS NOS DOULEURS COMME LE PERE JUIF L'EST AVEC SON FILS. Nous devons passés par le désert afin que notre foi soit éprouvée et nous séparés de notre ancienne vie de pécheurs (la circoncision du cœur). Hommes au cou raide, incirconcis de coeur et d'oreilles ! vous vous opposez toujours au Saint-Esprit. Ce que vos pères ont été, vous l'êtes aussi. Actes 7 : 51. UN INCIRCONCIS DU COEUR NE PEUT SE LAISSE CONDUIRE PAR L'ESPRIT DE DIEU. IL FAUT ÊTRE NE DE NOUVEAU. Le Seigneur peut permettre la solitude à une personne qui aimait beaucoup le sexe pour la délivré afin de lui apprendre à maîtriser son corps et cette privation peut duré des années jusqu'à ce que l'enfant de Dieu soit délivré totalement de l'amour du sexe, à partir de là Il pourra lui ouvrir la porte du mariage. Pour ceux qui ont l'amour de l'argent et des honneurs,le Seigneur peut permettre que leurs affaires ne marchent plus, tout ce qu'ils feront sera toujours sans succès, certains seront même touchés dans leur chair (maladie) et cela peut duré des années jusqu'à ce qu'ils soient totalement délivrés, et ne voir que les intérêts du royaume de Dieu, lorsqu'ils seront humbles, à ce moment là Dieu ouvrira la porte des bénédictions rien que pour Sa gloire. Pour ceux qui étaient des stars dans le monde, Dieu brisera leur image de stars de tel sorte que leurs fans d'hier les méprisent et les humilient, cela peut durer des années jusqu'à ce qu'ils comprennent que la véritable star c'est YESHOUA HAMASHIAH le Roi des rois, le Seigneur des seigneurs, Melech HaKavod (Roi de Gloire), et lorsqu'ils seront assez humiliés, Dieu les utilisera puissamment pour chanter des louanges rien que pour Sa gloire et ces louanges seront accompagnées de puissance pour délivrer les captifs, guérir les malades, ramener les cœurs des enfants au Père, rassembler les dispersés de la maison de Juda et d'Ephraïm, pour cela il faut avoir le cœur d'Elie, un homme intègre qui ne regarde ni à gauche ni à droite comme J.Baptiste qui n'avait pas peur d'annoncer le royaume de Dieu. Bien-aimés, la louange de David calmait les esprits mauvais qui tourmentaient le roi Saül mais ne les chassait pas, car il n'avait pas le pouvoir de chasser les démons, or avec le sacrifice du Seigneur Yeshoua et Sa résurrection, Il nous a donné le pouvoir de chasser les démons etc... La bible dit: Voici les miracles qui accompagneront ceux qui auront cru : en mon nom, ils chasseront les démons; ils parleront de nouvelles langues; ils saisiront des serpents; s'ils boivent quelque breuvage mortel, il ne leur fera point de mal; ils imposeront les mains aux malades, et les malades, seront guéris. Marc 16v17-18. Le Juif, ce n'est pas celui qui en a les dehors; et la circoncision, ce n'est pas celle qui est visible dans la chair. Mais le Juif, c'est celui qui l'est intérieurement; et la circoncision, c'est celle du coeur, selon l'esprit et non selon la lettre. La louange de ce Juif ne vient pas des hommes, mais de Dieu.Rom2v28-29 Que la paix d'Elohim soit avec vous BeShem Yeshoua amen.

Esther Maiga.

A l’époque du multiculturel et du politiquement correct, il est devenu banal d’entendre affirmer, au nom de la « tolérance », que le christianisme et l’islam, l’un autant que l’autre, vénèrent Jésus! Qu’il soit appelé Jésus ou Issa ne serait qu’un détail sans conséquence, puisqu’il appartiendrait de droit aux deux religions… Dans la même perspective, sous l’influence de Massignon et de ses émules, l’appellation de civilisation « abrahamique », a remplacé ce que précédemment on nommait civilisation judéo-chrétienne! Les journalistes se réfèrent maintenant aux « trois monothéismes », ce qui permet, au passage, de placer l’islam au même niveau que le judaïsme et le christianisme, laissant croire que la religion de Mahomet (Mohamed) appartient à l’héritage biblique… Des commentateurs chrétiens n’hésitent pas (par ignorance) à reprendre à leur compte l’expression pourtant spécifiquement islamique de « religions du Livre », qui désigne juifs et chrétiens jugés par l’ultime « révélation coranique ». Alors qu’en fait ni le judaïsme ni le christianisme ne sont une religion du livre, et que seul l’islam donne littéralement au livre du Coran un statut aussi central et sacralisé. Toutes ces expressions hyperconsensuelles reflètent une idéologie qui gagne du terrain dans les médias et les mentalités, traduisant surtout l’influence fulgurante de l’islam en ce début de troisième millénaire. Actualisation du hadith: « l’islam domine, mais n’est pas dominé… » Quelle est la logique de ce processus? L’islam se perçoit comme la religion primordiale. Pour lui, le judaïsme et le christianisme n’en sont que des développements accessoires, et périmés. Les musulmans et eux seuls forment « la meilleure communauté au monde » (3.110) Car pour le Coran, Abraham (Ibrahim) est le prototype radical du monothéiste, soumis à Allah (3.66), le hânif. Les musulmans et eux seuls sont donc les vrais représentants de cette foi fondamentale d’Abraham dans le monde d’aujourd’hui! Or la religion de l’Abraham biblique et celle de l’Abraham coranique n’ont pas grand chose de commun. La ressemblance est purement formelle. Si l’Abraham de la Bible est le premier maillon vivant d’une chaîne historique de croyants en la promesse de Dieu, l’Abraham du Coran est un prophète qui proclame une foi intemporelle et abstraite en l’unicité d’Allah. L’Abraham biblique renonce à sacrifier son fils Isaac, (Ismaël, dans le Coran) car le « Dieu des vivants » a en horreur les sacrifices humains. Mais la relation à Dieu sous forme d’alliance, c’est à dire de réciprocité vivante et confiante, si fondamentale chez les juifs et les chrétiens, est absente dans l’islam. L’Abraham du Coran est le premier « soumis » de toute une série de personnages, Adam, Noé, Jésus, etc. Les prophètes du Premier Testament manquent à l’appel, car le sens du mot « prophète » (nabi en hébreu, rasûl en arabe) n’est pas le même en islam. Le musulman ISSA (= Jésus?)… Deux sources décrivent le personnage d’Issa, Jésus musulman : le Coran et les Hadith, les deux ayant autorité et constituant la sunna, la tradition islamique. Le Coran donne un bref aperçu de sa vie, tandis que les Hadith (collection de dits du prophète Mohamed) précisent son rôle dans la compréhension islamique des temps à venir. ISSA dans le Coran: Selon les sourates qui parlent de lui, Issa est un prophète de l’islam parmi d’autres, mais dont l’envergure est particulière. Son message est purement islamique, en relation avec Allah (3.84). Comme tous les prophètes avant lui, et comme Mohamed après lui, Issa n’a pour seul but que de donner la loi de l’islam, et de ce fait, ses disciples appelés chrétiens devraient s’en remettre à cette seule loi (3.50; 5.48) car, au départ, ils étaient naturellement soumis à Allah en affirmant: « nous sommes croyants », en d’autres termes: « nous sommes musulmans » (5.111). Les Livres Comme tous les prophètes de l’islam avant lui, Issa a reçu sa révélation de l’islam sous la forme d’un livre (6.90), appelé injil , (déformation de: évangile). La Torah était le livre d’Abraham (!), et le Zabour (psaumes) était le livre de Daoud (David). C’est pourquoi les juifs et les chrétiens sont appelés les « gens du livre ». (ahl al kitab) Mais la seule religion révélée dans tous ces livres, c’est l’islam (3.18). La révélation donnée à Issa confirme les prophètes qui l’ont précédé (3.49, 84; 5.46; 61.6). Mohamed lui-même, « sceau des prophètes », a authentifié toutes les révélations antérieures, celle d’Issa incluse (4.47). C’est la raison pour laquelle les musulmans doivent croire dans la révélation que Issa a reçue (1.136) tout en sachant que son livre, injil, a été détourné de sa forme originelle par ses adeptes, et que, de nos jours, seul le Coran est le guide sûr pour accéder à l’enseignement d’Issa! La biographie coranique de Issa Selon le Coran, Issa était « Messie ». Il était sous l’influence du Saint Esprit (2.87; 5.110). Il est également présenté comme parole d’Allah (4.171). La mère de Issa, Mariam, était la fille d’Imram (3.34,35) (cf le Amram de l’Exode) et la sœur d’Aaron et de Moïse (19.28). Elle avait été adoptée par Zakariah (père de Jean-Baptiste) (3.36). Toujours vierge, Mariam donna naissance à Issa, seule dans un lieu désert, non pas à Bethlehem de Judée, mais sous le palmier dattier (19.22s) d’une oasis. Issa se mit à parler, encore bébé, dans son berceau (3.46; 5.110; 19.30). Il réalisa de nombreux prodiges, comme d’insuffler la vie à des oiseaux d’argile, de guérir les aveugles et les lépreux, de relever des morts (3.49; 5.111). Mais surtout, il annonça la venue de Mohamed (61.6). Issa n’est pas mort sur une croix Le Coran rectifie les messages qui l’ont précédé, car « les chrétiens et les juifs ont corrompu leurs Ecritures » (3.74-77; 113). Bien que les chrétiens croient que Jésus est mort en croix, il ne fut en réalité ni tué ni crucifié, et ceux qui affirment la crucifixion sont des menteurs (4.157). Issa n’est jamais mort, mais a connu une ascension auprès d’Allah (4.158). C’est pourquoi, au jour de la résurrection, Issa en personne portera un témoignage d’accusation contre les juifs et les chrétiens qui ont cru à sa mort en croix (4.159). Les vrais chrétiens devraient accepter l’islam De la part des chrétiens et des juifs, il est impardonnable d’ignorer le fait que Mohamed a transmis le Coran comme claire évidence de la révélation d’Allah (98.1). Mohamed était même le cadeau d’Allah aux chrétiens, venu corriger leur mauvaise interprétation et leur déviance. Ils devraient donc accepter Mohamed comme messager d’Allah, et le Coran comme la révélation finale! (5.15; 57.28; 4.47). Les « vrais » chrétiens étant par définition incapables d’aimer les ennemis de Mohamed (58.22), de ce fait, quiconque s’oppose au message de Mohamed ne peut pas être un vrai chrétien. Les chrétiens qui refusent ou acceptent l’islam Quelques juifs et chrétiens sont de vrais croyants, car ils acceptent l’islam, ne parlent ni n’agissent en sa défaveur; mais la plupart, indifférents ou hostiles, sont des transgresseurs (3.109) qui seront châtiés, puisque ceux qui refusent de reconnaître la mission de Mohamed iront en enfer (98.6). Pour le Coran, il est clair que les musulmans ne devraient « jamais prendre pour amis des juifs ou des chrétiens » (5.51). Ils doivent plutôt les combattre jusqu’à ce qu’ils se soumettent, payent la taxe de dhimmi, et soient humiliés (9.29). Des centaines de versets coraniques sont de fait consacrés au « jihad dans le sentier d’Allah » (= guerre armée contre les infidèles). On trouve dans ce livre « sacré » plus fréquemment les termes de combattre et de tuer que le mot prier. Il existe un Livre du Jihad dans toutes les collections de Hadith, ce qui prouve la centralité de ce thème combattant, assimilé à un 6ème pilier de l’islam pour tout un courant historique. Les croyances des chrétiens Il est expressément demandé aux chrétiens de ne pas croire que Issa est le Fils de Dieu. La paternité étant perçue sur le plan purement biologique, la transcendante majesté d’Allah est évidemment incompatible avec le fait d’avoir un « fils » (4.172; 25.2). Issa n’était simplement qu’une créature humaine, et un serviteur d’Allah. (4.172; 3.59). Le Coran accuse les chrétiens de blasphémer, parce qu’ils croient en une famille de dieux: Dieu le Père, Marie la mère, et Issa le Fils… Pourtant Issa a rejeté cet enseignement (5.116). La doctrine de la trinité est une mécréance, et une destinée douloureuse attend inévitablement ceux qui y adhèrent (5.73) car le blasphème mérite les plus sévères sanctions. Les « associateurs » auront un châtiment particulièrement sévère en raison de cette impiété impardonnable aux yeux de l’islam (shirk). Issa (Jésus) dans les Hadith: Issa, le destructeur de la chrétienté La deuxième source officielle de la croyance islamique (aussi importante que le Coran lui-même) considère que le prophète Issa va jouer un rôle important à la fin des temps: il fera la guerre à toutes les religions, jusqu’à leur destruction, démontrant ainsi le triomphe de l’islam… Dans une tradition, nous lisons que de nouveaux prophètes n’apparaîtront plus sur terre avant que Issa ne revienne, comme un homme de taille moyenne, au teint rougissant, portant deux vêtements légers, des gouttes tombant de sa tête, bien qu’il ne soit pas mouillé. Il combattra pour la cause de l’islam. Issa « brisera la croix », « tuera les porcs » et abolira la taxe imposée aux infidèles soumis. Allah détruira alors toutes les religions, à l’exception de l’islam. Issa fera disparaître la figure du mal, vivra sur terre durant quarante ans et ensuite mourra. (Sunan Abou Daoud, livre 37,4310). Quelle est la signification de ces dits? La croix est le symbole de la chrétienté: briser la croix veut dire: abolir le christianisme. Dans la culture islamique, les porcs sont associés aux chrétiens, et les singes aux juifs; tuer les porcs est donc une manière d’annoncer leur anéantissement. Le retour d’Issa purifiera le monde de l’impureté que représentent les chrétiens aux yeux des musulmans. Sous la loi islamique, payer la taxe de capitation permet de racheter sa survie et ses biens lorsque l’on fait partie des « gens du livre » (9.29). L’abolition de la taxe signifie donc que le jihad a repris contre les juifs et les chrétiens vivant sous l’islam, et que ceux-ci devraient se convertir sous peine de mort ou d’esclavage. Telle est donc la tâche finale d’assainissement que le musulman Issa devra accomplir, lorsqu’il reviendra dans les derniers jours!… Rappelons que le musulman dit plusieurs fois par jour la fatiha, la première sourate du Coran, qui est considérée comme la matrice de toutes les autres. Or dans cette invocation à Allah, il est fait mention de « ceux qui encourent sa colère », c’est à dire les juifs, et de « ceux qui se sont égarés », c’est à dire les chrétiens! (Les commentateurs autorisés du Coran le spécifient traditionnellement ainsi). On voit combien cette incantation répétitive peut ancrer dans les esprits une discrimination religieuse méprisante envers les non-musulmans, ainsi que nombre d’autres sourates du Coran et que certains hadith particulièrement agressifs. Analyse du musulman Issa (Jésus) Issa n’est pas une figure historique. Le Issa coranique n’est pas un personnage historique crédible, car son identité, comme son rôle de « prophète de l’islam », se basent sur de présumées révélations individuelles à Mohamed, ayant eu lieu plus d’un demi millénaire après la vie et la mort du Jésus historique, au sujet duquel seuls les écrits néo-testamentaires sont les témoignages tangibles les plus proches. Le véritable nom de Jésus n’a jamais été Issa. La langue maternelle de Jésus était l’araméen. Du temps de son existence personnelle, il a été appelé Yeshua en araméen, puis Jesu en grec. Yeshua est une variante de l’hébreu Yehoshua, qui signifie « Yahvé sauve ». Yeshua de Nazareth n’a jamais été appelé Issa, le nom que lui attribue le Coran. Issa ne veut rien dire en arabe; Jésus est délibérément privé de son identité. Jésus n’a jamais reçu un « livre »! Selon le Coran, un livre a été révélé à Issa, comme aux autres prophètes: c’est l’injil. Le terme arabe « injil » n’est que la déformation du grec eu-angelion qui veut dire bonne nouvelle ou évangile. Jésus annonçait en effet une bonne nouvelle libératrice de la part de Dieu, dans la ligne de ses prédécesseurs, en se référant à une expression de la période du retour d’exil où une annonce de bonheur avait été faite au peuple d’Israël déporté à Babylone. L’expression eu-angelion ne se comprend donc pas par rapport à un texte de révélation que Jésus lui-même aurait reçu tout rédigé, et que le Coran appelle « injil ». Le terme « évangile » n’a été utilisé qu’après la mort de Jésus pour donner un titre biblique aux récits biographiques rédigés par Matthieu, Marc, Luc et Jean comme base de confessions de foi des communautés. C’est sans doute à partir de ces rédactions apostoliques que Mohamed s’est fait cette fausse idée d’un injil comme livre de révélation donné au prophète Issa par Allah.. L’ensemble des prophètes de l’islam dont les noms sont puisés dans les Ecritures hébraïques n’ont pas reçu de livre ou de code de lois. Par exemple les psaumes ne sont pas un livre révélant l’islam, comme le prétend le Coran, mais une collection de chants liturgiques, dont quelques-uns sont de David. Les Israélites qui se référaient alors à la Torah de Moïse n’ont jamais cherché de prescriptions légales dans les psaumes. Ainsi, David ne pouvait pas être un « prophète » au sens coranique du terme, c’est-à-dire un transmetteur de loi; de même, nombre de personnages cités comme tels par l’islam n’ont jamais été des porte-parole d’une loi. Prophéties bibliques et prophéties coraniques: rien à voir! La compréhension biblique de la prophétie est totalement différente de celle de Mohamed. Une prophétie n’est pas considérée comme extrait d’un texte céleste préexistant éternellement, à l’instar du Coran, mais comme message de Dieu inspiré à des êtres humains pour un temps et un lieu spécifiques. Un prophète biblique est une personne vivant dans un contexte précis, à qui Dieu révèle des réalités encore cachées à tous et qui est appelée à agir comme son porte-parole. La variété des textes inspirés dans la Bible montre bien que ceux-ci ne sont pas dictés à partir d’un livre céleste intemporel et an-historique. Erreurs et anachronismes du Coran L’affirmation du Coran selon laquelle Jésus ne fut pas exécuté sur une croix n’a aucune base factuelle, et rappelle étonnamment la polémique développée quelques siècles plus tôt par les courants hérétiques hostiles au christianisme naissant. Or, l’un des points forts orthodoxes sur lequel se rejoignent toutes les sources chrétiennes originelles est précisément la crucifixion de Jésus. La mère d’Issa est appelée Mariam dans le Coran, et elle est présentée comme la sœur de Moïse et d’Aaron, et la fille d’Imram (en hébreu Amram). Mohamed a visiblement confondu Marie avec la Myriam de l’Exode, treize siècles auparavant! Le Coran reproche aux chrétiens d’adorer trois dieux: Dieu le Père, le Fils Jésus, et la Mère Marie. Ce qui est une caricature grossière. Il accuse aussi à tort les juifs et les chrétiens de polythéisme. (voir Deutéronome 6.4 et Jacques 2.19a), impiété gravissime. De nombreuses séquences du Coran évoquent des récits populaires juifs ou chrétiens, et d’autres rappellent la littérature apocryphe datant d’un siècle minimum après la mort de Jésus. Ainsi, le récit coranique de Jésus (Issa) né sous un palmier-dattier est la reprise d’une fiction tardive, de même que celui de Jésus enfant insufflant la vie à des oiseaux d’argile. Les titres que le Coran donne à Jésus, tels que Messie et Parole de Dieu ne trouvent aucune explication dans la propre logique islamique. Par contre dans la Bible, d’où ils ont été expatriés, ces titres prennent un sens précis, lié à un système théologique cohérent, que le Coran méconnaît totalement. Le Coran mentionne le Saint Esprit en connexion avec Jésus, utilisant ainsi des phrases extraites de l’Evangile. Ibn Ishak, le biographe de Mohamed, rapporte que, pour ce dernier, l’Esprit est l’ange Gabriel (Jibril), (de même que les sourates 2.97 et 16.02). C’est pourquoi l’expression biblique « Esprit de Dieu » ou ruah Elohim, ne peut se comprendre qu’à la lumière des saintes Ecritures hébraïques; cela ne correspond en tout cas pas à un ange. L’allégation coranique selon laquelle Jésus aurait annoncé la venue de Mohamed (61.6) semble fondée sur une lecture complètement reformulée de Jean 14.26, un passage qui se réfère à la venue du Saint-Esprit. Les Ecritures saintes hébraïques étaient la bible de Jésus. Il a toujours affirmé leur autorité et leur pertinence, et il a prêché à partir de leur message théologique. C’est en fonction de ces mêmes Ecritures que Jésus a reconnu et présenté Dieu comme Adonaï Elohim, le Dieu d’Israël. Il n’a jamais appelé Dieu Allah, nom d’une divinité païenne arabe dont le culte existait à la Mecque bien avant Mohamed (son propre père, mort avant sa naissance, se nommait d’ailleurs Abd allah = serviteur d’Allah). Les développements narratifs de la Bible sont riches de détails historiques souvent confirmés par la recherche archéologique. Ils recouvrent plus d’un millier d’années et révèlent un long processus de créativité culturelle. A l’opposé, l’histoire religieuse du Coran ne s’appuie sur aucun support archéologique; les récits fragmentaires et discordants qui la composent n’offrent jamais le reflet de cultures historiques. Aucune localisation possible de l’Israël ancien n’y est mentionnée, et le nom de Jérusalem, si central dans la Bible, n’y apparaît jamais! La plupart des événements prétendument historiques relatés dans le Coran n’offrent aucune possibilité de vérification indépendante. Ainsi, on nous explique qu’Abraham et Ishmaël ont construit la Kaaba à la Mecque (1.127) mais il n’y a aucun support historique à cette affirmation. Le texte biblique original, antérieur de plus de mille ans, ne place Abraham dans aucun lieu proche de l’Arabie. Le Coran, écrit par étapes à partir du 7ème siècle de notre ère, et dont les sourates innombrables ont été finalement sélectionnées et peut-être reformulées par Othman (modifications jusqu’au 10 ème, selon Mondher Sfar) n’est pas crédible lorsqu’il parle de Jésus Christ. Il n’est pas compétent en histoire biblique, contient de nombreux contresens historiques, et ne peut donc faire autorité en la matière. Appropriation, par l’islam, de l’histoire du judaïsme et du christianisme A la lumière des événements ultérieurs, on peut analyser la prétention selon laquelle l’islam est la religion primordiale et les prophètes antérieurs à Mohamed déjà musulmans: cela s’appelle une appropriation abusive au profit de l’islam. Cette captation d’héritage spirituel prive le judaïsme et le christianisme de leur propre histoire. N’oublions pas que de nombreux sites bibliques, comme les tombeaux des patriarches hébreux et le Mont du Temple, sont réclamés par l’islam comme étant des sites islamiques, et non pas juifs ou chrétiens (le Coran nous raconte qu’Abraham était le prototype du croyant de l’islam. D’où la revendication d’une Palestine arabe et musulmane, sans tenir aucun compte des bénéficiaires historiques de la Promesse, les Juifs). Il est vrai que sous la loi islamique (le waqf), après la sortie des Arabes d’Arabie et l’invasion de la Terre sainte, les juifs et les chrétiens ont effectivement été bannis de ces sites chargés de mémoire juive et chrétienne exclusivement. Le rôle des Ecritures hébraïques dans le christianisme n’a pas de parallèle avec la place que l’Islam donne à la Bible Il y a une différence fondamentale entre l’attitude chrétienne vis-à-vis des Ecritures hébraïques et l’attitude musulmane envers la Bible. Les chrétiens acceptent telles quelles les Ecritures hébraïques, qui étaient celles de Jésus et de ses apôtres, et celles de la primitive Eglise, entièrement juive. L’essentiel de la foi chrétienne s’appuie sur elles, et les concepts essentiels tels que Messie, Esprit de Dieu, Royaume de Dieu, salut, etc, s’enracinent profondément dans la tradition biblique. L’Eglise a même excommunié l’hérésiarque Marcion qui voulait exclure la Bible hébraïque du Canon des Ecritures! Dans les temples et les églises, on lit chaque dimanche les mêmes Ecritures hébraïques que celles lues le samedi dans les synagogues. Les prêtres et les moines prient les psaumes chaque jour, louange typiquement juive. Au contraire, la façon qu’a l’islam de traiter la Bible est d’une arrogance insupportable : d’un côté le Coran prétend « confirmer » les révélations précédentes, en même temps il n’accorde strictement aucune place au contenu réel de la Bible. En déclarant sans aucun argument précis que les juifs et les chrétiens ont falsifié leurs Ecritures, le Coran cherche surtout à couvrir ses fantaisies historiques et théologiques. Il est très rare que les étudiants musulmans connaissent quelque chose des textes ou de la théologie bibliques, les imams ne lisent jamais la Bible et ils restent ainsi enfermés dans leur autoproclamation coranique sans aucun repère critique. Quelques voix contemporaines à propos de Jésus: Yasser ARAFAT, dans une conférence de presse aux Nations Unies en 1983, a appelé Jésus « le premier fedayin palestinien qui a porté l’épée » (c’est à dire: qui a combattu pour l’islam). Sheik Ibrahim Mahdi, employé de la télévision de l’autorité palestinienne a déclaré en direct en avril 2002: Les juifs attendent le faux messie juif, tandis que nous attendons, nous, Jésus, paix sur lui. Les mains pures de Jésus feront trépasser le faux messie des juifs. Où? En Palestine! Shamim A. Siddiqi, écrivain, New York, a récemment exposé la définition classique de l’islam: Abraham, Moïse, Jésus et Mohamed, étaient tous des prophètes de l’islam. L’islam est l’héritage commun de la communauté judéo-christiano-islamique des Etats Unis, et établir le royaume de Dieu est la tâche commune des trois religions abrahamiques. L’islam était la foi, l’art de vivre des juifs et des chrétiens, mais ceux-ci les ont perdus dans des innovations humaines. Maintenant, les musulmans désirent remémorer la vraie religion à leurs frères et sœurs juifs et chrétiens. Ce sont les faits de l’histoire! Le négationnisme historique est un stratagème de l’apologétique islamique: en se présentant comme une confirmation du judaïsme et du christianisme, l’islam peut mieux les rejeter et les supplanter ensuite. Embrasser pour mieux étouffer. Ce qui est affirmé dans une parodie de respect n’est ni du judaïsme, ni du christianisme, c’est une récupération pour mieux phagocyter l’ensemble, et finalement promouvoir Jésus et Moïse comme prophètes musulmans. C’est souvent l’arrière-pensée des musulmans qui fréquentent le « dialogue interreligieux », car par ces discussions de salon pour naïfs, l’islam peut ainsi baliser la reconversion des juifs et des chrétiens vers « la vraie religion », dans le sens où Siddiqi parle de « tâche commune des juifs et des chrétiens dans l’établissement du royaume de Dieu aux USA », ce qui, pour lui, veut dire promouvoir ensemble la sharia et l’ordre islamique! Conclusion: Le Jésus du Coran, appelé Issa, est le résultat conjoint de l’imagination, de la fiction et de l’ignorance. Quand les musulmans vénèrent ce Issa, ils ont en tête quelqu’un qui n’a rien à voir avec le vrai Jésus, premier né de Marie, fils d’Israël, lié à l’histoire biblique. Le Issa du Coran est basé sur des affirmations non historiques émanant de légendes caravanières de l’Arabie du 7ème siècle. Pour l’immense majorité des croyants musulmans, Issa est le seul Jésus qu’ils connaissent. Mais quiconque accepte ce Jésus islamique accepte aussi le Coran et la religion de Mohamed. En faisant du Jésus des évangiles Issa, un prophète de l’islam, les musulmans réduisent à néant l’existence propre du christianisme, comme ils l’ont fait du judaïsme en vampirisant Abraham, Moïse et David. Selon les hâdith, la fin des temps verra ce Issa combattant venant détruire la foi chrétienne et faire de l’islam la seule religion triomphante dans le monde entier. Issa en personne démontrera la désobéissance des juifs et mettra les chrétiens en accusation pour les condamner à l’enfer en raison de leur croyance à la crucifixion et à l’incarnation. L’acte final du musulman Issa reflète bien la stratégie apologétique qui consiste à remplacer le vrai Jésus historique, le Yeshua pacifique, par un clone agressif de Mohamed, de sorte que rien ne subsiste en dehors des visées planétaires de l’islam. L’altérité ne fait pas partie du paysage culturel de l’islam.

Reproduction autorisée, et même vivement encouragée, avec la mention suivante et impérativement le lien html ci dessous : © Abbé Alain René Arbez, prêtre catholique, Genève, pour www.Dreuz.info, en collaboration avec les travaux en islamologie de Révérend Mark Durie, prêtre anglican (Australie).

Veux-tu être un(e) intercesseur, veux-tu que tes prières montent au Père?
Il faut d'abord avoir une vie de sanctification et un cœur pur,être délivrer du l'impudicité, du mensonge, purifier sa bouche de paroles méchantes et obscènes, pardonner à tous ceux qui t'ont offensés, et à partir de là, tes prières pourront montés au ciel et exaucées.
La bible dit que la prière agissante du juste a une grande efficacité (Jac5v16).
Proverbes 28 : 9
Si quelqu'un détourne l'oreille pour ne pas écouter la loi, Sa prière même est une abomination.
Jean 9 : 31
Nous savons que Dieu n'exauce point les pécheurs; mais, si quelqu'un l'honore et fait sa volonté, c'est celui là qu'il exauce.

Prier c'est bien et même très bien, mais si la prière ne monte pas au Seigneur à quoi sert-il de passer beaucoup de temps à multiplier les prières, participer tous les groupes de prières et intercéder pour les nations et pour des personnes?
Jérémie 6 : 20
Qu'ai-je besoin de l'encens qui vient de Séba, Du roseau aromatique d'un pays lointain ? Vos holocaustes ne me plaisent Point, Et vos sacrifices ne me sont point agréables.
Bien-aimés un jour le Seigneur me montrait dans une vision un homme qui priait et qui insistait dans ses prières, mais tout d'un coup je vois le ciel fermé au-dessus de lui, c'est comme si quelqu'un était venu placer un toit afin qu'il ne voit plus le ciel. C'est quelques temps après que le Seigneur me dit que ce sont les péchés de cet homme qui lui ferment le ciel, donc il prie mais ses prières sont bloquées à cause de ses péchés.
SI NOUS VOULONS ÊTRES UTILES POUR INTERCEDER NOUS DEVONS NOUS ASSURER QUE NOS PRIERES MONTERONT AU CIEL CAR IL NE FAUT PAS IGNORER QU'EN FACE DE NOUS IL Y A LA PUISSANCE DES TENEBRES PRETE A NOUS ATTAQUER C'EST POURQUOI LA BIBLE NOUS PARLE DES ARMES SPIRITUELLES DANS Ep6v11-17: Revêtez-vous de toutes les armes de Dieu, afin de pouvoir tenir ferme contre les ruses du diable.
Car nous n'avons pas à lutter contre la chair et le sang, mais contre les dominations, contre les autorités, contre les princes de ce monde de ténèbres, contre les esprits méchants dans les lieux célestes.
C'est pourquoi, prenez toutes les armes de Dieu, afin de pouvoir résister dans le mauvais jour, et tenir ferme après avoir tout surmonté.
Tenez donc ferme : ayez à vos reins la vérité pour ceinture; revêtez la cuirasse de la justice;
mettez pour chaussure à vos pieds le zèle que donne l'Evangile de paix;
prenez par-dessus tout cela le bouclier de la foi, avec lequel vous pourrez éteindre tous les traits enflammés du malin;
prenez aussi le casque du salut, et l'épée de l'Esprit, qui est la parole de Dieu.
NE SOYONS PAS DES RELIGIEUX MAIS SOYONS DES DISCIPLES DU SEIGNEUR YESHOUA HAMASHIAH CAR IL EST SAINT.
Esther Maiga.

Certaines personnes affirment que Yeshoua (Jésus) n'est pas le Fils de Dieu car Dieu n'a pas de Fils, et que Yeshoua (Jésus) n'a pas été crucifié, mais de quel Dieu s'agit-il et de quel Jésus ?
Il est évident que nous ne parlons pas tous des mêmes personnes,mais pour nous éclairer,allons dans la bible car c'est elle qui contient la parole de YHWH le Dieu d'Israël qui l'a inspiré à Ses serviteurs Moïse, les prophètes et les apôtres de Yeshoua (Jésus).
Le prophète Esaie annonce déjà la naissance de Yeshoua (Jésus) Esaie 7v14: C'est pourquoi le Seigneur lui-même vous donnera un signe: Voici, la vierge sera enceinte; elle enfantera un fils, et lui donnera le nom d'Emmanuel (Dieu avec nous). UNE VIERGE QUI ENFANTE QUI EST DONC LE PERE DE SON ENFANT ?
Mat 1v1-25: Or, la naissance de Jésus-Christ arriva ainsi: Marie, sa mère, ayant été fiancée à Joseph, se trouva enceinte par la vertu du Saint-Esprit, avant qu'ils eussent été ensemble.
Alors Joseph, son époux, étant un homme de bien, et ne voulant pas la diffamer, voulut la renvoyer secrètement.
Mais comme il y pensait, voici, un ange du Seigneur lui apparut en songe, et lui dit: Joseph, fils de David, ne crains point de prendre Marie pour ta femme; car ce qui a été conçu en elle est du Saint-Esprit;(Dieu est le Saint-Esprit)
Et elle enfantera un fils, et tu lui donneras le nom de JÉSUS (Sauveur car c'est lui qui sauvera son peuple de leurs péchés.
Or, tout cela arriva, afin que s'accomplît ce que le Seigneur avait dit en ces termes par le prophète:
Voici, la vierge sera enceinte, et elle enfantera un fils, et on le nommera EMMANUEL, ce qui signifie: DIEU AVEC NOUS.
Quand Joseph fut réveillé de son sommeil, il fit comme l'ange du Seigneur lui avait commandé, et il prit sa femme.
Mais il ne la connut point jusqu'à ce qu'elle eût enfanté son fils premier-né, et il lui donna le nom de JÉSUS.

LA IL N'Y A AUCUN DOUTE! JESUS EST BIEN LE FILS DE DIEU CAR UN ENFANT SE FORME TOUJOURS DANS LE SEIN DE SA MERE A PARTIR DE LA SEMENCE DE SON PERE.
La bible nous dans Jean 3v16-18: Car Dieu a tant aimé le monde, qu'il a donné son Fils unique, afin que quiconque croit en lui ne périsse point, mais qu'il ait la vie éternelle.
Car Dieu n'a point envoyé son Fils dans le monde, pour condamner le monde, mais afin que le monde soit sauvé par lui.
Celui qui croit en lui n'est point condamné, mais celui qui ne croit point est déjà condamné, parce qu'il n'a pas cru au nom du Fils unique de Dieu.
NOUS VOYONS ICI QU'IL EST PRECISE QUE JESUS EST LE FILS UNIQUE DE DIEU.
Marc 5v1-7: Ils arrivèrent de l'autre côté de la mer, dans la contrée des Gadaréniens.
Et aussitôt que Jésus fut descendu de la barque, un homme, possédé d'un esprit immonde, sortit des sépulcres et vint au-devant de lui.
Il faisait sa demeure dans les sépulcres, et personne ne pouvait le tenir lié, pas même avec des chaînes;
Car souvent, ayant eu les fers aux pieds, et ayant été lié de chaînes, il avait rompu les chaînes et brisé les fers; et personne ne le pouvait dompter.
Et il demeurait continuellement, nuit et jour, sur les montagnes et dans les sépulcres, criant et se meurtrissant avec des pierres.
Quand il eut vu Jésus de loin, il accourut et se prosterna devant lui,
Et il dit, criant à haute voix: Qu'y a-t-il entre toi et moi, Jésus, Fils du Dieu très-haut ? Je te conjure par le nom de Dieu de ne point me tourmenter.
(MÊME LES DEMONS RECONNAISSENT QUE JESUS EST LE FILS DE DIEU)
Jean 20v30-31: Jésus fit encore en présence de ses disciples plusieurs autres miracles, qui ne sont pas écrits dans ce livre.

Et ces choses ont été écrites, afin que vous croyiez que Jésus est le Christ, le Fils de Dieu, et qu'en croyant vous ayez la vie par son nom. Actes 8 : 37
Et Philippe lui dit: Si tu crois de tout ton cour, cela t'est permis. Et l'eunuque répondant, dit: Je crois que Jésus-Christ est le Fils de Dieu.
DES VERSETS QUI PROUVENT QUE JESUS EST LE FILS DE DIEU IL Y EN A PLUSIEURS AUTRES QUI PROUVENT QUE YESHOUA (JESUS) EST LE FILS DE DIEU.
Nous disciples de Yeshoua (Jésus) nous nous basons sur notre livre qui est la bible pour affirmer que Jésus-Christ est le Fils UNIQUE de Dieu (le Dieu d'Abraham,d'Isaac et de Jacob).
YESHOUA (JESUS) ETE CRUCIFIE ET CA AUSSI C'EST ECRIT. Marc 15 : 15
Pilate donc, voulant contenter le peuple, leur relâcha Barabbas; et après avoir fait fouetter Jésus, il le livra pour être crucifié. Jean 19 : 20
Plusieurs donc des Juifs lurent cet écriteau, parce que le lieu où Jésus était crucifié, était près de la ville; et qu'il était écrit en hébreu, en grec et en latin.
Mat 28:5-6: Or l'ange, prenant la parole, dit aux femmes: Pour vous, ne craignez point, car je sais que vous cherchez Jésus le crucifié.
Il n'est pas ici, car il est ressuscité, comme il l'avait dit. Venez, voyez le lieu où le Seigneur était couché; Actes 4 : 10
Sachez, vous tous, et tout le peuple d'Israël, que c'est au nom de Jésus-Christ de Nazareth, que vous avez crucifié et que Dieu a ressuscité des morts; c'est par lui que cet homme se présente guéri devant vous. 1 Corinthiens 2 : 2
Car je ne me suis pas proposé de savoir autre chose parmi vous que Jésus-Christ, et Jésus-Christ crucifié. Jean 19 : 23
Après que les soldats eurent crucifié Jésus, ils prirent ses habits, et ils en firent quatre parts, une part pour chaque soldat; ils prirent aussi la robe; mais la robe était sans couture, d'un seul tissu, depuis le haut.
C'EST BEL ET BIEN JESUS-CHRIST QUI FUT CRUCIFIE ET PAS QUELQU'UN D'AUTRE A SA PLACE COMME L'AFFIRMENT CERTAINS.
J'IA AUSSI ENTENDU DIRE QUE LA BIBLE A ETE FALSIFIEE J'AIMERAI DONC QU'ON ME DONNE LA VERSION ORIGINALE CELLE QUI A ETE ECRITE AVANT MOÏSE,LES PROPHETES,LA NAISSANCE DE YESHOUA (JESUS) ET LES APÔTRES AFIN QU'ON PUISSE FAIRE LES COMPARAISONS.
YESHOUA EST LA VERITE, LE CHEMIN ET LA VIE Jean 14v6: Jésus lui dit: Je suis le chemin, la vérité et la vie; personne ne vient au Père que par moi. ACCEPTE LE DANS TA VIE ET TU SERAS SAUVE AMEN.
Esther Maiga.