BOOK. substance. The first postdiluvians knew, that each of the two worlds commenced from a man who had three sons, and that there were many other striking points of mutual resemblance which have been already pointed out: but Wisdom was not satisfied with a plain story; the doctrine of an endless succession of worlds was improved into that of an endless succession of exactly similar worlds, each invariably commencing with the same great parent and his three sons, whose souls passed by transmigration from one set of bodies into another and thus incessantly reappeared and reacted their parts upon the earth. The first postdiluvians knew, that one omnipotent and omnipresent Being was the sole creator and moderator of the Universe; a Being, who alone could claim to himself the attribute of proper independent eternity: but Wisdom had conferred this very attribute of eternity upon matter, and afterwards upon the souls of the great father and his three sons (to say nothing of the souls of all their offspring) who had everlastingly been disappearing and reappearing at the commencement of every successive world; hence both matter and the triplicated great father had usurped an attribute, which was necessarily peculiar to the Godhead. What then was to be done under such circumstances? Some were taught by Wisdom to adopt the theory of two independent principles: others naturally enough exclaimed against the palpable absurdity of such a system; and for them, Wisdom, ever kindly ready to solve all difficulties, had provided another expedient. This was, since the great triplicated father was confessedly eternal, to identify him with the Deity; and, since matter was also eternal, to make the soul of the great father the Soul of the World, and to give him the whole Universe for his body. But here it would readily be objected, how can the mere man Adam or Noah, whose office it is to appear at the beginning of every new world, be admitted as God, when his form has always been that of a simple mortal? To this question Wisdom is at no loss for a reply the body indeed was the body of a man, but the immortal soul was the deity himself; from time to time he descends and becomes incarnate in the person of the great father, and on special occasions appears in the form of other eminent characters: the spirit of this eternal great father, with whom when multiplied into three forms each world commences, is to be re vered as the true plastic arranger and governor of the Universe; beside him there is no god, for his three forms or his eight forms are equally a delusion emanating from him and resolveable into his sacred essence. Thus, as the Apostle speaks, did Wisdom teach mankind at Babel to change the truth of God into a lye, and to worship the creature more than or in preference to the Creator." 3. With the rites and ceremonies of Patriarchism we are but little acquainted, at least when we view it under the name of Patriarchism. We know however, that sacrifice was a standing ordinance; that the first postdiluvian sacrifice was offered up on the summit of a lofty hill; that the early patriarchs were wont to plant consecrated groves for the purposes of devotion; and that they occasionally set up a large massy stone to mark the place where they had worshipped God, anointing the top of it with oil. Each of these practices, though in a distorted state, was adopted into the new ritual of Paganism. Sacrifices, the object of which was to avert the wrath of the venerated deity, still continued to be offered up: mountains, or artificial high places constructed in imitation of mountains, were still selected as the most appropriate for sacrificial devotion: consecrated groves were still duly planted, either simply, or round the temple of the god: and the massy stone column was still erected, and still anointed with oil, though it now became the adored symbolical representation of the great father and the great mother. For Patriarchism more in detail we must look to the worship of the ancient Israelites. Unless I am greatly mistaken, that worship was no other than Patriarchism, adapted, by various additions and special institutions, to the peculiar situation of a people, which had been selected by Jehovah from the mass of mankind to accomplish certain high and beneficent purposes. In the Levitical dispensation we behold pure and uncorrupted Patriarchism, serving as a basis to some additional ordinances, by which God thought fit to distinguish his people from the rest of the world: in the degraded philosophical idolatry of the Gentiles we behold the very same Patriarchism, diverted from its original intent, and serving as a basis to the • Gr. παρα τον κτισαντα. CHAP. I. BOOK I. apostate worship of a mixed human, astronomical, and material, demiurgic hermaphrodite. Each was drawn from one primeval source, though with a different application: hence we may naturally expect to find a striking similitude between them. This similitude has often been remarked; and more than one writer has attempted to account for it. Some have imagined, that the Gentiles were servile copyists of the Israelites, and that each point of similitude was immediately borrowed from the Mosaical Institutes. But this theory will by no means solve the problem: both because we find the very same resemblance in the ceremonies of nations far distant from Palestine, as we do in the rites of those which are in its more immediate vicinity; because it seems incredible, that all should have borrowed from one which was universally disliked and despised; and because the pagan system, originating (as the sacred writers expressly inform us) from Babel, was anterior to the promulgation of the Law of Moses, and had both been witnessed by the Israelites in Egypt and was found by them in its worst state of depravity when they entered the land of Canaan. Others have fancied, that the devil was the copyist, and that various nations in different parts of the globe pervertedly though unwarily adopted certain parts of the Levitical ceremonies in consequence of his infernal suggestion or inspiration. Such, at one period, was deemed no contemptible theory, particularly as some of the early fathers seem inclined to favour it or at least to favour the notion of the imitative propensity of the evil spirit:" but, since it appears to have died a natural death, I shall only say, may it rest in peace! Others again have precisely inverted the first hypothesis: instead of supposing that the pagans borrowed from the Israelites, they have supposed that 'Sed quæritur, a quo intellectus interpretetur, eorum quæ ad hæreses faciant? A diabolo scilicet, cujus sunt partes intervertendi veritatem, ipsas quoque res sacramentorum divinorum, in idolorum mysteriis æmulatur. Tinguit et ipse quosdam, utique credentes et fideles suos: expiationem delictorum de lavacro repromittit, et sic adhuc initiat Mithra. Signat illic in frontibus milites suos, celebrat et panis oblationem, et imaginem resurrectionis inducit. Tertull. de præscript. adv. Hæret. lib. c. 40. Nam et sacris quibusdam per lavacrum initiantur, Isidis alicujus aut Mitrhæ, ipsos etiam deos suos lavationibus efferunt-Idque se in regenerationem et impunitatem perjuriorum suorum agere præsumunt. Tertull. de baptism. c. 5. ¡ the Israelites borrowed from the pagans. Nor has this opinion been ad- CHAP. I. vanced merely by infidels, as at the first glance might be shrewdly suspected: no less names than those of Spencer and Warburton stand pledged to advocate it. The thing in itself appears so utterly incredible, that nothing short of strict mathematical demonstration can be allowed to establish such a theory. That the purity of God should submit to transcribe the base worship of Gentilism; that Egyptian rites should form the basis of the Law delivered amidst the thunders of Sinai; that by a pliant system of accommodation, more worthy of the school of Loyola than of Moses, the idolatrous propensities of the Israelites should be humoured at the very time, when it was the divine purpose wholly to proscribe idolatry and to separate the chosen people from the contagious influence of a pagan neighbourhood: all and each of these propositions may well be deemed alike unworthy of the holiness and wisdom of Jehovah; of his holiness, as ascribing to him an unmeet concord with Belial; of his wisdom, as supposing him to adopt a measure for the preservation of the Israelites from idolatry which of all things would have been the most likely to seduce them into it. The resemblance in question is too palpable indeed to be denied; but not one of the three preceding theories appears to me to account for it at all satisfactorily. Its true origin I believe to have been such as I have already stated: Judaism and Paganism sprang from a common source; hence their close resemblance in many particulars is nothing more than might have been reasonably anticipated. Such being the case, their rites and ceremonies will throw a mutual light upon each other: and thus, to omit at present smaller matters, the sacred ark and cherubic symbols of the Gentiles, though neither borrowed from nor communicated to the Institutes of Moses, may possibly, when rightly understood themselves, lead to a right understanding of the sacred ark and cherubim of the Israelites. Certain it is, that the cherubim were no way peculiar to the Levitical dispensation. They were exhibited at the gate of Paradise, when man was banished from Eden; and they are recognized under the Gospel by the prophet of the Apocalypse. Their form therefore must have been well known to Noah and his immediate posterity, even if we suppose, which there is no reason to suppose, that their station at the entrance of the garden was merely of a temporary nature: for Adam, Pag. Idol, O VOL. 1. ་་ BOOK I. who certainly beheld them, was contemporary in his old age with Lamech the father of Noah. Accordingly, it is worthy of notice, that, when God commands Moses to make the cherubim which were to be placed over the ark of the covenant, he says nothing whatsoever respecting their particular form; yet we find not, that either Moses or the workman had the least occasion to make any inquiries after what model they were to be fashioned. So completely silent indeed is the Hebrew lawgiver on this point, which in his days appears to have required no elucidation, that we should have been altogether ignorant of the form of the cherubim, had not Ezekiel furnished us with a most ample and elaborate description of them. Now, since the cherubim were first displayed in the very infancy of the world, and since they were afterwards again displayed at the promulgation of the Law; analogy seems to require, that, whatever was their use and import under the Levitical dispensation, such also was their use and import under the Patriarchal dispensation: and, since among the pagans we find a remarkable set of symbols, which sometimes single and sometimes compoundedly still correspond with the blended forms of the cherubim; it appears naturally to follow, that, as the Hebrew cherubim were exact transcripts of the patriarchal both in form and import, so the Gentile cherubim (if I may be allowed so to speak) were corrupted transcripts of the patriarchal both in form and import. The phraseology and ideas of Paganism, though still after a perverted manner, correspond, no less than its rites and ceremonies, with those or Judaism and even Christianity, which is the completion of the Law and the consummation of Patriarchism: whence we may infer, that such also were the phraseology and ideas of the first race of men; for I see not how the palpable coincidence can be rationally accounted for, except by the hypothesis of a common origin. In some instances indeed, we may do more than infer: and thus the existence of an actual though partial demonstration of a kindred ideal phraseology may reasonably warrant the conclusion, that, where Judaism, Christianity, and Paganism, all employ the same peculiar language, that language was primarily derived from the one source of Patriarchism. 'See Exod. xxv. 18-22. and Exod. xxxvii. 7, 8, 9. |