where we read of "aleim of silver" and "aleim of gold"; and where the expression "false gods" is used the word is the same-aleim. A Phoenician inscription called “the Carpentras" has the following: "Blessed be Ta-Bai, daughter of Ta-Hopi, priest of Osiris Eloh"; and we find in Gen. iii. 21, "Yahuh eloh "; so we see that Osiris and Yahuh were literally one and the same-sun gods; the same with Allah (Al-yah) of the Arabs, the Babylonian Bel, the Aramean Belus, and the Syrian and Phoenician Baal. Yahuh is made to admit in Hosea (ii. 16) that Baal was one of his names. Another name by which he was known was Shaddai, sometimes with the Babylonian prefix of El, or Bel. etc. = Adonis, Ammon, or Amen, and Amen-Ra were other representatives of Yahuh. They merely represented the sun-god in different positions with regard to the zodiac. Tammuz and Adon, of ancient Aram and Babylonia, are also the same. The story was that Tammuz was slain by a boar. Adoni-yah Adonis is Yahuh; Adoni-zedek is the liberated Adonis or sun; Adoni-bezek is the rising Adonis, This god was the popular deity at Thebes, where, also, Yahur held a prominent place. He was the hidden, concealed, or secret (from which the word sacred is derived) one, the "occult god," and one with the Stygian Jupiter, when he descended to the lowest point of his annual descension in December; he is thus spoken of in Isaiah xlv. 15: "Thou art a god that hidest thyself, O God of Israel." He is the god of every degree of "glory," one with the Olympian Zeus, when he rises to his highest point of ascension in June-the "rising" and "liberated" Adonis, etc. 66 SOUL SACRED STONES, PLACES, NAMES, AND DAYS THE AND THE fear of the ghost and the ideas in the mind of primitive man, which had their inception at the grave, caused him to attach a sacredness to material objects and periods of time, such as stones, places, names, and days. These are to be observed to this day-for ghosts are just as much believed in now as ever they were in the ghost stories, the aversion shown by timid people to pass near a cemetery after dark, and the haunting of rooms in which persons have died; the spirit or ghost of the departed one is still supposed to linger near the spot. The tombstone, too, is still "sacred" to the memory of the dead person; and the word "sacred" carries with it a weird meaning and a feeling of awe. The Rosetta Stone is another example of a sacred stone; it was believed to have dropped from heaven. Churches-the houses of the ghost or god-and certain spots within them are "sacred," hence the name "sanctuary"; they are the modern representative of the primitive hut, in which was the grave, and by which it was made "sacred." The name of a person in primitive times represented a personality; it was the shadow or second self, and thus "secret or "sacred." Even pronouncing the name of a sacred person was a terribl crime, and the Hebrew word rendered "blasphemeth" in Lev. (xxiv. 11, 16) is literally "pronounceth," and is so rendered by the Jews themselves. The name of the Hebrew tribal god Iao, "Yahuh," or Jehovah, was "sacred," and the son of the Israelitish woman was stoned to death for pronouncing it. The Talmud says: He who attempts 66 66 our to pronounce it shall have no part in the world to come." With such terror surrounding the name, aided by the superstition and fanaticism, it became easy to insert whatever the priests pleased in the sacred writings; it was only necessary to cause Iao to interfere by word or action to render all discussion impossible. It was sufficient to stop a "reformer," or to cause him to be put to death, that the high priest should interrupt him at the first word he spoke. And the same protection is afforded the Christian ecclesiastical system of the present day by the cry of "blasphemy." The same sanctity for names is exemplified among modern Christians, who manifest great awe at hearing the name of "Jesus" uttered, and will use any other term rather than pronounce it, such as "our Lord," our Saviour," Redeemer "; and some pedantic ones, who aspire to be more pious than their neighbours, improve upon these by inserting the word "Blessed," "Holy," or "Most Holy." One of the charges against Jesus himself, made by the Jews, was that he had stolen the sacred "word," and by it wrought miracles. "He had a name written which no one knew but he himself" (Rev. xix. 12). That Messiah also promised that, by his name, his disciples should cast out devils; and pronounced that "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do" (John xiv. 13), and "Whatsoever ye shall ask the father [Yahuh] in my name, he will give it you (xvi. 23, 24). Peter declared that the name of Jesus healed the lame (Acts iii. 6); and when the Jews asked, “By what power have ye done this?" (Acts iv. 7), Peter answered: By the name of Jesus, the Christ, a name which is above every name." Paul tells us (Phil. ii. 9) that “At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow in heaven, on earth, and under the earth"-i e., the place where the sun descended to, nightly, and at the winter solstice. The writer of John (iii. 18) says: "Those are to be condemned who have not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." The Apocalypse (ii. 17) says: "To him that overcometh I will give a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth but he that receiveth it." In the so-called "Lord's Prayer" we find: "Hallowed [literally sacred'] be thy name"; hallowed is the old Saxon word for holy or sacred. The sacred name was "the word "- the unmentionable word: "In the beginning was the word; the word was with God, and the word was God." With the Hindoos the sacred name or word was "AUM." The only sacred day that has come down to our day from the days of primitive man is the seventh day, or "Sabbath " of the Hebrews; the day is perpetuated by nearly all civilized nations as a day of rest from work. It originated, as we have seen, with the ancient Akkadian moon worshippers. This people occupied a tract of land in the historic valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, about five thousand years before the birth of Jesus, and they, with the Egyptians, may be said to be the pioneers of civilization. These Akkadians, eventually conquered by the Assyrians, from the ruins of whose empire subsequently arose the monarchies of Nineveh and Babylon, were the inventors of cuneiform (wedge-shaped) writing, which consisted of figures of different kinds of animals, limbs, etc., traced with a style upon clay cylinders or tablets. Their chief god, as we have seen, was the moon, a temple to whom was dedicated on the top of the Tower or Temple of Babel. Each phase or quarter of the moon, consisting of seven days, was kept as a feast day, on which sacrifice was offered, and all work suspended, at first because the people gave themselves up to the pleasures of the day, work being considered inauspicious, and afterwards as a religious obligation. "The 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th days of each month were called 'Sabbaths,' or 'Rest days,' and so rigorously was this day kept that not even the king was permitted to eat cooked food, change his clothes, drive his chariot, sit in the judgment-seat, review his troops, or even take medicine on any of those days.”* But it was not a space of time, but the phase of the moon, that they kept. These Akkadians had their "Trinity," consisting of a celestial father and mother and their offspring, the sun-god; also stories of an infant Sargon being placed by his mother in a reed basket, and left on the bank of a river, being subsequently found, and eventually becoming king of Babylon (about B.C. 3750); of a creation; a tree of life; and a deluge. The name Adam is derived from the Assyrian Adami-man. They also had their "holy water,' penitential psalms," table of "shew-bread," and "ark" containing * F. J. Gould, A Concise History of Religion. 99.66 the images of their gods. They dedicated, as we have seen, the seven days of the week to the sun, moon, and five planets-Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn; they had also a special deity who received honour, as patron of the number seven; and destructive tempests and winds were believed to be directed by the will of seven wicked spirits."* The Sabbatical idea, with many other religious customs and observances, spread from the Akkadians to their Semitic conquerors, the inhabitants of the neighbouring countries of Phoenicia, Phrygia, Canaan, and Syria; and from these to the Jews during their seventy years' captivity. The Jews do not appear to have understood the true (planetary) origin of their Sabbath, for they give two contradictory reasons for its institution; one in Ex. (xxii. and xxxi. 17), where it is given as "because the Almighty rested on the seventh day "; the other in Deut. (v. 15), where it is given as because “the Lord God brought them out from bondage in Egypt," between which events was an interval of about 2,500 years. Such a thing as a sabbath was unknown, except as a Jewish custom, till the days of the Puritans, a sect of Protestants of peculiarly narrow mind and intolerance. The first we hear among Christians of any particular day being kept as "sacred was in the reign of the Imperial Murderer Constantine, who, after his "conversion" to Christianity, tried to force some of the old Pagan doctrines and customs upon the religion he had newly adopted, among which was the keeping of the great weekly festival of the Roman sungod, "Sol the Invincible"; but this had no connection whatever with the Jewish Sabbath, for it was kept on the first day of the week-the day of the sun. An Imperial edict was issued (321 C.E.) compelling all, except agricultural labourers, to rest from all work on the venerable day of the sun-"Dies Solis Venerabilis.” But this edict, which was much disliked by Christians, was repealed by the Emperor Leo in the ninth century. Eusebius says: "They [the first Christians] did not observe the Sabbath, nor do we; neither do we regard other injunctions which Moses delivered to be types and symbols, because such things as these do not belong to Christians.' * F. J. Gould, A Concise History of Religion. |
