The Egyptians sometimes had recourse to extraordinary methods of exhibiting to view the lunar horns, which decorated alike the fronts of Isis and of Ammon without their natural vehicle, the living animal on whose head they grew. It is said that in Egypt there was a place where, if an ox were buried so that only his horns should be seen, and they were sawn off, bees would fly out. The fables of the ancients are not to be rejected as mere inventions: there is usually some groundwork of truth; this, for instance, is an opinion that never could have entered into any one's head without some cause; and yet it is an experiment which no one would have tried upon speculation. Superstition only can explain it. Now it has been shown, that Isis was the same as Ceres, or in Greek, Demeter, whose name is acknowledged to signify mother-earth; and she is identified with the earth by Orpheus3, and Euripides; wherefore the Egyptian month Athyr, in which Isis was said to have mourned for the entrance into the Ark, was denominated by the

1 Antigonus Carystius. Historiarum mirabilium Collectanea. c. xxiii.

2 Quasi Γῆ μήτηρ.

3 Γῆ μήτηρ πάντων, Δημήτηρ πλουτοδότειρα.. 1. iii. c. 3.

Euseb. Præp. Evan.

4

Δαμάτηρ θέα, ἀπάντων
Ανασσα, ἀπάνε

-των γᾶ τροφός.

Eur. Phæniss.

Hence she is called the Terrene Goddess, and her priestesses, T xovías deãs μúotides. - Porphyrius de Antro Nymphorum, c. xviii.

Boeotians Damatrian. There can be no difficulty in understanding why she was called the universal mother; for every living animal issued from the body of the crescent-shaped ark. Since then Porphyry assures us, that the bull was considered by the ancients as a vehicle of the moon', it is plain that he was sacrificed to her, in her twofold cha racter of earth and moon. The body, buried in the ground alive, was a sacrifice to the earth; but the horns were kept above the ground, because they were a sacred emblem; which being afterwards sawn off together with the frontal bone in order to be preserved, the cavity of the skull might easily be filled by a swarm of flies feeding upon the brain, or of bees after it was gone. The priestesses of Ceres were called Melissa', Bees; and so was the Moon the priestesses obtained that name from the practice of hiding themselves in sacred cavities in the celebration of their Mysteries. But what connection had the moon with bees? none whatever: but the crescent was the representative of the ark, and the cleansing of the world from sin was commemorated in the purifying virtues which were supposed to belong to honey: for," with honey," says Porphyry, "they cleanse their tongue from all sin :" for which reason the Prophet Isaiah

1 Ἐπεὶ ταῦρον μὲν σελήνη καὶ ὕψωμα σελήνης ὁ ταῦρος. — Porph. de

An. Nym. c. xviii.

2 Ibid. Proserpine also was called kópy μeditwdŋ.

3 Καθαίρουσι τὴν γλῶσσαν τῷ μέλιτι ἀπὸ παντὸς ἀμαρτωλοῦ. Porph. de An. Nym. c. xv.

It is

introduces it in his prophecy concerning Christ:"Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may learn to refuse the evil and to choose the good." not easy to say what motive the Egyptians could have had for bringing down the moon from heaven, and seating her on the earth; but if the moon was particularly sacred in her first quarter, because at that period she bore the greatest resemblance to the luniform ark, then they had a very intelligible motive for calling to remembrance the time when the ark grounded upon Mount Ararat. In the superstitions of other countries there are instances of a similar design: Thus at Padua, among a people where, as I have shown, the memory of the deluge impressed upon their hills and rivers long maintained a lingering existence, there was

PATAVII

APUD BASSIANOS.

T. LIVIVS

T. L

OPTATVS.AN.XV

an altar, or monument, exhibiting a crescent mounted upon a hill. Thus, too, in the celebrated temple of Juggernaut in India, when the images

1 Is. vii. 15.

2 Gruteri Inscriptiones, ii. 982.

are stripped of their ornaments to be bathed, the reason appears of the concurrence of all sects in the worship there: they are memorials of a worship far more ancient than that introduced by the Brahmins, or by the modern usurpers of Budha's Three of them are thus represented.'

name.

It is a singular and curious fact, that the mystical character, which expresses the name of the Deity, bears a striking similitude to these idols, it is pronounced Pranava, which seems to be compounded of Pra, an indeclinable particle used intensively, and Nava, or Noah. Here we have the crescent-shaped boat in one instance floating above, in the other reposing on the side of the mountain; and it has been remarked that the crescent is like the horns of the cow of the moun

1 As. Res. viii. 62.

3

2 It is very common in India to prefix the particle Pra to proper names of holy men, and more particularly so among the Boudd'hists. Wilford, As. Res. viii. 255.

3 Quasi, ó mávu Noah.

tains called Gayal or Gayava; but there is other testimony to the diluvian origin of these idols besides their shape. A Brahmin, it is said, was directed to build the town of Pursorem by a crow, which he observed to plunge into the water, and, after washing its body, pay obeisance to the ocean; and afterwards he was informed, in a vision, that a piece of wood would arise out of the water, which had the true form of the Deity: this the Rajah called Jaggernaut, (or Jagan Nath, Lord of the universe,) and deposited it in the temple there. It is described by Mr. Hamilton as an irregular pyramidal black stone: an image of an ox projects from the centre of the building.' It is, no doubt, from this notion of a crescent placed upon the mountain's brow, that the Mahabarat speaks of Meru reflecting the sunny ray from the surface of its gilded horns2; and the Jewish tradition is only another version of the same story, which says, that God once plucked up the mountain of the world by the root, and raised it into the air, and made it shine like a mirror. It would have been impossible to guess how these incoherent fancies could have occurred to any one, if we had not had a sufficient explanation in the association of the mountain with the moon, through the medium of the ark. The Chinese are said to shape their tombs in the form

1 Maurice's Indian Antiquities, i. 241. 2 Translation by Mr. Wilkins.

3 Targum of Jonathan on Exod. xx. 17.

Eradicavit mundi montem et sustulit ipsum in aërem et lucebat tanquam speculum. - Wetstein on Luke, xvii. 6.