THE TRINITY OF THE GENTILES. EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY. AN ANALYTICAL ESSAY IN FOUR CHAPTERS. Και το φως ἐν τη σκοτία φαίνει, καὶ ἡ σκοτία αυτο οὐ κατέλαβεν.—ΙΩΑΝ. Α. 4. CHAPTER I.-THE ORIGINAL DOCTRINE-ITS CERTAINTY-NECESSITY—MYTHO LOGICAL CORRUPTIONS. CHAPTER II.-EGYPTIAN ILLUSTRATIONS AND PROOFs. CHAPTER III.-THE WORSHIP OF ANIMALS. EGYPTIAN DOCTRINES OF INCAR NATION, RESURRECTION, IMMORTALITY. CHAPTER IV.-THE PYTHAGOREAN AND PLATONIC SPECULATIONS. CHAP. III. The Worship of Animals-the Egyptian Doctrines of Incarnation, Resurrec tion, Immortality. THE immediate connexion of the second triad of Osiris, Horus, and Typhon, with the animal creation (with more life as well as with intellect), as appears by our collation with the Mosaic record, and to which Diodorus bears testimony from the Egyptians (i. 11), brings us at once to Mr. Cory's views on the origin of the worship of animals, which we shall attempt to follow out and elucidate in connexion with the mythological calendar just explained. He shews that in the Indian, Greek, Egyptian, Persian, and other systems, the animals which are mentioned as the vahans, or bearers and companions of the divinities, and likewise as their representatives or symbols, may be clearly traced to the cherubic animals of the Scriptures; and, though so pleasing a theme may occasionally have induced him to carry his etymologies too far in search of unnecessary proof, his leading proposition is, we think, capable of demonstration. " It is a matter of very curious inquiry," observes our author (Inquiry, p. 90, et seq.), "how mankind degenerated into the worship of animals, and the abominations of idolatry. It will have been observed in the preceding remarks, that among the heathens, the eagle was the vahan of the etherial power; the lion, of the light; and the bull, of fire, heat, or the solar orb, though these distinctions are not always very accurately maintained. These animals are, in fact, no other than the animals which composed the cherubim; which, in the antediluvian, patri20 min) Qievenveriona wowo bol ark they were deemed oracular; and above them rested the Shekinah, the cloud of glory, the visible symbol of the presence of the Lord, who is represented as sitting between them, or as flying upon them. The form of the cherubim (Ezek. i. 10; 1 Chron. xxviii. 18) was of a bull, from which arose a human body, as a centaur with four heads, that of a bull, of an eagle, of a lion, and of a man, with wings and hands, and covered with eyes. In the heathen cherubim, among other remarkable variations, the head of a serpent is often substituted for the human bead. The seraphim are considered to have been similar; and the teraphim were of the same form, but smaller figures, which were set up by individuals in their own houses, and to which they resorted for answers. "The cherubim constituted the place of worship for all believers; they were termed the Pheni Elohim, the faces or presence of God (Zech. viii. 2, passim), and from between them issued the oracles. It would have been a singular omission if the heathens, as they went off from the patriarchal worship, had not carried with them an institution so remarkable accordingly, we find the figures worked up into all their religious institutions, and the memory of them retained even to the present day. From the quotations in the former part of this essay, we find that the heathens distributed the cherubic animals severally to the respective persons of the triad, as vahans upon which they sit or ride, or as consecrated attendants; and they not unfrequently confounded them with the deities themselves, and connected triplicated forms of various animals as statues of the gods. But these combinations are rarely given but to Phanes, Phtha, Mithras, and Amon-Ra, to that person who proceeds as, and is himself the triad; and all such combinations ***?!? genovivad to be oracular." the Pheni Elohim-the faces or presence of God, as above the name assigned to the oracular cherubim on the ark of the covenant, we have the sacred original of the Orphic Phanes, the Greek Pan, and of the Pan Kerobates of Aristophanes, together with that of the Faunus and the Penates of the ancient Italians. Again, the household gods, named Lares or Penates, were esteemed oracular, and were precisely equivalent to the Hebrew Teraphim. They were also the same with the Curetes and Corybantes, according to Nigidius; and the Corybantes were, as Theopompus affirms, the inventors of the triangular stones named Kurbeis, on which the Athenian laws were engraved. The keeper of the gates of Hades was the triple-headed Kerberus, as were the cherubim the keepers of the entrance of Paradise. Kerberus was the sun, as Plutarch affirms; and he accordingly denominates the Persian Mithras, Kruphius. The same writer tells us that Serapis, who was originally Phanes, was the same with Charops ; and so the lion of Phanes is called Charopian in the Orphic Fragments; so the seraph was, in the opinion of our author, the same with the cherub. The centaur, Chiron, and the boatman of Hades, Charon, would appear to be other forms, these being supported either by their description or offices; so was the Chimara of Hesiod, and Gergon, the three or four-headed monster which Hercules subdued in Spain; so the Feurss, or Griffins, of the Greek temples, and of the armorial insignia of northern chivalry; and the writer might have added, of the Babylonian cylindrical gems, and the sculptures of Persepolis, which were, in all probability, the authorities of Ctesias, whom he quotes (Inquiry, p. 100). The compound and oracular sphynges are evidently of the same class, although the analogy of name is not so happy. The symbolic characters of the Egyptian Scarab, as the generator of the world, has also its analogy; and the catheaded, the ibis-formed, and the bullheaded scarabs of Horapollo, come in support of it. So, in the cat-headed Thriphis of the Egyptians, we have probably the teraph; while the tripod of the Pythian temple was oracular, like the Shekinah above the cherubim on the mercy-seat: of which our author conceives, or rather proves the tripod, named from the daughters of Triopas, who bewailed the death of Apollo, supposed to lie buried in it, to have been an imitation. In fine, nearly all the monstrous combinations of heathen antiquity may be traced, either with reference to their figure or character, if not to both, to the cherubim, seraphim, and teraphim of the sacred writings; and, the consecration of the animals whose appearances were thus compounded, and of whatever others were substituted for them, was a necessary result, according to the imaginative principles of heathenism. After tracing the cherubim, seraphim, and teraphim, with much learning and acuteness, throughout the various systems of heathenism, and indulging, perhaps, in a few fanciful etymologies and analogies, but never SO as to weaken his leading argument, Mr. Cory proceeds (p. 104): "The cherubim may be found in every part of the heathen world, and to the abuse of them, I believe, may be traced the worship of animals. The heathen originally fell into materialism, and worshipped the created etherial elements instead of the Creator; and, in process of time, descended another step, by substituting, as objects for adoration, the very animals which they originally regarded but as types of their etherial gods." Let us add, that the wheels in which was "the spirit of the living creatures," or cherubim (Ezek. i. 20, 21), seem to us to add no small degree of force to the argument. The wheel was as universally adopted in the Gentile world as the cherubim themselves, as a type or symbol of the world or universe, which was itself the great god of materialism. In the hieroglyphics of Egypt, it is the common symbol denoting locality, as earth, land, region, place, &c. It appears among the symbolic remains of all ancient nations more particularly on their coins and medals-from the further India to the British isles; and it has been proved by a very learned, though, in some cases, a fanciful inquirer not so, however, in this instance (we mean, Sir William Betham)-to have, in all instances, a geographical signification, as in the Egyptian remains; and this without any previous knowledge on his part, of the established hieroglyphic sense.* Let it be also noted that, according to the description of Ezekiel (i. 26), the throne of God is immediately above the cherubim and wheels: in that of Rev. iv. 6, the four beasts are "round about the throne." Of all the theories that have ever been advanced to explain the worship of animals (for the best account of which see Dr. Pritchard's admirable section, Analysis of Egyptian Mythology, p. 330), the preceding is the most obvious, satisfactory, and tenable; the most capable of being borne out by corresponding circumstances, and that which combines in itself all that is tenable in other theories. It is itself a member of the same argument which demonstrates the original source of the Gentile trinity, from which it is inseparable; and it will be found to connect itself with other recondite doctrines to which we have alluded - those of the incarnation, the resurrection, and immortality. We have already spoken of the sacred animals as more immediately representing the infernal divinities, being the supposed avatars of the souls of the defunct terrestrial gods, themselves human avatars of the celestial series. They were the receptacles-in other words, the vahans, or carriers, of the gods in question (as in the familiar case of the bull, Apis, the receptacle, or vahan, of the soul of Osiris); and hence immediately identify themselves with the cherubic animals. As the forms of the gods became multiplied, so were those of the sacred or consecrated animals: and each of the thirty calendal forms had its one or more animal representatives. This view will explain a remarkable account which Herodotus has preserved from the Egyptian priests; while the statement of that historian will, on the other hand, confirm the views now advanced, and prove the whole to be a simple and obvious result of the cherubic origin of the worship of animals. "The Egyptians," says Herodotus (lib. ii.), "affirm that Dionysus and Demeter, or Ceres (Osiris and Isis), preside over the regions below; and the same people are the first who advanced the doctrine that the soul of man is immortal, and after the death of the body passes into some other animal, which is born opportunely to receive it. They say that it transmigrates through all the creatures which inhabit the sea and the land, and through all winged animals; and, having performed this circuit in the space of 3000 years, enters again into a human body." We quote in the words of Dr. Pritchard. - But this 3000 years of transmigra tion through the bodies of animals i.e. the sacred or consecrated onesis itself a great triacontaëterid, or cyclar month of the annus maximus of 36,525 years, by which the Egyptian system of time was, as already mentioned, regulated; twelve periods of 3000 years, making 36,000 (as twelve months of 30 years formed the prophetic time of 360), and the fractional 525 years representing the intercalary five days and a quarter. The character of the month being thus prolonged to 3000 years, that of each day will be represented by a century, consecrated to each of the respective forms of the gods; and the whole will therefore represent the great triacontaëterid or panegyry of the resurrection. It will follow almost as a necessary consequence, that, during the predominance of each divine form, the animal sacred to that form was also the predominant animal avatar of the souls of men, and gave a sacred character to its species for the same period; which species would hence become the vahans, or carriers, of the souls of those who died during the allotted century. During the following century, the animal consecrated to the next divinity in order, together with its species, would become the receivers of the souls of the defunct, as well as the souls of those who had previously inhabited the sacred animals of the preceding divinity; and so on, until the great cycle of migration was completed. This view will, we apprehend, at once explain the principle of migration spoken of by Herodotus, and prove that the whole is a necessary consequence of the system. It will, likewise, we think, explain the reason why vast numbers of mummied ani * See Proceedings of the Numismatic Society, 1836-7, p. 32. ་་ mals of the same kind,-as dogs, cats, cynocephali, crocodiles, ibises, scarabs, &c., are always found together;' these deposits being, doubtless, respectively, remains of the same age, and embalmed during the period when the sacred animals in question were respectively imagined to be the vehicles of human souls. It were ridiculous to suppose that every animal of the consecrated species was embalmed during every age of Egyptian history. If so, it is improbable that they should always occur in separate masses, independently of the inconsistency of such an idea, and of the consistency of the view which we have advanced, in all its parts. It explains the migratory system, and gives a reason for the embalming of animals-those supposed to be the depositaries of the souls of men, -while the whole is but a bringing out of the same original theory, in a way which explains and confirms history, and is in harmony with all that has already been developed regarding the principles of the Egyptian calendar; and, we do not despair of yet seeing the great cycle of migration chronologically authenticated by the determination of the relative ages of the animal deposits in Egypt. Its chronological relations and epochs, in the pages of Herodotus, we hope to make evident on another occasion; and we hope, moreover, to demonstrate that this period had no small influence in the corruption of ancient history and chronology, by reason of the assumed necessity of interposing a renovating triacontaeterid of 3000 years, between the destruction and renewal of the world at the deluge, and the universallyexpected renovation at about the epoch of Christianity. This is to be traced not only in the Egyptian, Chaldean, Persian, Hindu, and Chinese systems of time, but in the Samaritan and Greek corruptions of the sacred Hebrew chronology, which are obviously accommodated to meet the Gentile opinions on the antiquity of our race. CHAP. IV. The Pythagorean and Platonic Speculations. Mr. Cory goes on to shew that the countries inhabited by the Jewish nation-first, Egypt, and, afterwards, Palestine were the points of radiation from which religious intelligence emanated to the heathen world, at the several epochs of the Exode, the Captivity, and Christianity. He shews that the partial reformation in the age of the Captivity was universal, that it extended eastwards to Persia, India, Siam, China, and Japan; as well as to Greece in the West, as attested by the original and independent records of all these countries. At this period, the ancient Gentile system lost a portion of its gross materialism, and with it, in a great degree, the knowledge of the ancient triad which had materialism for its basis. This he shews to be especially conspicuous in the Pythagorean philosophy, which descended to the schools of Plato with little variation; so much so, that the doctrine of a trinity-much more the mystery of that doctrinewas not contemplated as contained in the writings of that philosopher, until after its developement by Christ and his apostles. The disciples of Plato then attempted to fix a higher sense on his notions than was ever contemplated by those ancient systems, which are so much more clear on the question; and they have in this been too much seconded by the early fathers of the church, as well as by some of our modern critics. The former weakly argued on the support which Christianity derived from Plato, while their opponents took them at their word, and hence insisted that Christianity gave them nothing new. The philosophers from the sixth century B. C. downwards, saw the absurdity of giving to matter the priority over mind. They, therefore, as we have shewn, inverted the material systems of The following is an extract from a communication on this question, with which we have been favoured by one of the best-informed of our Egyptian travellers, Joseph Bonomi, Esq., since these pages were written :- -" Cats are abundant, but the most abundant of all is the ibis: I have seen large deposits of them at Saccara, and near Karamoun; in both cases, long, narrow, horizontal excavations, in various directions, unadorned, the pots containing the birds being piled in order against the sides of the excavations. The mummied crocodile is found to occupy entirely to bimself several unadorned excavations opposite to Manfalout." their predecessors, and confounded them by speculations which end in nothing, and from which similar nothings have been generated from the ages of Pythagoras and Plato, till that of Mr. Thomas Taylor, the last of the Platonists; with whom, as if no data were to be wanting, the present writer carried on a dialogue in writing, on the system of his school, of which an extract appears in the treatise before us, and from which, in our second chapter, we have drawn illustrations of deep importance to the present inquiry. The extract in question forms so valuable an appendix to ancient history and mythology, that we trust the dialogue of which it forms a part will be given to the public in as complete a state as possible. Mr. Cory has gone to the fountain-head, and replaced these speculations by something tangible and profitable to learning as well as to religion, and which draws the bonds that unite the causes of true learning and philosophy, and orthodox Christianity, closer than ever. To rivet the links of this beautiful chain of evidence, and to augment their number, have been our objects; and we have, we trust, successfully demonstrated that, even were any objections to the Gentile trinity, as a separate question, still to be found, the parallel and undisputed cases of the incarnation, resurrection, and immortality, supported and elucidated as they are by our Egyptian data, must for ever silence them. We take the opportunity of here noticing Mr. Mushet's volume on the Trinity of the Ancients, which, as already mentioned, made its appearance almost simultaneously with Mr. Cory's observations on the same subject; and which latter will be placed in still higher relief by the comparison, with the most perfect justice to Mr. Mushet, and we think with advantage to the general question. Mr. Mushet appears to be one of those amiable writers who, fearful of Gentile participation in the great leading doctrine of Christianity, would explain away the evidences which paganism supplies of its own inferiority in expounding the fundamental principles of religion. The notion that the mystery of the holy trinity is to be found in the specu lations of Plato, which, as above, was insisted upon by the later Platonists, admitted by too many of the early fathers, and defended by Cudworth, and other modern critics of eminence, had already been sufficiently exploded by Dr. Morgan; and briefly, but effectually, by Mr. Cory, in the valuable introduction to his Ancient Frag ments. The present writer has followed up the same view more at length, demonstrating the absurdity of seeking for the revealed principles of the Trinity in speculations which, to adopt a popular illustration, have precisely as much real bearing on the developement of Christianity, as the speculations of the geologists, a century ago, have on the now developed relations of that science; but endeavouring to strengthen his ar guments by explaining away the relations between the original Gentile triads, founded on the cosmogonic types, and the doctrine of a trinity in unity, the revealed mystery of which forms the primary character of the Christian dispensation, and which he conceives was hence unlikely to have been known to the heathen. He freely admits the universality of the ancient triads, and quotes Mr. Cory's Fragments at large in support of this; but he at the same time adopts the mythological speculations of Bryant for his interpreters; and hence, while admitting the physical as well as the human impersonations of the Gentile divinities, the latter, as represented by Noah and his three sons, afford him his grand key to the monad and triad of the ancients- the ark, his solution of the mundane eggand the history of the deluge, that of every other phenomenon connected with the primary gods of antiquity. Let us here remark, that the mere knowledge of the doctrine or fact of the divine trinity in unity, or of any other doctrine, as understood by the Gentiles, and the developement of its mystery, as reserved for the Gospel dispensation, are two very different things, the distinction between which has been lost sight of by those who The Trinity of the Ancients; or, the Mythology of the First Ages, and the Writings of some of the Pythagorean and other Schools, examined with reference to the Knowledge of the Trinity ascribed to Plato and other ancient Philosophers. By |