Continued from Chapter VI. Identification of Antichrist.

It will be observed from the foregoing, that out of their own mouths Popes, Cardinals, Bishops, Priests and Jesuits have convicted the Pope of Rome of being “The Antichrist” of Holy Writ, and Ho Antichristos of prophecy, the “little Horn” of Daniel, and “Willful King” of the Romans, who “doeth according to his own will,” who is seated in a false “Apostolic See,” whose “mouth speaketh great things and blasphemies,” whose official title is “Roman Pontiff,” or Pontifex Maximus, i.e., heathen, who, by deeds and words, by assumptions and claims, poses as God within Christ’s Church, and who “exalts himself above all that (on earth) is called God,” whether they be monarchs or princes, magistrates or bishops.

But these are not the only points of identity between the Scripture portrait and the reality. We have other striking evidences:—

(a) SEAT OR THRONE OF ANTICHRIST.

For instance, take the “seat” of the False “Apostolic See,” which is thrice mentioned in prophecy, viz., Daniel xi. 38; 2 Thess. ii. 4; and Rev. xiii. 2. There it is referred to as a “seat” (the see of a “seer,” as Daniel vii. 8 describes it), in which the “God of Forces” —i.e. Hercules—is honored; as a “Cathedra” usurped in the mystical “Shrine of God” or professing Church; and as a “throne” of earthly power derived from the inspirer of Paganism. As already shown, it was described by the Romish Bishop of Waterford as a “Papal Throne,” on which sits “one who exercises the authority of the Great God Almighty Himself.”

This “throne” is thus described in “Christmas Holidays, etc.” (p. 47): “The magnificent throne of the Pope, raised quite as high as the altar, which it fronted, and decked out most splendidly with its cloth of crimson and gold, and the gilded mitre suspended above.” . . . “His throne was far more gorgeous than the altar; where they kneeled down before the latter once, they kneeled down before the former five times; and the amount of incense offered before each was about in the same proportion. Had I known nothing of Christianity, I should have supposed the Pope to be the object of their worship. He was evidently the central point of attraction.”

This “throne” is only used on the occasion of the Pope celebrating Mass on certain “Festivals.” Other “thrones” are used by him on other occasions; as, for instance, the “Sedia Gestatoria,” or portable seat, in which he is borne aloft above the heads of all present—”above all that is called God”—whether kings, princes, magistrates, bishops or priests. Here is what “The Universe ” (June 27th, 1846) and the official document, “Notitia Congre, et Tribunal Curie Romane, Littenburg, 1683,” both said about the Coronation of a Pope: “After the Election and Proclamation, the Pope, attired in the Pontifical habit, is borne in the Pontifical Chair to the Church of St. Peter, and is placed on the High Altar, where he is saluted (Picart uses the word ‘adored’) for the third time by the Cardinals, by kissing his feet, hands, and mouth.” In this portable throne or seat the Pope is carried backwards and forwards between his palace of the Vatican and St. Peter’s.

Picart, the Romish historian of Papal Ceremonies, gives a full account of the Election and Coronation of a Pope, as described in the official Roman “Ceremonial.” It involves five “Adorations” of the Pope. In the second he is seated “upon the altar of Sextus’s chapel”; in the third upon “the great altar”; in the fourth on a “throne” under a canopy in the portico of St. Peter’s, and thence carried to a “throne” in the Gregorian Chapel, where, seated, he receives the “homage” of Cardinals, ambassadors, princes, prelates, etc., the Cardinals kissing his hands, the rest his knees. This is the Fourth “Adoration.”

On the arches raised in honor of Pope Borgia were the words “Rome was great under Caesar; now she is greater: Alexander VI. reigns. The former was a man: this is a god.” Lord Acton (“Letters on Modern History,” p. 79) said: “The scandals in the family of Borgia did not prevent Bishops calling him a god.” Julius II., in the 4th Session of the 5th Lateran Council, A.D. 1512, was thus addressed: “For thou art the shepherd, thou art the physician; thou art the governor; finally, thou art another God on earth,” E. C. Gardiner’s “St. Catherine of Siena” describes Urban VI. as “Christ upon earth.”

Picart unconsciously describes the fulfillment of 2 Thess. ii. 4, for he adds: “The Holy Father is undressed, in order to put on other robes, the color whereof is a type or symbol of his purity or innocence. The Cardinal-deacon clothes His Holiness in a white garment, who, in the language of Scripture, is to preside in the temple of the Lord.”

After this the Pope is carried to the “High Altar,” and descends, and ascends his own “throne” —upon which he receives the fifth Adoration.

After this he is carried to the “Benediction-Pew” in his sedia gestatoria, under a canopy, supported by Roman conservators and caparions, two grooms in scarlet, carrying fans of peacocks’ feathers, on either side of the chair. The pope ascends a “throne” in the pew, and is invested with the Papal Triple Crown, with the words, “Receive this tiara embellished with three crowns, and never forget, when you have it on, that you are the Father of Princes and Kings, and the Supreme Judge of the Universe (or ‘Ruler of the World,’ as another authority says); and, on earth, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, our Saviour.” Whereupon, the Pope “blesses” the people thrice; a “Plenary Indulgence” is proclaimed; cannons roar out a triple peal; bonfires blaze; rockets are fired; houses are illuminated; horse and foot soldiers present arms.

Some days later the Pope proceeded in state (this was before 1870) to St. John de Lateran—the Cathedral of the Bishop of Rome—under triumphal arches, and with most gorgeous pageantry of scarlet, gold, silver, silks, purple velvets, satins laced with gold, precious stones, and almost everything enumerated in Revelation xviii. 12, 13—filling a whole folio in small print—there to be again “enthroned” and “adored,” with honors no emperor or king has ever received.

But there is yet another “seat” or “throne” for the Pope. It is in St. Peter’s, at the extreme end of the building, and commands the entire interior. It is over an “altar,” with a colossal reredos (a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a church) of bronze, in the center of which is the throne—within which, hidden from view, is the so-called “Chair of St. Peter.” This “throne” is supported by images pretending to be Augustine and Ambrose—Latin ** Fathers,’’ Chrysostom and Athanasius—Greek “Fathers.” Above it is a Dove, surrounded by angels, boys and nymphs, in the midst of rays of light. Angels are gazing down at the Pope’s bronze throne, with the seat inside. Directly under the bronze case is the “altar.” Thus the place of Romish “authority” and “teaching” is above the Sacrifice of the Mass or the Immolated Victim on the altar, i.e., is “above God.”

Directly over the chair, exactly where the occupant’s head rests, is a crown upheld by angelic hands. Above these angels is the emblem of God the Holy Spirit, from which rays of light pour down upon this “throne” or “seat.” It is from this chair that the Head of the Latins, or Lateinos, claims the Headship of the Universal Church of Christ, and from it claims to be “Vicar of Christ,” i.e., in Greek, Antichristos. It is the False Apostolic Chair, whence are derived the “Petrine claims” of the Latin Papas. Below it is an “altar,” on which this Latin man first makes his God, and then sits in order to be “adored” by those whom the Council of Trent “called gods,” i.e., bishops and priests.

(b) ROMISH TESTIMONY TO IDENTITY.

Cardinal Wiseman (“Recollections of the Pope,” pp. 229, 230) said: “The Papal throne is lofty, and is erected opposite the altar, in the sanctuary.

“The Altar is the object of all reverence, (2 Thess. ii. 3, 4) towards it, all kneel and worship the consecrated elements there.” (A terrible admission of idolatry.)

Archbishop Ullathorne said (“Letters from Rome,” p. 216): “The multitudes kneel when the Pontiff lifts up the God of Heaven and earth in his mortal hands.”

Cardinal Manning (“Sermon on the Pope’s Jubilee”) declared that “The priest’s hand is the instrument of bringing the Lord of Heaven on the Altar.”

Said Mr. Eustace, a Popish priest, who witnessed this “Adoration” of the Pope: “I object not to the word ‘adoration’ . . . but why should the altar be made his footstool? The altar—the beauty of holiness, the throne of the Victim-Lamb, the mercy-seat of the temple of Christianity; why should the altar be converted into the footstool of a mortal?” (“Classical Tour,” Vol, IV., Appendix, p. 396, Leghorn Edition).

Well might Mr. Gladstone, in his “Rome: Newest Fashions in Religion” (p. 172), ask the Pope to explain the meaning of a photograph sold in Rome by Cleofe Ferrari, representing “a double scene, one in the heavens above, one on the earth below.” “Above . . . is one of those figures of the Eternal Father which we in England view with repugnance. On the right hand of that figure stands . . . the Blessed Virgin Mary, with the moon under her feet (Rev. xii. 1); on the left hand . . . is St. Peter, kneeling on one knee—kneeling to the Virgin, not to God. In the scene below . . . on the pedestal is Pope Pius IX., in a sitting posture, with his hands clasped, his crown, the Tri-regno, on his head, and a stream of light falling upon him from a dove, forming part of the upper combination, and representing the Holy Spirit. The Pope’s head is not turned towards the figure of the Almighty. Round the. pedestal are four kneeling figures apparently representing the four great quarters of the globe, whose corporal adoration is visibly directed towards the Pontiff. . . We commend this most profane piece of adulation to the notice of the Cardinal Vicar.”

That the Antichrist of prophecy is the Latin Papacy is proved by the Roman Missal, the Decrees, Canons, and Catechism of the Council of Trent—when compared with I Tim iii.: 2:Thess. ii.: Rev. xiii., xvii., as well as the following Early Testimonies of the “Fathers”:

Irenaeus: “The number of Antichrist’s name shall be expressed by this word, LATINUS”;

Sybilla: “The greatest terror and fury of his Empire, and the greatest woe that he shall work, shall be by the banks of Tiber”;

Jerome: “Antichrist shall sit in the temple of God, either at Jerusalem, as some think, or else in the Church itself, as we more correctly consider”; “Antichrist shall cause all religion to be subject to his power”;

Gregory I.- “I speak it boldly, whosoever calleth himself Catholic Priest, or desireth so to be called, in the pride of his heart, is the forerunner of Antichrist”; “By this pride of his (John, bishop of Constantinople), what thing else is signified, but that the time of Antichrist is even at hand”; “The King of Pride is coming to us, and an army of priests is prepared …”;

Bernard: “The Beast that is spoken of in the Book of Revelation … is now gotten into Peter’s chair,” and though these words were spoken against Petrus Luna, who usurped the see of Rome in the time of Pope Innocent VII., they prove that in (Romish “Saint”) Bernard’s judgment the Antichrist can sit in Peter’s chair: “Bestia nolens os Ioquens blasphemias occupat Cathedram Petri”; (From Google translation of the Latin: Beasts unwillingly speaking blasphemies occupy the Chair of Peter.)

Joachim Abbas: “Antichrist is already born in Rome, and shall advance himself higher in the Apostolic See”;

Arnulphius, in the Council of Rheims: “What think you, reverend Fathers, of this man sitting on high in his throne, glittering in purple, and cloth of gold? Verily if be be void of charity . . . then he is Antichrist sitting in the temple of God, and showing out himself as if he were God”;

The Bishops in the Council of Reinspurg: “Pope Hildebrand under a color of holiness hath laid the foundation for Antichrist”;

Dante calls Rome the “Whore of Babylon”;

Petrarch: “Rome is the Whore of Babylon, the Mother of Idolatry and Fornication, the Sanctuary of Heresy, and the School of Error.”

(c) HEATHENISM DISGUISED.

The “Chair of St. Peter” is heathenish. The “altar” below it is heathenish. The “Adoration” of the Pope is heathenish. The “kneeling” to the image of the Virgin ts heathenish. The peacocks’ feathers, or Filabelli, are heathenish (Egyptian). The processions and pageantry are heathenish. Everything about the Latin man and his religion is heathenish—Romish Cardinals and Archbishops being witnesses. Thus the “Archbishop of Birmingham,” in his Mid-Lent Pastoral, in 1917, said: “During Passiontide the Church, by her public offices and liturgy, and by the draping of altars and statues, intimates . . . the Sacred Passion. Yet on Maundy Thursday she puts off her garments of sorrow and resumes her festal attire . . . that we may . . . rejoice in the institution of the adorable sacrifice” of the Mass! This is imitated from the old Pagan worship, in which the clothing of the gods occupied an important place (see Homer’s Iliad, vi. 269-311).

The bronze statue of St. Peter at Rome was formerly a statue of Jupiter—as Torrigio (8th century) admits (II Vaticano Illustrato, and Brock’s Rome: Pagan and Papal, p. 121). On various annual solemnities, it is the custom to clothe this image in full Pontifical dress, “and so to present it for the worship of the faithful, rich with gold and gems” (Ibid. pp, 123.and 431)… Picart (Vol. I., p. 13) thus refers to the modern Romish custom of kissing images: “With us the priest kisses the altar, the cross, the relics, the thurible, the paten and the chalice.” The bronze image of St. Peter is brightly polished by the kissings and rubbings of worshipers, including the Pope. Cardinal Baronius (d. 1607) was the first to introduce its worship . . . which laudable custom others followed, to the wearing away of the brass of the statue” (Ciacconius: 4 vols. fol. Rome: 1677). 600 years B.C., apostate Israelites kissed the calves (Hosea xiii. 2), and a century earlier, they adored Baal and kissed the bloodstained idol of Phoenicia (2 Kings xix. 18), just as the heathen used to kiss the image of Hercules at Agrigentium.

Rome boasts that it has “Christianized” Paganism by adopting its worship, and changing the names of the images! In reality it has paganized Christianity!

The following extract from the Christian World supplies the answer:—”Newman, in a passage of his ‘Essay on Development,’ speaking of the early Catholicism in its contact with the heathen world, says:— ‘Temples, incense, lamps, and candles, votive offerings, holy water, asylums, holy days, and seasons, processions, blessings on the fields, sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the east, images, and the Kyrie Eleison are ALL OF PAGAN ORIGIN, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church.’ Pope Gregory the Great, in his letter to the English missionaries, gives the rationale of the process. ‘Let them,’ he says, ‘hang garlands round their temples, turned into churches, and let them celebrate such festivals with modest repasts. Instead of immolating animals to demons, let them kill such animals and eat them . . . so that, by allowing them such material pleasures, they may the more easily be brought to share in spiritual joys. For it is impossible to expect savage minds to give up all their customs at once.’”

The passage from Cardinal Newman will be found in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, London, 1846, p. 359.

(d) FULFILLMENTS OF PROPHETIC FEATURES.

This leads us to the fulfillment of Revelation xiii. 11-17 and xix. 20, or the identification of the “False Prophet” or Pagan False Priesthood, for that that is the meaning of “two horns like a lamb” is clear from the facts: (1) that our Lord used a parallel simile to denote false Christian ministers (Matthew vii. 15); and (2) the word “Lamb” is everywhere in the Apocalypse the symbol of Christ, and therefore the figure necessarily denotes a False Christian ministry; which, being a “Wild Beast,” is of heathen origin.

Now the “Canon Law” of Rome is a compilation of documents, some of them emanating from Popes, but the majority from Papal Councils and so-called “theologians” and Romish priests. It is principally in this enormous “Corpus Juris Canonici” that are found all the false claims of the Popes, their false teaching, their false history, their usurpations. It is in the “Canon Law” that the Pope is called God, (Decretum Gregorii, XII.) and “Lord God.” (Decretals, Gregory IX.) It is in the “Canon Law” that the Pope is described as “God, because he is God’s Vicar.” (Decretals of Innocent.) In fact, Romish writers style the “Canon Law” and “Decretals” the “Pope’s Oracle,” as representing the Pope’s mind. Romish casuists say of the Pope: “As Christ was God, he, too, was to be looked on as God.” The “Sacrum Ceremoniale” speaks of “The Apostolic Chair” as “The Seat of God.” By permission of priestly superiors, works are published by Romish ecclesiastics, styling the Pope “Vice-God.”

Papal excommunications and anathemas are styled “Fire from Heaven” by Papists. Thus Gregory VII. spoke of Henry IV. as “struck with thunder“—afflatum fulmino; and at the first Council of Lyons, the excommunication of the Emperor Frederick by Pope Innocent is described thus: “These words, uttered in the midst of the Council, struck the hearers with terror, as might the flashing thunderbolts, when, with candles lighted and flung down, the Lord Pope and his assistant prelates flashed their lightning fire against the Emperor.

In the Roman “Pontifical,” compiled by ecclesiastics, the following is put into the mouths of Popish Bishops when threatening the “greater excommunication” (or, as it is called in Ireland, “Putting fire to your heels and toes”): “We adjudge you to be anathematized and condemned with the devil and his angels, and all the reprobate in eternal fire . . “; “We separate (Rev. xiii. 15, 17) you from the fellowship of all Christians and exclude you from the threshold of the Holy Mother Church in Heaven and earth, and decree you to be excommunicated.”

By a General Papal Council of Ecclesiastics was the Bull “Unam Sanctam” enacted, which subjected everyone to the Pope. Gregory, Bishop of Rome, himself realized the force of the prophecy when he declared, “The King of Pride is at hand; and an army of priests is prepared,” “because the clergy war and strive for mastery and advancement, who were appointed to go before others in humility”; “under the aspect of sheep we nourish the fangs of the wolf.” History tells us that from the time of Gregory, the ecclesiastics of Rome were one body, under one papal head, bishops lording it over secular priests, abbots and generals of monastic orders over the “Regulars”;—”Seculars” and “Regulars” forming the “two horns” of the pretended Lamb-like pagan hierarchy, all alike employed in deceiving the laity, and enforcing the claims of the Pope, “before him” (Compare 2 Tim. iv. 1, 2) i.e., with his sanction, approval and support.

It must never be forgotten that as “Bishop of the Apostolic See,” the Pope claims the headship of the Universal Church, and lordship over all ecclesiastics—Regular and Secular; whilst, in his capacity as successor of the Caesars, and occupier of their “throne,” he claims the lordship over all temporal powers in the Roman earth. Beyond and above these two claims, he, as “Vicar of Christ,” or “Vice-God,” poses as “King of Kings, and Lord of Lords,” with power over Heaven, and Earth, and Purgatory—a claim embodied in the Triple Crown he wears.

Hence the Bull “Unam Sanctam” declares it essential to salvation to be subject to the Pope. Accordant with which claim, all ecclesiastics take the vow of “obedience,” and receive the Sign of the Cross (“Pontificale Romanum,” p. 49) as a sign of obedience to the Pope; and these, in turn, administer to emperors and kings, and to all within the confines of the Latin Church, the oath of submission to the Pope, and fealty—along with the “Sign of the Cross,” which is impressed upon the foreheads, or hands, with the right hand of the operator—even as a great army of soldiers under the papal banner—from birth right onwards to death.

When the Crusaders captured Jerusalem, they established “the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem,” they all being Papists. And when the Easterns separated from the Westerns, they denominated the latter, because of their subjection to Rome, “the Latins,” a name which has ever since the sixth century described the religion emanating from Rome, as well as the nations connected with that city. “Latin” has been the peculiar distinctive title of the Popedom, of its religion, of its hierarchy, and of its “Image” or Representative Oracle – Papal Councils. Historians, with one accord, describe “the Latin world,” “the Latin Kingdoms,” “the Latin Church,” etc. The only Bible ever adopted by Rome is the Latin Vulgate. Papal Bulls, Papal Councils, the Mass, all speak in Latin. Hence Irenaeus’s elucidation of the “Name of the Beast” as the name of the man. Lateinos, was marvel- lously “wise.”

(e) THE NAME OF A MAN.

Now, who was Lateinos (or Latinus, in Latin)? He was the head and originator of the Latin race—a prince, supposed to be the son of Faunus and the nymph Marcia. He ruled the country bordering on the Tiber. His daughter, Lavinia, married AEneas, the Trojan, and from them were descended the founders of Rome, viz., the people of Latium, or Latins. Julius Caesar claimed lineal descent from AEneas and Latinus—the first Latin man. “The” Beast bears his name. The “name of the Beast,” therefore, is Latin. “The Beast” itself must be a “Head” within the confines of the fourth Wild Beast of Prophecy—or Latin Power of Rome— as all admit. It must be arrogant and self-exalting; its voice must be imperious and loud; in its “seat” or “throne” must it honor Hercules, the pagan god; its coadjutor and myrmidon must professedly be a Christian “prophet” or priestly class—with “two Lamb-like horns”—claiming miraculous powers, displaying intolerance, and insisting on a pagan symbol as a mark of faith, on pain of excommunication, or as expressed in Revelation xiii, 15-17, “that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark or name of the Beast, or the number of his name”—which, translated from symbol to fact, means boycotting, or exclusive dealing against all who were not signed with the mark of the Beast, i.e., the Cross, or were not Latins, i.e., Papists.

(f) REVELATION XIII. 17.

All this, and much besides, has been realized by the Papal Ecclesiastics—Regular and Secular—for the past twelve hundred years. A canon of the Lateran Council, under Pope Alexander III., decreed that no one should entertain or cherish heretics in his house or land, or exercise traffic with them.

The Synod of Tours forbade Papists from buying from, or selling to, “heretics”; so, too, the Council of Constance. In short, no “heretic” may be traded with, or associated with, by any “good Catholic,” according to Canon Law and Romish teaching. Hence the “boycotting” in Ireland, and the priestly condemnation of “Protestants,” the “No- Rent” manifesto, and all the bigotry and intolerance displayed by Jesuits, monks, nuns, and priests of Rome, who claim superhuman power—even that of changing bread into God, of compelling Christ to descend every day from Heaven, to consign to Hell-fire, to immolate Christ, to “put fire to heels and toes,” to forbid commercial transactions and to command persecution. “The History of Freedom and Other Essays,” by John E. E. Dalburg Acton. Edited by J. N. Figgis, Lit.D., and R. V. Lawrence, M.A., pp. 138- 141. (Macmillan, 1909.) “It is part of the punishment of heretics that faith shall not be kept with them. It is even a mercy to kill them, that they may sin no more.”

(g) THE LAWLESS ONE (HO ANOMOS). 2 THESS. II. 8.

Nor is there any difficulty in identifying HO ANOMOS, the Lawless One, or person exempt from law. For, not only by Papal Bulls, Edicts, Encyclicals, and Decrees have commands been issued deliberately contrary to God’s Laws, Christ’s injunctions, and to Scripture—such as clerical celibacy, monastic fasting and false piety, persecution of heretics, crusades, marriage within prohibited degrees. (for instance, the Duke of Aosta was allowed by Pope Leo XIII., for the sum of £4,000, to contract an incestuous marriage with his own sister’s daughter, Princess Letitia), indulgences, canonization of the dead, deposing power, temporal power, and so on; but also claims have been, and are, put forth absolutely opposed to Truth, to fact, and to earthly laws made by nations and rulers for the betterment of their states; claims to be above all law. “Papa solutus est omni lege humana. The Pope is exempt from all human law.”

Cardinal Manning, speaking for the Pope, said: “I am liberated from all civil subjection . . . I acknowledge no civil superior. I am the subject of no prince . . . The subject of no one on earth . . .”

In the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX. we read that the Pope “is said to have a heavenly power; and hence he changes even the nature of things, applying the substantials of one thing to another, and can make something out of nothing; and a judgment which is null he makes to be real; since in the things which he wills his will is taken for reason; nor is there anyone to say to him: ‘Why dost thou this?’ for he can dispense with the Law; he can also turn injustice into justice by correcting and changing the Law, and he has the fullness of power.”

By the Vatican Decree of July, 1870, it was declared that “such definitions of the Roman Pontiff . . . are irreformable.”

Indeed, the very words of Daniel vii, 25 were embodied by the Pope in one blasphemous Decree: “Wherefore, no marvel if it be in my power to change times and laws, to alter and abrogate laws, to dispense with all things, yea, with the precepts of Christ.” This was Pope Nicholas.

The Romish “Canonist,” Reiffensteul, as well as other authorities and Popes, deliberately have taught that the Pope has power to “absolve” from oaths, to “dispense from” oaths, to “annul” oaths, and, generally, to play fast and loose with oaths. In the “Decretum,” Part II., Canon XV., Quaest. VII., we read that the Pope’s authority “altogether annuls unlawful oaths,” “absolves from oath of allegiance”; and that “those subject to an oath of allegiance to an excommunicated person, are not bound.” In the “Decretals of Gregory,” Book II., tit. xxiv., ch. xxvii., says: “An oath taken against the Church’s interest does not bind.”

That this teaching is acted upon we have evidence. Thus Pope Pius IX., in his “Encyclical” of February 5th, 1875, declared certain Prussian Laws “null and void,” and excommunicated the framers of them (“Tablet,” February 27th, 1875).

In 1855 he declared to be absolutely null and void the Laws of the Piedmontese Government; and of the Kingdoms of Sardinia and of Spain; in 1856 those of Mexico; in 1862 those of Austria; in 1863 those of New Granada; on the ground of the inherent right of the Pope to disannul all Laws relating to the Roman religion (see “Constitutio Apostolicae Sedis” also, which was in 1869 substituted for the Bull, In Caena Domini).

Lord Acton tells us that Pope Gregory XIII.’s reply to the French King’s announcement of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew was “that he desired for the glory of God, and the good of France, that the Huguenots should be extirpated utterly” (“North British Review,” October, 1869).

Pius V. declared that he would release a culprit guilty of a hundred murders rather than one obstinate heretic. He wished to destroy Faenza because of its “heresy.” He adjured the French King to make no terms with Huguenots, and not to observe the terms he had made. He ordered them to be pursued to death. The same ideas pervaded the “sacred College” under Pope Gregory (Ibid.).

Lord Acton (“Essays on Liberty,” pp. 140, 141) said that the many plots and massacres that brought disgrace upon the Church of Rome were based on the theory that: “Treaties made with heretics, and promises given to them, must not be kept, because sinful promises do not bind, and no agreement is lawful which may injure religion or ecclesiastical authority.

“No civil power may enter into engagements which impede the free scope of the Church’s law. It is part of the punishment of heretics that faith must not be kept with them. It is even mercy to kill them that they may sin no more.”

The Jesuit organ, “The Month” (Vol. XVIII. for 1879, p. 320), said: “It is false to say that the Pope can, in no instance . . . absolve from an oath.”

As further examples of Papal lawlessness, let the following be considered. Pope Innocent III. said: “We can dispense from law, according to our plenitude of power over law” (“Decret. Greg. IX.,” 8, iv.). Pius IX., writing to Count Duval de Beaulieu (“Allegemeine Zeitung,” November 13th, 1864), said that “the Church” has power over the Government of Civil Society, and direct jurisdiction and right of interference in temporal matters. (It is on this evil principle that the Popish Bishops in Ireland have lately urged opposition to Conscription—a matter wholly outside “the Church”), The Jesuit organ in Rome, “Civilta Cattolica” (1885, Vol. I., p. 55), actually described the Inquisition as “a sublime spectacle of social perfection”; and the Jesuit, Schrader, supporting Pope Pius IX.’s “Syl- labus,” said that the Popes have never exceeded the bounds of their power, or usurped the rights of princes. Pope Clement IV., in 1265, sold millions of South Italians to Charles of Anjou, for a yearly tribute of 800 ounces of gold, and threatened excommunication if the first installment was late; whilst, if the second tarried, the entire nation would incur interdict (Raynaldus, p. 162).

One far-reaching claim is that every baptized person is, ipso facto, a subject of the Pope, willy-nilly, even though outside the Latin Church, and so subject to Papal Law (Dollinger, “The Pope and the Council,” p. 163). This claim was made by Pius IX. when writing to the Emperor of Germany, shortly after the downfall of Papal temporal power in 1870.

The Canonist, Kirchenrecht (7 Vols. Regensburg, 1855- 72, translated by G. Phillips), lays down the rule that “the Church has dominion over those without, as well as those within. The latter, by baptism, are sworn vassals. Anyone who rejects any doctrine is a ‘formal heretic.’ He need not belong to any sect. The Church is entitled to proceed to compulsion by virtue of the jurisdiction over baptized persons which belongs to her. She cannot tolerate heresy.”

Pope Leo XIII. urged that the scholastic philosophy of Thomas Aquinas be taught in all seminaries and schools. Aquinas taught that “Christ is fully and completely with every Pope in sacrament and authority.” The Pope can establish new confessions of faith; whoever rejects his authority is a “heretic” (Summa ii., 2, Q. 1, Art. 10; Q. xi., Art. 2, 3). Aquinas, using spurious writings of Cyril, taught that there is no difference between Christ and the Pope, and represented the Early Fathers as saying that the rulers of the world obey the Pope, as Christ (Opus xxxiv., xx. 540:580, Ed. Paris).

Bishop Cornelio Musso, of Bitonto, preaching in Rome, said: “What the Pope says we must receive as though spoken by God Himself. In Divine things we hold him to be God.” (Consciones in Ep. ad Rom, p. 606).

Pope Benedict XIV. said: “No one who is not Bishop of Rome can be styled successor of St. Peter” (De Synod Dioeces., II., i.).

Some of the Papal claims have been founded on, and are supported by, forgeries (see Dollinger’s “The Pope and the Council,” and Littledale’s “The Petrine Claims”). Yet the Canon Law containing those forgeries is still in use by Popes and Papists. Thus Cyprian’s alleged evidence in favor of Papal claims, admittedly a forgery, has actually been replaced in the text by F. Hurter, S.J., in his “Sanctorum Patrum Opuscula Selecta,” and is cited as genuine by Mr. Allnutt, in his “Cathedra Petri,” both of which works received Papal approval. Thus literary falsification is one of the characteristics or lawless features of the Papal system. It is a feature characteristic of ultramontanism, so much so that one may stigmatize Popery as systematized lies, to pseudos, and utterly opposed to the Truth as it is in Jesus; hence, the system is emphatically anomos, lawless.

Hence, when one reads such Papal Canonists as Ferraris, and finds them saying: “Ubi Papa, ibi Roma,” or styling the Bishop of Rome, “Pope of the Eternal City, the Apostolic Diocese’ (Baronius, An., 445, IX., X.), or “Pope of Old Rome, the Patriarchal See” (Synod of Constance, A.D. 859), one is prepared for almost any untruth whose object is the enhancement of the Pope’s claims to be what he is not, and never was. Even so, however, one can hardly conceive the possibility of lawless disregard for Truth, fact, and history, to soar to such heights as the subjoined extract from the Vatican Council of 1869-70’s “Decretum de Ecclesia.”

“The Holy Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff hold the primacy over the whole world, and the Roman Pontiff himself is the successor of blessed Peter, Princes of the Apostles and the true Vicar of Christ, and Head of the whole Church, and Father and teacher of all Christians, and that full power was given to him in blessed Peter, by the Lord Jesus Christ, of feeding, ruling, and governing the Church Universal.”

For this claim, thus phrased, is precisely a paraphrase of the Holy Spirit’s delineation of the Antichrist, the the Sham Christ. Accompanied, as it was, by the blasphemous Decree of Papal Infallibility, it may be taken as God’s exposure of the “Lie,” the evidence forced by the Almighty from the “great voice” on seven hills, that he is “of his father the Devil,” for Satan was a liar from the beginning, and the Father of Lies; and Antichrist is Satan’s consummated mystery of iniquity (2 Thess. ii. 9; Rev. xi. 7; xvii. 8; John ix. 44; viii.44); his earthly spokesman; his Vicar.

(h) BURIAL OF HERETICS AND BOYCOTTING. REV. XI. 9.

It was predicted in Revelation xi. 9 that the burial of witnesses for Christ should be proscribed by Antichrist’s followers; and in Revelation xiii. 17 that trading should be forbidden to “heretics.”

It is distinctly laid down in the Decrees of the Third Lateran Council (Decret. Greg., Lib. V. tit. vii., cap. 8, as cited by Priest Bailly, tome iii, p. 139) that “heretics and those who defend and receive them shall be placed under anathema, and we prohibit under anathema that any shall presume to have them, or to entertain them in their house or in their territory, or to carry on any negotiation with them.* But if any die in this iniquity, neither under pretense of any privileges of ours granted to any such, nor under any other pretext whatsoever, let any offering be made for them, nor let them receive burial among Christians.”

* Liguori: Moral. Theol., Lib. VII., §188, etc., defines “greater excommunication,” “os, orare, vale, communio, mensa, negatur,” thus: “os,” all conversation, and intercourse, are forbidden; “orare,” all communion in spiritual things is forbidden; “vale,” all salutations are forbidden; “communio,” marriage, dwelling together, working at the same trade, walking together, are forbidden; “mensa,” all intercourse in food, society, or commerce. This ‘greater excommunication” was hurled by Pope Pius IX. in 1855, against Sardinia, for passing acts of toleration and reform.

Burial of Heretics is forbidden in Butler’s Catechism, Lesson XXI.: “What punishment has the Church decreed against those who neglect to receive the blessed Eucharist at Easter?” Ans.: “They are to be excluded from the House of God while living, and deprived of Christian burial when they die.” See also Dr. Douglas’ Catechism, Lesson XXI. They both quote the Council of Lateran, 21st Canon.

This is more clearly enforced in the Canon, Quicunque Haereticos, which declares: “Whosoever shall have presumed to give knowingly Christian burial to heretics—those who believe, receive, defend or favor them, let them know that they are placed under sentence of excommunication till they shall have made suitable satisfaction.

“Nor let them deserve the benefit of absolution till, with their own hands, they shall publicly drag from the tomb and cast out the bodies of damned persons of this sort, and let that spot be destitute of sepulcher for ever.” (Sext. Decret. Lib. V., tit. ii., cap. 2, Alexander IV., A.D. 1258. Corpus Jeris Canonici, tome ii. Magdeburgh, 1747).

Here we have a most conspicuous fulfillment of Revelation xi. 9 in medieval days. But modern fulfillments are at hand also. Thus the Belfast “News Letters” of December 15th, 1891, reported a case where the Protestant Rector of Christ Church, Bessbrook, found a coffin close to his house. It contained the corpse of a Protestant, named Patrick Kinney, who had been buried a week previously in the Romish Cemetery at Mullaglass. Because he had formerly been a Papist, but married a Protestant, and declined a Popish priest’s services when dying, the Papists, “with their own bands, dragged from the tomb and cast out the body” of this “heretic,” exactly as directed in the Corpus Juris!

In Canada, serious riots took place in 1875 over the burial of a man named Guibord, a member of the “Institut Canadien,” which had been denounced by the Popish Bishop of Montreal. Eight years previously, viz., in 1867, Guibord died, but the Popish authorities refused him burial in their cemetery. On appeal to the Law Courts and Privy Council, a mandamus was issued for burial in the Popish cemetery. It took eight years of costly litigation to obtain this; but the Papal authorities engineered a mob riot, which stoned the hearse, filled up the empty grave, and then the Popish Bishop of Montreal declared that if the body was buried by force, he would curse and interdict the ground it lay in! (“New York Times” and “New York Herald,” September 11th, 1875; “Times,” November 17th, 1875.) The object of this Bishop and the Papists was to assert the supremacy of Canon Law over British Law.

In 1877 a case occurred in Vineland, New Jersey, where Joseph Maggioli, a Romanist, had been buried in the Popish cemetery. The priest wrote to the widow, ordering her to remove the body, under pain of having it forcibly removed, and of prosecution for trespass. His name was P. Vivet. Owing to the indignation aroused the priest said that “he would have a line drawn round Maggioli’s grave, so that it should be left in unconsecrated ground” (“Boston Congregationalist,” 1877). In 1878 the “Montreal Witness,” of June 13th, reported “A Guibord case” in Cleveland. A Romanist, named Joseph Oberle, was a prominent Forester. The Popish priest refused to bury him in consecrated ground, although Oberle had paid for a plot of ground.

Owing to the high-handed action of the Popish Archbishop Vaughan, of New South Wales, in 1882, the “Times” (January 31st, 1882) used these words: “No quarter is given to any backsliding Romanist who presumes to have an independent opinion. He is put out of communion with his Church; and while denounced during his life, the rites of sepulture (burial) are withheld from his remains after death.”

In France, up to 1881, the Popish Law closed the cemetery gates against dead Protestants, Dissenters, unbaptised babes and suicides. During a debate in the Chamber, the Popish Bishop, Frappel, said: “One Protestant corpse in a Catholic cemetery would profane and desecrate the whole place.” One M.P. declared that Protestants had been forced to bury their dead in fields and gardens, owing to the priests. The Chamber was so disgusted with the conduct of the Papal party that it declared, by 348 votes to 120, that cemeteries in France should thenceforward be thrown open to dead Protestants (“Morning Advertiser,” 1881).

In Prussia the priests tried the same system, but under Bismarck’s regime got the worst of it. The Romish paper, “The Universe,” of February 11th, 1882, waxed furious in describing two cases, where priests were indicted and punished for not allowing burials in “consecrated ground.” In one case, that of a poor little baby, who had not been baptized, this Popish paper described it, like the adult, as an “infidel.”

This heartless and relentless cruelty is quite accordant with the teaching of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, which declares that: “All, unless regenerated through the grace of baptism, are born to eternal misery and everlasting destruction,” and that “infants, unbaptized, cannot enter Heaven.” (Donovan’s Translation, pp. 171, 172, 173, Dublin, 1820).

“The Times” of January 23rd, 1834, reported a shocking case at Carrickbeg, Co. Tipperary, where a crowd of fanatical Papists tried to prevent the burial of a corpse, “amid the most fearful imprecations on the deceased, and threats that they would dig up the body.”

The “Irish Times” of September 9th, 1921, described the taking over, by Benedictine nuns, of a former Protestant church at Kylemore. The Popish Archbishop of Tuam said that originally “the church was not built for proselytizing purposes. It was built as a place of Divine worship for Mr. Mitchell Henry’s own family, for all whose members the priests and people of the district had the greatest esteem.” The priests and people manifested this esteem by casting out Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell Henry’s ashes from the little church he had built, and where they had reposed in peace for years. It was only after the expulsion of their poor remains that the church could be dedicated by the Popish Archbishop to its new use-—as a Popish fane (church) (“The Catholic,” October, 1921; p. 109).

(i) REMOVAL OF THE “LET.” 2 THESS. II. 6, 7.

In 2 Thess. ii. 6 “what withholdeth” is neuter; in verse 7. “he who letteth” is masculine. Ere the man of the Apostasy could be “revealed,” the obstruction had to be removed “out of the way,” this obstruction being swayed by some Perpetual Person.

What was the restraint which, in Paul’s day, hindered the manifestation of the Man of the Apostasy? Tertullian, in the second century, said: “What is this restraining Power? What but the Roman State.” Similarly, Iraeneus affirmed that on the dismemberment of the Empire then in existence, the catastrophe would occur. So Cyril, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Augustine, Jerome in the fifth century— this lest adding, “Let us therefore say what all ecclesiastical writers have delivered to us, that when the Roman Empire is to be destroyed, ten Kings will divide the Roman world among themselves, and then will be revealed the Man of Sin”; “he who hindereth is taken out of the way, and we consider not that Antichrist is at hand.” So again, Justin Martyr and Hippolytus, the latter saying: “This [Rome] is the Fourth Beast, whose Head was wounded, and healed again; and Antichrist will heal and restore it.” Cyprian, likewise, spoke of the imminent proximity of Antichrist in his day.

It was this early Christian tradition that caused Christians to pray for the continuance of the heathen Roman Empire. Thus Lactantius: “Beseech the God of Heaven that the Roman State might be preserved, lest, more speedily than we supposed, that hateful tyrant should come.” So Chrysostom: “As Rome succeeded Greece, so Antichrist is to succeed Rome.”

This heathen imperial power was swayed by, and centered in a series of single persons, the Caesars—following one another in succession. History exactly corresponds to prophecy. When Constantine, the Roman Emperor, removed the seat of power from the seven-hilled city of Rome to Constantinople, then the restraint began to be removed which had prevented the Bishops of Rome from exercising temporal power or promulgating Anti-Christian claims. And when the last Western Caesar was forced to abdicate in A.D. 475, Rome ceased to be the “seat” of imperial secular power, and the Bishops of Rome began to put forward claims which exactly correspond with the predictions of Daniel, Paul, and the Apocalypse; for the restraint was ek mesou—”out of the way”—of the claimant to the seven- hilled city. As Cardinal Baronius (Annals, An., 324-30) admits, even during Constantine’s reign, the Bishops of Rome had amassed wealth, and before the end of the fourth century their wealth and splendor excited envy and wonder. Andreas (Bibl. P. Max., V., 623) asserts that “most of the ancient interpreters in the Church affirm that the Apocalyptic prophecies concerning Babylon regard Rome,” and that the Man of Sin, when he appears, “will be as Sovereign of Rome, and, in the opinion of some, in the Temple, or Church of God”—just as the earliest extant Commentary by Bishop Victorinus, in the third century, says: “The city of Babylon, that is, Rome; the City on seven hills, that is, Rome.”

Cardinals Bellarmine and Baronius admit that in the Apocalypse John “calls Rome Babylon,” and Bishop Bossuet likewise admits it. In the locality where prophecy places Antichrist, there history, with one accord, places the bishops of Rome—viz., in the city of Rome on the seven hills, in the capacity of successors of Caesar, not of Peter the Apostle.

(j) History’s AGREEMENT WITH PROPHECY.

And precisely at the period pointed to by prophecy, viz., on the removal of the Imperial power from the city of Rome, does history describe the rise into Anti-Christian power of the Bishops of Rome.

Dean Milman (“History of Latin Christianity,” Bk. iii., ch. iii.) said: “The foundation of Constantinople marks one of the great periods of change in the annals of the world. The removal of the seat of empire from Rome, . . . the absence of a secular competition, allowed the Papal authority to grow up, and develop its secret strength. By the side of the imperial power . . . constantly repressed in its slow but steady advancement to supremacy . . . The Pope . . . in any other city would in vain have asserted his descent from St. Peter.”

Gibbon (“Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” ch. xlix.): “The same character was assumed, the same policy was adopted by the Italian, the Greek, or the Syrian, who ascended the Chair of St. Peter; and, after the loss of her (Rome’s) legions and provinces, the genius and fortune of the Popes again restored the supremacy of Rome.”

Bishop Doyle, the Popish Controversialist (“Essay on the Catholic Claims,” sect. 5): “The seeds of decay were growing in the Roman Empire when the seat of government was removed to Constantinople . . . and Rome . . . now stripped of nearly all her wealth and glory, looked upon her Prelate as the last stay of her power. . . .”

Abbé H. Lacordaire (“Lettre sur le Saint Siege, p. 29): “If you would trace the temporal sovereignty of the Holy See to its source, you shall find that it has been derived from four concurrent circumstances . . . first, the decline of the Eastern Empire, which could no longer defend Rome against the barbarians; secondly, the ambition of the Lombard Kings, who desired to subject it [Rome] to their crown; thirdly, the protection of two great men in succession, Pepin and Charlemagne; finally, the love (!) which all the inhabitants of Rome felt towards the Sovereign Pontiff.”

Abbe Mably (Feller, in Art., Constantine): “It was determined by eternal (infernal?) interests, that Rome should henceforth have no other splendor than was derived from the Chair of her Pontiff.”

Count Le Maistre (“Du Pape,” Vol. I., p. 245): “While Rome was yet pagan, the Roman Pontiff bored the Caesars. The Emperors, who bore, amidst his titles, that of Sovereign Pontiff, could less endure a Pope than a competitor for his Empire. A hand unseen removed him from the Eternal City, to bestow it on the chief of the eternal (infernal?) Church. The same enclosure could not contain the Emperor and the Pontiff.

Mons. Masse (“Torts du Protestantisme envers les peuples”): “The choice of Byzantium by the first Christian Emperor permitted the Pontifical hierarchy to place above physical force a moral (!) power, distinct and separate, which displayed to all eyes its origin.”

Abbé du Pradt (“Concordat de l’Amérique avec Rome,” p. 70): “The removal of the Emperors to Constantinople gave rise to the greatness of the Popes.”

Gibbon (“Decline and Fall,” cxxi.) says that “the wealth and luxury of the Popes of the fourth century . . . represent the intermediate degree between the humble poverty of the Apostolic Fisherman and the Royal State of a Temporal Prince.”

In the year A.D. 595 Bishop Gregory I. of Rome denounced the title “universal Bishop”—claimed by his rival, of Constantinople—as Antichristian. Somewhere between A.D. 606 and 610 Bishop Boniface III. of Rome assumed that very title, accepting it from the Eastern Emperor Phocas, who was a usurper, a murderer, and had degraded Cyriacus, Petrarch of Constantinople, for a virtuous deed. The effect of this title upon the minds of ecclesiastics was soon apparent. As Jerome says: “When that which is temporal claims eternity, this is a Name of blasphemy.” Within forty years Theodore I., Bishop of Rome, assumed a fresh title, that of “Sovereign Pontiff.” He was the last Bishop of Rome whom bishops dared to call “brother.” A great and Antichristian change had manifestly been effected.* The “man of the Apostasy” had “revealed” himself, in his self-exaltation and pride.

* It is remarkable that 1,260 solar years, from A.D. 606-610, reach to the downfall (1870) of Papal territorial power; and 1,260 lunar years, from A.D. 646, reach to the Vatican Council of 1869, which proclaimed Papal Infallibility.

The exalted position now reached was inconsistent with dependence upon any earthly sovereign, so steps were taken to remove the custom that made the Bishop of Rome’s “consecration” dependent on the Roman Emperor’s prior approval of his “election” as Bishop. In A.D. 683 this restraint was removed by an Edict of the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus (Baronius, Epit. An. 684, i.).* The Pope was now independent, ecclesiastically as well as temporally.

*1,260 calendar years from A.D. 683 terminated in A.D. 1925; and in Solar years end in 1943. In Lunar years they ended in 1906.

Devastated by barbarians, who, ever since the fourth century, had ravaged the Roman Empire; deserted by its Sovereigns, Italy turned to the Popes, who, by force of circumstances, and by their own vaulting ambition, had become substituted for the Emperors—and so established the last form of headship over the Latin world, foretold of old.

Examine now Cardinal Newman’s words! He says, “While Apostles were on earth, there was the display of neither Bishop nor Pope” (p. 149, “Development, The Papacy.”)

Compare verse 3 of the prophecy in 2 Thess. ii.: The Man of Sin was not revealed when Paul the Apostle wrote.

The Man was to be “revealed in his own due time” (verse 6).

And Cardinal Newman says: “In course of time the power of the Pope displayed itself’ (p. 149, same Vol.).

There was something “withholding, or keeping back, the Man from appearing” in the first century (see verse 6).

And the Cardinal says: “The Imperial power, or Roman Empire, availed for keeping lack the power of the Papacy” (p, 151)

But was it generally admitted that the Empire’s power was that which hindered, or delayed, the Man of Sin?

Cardinal Newman says: “The withholding power, mentioned in Thess. ii. 6, was the Roman Empire. I grant this, for all the ancient writers so speak of it” (p. 49, “Discussions”),

Compare verse 5: “I told you these things, and now ye know what it is that withholdeth.”

“Only let the withholding party be taken away, or removed, then shall that wicked be revealed” (verse 7).

And Cardinal Newman says: “When the Imperial power had been removed to Constantinople (800 miles away!) then the Roman See came into a position of sovereignty” (p. 271, “Historic Essays,” Vol. ii.).

And again he says: “The Papacy began to form as soon as the Empire relaxed, . . . and further developments took place when that Empire fell’ (p. 152, “Development”).

Cardinal Newman says: “Pope Stephen VI. dragged the body of another Pontiff from the grave, cut off its head and three fingers, and threw it into the River Tiber. He himself was afterwards strangled in prison. Then the power of electing Popes fell into the hands of the licentious woman, Theodora, and her unprincipled daughters. One of these women advanced a lover, and another a son to the Popedom. The grandson, Octavian, ELEVATED himself to the Chair at eighteen, titled John XII.”

This is what Cardinal Newman tells us on p. 259 of his “Historic Essays”; and next page he says:—

“Pope John XII. was carried off by a blow received during his intrigues. Boniface VII. after his elevation, plundered the Church of St. Peter, and fled to Constantinople; Benedict IX. was Pope at twelve, and became notorious for adulteries and murders.

Such are a few of the most prominent features of Church History; when the world lay in wickedness, Simon the Sorcerer lording it over the Church, whose bishops and priests were given to fornication” (p. 260).

Cardinal Manning, “The Temporal Power,” p. 126; “The temporal power of the Supreme Pontiff was only in its beginning; but about the seventh century it was firmly established.” Page 16: “For 1,200 years the Bishops of Rome have reigned as temporal princes.” Page 127: “For these 1,200 years the peace . . . of Europe has been owing solely in its principle to this” (!). Page 182: “From that hour, which I might say was 1,500 years ago, or, to speak within limit, I will say was 1,200, the Supreme Pontiff has been a true and proper Sovereign.”

(Daniel vii. 25: “They shall be given into his hand, until a time, and times and half a time” i.e., three and a half times, or 1,260 years.)

(k) GRADUAL RISE INTO POWER.

When first proclaimed in words only, the Papal system was repudiated by Gregory I.—as already stated. On that theory, the Pope has the plenitude of Power, all other bishops are only his servants and auxiliaries, from him all power is derived, and he i s concurrent Ordinary in every diocese. So Gregory understood the title, “Ecumenical Patriarch,” and would not endure that so “wicked and blasphemous a title” should be given to himself or anyone else (Janus, “The Pope and the Council,” p. 84). But from the assumption of that “blasphemous title,” by Boniface III., right onwards to the promulgation of Papal Infallibility in 1870, the career of the Papacy has been one long, incessant, and ever-augmenting assumption of Antichristian “names of blasphemy,” and the putting forth of claims based on those names.

As there is no “let” or “hindrance” in existence, these claims continue to the present hour. They endanger the peace of the world, because they involve the disruption of kingdoms, the overthrow of states, and the re-establishment —by force—of that Papal territorial power, (emphasis mine) which in 1870 was rightly taken away from the Papacy by popular vote. These claims establish beyond the region of controversy, that the Papacy is the Antichrist, for they are as opposed to the Spirit of Christ as are the falsehoods, the forgeries and the pride on which they are based.

(l) FALSE BASIS AND SUPERSTRUCTURE.

That the Papacy is the outcome of belief in a falsehood is shown by the prediction in 2 Thess. ii. 11: “for this cause (i.e., because they received not the love of the truth) God sendeth them a working of error, that they should believe The Lie—to pseudos.”

What the Papacy is to-day is best described by an ex- Jesuit, Graf Paul Von Hoensbroech, for fourteen years a Jesuit priest, who, in his preface to “The Papacy in its influence upon Society and civilization,” says: “The Papacy . . . is the greatest, the most fatal and, at the same time, the most successful system of error to be found in the world’s history. The Papacy—that huge error system . . . ultramontanism is a perfectly organized system, high, dry, and broad, close-jointed, highly finished in every respect.”

In “Ultramontanism, its Bane and its Antidote,” he said: “Ultramontanism is a Secular Political System which, with and under the cloak of religion, arrogates to itself worldwide political and temporal power.”

In the former work he also says: “The Papacy, in its pretensions to be a Divine institution, deriving its existence from Christ . . . is surrounded with thousands of lies emanating from its defenders.”

Mr. J. M. Capes, in his “Reasons for Returning to the Church of England” (pp. 110-111), says: “A system which depends for success upon falsification of history is, ipso facto, a system which produces a disbelief in the value of clear and unflinching honesty of statement in the affairs of life. Accordingly, whenever the Roman ideas of Church government establish themselves, they bring with them the spirit of intrigue, and a distaste for honest, unflinching truth-telling.

The Rev. E. S. Foulkes, once a Romish priest, says in his “Difficulties of the Day,” pp. 145-153: “Gradually the conviction dawned upon me that this wondrous system . . . as it exists in our day, was a colossal Lie; a gigantic fraud; a superhuman imposture; the most artistically contrived take-in for general credence, for specious appearances, ever palmed upon mankind.” ‘Where Satan works most, it is precisely there that he is most anxious to keep farthest out of sight. I say, then, of the Roman system, that it is an agglomeration of lies, reposing on a basis of truth.”

In 1891 Leo XIII. delivered an Allocution to the Cardinals in Secret Consistory (“Tablet,” December 19th, 1891), in which he pretended that all sorts of “enemies” were “on every hand visible,” seeking to “assign boundaries to the spiritual power of the Pope, who holds it direct from God”* – where observe to pseudos—The Lie. Upon this the “Standard” of December 17th, 1891, very properly commented by pointing out its falsity: “When Leo XIII. bewails the limitations on his spiritual kingdom, he either says the thing that is not, . . . or, he is really betaking himself to lamentation because he cannot extend his spiritual kingdom, and wield . . . the temporal arm in vindication of it. If this claim means anything at all, it implies a demand to be empowered to suppress heresy, and therefore to resort to persecution.”

* In his Encyclical “De Unitate,” Leo XIII, said: “What Jesus Christ had said of Himself, we may truly repeat of ourselves.”

“At the bottom of these recurring Papal jeremiads (a speech or literary work expressing a bitter lament) is the unwillingness of the Papacy to resign itself to the loss of temporal sovereignty, and the settled resolve to go on agitating for its recovery by all the means and all the expedients at its disposal.”

Here the “Standard” most correctly exposes the Papal falsehood, which represents the Italians as its “enemies,” because they oppose its evil demands and claims to use force. As this paper pointed out: “in other words, the Pope’s Allocution, which is ostensibly a spiritual utterance, is a political manifesto.’ That is, it is a Lie.

The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, in his “Rome: Newest Fashions in Religion,” showed incontestably from Papal Documents, from the “Syllabus” and “Encyclical” of 1864, and from the “Speeches” of Pius IX., that the claims of the Pope are a series of violent tirades and political harangues disguised as religious utterances, all having for their object the restoration of Papal territorial power, in order to possess the means of enforcing the Papal Will, and of suppressing all opposition by force. The mendacity accompanying these utterances is fully set forth by Mr. Gladstone, himself an expert in the art of “camouflage.” No more conspicuous an example of the prevailing falsehood of Papal remarks can be conceived than Pius IX.’s description of the atrocious Kingdom of Bomba (this seems to be referring to Sicily. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_II_of_the_Two_Sicilies), as a Kingdom of “repose and tranquility,” for which he “prays,” a “Kingdom of peace and prosperity.” As Mr. Gladstone indignantly observed: “This is the language in which the Pope is not ashamed to speak of a Government founded upon the most gross and abominable perjury, cruel and base in all its details to the last degree.”*

*Archbishop Bagshawe did not hesitate to say: “There is no Christianity outside of the Catholic Church”; so also states Pius X.’s Catechism, thus placing Christianity inside a colossal lie.

(m) FALSEHOODS.

The language of falsehood is inseparable from the Popedom. This falsehood is manifested in every sort of way; in the description of the Pope as “the Lamb of the Vatican,” for example: “The Living Christ,” “The Vicar of Christ,” “The Most Holy Lord,” “His Holiness,” “Our Father,” et cetera; as well as in the forgeries so ably exposed by the learned Dr. Dollinger, in his “The Pope and the Council,” viz., the Isidorian Decretals of the ninth century; that “huge fabrication”; the Hildebrandine Forgeries of the eleventh century, which used the Isidorian forgeries to further Papal Absolutism; the “earlier Roman forgeries” towards the end of the fifth and beginning of sixth centuries, when “the compilation of spurious acts of Roman martyrs” began, and was “continued for some centuries.” These forgeries included “the fabulous story of the conversion and baptism of Constantine, invented to glorify the Church of Rome, and make Pope Sylvester appear a worker of miracles.” “Then the inviolability of the Pope had to be established, and the principle that he cannot be judged by any human tribunal.” Towards the end of the sixth century a fabrication was undertaken in Rome, the full effect of which did not appear till long afterwards, viz., the interpolation of a falsehood in Cyprian’s book on the unity of the Church, which represented Cyprian as teaching that “the Church is built on the Chair of St. Peter.” An old catalog of Roman bishops was interpolated for an ulterior object, afterwards carried out in the “Liber Pontificalis.” “It is the first edition of 530, which is chiefly to be reckoned as a deliberate forgery, and an important link in the chain of Roman inventions and interpolations.”*

*Hallam’s “View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages,” 1869, p. 348, says: “Upon these spurious decretals was built the great fabric of Papal supremacy over the different national Churches . . . the imposture is too palpable.”

About the middle of the eighth century, the famous “Donation of Constantine” was concocted at Rome, based on the earlier fifth century legend, whereby the Pope is described as lord and Master of all Bishops, and having authority over the four “thrones” of Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, Jerusalem; and as having received Italy and the Western Provinces from the Emperor. It is upon this forgery that the Pope’s claim to territorial power rests. The earliest reference to this pretended gift of Constantine occurs in Pope Adrian’s letter to Charlemagne in A.D. 777; though Popes had, since A.D. 752, spoken of “restitution” of Italian towns and provinces to St. Peter or to the Roman Republic. As Dollinger remarks: “Such language first became intelligible when the [forged] ‘Donation of Constantine’ was brought forward to show that the Pope was the rightful possessor, as heir of the Roman Caesars in Italy…. .”

“Twenty years later, the need was felt at Rome of a more extensive invention. So a document was laid before Charlemagne in Rome, professing to be his father Pepin’s “gift” or promise of territory to the Pope. This forgery assigned all Corsica, Venetia, Istria, Luni, Moselica, Parma, Reggio, Mantua, and the Duchies of Spoleto and Benevento, and the Exarchate of Ravenna (“Liber Pontificalis,” ii., 193, Edition Vignol).

There have unquestionably been some falsifications in privileges granted to Popes by Emperors later than Charlemagne —such as the “pact” of Louis the Pious, in A.D. 817 —an interpolation of the eleventh century. So, again, with the privileges of the Emperors, Otho I., in 962, and Henry II. in 1020. All kinds of other forgeries are traceable to Rome. As “Acts of Martyrs” had been fabricated there earlier, so from the tenth century, false documents were fabricated wholesale at Rome (“Le Grotte Vaticane, Roma, 1639,” pp. 505-510; Jaffé, “Regesta,” p. 936).

The most potent instrument of Papal machination was Gratian’s “Decretum,” issued in the twelfth century, from Bologna. In this the Isidorian forgeries were combined with other Gregorian writers’ fabrications, as well as with Gratian’s own. This work displaced all older collections of Canon Law, and became the fount of knowledge for all “scholastic theologians”! Forgery was herein added to forgery—all alike enhancing the claims of the Papacy.

About A.D. 1570 this compilation of falsehoods was “corrected,” at the desire of the Pope; yet to-day it forms the Codex for all canonical authority! For instance, the false principles that the Pope is superior to Law, and that all Church property is his, that clerics are exempt from civil law by Divine ordinance.

(n) FALSIFICATION OF SCRIPTURE.

Not only so, but texts of Scripture have been deliberately falsified in furtherance of Papal aims. Thus Innocent III. (1198-1216) altered Deuteronomy xvii. 12 in the Vulgate, as to mean whoever does not submit to the decision of the High Priest (whose place the Pope claims to hold) is to be killed (“Decret. per Venerabilem,” “Qui filii sint legitimi,” 4,17). Pope Leo X. quoted the text as corrupted, in a Bull, giving a false reference to the Book of Kings instead of Deuteronomy, to prove that whoever disobeyed the Pope must be put to death (Pastor Aeternus, Hardouin, Concil., IX. 1826).

In the thirteenth century, a new fabrication appeared, affecting dogmatic theology and education. It is known as the “Dominican Forgeries,” because composed by a Dominican monk, who concocted a catena of spurious passages from Greek Councils and Fathers. They professed to be eight hundred years old, and were at once used by Pope Urban IV. to prove that the “Apostolic Throne” is the sole authority in doctrinal matters (Raynaldus, Annal. Ann., 1263, 61). Urban sent the document to Aquinas, who knew no Greek, and from the Latin translation made by Buonaccursia, the Dominican, invented the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. One of his phrases was: “Christ is fully and completely with every Pope in sacrament and authority.” Thus on the basis of fabrication by a Dominican monk, Aquinas built up his Popedom, which ever since has put forth its blasphemous claims of Infallibility and Absolutism.

Lord Acton, Regius Professor of History at Cambridge, a Roman Catholic, said: “The passage from the Catholicism of the Fathers to that of the modern Popes was accomplished by willful falsehood; and the whole structure of traditions, laws, and doctrines that support the theory of infallibility and the practical despotism of the Popes, stands on a basis of fraud” (“North British Review,” October, 1869, p. 130).*

*In a letter to Mr. Gladstone quoted at p. lv. of Mr. H. Paul’s Introductory Memoir to Letters of Lord Acton to Mary Gladstone he said: It not-only promotes, it inculcates distinct mendacity and deceitfulness. In certain cases it is made a duty to lie.”

John Henry Shorthouse (author of John Inglesant) said: “The Papal Curia is founded upon falsehood, and falsehood enters, consciously or unconsciously, willingly or unwillingly, into the soul of every creature that comes under its influence.” (Preface to Rev. A. Galton’s “Message & Position of the Church of England,” 1899, pp. 13-14.)

Leo XIII., by a special “Encyclical on Scholastic Philosophy,” urged that Aquinas’s teaching should be used in all schools and seminaries; so that Falsifications of history permeate the entire curriculum of scholastic education in the Popedom. The entire system is based on a Lie, the lie that the Apostle Peter was “Prince of the Apostles” and “Bishop of Rome,” and that his successors are “Vicars of Christ.” It is permeated through and through with lies, which are known to be such, but are deliberately utilized to bolster up false claims. No more evident identification can be afforded than this, that the very names the Popes assumed are false from beginning to end.

(o) THE TITLES OF THE POPES ALL FALSE.

To the end of the fourth century they called themselves “Vicars of Peter,” but since the fifth, “Vicars of Christ” — the former title being as false as the latter, though not so blasphemous. The name “Pope,” or Father, was in A.D. 500 “appropriated to the Roman Pontiff (Gibbon, vii., 37), it having formerly been the title of all bishops alike. Tertullian, in one if his Treatises, speaks of the Roman bishop in his own time calling himself by the heathen title, “Pontifex Maxinus,” as well as “Episcopus Episcoporum.” Cyprian and Augustine both rejected the false claim of the Bishop of Rome in regard to Christ’s statement: “Thou art Peter, and on thee I will build My Church”; but the Bishop of Rome undeviatingly claimed the Primacy because Rome was “the See of the Prince of the Apostles,” a wholly mendacious claim based on falsehood. To maintain this, the Acts of Nicene Council were falsified (Hardouin, i., 469-485), and other Forgeries of Councils were made in support.

But it is decisively and distinctively the false title, “Vicar of Christ,” that emphatically establishes the Papacy as the “Antichrist.” This title was given by a Roman Council to Gelasius, Bishop of Rome, 5th century: “We behold in thee Christ’s Vicar” (Hardouin, ii., 946, 947).*

* Cardinal Bellarmine, in his Treatise on the Roman Pontiff (De Rom. Pont. Lib. ii. Cap. XXXI., Ingoldstadt, 1839), said: “Pope: Father of Fathers; the Pontiff of Christians, High Priest, the Vicar of Christ, the Head of the Body, that is of the Church, the foundation of the building of the Church; the Father and Doctor of the faithful; the Ruler of the House of God; the Keeper of God’s Vineyard; the Bridegroom of the Church; the Ruler of the Apostolic See; the Universal Bishop.”

And in his “De Conciliorum Auctoritate Lib. ii, Cap, XVII.” “All the names which are given in the Scriptures to Christ (where it appears that He is superior to the Church)—all these names are given to the Pope.”

(p) “WAR WITH THE SAINTS.”

The general principle by which Popery is governed is thus laid down by some of its authorized organs: “We are the children of a Church which has ever avowed the deepest hostility to the principles of ‘religious liberty.’ If it would benefit Catholicism, he (the Papist) would tolerate you; if expedient, he would imprison you, banish you, fine you; possibly, even, he might hang you . . .” (“Rambler,” September, 1851).

“Catholicism is the most intolerant of creeds. It is intolerance itself ” (Ibid).

Cardinal Manning (“Sermons on Ecclesiastical Subjects”) stated: “The Holy See is ultramontane, the whole Episcopate is ultramontane, the whole priesthood, the whole body of the Faithful throughout all nations . . . all are ultramontanes. Ulltra- montanism is Popery, and Popery is Catholicism.”

Count Montalembert (Letter, dated Paris, February 28th, 1870) cited the Archbishop of Paris as saying: “The new ultramontane school leads to a double idolatry—the idolatry of the temporal power, and of the spiritual power. The new ultramontanes . . . have abounded in hostile arguments against all liberties”; and Dr. Dollinger (“The Pope and the Council”) declared that “Ultramontanism, then, is essentially Papalism,” or, as Montalembert expressed it, “Absolutism of Rome.”

Now this shows not only the general principle that governs Popery in its relationship to Protestantism or Religious Liberty, but also the fact that, given an opportunity, it would enforce, as of yore, that principle, by the same means it adopted “in the good old days.”

It is therefore important to know precisely what those means were, and how it used them in the plenitude of its power. As shown elsewhere, the Notes on Matthew xiii. 29 (which have been incorporated in a class-book for use at Maynooth, entitled “Menochis”) teach that “heretics” may lawfully and properly be put to death, as common malefactors (see also Douai Bible, Coyne, Dublin, 1816); and “by public authority, either spiritual of temporal, may and ought to be chastised or executed.” The Romish Archbishops, who authorized these Notes, were well aware of the meaning of their teaching, and were well acquainted with the history of the past, i.e. of the Persecutions and Crusades, the Massacres and the Dragonnades, whereby millions of Christians were slaughtered and put to death, by every form of cruelty, from the twelfth to the eighteenth century. They were not speaking at random, or inculcating empty formula. Ranke’s “History of the Popes” tells us that these “Crusaders” boasted: “We have spared neither age nor sex; we have smitten everyone with the edge of the sword” (I., 32).

The “War with the Saints” predicted in Daniel vii. 25; Rev. xi. 7, xiii. 7, as made by “the Beast,” commenced in a general way, under Pope Alexander III.’s Council at Tours, A.D. 1163, which denounced the Bible-reading Albigenses as “heretics,” prohibited buying from or selling to them, and proscribed them. This was followed by the Decree of the Third Lateran Council, A.D. 1179, under the same Pope, against all so-called “heretics,” refusing them Christian burial, and forbidding any to harbor them. In A.D. 1183 Pope Lucius III. issued a Bull against “heretics” of every sort, and ordering the “Inquisition” to suppress them. In 1198 Innocent III. wrote Epistles to various Prelates, charging them to extirpate “heresy,” and to employ the arms of princes and people. He then sent “Legates” as Inquisitors to Toulouse, and not long afterwards proclaimed a “Crusade” against the “heretics.”

The third Canon of the fourth Council of Lateran, in a.d. 1215, urged more zeal in the extirpation of heresy, the secular powers being expressly enjoined to carry out the behests of the ecclesiastic, vassals being absolved from allegiance to any prince who refused, and crusaders being rewarded like Crusaders in the Holy Land. In A.D. 1227 the Council of Narbonne followed on the same lines, and then that of Toulouse, in which children were compelled to denounce parents as heretics, and the Scriptures were forbidden to the laity. Council after Council on the same lines followed, up to Gregory IX.’s ferocious Bull in a.d. 1236. The fact of the commencement of this Papal War against Christians is strongly marked in History, even as the Jesuit Gretzer, in his “Prolegomena, induciae Tudensis succedaneos,” admits. It was a Papal war of extermination of all witnesses for Jesus, and leveled against Holy Scriptures.

The same spirit and procedure were manifested in England from 1360 to 1380 against Wyclif and his followers, and in Bohemia —some forty years later—against Huss and Jerome; furious “war” being waged against individuals, such as Savonarola, in Italy, from 1464 to 1498, as well as elsewhere against Bohemians, Waldenses, Taborites and United Brethren. Popes and Councils, priests and people all joined in this “war,” and racks and gibbets, fire and sword were deemed fit weapons against Christians. The story of the murder of the Waldenses under Pope Innocent VIII., and of the Christians of Val Louise in High Dauphiny, is a recital of atrocities calculated to make one’s blood curdle. In 1478 the Inquisition was “reformed,” so as to become more efficacious as an instrument of persecution and murder. Llorente, the historian of this “reformed” Inquisition, computes that between 1478 and 1517, 13,000 persons were burnt alive, and 169,000 tortured. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the Papal War with the saints had succeeded in reducing them to silence by means of fire, sword, torture and persecution.

During the sixteenth century the Reformation took place, and, in order to stamp it out, the Papacy summoned the Council of Trent, which continued its labors from 1545 to 1563, ending with a unanimous shout of “Anathema to Heretics,” having decreed all sorts of decrees and canons, all containing curses upon anyone who refused to accept their unscriptural teaching. Session XXV. decreed that every clause and word enacted by that Council, under Popes Paul III., Julius III. and Pius IV. established “the authority of the Apostolic See always inviolate.” In other words, all that was ever enacted as Papal Law or claimed as the authority of the Pope is ever enduring and unchangeable. Every barbarous enactment against “Heretics,” every power and privilege to break oaths, and to dispense from law, or to absolve subjects from loyalty, everything in Rome’s Canon Law still remains in force today.

In A.D. 1572 took place St. Bartholomew’s massacre, and in A.D. 1588 the Spanish Armada, both of them phases of the “war against the saints,” followed by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1685, and the Dragonnades, which caused such misery to the French Huguenots. In Ireland there took place the fiendish atrocities, in 1640-42, of the Irish massacre of Protestants; whilst in Scotland the Protestant Covenanters suffered every kind of persecution and martyrdom. During Mary’s short reign of five years, no less than some three hundred British martyrs were burnt at the stake; the Gunpowder Plot, and other seditious movements, leading up to the English Rebellion and overthrow of the Stuart dynasty, all being but phases of this incessant “war” on the part of Rome—against liberty, Bible truth, and the “saints” or witnesses for Christ, i.e., Protestants.

The Revelations of the Italian Revolution in Rome in 1848, when the Inquisition buildings were broken open, show incontestably the late date on which this murderous institution—an institution established wholly by the Church of Rome under Papal sanction—was at -work, in this terrible “war”; a war waged all over the world to the present hour, as Missionary Societies’ reports unceasingly testify.

Such is a mere sketch of a long-enduring and remorseless “war,” as recorded in history. It is the due fulfillment of Prophecy. If we enter into particulars, the case becomes still more conclusive against Rome, as it shows that no system that has ever existed has such a record of murder and inquisitorial cruelty towards Christians. Neither Pagan Rome nor Mohammedanism can compare with the record of Papal Rome. It is “facile princeps,” (Latin meaning easily the first or best) and unique in that respect, as its “war” has been ever waged against Christians because of their faith in Christ, and belief in Holy Writ.

The following list, by no means exhaustive, affords an insight into this War with the Saints, i.e., with Christians whom Rome “hates.”

The third Canon of fourth Council of Lateran, A.D., 1215, under Pope Innocent III., decreed the Extermination of Heretics (Corpus Juris Canonici, Decret., Greg. IX. V., and tit. vii., cap. 13, de Hereticis). This, we are duly informed By the “English Catholics” (who in 1882 published their “Records,” “Edited by the Fathers of the Congregation of the London Oratory, with an Historical Introduction by Thomas F. Knox, D.D., priest of the same Congregation,” Vol. II., p. xxvii.), was “the common law of medieval Christendom”; and, “by its insertion in the Corpus Juris, became part of the ordinary Statute Law of the Church.” It was acted on by Pope Pius V., “when he issued his Bull, deposing Queen Elizabeth,” and is today in force in Ireland.

The “Constitution” of Pope Clement V., in the Council of Vienna, A.D. 1316, orders all Bishops and Inquisitors to arrest, or seize, in iron fetters or handcuffs, all suspected heretics, and to consign them to prison to undergo inquisition.

Lord Acton, Regius Professor of History, said (“Times,” November 9th, 1874): “A Pope who lived in Catholic times, and who is famous in history as the author of the last Crusade, decided that it is no murder to kill excommunicated persons. This rule was incorporated in the Canon Law. During the revision of the Code, which took place in the sixteenth century, the passage was allowed to stand. It has been for seven hundred years, and continues to be, part of the Ecclesiastical Law.”’

In 1892 the English Jesuits published a book called “Aquinas Ethicus,” with Notes by Joseph Rickaby, S.J., in which we read (Vol. I., p. 333): “On their [heretics’] side is the sin whereby they have deserved, not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be banished from the world by death. Hence, if coiners or other malefactors are at once handed over by secular princes to a just death, much more may heretics, immediately they are convicted of heresy, be not only excommunicated, but also justly done to die.”

This medieval doctrine, republished thus by modern Jesuits, was specially commended by Pope Leo XIII. in his “Encyclical on Scholastic Philosophy“—and is therefore regarded as de Fide (held as an obligatory article of faith) by Papists. It is taught in all seminaries.

This same Pope, in his Letter on “The Rosary” (“Tablet,” October 1st, 1887), styled the Massacres of the Albigenses and other “heretics,” “great triumphs,” “glories,” “marvels,” “magnificent examples of piety” to be emulated by modern Papists. Further, he gave his special “blessing” to two volumes on “Public Ecclesiastical Law,” published . at Rome in 1900-1, by Marianus de Luca, S.J., Professor of Canon Law, in which work it is taught that “heresy must be rooted out with fire and sword” (Vol. I., p. 147); that “the Church can inflict on heretics the penalty of death” (p. 145), and that when once “the Church has pronounced sentence the civil rulers are bound to carry out the sentence” (p. 146).*

*The New Zealand “Sentinel,” October,- 1923, P. 8, contained a “Felonious Record of Knights of Columbus” in the United States since 1913. It included two murderous assaults on ex-priest Crowley in 1913, and on 14 other ministers and Protestants.

A more recent work by Alexius M. Lepicier, Professor of Theology in the College de Propaganda Fide, published in 1910, and entitled “De Stabilitate et Progressu Dogmatii,” teaches that “heretics” are to be put an end to, and explains that men who oppose “the Church,” and are killed, are not “martyrs,” but criminals (pp. 271-6).

F. Hugh O’Donnell, ex-M.P. for Dungarvan, in his “The Ruin of Irish Education,” describes how scholars in Romish schools are taught to hate “heretics.” They are told that “instead of being educated, heretics ought to be slaughtered, and that the slaughtering of them is a mark of the perfection of the Catholic Church” (p. 173). He shows that “civil society is bound to kill heretics when ordered by the Catholic Church” (p. 175).

In order to remove any doubt as to what is meant—in all these murderous and intolerant edicts and works—by the word “heretics,” Pope Pius X. most considerately published. in 1906, at the Vatican Press in Rome, a “Compendium of Christian Doctrine,” which conveys the following information: “Heretics are the baptized, who pertinaciously refuse to believe some truth revealed by God and taught as of faith by the Catholic Church, for example . . . the various sects of Protestants” (p. 131); and in p. 398: “Protestantism or the Reformed religion. . . . is the sum of all heresies, which existed before it, which have since arisen, and which can still arise to destroy souls,” “the most monstrous congeries of private and individual errors, embraces all heresies, and represents all the forms of rebellion against the holy Catholic Church.”

Now, there is no such sin, in the eyes of “the Church,” as ‘rebellion’ against itself; and on p. 399 the Catechism explains that “the Protestant spirit” is “subversive of Faith, of morals, and of all authority Divine and human.”

Woe, therefore, betide the “Protestant” who, in the day of Rome’s power, falls into its blood-stained hands! As the Romish organ, “The Rambler,” in September, 1851, honestly confessed: “Believe us not, Protestants of England and Ireland, when you hear us pouring forth our liberalisms —they mean nothing. Such a person is not talking Catholicism. . . If he were lord in the land, and you in the minority, if not in numbers, yet in power, what would he do to you? If expedient he would imprison you, banish you, fine you, possibly he might hang you . . . but he would never tolerate you.” Nor must the confiding and unsuspecting Protestant hug to his bosom the delusion that friendship, or relationship, or business connection, or any other social inter-communion with Papists, would exempt the Protestant from persecution or slaughter in the day of Rome’s power.

At the risk of prolixity and tediousness, it is necessary to insist on the extreme danger that awaits Protestants today, if they permit Rome to become once more supreme in Great Britain or in Ireland; for Rome is engaged in “war with the saints” It is a war, à l’outrance (to excess). So long as “heresy” exists, so long will Rome’s murderous doctrines be enforced. Hence, it is not a waste of time to reiterate certain facts.

(1) It is the duty of every Popish priest to “unsparingly denounce” “heresy”; and Popish bishops are the Chief Inquisitors in their diocese; and, if they took the Episcopal oath out of Great Britain, were, at their “consecration,” obliged to swear: “The rights, honors, privileges and authority of the holy Roman Church, of our Lord the Pope, and his successors, I shall give all diligence to preserve, defend, advance, and promote . . . Heretics, schismatics, and rebels against the same our Lord, and his successors, I will persecute and fight against, to the utmost of my power” (Pontificale Romanum, “De Consecratione Electi in Episcopum,”” p. 79, Forma Juramenti). Irish bishops probably take it.

(2) “If they took the oath out of Great Britain,” for, in consequence of the outcry in 1850 against this exterminating oath, the clause commencing “Heretics,” and ending “power,” has been omitted in this country. But there is nothing whatever to prevent a Popish bishop being “consecrated” elsewhere, and so evade the understanding that in Great Britain that part of the oath shall not be taken. If consecrated at Rome, for instance, the entire oath is enforced. The Latin of this part of the oath is: “Hereticos, Schismaticos, et Rebelles eidem Domina nostro . . . pro posse persequar et impugnabo.” It is important to note that desperate efforts are made in this country to deny that “Persequar” means “persecute.” This will not deceive anyone acquainted with Romish duplicity. For that very Latin word is systematically used in Roman versions of the Bible to denote persecution; for instance, it appears in the Vulgate of Sixtus V. and Clement VIII., in Psalm cix. 16, Acts ix. 4, and xxii. 4; 1 Thess. ii. 15, etc., along with its cognates.

(3) Once every four years Popish bishops from England and Ireland are obliged to appear personally at Rome to render an account of their stewardship to the Pope. No one but an ignoramus would believe that the Pope would omit then to ask if that particular part of the oath (whether taken in Rome or ostentatiously omitted in England for politic purposes, and with “mental restriction”) has been kept, for the rooting out of “heresy” is the chief business of all Popish bishops, who, by their oaths, are constituted Inquisitors-general of their dioceses, and are bound “in all things to render faith, subjection, and obedience” to the Pope. Session XXIV. of the Council of Trent expressly constitutes Popish bishops Inquisitors, with power to “punish,” to “visit,” and to “correct” “in accordance with the enactments of the Canon.”; and Session XXV. ordered all bishops to “publicly express their detestation of and to anathematize all the heresies that have been condemned by the sacred Canons and General Councils.”

(4) But not “heresies” alone are to be anathematized; on the contrary, Session XXV. expressly orders bishops to excommunicate “heretics,” to fine them, to distrain upon property, to “smite them with the sword of anathema,” to order a boycott by the “faithful,” and to “proceed against them as suspected of heresy.” (“Decree of Reformation,” ch. III.). And, in order to show what Rome’s attitude to all “heretics” is, the entire Council of Trent, at its close, shouted aloud, “Anathema to all Heretics.”

(5) Has that attitude in any way changed? On the contrary; as already shown, there have recently appeared important Popish works issued by Papal authority, which expressly denounce “heresy” as the greatest of all crimes, and teach the “right,” as well as the “duty,” of “the Church,” to extirpate all heretics by death—even by fire if necessary. And, in order to make mistakes impossible, the late Pope authoritatively issued a Catechism, which explains that all Protestants are “heretics.”

Here are a few more evidences:—

(a) “Le Christianisme au some siécle,” of May 17th, 1917, reported a sermon preached in Notre Dame, Paris, during Lent, to a congregation of some 4,000 persons, in which the preacher said: “The Church may punish heretics. . . . They are culprits . . . they are in revolt against the infallible authority . . . they disseminate their perversity and corrupt other souls. The Church has, therefore, the right to subdue their diabolical depravity, not only by anathema, but by the sword, that is to say, by obtaining from Catholic States the suppression of heretics by penalties which may extend to death.”

(b) Archbishop Ryan, who died in 1911, said in his periodical, “The Shepherd of the Valley,” “The Church tolerates heretics when she is obliged to do so, but she hates them with a deadly hatred, and uses all her power to annihilate them. If ever the Catholics in this land should become a considerable majority, then will religious freedom come to an end.”

(c) The “Catholic Encyclopedia” declares that “the non-Catholic Christians of our day are, strictly speaking, her subjects.”

(d) Archbishop Troy’s Edition of the Latin Vulgate, published in Dublin by R. Coyne, says, in a Note to Matt. xiii. 25: “The good must tolerate the evil when it is so strong that it cannot be redressed without danger otherwise when ill men (be they heretics or other malefactors) may be punished or suppressed without disturbance and hazard of the good, they may and ought, by public authority, either spiritual or temporal, to be chastised or executed.” To 2 John v. 10, a Note is appended, declaring that if persons be “by name excommunicated, or declared to be heretics, yet even in worldly conversation and secular acts of life we must avoid them . . .”; i.e., we must boycott them!

To Rev. xvii. 6 the Note says: “When Rome puts heretics to death, and allows their punishments in other countries, their blood is not called the blood of saints, no more than the blood of thieves, man-killers and other malefactors. . .”

(e) Pope Pius IX., writing to the German Emperor on August 7th, 1873, said: “Everyone who has been baptized belongs . . .to the Pope.”

Rev. T. Slater, in “A Manual of Moral Theology for English-speaking Countries,” with the Imprimatur of Cardinal Farley, dated 1907 {Vol. i., p. 93) says: “Men become subject to the Church by Christian baptism . . . Heretics and schismatics, who are validly baptized, are, per se, subject to the Church’s laws.”

Edmund J. O’Reilly, S.J., Professor of Theology at Maynooth, in “The Relations of the Church to Society,” says that the principle of religious toleration “is one which is not, and never has been and never will be, approved by the Church,” whilst a war to re-establish Papal temporal power would be just—so far as the cause is concerned.”

The Rev. T. Gilmartin, Professor at Maynooth, in his “Manual of Church History ” (Vol. II., p. 228, Dublin, 1892), said: “The Church can punish heresy as an evil in itself, and as an offense against the Church, and the Church can require the assistance of the State in suppressing heresy.”

In 1887 Pope Leo XIII. published a Brief, proffering “Indulgences” “for the extirpation of heresies,” and that same year a Romish paper, in Mexico—the “Defensa Catolica”—said of a “heretic”: “True charity consists . . . in taking his life, always supposing it is done for love of God. In the Lord’s service, and for love of Him, we must . . . kill them”; whilst, in that same year, another Romish paper, the “Freeman’s Journal,” of New York, said: “If the killing of a few [Protestant] missionaries—we should almost . . . be inclined to say—‘on with the dance; let joy be unconfined.’”

Whence the inference is obvious—that the penalty of death would be joyfully inflicted on Protestants, if the opportunity were afforded either by the subservience of the State, or by the increase of Popery.

(q) THE “CONSUMPTION ” OF ANTICHRIST.

Some of the worst vagaries of Futurists would be avoided if they would but remember that prophetic periods of time are sure to be proportionate to the thing predicted, and commensurate with the importance attached by the Word of God to the subject of the prophecy. Moreover, they should remember that the progress of time, and the history of certain evils, are certain to be regulated by certain “Laws,” resembling what are euphemistically styled “Nature’s Laws ”; for they are neither fortuitous nor without control by the arbiter of destiny. On the contrary, being, as they undoubtedly are, the result of Divine prescience, wisdom. and over-ruling Providence, they are assuredly under the control of the God of Nature—who works by Laws, not by chance.

That being so, students of the “more sure word of prophecy” must have regard to the “Laws of Nature” in regard to the evolution of history, and of prophetic periods connected with great events. It is wise to assume that there is analogy between the course of certain conspicuous evils in history, and the course of objects governed by certain well- known “Laws of Nature.”

One such well-known Law is that a projectile does not reach its highest point in flight at the end of its trajectory through the atmosphere, but at a point somewhere about two-thirds of its trajectory, because it is constantly acted upon by the resistance of the air, the force of gravity, and decrease in muzzle velocity, all these being forces controlled by the “Laws of Nature.”

Now, the Inspired Page plainly describes the History of Apostasy as corresponding to the flight of a projectile ejected out of “the abyss” (Rev. xi. 7; xvii. 8; 2 Thess. ii. 8, 9) by Satan, and rising to its culmination when Christ’s faithful witnesses have reached the summit of their testimony. (Rev. xi. 7; xii. 17; xiii. 7) Its culminating point is not to be sought at the end of its course, but rather some two-thirds of its distance from its “start.” And, necessarily, like a projectile, its descent would be more rapid than its ascent to power. It is a grave mistake, therefore, on the part of Futurists to represent Antichrist as emerging from obscurity at the end of History, in order at once to culminate, its greatest power being at the end of its career, a brief career of three and a half literal years, a period of time wholly out of proportion to the circumstances of the case, and quite incommensurate with the evil foreshadowed.

The Word of God makes it sufficiently obvious that the period in the history of “The Apostasy,” which corresponds to the gradual rise of a projectile, occupies the greater part of the history of Christendom; whilst the period corresponding to the more rapid descent of a projectile, occupies the briefer portion of the history of Christendom; its last third, in fact.

Hence, if the history of Christendom began at the era of our Lord’s First Advent in the first century; and if 2,520, or seven “times,” be the length of the “times of the Gentiles,” measured from Nebuchadnezzar’s days—B.C. 606-563, or some 630 years previously; then the history of Christendom falls within a period approximately 1,890 years in length, measured from AD. 25-68, and the history of “The Apostasy” occupies the whole of that period, the last one- third being a period of decadence for Antichrist, whilst the first two-thirds comprise the story of his rise into power, and the growth of “The Apostasy.”

Singularly enough, two-thirds of 1,890 years are 1,260 years, i.e., the period assigned in prophecy to Antichrist’s career, measured from his “revelation” or parousia. 1,260 years from A.D. 25-68 extend to A.D. 1285-1328.

Antichrist’s career, therefore, may be regarded as consisting of two portions: firstly, the story of its rise into power between the first century and the fourteenth century; and, secondly, the story of its decline from power during the 630 years between the fourteenth century (A.D. 1285-1328) and the close of Christendom’s story—in the twentieth century.

Or, in other words, we are to look in history for the acme of Papal power in the interval between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries; and we must expect to observe its subsequent decline from power ever since.

Do these deductions agree with the facts of history? Nothing can be more certain than the fact that the meridian of Papal autocratic power was the period between A.D. 1215 and 1294—during the Pontificates of Innocent III., Honorius III., Gregory IX., Celestin IV., Innocent IV., Alexander IV., Urban IV., Clement IV., Gregory X., Innocent V., Adrian V., John XX., Nicholas III., Martin IV., Honorius IV., Nicholas IV., Celestin V., Boniface VIII., during which period superstition was at its height; the Crusades were in progress; the Inquisition was in full play; “heretics” were relentlessly persecuted; the Jews were brutally ill-treated; and imperious temporal, as well as spiritual, claims over princes and people were enforced by Popes. Historians, such as the Jesuit Bower, Ranke, Gibbon, Hallam, Arnold, Milman, with one consent point to this period as the noontide of Papal dominion. Italian authors fix on Gregory VII. to Innocent III.

But what does history say in regard to the subsequent period, since the fifteenth century? Has it proved to be a period of decline more rapid than the previous rise of Popery into power? Prophecy foretold that “the mystery of iniquity” was already at work in Paul’s days-A.D. 54; that it was to produce “The Apostasy” (2 Thess. ii. 3) before “the Son of Perdition” could be “revealed”; that his career was to last 1,260 years after his revelation; and that the whole period of Christendom’s history was to be 1,890 years from some point in the first century. This leaves rather less than 600 years for Antichrist’s decadence; his predicted “consumption ” (2 Thess. ii. 8) by the Spirit of the Lord’s mouth—a “consumption” apparently twofold in character—for Daniel ascribes loss of “dominion” (Dan. vii. 26) to it, whilst Paul seemingly refers to religious enfeeblement, and Zechariah (Zech, xi. 17) apparently predicts territorial loss as well as spiritual darkness. The Apocalypse (Rev. xvi. 10; xvii. 16) seems to hint at the same judgments, towards the end of Antichrist’s career.

Hence, it is sufficiently clear that the last six hundred years of the Papacy and Church of Rome were to be marked by rapidly augmenting spiritual darkness and territorial decay. Does history correspond to this statement? Nothing can be more certain than the fact that from the fifteenth century onwards to the present time the Papacy has experienced tremendous losses, both of territory and of subjects—for whereas in the fifteenth century the voice of Christendom was hushed, and Popery alone was regnant, the Reformation of the sixteenth century burst the shackles and fetters of Popery, threw the Light of Holy Writ upon its errors, and produced the most enlightened and progressive nations—the Protestant races of the world. Humiliation upon humiliation has fallen upon the Papacy—the climax being the total loss of territorial power in 1870, following immediately upon the evidence of the grossest spiritual darkness, as manifested by the blasphemous Decrees of the Immaculate Conception and Papal Infallibility. And whereas in the fifteenth century there was hardly a single “Protestant” congregation in the world, today there are fully 200 millions of people who reject the claims of the Papacy. Moreover, the loss of revenue, of property, and of power, has proceeded, pari passu (at an equal rate), with the “consumption” of territory and the growth of spiritual darkness in the Popedom. “The great voice.” has not ceased to blaspheme; its accredited organs and mouthpieces have not desisted from promulgating unscriptural and God- dishonoring teaching. The Word of God has not ceased to be proscribed, or witnesses to be persecuted. But the erstwhile “Ruler of the World” is now “the Prisoner in the Vatican”; his “dominion” has ceased to exist; his position is precarious, and may, at any moment, be “destroyed” by forces beyond his control. His conduct in regard to the great War has stamped indelibly upon his brow the name of Infamy, and every day his conduct is showing in a clearer light that he is indeed the successor—not of humble Peter, the Galilean fisherman, but of Judas of Kerioth, the Judaean False Apostle and betrayer of the Lord Jesus Christ and His people.

The parallel between the flight of a projectile and the history of the rise, progress and decadence of Papal power, is equally, if not more, striking if one deals with the 1,260 years only of prophecy. For two-thirds of 1,260 years are 840 years; and one-third is 420 years. The Papacy was “revealed” as such in the seventh century, as all historians admit. It gradually rose to the plenitude of power in the fifteenth century, since when its record is that of decadence in material power, coupled with an ever-increasing and unrepenting spiritual darkness. In prophetic phraseology, “the sword is upon his arm, and his right eye is utterly darkened.” The more rapid its fall from temporal power, the more blasphemous its utterances. Twice has the Papacy been hunted out of Rome; once by Napoleon, once by Revolution. Its third exit will be final and complete, for it is to be “destroyed by the brightness of His coming,” whose names, offices, titles and place, it has for 1,260 years usurped.

(r) THE TESTIMONY OF HISTORY OR THE VERDICT OF HISTORIANS AND LEARNED.

Let anyone glance over the office of electing and crowning a Pope, and he will there see, in small compass, how truly, precisely, and fully the Roman Pontiffs realize and fulfill, in their self-assumed titles and pretensions, all the characteristics included in the above catalog, and therefore in the Divinely-revealed designative official title, “The Antichrist.”

It is no valid objection to say that the Pope does not expressly call himself God. To this it is enough to say that in Scripture there is no such prediction concerning the Antichrist. As a fact, anyone who, in the name of God, pretends to be able to invent a “Sacrament” for Christ’s Church, does in reality usurp the place of God, for it is literally taking the place of the Author of Grace, as none but He can institute a “Sacrament,” or make visible matter—or any human ceremony or rite—a channel of His grace or gifts. It is written of the Antichrist that he “taketh his seat (or Cathedra) in the naos of God—or professing Church—showing himself as God,” i.e., not calling himself God, but so acting as if he were God. It is thus that Chrysostom explains the word “showing”; and he also says (on 2 Thess. ii.): “he will be a sort of instead-God (anti theos) or vice-God, and will order himself to be worshipped—anti tou Theou—in God’s stead,” i.e., as God’s representative and Vice-regent. Hippolytus, another Greek Father, says: “he will in everything put himself on an equality with the Savior.” Nor does John, in 1 John ii. 22, and 2 John vii., say anything as to the nature or manner of the denial of the Father and the Son, whether express and direct, or only in effect and virtual. The latter fully meets all the terms of the prophecy, as has already been demonstrated by citations from the Apostles’ writings and use of the word “deny.”

Neither is there any substance in the objection that no one who professes the doctrine of the Trinity or other Christian truth can be the Antichrist, for it is solely in virtue of professing the Nicene Creed that Antichrist can be said with truth to sit in the naos of God.

It is by the claim to be the Visible Head of the Universal Church of Christ, added to other impious and blasphemous titles, that expressly, as well as virtually, in effect, and to all real intents and purposes, the Antichrist usurps the place both of God and of Christ, and so excludes or “denies” both the Father and the Son from the Government of the Church of God on earth, i.e., the so-called “Catholic Church.” The title, “Vicar of Christ,” can only be turned into Greek by Antichristos, and is a self-given title of infamy, which identifies the bearer as “The Man of the Apostasy,” i.e., the Vice Christ or substitute for Christ. Nay; it is exceedingly doubtful whether such self-given title be not “the sin that hath never forgiveness,” (1 John. v. 16; Matt. xii. 31) i.e., blasphemy, against the only True Substitute (ohn xiv. 16, 26; xvi. 7) for Christ on earth, the Holy Ghost; for which reason the bearer of such title is, by the Holy Ghost’s inspiration, denounced as “son of per- dition.” (2 Thess. ii. 3; Rev. xvii. 8, 11)

The sin of Antichrist is neither physical nor moral. It is wholly spiritual, though, of course, spiritual darkness (2 Cor. iv.; 1 Peter v. 8; 1 John i. 6; Rev. xvi. 10) or “strong delusion” (2 Thess. ii) usually is accompanied by its own “fruits,” whether physical or moral, just as in the case of the Apostle Judas, who was a thief, (John xii. 6) as well as a charlatan and traitor. We do not read, however, of Judas being in other respects evil, or living a scandalous life. It is therefore a mistake to expect the anti-type to be, necessarily, a flagitious character, or conspicuously malevolent. No such characteristics are predicted of the “little horn,” “the son of perdition,” “the Beast,” or “the Antichrist.” Its sin is spiritual. It is “blasphemy,” (Isaiah xxxvii. 23) in the sense that term is invariably used in Holy Writ, viz., bringing discredit on God’s Name, or usurping God’s attribute and functions, or opposing and counterfeiting the Holy Ghost.

The view historians have taken of the system ruled by the Popes as a “Kingdom ” may be gathered, to some extent, from the following extracts:—

Dr. Arnold, in his “Life and Correspondence” (Vol. 2), said: “That the Church system, or rather the Priest system, is not to be found in Scripture, is as certain as that the worship of Jupiter is not the doctrine of the Gospel. It is to my mind more than anything else the exact fulfillment of the apostolic language concerning Antichrist. The Priest is either Christ or Antichrist; he is either our Mediator or he is the man of sin in God’s Temple.” “It is a system of blasphemous falsehood such as St. Paul foretold was to come, such as St. John saw to be already in the world” (Letters 258, 273, 274).

Lecky (“History of European Morals”): “In the first two centuries of the Christian Church the moral elevation was extremely high . . . In the century before Constantine (A.D. 312), a marked depression was already manifest. . . The two centuries after Constantine are uniformly represented by the Fathers as a period of general and scandalous vice. The Dark Ages, as the period of Catholic ascendancy is justly called … should probably be placed in all intellectual virtues lower than in any other period in the history of man- kind.”

Gibbon (“Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”): “In the seventh century the Church had relapsed into the semblance of paganism. In the long period of 1,200 years which elapsed between the reign of Constantine and the Reformation of Luther, the worship of saints and relics corrupted the pure and perfect simplicity of the Christian model.”

Lord Macaulay (“Essays”): “It is impossible to deny that the polity of the Church of Rome is the very masterpiece of human wisdom. . . . The experience of 1,200 eventful years, the ingenuity and patient care of forty generations of statesmen, have improved that polity to such perfection, that, among the contrivances which have been devised for deceiving and controlling mankind, it occupies the highest place” (on Ranke’s “History of the Popes, 1852,” p. 548).

Lecky (“History of European Morals”): “It is indeed difficult to conceive any clearer proof than was furnished by the history of the 1,200 years after the conversion of Constantine, that it is by no means for the advantage of mankind that in the form which the Greek and Catholic Churches present, it should become a controlling arbiter of civilization.”

La Guidara (“An Echo from the Vatican.” p. 190): “Observe that Popery bears something of the semblance of Christianity in order to deceive, just as the counterfeit coin resembles that which is genuine. When Satan found that Christianity was advancing, and that wicked men would not be satisfied without a new religion, he invented Popery, by which he has been more successful in destroying souls than by any of his previous contrivances.”

Dr. H. Ward Beecher “The Papal Conspiracy Ex- posed,” pp. 176, 177): “The system, as a system, is false and pernicious, and though not framed at once as a whole by any man or body of men as a fraud, was framed by that one far-seeing, comprehensive mind of whom the Apostle speaks—once in Heaven and familiar with the whole character, laws and administration of God, deeply versed in all questions of theology, skilled in organization and government, perfectly acquainted with all the phases of the human mind, and of society, and a master of all the arts of sophistry and delusion to a degree beyond the conception of a human mind, and before whom all men and nations not illuminated and defended by God, are, by reason of their dislike of the truth, mere simpletons—objects of his craft and delusive power—entangled in his snares, led captive at his will.

“He, living, whilst generations die, is able to lay a plan requiring centuries for its execution.

“Availing himself of all these, he has, by a delusive process, holding up great and good ends, such as preserving doctrine and unity in the Church, produced a system adapted, on the whole, to do as much evil and as little good as in existing circumstances was possible.

“Now, when I call the system of the Romish hierarchy a stupendous fraud, I mean that it is a system devised by Satan for this very end, . . . The delusion has been strong and complete to an amazing degree.”’

Blunt (“History of the Reformation in England,” p. 130): “If the Pope was St. Peter’s successor, wherein, it was asked, did the succession consist? What one thing had St. Peter like the Pope, or the Pope like St. Peter? Did St. Peter call himself the Head of the Church, Bishop of Bishops, and usurp dominion over all God’s creatures? Did he exempt himself from the power of civil government; maintain wars; set princes at variance; or sit in a chair with a purple gown and royal scepter and diadem of gold and precious stones, and set his feet on kings’ necks?” (John Ruskin: “The most debasing and degrading of all creeds.” Sir W. Scott: “A mean and depraving superstition.”)

Isaac Barrow, on the Pope’s supremacy (p. 85): “It seemeth, therefore, a sacrilegious arrogance (derogating from our Lord’s honor) for any man to assume or admit those titles of ‘Sovereign of the Church, Head of the Church, our Lord, Arch-Pastor, Highest Priest, Chief Doctor, Master, Father, Judge of Christians’; upon what pretense, or under what distinction soever, these ‘pompatic, foolish, proud, perverse, wicked, profane words: these names of singularity, elation, vanity, blasphemy’ (to borrow the epithets with which Pope Gregory I. doth brand the titles of ‘Universal Bishop’ and ‘Ecumenical Patriarch,’ no less modest in sound, and far more innocent in meaning, than those now ascribed to the Pope) are therefore to be regretted . . . because they do encroach upon our only Lord, to Whom they do only belong. . . .”

John Henry Newman, in 1834, before leaving the Church of England, said: “The spirit of Old Rome has risen again in its former place, and has evidenced its identity by its works.. In the corrupt Papal system we have the very cruelty, the craft, and the ambition of the Republic; its cruelty in its unsparing sacrifice of the happiness and virtue of individuals to a phantom of public expediency, in its forced celibacy within, and its persecutions without; its craft in its falsehoods, its deceitful deeds and lying wonders; and its grasping ambition in the very structure of its polity, in its assumptions of universal dominion; old Rome is still alive; nowhere have its eagles lighted, but it still claims the sovereignty under another pretense” (“Essay on Development of Christian Doctrine,” Advertisement, p. vii.).

After he became a Papist, Newman thus described the history of the Papacy (Ibid., pp. 450 et seg.): “First of all were the bitter persecutions of the Pagan Empire in the early centuries; them its sudden conversion, the liberty of Christian worship, the development of the cultus sanctorum (the worship of the saints), and the reception of monachism (monasticism) into the ecclesiastical system. Then came the irruption of the barbarians; and then occupation of the orbis terrarum (the world), first from the North, then by the Saracens from the South. Then came the time of thick darkness; and afterwards two great struggles, one with the material power, the other with the intellect of the world, terminating in the ecclesiastical monastery, and in the theology of the schools.”

Charles Dickens (“Life,” by Forster, Vol. II., p. 274) described Popery as “the most horrible means of political and social degradation left m the world.”

Lord Macaulay (“History of England,” Vol. I., p. 47) says that “the loveliest and most fertile provinces of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk in poverty, in political servitude, and in intellectual torpor.”

Professor Huxley (“Daily News,” October 28th, 1871): “There is no engine so carefully calculated for the destruction of all that is highest in the moral mature, in the intellectual freedom, and in the political freedom of mankind, as that engine that is at present wielded by the Ultramontane section of the Catholic Church.”

Mr. Gladstone, describing the Kingdom of Naples under Bomba and the Papacy, when the Church was presided over by a Cardinal Archbishop, and “the Jesuits were the body who, perhaps, stood nearest to the Government.” when “it was an Augean stable of ignorance, pauperism, brigandage and vice” (as J. W. Probym described it in his “Essays on Italy,” p. 77); said he had “seen Perjury, the daughter of Fraud, the mother of Cruelty and Violence, stalk abroad, under the sanction of its government.” A country where, by means of a Philosophical Catechism for the use of primary schools, there were taught, under the veil of religion, “principles at once false, base and demoralizing.” He declared that “no more cunning plot was ever devised. . . . against the freedom, the happiness, the virtue of mankind” (Second Letter to the Earl of Aberdeen, by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P.).

Gladstone: “The proselytizing agency of the Roman Church in this country I take to be one of the worst of the religious influences of the age.” “A perpetual war against the progress and the movement of the human mind.”

Lord Macaulay (“History of England.” Vol. I., p. 47) declared that “during the last three centuries, to stunt the growth of the human mind has been her chief object. Throughout Christendom whatever advance has been made in knowledge, in freedom, in wealth, and in the arts of life, has been in inverse proportion to her power.”

Burnet (“History of His Own Times,” Vol. IV., p. 400, Edit. 1815) said: “Popery is a mass of impostures, supported by men who manage them with great advantage, and impose them with inexpressible severities on those who dare call anything in question that they dictate to them.”

Gill (“The Papal Drama.” Longmans, 1866, Book XI., p. 408): “The prince has convicted the Pontiff; the hindering, debasing, stifling, grinding, territorial dominion has borne damning witness against the ecclesiastical system. . . . The power with the loftiest pretensions in the world has proved incapable of the pettiest achievement. . . The Vicars of Christ have scandalously misgoverned a petty principality.”

Adam Smith (“Wealth of Nations,” Book V., Ch. i., Part iii., Art.3) : “The Church of Rome is the most formidable combination that ever was formed against the authority and security of civil government, as well as against the liberty, reason, and happiness of mankind.”

Gladstone (“Speeches of Pope Pius IX.” p. 173): “When the Pope speaks of the liberation of the Church, he means merely this, that it is to set its foot on the neck of every other power; and when he speaks of peace in Italy he means the overthrow of the established order, if, by a re-conversion of Italians to his way of thinking, well; but if not, then by the old and favorite Roman expedient, the introduction of foreign arms invading the land, to put down the national sentiment and to re-establish the temporal government of the Clerical order.”

We, fortunately, possess a great deal of information respecting the condition of the Papal States when “the temporal government of the Clerical order” bore sway. Out of a mass of accounts, let the following be pondered:—

Farini (“History of Rome,” Book I, Ch. i.): “There was no care for the cultivation of the people, no anxiety for public prosperity. Rome was a cesspool of corruption, of exemptions, and of privileges; a clergy, made up of fools and knaves, in power; laity slaves; the treasury plundered by gangs of tax-farmers and spies; all the business of government consisted of prying into and punishing the notions, the expectations, and the imprudences of the Liberals.”

Dean Alford (“Letters from Abroad,” pp. 66-67): “Here we have the most absolute monarch im the world, ruling a capital by no means large, with a numerous staff of military and police; and, besides, assisted by 20,000 French troops. And besides this, we have here a people whose state, physical, moral, and intellectual, is the result of accumulated centuries of a government and institutions, according to the advocates of the Papacy, the best im the world, and administered by infallible wisdom, unerring justice, spotless integrity, and unimpeachable truth. How, then, does it stand with Rome, in point of security and good order? Unquestionably, in both these points, it is the worst city in the civilized world.”

In Dean Stanley’s “Life of Dr. Arnold” (Vol. II., p. 411, London, 1844) we read: “This is the last night, I trust, in which I shall sleep in the Pope’s dominions; for it is impossible not to be sickened with a government such as this, which discharges no one function decently. The ignorance of the people is prodigious: how can it be otherwise?”

Garibaldi (“The Rule of the Monk,” Vol. I., p. 29): “In the year 1848, when a Republican Government was established in France, which was the signal for a general revolutionary movement throughout Europe, and the present Pope was forced to escape in the disguise of a menial, while a National Government granted, for the first time in Rome, religious toleration. One of the first orders of the Roman Republic was that the nuns should be liberated, and the convents searched. Giuseppe Garibaldi, in 1849, then recently arrived in Rome, visited in person every convent, and was present during the whole of the investigations. In all, with- out an exception, he found instruments of cruelty; and in all, without an exception, were vaults, plainly dedicated to the reception of the bones of infants. Statistics prove that in no city is there so great a number of children born out of wedlock as in Rome; and it is in Rome also that the greatest number of infanticides takes place.

“This must ever be the case with a wealthy unmarried priesthood and a poor, ignorant population.”

George Augustus Sala (“Rome and Venice.” p. 339): “Many years have elapsed since Lord John Russell denounced the government of the Pope as the very worst in Europe, and, save in a few insignificant particulars, it has not changed since. The government of the States of the Church is worse even than that of Turkey, where there is, at least, religious toleration and commercial freedom.”

Dr. Henry C. Lea, in “An Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church” (2nd Ed., Enlarged, 1884) said: “The Latin Church is the great fact which dominates the history of modern civilization. Nowhere do we see combined effort, nowhere can we detect a pervading impulse, irrespective of locality or circumstance, save in the imposing machinery of the Church Establishment. This meets us at every point, and in every age, and in every sphere of action. This vast fabric of ecclesiastical supremacy presents one of the most curious problems which the world’s history affords. A wide and absolute authority, deriving its force from (im)moral power alone, marshaling no legions of its own in battle array, but permeating everything with its influence . . . such was the papal hierarchy, a marvel and a mystery.”

What Dr. Lea styles “moral power” in reality is founded on the following blasphemous claim of the Papal hierarchy. It is extracted from a large work by Abbé Gaume, entitled “Catechisme de Perséverance” (Vol. IV., p. 288): “What language of man can speak the dignity of the priesthood and the greatness of the Priest? Kings of the earth are great, who command vast armies and make the world tremble at the sound of their name. Ah well! there is one man greater still. He is a man who, every day, when he pleases, opens the gates of Heaven, and, addressing himself to the Son of the Eternal, to the Monarch of the worlds, says to Him: ‘Descend from Your Throne, Come!’ Docile, at the voice of this man, the Word of God, He by Whom all things were made, instantly descends from the seat of His glory, and incarnates Himself in the hands of this man, more powerful than Kings, than the angels, than the august Mary. And this man says to Him: ‘Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee, Thou art my Victim ’—and He lets Himself be immolated by this man, placed where he wills, given to whom he chooses; this man is the Priest.

“Thus the Priest, powerful as God, can, in an instant, snatch the sinner from Hell, render him fit for Paradise, and make a slave of the Devil, a son of Abraham … God Himself is obliged to adhere to the judgment of the Priest.”

The “Western Watchman” of March 25, 1912, said: “The Pope is not only the representative of Jesus Christ, but he is Jesus Christ himself hidden under the veil of flesh. Does the Pope speak? It is Jesus Christ who speaks. So that when the Pope speaks, we have no business to examine. We have only to obey.”

Garibaldi was therefore right when he declared the Papacy to be the “greatest plague” that any country could have inflicted on it—when one considers that every priest claims to be as “powerful as God,” and that the Popedom is simply a Kingdom of Priests, governed by the False Vicar of Christ.

Professor Killen, in his “The Old Catholic Church,” p. 392, says: “It is a most significant fact that the Pope was indebted for his position as am earthly sovereign to his support of the worship of images. Though among the rulers he was only a “little horn,” or a petty monarch, his power was not to be measured by the extent of his territories; for he was ‘diverse’ from other royal personages, as he was supposed to possess attributes of peculiar and tremendous potency; and the acknowledgment of his pretensions gave him an ascendancy over all his fellows. ‘In this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.’ (Dan. vii. 24) Such a description applies exactly to the Bishop of Rome, for with unceasing vigilance he has ever been looking out for opportunities of aggrandizement.”

“Etudes,” January 20th, 1927- Pere Yves de la Briére, S.J., declares the Pope is supreme religious ruler; he has “full immediate and ordinary jurisdiction over every single Catholic.” When he issues a Law or Precept of any kind, it is not a question of his Infallibility but of his Authority. The Pope may recommend Catholics to follow one line of conduct rather than another, even in civil or political matters. For example. Leo XIII. recommended the German Center Party to vote Bismarck’s military budget in 1887, in order to facilitate a favorable conclusion of the Kultur Kampf, although they had intended to oppose it.

“Letters to His Holiness, Pope Pius X.” by A Modernist (i.e., a learned Romish ecclesiastic), 1910, p. 61 et seq.: “Your Papal See, Sovereign Pontiff, is the most exclusive despotism, the most absolute autocracy, the most humiliating tyranny, that still defies public opinion and outrages the conscience of mankind.” “What liberties can be safely entrusted to a Papacy, in itself so absolute, and surrounded by these lesser absolutisms?” “These miniature Curias, these Popes in little, whether black, brown, or white, of the great orders, exist about the Vatican, very largely for purposes of aggrandizement and intrigue.” “You are the instrument of the worst despotism in the world.”

Continued in The Antichrist: His Portrait and History – Chapter VIII. Absurdity of Modern Theories

All chapters of The Antichrist: His Portrait and History

Continued from The Two Babylons Chapter III. Festivals. Section IV — The Feast of the Assumption

Section I — Baptismal Regeneration

When Linacer, a distinguished physician, but bigoted Romanist, in the reign of Henry VIII first fell in with the New Testament, after reading it for a while, he tossed it from him with impatience and a great oath, exclaiming, “Either this book is not true, or we are not Christians.” He saw at once that the system of Rome and the system of the New Testament were directly opposed to one another; and no one who impartially compares the two systems can come to any other conclusion. In passing from the Bible to the Breviary, it is like passing from light to darkness. While the one breathes glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and good will to men, the other inculcates all that is dishonouring to the Most High, and ruinous to the moral and spiritual welfare of mankind. How came it that such pernicious doctrines and practices were embraced by the Papacy? Was the Bible so obscure or ambiguous that men naturally fell into the mistake of supposing that it required them to believe and practise the very opposite of what it did? No; the doctrine and discipline of the Papacy were never derived from the Bible. The fact that wherever it has the power, it lays the reading of the Bible under its ban, and either consigns that choicest gift of heavenly love to the flames, or shuts it up under lock and key, proves this of itself. But it can be still more conclusively established. A glance at the main pillars of the Papal system will sufficiently prove that its doctrine and discipline, in all essential respects, have been derived from Babylon. Let the reader now scan the evidence.

Baptismal Regeneration

It is well known that regeneration by baptism is a fundamental article of Rome, yea, that it stands at the very threshold of the Roman system. So important, according to Rome, is baptism for this purpose, that, on the one hand, it is pronounced of “absolute necessity for salvation,” * insomuch that infants dying without it cannot be admitted to glory; and on the other, its virtues are so great, that it is declared in all cases infallibly to “regenerate us by a new spiritual birth, making us children of God”:–it is pronounced to be “the first door by which we enter into the fold of Jesus Christ, the first means by which we receive the grace of reconciliation with God; therefore the merits of His death are by baptism applied to our souls in so superabundant a manner, as fully to satisfy Divine justice for all demands against us, whether for original or actual sin.”

* Bishop HAY’S Sincere Christian. There are two exceptions to this statement; the case of an infidel converted in a heathen land, where it is impossible to get baptism, and the case of a martyr “baptised,” as it is called, “in his own blood”; but in all other cases, whether of young or old, the necessity is “absolute.”

Now, in both respects this doctrine is absolutely anti-Scriptural; in both it is purely Pagan. It is anti-Scriptural, for the Lord Jesus Christ has expressly declared that infants, without the slightest respect to baptism or any external ordinance whatever, are capable of admission into all the glory of the heavenly world:

“Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.“

John the Baptist, while yet in his mother’s womb was so filled with joy at the advent of the Saviour, that, as soon as Mary’s salutation sounded in the ears of his own mother, the unborn babe “leaped in the womb for joy.” Had that child died at the birth, what could have excluded it from “the inheritance of the saints in light” for which it was so certainly “made meet”? Yet the Roman Catholic Bishop Hay, in defiance of very principle of God’s Word, does not hesitate to pen the following: “Question: What becomes of young children who die without baptism? Answer: If a young child were put to death for the sake of Christ, this would be to it the baptism of blood, and carry it to heaven; but except in this case, as such infants are incapable of having the desire of baptism, with the other necessary dispositions, if they are not actually baptized with water, THEY CANNOT GO TO HEAVEN.” As this doctrine never came from the Bible, whence came it? It came from heathenism. The classic reader cannot fail to remember where, and in what melancholy plight, Aeneas, when he visited the infernal regions, found the souls of unhappy infants who had died before receiving, so to speak, “the rites of the Church”:

“Before the gates the cries of babes new-born,
Whom fate had from their tender mothers torn,
Assault his ears.”

These wretched babes, to glorify the virtue and efficacy of the mystic rites of Paganism, are excluded from the Elysian Fields, the paradise of the heathen, and have among their nearest associates no better company than that of guilty suicides:

“The next in place and punishment are they
Who prodigally threw their souls away,
Fools, who, repining at their wretched state,
And loathing anxious life, suborned their fate.” *

* Virgil, DRYDEN’S translation. Between the infants and the suicides one other class is interposed, that is, those who on earth have been unjustly condemned to die. Hope is held out for these, but no hope is held out for the babes.

So much for the lack of baptism. Then as to its positive efficacy when obtained, the Papal doctrine is equally anti-Scriptural. There are professed Protestants who hold the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration; but the Word of God knows nothing of it. The Scriptural account of baptism is, not that it communicates the new birth, but that it is the appointed means of signifying and sealing that new birth where it already exists. In this respect baptism stands on the very same ground as circumcision. Now, what says God’s Word of the efficacy of circumcision? This it says, speaking of Abraham:

“He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had, yet being uncircumcised” (Rom 4:11).

Circumcision was not intended to make Abraham righteous; he was righteous already before he was circumcised. But it was intended to declare him righteous, to give him the more abundant evidence in his own consciousness of his being so. Had Abraham not been righteous before his circumcision, his circumcision could not have been a seal, could not have given confirmation to that which did not exist. So with baptism, it is “a seal of the righteousness of the faith” which the man “has before he is baptized“; for it is said, “He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved” (Mark 16:16). Where faith exists, if it be genuine, it is the evidence of a new heart, of a regenerated nature; and it is only on the profession of that faith and regeneration in the case of an adult, that he is admitted to baptism. Even in the case of infants, who can make no profession of faith or holiness, the administration of baptism is not for the purpose of regenerating them, or making them holy, but of declaring them “holy,” in the sense of being fit for being consecrated, even in infancy, to the service of Christ, just as the whole nation of Israel, in consequence of their relation to Abraham, according to the flesh, were “holy unto the Lord.” If they were not, in that figurative sense, “holy,” they would not be fit subjects for baptism, which is the “seal” of a holy state. But the Bible pronounces them, in consequence of their descent from believing parents, to be “holy,” and that even where only one of the parents is a believer:

“The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; else were your children unclean, but now they are HOLY” (1 Cor 7:14).

It is in consequence of, and solemnly to declare, that “holiness,” with all the responsibilities attaching to it, that they are baptized. That “holiness,” however, is very different from the “holiness” of the new nature; and although the very fact of baptism, if Scripturally viewed and duly improved, is, in the hand of the good Spirit of God, an important means of making that “holiness” a glorious reality, in the highest sense of the term, yet it does not in all cases necessarily secure their spiritual regeneration. God may, or may not, as He sees fit, give the new heart, before, or at, or after baptism; but manifest it is, that thousands who have been duly baptized are still unregenerate, are still in precisely the same position as Simon Magus, who, after being canonically baptized by Philip, was declared to be “in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity” (Acts 7:23). The doctrine of Rome, however, is, that all who are canonically baptized, however ignorant, however immoral, if they only give implicit faith to the Church, and surrender their consciences to the priests, are as much regenerated as ever they can be, and that children coming from the waters of baptism are entirely purged from the stain of original sin. Hence we find the Jesuit missionaries in India boasting of making converts by thousands, by the mere fact of baptising them, without the least previous instruction, in the most complete ignorance of the truths of Christianity, on their mere profession of submission to Rome.

This doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration also is essentially Babylonian. Some may perhaps stumble at the idea of regeneration at all having been known in the Pagan world; but if they only go to India, they will find at this day, the bigoted Hindoos, who have never opened their ears to Christian instruction, as familiar with the term and the idea as ourselves. The Brahmins make it their distinguishing boast that they are “twice-born” men, and that, as such, they are sure of eternal happiness. Now, the same was the case in Babylon, and there the new birth was conferred by baptism. In the Chaldean mysteries, before any instruction could be received, it was required first of all, that the person to be initiated submit to baptism in token of blind and implicit obedience. We find different ancient authors bearing direct testimony both to the fact of this baptism and the intention of it. “In certain sacred rites of the heathen,” says Tertullian, especially referring to the worship of Isis and Mithra, “the mode of initiation is by baptism.” The term “initiation” clearly shows that it was to the Mysteries of these divinities he referred. This baptism was by immersion, and seems to have been rather a rough and formidable process; for we find that he who passed through the purifying waters, and other necessary penances, “if he survived, was then admitted to the knowledge of the Mysteries.” (Elliae Comment. in S. GREG. NAZ.) To face this ordeal required no little courage on the part of those who were initiated. There was this grand inducement, however, to submit, that they who were thus baptized were, as Tertullian assures us, promised, as the consequence, “REGENERATION, and the pardon of all their perjuries.” Our own Pagan ancestors, the worshippers of Odin, are known to have practised baptismal rites, which, taken in connection with their avowed object in practising them, show that, originally, at least, they must have believed that the natural guilt and corruption of their new-born children could be washed away by sprinkling them with water, or by plunging them, as soon as born, into lakes or rivers.

Yea, on the other side of the Atlantic, in Mexico, the same doctrine of baptismal regeneration was found in full vigour among the natives, when Cortez and his warriors landed on their shores. The ceremony of Mexican baptism, which was beheld with astonishment by the Spanish Roman Catholic missionaries, is thus strikingly described in Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico: “When everything necessary for the baptism had been made ready, all the relations of the child were assembled, and the midwife, who was the person that performed the rite of baptism, * was summoned. At early dawn, they met together in the courtyard of the house. When the sun had risen, the midwife, taking the child in her arms, called for a little earthen vessel of water, while those about her placed the ornaments, which had been prepared for baptism, in the midst of the court. To perform the rite of baptism, she placed herself with her face toward the west, and immediately began to go through certain ceremonies…After this she sprinkled water on the head of the infant, saying, ‘O my child, take and receive the water of the Lord of the world, which is our life, which is given for the increasing and renewing of our body. It is to wash and to purify. I pray that these heavenly drops may enter into your body, and dwell there; that they may destroy and remove from you all the evil and sin which was given you before the beginning of the world, since all of us are under its power’…She then washed the body of the child with water, and spoke in this manner: ‘Whencesoever thou comest, thou that art hurtful to this child, leave him and depart from him, for he now liveth anew, and is BORN ANEW; now he is purified and cleansed afresh, and our mother Chalchivitylcue [the goddess of water] bringeth him into the world.’ Having thus prayed, the midwife took the child in both hands, and, lifting him towards heaven, said, ‘O Lord, thou seest here thy creature, whom thou hast sent into the world, this place of sorrow, suffering, and penitence. Grant him, O Lord, thy gifts and inspiration, for thou art the Great God, and with thee is the great goddess.'”

* As baptism is absolutely necessary to salvation, Rome also authorises midwives to administer baptism. In Mexico the midwife seems to have been a “priestess.”

Here is the opus operatum without mistake. Here is baptismal regeneration and exorcism too, * as thorough and complete as any Romish priest or lover of Tractarianism could desire.

* In the Romish ceremony of baptism, the first thing the priest does is to exorcise the devil out of the child to be baptized in these words, “Depart from him, thou unclean spirit, and give place to the Holy Ghost the Comforter.” (Sincere Christian) In the New Testament there is not the slightest hint of any such exorcism accompanying Christian Baptism. It is purely Pagan.

Does the reader ask what evidence is there that Mexico had derived this doctrine from Chaldea? The evidence is decisive. From the researches of Humboldt we find that the Mexicans celebrated Wodan as the founder of their race, just as our own ancestors did. The Wodan or Odin of Scandinavia can be proved to be the Adon of Babylon. (see note below) The Wodan of Mexico, from the following quotation, will be seen to be the very same: “According to the ancient traditions collected by the Bishop Francis Nunez de la Vega,” says Humboldt, “the Wodan of the Chiapanese [of Mexico] was grandson of that illustrious old man, who at the time of the great deluge, in which the greater part of the human race perished, was saved on a raft, together with his family. Wodan co-operated in the construction of the great edifice which had been undertaken by men to reach the skies; the execution of this rash project was interrupted; each family received from that time a different language; and the great spirit Teotl ordered Wodan to go and people the country of Anahuac.” This surely proves to demonstration whence originally came the Mexican mythology and whence also that doctrine of baptismal regeneration which the Mexicans held in common with Egyptian and Persian worshippers of the Chaldean Queen of Heaven. Prestcott, indeed, has cast doubts on the genuiness of this tradition, as being too exactly coincident with the Scriptural history to be easily believed. But the distinguished Humboldt, who had carefully examined the matter, and who had no prejudice to warp him, expresses his full belief in its correctness; and even from Prestcott’s own interesting pages, it may be proved in every essential particular, with the single exception of the name of Wodan, to which he makes no reference. But, happily, the fact that that name had been borne by some illustrious hero among the supposed ancestors of the Mexican race, is put beyond all doubt by the singular circumstance that the Mexicans had one of their days called Wodansday, exactly as we ourselves have. This, taken in connection with all the circumstances, is a very striking proof, at once of the unity of the human race, and of the wide-spread diffusion of the system that began at Babel.

If the question arise, How came it that the Bayblonians themselves adopted such a doctrine as regeneration by baptism, we have light also on that. In the Babylonian Mysteries, the commemoration of the flood, of the ark, and the grand events in the life of Noah, was mingled with the worship of the Queen of Heaven and her son. Noah, as having lived in two worlds, both before the flood and after it, was called “Dipheus,” or “twice-born,” and was represented as a god with two heads looking in opposite directions, the one old, and the other young(see figure 34). Though we have seen that the two-headed Janus in one aspect had reference to Cush and his son, Nimrod, viewed as one god, in a two-fold capacity, as the Supreme, and Father of all the deified “mighty ones,” yet, in order to gain for him the very authority and respect essential to constitute him properly the head of the great system of idolatry that the apostates inaugurated, it was necessary to represent him as in some way or other identified with the great patriarch, who was the Father of all, and who had so miraculous a history. Therefore in the legends of Janus, we find mixed up with other things derived from an entirely different source, statements not only in regard to his being the “Father of the world,” but also his being “the inventor of ships,” which plainly have been borrowed from the history of Noah; and therefore, the remarkable way in which he is represented in the figure here presented to the reader may confidently be concluded to have been primarily suggested by the history of the great Diluvian patriarch, whose integrity in his two-fold life is so particularly referred to in the Scripture, where it is said (Gen 6:9), “Noah was just a man, and perfect in his generations,” that is, in his life before the flood, and in his life after it. The whole mythology of Greece and Rome, as well as Asia, is full of the history and deeds of Noah, which it is impossible to misunderstand. In India, the god Vishnu, “the Preserver,” who is celebrated as having miraculously preserved one righteous family at the time when the world was drowned, not only has the story of Noah wrought up with his legend, but is called by his very name. Vishnu is just the Sanscrit form of the Chaldee “Ish-nuh,” “the man Noah,” or the “Man of rest.” In the case of Indra, the “king of the gods,” and god of rain, which is evidently only another form of the same god, the name is found in the precise form of Ishnu. Now, the very legend of Vishnu, that pretends to make him no mere creature, but the supreme and “eternal god,” shows that this interpretation of the name is no mere unfounded imagination. Thus is he celebrated in the “Matsya Puran”: “The sun, the wind, the ether, all things incorporeal, were absorbed into his Divine essence; and the universe being consumed, the eternal and omnipotent god, having assumed an ancient form, REPOSED mysteriously upon the surface of that (universal) ocean. But no one is capable of knowing whether that being was then visible or invisible, or what the holy name of that person was, or what the cause of his mysterious SLUMBER. Nor can any one tell how long he thus REPOSED until he conceived the thought of acting; for no one saw him, no one approached him, and none can penetrate the mystery of his real essence.” (Col. KENNEDY’S Hindoo Mythology) In conformity with this ancient legend, Vishnu is still represented as sleeping four months every year. Now, connect this story with the name of Noah, the man of “Rest,” and with his personal history during the period of the flood, when the world was destroyed, when for forty days and forty nights all was chaos, when neither sun nor moon nor twinkling star appeared, when sea and sky were mingled, and all was one wide universal “ocean,” on the bosom of which the patriarch floated, when there was no human being to “approach” him but those who were with him in the ark, and “the mystery of his real essence is penetrated” at once, “the holy name of that person” is ascertained, and his “mysterious slumber” fully accounted for.

Now, wherever Noah is celebrated, whether by the name of Saturn, “the hidden one,”–for that name was applied to him as well as to Nimrod, on account of his having been “hidden” in the ark, in the “day of the Lord’s fierce anger,”–or, “Oannes,” or “Janus,” the “Man of the Sea,” he is generally described in such a way as shows that he was looked upon as Diphues, “twice-born,” or “regenerate.” The “twice-born” Brahmins, who are all so many gods upon earth, by the very title they take to themselves, show that the god whom they represent, and to whose prerogatives they lay claim, had been known as the “twice-born” god. The connection of “regeneration” with the history of Noah, comes out with special evidence in the accounts handed down to us of the Mysteries as celebrated in Egypt. The most learned explorers of Egyptian antiquities, including Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, admit that the story of Noah was mixed up with the story of Osiris. The ship of Isis, and the coffin of Osiris, floating on the waters, point distinctly to that remarkable event. There were different periods, in different places in Egypt, when the fate of Osiris was lamented; and at one time there was more special reference to the personal history of “the mighty hunter before the Lord,” and at another to the awful catastrophe through which Noah passed. In the great and solemn festival called “The Disappearance of Osiris,” it is evident that it is Noah himself who was then supposed to have been lost. The time when Osiris was “shut up in his coffin,” and when that coffin was set afloat on the waters, as stated by Plutarch, agrees exactly with the period when Noah entered the ark. That time was “the 17th day of the month Athyr, when the overflowing of the Nile had ceased, when the nights were growing long and the days decreasing.” The month Athyr was the second month after the autumnal equinox, at which time the civil year of the Jews and the patriarchs began. According to this statement, then, Osiris was “shut up in his coffin” on the 17th day of the second month of the patriarchal year. Compare this with the Scriptural account of Noah’s entering into the ark, and it will be seen how remarkably they agree (Gen 7:11):

“In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the SECOND MONTH, in the SEVENTEENTH DAY of the month, were all the fountains of the great deep broken up; in the self-same day entered Noah into the ark.“

The period, too, that Osiris (otherwise Adonis) was believed to have been shut up in his coffin, was precisely the same as Noah was confined in the ark, a whole year. *

* APOLLODORUS. THEOCRITUS, Idyll. Theocritus is speaking of Adonis as delivered by Venus from Acheron, or the infernal regions, after being there for a year; but as the scene is laid in Egypt, it is evident that it is Osiris he refers to, as he was the Adonis of the Egyptians.

Now, the statements of Plutarch demonstrate that, as Osiris at this festival was looked upon as dead and buried when put into his ark or coffin, and committed to the deep, so, when at length he came out of it again, that new state was regarded as a state of “new life,” or “REGENERATION.” *

* PLUTARCH, De Iside et Osiride. It was in the character of Pthah-Sokari-Osiris that he was represented as having been thus “buried” in the waters. In his own character, simply as Osiris, he had another burial altogether.

There seems every reason to believe that by the ark and the flood God actually gave to the patriarchal saints, and especially to righteous Noah, a vivid typical representation of the power of the blood and Spirit of Christ, at once in saving from wrath, and cleansing from all sin–a representation which was a most cheering “seal” and confirmation to the faith of those who really believed. To this Peter seems distinctly to allude, when he says, speaking of this very event, “The like figure whereunto baptism doth also now save us.” Whatever primitive truth the Chaldean priests held, they utterly perverted and corrupted it. They willingly overlooked the fact, that it was “the righteousness of the faith” which Noah “had before” the flood, that carried him safely through the avenging waters of that dread catastrophe, and ushered him, as it were, from the womb of the ark, by a new birth, into a new world, when on the ark resting on Mount Ararat, he was released from his long confinement. They led their votaries to believe that, if they only passed through the baptismal waters, and the penances therewith connected, that of itself would make them like the second father of mankind, “Diphueis,” “twice-born,” or “regenerate,” would entitle them to all the privileges of “righteous” Noah, and give them that “new birth” (palingenesia) which their consciences told them they so much needed. The Papacy acts on precisely the same principle; and from this very source has its doctrine of baptismal regeneration been derived, about which so much has been written and so many controversies been waged. Let men contend as they may, this, and this only, will be found to be the real origin of the anti-Scriptural dogma. *

* There have been considerable speculations about the meaning of the name Shinar, as applied to the region of which Babylon was the capital. Do not the facts above stated cast light on it? What so likely a derivation of this name as to derive it from “shene,” “to repeat,” and “naar,” “childhood.” The land of “Shinar,” then, according to this view, is just the land of the “Regenerator.”

The reader has seen already how faithfully Rome has copied the Pagan exorcism in connection with baptism. All the other peculiarities attending the Romish baptism, such as the use of salt, spittle, chrism, or anointing with oil, and marking the forehead with the sign of the cross, are equally Pagan. Some of the continental advocates of Rome have admitted that some of these at least have not been derived from Scripture. Thus Jodocus Tiletanus of Louvaine, defending the doctrine of “Unwritten Tradition,” does not hesitate to say, “We are not satisfied with that which the apostles or the Gospel do declare, but we say that, as well before as after, there are divers matters of importance and weight accepted and received out of a doctrine which is nowhere set forth in writing. For we do blesse the water wherewith we baptize, and the oyle wherewith we annoynt; yea, and besides that, him that is christened. And (I pray you) out of what Scripture have we learned the same? Have we it not of a secret and unwritten ordinance? And further, what Scripture hath taught us to grease with oyle? Yea, I pray you, whence cometh it, that we do dype the childe three times in the water? Doth it not come out of this hidden and undisclosed doctrine, which our forefathers have received closely without any curiosity, and do observe it still.” This learned divine of Louvaine, of course, maintains that “the hidden and undisclosed doctrine” of which he speaks, was the “unwritten word” handed down through the channel of infallibility, from the Apostles of Christ to his own time. But, after what we have already seen, the reader will probably entertain a different opinion of the source from which the hidden and undisclosed doctrine must have come. And, indeed, Father Newman himself admits, in regard to “holy water” (that is, water impregnated with “salt,” and consecrated), and many other things that were, as he says, “the very instruments and appendages of demon-worship”–that they were all of “Pagan” origin, and “sanctified by adoption into the Church.” What plea, then, what palliation can he offer, for so extraordinary an adoption? Why, this: that the Church had “confidence in the power of Christianity to resist the infection of evil,” and to transmute them to “an evangelical use.” What right had the Church to entertain any such “confidence”? What fellowship could light have with darkness? what concord between Christ and Belial? Let the history of the Church bear testimony to the vanity, yea, impiety of such a hope. Let the progress of our inquiries shed light upon the same. At the present stage, there is only one of the concomitant rites of baptism to which I will refer–viz., the use of “spittle” in that ordinance; and an examination of the very words of the Roman ritual, in applying it, will prove that its use in baptism must have come from the Mysteries. The following is the account of its application, as given by Bishop Hay: “The priest recites another exorcism, and at the end of it touches the ear and nostrils of the person to be baptized with a little spittle, saying, ‘Ephpheta, that is, Be thou opened into an odour of sweetness; but be thou put to flight, O Devil, for the judgment of God will be at hand.'” Now, surely the reader will at once ask, what possible, what conceivable connection can there be between spittle, and an “odour of sweetness“? If the secret doctrine of the Chaldean mysteries be set side by side with this statement, it will be seen that, absurd and nonsensical as this collocation of terms may appear, it was not at random that “spittle” and an “odour of sweetness” were brought together.

We have seen already how thoroughly Paganism was acquainted with the attributes and work of the promised Messiah, though all that acquaintance with these grand themes was used for the purpose of corrupting the minds of mankind, and keeping them in spiritual bondage. We have now to see that, as they were well aware of the existence of the Holy Spirit, so, intellectually, they were just as well acquainted with His work, though their knowledge on that subject was equally debased and degraded. Servius, in his comments upon Virgil’s First Georgic, after quoting the well known expression, “Mystica vannus Iacchi,” “the mystic fan of Bacchus,” says that that “mystic fan” symbolised the “purifying of souls.” Now, how could the fan be a symbol of the purification of souls? The answer is, The fan is an instrument for producing “wind”; * and in Chaldee, as has been already observed, it is one and the same word which signifies “wind” and the “Holy Spirit.”

* There is an evident allusion to the “mystic fan” of the Babylonian god, in the doom of Babylon, as pronounced by Jeremiah 51:1, 2: “Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against them that dwell in the midst of them that rise up against me, a destroying wind; and will send unto Babylon fanners, that shall fan her, and shall empty her land.”

There can be no doubt, that, from the very beginning, the “wind” was one of the Divine patriarchal emblems by which the power of the Holy Ghost was shadowed forth, even as our Lord Jesus Christ said to Nicodemus,

“The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.“

Hence, when Bacchus was represented with “the mystic fan,” that was to declare him to be the mighty One with whom was “the residue of the Spirit.” Hence came the idea of purifying the soul by means of the wind, according to the description of Virgil, who represents the stain and pollution of sin as being removed in this very way:

“For this are various penances enjoined,
And some are hung to bleach upon the WIND.”

Hence the priests of Jupiter (who was originally just another form of Bacchus), (see figure 35), were called Flamens, * — that is Breathers, or bestowers of the Holy Ghost, by breathing upon their votaries.

* From “Flo,” “I breathe.”

Figure 35

Now, in the Mysteries, the “spittle” was just another symbol for the same thing. In Egypt, through which the Babylonian system passed to Western Europe, the name of the “Pure or Purifying Spirit” was “Rekh” (BUNSEN). But “Rekh” also signified “spittle” (PARKHURST’S Lexicon); so that to anoint the nose and ears of the initiated with “spittle,” according to the mystic system, was held to be anointing them with the “Purifying Spirit.” That Rome in adopting the “spittle” actually copied from some Chaldean ritual in which “spittle” was the appointed emblem of the “Spirit,” is plain from the account which she gives in her own recognised formularies of the reason for anointing the ears with it. The reason for anointing the ears with “spittle” says Bishop Hay, is because “by the grace of baptism, the ears of our soul are opened to hear the Word of God, and the inspirations of His Holy Spirit.” But what, it may be asked, has the “spittle” to do with the “odour of sweetness”? I answer, The very word “Rekh,” which signified the “Holy Spirit,” and was visibly represented by the “spittle,” was intimately connected with “Rikh,” which signifies a “fragrant smell,” or “odour of sweetness.” Thus, a knowledge of the Mysteries gives sense and a consistent meaning to the cabalistic saying addressed by the Papal baptiser to the person about to be baptized, when the “spittle” is daubed on his nose and ears, which otherwise would have no meaning at all–“Ephpheta, Be thou opened into an odour of sweetness.” While this was the primitive truth concealed under the “spittle,” yet the whole spirit of Paganism was so opposed to the spirituality of the patriarchal religion, and indeed intended to make it void, and to draw men utterly away from it, while pretending to do homage to it, that among the multitude in general the magic use of “spittle” became the symbol of the grossest superstition. Theocritus shows with what debasing rites it was mixed up in Sicily and Greece; and Persius thus holds up to scorn the people of Rome in his day for their reliance on it to avert the influence of the “evil eye”:

“Our superstitions with our life begin;
The obscene old grandam, or the next of kin,
The new-born infant from the cradle takes,
And first of spittle a lustration makes;
Then in the spawl her middle finger dips,
Anoints the temples, forehead, and the lips,
Pretending force of magic to prevent
By virtue of her nasty excrement.”–DRYDEN

While thus far we have seen how the Papal baptism is just a reproduction of the Chaldean, there is still one other point to be noticed, which makes the demonstration complete. That point is contained in the following tremendous curse fulminated against a man who committed the unpardonable offence of leaving the Church of Rome, and published grave and weighty reasons for so doing: “May the Father, who creates man, curse him! May the Son, who suffered for us, curse him! May the Holy Ghost who suffered for us in baptism, curse him!” I do not stop to show how absolutely and utterly opposed such a curse as this is to the whole spirit of the Gospel. But what I call the reader’s attention to is the astounding statement that “the Holy Ghost suffered for us in baptism.” Where in the whole compass of Scripture could warrant be found for such an assertion as this, or anything that could even suggest it? But let the reader revert to the Babylonian account of the personality of the Holy Ghost, and the amount of blasphemy contained in this language will be apparent. According to the Chaldean doctrine, Semiramis, the wife of Ninus or Nimrod, when exalted to divinity under the name of the Queen of Heaven, came, as we have seen, to be worshipped as Juno, the “Dove”–in other words, the Holy Spirit incarnate. Now, when her husband, for his blasphemous rebellion against the majesty of heaven, was cut off, for a season it was a time of tribulation also for her. The fragments of ancient history that have come down to us give an account of her trepidation and flight, to save herself from her adversaries. In the fables of the mythology, this flight was mystically represented in accordance with what was attributed to her husband. The bards of Greece represented Bacchus, when overcome by his enemies, as taking refuge in the depths of the ocean (see figure 36). Thus, Homer:

“In a mad mood, while Bacchus blindly raged,
Lycurgus drove his trembling bands, confused,
O’er the vast plains of Nusa. They in haste
Threw down their sacred implements, and fled
In fearful dissipation. Bacchus saw
Rout upon rout, and, lost in wild dismay,
Plunged in the deep. Here Thetis in her arms
Received him shuddering at the dire event.”

Figure 36

In Egypt, as we have seen, Osiris, as identified with Noah, was represented, when overcome by his grand enemy Typhon, or the “Evil One,” as passing through the waters. The poets represented Semiramis as sharing in his distress, and likewise seeking safety in the same way. We have seen already, that, under the name of Astarte, she was said to have come forth from the wondrous egg that was found floating on the waters of the Euphrates. Now Manilius tells, in his Astronomical Poetics, what induced her to take refuge in these waters. “Venus plunged into the Babylonia waters,” says he, “to shun the fury of the snake-footed Typhon.” When Venus Urania, or Dione, the “Heavenly Dove,” plunged in deep distress into these waters of Babylon, be it observed what, according to the Chaldean doctrine, this amounted to. It was neither more nor less than saying that the Holy Ghost incarnate in deep tribulation entered these waters, and that on purpose that these waters might be fit, not only by the temporary abode of the Messiah in the midst of them, but by the Spirit’s efficacy thus imparted to them, for giving new life and regeneration, by baptism, to the worshippers of the Chaldean Madonna. We have evidence that the purifying virtue of the waters, which in Pagan esteem had such efficacy in cleansing from guilt and regenerating the soul, was derived in part from the passing of the Mediatorial god, the sun-god and god of fire, through these waters during his humiliation and sojourn in the midst of them; and that the Papacy at this day retains the very custom which had sprung up from that persuasion. So far as heathenism is concerned, the following extracts from Potter and Athenaeus speak distinctly enough: “Every person,” says the former, “who came to the solemn sacrifices [of the Greeks] was purified by water. To which end, at the entrance of the temples there was commonly placed a vessel full of holy water.” How did this water get its holiness? This water “was consecrated,” says Athenaeus, “by putting into it a BURNING TORCH taken from the altar.” The burning torch was the express symbol of the god of fire; and by the light of this torch, so indispensable for consecrating “the holy water,” we may easily see whence came one great part of the purifying virtue of “the water of the loud resounding sea,” which was held to be so efficacious in purging away the guilt and stain of sin, *–even from the sun-god having taken refuge in its waters.

* “All human ills,” says Euripides, in a well known passage, “are washed away by the sea.”

Now this very same method is used in the Romish Church for consecrating the water for baptism. The unsuspicious testimony of Bishop Hay leaves no doubt on this point: “It” [the water kept in the baptismal font], says he, “is blessed on the eve of Pentecost, because it is the Holy Ghost who gives to the waters of baptism the power and efficacy of sanctifying our souls, and because the baptism of Christ is ‘with the Holy Ghost, and with fire‘ (Matt 3:11). In blessing the waters a LIGHTED TORCH is put into the font.” Here, then, it is manifest that the baptismal regenerating water of Rome is consecrated just as the regenerating and purifying water of the Pagans was. Of what avail is it for Bishop Hay to say, with the view of sanctifying superstition and “making apostacy plausible,” that this is done “to represent the fire of Divine love, which is communicated to the soul by baptism, and the light of good example, which all who are baptized ought to give.” This is the fair face put on the matter; but the fact still remains that while the Romish doctrine in regard to baptism is purely Pagan, in the ceremonies connected with the Papal baptism one of the essential rites of the ancient fire-worship is still practised at this day, just as it was practised by the worshippers of Bacchus, the Babylonian Messiah. As Rome keeps up the remembrance of the fire-god passing through the waters and giving virtue to them, so when it speaks of the “Holy Ghost suffering for us in baptism,” it in like manner commemorates the part which Paganism assigned to the Babylonian goddess when she plunged into the waters. The sorrows of Nimrod, or Bacchus, when in the waters were meritorious sorrows. The sorrows of his wife, in whom the Holy Ghost miraculously dwelt, were the same. The sorrows of the Madonna, then, when in these waters, fleeing from Typhon’s rage, were the birth-throes by which children were born to God. And thus, even in the Far West, Chalchivitlycue, the Mexican “goddess of the waters,” and “mother” of all the regenerate, was represented as purging the new-born infant from original sin, and “bringing it anew into the world.” Now, the Holy Ghost was idolatrously worshipped in Babylon under the form of a “Dove.” Under the same form, and with equal idolatry, the Holy Ghost is worshipped in Rome. When, therefore, we read, in opposition to every Scripture principle, that “the Holy Ghost suffered for us in baptism,” surely it must now be manifest who is that Holy Ghost that is really intended. It is no other than Semiramis, the very incarnation of lust and all uncleanness.

Notes

The Identity of the Scandinavian Odin and Adon of Babylon

1. Nimrod, or Adon, or Adonis, of Babylon, was the great war-god. Odin, as is well known, was the same. 2 Nimrod, in the character of Bacchus, was regarded as the god of wine; Odin is represented as taking no food but wine. For thus we read in the Edda: “As to himself he [Odin] stands in no need of food; wine is to him instead of every other aliment, according to what is said in these verses: The illustrious father of armies, with his own hand, fattens his two wolves; but the victorious Odin takes no other nourishment to himself than what arises from the unintermitted quaffing of wine” (MALLET, 20th Fable). 3. The name of one of Odin’s sons indicates the meaning of Odin’s own name. Balder, for whose death such lamentations were made, seems evidently just the Chaldee form of Baal-zer, “The seed of Baal”; for the Hebrew z, as is well known, frequently, in the later Chaldee, becomes d. Now, Baal and Adon both alike signify “Lord”; and, therefore, if Balder be admitted to be the seed or son of Baal, that is as much as to say that he is the son of Adon; and, consequently, Adon and Odin must be the same. This, of course, puts Odin a step back; makes his son to be the object of lamentation and not himself; but the same was the case also in Egypt; for there Horus the child was sometimes represented as torn in pieces, as Osiris had been. Clemens Alexandrinus says (Cohortatio), “they 03 lament an infant torn in pieces by the Titans.” The lamentations for Balder are very plainly the counterpart of the lamentations for Adonis; and, of course, if Balder was, as the lamentations prove him to have been, the favourite form of the Scandinavian Messiah, he was Adon, or “Lord,” as well as his father. 4. Then, lastly, the name of the other son of Odin, the mighty and warlike Thor, strengthens all the foregoing conclusions. Ninyas, the son of Ninus or Nimrod, on his father’s death, when idolatry rose again, was, of course, from the nature of the mystic system, set up as Adon, “the Lord.” Now, as Odin had a son called Thor, so the second Assyrian Adon had a son called Thouros. The name Thouros seems just to be another form of Zoro, or Doro, “the seed”; for Photius tells us that among the Greeks Thoros signified “Seed.” The D is often pronounced as Th,–Adon, in the pointed Hebrew, being pronounced Athon.

Section II — Justification by Works

The worshippers of Nimrod and his queen were looked upon as regenerated and purged from sin by baptism, which baptism received its virtue from the sufferings of these two great Babylonian divinities. But yet in regard to justification, the Chaldean doctrine was that it was by works and merits of men themselves that they must be justified and accepted of God. The following remarks of Christie in his observations appended to Ouvaroff’s Eleusinian Mysteries, show that such was the case: “Mr. Ouvaroff has suggested that one of the great objects of the Mysteries was the presenting to fallen man the means of his return to God. These means were the cathartic virtues–(i.e., the virtues by which sin is removed), by the exercise of which a corporeal life was to be vanquished. Accordingly the Mysteries were termed Teletae, ‘perfections,’ because they were supposed to induce a perfectness of life. Those who were purified by them were styled Teloumenoi and Tetelesmenoi, that is, ‘brought…to perfection,’ which depended on the exertions of the individual.” In the Metamorphosis of Apuleius, who was himself initiated in the mysteries of Isis, we find this same doctrine of human merits distinctly set forth. Thus the goddess is herself represented as addressing the hero of his tale: “If you shall be found to DESERVE the protection of my divinity by sedulous obedience, religious devotion and inviolable chastity, you shall be sensible that it is possible for me, and me alone, to extend your life beyond the limits that have been appointed to it by your destiny.” When the same individual has received a proof of the supposed favour of the divinity, thus do the onlookers express their congratulations: “Happy, by Hercules! and thrice blessed he to have MERITED, by the innocence and probity of his past life, such special patronage of heaven.” Thus was it in life. At death, also, the grand passport into the unseen world was still through the merits of men themselves, although the name of Osiris was, as we shall by-and-by see, given to those who departed in the faith. “When the bodies of persons of distinction” [in Egypt], says Wilkinson, quoting Porphyry, “were embalmed, they took out the intestines and put them into a vessel, over which (after some other rites had been performed for the dead) one of the embalmers pronounced an invocation to the sun in behalf of the deceased.” The formula, according to Euphantus, who translated it from the original into Greek, was as follows: “O thou Sun, our sovereign lord! and all ye Deities who have given life to man, receive me, and grant me an abode with the eternal gods. During the whole course of my life I have scrupulously worshipped the gods my father taught me to adore; I have ever honoured my parents, who begat this body; I have killed no one; I have not defrauded any, nor have I done any injury to any man.” Thus the merits, the obedience, or the innocence of man was the grand plea. The doctrine of Rome in regard to the vital article of a sinner’s justification is the very same. Of course this of itself would prove little in regard to the affiliation of the two systems, the Babylonian and the Roman; for, from the days of Cain downward, the doctrine of human merit and of self-justification has everywhere been indigenous in the heart of depraved humanity. But, what is worthy of notice in regard to this subject is, that in the two systems, it was symbolised in precisely the same way. In the Papal legends it is taught that St. Michael the Archangel has committed to him the balance of God’s justice, and that in the two opposite scales of that balance the merits and the demerits of the departed are put that they may be fairly weighed, the one over against the other, and that as the scale turns to the favourable or unfavourable side they may be justified or condemned as the case may be.

Now, the Chaldean doctrine of justification, as we get light on it from the monuments of Egypt, is symbolised in precisely the same way, except that in the land of Ham the scales of justice were committed to the charge of the god Anubis instead of St. Michael the Archangel, and that the good deeds and the bad seem to have been weighed separately, and a distinct record made of each, so that when both were summed up and the balance struck, judgment was pronounced accordingly. Wilkinson states that Anubis and his scales are often represented; and that in some cases there is some difference in the details. But it is evident from his statements, that the principle in all is the same. The following is the account which he gives of one of these judgment scenes, previous to the admission of the dead to Paradise: “Cerberus is present as the guardian of the gates, near which the scales of justice are erected; and Anubis, the director of the weight, having placed a vase representing the good actions of the deceased in one scale, and the figure or emblem of truth in the other, proceeds to ascertain his claims for admission. If, on being weighed, he is found wanting, he is rejected, and Osiris, the judge of the dead, inclining his sceptre in token of condemnation, pronounces judgment upon him, and condemns his soul to return to earth under the form of a pig or some unclean animal…But if, when the SUM of his deeds are recorded by Thoth [who stands by to mark the results of the different weighings of Anubis], his virtues so far PREDOMINATE as to entitle him to admission to the mansions of the blessed, Horus, taking in his hand the tablet of Thoth, introduces him to the presence of Osiris, who, in his palace, attended by Isis and Nepthys, sits on his throne in the midst of the waters, from which rises the lotus, bearing upon its expanded flowers the four Genii of Amenti.”

The same mode of symbolising the justification by works had evidently been in use in Babylon itself; and, therefore, there was great force in the Divine handwriting on the wall, when the doom of Belshazzar went forth: “Tekel,” “Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.” In the Parsee system, which has largely borrowed from Chaldea, the principle of weighing the good deeds over against the bad deeds is fully developed. “For three days after dissolution,” says Vaux, in his Nineveh and Persepolis, giving an account of Parsee doctrines in regard to the dead, “the soul is supposed to flit round its tenement of clay, in hopes of reunion; on the fourth, the Angel Seroch appears, and conducts it to the bridge of Chinevad. On this structure, which they assert connects heaven and earth, sits the Angel of Justice, to weigh the actions of mortals; when the good deeds prevail, the soul is met on the bridge by a dazzling figure, which says, ‘I am thy good angel, I was pure originally, but thy good deeds have rendered me purer’; and passing his hand over the neck of the blessed soul, leads it to Paradise. If iniquities preponderate, the soul is meet by a hideous spectre, which howls out, ‘I am thy evil genius; I was impure from the first, but thy misdeeds have made me fouler; through thee we shall remain miserable until the resurrection’; the sinning soul is then dragged away to hell, where Ahriman sits to taunt it with its crimes.” Such is the doctrine of Parseeism.

The same is the case in China, where Bishop Hurd, giving an account of the Chinese descriptions of the infernal regions, and of the figures that refer to them, says, “One of them always represents a sinner in a pair of scales, with his iniquities in the one, and his good works in another.” “We meet with several such representations,” he adds, “in the Grecian mythology.” Thus does Sir J. F. Davis describe the operation of the principle in China: “In a work of some note on morals, called Merits and Demerits Examined, a man is directed to keep a debtor and creditor account with himself of the acts of each day, and at the end of the year to wind it up. If the balance is in his favour, it serves as the foundation of a stock of merits for the ensuing year: and if against him, it must be liquidated by future good deeds. Various lists and comparative tables are given of both good and bad actions in the several relations of life; and benevolence is strongly inculcated in regard first to man, and, secondly, to the brute creation. To cause another’s death is reckoned at one hundred on the side of demerit; while a single act of charitable relief counts as one on the other side…To save a person’s life ranks in the above work as an exact set-off to the opposite act of taking it away; and it is said that this deed of merit will prolong a person’s life twelve years.”

While such a mode of justification is, on the one hand, in the very nature of the case, utterly demoralising, there never could by means of it, on the other, be in the bosom of any man whose conscience is aroused, any solid feeling of comfort, or assurance as to his prospects in the eternal world. Who could ever tell, however good he might suppose himself to be, whether the “sum of his good actions” would or would not counterbalance the amount of sins and transgressions that his conscience might charge against him. How very different the Scriptural, the god-like plan of “justification by faith,” and “faith alone, without the deeds of the law,” absolutely irrespective of human merits, simply and solely through the “righteousness of Christ, that is unto all and upon all them that believe,” that delivers at once and for ever “from all condemnation,” those who accept of the offered Saviour, and by faith are vitally united to Him. It is not the will of our Father in heaven, that His children in this world should be ever in doubt and darkness as to the vital point of their eternal salvation. Even a genuine saint, no doubt, may for a season, if need be, be in heaviness through manifold temptations, but such is not the natural, the normal state of a healthful Christian, of one who knows the fulness and the freeness of the blessings of the Gospel of peace. God has laid the most solid foundation for all His people to say, with John,

“We have KNOWN and believed the love which God hath to us” (1 John 4:16); .

or with Paul,

“I am PERSUADED that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:38,39)

But this no man can every say, who “goes about to establish his own righteousness” (Rom 10:3), who seeks, in any shape, to be justified by works. Such assurance, such comfort, can come only from a simple and believing reliance on the free, unmerited grace of God, given in and alongwith Christ, the unspeakable gift of the Father’s love. It was this that made Luther’s spirit to be, as he himself declared, “as free as a flower of the field,” when, single and alone, he went up to the Diet of Worms, to confront all the prelates and potentates there convened to condemn the doctrine which he held. It was this that in every age made the martyrs go with such sublime heroism not only to prison but to death. It is this that emancipates the soul, restores the true dignity of humanity, and cuts up by the roots all the imposing pretensions of priestcraft. It is this only that can produce a life of loving, filial, hearty obedience to the law and commandments of God; and that, when nature fails, and when the king of terrors is at hand, can enable poor, guilty sons of men, with the deepest sense of unworthiness, yet to say,

“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor 15:55,57).

Now, to all such confidence in God, such assurance of salvation, spiritual despotism in every age, both Pagan and Papal, has ever shown itself unfriendly. Its grand object has always been to keep the souls of its votaries away from direct and immediate intercourse with a living and merciful Saviour, and consequently from assurance of His favour, to inspire a sense of the necessity of human mediation, and so to establish itself on the ruins of the hopes and the happiness of the world. Considering the pretensions which the Papacy makes to absolute infallibility, and the supernatural powers which it attributes to the functions of its priests, in regard to regeneration and the forgiveness of sins, it might have been supposed, as a matter of course, that all its adherents would have been encouraged to rejoice in the continual assurance of their personal salvation. But the very contrary is the fact. After all its boastings and high pretensions, perpetual doubt on the subject of a man’s salvation, to his life’s end, is inculcated as a duty; it being peremptorily decreed as an article of faith by the Council of Trent, “That no man can know with infallible assurance of faith that he HAS OBTAINED the grace of God.” This very decree of Rome, while directly opposed to the Word of God, stamps its own lofty claims with the brand of imposture; for if no man who has been regenerated by its baptism, and who has received its absolution from sin, can yet have any certain assurance after all that “the grace of God” has been conferred upon him, what can be the worth of its opus operatum? Yet, in seeking to keep its devotees in continual doubt and uncertainty as to their final state, it is “wise after its generation.”

In the Pagan system, it was the priest alone who could at all pretend to anticipate the operation of the scales of Anubis; and, in the confessional, there was from time to time, after a sort, a mimic rehearsal of the dread weighing that was to take place at last in the judgment scene before the tribunal of Osiris. There the priest sat in judgment on the good deeds and bad deeds of his penitents; and, as his power and influence were founded to a large extent on the mere principle of slavish dread, he took care that the scale should generally turn in the wrong direction, that they might be more subservient to his will in casting in a due amount of good works into the opposite scale. As he was the grand judge of what these works should be, it was his interest to appoint what should be most for the selfish aggrandisement of himself, or the glory of his order; and yet so to weigh and counterweigh merits and demerits, that there should always be left a large balance to be settled, not only by the man himself, but by his heirs. If any man had been allowed to believe himself beforehand absolutely sure of glory, the priests might have been in danger of being robbed of their dues after death–an issue by all means to be guarded against. Now, the priests of Rome have in every respect copied after the priests of Anubis, the god of the scales. In the confessional, when they have an object to gain, they make the sins and transgressions good weight; and then, when they have a man of influence, or power, or wealth to deal with, they will not give him the slightest hope till round sums of money, or the founding of an abbey, or some other object on which they have set their heart, be cast into the other scale. In the famous letter of Pere La Chaise, the confessor of Louis XIV of France, giving an account of the method which he adopted to gain the consent of that licentious monarch to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, by which such cruelties were inflicted on his innocent Huguenot subjects, we see how the fear of the scales of St. Michael operated in bringing about the desired result: “Many a time since,” says the accomplished Jesuit, referring to an atrocious sin of which the king had been guilty, “many a time since, when I have had him at confession, I have shook hell about his ears, and made him sigh, fear and tremble, before I would give him absolution. By this I saw that he had still an inclination to me, and was willing to be under my government; so I set the baseness of the action before him by telling the whole story, and how wicked it was, and that it could not be forgiven till he had done some good action to BALANCE that, and expiate the crime. Whereupon he at last asked me what he must do. I told him that he must root out all heretics from his kingdom.” This was the “good action” to be cast into the scale of St. Michael the Archangel, to “BALANCE” his crime. The king, wicked as he was–sore against his will-consented; the “good action” was cast in, the “heretics” were extirpated; and the king was absolved. But yet the absolution was not such but that, when he went the way of all the earth, there was still much to be cast in before the scales could be fairly adjusted. Thus Paganism and Popery alike

” make merchandise of the souls of men” (Rev 18:13).

Thus the one with the scales of Anubis, the other with the scales of St. Michael, exactly answer to the Divine description of Ephraim in his apostacy:

“Ephraim is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand” (Hosea 12:7).

The Anubis of the Egyptians was precisely the same as the Mercury of the Greeks–the “god of thieves.” St. Michael, in the hands of Rome, answers exactly to the same character. By means of him and his scales, and their doctrine of human merits, they have made what they call the house of God to be nothing else than a “den of thieves.” To rob men of their money is bad, but infinitely worse to cheat them also of their souls.

Into the scales of Anubis, the ancient Pagans, by way of securing their justification, were required to put not merely good deeds, properly so called, but deeds of austerity and self-mortification inflicted on their own persons, for averting the wrath of the gods. The scales of St. Michael inflexibly required to be balanced in the very same way. The priests of Rome teach that when sin is forgiven, the punishment is not thereby fully taken away. However perfect may be the pardon that God, through the priests, may bestow, yet punishment, greater or less, still remains behind, which men must endure, and that to “satisfy the justice of God.” Again and again has it been shown that man cannot do anything to satisfy the justice of God, that to that justice he is hopelessly indebted, that he “has” absolutely “nothing to pay”; and more than that, that there is no need that he should attempt to pay one farthing; for that, in behalf of all who believe, Christ has finished transgression, made an end of sin, and made all the satisfaction to the broken law that that law could possibly demand. Still Rome insists that every man must be punished for his own sins, and that God cannot be satisfied * without groans and sighs, lacerations of the flesh, tortures of the body, and penances without number, on the part of the offender, however broken in heart, however contrite that offender may be.

* Bishop HAY’S Sincere Christian. The words of Bishop Hay are: “But He absolutely demands that, by penitential works, we PUNISH ourselves for our shocking ingratitude, and satisfy the Divine justice for the abuse of His mercy.” The established modes of “punishment,” as is well known, are just such as are described in the text.

Now, looking simply at the Scripture, this perverse demand for self-torture on the part of those for whom Christ has made a complete and perfect atonement, might seem exceedingly strange; but, looking at the real character of the god whom the Papacy has set up for the worship of its deluded devotees, there is nothing in the least strange about it. That god is Moloch, the god of barbarity and blood. Moloch signifies “king”; and Nimrod was the first after the flood that violated the patriarchal system, and set up as “king” over his fellows. At first he was worshipped as the “revealer of goodness and truth,” but by-and-by his worship was made to correspond with his dark and forbidding countenance and complexion. The name Moloch originally suggested nothing of cruelty or terror; but now the well known rites associated with that name have made it for ages a synonym for all that is most revolting to the heart of humanity, and amply justify the description of Milton (Paradise Lost):

“First Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears,
Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,
Their children’s cries unheard, that passed through fire
To his grim idol.”

In almost every land the bloody worship prevailed; “horrid cruelty,” hand in hand with abject superstition, filled not only “the dark places of the earth,” but also regions that boasted of their enlightenment. Greece, Rome, Egypt, Phoenicia, Assyria, and our own land under the savage Druids, at one period or other in their history, worshipped the same god and in the same way. Human victims were his most acceptable offerings; human groans and wailings were the sweetest music in his ears; human tortures were believed to delight his heart. His image bore, as the symbol of “majesty,” a whip, and with whips his worshippers, at some of his festivals, were required unmercifully to scourge themselves. “After the ceremonies of sacrifice,” says Herodotus, speaking of the feast of Isis at Busiris, “the whole assembly, to the amount of many thousands, scourge themselves; but in whose honour they do this I am not at liberty to disclose.” This reserve Herodotus generally uses, out of respect to his oath as an initiated man; but subsequent researches leave no doubt as to the god “in whose honour” the scourgings took place. In Pagan Rome the worshippers of Isis observed the same practice in honour of Osiris. In Greece, Apollo, the Delian god, who was identical with Osiris, * was propitiated with similar penances by the sailors who visited his shrine, as we learn from the following lines of Callimachus in his hymn to Delos:

“Soon as they reach thy soundings, down at once
They drop slack sails and all the naval gear.
The ship is moored; nor do the crew presume
To quit thy sacred limits, till they’ve passed
A fearful penance; with the galling whip
Lashed thrice around thine altar.”

* We have seen already, that the Egyptian Horus was just a new incarnation of Osiris or Nimrod. Now, Herodotus calls Horus by the name of Apollo. Diodorus Siculus, also, says that “Horus, the son of Isis, is interpreted to be Apollo.” Wilkinson seems, on one occasion, to call this identity of Horus and Apollo in question; but he elsewhere admits that the story of Apollo’s “combat with the serpent Pytho is evidently derived from the Egyptian mythology,” where the allusion is to the representation of Horus piercing the snake with a spear. From divers considerations, it may be shown that this conclusion is correct: 1. Horus, or Osiris, was the sun-god, so was Apollo. 2. Osiris, whom Horus represented, was the great Revealer; the Pythian Apollo was the god of oracles. 3. Osiris, in the character of Horus, was born when his mother was said to be persecuted by the malice of her enemies. Latona, the mother of Apollo, was a fugitive for a similar reason when Apollo was born. 4. Horus, according to one version of the myth, was said, like Osiris, to have been cut in pieces (PLUTARCH, De Iside). In the classic story of Greece, this part of the myth of Apollo was generally kept in the background; and he was represented as victor in the conflict with the serpent; but even there it was sometimes admitted that he had suffered a violent death, for by Porphyry he is said to have been slain by the serpent, and Pythagoras affirmed that he had seen his tomb at Tripos in Delphi (BRYANT). 5. Horus was the war-god. Apollo was represented in the same way as the great god represented in Layard, with the bow and arrow, who was evidently the Babylonian war-god, Apollo’s well known title of “Arcitenens,”–“the bearer of the bow,” having evidently been borrowed from that source. Fuss tells us that Apollo was regarded as the inventor of the art of shooting with the bow, which identifies him with Sagittarius, whose origin we have already seen. 6. Lastly, from Ovid (Metam.) we learn that, before engaging with Python, Apollo had used his arrows only on fallow-deer, stags, &c. All which sufficiently proves his substantial identification with the mighty Hunter of Babel.

Over and above the scourgings, there were also slashings and cuttings of the flesh required as propitiatory rites on the part of his worshippers. “In the solemn celebration of the Mysteries,” says Julius Firmicus, “all things in order had to be done, which the youth either did or suffered at his death.” Osiris was cut in pieces; therefore, to imitate his fate, so far as living men might do so, they were required to cut and wound their own bodies. Therefore, when the priests of Baal contended with Elijah, to gain the favour of their god, and induce him to work the desired miracle in their behalf, “they cried aloud and cut themselves, after their manner, with knives and with lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them” (1 Kings 18:28). In Egypt, the natives in general, though liberal in the use of the whip, seem to have been sparing of the knife; but even there, there were men also who mimicked on their own persons the dismemberment of Osiris. “The Carians of Egypt,” says Herodotus, in the place already quoted, “treat themselves at this solemnity with still more severity, for they cut themselves in the face with swords” (HERODOTUS). To this practice, there can be no doubt, there is a direct allusion in the command in the Mosaic law, “Ye shall make no cuttings in your flesh for the dead” (Lev 19:28). * These cuttings in the flesh are largely practised in the worship of the Hindoo divinities, as propitiatory rites or meritorious penances. They are well known to have been practised in the rites of Bellona, ** the “sister” or “wife of the Roman war-god Mars,” whose name, “The lamenter of Bel,” clearly proves the original of her husband to whom the Romans were so fond of tracing back their pedigree.

* Every person who died in the faith was believed to be identified with Osiris, and called by his name. (WILKINSON)

** “The priests of Bellona,” says Lactantius, “sacrificed not with any other men’s blood but their own, their shoulders being lanced, and with both hands brandishing naked swords, they ran and leaped up and down like mad men.”

They were practised also in the most savage form in the gladiatorial shows, in which the Roman people, with all their boasted civilisation, so much delighted. The miserable men who were doomed to engage in these bloody exhibitions did not do so generally of their own free will. But yet, the principle on which these shows were conducted was the very same as that which influenced the priests of Baal. They were celebrated as propitiatory sacrifices. From Fuss we learn that “gladiatorial shows were sacred” to Saturn; and in Ausonius we read that “the amphitheatre claims its gladiators for itself, when at the end of December they PROPITIATE with their blood the sickle-bearing Son of Heaven.” On this passage, Justus Lipsius, who quotes it, thus comments: “Where you will observe two things, both, that the gladiators fought on the Saturnalia, and that they did so for the purpose of appeasing and PROPITIATING Saturn.” “The reason of this,” he adds, “I should suppose to be, that Saturn is not among the celestial but the infernal gods. Plutarch, in his book of ‘Summaries,’ says that ‘the Romans looked upon Kronos as a subterranean and infernal God.'” There can be no doubt that this is so far true, for the name of Pluto is only a synonym for Saturn, “The Hidden One.” *

* The name Pluto is evidently from “Lut,” to hide, which with the Egyptian definite article prefixed, becomes “P’Lut.” The Greek “wealth,” “the hidden thing,” is obviously formed in the same way. Hades is just another synonym of the same name.

But yet, in the light of the real history of the historical Saturn, we find a more satisfactory reason for the barbarous custom that so much disgraced the escutcheon of Rome in all its glory, when mistress of the world, when such multitudes of men were “Butchered to make a Roman holiday.”

When it is remembered that Saturn himself was cut in pieces, it is easy to see how the idea would arise of offering a welcome sacrifice to him by setting men to cut one another in pieces on his birthday, by way of propitiating his favour.

The practice of such penances, then, on the part of those of the Pagans who cut and slashed themselves, was intended to propitiate and please their god, and so to lay up a stock of merit that might tell in their behalf in the scales of Anubis. In the Papacy, the penances are not only intended to answer the same end, but, to a large extent,they are identical. I do not know, indeed, that they use the knife as the priests of Baal did; but it is certain that they look upon the shedding of their own blood as a most meritorious penance, that gains them high favour with God, and wipes away many sins. Let the reader look at the pilgrims at Lough Dergh, in Ireland, crawling on their bare knees over the sharp rocks, and leaving the bloody tracks behind them, and say what substantial difference there is between that and cutting themselves with knives. In the matter of scourging themselves, however, the adherents of the Papacy have literally borrowed the lash of Osiris. Everyone has heard of the Flagellants, who publicly scourge themselves on the festivals of the Roman Church, and who are regarded as saints of the first water. In the early ages of Christianity such flagellations were regarded as purely and entirely Pagan. Athenagoras, one of the early Christian Apologists, holds up the Pagans to ridicule for thinking that sin could be atoned for, or God propitiated, by any such means. But now, in the high places of the Papal Church, such practices are regarded as the grand means of gaining the favour of God. On Good Friday, at Rome and Madrid, and other chief seats of Roman idolatry, multitudes flock together to witness the performances of the saintly whippers, who lash themselves till the blood gushes in streams from every part of their body. They pretend to do this in honour of Christ, on the festival set apart professedly to commemorate His death, just as the worshippers of Osiris did the same on the festival when they lamented for his loss. *

* The priests of Cybele at Rome observed the same practice.

But can any man of the least Christian enlightenment believe that the exalted Saviour can look on such rites as doing honour to Him, which pour contempt on His all-perfect atonement, and represent His most “precious blood” as needing to have its virtue supplemented by that of blood drawn from the backs of wretched and misguided sinners? Such offerings were altogether fit for the worship of Moloch; but they are the very opposite of being fit for the service of Christ.

It is not in one point only, but in manifold respects, that the ceremonies of “Holy Week” at Rome, as it is termed, recall to memory the rites of the great Babylonian god. The more we look at these rites, the more we shall be struck with the wonderful resemblance that subsists between them and those observed at the Egyptian festival of burning lamps and the other ceremonies of the fire-worshippers in different countries. In Egypt the grand illumination took place beside the sepulchre of Osiris at Sais. In Rome in “Holy Week,” a sepulchre of Christ also figures in connection with a brilliant illumination of burning tapers. In Crete, where the tomb of Jupiter was exhibited, that tomb was an object of worship to the Cretans. In Rome, if the devotees do not worship the so-called sepulchre of Christ, they worship what is entombed within it. As there is reason to believe that the Pagan festival of burning lamps was observed in commemoration of the ancient fire-worship, so there is a ceremony at Rome in the Easter week, which is an unmistakable act of fire-worship, when a cross of fire is the grand object of worship. This ceremony is thus graphically described by the authoress of Rome in the 19th Century: “The effect of the blazing cross of fire suspended from the dome above the confession or tomb of St. Peter’s, was strikingly brilliant at night. It is covered with innumerable lamps, which have the effect of one blaze of fire…The whole church was thronged with a vast multitude of all classes and countries, from royalty to the meanest beggar, all gazing upon this one object. In a few minutes the Pope and all his Cardinals descended into St. Peter’s, and room being kept for them by the Swiss guards, the aged Pontiff…prostrated himself in silent adoration before the CROSS OF FIRE. A long train of Cardinals knelt before him, whose splendid robes and attendant train-bearers, formed a striking contrast to the humility of their attitude.” What could be a more clear and unequivocal act of fire-worship than this? Now, view this in connection with the fact stated in the following extract from the same work, and how does the one cast light on the other: “With Holy Thursday our miseries began [that is, from crowding]. On this disastrous day we went before nine to the Sistine chapel…and beheld a procession led by the inferior orders of clergy, followed up by the Cardinals in superb dresses, bearing long wax tapers in their hands, and ending with the Pope himself, who walked beneath a crimson canopy, with his head uncovered, bearing the Host in a box; and this being, as you know, the real flesh and blood of Christ, was carried from the Sistine chapel through the intermediate hall to the Paulina chapel, where it was deposited in the sepulchre prepared to receive it beneath the altar…I never could learn why Christ was to be buried before He was dead, for, as the crucifixion did not take place till Good Friday, it seems odd to inter Him on Thursday. His body, however, is laid in the sepulchre, in all the churches of Rome, where this rite is practised, on Thursday forenoon, and it remains there till Saturday at mid-day, when, for some reason best known to themselves, He is supposed to rise from the grave amidst the firing of cannon, and blowing of trumpets, and jingling of bells, which have been carefully tied up ever since the dawn of Holy Thursday, lest the devil should get into them.”

The worship of the cross of fire on Good Friday explains at once the anomaly otherwise so perplexing, that Christ should be buried on Thursday, and rise from the dead on Saturday. If the festival of Holy Week be really, as its rites declare, one of the old festivals of Saturn, the Babylonian fire-god, who, though an infernal god, was yet Phoroneus, the great “Deliverer,” it is altogether natural that the god of the Papal idolatry, though called by Christ’s name, should rise from the dead on his own day–the Dies Saturni, or “Saturn’s day.” *

* The above account referred to the ceremonies as witnessed by the authoress in 1817 and 1818. It would seem that some change has taken place since then, caused probably by the very attention called by her to the gross anomaly mentioned above; for Count Vlodaisky, formerly a Roman Catholic priest, who visited Rome in 1845, has informed me that in that year the resurrection took place, not at mid-day, but at nine o’clock on the evening of Saturday. This may have been intended to make the inconsistency between Roman practice and Scriptural fact appear somewhat less glaring. Still the fact remains, that the resurrection of Christ, as celebrated at Rome, takes place, not on His own day–“The Lord’s day”–but–on the day of Saturn, the god of fire!

On the day before the Miserere is sung with such overwhelming pathos, that few can listen to it unmoved, and many even swoon with the emotions that are excited. What if this be at bottom only the old song of Linus, of whose very touching and melancholy character Herodotus speaks so strikingly? Certain it is, that much of the pathos of that Miserere depends on the part borne in singing it by the sopranos; and equally certain it is that Semiramis, the wife of him who, historically, was the original of that god whose tragic death was so pathetically celebrated in many countries, enjoys the fame, such as it is, of having been the inventress of the practice from which soprano singing took its rise.

Now, the flagellations which form an important part of the penances that take place at Rome on the evening of Good Friday, formed an equally important part in the rites of that fire-god, from which, as we have seen, the Papacy has borrowed so much. These flagellations, then, of “Passion Week,” taken in connection with the other ceremonies of that period, bear their additional testimony to the real character of that god whose death and resurrection Rome then celebrates. Wonderful it is to consider that, in the very high place of what is called Catholic Christendom, the essential rites at this day are seen to be the very rites of the old Chaldean fire-worshippers.

Section III — The Sacrifice of the Mass

If baptismal regeneration, the initiating ordinance of Rome, and justification by works, be both Chaldean, the principle embodied in the “unbloody sacrifice” of the mass is not less so. We have evidence that goes to show the Babylonian origin of the idea of that “unbloody sacrifice” very distinctly. From Tacitus we learn that no blood was allowed to be offered on the altars of Paphian Venus. Victims were used for the purposes of the Haruspex, that presages of the issues of events might be drawn from the inspection of the entrails of these victims; but the altars of the Paphian goddess were required to be kept pure from blood. Tacitus shows that the Haruspex of the temple of the Paphian Venus was brought from Cilicia, for his knowledge of her rites, that they might be duly performed according to the supposed will of the goddess, the Cilicians having peculiar knowledge of her rites. Now, Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia, was built by Sennacerib, the Assyrian king, in express imitation of Babylon. Its religion would naturally correspond; and when we find “unbloody sacrifice” in Cyprus, whose priest came from Cilicia, that, in the circumstances, is itself a strong presumption that the “unbloody sacrifice” came to it through Cilicia from Babylon. This presumption is greatly strengthened when we find from Herodotus that the peculiar and abominable institution of Babylon in prostituting virgins in honour of Mylitta, was observed also in Cyprus in honour of Venus. But the positive testimony of Pausanias brings this presumption to a certainty. “Near this,” says that historian, speaking of the temple of Vulcan at Athens, “is the temple of Celestial Venus, who was first worshipped by the Assyrians, and after these by the Paphians in Cyprus, and the Phoenicians who inhabited the city of Ascalon in Palestine. But the Cythereans venerated this goddess in consequence of learning her sacred rites from the Phoenicians.” The Assyrian Venus, then–that is, the great goddess of Babylon–and the Cyprian Venus were one and the same, and consequently the “bloodless” altars of the Paphian goddess show the character of the worship peculiar to the Babylonian goddess, from whom she was derived. In this respect the goddess-queen of Chaldea differed from her son, who was worshipped in her arms. He was, as we have seen, represented as delighting in blood. But she, as the mother of grace and mercy, as the celestial “Dove,” as “the hope of the whole world,” (BRYANT) was averse to blood, and was represented in a benign and gentle character. Accordingly, in Babylon she bore the name of Mylitta–that is, “The Mediatrix.” *

* Mylitta is the same as Melitta, the feminine of Melitz, “a mediator,” which in Chaldee becomes Melitt. Melitz is the word used in Job 33:23, 24: “If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter (Heb. Melitz, “a mediator“), one among a thousand, to show unto man his uprightness, then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom.”

Every one who reads the Bible, and sees how expressly it declares that, as there is only “one God,” so there is only “one Mediator between God and man” (1 Tim 2:5), must marvel how it could ever have entered the mind of any one to bestow on Mary, as is done by the Church of Rome, the character of the “Mediatrix.” But the character ascribed to the Babylonian goddess as Mylitta sufficiently accounts for this. In accordance with this character of Mediatrix, she was called Aphrodite–that is, “the wrath-subduer” *–who by her charms could soothe the breast of angry Jove, and soften the most rugged spirits of gods or mortal-men. In Athens she was called Amarusia (PAUSANIAS)–that is, “The Mother of gracious acceptance.” **

* From Chaldee “aph,” “wrath,” and “radah,” “to subdue”; “radite” is the feminine emphatic.

** From “Ama,” “mother,” and “Retza,” “to accept graciously,” which in the participle active is “Rutza.” Pausanias expresses his perplexity as to the meaning of the name Amarusia as applied to Diana, saying, “Concerning which appellation I never could find any one able to give a satisfactory account.” The sacred tongue plainly shows the meaning of it.

In Rome she was called “Bona Dea,” “the good goddess,” the mysteries of this goddess being celebrated by women with peculiar secrecy. In India the goddess Lakshmi, “the Mother of the Universe,” the consort of Vishnu, is represented also as possessing the most gracious and genial disposition; and that disposition is indicated in the same way as in the case of the Babylonian goddess. “In the festivals of Lakshmi,” says Coleman, “no sanguinary sacrifices are offered.” In China, the great gods, on whom the final destinies of mankind depend, are held up to the popular mind as objects of dread; but the goddess Kuanyin, “the goddess of mercy,” whom the Chinese of Canton recognise as bearing an analogy to the Virgin or Rome, is described as looking with an eye of compassion on the guilty, and interposing to save miserable souls even from torments to which in the world of spirits they have been doomed. Therefore she is regarded with peculiar favour by the Chinese. This character of the goddess-mother has evidently radiated in all directions from Chaldea. Now, thus we see how it comes that Rome represents Christ, the “Lamb of God,” meek and lowly in heart, who never brake the bruised reed, nor quenched the smoking flax–who spake words of sweetest encouragement to every mourning penitent–who wept over Jerusalem–who prayed for His murderers–as a stern and inexorable judge, before whom the sinner “might grovel in the dust, and still never be sure that his prayers would be heard,” while Mary is set off in the most winning and engaging light, as the hope of the guilty, as the grand refuge of sinners; how it is that the former is said to have “reserved justice and judgment to Himself,” but to have committed the exercise of all mercy to His Mother! The most standard devotional works of Rome are pervaded by this very principle, exalting the compassion and gentleness of the mother at the expense of the loving character of the Son. Thus, St. Alphonsus Liguori tells his readers that the sinner that ventures to come directly to Christ may come with dread and apprehension of His wrath; but let him only employ the mediation of the Virgin with her Son, and she has only to “show” that Son “the breasts that gave him suck,” (Catholic Layman, July, 1856) and His wrath will immediately be appeased. But where in the Word of God could such an idea have been found? Not surely in the answer of the Lord Jesus to the woman who exclaimed,

“Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps that thou hast sucked!“

Jesus answered and said unto her,

“Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the Word of God and keep it” (Luke 11:27,28).

There cannot be a doubt that this answer was given by the prescient Saviour, to check in the very bud every idea akin to that expressed by Liguori. Yet this idea, which is not to be found in Scripture, which the Scripture expressly repudiates, was widely diffused in the realms of Paganism. Thus we find an exactly parallel representation in the Hindoo mythology in regard to the god Siva and his wife Kali, when that god appeared as a little child. “Siva,” says the Lainga Puran, “appeared as an infant in a cemetery, surrounded by ghosts, and on beholding him, Kali (his wife) took him up, and, caressing him, gave him her breast. He sucked the nectareous fluid; but becoming ANGRY, in order to divert and PACIFY him, Kali clasping him to her bosom, danced with her attendant goblins and demons amongst the dead, until he was pleased and delighted; while Vishnu, Brahma, Indra, and all the gods, bowing themselves, praised with laudatory strains the god of gods, Kal and Parvati.” Kali, in India, is the goddess of destruction; but even into the myth that concerns this goddess of destruction, the power of the goddess mother, in appeasing an offended god, by means only suited to PACIFY a peevish child, has found an introduction. If the Hindoo story exhibits its “god of gods” in such a degrading light, how much more honouring is the Papal story to the Son of the Blessed, when it represents Him as needing to be pacified by His mother exposing to Him “the breasts that He has sucked.” All this is done only to exalt the Mother, as more gracious and more compassionate than her glorious Son. Now, this was the very case in Babylon: and to this character of the goddess queen her favourite offerings exactly corresponded. Therefore, we find the women of Judah represented as simply

“burning incense, pouring out drink-offerings, and offering cakes to the queen of heaven” (Jer 44:19).

The cakes were “the unbloody sacrifice” she required. That “unbloody sacrifice” her votaries not only offered, but when admitted to the higher mysteries, they partook of, swearing anew fidelity to her. In the fourth century, when the queen of heaven, under the name of Mary, was beginning to be worshipped in the Christian Church, this “unbloody sacrifice” also was brought in. Epiphanius states that the practice of offering and eating it began among the women of Arabia; and at that time it was well known to have been adopted from the Pagans. The very shape of the unbloody sacrifice of Rome may indicate whence it came. It is a small thin, round wafer; and on its roundness the Church of Rome lays so much stress, to use the pithy language of John Knox in regard to the wafer-god, “If, in making the roundness the ring be broken, then must another of his fellow-cakes receive that honour to be made a god, and the crazed or cracked miserable cake, that once was in hope to be made a god, must be given to a baby to play withal.” What could have induced the Papacy to insist so much on the “roundness” of its “unbloody sacrifice”? Clearly not any reference to the Divine institution of the Supper of our Lord; for in all the accounts that are given of it, no reference whatever is made to the form of the bread which our Lord took, when He blessed and break it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, “Take, eat; this is My body: this do in remembrance of Me.” As little can it be taken from any regard to injunctions about the form of the Jewish Paschal bread; for no injunctions on that subject are given in the books of Moses. The importance, however, which Rome attaches to the roundness of the wafer, must have a reason; and that reason will be found, if we look at the altars of Egypt. “The thin, round cake,” says Wilkinson, “occurs on all altars.” Almost every jot or tittle in the Egyptian worship had a symbolical meaning. The round disk, so frequent in the sacred emblems of Egypt, symbolised the sun. Now, when Osiris, the sun-divinity, became incarnate, and was born, it was not merely that he should give his life as a sacrifice for men, but that he might also be the life and nourishment of the souls of men. It is universally admitted that Isis was the original of the Greek and Roman Ceres. But Ceres, be it observed, was worshipped not simply as the discoverer of corn; she was worshipped as “the MOTHER of Corn.” The child she brought forth was He-Siri, “the Seed,” or, as he was most frequently called in Assyria, “Bar,” which signifies at once “the Son” and “the Corn.” (see figure 37). The uninitiated might reverence Ceres for the gift of material corn to nourish their bodies, but the initiated adored her for a higher gift–for food to nourish their souls–for giving them that bread of God that cometh down from heaven–for the life of the world, of which, “if a man eat, he shall never die.” Does any one imagine that it is a mere New Testament doctrine, that Christ is the “bread of life”? There never was, there never could be, spiritual life in any soul, since the world began, at least since the expulsion from Eden, that was not nourished and supported by a continual feeding by faith on the Son of God,

“in whom it hath pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell” (Col 1:19),

“that out of His fulness we might receive, and grace for grace” (John 1:16).

Figure 37

Paul tells us that the manna of which the Israelites ate in the wilderness was to them a type and lively symbol of “the bread of life“; (1 Cor 10:3), “They did all eat the same spiritual meat“–i.e., meat which was intended not only to support their natural lives, but to point them to Him who was the life of their souls.

Now, Clement of Alexandria, to whom we are largely indebted for all the discoveries that, in modern times, have been made in Egypt, expressly assures us that, “in their hidden character, the enigmas of the Egyptians were VERY SIMILAR TO THOSE OF THE JEWS.” That the initiated Pagans actually believed that the “Corn” which Ceres bestowed on the world was not the “Corn” of this earth, but the Divine “Son,” through whom alone spiritual and eternal life could be enjoyed, we have clear and decisive proof. The Druids were devoted worshippers of Ceres, and as such they were celebrated in their mystic poems as “bearers of the ears of corn.” Now, the following is the account which the Druids give of their great divinity, under the form of “Corn.” That divinity was represented as having, in the first instance, incurred, for some reason or other, the displeasure of Ceres, and was fleeing in terror from her. In his terror, “he took the form of a bird, and mounted into the air. That element afforded him no refuge: for The Lady, in the form of a sparrow-hawk, was gaining upon him–she was just in the act of pouncing upon him. Shuddering with dread, he perceived a heap of clean wheat upon a floor, dropped into the midst of it, and assumed the form of a single grain. Ceridwen [i.e., the British Ceres] took the form of a black high-crested hen, descended into the wheat, scratched him out, distinguished, and swallowed him. And, as the history relates, she was pregnant of him nine months, and when delivered of him, she found him so lovely a babe, that she had not resolution to put him to death” (“Song of Taliesin,” DAVIES’S British Druids). Here it is evident that the grain of corn, is expressly identified with “the lovely babe“; from which it is still further evident that Ceres, who, to the profane vulgar was known only as the Mother of “Bar,” “the Corn,” was known to the initiated as the Mother of “Bar,” “the Son.” And now, the reader will be prepared to understand the full significance of the representation in the Celestial sphere of “the Virgin with the ear of wheat in her hand.” That ear of wheat in the Virgin’s hand is just another symbol for the child in the arms of the Virgin Mother.

Now, this Son, who was symbolised as “Corn,” was the SUN-divinity incarnate, according to the sacred oracle of the great goddess of Egypt: “No mortal hath lifted my veil. The fruit which I have brought forth is the SUN” (BUNSEN’S Egypt). What more natural then, if this incarnate divinity is symbolised as the “bread of God,” than that he should be represented as a “round wafer,” to identify him with the Sun? Is this a mere fancy? Let the reader peruse the following extract from Hurd, in which he describes the embellishments of the Romish altar, on which the sacrament or consecrated wafer is deposited, and then he will be able to judge: “A plate of silver, in the form of a SUN, is fixed opposite to the SACRAMENT on the altar; which, with the light of the tapers, makes a most brilliant appearance.” What has that “brilliant” “Sun” to do there, on the altar, over against the “sacrament,” or round wafer? In Egypt, the disk of the Sun was represented in the temples, and the sovereign and his wife and children were represented as adoring it.

Near the small town of Babain, in Upper Egypt, there still exists in a grotto, a representation of a sacrifice to the sun, where two priests are seen worshipping the sun’s image, as in the accompanying woodcut (see figure 38). In the great temple of Babylon, the golden image of the Sun was exhibited for the worship of the Babylonians. In the temple of Cuzco, in Peru, the disk of the sun was fixed up in flaming gold upon the wall, that all who entered might bow down before it. The Paeonians of Thrace were sun-worshippers; and in their worship they adored an image of the sun in the form of a disk at the top of a long pole. In the worship of Baal, as practised by the idolatrous Israelites in the days of their apostacy, the worship of the sun’s image was equally observed; and it is striking to find that the image of the sun, which apostate Israel worshipped, was erected above the altar. When the good king Josiah set about the work of reformation, we read that his servants in carrying out the work, proceeded thus (2 Chron 34:4): “And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence, and the images (margin, SUN-IMAGES) that were on high above them, he cut down.” Benjamin of Tudela, the great Jewish traveller, gives a striking account of sun-worship even in comparatively modern times, as subsisting among the Cushites of the East, from which we find that the image of the sun was, even in his day, worshipped on the altar. “There is a temple,” says he, “of the posterity of Chus, addicted to the contemplation of the stars. They worship the sun as a god, and the whole country, for half-a-mile round their town, is filled with great altars dedicated to him. By the dawn of morn they get up and run out of town, to wait the rising sun, to whom, on every altar, there is a consecrated image, not in the likeness of a man, but of the solar orb, framed by magic art. These orbs, as soon as the sun rises, take fire, and resound with a great noise, while everybody there, men and women, hold censers in their hands, and all burn incense to the sun.” From all this, it is manifest that the image of the sun above, or on the altar, was one of the recognised symbols of those who worshipped Baal or the sun. And here, in a so-called Christian Church, a brilliant plate of silver, “in the form of a SUN,” is so placed on the altar, that every one who adores at that altar must bow down in lowly reverence before that image of the “Sun.” Whence, I ask, could that have come, but from the ancient sun-worship, or the worship of Baal? And when the wafer is so placed that the silver “SUN” is fronting the “round” wafer, whose “roundness” is so important an element in the Romish Mystery, what can be the meaning of it, but just to show to those who have eyes to see, that the “Wafer” itself is only another symbol of Baal, or the Sun.

If the sun-divinity was worshipped in Egypt as “the Seed,” or in Babylon as the “Corn,” precisely so is the wafer adored in Rome. “Bread-corn of the elect, have mercy upon us,” is one of the appointed prayers of the Roman Litany, addressed to the wafer, in the celebration of the mass. And one at least of the imperative requirements as to the way in which that wafer is to be partaken of, is the very same as was enforced in the old worship of the Babylonian divinity. Those who partake of it are required to partake absolutely fasting. This is very stringently laid down. Bishop Hay, laying down the law on the subject, says that it is indispensable, “that we be fasting from midnight, so as to have taken nothing into our stomach from twelve o’clock at night before we receive, neither food, nor drink, nor medicine.” Considering that our Lord Jesus Christ instituted the Holy Communion immediately after His disciples had partaken of the paschal feast, such a strict requirement of fasting might seem very unaccountable. But look at this provision in regard to the “unbloody sacrifice” of the mass in the light of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and it is accounted for at once; for there the first question put to those who sought initiation was, “Are you fasting?” (POTTER, Eleusiania) and unless that question was answered in the affirmative, no initiation could take place. There is no question that fasting is in certain circumstances a Christian duty; but while neither the letter nor the spirit of the Divine institution requires any such stringent regulation as the above, the regulations in regard to the Babylonian Mysteries make it evident whence this requirement has really come.

Although the god whom Isis or Ceres brought forth, and who was offered to her under the symbol of the wafer or thin round cake, as “the bread of life,” was in reality the fierce, scorching Sun, or terrible Moloch, yet in that offering all his terror was veiled, and everything repulsive was cast into the shade. In the appointed symbol he is offered up to the benignant Mother, who tempers judgment with mercy, and to whom all spiritual blessings are ultimately referred; and blessed by that mother, he is given back to be feasted upon, as the staff of life, as the nourishment of her worshippers’ souls. Thus the Mother was held up as the favourite divinity. And thus, also, and for an entirely similar reason, does the Madonna of Rome entirely eclipse her son as the “Mother of grace and mercy.”

In regard to the Pagan character of the “unbloody sacrifice” of the mass, we have seen not little already. But there is something yet to be considered, in which the working of the mystery of iniquity will still further appear. There are letters on the wafer that are worth reading. These letters are I. H. S. What mean these mystical letters? To a Christian these letters are represented as signifying, “Iesus Hominum Salvator,” “Jesus the Saviour of men.” But let a Roman worshipper of Isis (for in the age of the emperors there were innumerable worshippers of Isis in Rome) cast his eyes upon them, and how will he read them? He will read them, of course, according to his own well known system of idolatry: “Isis, Horus, Seb,” that is, “The Mother, the Child, and the Father of the gods,”–in other words, “The Egyptian Trinity.” Can the reader imagine that this double sense is accidental? Surely not. The very same spirit that converted the festival of the Pagan Oannes into the feast of the Christian Joannes, retaining at the same time all its ancient Paganism, has skilfully planned the initials I. H. S. to pay the semblance of a tribute to Christianity, while Paganism in reality has all the substance of the homage bestowed upon it.

When the women of Arabia began to adopt this wafer and offer the “unbloody sacrifice,” all genuine Christians saw at once the real character of their sacrifice. They were treated as heretics, and branded with the name of Collyridians, from the Greek name for the cake which they employed. But Rome saw that the heresy might be turned to account; and therefore, though condemned by the sound portion of the Church, the practice of offering and eating this “unbloody sacrifice” was patronised by the Papacy; and now, throughout the whole bounds of the Romish communion, it has superseded the simple but most precious sacrament of the Supper instituted by our Lord Himself.

Intimately connected with the sacrifice of the mass is the subject of transubstantiation; but the consideration of it will come more conveniently at a subsequent stage of this inquiry. 

Section IV — Extreme Unction

The last office which Popery performs for living men is to give them “extreme unction,” to anoint them in the name of the Lord, after they have been shriven and absolved, and thus to prepare them for their last and unseen journey. The pretence for this “unction” of dying men is professedly taken from a command of James in regard to the visitation of the sick; but when the passage in question is fairly quoted it will be seen that such a practice could never have arisen from the apostolic direction–that it must have come from an entirely different source.

“Is any sick among you?” says James (v 14,15), “let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall RAISE HIM UP.“

Now, it is evident that this prayer and anointing were intended for the recovery of the sick. Apostolic men, for the laying of the foundations of the Christian Church, were, by their great King and Head, invested with miraculous powers–powers which were intended only for a time, and were destined, as the apostles themselves declared, while exercising them, to “vanish away” (1 Cor 13:8). These powers were every day exercised by the “elders of the Church,” when James wrote his epistle, and that for healing the bodies of men, even as our Lord Himself did. The “extreme unction” of Rome, as the very expression itself declares, is not intended for any such purpose. It is not intended for healing the sick, or “raising them up“; for it is not on any account to be administered till all hope of recovery is gone, and death is visibly at the very doors. As the object of this anointing is the very opposite of the Scriptural anointing, it must have come from a quite different quarter. That quarter is the very same from which the Papacy has imported so much heathenism, as we have seen already, into its own foul bosom. From the Chaldean Mysteries, extreme unction has obviously come. Among the many names of the Babylonian god was the name “Beel-samen,” “Lord of Heaven,” which is the name of the sun, but also of course of the sun-god. But Beel-samen also properly signifies “Lord of Oil,” and was evidently intended as a synonym of the Divine name, “The Messiah.” In Herodotus we find a statement made which this name alone can fully explain. There an individual is represented as having dreamt that the sun had anointed her father. That the sun should anoint any one is certainly not an idea that could naturally have presented itself; but when the name “Beel-samen,” “Lord of Heaven,” is seen also to signify “Lord of Oil,” it is easy to see how that idea would be suggested. This also accounts for the fact that the body of the Babylonian Belus was represented as having been preserved in his sepulchre in Babylon till the time of Xerxes, floating in oil (CLERICUS, Philosoph. Orient.). And for the same reason, no doubt, it was that at Rome the “statue of Saturn” was “made hollow, and filled with oil” (SMITH’S Classical Dictionary).

The olive branch, which we have already seen to have been one of the symbols of the Chaldean god, had evidently the same hieroglyphical meaning; for, as the olive was the oil-tree, so an olive branch emblematically signified a “son of oil,” or an “anointed one” (Zech 4:12-14). Hence the reason that the Greeks, in coming before their gods in the attitude of suppliants deprecating their wrath and entreating their favour, came to the temple on many occasions bearing an olive branch in their hands. As the olive branch was one of the recognised symbols of their Messiah, whose great mission it was to make peace between God and man, so, in bearing this branch of the anointed one, they thereby testified that in the name of that anointed one they came seeking peace. Now, the worshippers of this Beel-samen, “Lord of Heaven,” and “Lord of Oil,” were anointed in the name of their god. It was not enough that they were anointed with “spittle”; they were also anointed with “magical ointments” of the most powerful kind; and these ointments were the means of introducing into their bodily systems such drugs as tended to excite their imaginations and add to the power of the magical drinks they received, that they might be prepared for the visions and revelations that were to be made to them in the Mysteries.

These “unctions,” says Salverte, “were exceedingly frequent in the ancient ceremonies…Before consulting the oracle of Trophonius, they were rubbed with oil over the whole body. This preparation certainly concurred to produce the desired vision. Before being admitted to the Mysteries of the Indian sages, Apollonius and his companion were rubbed with an oil so powerful that they felt as if bathed with fire.” This was professedly an unction in the name of the “Lord of Heaven,” to fit and prepare them for being admitted in vision into his awful presence. The very same reason that suggested such an unction before initiation on this present scene of things, would naturally plead more powerfully still for a special “unction” when the individual was called, not in vision, but in reality, to face the “Mystery of mysteries,” his personal introduction into the world unseen and eternal. Thus the Pagan system naturally developed itself into “extreme unction” (Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, January, 1853). Its votaries were anointed for their last journey, that by the double influence of superstition and powerful stimulants introduced into the frame by the only way in which it might then be possible, their minds might be fortified at once against the sense of guilt and the assaults of the king of terrors. From this source, and this alone, there can be no doubt came the “extreme unction” of the Papacy, which was entirely unknown among Christians till corruption was far advanced in the Church. *

* Bishop GIBSON says that it was not known in the Church for a thousand years. (Preservative against Popery)

Section V — Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead

“Extreme unction,” however, to a burdened soul, was but a miserable resource, after all, in the prospect of death. No wonder, therefore, that something else was found to be needed by those who had received all that priestly assumption could pretend to confer, to comfort them in the prospect of eternity. In every system, therefore, except that of the Bible, the doctrine of a purgatory after death, and prayers for the dead, has always been found to occupy a place. Go wherever we may, in ancient or modern times, we shall find that Paganism leaves hope after death for sinners, who, at the time of their departure, were consciously unfit for the abodes of the blest. For this purpose a middle state has been feigned, in which, by means of purgatorial pains, guilt unremoved in time may in a future world be purged away, and the soul be made meet for final beatitude. In Greece the doctrine of a purgatory was inculcated by the very chief of the philosophers. Thus Plato, speaking of the future judgment of the dead, holds out the hope of final deliverance for all, but maintains that, of “those who are judged,” “some” must first “proceed to a subterranean place of judgment, where they shall sustain the punishment they have deserved“; while others, in consequence of a favourable judgment, being elevated at once into a certain celestial place, “shall pass their time in a manner becoming the life they have lived in a human shape.” In Pagan Rome, purgatory was equally held up before the minds of men; but there, there seems to have been no hope held out to any of exemption from its pains. Therefore, Virgil, describing its different tortures, thus speaks:

“Nor can the grovelling mind,
In the dark dungeon of the limbs confined,
Assert the native skies, or own its heavenly kind.
Nor death itself can wholly wash their stains;
But long-contracted filth, even in the soul, remains
The relics of inveterate vice they wear,
And spots of sin obscene in every face appear.
For this are various penances enjoined;
And some are hung to bleach upon the wind,
Some plunged in water, others purged in fires,
Till all the dregs are drained, and all the rust expires.
All have their Manes, and those Manes bear.
The few so cleansed to these abodes repair,
And breathe in ample fields the soft Elysian air,
Then are they happy, when by length of time
The scurf is worn away of each committed crime.
No speck is left of their habitual stains,
But the pure ether of the soul remains.”

In Egypt, substantially the same doctrine of purgatory was inculcated. But when once this doctrine of purgatory was admitted into the popular mind, then the door was opened for all manner of priestly extortions. Prayers for the dead ever go hand in hand with purgatory; but no prayers can be completely efficacious without the interposition of the priests; and no priestly functions can be rendered unless there be special pay for them. Therefore, in every land we find the Pagan priesthood “devouring widows’ houses,” and making merchandise of the tender feelings of sorrowing relatives, sensitively alive to the immortal happiness of the beloved dead. From all quarters there is one universal testimony as to the burdensome character and the expense of these posthumous devotions. One of the oppressions under which the poor Romanists in Ireland groan, is the periodical special devotions, for which they are required to pay, when death has carried away one of the inmates of their dwelling. Not only are there funeral services and funeral dues for the repose of the departed, at the time of burial, but the priest pays repeated visits to the family for the same purpose, which entail heavy expense, beginning with what is called “the month’s mind,” that is, a service in behalf of the deceased when a month after death has elapsed. Something entirely similar to this had evidently been the case in ancient Greece; for, says Muller in his History of the Dorians, “the Argives sacrificed on the thirtieth day [after death] to Mercury as the conductor of the dead.” In India many and burdensome are the services of the Sradd’ha, or funeral obsequies for the repose of the dead; and for securing the due efficacy of these, it is inculcated that “donations of cattle, land, gold, silver, and other things,” should be made by the man himself at the approach of death; or, “if he be too weak, by another in his name” (Asiatic Researches). Wherever we look, the case is nearly the same.

In Tartary, “The Gurjumi, or prayers for the dead,” says the Asiatic Journal, “are very expensive.” In Greece, says Suidas, “the greatest and most expensive sacrifice was the mysterious sacrifice called the Telete,” a sacrifice which, according to Plato, “was offered for the living and the dead, and was supposed to free them from all the evils to which the wicked are liable when they have left this world.” In Egypt the exactions of the priests for funeral dues and masses for the dead were far from being trifling. “The priests,” says Wilkinson, “induced the people to expend large sums on the celebration of funeral rites; and many who had barely sufficient to obtain the necessaries of life were anxious to save something for the expenses of their death. For, beside the embalming process, which sometimes cost a talent of silver, or about 250 pounds English money, the tomb itself was purchased at an immense expense; and numerous demands were made upon the estate of the deceased, for the celebration of prayer and other services for the soul.” “The ceremonies,” we find him elsewhere saying, “consisted of a sacrifice similar to those offered in the temples, vowed for the deceased to one or more gods (as Osisris, Anubis, and others connected with Amenti); incense and libation were also presented; and a prayer was sometimes read, the relations and friends being present as mourners. They even joined their prayers to those of the priest. The priest who officiated at the burial service was selected from the grade of Pontiffs, who wore the leopard skin; but various other rites were performed by one of the minor priests to the mummies, previous to their being lowered into the pit of the tomb after that ceremony. Indeed, they continued to be administered at intervals, as long as the family paid for their performance.” Such was the operation of the doctrine of purgatory and prayers for the dead among avowed and acknowledged Pagans; and in what essential respect does it differ from the operation of the same doctrine in Papal Rome? There are the same extortions in the one as there were in the other. The doctrine of purgatory is purely Pagan, and cannot for a moment stand in the light of Scripture. For those who die in Christ no purgatory is, or can be, needed; for

“the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth from ALL sin.“

If this be true, where can there be the need for any other cleansing? On the other hand, for those who die without personal union to Christ, and consequently unwashed, unjustified, unsaved, there can be no other cleansing; for, while “he that hath the son hath life, he that hath not the Son hath not life,” and never can have it. Search the Scripture through, and it will be found that, in regard to all who “die in their sins,” the decree of God is irreversible: “Let him that is unjust be unjust still, and let him that is filthy be filthy still.” Thus the whole doctrine of purgatory is a system of pure bare-faced Pagan imposture, dishonouring to God, deluding men who live in sin with the hope of atoning for it after death, and cheating them at once out of their property and their salvation. In the Pagan purgatory, fire, water, wind, were represented (as may be seen from the lines of Virgil) as combining to purge away the stain of sin. In the purgatory of the Papacy, ever since the days of Pope Gregory, FIRE itself has been the grand means of purgation (Catechismus Romanus). Thus, while the purgatorial fires of the future world are just the carrying out of the principle embodied in the blazing and purifying Baal-fires of the eve of St. John, they form another link in identifying the system of Rome with the system of Tammuz or Zoroaster, the great God of the ancient fire-worshippers.

Now, if baptismal regeneration, justification by works, penance as a satisfaction to God’s justice, the unbloody sacrifice of the mass, extreme unction, purgatory, and prayers for the dead, were all derived from Babylon, how justly may the general system of Rome be styled Babylonian? And if the account already given be true, what thanks ought we to render to God, that, from a system such as this, we were set free at the blessed Reformation! How great a boon is it to be delivered from trusting in such refuges of lies as could no more take away sin than the blood of bulls or of goats! How blessed to feel that the blood of the Lamb, applied by the Spirit of God to the most defiled conscience, completely purges it from dead works and from sin! How fervent ought our gratitude to be, when we know that, in all our trials and distresses, we may come boldly unto the throne of grace, in the name of no creature, but of God’s eternal and well-beloved Son; and that that Son is exhibited as a most tender and compassionate high priest, who is TOUCHED with a feeling of our infirmities, having been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Surely the thought of all this, while inspiring tender compassion for the deluded slaves of Papal tyranny, ought to make us ourselves stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and quit ourselves like men, that neither we nor our children may ever again be entangled in the yoke of bondage.

Continued in The Two Babylons Chapter V. Section I — Idol Processions

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This is the continuation of the previous chapter, The Two Babylons Chapter III. Festivals. Section III — The Nativity of St. John

If what has been already said shows the carnal policy of Rome at the expense of truth, the circumstances attending the festival of the Assumption show the daring wickedness and blasphemy of that Church still more; considering that the doctrine in regard to this festival, so far as the Papacy is concerned, was not established in the dark ages, but three centuries after the Reformation, amid all the boasted light of the nineteenth century. The doctrine on which the festival of the Assumption is founded, is this: that the Virgin Mary saw no corruption, that in body and in soul she was carried up to heaven, and now is invested with all power in heaven and in earth. This doctrine has been unblushingly avowed in the face of the British public, in a recent pastoral of the Popish Archbishop of Dublin. This doctrine has now received the stamp of Papal Infallibility, having been embodied in the late blasphemous decree that proclaims the “Immaculate Conception.” Now, it is impossible for the priests of Rome to find one shred of countenance for such a doctrine in Scripture. But, in the Babylonian system, the fable was ready made to their hand. There it was taught that Bacchus went down to hell, rescued his mother from the infernal powers, and carried her with him in triumph to heaven. *

* APOLLODORUS. We have seen that the great goddess, who was worshipped in Babylon as “The Mother,” was in reality the wife of Ninus, the great god, the prototype of Bacchus. In conformity with this, we find a somewhat similar story told of Ariadne, the wife of Bacchus, as is fabled of Semele his mother. “The garment of Thetis,” says Bryant, “contained a description of some notable achievements in the first ages; and a particular account of the apotheosis, of Ariadne, who is described, whatever may be the meaning of it, as carried by Bacchus to heaven.” A similar story is told of Alcmene, the mother of the Grecian Hercules, who was quite distinct, as we have seen, from the primitive Hercules, and was just one of the forms of Bacchus, for he was a “great tippler”; and the “Herculean goblets” are proverbial. (MULLER’S Dorians) Now the mother of this Hercules is said to have had a resurrection. “Jupiter” [the father of Hercules], says Muller, “raised Alcmene from the dead, and conducted her to the islands of the blest, as the wife of Rhadamanthus.”

This fable spread wherever the Babylonian system spread; and, accordingly, at this day, the Chinese celebrate, as they have done from time immemorial, a festival in honour of a Mother, who by her son was rescued from the power of death and the grave. The festival of the Assumption in the Romish Church is held on the 15th of August. The Chinese festival, founded on a similar legend, and celebrated with lanterns and chandeliers, as shown by Sir J. F. Davis in his able and graphic account of China, is equally celebrated in the month of August. Now, when the mother of the Pagan Messiah came to be celebrated as having been thus “Assumed,” then it was that, under the name of the “Dove,” she was worshipped as the Incarnation of the Spirit of God, with whom she was identified. As such as she was regarded as the source of all holiness, and the grand “PURIFIER,” and, of course, was known herself as the “Virgin” mother, “PURE AND UNDEFILED.” (PROCLUS, in TAYLOR’S Note upon Jamblichus) Under the name of Proserpine (with whom, though the Babylonian goddess was originally distinct, she was identified), while celebrated, as the mother of the first Bacchus, and known as “Pluto’s honoured wife,” she is also addressed, in the “Orphic Hymns,” as

“Associate of the seasons, essence bright,
All-ruling VIRGIN, bearing heavenly light.”

Whoever wrote these hymns, the more they are examined the more does it become evident, when they are compared with the most ancient doctrine of Classic Greece, that their authors understood and thoroughly adhered to the genuine theology of Paganism. To the fact that Proserpine was currently worshipped in Pagan Greece, though well known to be the wife of Pluto, the god of hell, under the name of “The Holy Virgin,” we find Pausanias, while describing the grove Carnasius, thus bearing testimony: “This grove contains a statue of Apollo Carneus, of Mercury carrying a ram, and of Proserpine, the daughter of Ceres, who is called ‘The HOLY VIRGIN.'” The purity of this “Holy Virgin” did not consist merely in freedom from actual sin, but she was especially distinguished for her “immaculate conception”; for Proclus says, “She is called Core, through the purity of her essence, and her UNDEFILED transcendency in her GENERATIONS.” Do men stand amazed at the recent decree? There is no real reason to wonder. It was only in following out the Pagan doctrine previously adopted and interwoven with the whole system of Rome to its logical consequences, that that decree has been issued, and that the Madonna of Rome has been formally pronounced at last, in every sense of the term, absolutely “IMMACULATE.”

Now, after all this, is it possible to doubt that the Madonna of Rome, with the child in her arms, and the Madonna of Babylon, are one and the same goddess? It is notorious that the Roman Madonna is worshipped as a goddess, yea, is the supreme object of worship. Will not, then, the Christians of Britain revolt at the idea of longer supporting this monstrous Babylonian Paganism? What Christian constituency could tolerate that its representative should vote away the money of this Protestant nation for the support of such blasphemous idolatry? *

* It is to be lamented that Christians in general seem to have so little sense either of the gravity of the present crisis of the Church and the world, or of the duty lying upon them as Christ’s witnesses, to testify, and that practically, against the public sins of the nation. If they would wish to be stimulated to a more vigorous discharge of duty in this respect, let them read an excellent and well-timed little work recently issued from the press, entitled An Original Interpretation of the Apocalypse, where the Apocalyptic statements in regard to the character, life, death, and resurrection of the Two Witnesses, are briefly but forcibly handled.

Were not the minds of men judicially blinded, they would tremble at the very thought of incurring the guilt that this land, by upholding the corruption and wickedness of Rome, has for years past been contracting. Has not the Word of God, in the most energetic and awful terms, doomed the New Testament Babylon? And has it not equally declared, that those who share in Babylon’s sins, shall share in Babylon’s plagues? (Rev 18:4)

The guilt of idolatry is by many regarded as comparatively slight and insignificant guilt. But not so does the God of heaven regard it. Which is the commandment of all the ten that is fenced about with the most solemn and awful sanctions? It is the second:

“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.“

These words were spoken by God’s own lips, they were written by God’s own finger on the tables of stone: not for the instruction of the seed of Abraham only, but of all the tribes and generations of mankind. No other commandment has such a threatening attached to it as this. Now, if God has threatened to visit the SIN OF IDOLATRY ABOVE ALL OTHER SINS, and if we find the heavy judgments of God pressing upon us as a nation, while this very sin is crying to heaven against us, ought it not to be a matter of earnest inquiry, if among all our other national sins, which are both many and great, this may not form “the very head and front of our offending”? What though we do not ourselves bow down to stocks and stones? Yet if we, making a profession the very opposite, encourage, and foster, and maintain that very idolatry which God has so fearfully threatened with His wrath, our guilt, instead of being the less, is only so much the greater, for it is a sin against the light. Now, the facts are manifest to all men. It is notorious, that in 1845 anti-Christian idolatry was incorporated in the British Constitution, in a way in which for a century and a half it had not been incorporated before. It is equally notorious, that ever since, the nation has been visited with one succession of judgments after another. Ought we then to regard this coincidence as merely accidental? Ought we not rather to see in it the fulfilment of the threatening pronounced by God in the Apocalypse? This is at this moment an intensely practical subject. If our sin in this matter is not nationally recognised, if it is not penitently confessed, if it is not put away from us; if, on the contrary, we go on increasing it, if now for the first time since the Revolution, while so manifestly dependent on the God of battles for the success of our arms, we affront Him to His face by sending idol priests into our camp, then, though we have national fasts, and days of humiliation without number, they cannot be accepted; they may procure us a temporary respite, but we may be certain that “the Lord’s anger will not be turned away, His hand will be stretched out still.” *

* The above paragraph first appeared in the spring of 1855, when the empire had for months been looking on in amazement at the “horrible and heart-rending” disasters in the Crimea, caused simply by the fact, that official men in that distant region “could not find their hands,” and when at last a day of humiliation had been appointed. The reader can judge whether or not the events that have since occurred have made the above reasoning out of date. The few years of impunity that have elapsed since the Indian Mutiny, with all its horrors, was suppressed, show the long-suffering of God. But if that long-suffering is despised (which it manifestly is, while the guilt is daily increasing), the ultimate issue must just be so much the more terrible.

Continued in The Two Babylons Chapter IV. Section I — Baptismal Regeneration

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This is the continuation of The Two Babylons Chapter III. Festivals. Section II — Easter

The Feast of the Nativity of St. John is set down in the Papal calendar for the 24th of June, or Midsummer-day. The very same period was equally memorable in the Babylonian calendar as that of one of its most celebrated festivals. It was at Midsummer, or the summer solstice, that the month called in Chaldea, Syria, and Phoenicia by the name of “Tammuz” began; and on the first day–that is, on or about the 24th of June–one of the grand original festivals of Tammuz was celebrated. *

* STANLEY’S Saboean Philosophy. In Egypt the month corresponding to Tammuz–viz., Epep–began June 25 (WILKINSON)

For different reasons, in different countries, other periods had been devoted to commemorate the death and reviving of the Babylonian god; but this, as may be inferred from the name of the month, appears to have been the real time when his festival was primitively observed in the land where idolatry had its birth. And so strong was the hold that this festival, with its peculiar rites, had taken of the minds of men, that even when other days were devoted to the great events connected with the Babylonian Messiah, as was the case in some parts of our own land, this sacred season could not be allowed to pass without the due observance of some, at least, of its peculiar rites. When the Papacy sent its emissaries over Europe, towards the end of the sixth century, to gather in the Pagans into its fold, this festival was found in high favour in many countries. What was to be done with it? Were they to wage war with it? No. This would have been contrary to the famous advice of Pope Gregory I, that, by all means they should meet the Pagans half-way, and so bring them into the Roman Church. The Gregorian policy was carefully observed; and so Midsummer-day, that had been hallowed by Paganism to the worship of Tammuz, was incorporated as a sacred Christian festival in the Roman calendar.

But still a question was to be determined, What was to be the name of this Pagan festival, when it was baptised, and admitted into the ritual of Roman Christianity? To call it by its old name of Bel or Tammuz, at the early period when it seems to have been adopted, would have been too bold. To call it by the name of Christ was difficult, inasmuch as there was nothing special in His history at that period to commemorate. But the subtlety of the agents of the Mystery of Iniquity was not to be baffled. If the name of Christ could not be conveniently tacked to it, what should hinder its being called by the name of His forerunner, John the Baptist? John the Baptist was born six months before our Lord. When, therefore, the Pagan festival of the winter solstice had once been consecrated as the birthday of the Saviour, it followed, as a matter of course, that if His forerunner was to have a festival at all, his festival must be at this very season; for between the 24th of June and the 25th of December–that is, between the summer and the winter solstice–there are just six months. Now, for the purposes of the Papacy, nothing could be more opportune than this. One of the many sacred names by which Tammuz or Nimrod was called, when he reappeared in the Mysteries, after being slain, was Oannes. *

* BEROSUS, BUNSEN’S Egypt. To identify Nimrod with Oannes, mentioned by Berosus as appearing out of the sea, it will be remembered that Nimrod has been proved to be Bacchus. Then, for proof that Nimrod or Bacchus, on being overcome by his enemies, was fabled to have taken refuge in the sea, see chapter 4, section i. When, therefore, he was represented as reappearing, it was natural that he should reappear in the very character of Oannes as a Fish-god. Now, Jerome calls Dagon, the well known Fish-god Piscem moeroris (BRYANT), “the fish of sorrow,” which goes far to identify that Fish-god with Bacchus, the “Lamented one”; and the identification is complete when Hesychius tells us that some called Bacchus Ichthys, or “The fish.”

The name of John the Baptist, on the other hand, in the sacred language adopted by the Roman Church, was Joannes. To make the festival of the 24th of June, then, suit Christians and Pagans alike, all that was needful was just to call it the festival of Joannes; and thus the Christians would suppose that they were honouring John the Baptist, while the Pagans were still worshipping their old god Oannes, or Tammuz. Thus, the very period at which the great summer festival of Tammuz was celebrated in ancient Babylon, is at this very hour observed in the Papal Church as the Feast of the Nativity of St. John. And the fete of St. John begins exactly as the festal day began in Chaldea. It is well known that, in the East, the day began in the evening. So, though the 24th be set down as the nativity, yet it is on St. John’s EVE–that is, on the evening of the 23rd–that the festivities and solemnities of that period begin.

Now, if we examine the festivities themselves, we shall see how purely Pagan they are, and how decisively they prove their real descent. The grand distinguishing solemnities of St. John’s Eve are the Midsummer fires. These are lighted in France, in Switzerland, in Roman Catholic Ireland, and in some of the Scottish isles of the West, where Popery still lingers. They are kindled throughout all the grounds of the adherents of Rome, and flaming brands are carried about their corn-fields. Thus does Bell, in his Wayside Pictures, describe the St. John’s fires of Brittany, in France: “Every fete is marked by distinct features peculiar to itself. That of St. John is perhaps, on the whole, the most striking. Throughout the day the poor children go about begging contributions for lighting the fires of Monsieur St. Jean, and towards evening one fire is gradually followed by two, three, four; then a thousand gleam out from the hill-tops, till the whole country glows under the conflagration. Sometimes the priests light the first fire in the market place; and sometimes it is lighted by an angel, who is made to descend by a mechanical device from the top of the church, with a flambeau in her hand, setting the pile in a blaze, and flying back again. The young people dance with a bewildering activity about the fires; for there is a superstition among them that, if they dance round nine fires before midnight, they will be married in the ensuing year. Seats are placed close to the flaming piles for the dead, whose spirits are supposed to come there for the melancholy pleasure of listening once more to their native songs, and contemplating the lively measures of their youth. Fragments of the torches on those occasions are preserved as spells against thunder and nervous diseases; and the crown of flowers which surmounted the principal fire is in such request as to produce tumultuous jealousy for its possession.” Thus is it in France.

Turn now to Ireland. “On that great festival of the Irish peasantry, St. John’s Eve,” says Charlotte Elizabeth, describing a particular festival which she had witnessed, “it is the custom, at sunset on that evening, to kindle immense fires throughout the country, built, like our bonfires, to a great height, the pile being composed of turf, bogwood, and such other combustible substances as they can gather. The turf yields a steady, substantial body of fire, the bogwood a most brilliant flame, and the effect of these great beacons blazing on every hill, sending up volumes of smoke from every point of the horizon, is very remarkable. Early in the evening the peasants began to assemble, all habited in their best array, glowing with health, every countenance full of that sparkling animation and excess of enjoyment that characterise the enthusiastic people of the land. I had never seen anything resembling it; and was exceedingly delighted with their handsome, intelligent, merry faces; the bold bearing of the men, and the playful but really modest deportment of the maidens; the vivacity of the aged people, and the wild glee of the children. The fire being kindled, a splendid blaze shot up; and for a while they stood contemplating it with faces strangely disfigured by the peculiar light first emitted when the bogwood was thrown on it. After a short pause, the ground was cleared in front of an old blind piper, the very beau ideal of energy, drollery, and shrewdness, who, seated on a low chair, with a well-plenished jug within his reach, screwed his pipes to the liveliest tunes, and the endless jig began. But something was to follow that puzzled me not a little. When the fire burned for some hours and got low, an indispensable part of the ceremony commenced. Every one present of the peasantry passed through it, and several children were thrown across the sparkling embers; while a wooden frame of some eight feet long, with a horse’s head fixed to one end, and a large white sheet thrown over it, concealing the wood and the man on whose head it was carried, made its appearance. This was greeted with loud shouts as the ‘white horse’; and having been safely carried, by the skill of its bearer, several times through the fire with a bold leap, it pursued the people, who ran screaming in every direction. I asked what the horse was meant for, and was told it represented ‘all cattle.’ Here,” adds the authoress, “was the old Pagan worship of Baal, if not of Moloch too, carried on openly and universally in the heart of a nominally Christian country, and by millions professing the Christian name! I was confounded, for I did not then know that Popery is only a crafty adaptation of Pagan idolatries to its own scheme.”

Such is the festival of St. John’s Eve, as celebrated at this day in France and in Popish Ireland. Such is the way in which the votaries of Rome pretend to commemorate the birth of him who came to prepare the way of the Lord, by turning away His ancient people from all their refuges of lies, and shutting them up to the necessity of embracing that kingdom of God that consists not in any mere external thing, but in “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” We have seen that the very sight of the rites with which that festival is celebrated, led the authoress just quoted at once to the conclusion that what she saw before her was truly a relic of the Pagan worship of Baal.

The history of the festival, and the way in which it is observed, reflect mutual light upon each other. Before Christianity entered the British Isles, the Pagan festival of the 24th of June was celebrated among the Druids by blazing fires in honour of their great divinity, who, as we have already seen, was Baal. “These Midsummer fires and sacrifices,” says Toland, in his Account of the Druids, “were [intended] to obtain a blessing on the fruits of the earth, now becoming ready for gathering; as those of the first of May, that they might prosperously grow; and those of the last of October were a thanksgiving for finishing the harvest.” Again, speaking of the Druidical fires at Midsummer, he thus proceeds: “To return to our carn-fires, it was customary for the lord of the place, or his son, or some other person of distinction, to take the entrails of the sacrificed animals in his hands, and, walking barefoot over the coals thrice after the flames had ceased, to carry them straight to the Druid, who waited in a whole skin at the altar. If the nobleman escaped harmless, it was reckoned a good omen, welcomed with loud acclamations; but if he received any hurt, it was deemed unlucky both to the community and himself.” “Thus, I have seen,” adds Toland, “the people running and leaping through the St. John’s fires in Ireland; and not only proud of passing unsinged, but, as if it were some kind of lustration, thinking themselves in an especial manner blest by the ceremony, of whose original, nevertheless, they were wholly ignorant, in their imperfect imitation of it.”

We have seen reason already to conclude that Phoroneus, “the first of mortals that reigned”–i.e., Nimrod and the Roman goddess Feronia–bore a relation to one another. In connection with the firs of “St. John,” that relation is still further established by what has been handed down from antiquity in regard to these two divinities; and, at the same time, the origin of these fires is elucidated. Phoroneus is described in such a way as shows that he was known as having been connected with the origin of fire-worship. Thus does Pausanias refer to him: “Near this image [the image of Biton] they [the Argives] enkindle a fire, for they do not admit that fire was given by Prometheus, to men, but ascribe the invention of it to Phoroneus.” There must have been something tragic about the death of this fire-inventing Phoroneus, who “first gathered mankind into communities”; for, after describing the position of his sepulchre, Pausanias adds: “Indeed, even at present they perform funeral obsequies to Phoroneus”; language which shows that his death must have been celebrated in some such way as that of Bacchus. Then the character of the worship of Feronia, as coincident with fire-worship, is evident from the rites practised by the priests at the city lying at the foot of Mount Socracte, called by her name. “The priests,” says Bryant, referring both to Pliny and Strabo as his authorities, “with their feet naked, walked over a large quantity of live coals and cinders.” To this same practice we find Aruns in Virgil referring, when addressing Apollo, the sun-god, who had his shrine at Soracte, where Feronia was worshipped, and who therefore must have been the same as Jupiter Anxur, her contemplar divinity, who was regarded as a “youthful Jupiter,” even as Apollo was often called the “young Apollo”:

“O patron of Soracte’s high abodes,
Phoebus, the ruling power among the gods,
Whom first we serve; whole woods of unctuous pine
Are felled for thee, and to thy glory shine.
By thee protected, with our naked soles,
Through flames unsinged we march and tread the kindled coals.” *

* DRYDEN’S Virgil Aeneid. “The young Apollo,” when “born to introduce law and order among the Greeks,” was said to have made his appearance at Delphi “exactly in the middle of summer.” (MULLER’S Dorians)

Thus the St. John’s fires, over whose cinders old and young are made to pass, are traced up to “the first of mortals that reigned.”

It is remarkable, that a festival attended with all the essential rites of the fire-worship of Baal, is found among Pagan nations, in regions most remote from one another, about the very period of the month of Tammuz, when the Babylonian god was anciently celebrated. Among the Turks, the fast of Ramazan, which, says Hurd, begins on the 12th of June, is attended by an illumination of burning lamps. *

* HURD’S Rites and Ceremonies. The time here given by Hurd would not in itself be decisive as a proof of agreement with the period of the original festival of Tammuz; for a friend who has lived for three years in Constantinople informs me that, in consequence of the disagreement between the Turkish and the solar year, the fast of Ramazan ranges in succession through all the different months in the year. The fact of a yearly illumination in connection with religious observances, however, is undoubted.

In China where the Dragon-boat festival is celebrated in such a way as vividly to recall to those who have witnessed it, the weeping for Adonis, the solemnity begins at Midsummer. In Peru, during the reign of the Incas, the feast of Raymi, the most magnificent feast of the Peruvians, when the sacred fire every year used to be kindled anew from the sun, by means of a concave mirror of polished metal, took place at the very same period. Regularly as Midsummer came round, there was first, in token of mourning, “for three days, a general fast, and no fire was allowed to be lighted in their dwellings,” and then, on the fourth day, the mourning was turned into joy, when the Inca, and his court, followed by the whole population of Cuzco, assembled at early dawn in the great square to greet the rising of the sun. “Eagerly,” says Prescott, “they watched the coming of the deity, and no sooner did his first yellow rays strike the turrets and loftiest buildings of the capital, than a shout of gratulation broke forth from the assembled multitude, accompanied by songs of triumph, and the wild melody of barbaric instruments, that swelled louder and louder as his bright orb, rising above the mountain range towards the east, shone in full splendour on his votaries.” Could this alternate mourning and rejoicing, at the very time when the Babylonians mourned and rejoiced over Tammuz, be accidental? As Tammuz was the Sun-divinity incarnate, it is easy to see how such mourning and rejoicing should be connected with the worship of the sun.

In Egypt, the festival of the burning lamps, in which many have already been constrained to see the counterpart of the festival of St. John, was avowedly connected with the mourning and rejoicing for Osiris. “At Sais,” says Herodotus, “they show the sepulchre of him whom I do not think it right to mention on this occasion.” This is the invariable way in which the historian refers to Osiris, into whose mysteries he had been initiated, when giving accounts of any of the rites of his worship. “It is in the sacred enclosure behind the temple of Minerva, and close to the wall of this temple, whose whole length it occupies. They also meet at Sais, to offer sacrifice during a certain night, when every one lights, in the open air, a number of lamps around his house. The lamps consist of small cups filled with salt and oil, having a wick floating in it which burns all night. This festival is called the festival of burning lamps. The Egyptians who are unable to attend also observe the sacrifice, and burn lamps at home, so that not only at Sais, but throughout Egypt, the same illumination takes place. They assign a sacred reason for the festival celebrated on this night, and for the respect they have for it.” Wilkinson, in quoting this passage of Herodotus, expressly identifies this festival with the lamentation for Osiris, and assures us that “it was considered of the greatest consequence to do honour to the deity by the proper performance of this rite.”

Among the Yezidis, or Devil-worshippers of Modern Chaldea, the same festival is celebrated at this day, with rites probably almost the same, so far as circumstances will allow, as thousands of years ago, when in the same regions the worship of Tammuz was in all its glory. Thus graphically does Mr. Layard describe a festival of this kind at which he himself had been present: “As the twilight faded, the Fakirs, or lower orders of priests, dressed in brown garments of coarse cloth, closely fitting to their bodies, and wearing black turbans on their heads, issued from the tomb, each bearing a light in one hand, and a pot of oil, with a bundle of cotton wick in the other. They filled and trimmed lamps placed in niches in the walls of the courtyard and scattered over the buildings on the sides of the valley, and even on isolated rocks, and in the hollow trunks of trees. Innumerable stars appeared to glitter on the black sides of the mountain and in the dark recesses of the forest. As the priests made their way through the crowd to perform their task, men and women passed their right hands through the flame; and after rubbing the right eyebrow with the part which had been purified by the sacred element, they devoutly carried it to their lips. Some who bore children in their arms anointed them in like manner, whilst others held out their hands to be touched by those who, less fortunate than themselves, could not reach the flame…As night advanced, those who had assembled–they must now have amounted to nearly five thousand persons–lighted torches, which they carried with them as they wandered through the forest. The effect was magical: the varied groups could be faintly distinguished through the darkness–men hurrying to and fro–women with their children seated on the house-tops–and crowds gathering round the pedlars, who exposed their wares for sale in the courtyard. Thousands of lights were reflected in the fountains and streams, glimmered amongst the foliage of the trees, and danced in the distance.

As I was gazing on this extraordinary scene, the hum of human voices was suddenly hushed, and a strain, solemn and melancholy, arose from the valley. It resembled some majestic chant which years before I had listened to in the cathedral of a distant land. Music so pathetic and so sweet I never before heard in the East. The voices of men and women were blended in harmony with the soft notes of many flutes. At measured intervals the song was broken by the loud clash of cymbals and tambourines; and those who were within the precincts of the tomb then joined in the melody…The tambourines, which were struck simultaneously, only interrupted at intervals the song of the priests. As the time quickened they broke in more frequently. The chant gradually gave way to a lively melody, which, increasing in measure, was finally lost in a confusion of sounds. The tambourines were beaten with extraordinary energy–the flutes poured forth a rapid flood of notes–the voices were raised to the highest pitch–the men outside joined in the cry–whilst the women made the rocks resound with the shrill tahlehl.

“The musicians, giving way to the excitement, threw their instruments into the air, and strained their limbs into every contortion, until they fell exhausted to the ground. I never heard a more frightful yell than that which rose in the valley. It was midnight. I gazed with wonder upon the extraordinary scene around me. Thus were probably celebrated ages ago the mysterious rites of the Corybantes, when they met in some consecrated grove.” Layard does not state at what period of the year this festival occurred; but his language leaves little doubt that he regarded it as a festival of Bacchus; in other words, of the Babylonian Messiah, whose tragic death, and subsequent restoration to life and glory, formed the cornerstone of ancient Paganism. The festival was avowedly held in honour at once of Sheikh Shems, or the Sun, and of the Sheik Adi, or “Prince of Eternity,” around whose tomb nevertheless the solemnity took place, just as the lamp festival in Egypt, in honour of the sun-god Osiris, was celebrated in the precincts of the tomb of that god at Sais.

Now, the reader cannot fail to have observed that in this Yezidi festival, men, women, and children were “PURIFIED” by coming in contact with “the sacred element” of fire. In the rites of Zoroaster, the great Chaldean god, fire occupied precisely the same place. It was laid down as an essential principle in his system, that “he who approached to fire would receive a light from divinity,” (TAYLOR’S Jamblichus) and that “through divine fire all the stains produced by generation would be purged away” (PROCLUS, Timaeo). Therefore it was that “children were made to pass through the fire to Moloch” (Jer 32:35), to purge them from original sin, and through this purgation many a helpless babe became a victim to the bloody divinity. Among the Pagan Romans, this purifying by passing through the fire was equally observed; “for,” says Ovid, enforcing the practice, “Fire purifies both the shepherd and the sheep.” Among the Hindoos, from time immemorial, fire has been worshipped for its purifying efficacy. Thus a worshipper is represented by Colebrooke, according to the sacred books, as addressing the fire: “Salutation to thee [O fire!], who dost seize oblations, to thee who dost shine, to thee who dost scintillate, may thy auspicious flame burn our foes; mayest thou, the PURIFIER, be auspicious unto us.” There are some who maintain a “perpetual fire,” and perform daily devotions to it, and in “concluding the sacraments of the gods,” thus every day present their supplications to it: “Fire, thou dost expiate a sin against the gods; may this oblation be efficacious. Thou dost expiate a sin against man; thou dost expiate a sin against the manes [departed spirits]; thou dost expiate a sin against my own soul; thou dost expiate repeated sins; thou dost expiate every sin which I have committed, whether wilfully or unintentionally; may this oblation be efficacious.”

Among the Druids, also, fire was celebrated as the purifier. Thus, in a Druidic song, we read, “They celebrated the praise of the holy ones in the presence of the purifying fire, which was made to ascend on high” (DAVIES’S Druids, “Song to the Sun”). If, indeed, a blessing was expected in Druidical times from lighting the carn-fires, and making either young or old, either human beings or cattle, pass through the fire, it was simply in consequence of the purgation from sin that attached to human beings and all things connected with them, that was believed to be derived from this passing through the fire. It is evident that this very same belief about the “purifying” efficacy of fire is held by the Roman Catholics of Ireland, when they are so zealous to pass both themselves and their children through the fires of St. John. * Toland testifies that it is as a “lustration” that these fires are kindled; and all who have carefully examined the subject must come to the same conclusion.

* “I have seen parents,” said the late Lord J. Scott in a letter to me, “force their children to go through the Baal-fires.”

Now, if Tammuz was, as we have seen,the same as Zoroaster, the god of the ancient “fire-worshippers,” and if his festival in Babylon so exactly synchronised with the feast of the Nativity of St. John, what wonder that that feast is still celebrated by the blazing “Baal-fires,” and that it presents so faithful a copy of what was condemned by Jehovah of old in His ancient people when they “made their children pass through the fire to Moloch”? But who that knows anything of the Gospel would call such a festival as this a Christian festival? The Popish priests, if they do not openly teach, at least allow their deluded votaries to believe, as firmly s ever ancient fire worshipper did, that material fire can purge away the guilt and stain of sin. How that tends to rivet upon the minds of their benighted vassals one of the most monstrous but profitable fables of their system, will come to be afterwards considered.

The name Oannes could be known only to the initiated as the name of the Pagan Messiah; and at first, some measure of circumspection was necessary in introducing Paganism into the Church. But, as time went on, as the Gospel became obscured, and the darkness became more intense, the same caution was by no means so necessary. Accordingly, we find that, in the dark ages, the Pagan Messiah has not been brought into the Church in a mere clandestine manner. Openly and avowedly under his well known classic names of Bacchus and Dionysus, has he been canonised, and set up for the worship of the “faithful.” Yes, Rome, that professes to be pre-eminently the Bride of Christ, the only Church in which salvation is to be found, has had the unblushing effrontery to give the grand Pagan adversary of the Son of God, UNDER HIS OWN PROPER NAME, a place in her calendar. The reader has only to turn to the Roman calendar, and he will find that this is a literal fact; he will find that October the 7th is set apart to be observed in honour of “St. Bacchus the Martyr.”

Now, no doubt, Bacchus was a “martyr”; he died a violent death; he lost his life for religion; but the religion for which he died was the religion of the fire-worshippers; for he was put to death, as we have seen from Maimonides, for maintaining the worship of the host of heaven. This patron of the heavenly host, and of fire worship (for the two went always hand in hand together), has Rome canonised; for that this “St. Bacchus the Martyr” was the identical Bacchus of the Pagans, the god of drunkenness and debauchery, is evident from the time of his festival; for October the 7th follows soon after the end of the vintage. At the end of the vintage in autumn, the old Pagan Romans used to celebrate what was called the “Rustic Festival” of Bacchus; and about that very time does the Papal festival of “St Bacchus the Martyr” occur.

As the Chalden god has been admitted into the Roman calendar under the name of Bacchus, so also is he canonised under his other name of Dionysus. The Pagans were in the habit of worshipping the same god under different names; and, accordingly, not content with the festival to Bacchus, under the name by which he was most commonly known at Rome, the Romans, no doubt to please the Greeks, celebrated a rustic festival to him, two days afterwards, under the name of Dionysus Eleuthereus, the name by which he was worshipped in Greece. That “rustic” festival was briefly called by the name of Dionysia; or, expressing its object more fully, the name became “Festum Dionysi Eleutherei rusticum”–i.e., the “rustic festival of Dionysus Eleuthereus.” (BEGG’S Handbook of Popery) Now, the Papacy in its excess of zeal for saints and saint-worship, has actually split Dionysus Eleuthereus into two, has made two several saints out of the double name of one Pagan divinity; and more than that, has made the innocent epithet “Rusticum,” which, even among the heathen, had no pretension to divinity at all, a third; and so it comes to pass that, under date of October the 9th, we read this entry in the calendar: “The festival of St. Dionysius, * and of his companions, St. Eleuther and St. Rustic.”

* Though Dionysus was the proper classic name of the god, yet in Post-classical, or Low Latin, his name is found Dionysius, just as in the case of the Romish saint.

Now this Dionysius, whom Popery has so marvellously furnished with two companions, is the famed St. Denys, the patron saint of Paris; and a comparison of the history of the Popish saint and the Pagan god will cast no little light on the subject. St. Denys, on being beheaded and cast into the Seine, so runs the legend, after floating a space on its waters, to the amazement of the spectators, took up his head in his hand, and so marched away with it to the place of burial. In commemoration of so stupendous a miracle, a hymn was duly chanted for many a century in the Cathedral of St. Denys, at Paris, containing the following verse:

“The corpse immediately arose;
The trunk bore away the dissevered head,
Guided on its way by a legion of angels.”
(SALVERTE, Des Sciences Occultes)

At last, even Papists began to be ashamed of such an absurdity being celebrated in the name of religion; and in 1789, “the office of St. Denys” was abolished. Behold, however, the march of events. The world has for some time past been progressing back again to the dark ages. The Romish Breviary, which had been given up in France, has, within the last six years, been reimposed by Papal authority on the Gallican Church, with all its lying legends, and this among the rest of them; the Cathedral of St. Denys is again being rebuilt, and the old worship bids fair to be restored in all its grossness. Now, how could it ever enter the minds of men to invent so monstrous a fable? The origin of it is not far to seek. The Church of Rome represented her canonised saints, who were said to have suffered martyrdom by the sword, as headless images or statues with the severed head borne in the hand. “I have seen,” says Eusebe Salverte, “in a church of Normandy, St. Clair; St. Mithra, at Arles, in Switzerland, all the soldiers of the Theban legion represented with their heads in their hands. St. Valerius is thus figured at Limoges, on the gates of the cathedral, and other monuments. The grand seal of the canton of Zurich represents, in the same attitude, St. Felix, St. Regula, and St. Exsuperantius. There certainly is the origin of the pious fable which is told of these martyrs, such as St. Denys and many others besides.” This was the immediate origin of the story of the dead saint rising up and marching away with his head in his hand. But it turns out that this very mode of representation was borrowed from Paganism, and borrowed in such a way as identifies the Papal St. Denys of Paris with the Pagan Dionysus, not only of Rome but of Babylon. Dionysus or Bacchus, in one of his transformations, was represented as Capricorn, the “goat-horned fish”; and there is reason to believe that it was in this very form that he had the name of Oannes. In this form in India, under the name “Souro,” that is evidently “the seed,” he is said to have done many marvellous things. (For Oannes and Souro, see note below) Now, in the Persian Sphere he was not only represented mystically as Capricorn, but also in the human shape; and then exactly as St. Denys is represented by the Papacy. The words of the ancient writer who describes this figure in the Persian Sphere are these: “Capricorn, the third Decan. The half of the figure without a head, because its head is in its hand.” Nimrod had his head cut off; and in commemoration of that fact, which his worshippers so piteously bewailed, his image in the Sphere was so represetned. That dissevered head, in some of the versions of his story, was fabled to have done as marvellous things as any that were done by the lifeless trunk of St. Denys. Bryant has proved, in this story of Orpheus, that it is just a slighty-coloured variety of the story of Osiris. *

* BRYANT. The very name Orpheus is just a synonym for Bel, the name of the great Babylonian god, which, while originally given to Cush, became hereditary in the line of his deified descendants. Bel signifies “to mix,” as well as “to confound,” and “Orv” in Hebrew, which in Chaldee becomes Orph, signifies also “to mix.” But “Orv,” or “Orph,” signifies besides “a willow-tree”; and therefore, in exact accordance with the mystic system, we find the symbol of Orpheus among the Greeks to have been a willow-tree. Thus, Pausanias, after referring to a representation of Actaeon, says, “If again you look to the lower parts of the picture, you will see after Patroclus, Orpheus sitting on a hill, with a harp in his left hand, and in his right hand the leaves of a willow-tree“; and again, a little furthe on, he says: “He is represented leaning on the trunk of this tree.” The willow-leaves in the right hand of Orpheus, and the willow-tree on which he leans, sufficiently show the meaning of his name.

As Osiris was cut in pieces in Egypt, so Orpheus was torn in pieces in Thrace. Now, when the mangled limbs of the latter had been strewn about the field, his head, floating on the Hebrus, gave proof of the miraculous character of him that owned it. “Then,” says Virgil:

“Then, when his head from his fair shoulders torn,
Washed by the waters, was on Hebrus borne,
Even then his trembling voice invoked his bride,
With his last voice, ‘Eurydice,’ he creid;
‘Eurydice,’ the rockes and river banks replied.”

There is diversity here, but amidst that diversity there is an obvious unity. In both cases, thehead dissevered from the lifeless body occupies the foreground of the picture; in both cases, the miracle is in connection with a river. Now, when the festivals of “St. Bacchus the Martyr,” and of “St. Dionysius and Eleuther,” so remarkably agree with the time when the festivals of the Pagan god of wine were celbrated, whether by the name of Bacchus, or Dionysus, or Eleuthereus, and when the mode of representing the modern Dionysius and the ancient Dionysus are evidently the very same, while the legends of both so strikiingly harmonise, who can doubt the real character of those Romish festivals? They are not Christina. They are Pagan; they are unequivocally Babylonian.

Notes

Oannes and Souro

The reason for believing that Oannes, that was said to have been the first of the fabulous creatures that came up out of the sea and instructed the Babylonians, was represented as the goat-horned fish, is as follows: First, the name Oannes, as elsewhere shown, is just the Greek form of He-annesh, or “The man,” which is a synonym for the name of our first parent, Adam. Now, Adam can be proved to be the original of Pan, who was also called Inuus, which is just another pronunciation of Anosh without the article, which, in our translation of Genesis 5:7, is made Enos. This name, as universally admitted, is the generic name for man after the Fall, as weak and diseased. The o in Enos is what is called the vau, which sometimes is pronounced o, sometimes u, and sometimes v or w. A legitimate pronunciation of Enos, therefore, is just Enus or Enws, the same in sound as Inuus, the Ancient Roman name of Pan. The name Pan itself signifies “He who turned aside.” As the Hebrew word for “uprightness” signifies “walking straight in the way,” so every deviation from the straight line of duty was Sin; Hata, the word for sin, signifying generically “to go aside from the straight line.” Pan, it is admitted, was the Head of the Satyrs–that is, “the first of the Hidden Ones,” for Satyr and Satur, “the Hidden One,” are evidently just the same word; and Adam was the first of mankind that hid himself. Pan is said to have loved a nymph called Pitho, or, as it is given in another form, Pitys (SMITH, “Pan”); and what is Pitho or Pitys but just the name of the beguiling woman, who, having been beguiled herself, acted the part of a beguiler of her husband, and induced him to take the step, in consequence of which he earned the name Pan, “The man that turned aside.” Pitho or Pitys evidently come from Peth or Pet, “to beguile,” from which verb also the famous serpent Python derived its name. This conclusion in regard to the personal identity of Pan and Pitho is greatly confirmed by the titles given to the wife of Faunus. Faunus, says Smith, is “merely another name for Pan.” *

* In Chaldee the same letter that is pronounced P is also pronounced Ph, that is F, therefore Pan is just Faun.

Now, the wife of Faunus was called Oma, Fauna, and Fatua, which names plainly mean “The mother that turned aside, being beguiled.” This beguiled mother is also called indifferently “the sister, wife, or daughter” of her husband; and how this agrees with the relations of Eve to Adam, the reader does not need to be told.

Now, a title of Pan was Capricornus, or “The goat-horned” (DYMOCK, “Pan”), and the origin of this title must be traced to what took place when our first parent became the Head of the Satyrs–the “first of the Hidden ones.” He fled to hide himself; and Berkha, “a fugitive,” signifies also “a he-goat.” Hence the origin of the epithet Capricornus, or “goat-horned,” as applied to Pan. But as Capricornus in the sphere is generally represented as the “Goat-fish,” if Capricornus represents Pan, or Adam, or Oannes, that shows that it must be Adam, after, through virtue of the metempsychosis, he had passed through the waters of the deluge: the goat, as the symbol of Pan, representing Adam, the first father of mankind, combined with the fish, the symbol of Noah, the second father of the human race; of both whom Nimrod, as at once Kronos, “the father of the gods,” and Souro, “the seed,” was a new incarnation. Among the idols of Babylon, as represented in KITTO’S Illust. Commentary, we find a representation of this very Capricornus, or goat-horned fish; and Berosus tells us that the well known representations of Pan, of which Capricornus is a modification, were found in Babylon in the most ancient times. A great deal more of evidence might be adduced on this subject; but I submit to the reader if the above statement does not sufficiently account for the origin of the remarkable figure in the Zodiac, “The goat-horned fish.” 

Continued in The Two Babylons Chapter III. Festivals. Section IV — The Feast of the Assumption

All chapters of The Two Babylons

This is the continuation of Chapter III. Festivals. Section I.—Christmas and Lady-Day.

Then look at Easter. What means the term Easter itself? It is not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name, as pronounced by the people Nineveh, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country. That name, as found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar. The worship of Bel and Astarte was very early introduced into Britain, along with the Druids, “the priests of the groves.” Some have imagined that the Druidical worship was first introduced by the Phoenicians, who, centuries before the Christian era, traded to the tin-mines of Cornwall. But the unequivocal traces of that worship are found in regions of the British islands where the Phoenicians never penetrated, and it has everywhere left indelible marks of the strong hold which it must have had on the early British mind.

From Bel, the 1st of May is still called Beltane in the Almanac; and we have customs still lingering at this day among us, which prove how exactly the worship of Bel or Moloch (for both titles belonged to the same god) had been observed even in the northern parts of this island. “The late Lady Baird, of Fern Tower, in Perthshire,” says a writer in “Notes and Queries,” thoroughly versed in British antiquities, “told me, that every year, at Beltane (or the 1st of May), a number of men and women assemble at an ancient Druidical circle of stones on her property near Crieff. They light a fire in the centre, each person puts a bit of oat-cake in a shepherd’s bonnet; they all sit down, and draw blindfold a piece from the bonnet. One piece has been previously blackened, and whoever gets that piece has to jump through the fire in the centre of the circle, and pay a forfeit. This is, in fact, a part of the ancient worship of Baal, and the person on whom the lot fell was previously burnt as a sacrifice. Now, the passing through the fire represents that, and the payment of the forfeit redeems the victim.” If Baal was thus worshipped in Britain, it will not be difficult to believe that his consort Astarte was also adored by our ancestors, and that from Astarte, whose name in Nineveh was Ishtar, the religious solemnities of April, as now practised, are called by the name of Easter–that month, among our Pagan ancestors, having been called Easter-monath. The festival, of which we read in Church history, under the name of Easter, in the third or fourth centuries, was quite a different festival from that now observed in the Romish Church, and at that time was not known by any such name as Easter. It was called Pasch, or the Passover, and though not of Apostolic institution, * was very early observed by many professing Christians, in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Christ.

* Socrates, the ancient ecclesiastical historian, after a lengthened account of the different ways in which Easter was observed in different countries in his time–i.e., the fifth century–sums up in these words: “Thus much already laid down may seem a sufficient treatise to prove that the celebration of the feast of Easter began everywhere more of custom than by any commandment either of Christ or any Apostle.” (Hist. Ecclesiast.) Every one knows that the name “Easter,” used in our translation of Acts 12:4, refers not to any Christian festival, but to the Jewish Passover. This is one of the few places in our version where the translators show an undue bias.

That festival agreed originally with the time of the Jewish Passover, when Christ was crucified, a period which, in the days of Tertullian, at the end of the second century, was believed to have been the 23rd of March. That festival was not idolatrous, and it was preceded by no Lent. “It ought to be known,” said Cassianus, the monk of Marseilles, writing in the fifth century, and contrasting the primitive Church with the Church in his day, “that the observance of the forty days had no existence, so long as the perfection of that primitive Church remained inviolate.” Whence, then, came this observance? The forty days’ abstinence of Lent was directly borrowed from the worshippers of the Babylonian goddess. Such a Lent of forty days, “in the spring of the year,” is still observed by the Yezidis or Pagan Devil-worshippers of Koordistan, who have inherited it from their early masters, the Babylonians. Such a Lent of forty days was held in spring by the Pagan Mexicans, for thus we read in Humboldt, where he gives account of Mexican observances: “Three days after the vernal equinox…began a solemn fast of forty days in honour of the sun.” Such a Lent of forty days was observed in Egypt, as may be seen on consulting Wilkinson’s Egyptians. This Egyptian Lent of forty days, we are informed by Landseer, in his Sabean Researches, was held expressly in commemoration of Adonis or Osiris, the great mediatorial god. At the same time, the rape of Proserpine seems to have been commemorated, and in a similar manner; for Julius Firmicus informs us that, for “forty nights” the “wailing for Proserpine” continued; and from Arnobius we learn that the fast which the Pagans observed, called “Castus” or the “sacred” fast, was, by the Christians in his time, believed to have been primarily in imitation of the long fast of Ceres, when for many days she determinedly refused to eat on account of her “excess of sorrow,” that is, on account of the loss of her daughter Proserpine, when carried away by Pluto, the god of hell. As the stories of Bacchus, or Adonis and Proserpine, though originally distinct, were made to join on and fit in to one another, so that Bacchus was called Liber, and his wife Ariadne, Libera (which was one of the names of Proserpine), it is highly probable that the forty days’ fast of Lent was made in later times to have reference to both. Among the Pagans this Lent seems to have been an indispensable preliminary to the great annual festival in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz, which was celebrated by alternate weeping and rejoicing, and which, in many countries, was considerably later than the Christian festival, being observed in Palestine and Assyria in June, therefore called the “month of Tammuz”; in Egypt, about the middle of May, and in Britain, some time in April.

To conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated, and, by a complicated but skilful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity–now far sunk in idolatry–in this as in so many other things, to shake hands. The instrument in accomplishing this amalgamation was the abbot Dionysius the Little, to whom also we owe it, as modern chronologers have demonstrated, that the date of the Christian era, or of the birth of Christ Himself, was moved FOUR YEARS from the true time. Whether this was done through ignorance or design may be matter of question; but there seems to be no doubt of the fact, that the birth of the Lord Jesus was made full four years later than the truth. This change of the calendar in regard to Easter was attended with momentous consequences. It brought into the Church the grossest corruption and the rankest superstition in connection with the abstinence of Lent. Let any one only read the atrocities that were commemorated during the “sacred fast” or Pagan Lent, as described by Arnobius and Clemens Alexandrinus, and surely he must blush for the Christianity of those who, with the full knowledge of all these abominations, “went down to Egypt for help” to stir up the languid devotion of the degenerate Church, and who could find no more excellent way to “revive” it, than by borrowing from so polluted a source; the absurdities and abominations connected with which the early Christian writers had held up to scorn. That Christians should ever think of introducing the Pagan abstinence of Lent was a sign of evil; it showed how low they had sunk, and it was also a cause of evil; it inevitably led to deeper degradation. Originally, even in Rome, Lent, with the preceding revelries of the Carnival, was entirely unknown; and even when fasting before the Christian Pasch was held to be necessary, it was by slow steps that, in this respect, it came to conform with the ritual of Paganism. What may have been the period of fasting in the Roman Church before sitting of the Nicene Council does not very clearly appear, but for a considerable period after that Council, we have distinct evidence that it did not exceed three weeks. *

* GIESELER, speaking of the Eastern Church in the second century, in regard to Paschal observances, says: “In it [the Paschal festival in commemoration of the death of Christ] they [the Eastern Christians] eat unleavened bread, probably like the Jews, eight days throughout…There is no trace of a yearly festival of a resurrection among them, for this was kept every Sunday” (Catholic Church). In regard to the Western Church, at a somewhat later period–the age of Constantine–fifteen days seems to have been observed to religious exercises in connection with the Christian Paschal feast, as appears from the following extracts from Bingham, kindly furnished to me by a friend, although the period of fasting is not stated. Bingham (Origin) says: “The solemnities of Pasch [are] the week before and the week after Easter Sunday–one week of the Cross, the other of the resurrection. The ancients speak of the Passion and Resurrection Pasch as a fifteen days’ solemnity. Fifteen days was enforced by law by the Empire, and commanded to the universal Church…Scaliger mentions a law of Constantine, ordering two weeks for Easter, and a vacation of all legal processes.”

The words of Socrates, writing on this very subject, about AD 450, are these: “Those who inhabit the princely city of Rome fast together before Easter three weeks, excepting the Saturday and Lord’s-day.” But at last, when the worship of Astarte was rising into the ascendant, steps were taken to get the whole Chaldean Lent of six weeks, or forty days, made imperative on all within the Roman empire of the West. The way was prepared for this by a Council held at Aurelia in the time of Hormisdas, Bishop of Rome, about the year 519, which decreed that Lent should be solemnly kept before Easter. It was with the view, no doubt, of carrying out this decree that the calendar was, a few days after, readjusted by Dionysius. This decree could not be carried out all at once. About the end of the sixth century, the first decisive attempt was made to enforce the observance of the new calendar. It was in Britain that the first attempt was made in this way; and here the attempt met with vigorous resistance. The difference, in point of time, betwixt the Christian Pasch, as observed in Britain by the native Christians, and the Pagan Easter enforced by Rome, at the time of its enforcement, was a whole month; * and it was only by violence and bloodshed, at last, that the Festival of the Anglo-Saxon or Chaldean goddess came to supersede that which had been held in honour of Christ.

* CUMMIANUS, quoted by Archbishop USSHER, Sylloge Those who have been brought up in the observance of Christmas and Easter, and who yet abhor from their hearts all Papal and Pagan idolatry alike, may perhaps feel as if there were something “untoward” in the revelations given above in regard to the origin of these festivals. But a moment’s reflection will suffice entirely to banish such a feeling. They will see, that if the account I have given be true, it is of no use to ignore it. A few of the facts stated in these pages are already known to Infidel and Socinian writers of no mean mark, both in this country and on the Continent, and these are using them in such a way as to undermine the faith of the young and uninformed in regard to the very vitals of the Christian faith. Surely, then, it must be of the last consequence, that the truth should be set forth in its own native light, even though it may somewhat run counter to preconceived opinions, especially when that truth, justly considered, tends so much at once to strengthen the rising youth against the seductions of Popery, and to confirm them in the faith once delivered to the Saints.

If a heathen could say, “Socrates I love, and Plato I love, but I love truth more,” surely a truly Christian mind will not display less magnanimity. Is there not much, even in the aspect of the times, that ought to prompt the earnest inquiry, if the occasion has not arisen, when efforts, and strenuous efforts, should be made to purge out of the National Establishment in the south those observances, and everything else that has flowed in upon it from Babylon’s golden cup? There are men of noble minds in the Church of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, who have felt the power of His blood, and known the comfort of His Spirit. Let them, in their closets, and on their knees, ask the question, at their God and at their own consciences, if they ought not to bestir themselves in right earnest, and labour with all their might till such a consummation be effected. Then, indeed, would England’s Church be the grand bulwark of the Reformation–then would her sons speak with her enemies in the gate–then would she appear in the face of all Christendom, “clear as the sun, fair as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners.” If, however, nothing effectual shall be done to stay the plague that is spreading in her, the result must be disastrous, not only to herself, but to the whole empire.

Such is the history of Easter. The popular observances that still attend the period of its celebration amply confirm the testimony of history as to its Babylonian character. The hot cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of Pasch or Easter Sunday, figured in the Chaldean rites just as they do now. The “buns,” known too by that identical name, were used in the worship of the queen of heaven, the goddess Easter, as early as the days of Cecrops, the founder of Athens–that is, 1500 years before the Christian era. “One species of sacred bread,” says Bryant, “which used to be offered to the gods, was of great antiquity, and called Boun.” Diogenes Laertius, speaking of this offering being made by Empedocles, describes the chief ingredients of which it was composed, saying, “He offered one of the sacred cakes called Boun, which was made of fine flour and honey.” The prophet Jeremiah takes notice of this kind of offering when he says,

“The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven.” *

* Jeremiah 7:18. It is from the very word here used by the prophet that the word “bun” seems to be derived. The Hebrew word, with the points, was pronounced Khavan, which in Greek became sometimes Kapan-os (PHOTIUS, Lexicon Syttoge); and, at other times, Khabon (NEANDER, in KITTO’S Biblical Cyclopoedia). The first shows how Khvan, pronounced as one syllable, would pass into the Latin panis, “bread,” and the second how, in like manner, Khvon would become Bon or Bun. It is not to be overlooked that our common English word Loa has passed through a similar process of formation. In Anglo-Saxon it was Hlaf.

The hot cross buns are not now offered, but eaten, on the festival of Astarte; but this leaves no doubt as to whence they have been derived. The origin of the Pasch eggs is just as clear. The ancient Druids bore an egg, as the sacred emblem of their order. In the Dionysiaca, or mysteries of Bacchus, as celebrated in Athens, one part of the nocturnal ceremony consisted in the consecration of an egg. The Hindoo fables celebrate their mundane egg as of a golden colour. The people of Japan make their sacred egg to have been brazen. In China, at this hour, dyed or painted eggs are used on sacred festivals, even as in this country. In ancient times eggs were used in the religious rites of the Egyptians and the Greeks, and were hung up for mystic purposes in their temples. (see figure 31 below).

Figure 31

From Egypt these sacred eggs can be distinctly traced to the banks of the Euphrates. The classic poets are full of the fable of the mystic egg of the Babylonians; and thus its tale is told by Hyginus, the Egyptian, the learned keeper of the Palatine library at Rome, in the time of Augustus, who was skilled in all the wisdom of his native country: “An egg of wondrous size is said to have fallen from heaven into the river Euphrates. The fishes rolled it to the bank, where the doves having settled upon it, and hatched it, out came Venus, who afterwards was called the Syrian Goddess”–that is, Astarte. Hence the egg became one of the symbols of Astarte or Easter; and accordingly, in Cyprus, one of the chosen seats of the worship of Venus, or Astarte, the egg of wondrous size was represented on a grand scale. (see figure 32 below)

Figure 32

The occult meaning of this mystic egg of Astarte, in one of its aspects (for it had a twofold significance), had reference to the ark during the time of the flood, in which the whole human race were shut up, as the chick is enclosed in the egg before it is hatched. If any be inclined to ask, how could it ever enter the minds of men to employ such an extraordinary symbol for such a purpose, the answer is, first, The sacred egg of Paganism, as already indicated, is well known as the “mundane egg,” that is, the egg in which the world was shut up. Now the world has two distinct meanings–it means either the material earth, or the inhabitants of the earth. The latter meaning of the term is seen in Genesis 11:1, “The whole earth was of one language and of one speech,” where the meaning is that the whole people of the world were so. If then the world is seen shut up in an egg, and floating on the waters, it may not be difficult to believe, however the idea of the egg may have come, that the egg thus floating on the wide universal sea might be Noah’s family that contained the whole world in its bosom. Then the application of the word egg to the ark comes thus: The Hebrew name for an egg is Baitz, or in the feminine (for there are both genders), Baitza. This, in Chaldee and Phoenician, becomes Baith or Baitha, which in these languages is also the usual way in which the name of a house is pronounced. *

* The common word “Beth,” “house,” in the Bible without the points, is “Baith,” as may be seen in the name of Bethel, as given in Genesis 35:1, of the Greek Septuagint, where it is “Baith-el.”

The egg floating on the waters that contained the world, was the house floating on the waters of the deluge, with the elements of the new world in its bosom. The coming of the egg from heaven evidently refers to the preparation of the ark by express appointment of God; and the same thing seems clearly implied in the Egyptian story of the mundane egg which was said to have come out of the mouth of the great god. The doves resting on the egg need no explanation. This, then, was the meaning of the mystic egg in one aspect. As, however, everything that was good or beneficial to mankind was represented in the Chaldean mysteries, as in some way connected with the Babylonian goddess, so the greatest blessing to the human race, which the ark contained in its bosom, was held to be Astarte, who was the great civiliser and benefactor of the world. Though the deified queen, whom Astarte represented, had no actual existence till some centuries after the flood, yet through the doctrine of metempsychosis, which was firmly established in Babylon, it was easy for her worshippers to be made to believe that, in a previous incarnation, she had lived in the Antediluvian world, and passed in safety through the waters of the flood. Now the Romish Church adopted this mystic egg of Astarte, and consecrated it as a symbol of Christ’s resurrection. A form of prayer was even appointed to be used in connection with it, Pope Paul V teaching his superstitious votaries thus to pray at Easter: “Bless, O Lord, we beseech thee, this thy creature of eggs, that it may become a wholesome sustenance unto thy servants, eating it in remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c” (Scottish Guardian, April, 1844).

Besides the mystic egg, there was also another emblem of Easter, the goddess queen of Babylon, and that was the Rimmon or “pomegranate.” With the Rimmon or “pomegranate” in her hand, she is frequently represented in ancient medals, and the house of Rimmon, in which the King of Damascus, the Master of Naaman, the Syrian, worshipped, was in all likelihood a temple of Astarte, where that goddess with the Rimmon was publicly adored. The pomegranate is a fruit that is full of seeds; and on that account it has been supposed that it was employed as an emblem of that vessel in which the germs of the new creation were preserved, wherewith the world was to be sown anew with man and with beast, when the desolation of the deluge had passed away. But upon more searching inquiry, it turns out that the Rimmon or “pomegranate” had reference to an entirely different thing. Astarte, or Cybele, was called also Idaia Mater, and the sacred mount in Phrygia, most famed for the celebration of her mysteries, was named Mount Ida–that is, in Chaldee, the sacred language of these mysteries, the Mount of Knowledge. “Idaia Mater,” then, signifies “the Mother of Knowledge“–in other words, our Mother Eve, who first coveted the “knowledge of good and evil,” and actually purchased it at so dire a price to herself and to all her children. Astarte, as can be abundantly shown, was worshipped not only as an incarnation of the Spirit of God, but also of the mother of mankind. (see note below) When, therefore, the mother of the gods, and the mother of knowledge, was represented with the fruit of the pomegranate in her extended hand (see figure 33), inviting those who ascended the sacred mount to initiation in her mysteries, can there be a doubt what that fruit was intended to signify? Evidently, it must accord with her assumed character; it must be the fruit of the “Tree of Knowledge”–the fruit of that very

“Tree, whose mortal taste.
Brought death into the world, and all our woe.”

The knowledge to which the votaries of the Idaean goddess were admitted, was precisely of the same kind as that which Eve derived from the eating of the forbidden fruit, the practical knowledge of all that was morally evil and base. Yet to Astarte, in this character, men were taught to look at their grand benefactress, as gaining for them knowledge, and blessings connected with that knowledge, which otherwise they might in vain have sought from Him, who is the Father of lights, from whom cometh down every good and perfect gift. Popery inspires the same feeling in regard to the Romish queen of heaven, and leads its devotees to view the sin of Eve in much the same light as that in which Paganism regarded it. In the Canon of the Mass, the most solemn service in the Romish Missal, the following expression occurs, where the sin of our first parent is apostrophised: “Oh blessed fault, which didst procure such a Redeemer!” The idea contained in these words is purely Pagan. They just amount to this: “Thanks be to Eve, to whose sin we are indebted for the glorious Saviour.” It is true the idea contained in them is found in the same words in the writings of Augustine; but it is an idea utterly opposed to the spirit of the Gospel, which only makes sin the more exceeding sinful, from the consideration that it needed such a ransom to deliver from its awful curse. Augustine had imbibed many Pagan sentiments, and never got entirely delivered from them.

As Rome cherishes the same feelings as Paganism did, so it has adopted also the very same symbols, so far as it has the opportunity. In this country, and most of the countries of Europe, no pomegranates grow; and yet, even here, the superstition of the Rimmon must, as far as possible, be kept up. Instead of the pomegranate, therefore, the orange is employed; and so the Papists of Scotland join oranges with their eggs at Easter; and so also, when Bishop Gillis of Edinburgh went through the vain-glorious ceremony of washing the feet of twelve ragged Irishmen a few years ago at Easter, he concluded by presenting each of them with two eggs and an orange.

Now, this use of the orange as the representative of the fruit of Eden’s “dread probationary tree,” be it observed, is no modern invention; it goes back to the distant times of classic antiquity. The gardens of the Hesperides in the West, are admitted by all who have studied the subject, just to have been the counterpart of the paradise of Eden in the East. The description of the sacred gardens, as situated in the Isles of the Atlantic, over against the coast of Africa, shows that their legendary site exactly agrees with the Cape Verd or Canary Isles, or some of that group; and, of course, that the “golden fruit” on the sacred tree, so jealously guarded, was none other than the orange. Now, let the reader mark well: According to the classic Pagan story, there was no serpent in that garden of delight in the “islands of the blest,” to TEMPT mankind to violate their duty to their great benefactor, by eating of the sacred tree which he had reserved as the test of their allegiance. No; on the contrary, it was the Serpent, the symbol of the Devil, the Principle of evil, the Enemy of man, that prohibited them from eating the precious fruit–that strictly watched it–that would not allow it to be touched. Hercules, one form of the Pagan Messiah–not the primitive, but the Grecian Hercules–pitying man’s unhappy state, slew or subdued the serpent, the envious being that grudged mankind the use of that which was so necessary to make them at once perfectly happy and wise, and bestowed upon them what otherwise would have been hopelessly beyond their reach. Here, then, God and the devil are exactly made to change places. Jehovah, who prohibited man from eating of the tree of knowledge, is symbolised by the serpent, and held up as an ungenerous and malignant being, while he who emancipated man from Jehovah’s yoke, and gave him of the fruit of the forbidden tree–in other words, Satan under the name of Hercules–is celebrated as the good and gracious Deliverer of the human race. What a mystery of iniquity is here! Now all this is wrapped up in the sacred orange of Easter.

Notes

The Meaning of the Name Astarte

That Semiramis, under the name of Astarte, was worshipped not only as an incarnation of the Spirit of God, but as the mother of mankind, we have very clear and satisfactory evidence. There is no doubt that “the Syrian goddess” was Astarte (LAYARD’S Nineveh and its Remains). Now, the Assyrian goddess, or Astarte, is identified with Semiramis by Athenagoras (Legatio), and by Lucian (De Dea Syria). These testimonies in regard to Astarte, or the Syrian goddess, being, in one aspect, Semiramis, are quite decisive. 1. The name Astarte, as applied to her, has reference to her as being Rhea or Cybele, the tower-bearing goddess, the first as Ovid says (Opera), that “made (towers) in cities”; for we find from Layard that in the Syrian temple of Hierapolis, “she [Dea Syria or Astarte] was represented standing on a lion crowned with towers.” Now, no name could more exactly picture forth the character of Semiramis, as queen of Babylon, than the name of “Ash-tart,” for that just means “The woman that made towers.” It is admitted on all hands that the last syllable “tart” comes from the Hebrew verb “Tr.” It has been always taken for granted, however, that “Tr” signifies only “to go round.” But we have evidence that, in nouns derived from it, it also signifies “to be round,” “to surround,” or “encompass.” In the masculine, we find “Tor” used for “a border or row of jewels round the head” (see PARKHURST and also GESENIUS). And in the feminine, as given in Hesychius (Lexicon), we find the meaning much more decisively brought out. Turis is just the Greek form of Turit, the final t, according to the genius of the Greek language, being converted into s. Ash-turit, then, which is obviously the same as the Hebrew “Ashtoreth,” is just “The woman that made the encompassing wall.” Considering how commonly the glory of that achievement, as regards Babylon, was given to Semiramis, not only by Ovid, but by Justin, Dionysius, Afer, and others, both the name and mural crown on the head of that goddess were surely very appropriate.

In confirmation of this interpretation of the meaning of the name Astarte, I may adduce an epithet applied to the Greek Diana, who at Ephesus bore a turreted crown on her head, and was identified with Semiramis, which is not a little striking. It is contained in the following extract from Livy: “When the news of the battle [near Pydna] reached Amphipolis, the matrons ran together to the temple of Diana, whom they style Tauropolos, to implore her aid.” Tauropolos, from Tor, “a tower,” or “surrounding fortification,” and Pol, “to make,” plainly means the “tower-maker,” or “maker of surrounding fortifications”; and to her as the goddess of fortifications, they would naturally apply when they dreaded an attack upon their city.

Semiramis, being deified as Astarte, came to be raised to the highest honours; and her change into a dove, as has been already shown, was evidently intended, when the distinction of sex had been blasphemously attributed to the Godhead, to identify her, under the name of the Mother of the gods, with that Divine Spirit, without whose agency no one can be born a child of God, and whose emblem, in the symbolical language of Scripture, was the Dove, as that of the Messiah was the Lamb. Since the Spirit of God is the source of all wisdom, natural as well as spiritual, arts and inventions and skill of every kind being attributed to Him (Exo 31:3; 35:31), so the Mother of the gods, in whom that Spirit was feigned to be incarnate, was celebrated as the originator of some of the useful arts and sciences (DIODORUS SICULUS). Hence, also, the character attributed to the Grecian Minerva, whose name Athena, as we have seen reason to conclude, is only a synonym for Beltis, the well known name of the Assyrian goddess. Athena, the Minerva of Athens, is universally known as the “goddess of wisdom,” the inventress of arts and sciences. 2. The name Astarte signifies also the “Maker of investigations“; and in this respect was applicable to Cybele or Semiramis, as symbolised by the Dove. That this is one of the meanings of the name Astarte may be seen from comparing it with the cognate names Asterie and Astraea (in Greek Astraia), which are formed by taking the last member of the compound word in the masculine, instead of the feminine, Teri, or Tri (the latter being pronounced Trai or Trae), being the same in sense as Tart. Now, Asterie was the wife of Perseus, the Assyrian (HERODOTUS), and who was the founder of Mysteries (BRYANT). As Asterie was further represented as the daughter of Bel, this implies a position similar to that of Semiramis. Astraea, again, was the goddess of justice, who is identified with the heavenly virgin Themis, the name Themis signifying “the perfect one,” who gave oracles (OVID, Metam.), and who, having lived on earth before the Flood, forsook it just before that catastrophe came on. Themis and Astraea are sometimes distinguished and sometimes identified; but both have the same character as goddesses of justice. The explanation of the discrepancy obviously is, that the Spirit has sometimes been viewed as incarnate and sometimes not. When incarnate, Astraea is daughter of Themis. What name could more exactly agree with the character of a goddess of justice, than Ash-trai-a, “The maker of investigations,” and what name could more appropriately shadow forth one of the characters of that Divine Spirit, who “searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God”? As Astraea, or Themis, was “Fatidica Themis,” “Themis the prophetic,” this also was another characteristic of the Spirit; for whence can any true oracle, or prophetic inspiration, come, but from the inspiring Spirit of God? Then, lastly, what can more exactly agree with the Divine statement in Genesis in regard to the Spirit of God, than the statement of Ovid, that Astraea was the last of the celestials who remained on earth, and that her forsaking it was the signal for the downpouring of the destroying deluge? The announcement of the coming Flood is in Scripture ushered in with these words (Gen 6:3):

“And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.“

All these 120 years, the Spirit was striving; when they came to an end, the Spirit strove no longer, forsook the earth, and left the world to its fate. But though the Spirit of God forsook the earth, it did not forsake the family of righteous Noah. It entered with the patriarch into the ark; and when that patriarch came forth from his long imprisonment, it came forth along with him. Thus the Pagans had an historical foundation for their myth of the dove resting on the symbol of the ark in the Babylonian waters, and the Syrian goddess, or Astarte–the same as Astraea–coming forth from it. Semiramis, then, as Astarte, worshipped as the dove, was regarded as the incarnation of the Spirit of God. 3. As Baal, Lord of Heaven, had his visible emblem, the sun, so she, as Beltis, Queen of Heaven, must have hers also–the moon, which in another sense was Asht-tart-e, “The maker of revolutions“; for there is no doubt that Tart very commonly signifies “going round.” But, 4th, the whole system must be dovetailed together.

As the mother of the gods was equally the mother of mankind, Semiramis, or Astarte, must also be identified with Eve; and the name Rhea, which, according to the Paschal Chronicle was given to her, sufficiently proves her identification with Eve. As applied to the common mother of the human race, the name Astarte is singularly appropriate; for, as she was Idaia mater, “The mother of knowledge,” the question is, “How did she come by that knowledge?” To this the answer can only be: “by the fatal investigations she made.” It was a tremendous experiment she made, when, in opposition to the Divine command, and in spite of the threatened penalty, she ventured to “search” into that forbidden knowledge which her Maker in his goodness had kept from her. Thus she took the lead in that unhappy course of which the Scripture speaks–“God made man upright, but they have SOUGHT out many inventions” (Eccl. 7:29).

Now Semiramis, deified as the Dove, was Astarte in the most gracious and benignant form. Lucius Ampelius calls her “the goddess benignant and merciful to me” (bringing them) “to a good and happy life.” In reference to this benignity of her character, both the titles, Aphrodite and Mylitta, are evidently attributed to her. The first I have elsewhere explained as “The wrath-subduer,” and the second is in exact accordance with it. Mylitta, or, as it is in Greek, Mulitta, signifies “The Mediatrix.” The Hebrew Melitz, which in Chaldee becomes Melitt, is evidently used in Job 33:23, in the sense of a Mediator; “the messenger, the interpreter” (Melitz), who is “gracious” to a man, and saith, “Deliver from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom,” being really “The Messenger, the MEDIATOR.” Parkhurst takes the word in this sense, and derives it from “Mltz,” “to be sweet.” Now, the feminine of Melitz is Melitza, from which comes Melissa, a “bee” (the sweetener, or producer of sweetness), and Melissa, a common name of the priestesses of Cybele, and as we may infer of Cybele, as Astarte, or Queen of Heaven, herself; for, after Porphyry, has stated that “the ancients called the priestesses of Demeter, Melissae,” he adds, that they also “called the Moon Melissa.” We have evidence, further, that goes far to identify this title as a title of Semiramis. Melissa or Melitta (APPOLODORUS)–for the name is given in both ways–is said to have been the mother of Phoroneus, the first that reigned, in whose days the dispersion of mankind occurred, divisions having come in among them, whereas before, all had been in harmony and spoke one language (Hyginus). There is no other to whom this can be applied but Nimrod; and as Nimrod came to be worshipped as Nin, the son of his own wife, the identification is exact. Melitta, then, the mother of Phoroneus, is the same as Mylitta, the well known name of the Babylonian Venus; and the name, as being the feminine of Melitz, the Mediator, consequently signifies the Mediatrix. Another name also given to the mother of Phoroneus, “the first that reigned,” is Archia (LEMPRIERE; SMITH). Now Archia signifies “Spiritual” (from “Rkh,” Heb. “Spirit,” which in Egyptian also is “Rkh” [BUNSEN]; and in Chaldee, with the prosthetic a prefixed becomes Arkh). * From the same root also evidently comes the epithet Architis, as applied to the Venus that wept for Adonis. Venus Architis is the spiritual Venus. **

* The Hebrew Dem, blood, in Chaldee becomes Adem; and, in like manner, Rkh becomes Arkh.

** From OUVAROFF we learn that the mother of the third Bacchus was Aura, and Phaethon is said by Orpheus to have been the son of the “wide extended air” (LACTANTIUS). The connection in the sacred language between the wind, the air, and the spirit, sufficiently accounts for these statements, and shows their real meaning.

Thus, then, the mother-wife of the first king that reigned was known as Archia and Melitta, in other words, as the woman in whom the “Spirit of God” was incarnate; and thus appeared as the “Dea Benigna,” “The Mediatrix” for sinful mortals. The first form of Astarte, as Eve, brought sin into the world; the second form before the Flood, was avenging as the goddess of justice. This form was “Benignant and Merciful.” Thus, also, Semiramis, or Astarte, as Venus the goddess of love and beauty, became “The HOPE of the whole world,” and men gladly had recourse to the “mediation” of one so tolerant of sin.

Continued in Section III — The Nativity of St. John

All chapters of The Two Babylons

This is the continuation of Chapter V. Name Locates Antichrist.

THIS leads us to the identification of this mysterious Power, It is remarkable that three phalanxes of Romish authorities combine in

1. —Identifying the city of Rome as the Babylon of the Apocalypse;
2. —The Bishop of Rome as the successor of Caesar seated at Rome;
3. —The Papacy and Church of Rome as the Antichrist of Scripture.

A.—TESTIMONY OF ROMISH WRITERS ON THE APOCALYPSE.

(1) The Jesuit, Sylvester J. Hunter, in his “Outline of Dogmatic Theology” (Vol. I:, P. 410) says: “There is no room for doubt that by the Babylon of the Apocalypse is meant the city of Rome. And down to the time of the Reformation it was the unanimous judgment of all writers. that the Babylon of St. Peter’s Epistle is this same Rome.”

(2) Cardinal Newman, before he joined the Church of Rome, in 1840 described the city of Rome as “a doomed city,” clearly pointed to “amid the obscurities of the fearful Apocalypse.”

(3) Bishop Bossuet, of Meaux (1690), in his work on the Apocalypse, taught that Babylon is a symbol of Rome Pagan (“Préf. sur l’Apocalypse,” § vii.).

(4) Bishop Walmsley (1771) did the same.

(5) Cardinal Baronius (“Annals,” sec. xvi., Pp. 344) said: “By Babylon is to be understood Rome.” “Rome is signified by Babylon; it is confessed of all.”

(6) Cardinal Bellarmine (“De Rom. Pont.,” c. iii., § 2, Preterea, Tome I., p. 232, Colon 1615): “John, in the Apocalypse, calls Rome Babylon.”

(7) Bishop Bossuet also admitted that “all the Fathers” taught that the Babylon of the Apocalypse is Rome (“Préf. sur l’Apocalypse”).

(8) Similar avowals might be cited from other Romish theologians, e.g., Salmeron, Alcasar, Maldonatus.

B.—ROMISH AUTHORITIES ON HISTORY.

(1) Duc de Broglie (“Histoire de l’Eglise,’”? VI., 424- 456): “The Bishop of Rome mounted the throne whence the Emperors fell, and took, little by little, the position rendered vacant by the desertion of the successor of Augustus.”

(2) The learned editor of the “Acta Sanctae Sedis” (V., 324) said of Pope Pius IX.: “The Captain who gloriously fills the place of the ancient Caesars.”

(3) Pope Pius IX., in his “Discorsi” (I., p. 253), said: “The Caesar who now addresses you, and to whom alone are obedience and fidelity due.”

(4) Cardinal Manning, in his “Temporal Power” (Preface, pp. 42-46), said: “From the abandonment of Rome (by Caesar) was. the liberation of the Pontiffs.” (2 Thess. ii. 7) “He was elevated to be, in his Divine Master’s Name, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” (2 Thess, ii. 4) “The abandonment of Rome …left them free to become independent sovereigns, and to take up the sovereignty the Emperor had just laid down.” (p. 50)

(5) Dr. Dollinger (“The Pope and the Council,” p. 165): “The Popes called their acts by the same name as the Caesarean laws—Rescripts and Decrees.” “The notions about the plenary powers of the Caesars prevalent in the latter days of the Roman Empire had their influence here.”

On p. 133 he says: “… the donation of Constantine was brought forward to show that the Pope was the rightful possessor as heir of the Roman Caesars in Italy.” On the Column of Trajan at Rome, the names of the Caesar who erected it, and of the Pope who restored it, are on the base, and both the Caesar and the Pope style themselves “Pontifex Maximus”!

(6) The monk, Damian, time of Hildebrand (Hallam’s “Middle Ages,’ ii., 275), makes Jesus Christ tell the Bishop of Rome that He has removed the regal power and conferred the entire Imperial Roman government upon the Pope.

(7) The Orator of the tenth Session of the fifth Lateran Council (Harduin, IX., 1789) declared that Constantine’s removal to Byzantium ceded to Bishop Sylvester the Roman seat of power.

(8) The Imperial title, “Augustus,” formerly belonging to the Caesars, and the almost equivalent title, “His Majesty,” were subsequently bestowed by the Pope upon Charlemagne and his successors, as token of his own supremacy, as Imperator of the Roman earth (see the Pope’s “optimum decretum” cited by Glaber Rodulphus, A.D. 900).

(9) Just as Caesar had the power of making or unmaking sovereigns, assigning kingdoms, or taking them away, so the Bishops of Rome claimed the right to degrade or depose sovereigns, and to deprive them of kingdoms (see Baronius, “Annals’; Foulis, “Roman Treasons,” p. 115; Waddington, ch. xvi., p. 283; Daubuz, p. 585).

(10)-Pius VII., when he fulminated an “Excommunication against Napoleon,” June 10th, 1809, claimed this very authority, saying, “Let them learn that they are subject to our Throne, and to our commands ” (Abbé de Pradt, “Quatre Concordats”).

(11) Of course these Popes claimed to possess this deposing power, in virtue of being successors of Peter and Vicars of Christ—not as successors of Caesar; but the claim was false, for no such power was bestowed on Peter, whereas this power was bestowed by the Roman Republic upon Caesar, as its mouthpiece and executive officer; and it was solely as successors of Caesar that the Popes became imbued with the idea of temporal power. The Church of Rome, in its Breviary (May 25th) has a “Saint’s Day” in honor of Pope Gregory VII., because he “deprived the Emperor Henry IV. of his kingdom, and released his subjects from their oaths of allegiance to him.” Innocent III., Honorius III., Gregory IX., Innocent IV., Paul III., Pius V., Gregory XIII., Urban VIII., all used this Caesarean power, enforcing it by the terrors of religious interdict, falsely claimed from Christ.

C.—ROMISH EXPOSITORS OF PROPHECY.

(1) Cardinal Newman, in his Treatise on Antichrist, said, in 1840: “Here is an association which professes to take His place without warrant. It comes forward instead of Christ, and for Him; it speaks for Him, it develops His words, it suspends His appointments, it grants dispensations in matters of positive duty; it professes to minister grace; it absolves from sin, and all this on its own authority. Is it not, forthwith, according to the very force of the word, Antichrist? He who speaks for Christ must either be His true ambassador, or Antichrist. There is no medium between a Vice-Christ and Antichrist.”

(2) Cardinal Manning, in his “Caesarism and Ultramontanism” (1874, p. 36), said: “It is Christ or Antichrist.”

(3) The organ of the “Guild of Our Lady of Ransom,” edited by Father Philip Fletcher, in the February, 1914, number (p. 229), said: “The Vicar of Christ or Antichrist. … If the Pope is not the Vicar of Christ, he must be Antichrist; there is no middle view.”

(4) The Hon. G. A. Spencer, alias “Father Ignatius,” in reply to Dr. Cumming, said: “If the Church of Rome be not the Church of Christ, it is the masterpiece of the Devil; it can be nothing between.”

(5) Hortensius said: “The Pope and Christ make but one consistory, so that, sin excepted, to which the Pope is subject, the Pope, in a manner, can do all that God can do” (Extr. de Translat. Proccl. c. Quant Ab.; see Bishop Lowell’s “Works,” VI., 92, Oxford, 1787).

(6) De Maistre, in his book, “Du Pape,” said: “Without the Sovereign Pontiff there is no Christianity. Without the Pope, the divine institution loses its force, its divine character, its converting power.” (Vol. I., pp. xxii., xxxviii., Vol. II., 153; Paris, 1821, 2nd edition).

(7) The Bishop of Bayonne, in 1896, in his “Pastoral,” said: “We will say to the Pope, in all submission, even as to the Spirit of God on the day of Pentecost, ‘O Father of those who are in need, whose Word enlightens and comforts, cleanse us from our faults, uphold our weakness, heal our diseases, make straight our ways, make us obedient to your commands, enfold us in your holy fervour.’” And on his return from Rome, he further said: —

“The Eucharist of the Holy Spirit, which renders Him always present, under the corporeal substance, is the infallible Pope—os orbis. It has been said most justly that the Pope is the Ego of the Church—the Pope the visible personification of the Spirit of God. . . The Pope, the incarnation of om Holy Ghost” (“Church Review,” June 25th, 1896, p. 418).

(9) In Italian legendary lore, Satan is always associated with Rome. In the Roman Campagna there is a well-known resort, with a ruin and a cave, of which I possess a sketch. It is called by the Romans, “Sedia del Diavolo,” or “Seat of the Devil.”

(10) Cardinal Newman, in his Essay on the “Development of Christian Doctrine,” says of the Church of Rome: “She is a Church . . . crafty, obstinate, willful, malicious, cruel, unnatural, ruled by a Spirit who is Sovereign in his management over her, and most subtle and most successful in the use of her gifts—that Evil One which governs her. … Satan ever acts on a system, various, manifold, and intricate, with parts and instruments of different qualities, some almost purely evil, others so unexceptionable that, in themselves, they are really Angels of Light.” (Advertisement, p. v.).

On p. 73 he says: “Rome is either the pillar and ground of the Truth or she is Antichrist.”

(11) Pope Pius X. in 1912 said to the “Apostolic Union” in Rome: “The Pope is the guardian of dogma and morals; he is the depository of those principles which render families honest, nations great, and souls holy; he is the counselor of princes and of people; he is the head, under whom no one can feel himself tyrannized over, because he represents God Himself. He is the Father (par excellence), because he unites within himself all that there is that is lovable, sacred, and Divine.”

(12) The Corpus Juris Canonici, or Canon Law of Rome, repeatedly asserts that the Roman Pontiff bears the authority of the true God on earth (Corp. Jur. Can. Joan., Gib., t. ii., pp. 6-9).

As the Pagan Caesars were styled “Our Lord and God” (Dominus et deus imperator), so the Pope for centuries accepted that title. Innocent III. and Leo X. did so, and the Jesuit Father” Sydney Smith, in his C.T.S. Tract, “Does the Pope claim to be God?”? admits that the “Bishop of the Apostolic See” was “occasionally styled terrenus Deus, an earthly God, or alter Deus in terris, another God on earth.” In the Gloss on the Extravaganza of Pope John XXII., A.D. 1316-34, the Canon Law styles him “our Lord God the Pope.” This was continued in all editions of the Canon Law up to A.D. 1612, when Protestant exposure caused subsequent editions to suppress the word “God.” But no Pope has ever refused that impious title. On the contrary.

(12a) In the Decretum of Gratian, the foundation of Canon Law, “Satis Evidenter ” (Decret, prima pars discussio, 96, cap. 7, Taurini, 1620), we read: “It is clearly enough shown that the Pope, who it is certain was styled a god by that pious Prince Constantine . . . can neither be bound nor loosed in any degree by the secular power; and that God cannot be judged by man is manifest.” This is ascribed to Pope Nicholas I.

More than 100 examples of extravagances similar to this are collected in the Gravamina adversus Syn, Trident, Restit, p. ii; caus… viii., ob Tyrannidem Papae, p. 201, Argent, 1585.

Pereira, a priest and doctor at Lisbon, wrote: “It is quite certain that the Popes have never reproved or rejected this title, for the passage in the Gloss referred to appears in the edition of the Canon Law published at Rome in 1580 by Gregory XIII., and the Index Expurgatorius of Pius V., which orders the erasure of other passages, yet leaves this one” (p. 180, English Translation by Mr. Landon, London, 1847. Tentativa Theologia, a Treatise on Episcopal rights, etc., by Father A. Pereira, Priest and Doctor of Lisbon).

When Pope Alexander VI. entered St. Peter’s as Pontifex Maximus, one of the triumphal arches had: “Rome was great under Caesar, but now she is greatest; the former was a man, the latter is a god.” (Curio Storia di Milano, Part VII., p. 888).

Pope Innocent III. (Const. Decr., lib. i. de tr. episc., fol. 615) said: “One who occupies the place . . . of the true God on earth.”

Mussus (Episc. Bit. Comment. c. xiv., fol. 608) said: “One whom we regard as God, and whom we ought to listen to as though we heard God speaking.”

Decius (Comment in jus. Pontific, Lec. II.) says: “The Pope can do all things God can do.”

(13) Pope Leo XIII., in his Apostolic Letter of June 20th, 1894, said of himself: “We hold the place of Almighty God on earth.” His successor, Pius X., said: “The Pope . . . is Jesus Christ Himself, hidden under the veil of flesh,” “all must be subject to him.”

(14) Monseigneur Bougaud, Bishop of Laval, in 1890 applied that very phrase to Leo. XIII., in his “Le Christianisme et les Temps Présents” (4th edit., Paris), and a great deal more to the same effect.

Vol. IV., p. 310, “The Pope is the second method of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Church.” “The Pope and God are the same, so he has all power in heaven and earth’’ (Barclay, Cap. XXVII., p. 218, citing Petrus Bertrandus. Pius V., Cardinal Cusa supported this statement).

(15) Dr. Sheehan, Bishop of Waterford, in 1909 said of the Pope: “Before them stood a man who possessed almost incredible power, . . . He simply wielded a mighty power that reached from end to end of the earth, and regulated the words and deeds of millions and tens of millions of people. That power was the invisible power of the Almighty God. On that Papal Throne sat one who exercised the authority of the Great God Himself, and who really and truly was the representative of God.”

(16) The Catechism of the Council of Trent, speaking on the “Sacrament of Orders,” defines Roman bishops and priests as “a kind of mediatory” and “interpreters of God” “who in His name. . . sustain the part of God Himself on earth,” and are therefore “deservedly called gods“; and as the Council of Trent (Session XXV.) decreed that princes, bishops, priests, and people, magistrates and fficials must “yield reverence to the . . . Supreme Pontiff,” and that “Canons, General Councils and apostolic i.e., Papal enactments . . . must be exactly observed, by all,” and as the “Supreme Pontiff” is the “Papa” or Universal Father of all, he obviously is “above all that is called God” on earth, according to Romish teaching. And as the Catechism of the Council of Trent also describes bishops and priests as holding an office “most glorious, than which naught greater can be imagined,” what is to be thought of the “Supreme Pontiff” but that he is God?

(17) The Jesuit organ, “The Month” (Vol. XVIII. for 1879, p. 320) said: “It is false to say that the Pope can in no instance depose a sovereign; we cannot say that they do not possess the power.”

(18) Pope Pius IX. (“Discorsi del Sommo Pontefice, Pio IX., pronunziati in Vaticano, ai Fedeli di Roma e dell’ orba. . .” Vols. I. and II., 1872-3), who himself revised his “Speeches,” is, by the Editor, the Rev. Don Pasquale de Franciscis, described as “the portentous Father of the Nations,” “the living Christ,” “The Voice of God,” nay, “God, that condemns,” “the Lamb of the Vatican.”

(19) In these Speeches the Pope alludes to himself thus: ‘Keep, my Jesus, this flock, that God has given to You and to me.” “I am the Vicar of Jesus Christ, and I have the right to employ the very words of Jesus Christ. My Father, those whom Thou hast given me I will not lose” “I am the personal Representative of God on earth.” His foot is “most sacred.” He is “infallible”; “superior to prophets,” and “his words are to be accepted as words proceeding from Jesus Christ.” To him alone is committed, “by Divine Right, the Pastorate of the entire Church.” He is the “Supreme Judge of Christendom.” He denounces as “filthy concubinage” Marriages civilly contracted, and so releases men and women from reciprocal vows and obligations. He possesses authority to “depose princes” and to annul laws made by civil governments. (See also Allocutions of 1855, 1856, 1862, 1863.)

(20) Bishop Clifford (“Pastoral Letter,” p. 12), Cardinal Newman and the “Tablet” (November 21st, 1874) speak of the Pope’s deposing power as a “right,” and in the authorized Edition of Pius IX.’s “Speeches” it is described as “exercised in virtue of Papal authority.” Cardinal Manning (“Vatican Decrees,” PP. 49-51, and “Essays”) says the Pope “has a supreme judicial office, in respect of the moral law, over all nations, and over all persons, both governors and governed,” by the “authority of God.”

(21) This claim is openly made in the Brief of Pope Innocent III., entitled “Novit,” in the “Decretum” of Pope Gregory IX. (“Corpus Juris Canonici,” II., 1, 13, Leipzic Edition, 1839); and in the “Syllabus” of Pope Pius IX. in 1864, and in his Address of July 21st, 1873.

(22) Cardinal Manning (“The Present Crisis of the Holy See,” London, 1861, Pp. 73) said: “The Catholic Church . . . cannot cease to preach the doctrine of the sovereignty, both spiritual and temporal, of the Holy See”’ (where mark the word “See,” and compare it with Daniel vii. 8). In his “Caesarism and Ultramontanism” (1874, pp. 35, 36), he said: “This is the doctrine of the Bull Unam Sanctam, and of the Syllabus, and of the Vatican Council. Any power which is independent, and can alone fix the limits of its own jurisdiction, and can thereby fix the limits of all other jurisdictions, is (ipso facto) supreme. But the Church of Jesus Christ (i.e., the Papal Church) . . . is all this, or is nothing, or worse than nothing, an imposture and a usurpation—that is, it is Christ or Antichrist.”

On the 3rd October, 1869, Cardinal Manning preached a sermon on the Papacy in which he put these words into the mouth of the Pope: “I claim to be the Supreme Judge and director of the consciences of men. I am the Sole Last Supreme Judge of what is right and wrong.”

(23) The “Constitutio Dogmatica Prima de Ecclesii Christi,” issued by the Vatican Council of 1870, after declaring the “Roman Pontiff” to be “Pastor and Teacher of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority,” asserts him to be “Infallible” when defining doctrines of “faith or morals,” and orders all—under pain of damnation —to obey him in matters of “discipline”; because than the authority of the “Apostolic See” none is greater, as the Pope is “the Supreme Judge of the Faithful.”

(24) Pope Pius IX., in his Speeches, described the triple- crowned tiara of the Pope as a symbol of his Tri-regno, touching Heaven, Earth and (heathen) Purgatory (Discorsi, i, 133).

(25) Pope Pius X., on November 19th, 1912, said to the “Apostolic Union of Priests” (“Western Watchman,” December 12th, 1912): “And how ought the Pope to be loved? Not by words, but in deed and truth. He who loves me will keep my word. No limit is set to the field in which the Pope can, and must, exercise his authority, and the authority of the Pope is not placed after that of other per- sons, . . . because he who is holy cannot dissent from the Pope. But you, dear brothers, make solemn profession of your obedience, of your devotion to the Pope.”

On the 30th April, 1922, in the Vatican Throne Room, a throng of Cardinals, Bishops, Priests, and Nuns, boys and girls, who all fell on their knees, were addressed from the Throne by Pope Pius XI., who, in a haughty tone, said: “You know that I am the Holy Father, the representative of God on the earth, the Vicar of Christ, which means that I am God on the earth.” (“The Bulwark,” October, 1922, p- 104).

(26) In a tract entitled “De la Dévotion au Pape,” dedicated to Pius X., published by Paul Salmon, Tours, 1904, the author, Arsene Pierre Milet, described by Cardinal Merry del Val as “a devout priest,” says: “Since the Pope represents God on earth, we ought to love him as God Himself.”

(27) In the “Life of Mother Margaret Mary Hallahan,” with preface by Bishop Ullathorne, p. 430, 1912, we read of the Pope—”it was the God of Earth prostrate in adoration before the God of Heaven”—i.e., the Wafer.

(28) Bishop Ullathorne (Letters from Rome) says: “The multitudes kneel when the Pontiff lifts up the God of Heaven and earth in his mortal hands.”

(29) Coadjutor Bishop Luton, on Friday, January 27th, 1922, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Auckland, N.Z., preaching about Benedict XIV., said: “The Papacy is old and trained in the knowledge of the world. The statesmen and policies of even the oldest and most experienced cabinets of the world are but as yesterday when compared with those of the ever-renewed line of White Shepherds of Rome’s Seven Hills” (The N.Z. Sentinel, February 1st, 1922, p. 4).

(30) Tyrrell S.J., in his “ Mediaevalism,” 3rd Edition, p. 70, said: “When we fall at the Pope’s feet to offer him homage of our mind, and to accept his teaching, it is again, in a certain way, Jesus Christ whom we adore in His doctrinal presence.”

(31) Thomas Aquinas (XXXIV. Ed., Paris, xx., 549-580) says: “There is no difference between the Pope and Jesus Christ.”

(32) Dr. Sheehan, Bishop of Waterford (Waterford News, November 20th, 1908) said in a sermon: “It would be hard, no doubt, for those who had not experienced it, to understand the intense feeling of a body of Catholics standing for the first time in the presence of the figure of Jesus Christ” (i.e., the Pope).

(33) Pope Leo XIII, in his Encyclical De Unitate, applied John x. 27 to himself, and added, “What Jesus Christ had said of Himself we may truly repeat of ourselves.”

(34) Ferraris, “Prompta Bibliotheca,’ Art Papa: “The Pope is as it were God on Earth . . . so that if it were possible that the Angels might err in the faith, or might think contrary to the faith, they could be judged and excommunicated by the Pope.”’

(35) Lord Acton (Quirinus—Letters_ on the Council, p. 285) reports Speech of Pius IX.: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

Continued in Chapter VII. Antichrist Revealed by Chain of Evidences

All chapters of The Antichrist: His Portrait and History

This is the continuation Chapter II. Objects of Worship

Section I.—Christmas and Lady-Day.

IF Rome be indeed the Babylon of the Apocalypse, and the Madonna enshrined in her sanctuaries be the very queen of heaven, for the worshiping of whom the fierce anger of God was provoked against the Jews in the days of Jeremiah, it is of the last consequence that the fact should be established beyond all possibility of doubt; for that being once established, every one who trembles at the Word of God must shudder at the very thought of giving such a system, either individually or nationally, the least countenance or support. Something has been said already that goes far to prove the identity of the Roman and Babylonian systems; but at every step the evidence becomes still more overwhelming. That which arises from comparing the different festivals is peculiarly so.

The festivals of Rome are innumerable; but five of the most important may be singled out for elucidation, viz., Christmas-day, Lady-day, Easter, the Nativity of St. John, and the Feast of the Assumption. Each and all of these can be proved to be Babylonian.

And first, as to the festival in honor of the birth of Christ, or Christmas. How comes it that that festival was connected with the 25th of December? There is not a word in the Scriptures about the precise day of his birth, or the time of the year when he was born. What is recorded there, implies that at what time soever His birth took place, it could not have been on the 25th of December. At the time that the angel announced his birth to the shepherds of Bethlehem, they were feeding their flocks by night in the open fields. Now, no doubt, the climate of Palestine is not so severe as the climate of this country; but even there, though the heat of the day is considerable, the cold of the night, from December to February, is very piercing, and it was not the custom for the shepherds of Judea to watch their flocks in the open fields later than about the end of October. It is in the last degree incredible, then, that the birth of Christ could have. taken place at the end of December. There is great unanimity among commentators on this point. Besides Barnes, Doddridge, Lightfoot, Joseph Scaliger, and Jennings, in his ‘Jewish Antiquities,’ who are all of opinion that December 25th could not be the right time of our‘Lord’s nativity.

The celebrated Joseph Mede pronounces a very decisive opinion to the same effect. After a long and careful disquisition on the subject, among other arguments he adduces the following:— “At the birth of Christ every woman and child was to go to be taxed at the city whereto they belonged, whither some had long journeys; but the middle of winter was not fitting for such a business, especially for women with child, and children, to travel in. Therefore, Christ could not be born in the depth of winter. Again, at the time of Christ’s birth, the shepherds lay abroad watching with their flocks in the night time; but this was not likely to be in the middle of winter. And if any shall think the winter wind was not so extreme in these parts, let him remember the words of Christ in the gospel, ‘Pray that your flight be not in the winter.’ If the winter was so bad a time to flee in, it seems no fit time for shepherds to lie in the fields in, and women and children to travel in.”

Indeed, it is admitted by the most learned and candid writers of all parties that the day of our Lord’s birth cannot be determined, and that within the Christian Church no such festival as Christmas was ever heard of till the third century; and that not till the fourth century was far advanced did it gain much observance. How, then, did the Romish Church fix on December the 25th as Christmas-day? Why, thus: Long before the fourth century, and long before the Christian era itself, a festival was celebrated among the heathen, at that precise time of the year, in honor of the birth of the son of the Babylonian queen of heaven; and it may fairly be presumed that, in order to conciliate the heathen, and to swell the number of the nominal adherents of Christianity, the same festival was adopted by the Roman Church, giving it only the name of Christ.

This tendency on the part of Christians to meet Paganism half-way was very early developed; and we find Tertullian, even in his day, about the year 230, bitterly lamenting the inconsistency of the disciples of Christ in this respect, and contrasting it with the strict fidelity of the Pagans to their own superstition. “By us,” says he, “who are strangers to Sabbaths, and new moons, and festivals, once acceptable to God, the Saturnalia, the feasts of January, the Brumalia, and Matronalia, are now frequented; gifts are carried to and fro, new year’s day presents are made with din, and sports and banquets are celebrated with uproar; oh, how much more faithful are the heathen to their religion, who take special care to adopt no solemnity from the Christians.”

Upright men strove to stem the tide, but in spite of all their efforts, the apostasy went on, till the Church, with the exception of a small remnant, was submerged under Pagan superstition. That Christmas was originally a Pagan festival, is beyond all doubt. The time of the year, and the ceremonies with which it is still celebrated, prove its origin.

In Egypt, the son of Isis, the Egyptian title for the queen of heaven, was born at this very time “about the time of the winter solstice.” The very name by which Christmas is popularly known among ourselves—Yule-day —proves at once its Pagan and Babylonian origin. “Yule” is the Chaldee name for an “infant” or “little child;” and as the 25th of December was called by our Pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors, “Yule” day, or the “Child’s day,” and the night that preceded it, “Mother-night,” long before they came in contact with Christianity, that sufficiently proves its real character. Far and wide, in the realms of Paganism, was this birth-day observed. This festival has been commonly believed to have had only an astronomical character, referring simply to the completion of the sun’s yearly course, and the commencement of a new cycles. But there is indubitable evidence that the festival in question had a much higher reference than this—that it commemorated not merely the figurative birth-day of the sun in the renewal of its course, but the birth-day of the grand Deliverer.

Among the Sabeans of Arabia, who regarded the moon, and not the sun, as the visible symbol of the favorite object of their idolatry, the same period was observed as the birth festival. Thus we read in Stanley’s ‘Sabean Philosophy’ “On the 24th day of the tenth month,” that is December, according to our reckoning, “the Arabians celebrated the BIRTH-DAY OF THE LORD— that is, the Moon.” The Lord Moon was the great object of Arabian worship, and that Lord Moon, according to them, was born on the 24th of December, which clearly shows that the birth which they celebrated had no necessary connection with the course of the sun.

It is worthy of special note, too, that if Christmas-day among the ancient Saxons of this island, was observed to celebrate the birth of any Lord of the host of heaven, the case must have been precisely the same here as it was in Arabia. The Saxons, as is well known, regarded the Sun as a female divinity, and the Moon as a male. It must have been the birth-day of the Lord Moon, therefore, and not of the Sun, that was celebrated by them on the 25th of December, even as the birth-day of the same Lord Moon was observed by the Arabians on the 24th of December.

The name of the Lord Moon in the East seems to have been Meni, for this appears the most natural interpretation of the divine statement in Isaiah lxv. 11, “But ye are they that forsake my holy mountain, that prepare a table for Gad, and that furnish the drink-offering unto Meni.”+ There is reason to believe that Gad refers to the sun-god, and that Meni in like manner designates the moon-divinity.

+In the authorized version Gad is rendered “that troop,” and Meni, “that number;” but the most learned admit that this is incorrect, and that the words are proper names.

Meni, or Manai, signifies “The numberer;” and it is by the changes of the moon that the months are numbered:” Psalm civ. 19, “He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth the time of its going down.” The name of the “Man of the Moon,” or the god who presided over that luminary among the Saxons, was Mané, is given in the ‘Edda,’ and Mani, in the ‘Voluspa.’ That it was the birth of the “Lord Moon” that was celebrated among our ancestors at Christmas, we have remarkable evidence in the name that is still given in the lowlands of Scotland to the feast on the last day of the year, which seems to be a remnant of the old birth-festival, for the cakes then made are called Nur-cakes, or
Birth-cakes. That name is Hogmanay.

Now, “Hog-Manai” in Chaldee signifies “The feast of the Numberer;” in other words, The festival of Deus Lunus, or of the Man of the Moon. To show the connection between country and country, and the inveterate endurance of old customs, it is worthy of remark, that Jerome, commenting on the very words of Isaiah already quoted, about spreading “a table for Gad,” and “pouring out a drink-offering to Meni,” observes that it “was the custom so late as his time [in the fourth century], in all cities, especially in Egypt and at Alexandria, to set tables, and furnish them with various luxurious articles of food, and with goblets containing a mixture of new wine, on the last day of the month and the year, and that the people drew omens from them in respect to the fruitfulness of the year.”

The Egyptian year began at a different time from ours; but this is as near as possible (only substituting whiskey for wine), the way in which Hogmanay is still observed on the last day of the last month of our year in Scotland. I do not know that any omens are drawn from anything that takes place at that time, but everybody in the south of Scotland is personally cognizant of the fact, that, on Hogmanay, or the evening before New Year’s Day, among those who observe old customs, a table is spread, and that while buns and other dainties are provided by those who can afford them, oat cakes and cheese are brought forth among those who never see oat cakes but on this occasion, and that strong drink forms an essential article of the provision.

Even where the sun was the favorite object of worship, as in Babylon itself and elsewhere, at this festival he was worshiped not merely as the orb of day, but as God incarnate. It was an essential principle of the Babylonian system, that the Sun or Baal was the one only God. When,therefore, Tammuz was worshiped as God incarnate, that implied also that he was an incarnation of the Sun.

In the Hindu mythology, which is admitted to be essentially Babylonian, this comes out very distinctly. There, Surya, or the Sun, is represented as being incarnate, and born for the purpose of subduing the enemies of the gods, who, without such a birth, could not have been subdued.

It was no mere astronomic festival, then, that the Pagans celebrated at the winter solstice. That festival at Rome was called the feast of Saturn, and the mode in which it was celebrated there, showed whence it had been derived. The feast, as regulated by Caligula, lasted five days; loose reins were given to drunkenness and revelry, slaves had a temporary emancipation} and used all manner of freedoms with their masters. This was precisely the way in which, according to Berosus, the Drunken festival of the month Thebeth, answering to our December, in other words, the festival of Bacchus, was celebrated in Babylon. “It was the custom,” says he, “during the five days it lasted, for masters to be in subjection to their servants, and one of them ruled the house, clothed in a purple garment like a king”: This “purple robed” servant was called “Zoganes,” the “Man of sport and wantonness,” and answered exactly to the “Lord of Misrule,” that, in the dark ages, was chosen in all Popish countries to head the revels of Christmas.

The wassailling bowl (a hot drink made with wine, beer, or cider) of Christmas had its precise counterpart in the “Drunken festival” of Babylon; and many of the other observances still kept up among ourselves at Christmas, came from the very same quarter. The candles, in some parts of England, lighted on Christmas-eve, and used so long as the festive season lasts, were equally lighted by the Pagans on the eve of the festival of the Babylonian God, to do honor to him: for it was one of the distinguishing peculiarities of his worship to have lighted wax-candles on his altars.

The Christmas tree, now so common among us, was equally common in Pagan Rome and Pagan Egypt. In Egypt that tree was the palm-tree; in Rome it was the fir; the palm-tree denoting the Pagan Messiah, as Baal-Tamar, the fir referring to him as Baal-Berith. The mother of Adonis, the Sun-God and great mediatorial divinity, was mystically said to have been changed into a tree, and when in that state, to have brought forth her divine son. If the mother was a tree, the son must have been recognized as the “Man the branch.” And this entirely accounts for the putting of the Yule Log into the fire on Christmas Eve, and the appearance of the Christmas tree the next morning. As Zeroashta, “The seed of the woman,” which name also signified Ignigena, or “ born of the fire,” he has to enter the fire on “Mother-night,” that he may be born the next day out of it, as the “Branch of God,” or the Tree that brings all divine gifts to men. But Why, it may be asked, does he enter the fire under the symbol of a Log? To understand this, it must be remembered that the divine child born at the winter solstice was born as a new incarnation of the great god, (after that god had been cut in pieces), on purpose to revenge his death upon his murderers. Now the great god, off in the midst of his power and glory, was symbolized as a huge tree, stripped of all its branches, and cut down almost to the ground. But the great serpent, the symbol of the life-restoring AEsculapius, twists itself around the dead stock, (see fig. 27): and lo, at its side up sprouts a young tree—a tree of an entirely different kind, that is destined never to be cut down by hostile power,— even the palm-tree, the well-known symbol of victory.

The Christmas tree, as has been stated, was generally at Rome a different tree, even the fir; but the very same idea as was implied in the palm-tree, was implied in the Christmas fir; for that covertly symbolized the new-born god as Baal- -berith, “Lord of the Covenant,” and thus shadowed forth the perpetuity and everlasting nature of his power, now that, after having fallen before his enemies, he had risen triumphant over them all. Therefore, the 25th of December, the day that was observed at Rome as the day when the victorious god reappeared on earth, was held as the Natalis invicti solis, “The birth-day of the unconquered Sun.”

Now, the Yule Log is the dead stock of Nimrod, deified as the sun-god, but cut down by his enemies; the Christmas tree is Nimrod redivivus—the slain god come to life again. In the light reflected by the above statement on customs that still linger amongst us, the origin of which has been lost in the midst of hoar antiquity, let the reader look at the singular practice still kept up in the South on Christmas-eve, of kissing under the mistletoe bough. That mistletoe bough in the Druidic superstition, which, as we have seen, was derived from Babylon, was a representation of the Messiah, “The man the branch.” The mistletoe was regarded as a divine branch—a branch that came from heaven, and grew upon a tree that sprung out of the earth. Thus by the engrafting of the celestial branch into the earthly tree, heaven and earth, that sin had severed, were joined together, and thus the mistletoe bough became the token of divine reconciliation to man, the kiss being the well-known token of pardon and reconciliation.

Whence could such an idea have come? May it not have come from the eighty-fifth Psalm, ver. 10, 11, “ Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have KISSED each other. Truth shall spring out of the earth [in consequence of the coming of the promised Savior], and righteousness shall look down from heaven”? Certain it is that that Psalm was written soon after the Babylonish captivity; and as multitudes of the Jews, after that event, still remained in Babylon under the guidance of inspired men, such as Daniel, as a part of the divine word it must have been communicated to them, as well as to their kinsmen in Palestine. Babylon was, at that time, the center of the civilized world; and thus Paganism, corrupting the divine symbol as it ever has done, had opportunities of sending forth its debased counterfeit of the truth to all the ends of the earth, through the mysteries that were affiliated with the great central system in Babylon. Thus the very customs of Christmas still existent cast surprising light at once on the revelations of grace made to all the earth, and the efforts made by Satan and his emissaries to materialize, carnalize, and degrade them.

In many countries the boar was sacrificed to the god, for the injury a boar was fabled to have done him. According to one version of the story of the death of Adonis, or Tammuz, it was, as we have seen, in consequence of a wound from the tusk of a boar that he died. The Phrygian Attes, the beloved of Cybele, whose story was identified with that of Adonis, was fabled to have perished in like manner, by the tusk of a boar. Therefore, Diana, who, though commonly represented in popular myths only as the huntress Diana, was in reality the great Mother of the gods, has frequently the boar’s head as her accompaniment, in token not of any mere success in the chase, but of her triumph over the grand enemy of the idolatrous system, in which she occupied so conspicuous a place. According to Theocritus, Venus was reconciled to the boar that killed Adonis, because, when brought in chains before her, it pleaded so pathetically that it had not killed her husband of malice prepense (premeditated), but only through accident. But yet, in memory of the deed that the mystic boar had done, many a boar lost its head or was offered in sacrifice to the offended goddess. In Smith, Diana is represented with a boar’s head lying beside her, on the top of a heap of stones: and in the accompanying woodcut, (fig. 28),in which the Roman emperor Trajan is represented burning incense to the same goddess, the boar’s head forms a very prominent figure.

On Christmas-day the Continental Saxons offered a boar in sacrifice to the Sun to propitiate her for the loss of her beloved Adonis. In Rome a similar observance had evidently existed; for a boar formed the great article at the feast of Saturn, as appears from the following words of Martial:—

Hence the boar’s head is still a standing dish in England at the Christmas dinner, when the reason of it is long since forgotten. Yea, the “Christmas goose,” and “Yule cakes,” were essential articles in the worship of the Babylonian Messiah, as that worship was practiced both in Egypt and at Rome (fig. 29). Wilkinson, in reference to Egypt, shows that “the favorite offering” of Osiris was “a goose,” and moreover, that the “goose could not be eaten except in the depth of winter.” As to Rome, Juvenal says, “that Osiris, if offended, could be pacified only by a large goose and a thin cake.”

In many countries, we have evidence of a sacred character attached to the goose. It is well known that the capitol of Rome was on one occasion saved when on the point of being surprised by the Gauls, in the dead of night, by the cackling of the geese sacred to Juno, kept in the temple of Jupiter.”

The accompanying woodcut (fig. 30) proves that the goose in Asia Minor was the symbol of Cupid, just as it was the symbol of Seb in Egypt. In India, the goose occupied a similar position; for in that land we read of the sacred “Brahmany goose,” or goose sacred to Brahma. Finally, the monuments of Babylon show that the goose possessed a like mystic character in Chaldea, and that it was offered in sacrifice there, as well as in Rome or Egypt, for there the priest is seen with the goose in the one hand, and his sacrificing knife in the other. There can be no doubt, then, that the Pagan festival at the winter solstice, in other words, Christmas, was held in honor of the birth of the Babylonian Messiah.

The consideration of the next great festival in the Popish calendar gives the very strongest confirmation to what has now been said. That festival, called Lady-day, is celebrated at Rome on the 25th of March, in alleged commemoration of the miraculous conception of our Lord in the womb of the Virgin, on the day when the angel was sent to announce to her the distinguished honor that was to be bestowed upon her, as the mother of the Messiah. But who could tell when this annunciation was made? The Scripture gives no clue at all in regard to the time. But it mattered not. Before our Lord was either conceived or born, that very day now set down in the Popish calendar for the “Annunciation of the Virgin,” was observed in Pagan Rome in honor of Cybele, the Mother of the Babylonian Messiah.

Now, it is manifest that Lady-day and Christmas-day stand in intimate relation to one another. Between the 25th of March and the 25th of December there are exactly nine months. If, then, the false Messiah was conceived in March and born in December, can any one for a moment believe that the conception and birth of the true Messiah can have so exactly synchronized, not only to the month, but to the day? The thing is incredible. Lady-day and Christmas-day, then, are purely Babylonian.

Section II — Easter

Then look at Easter. What means the term Easter itself? It is not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name, as pronounced by the people Nineveh, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country. That name, as found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar. The worship of Bel and Astarte was very early introduced into Britain, along with the Druids, “the priests of the groves.” Some have imagined that the Druidical worship was first introduced by the Phoenicians, who, centuries before the Christian era, traded to the tin-mines of Cornwall. But the unequivocal traces of that worship are found in regions of the British islands where the Phoenicians never penetrated, and it has everywhere left indelible marks of the strong hold which it must have had on the early British mind.

From Bel, the 1st of May is still called Beltane in the Almanac; and we have customs still lingering at this day among us, which prove how exactly the worship of Bel or Moloch (for both titles belonged to the same god) had been observed even in the northern parts of this island. “The late Lady Baird, of Fern Tower, in Perthshire,” says a writer in “Notes and Queries,” thoroughly versed in British antiquities, “told me, that every year, at Beltane (or the 1st of May), a number of men and women assemble at an ancient Druidical circle of stones on her property near Crieff. They light a fire in the centre, each person puts a bit of oat-cake in a shepherd’s bonnet; they all sit down, and draw blindfold a piece from the bonnet. One piece has been previously blackened, and whoever gets that piece has to jump through the fire in the centre of the circle, and pay a forfeit. This is, in fact, a part of the ancient worship of Baal, and the person on whom the lot fell was previously burnt as a sacrifice. Now, the passing through the fire represents that, and the payment of the forfeit redeems the victim.” If Baal was thus worshipped in Britain, it will not be difficult to believe that his consort Astarte was also adored by our ancestors, and that from Astarte, whose name in Nineveh was Ishtar, the religious solemnities of April, as now practised, are called by the name of Easter–that month, among our Pagan ancestors, having been called Easter-monath. The festival, of which we read in Church history, under the name of Easter, in the third or fourth centuries, was quite a different festival from that now observed in the Romish Church, and at that time was not known by any such name as Easter. It was called Pasch, or the Passover, and though not of Apostolic institution, * was very early observed by many professing Christians, in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Christ.

* Socrates, the ancient ecclesiastical historian, after a lengthened account of the different ways in which Easter was observed in different countries in his time–i.e., the fifth century–sums up in these words: “Thus much already laid down may seem a sufficient treatise to prove that the celebration of the feast of Easter began everywhere more of custom than by any commandment either of Christ or any Apostle.” (Hist. Ecclesiast.) Every one knows that the name “Easter,” used in our translation of Acts 12:4, refers not to any Christian festival, but to the Jewish Passover. This is one of the few places in our version where the translators show an undue bias.

That festival agreed originally with the time of the Jewish Passover, when Christ was crucified, a period which, in the days of Tertullian, at the end of the second century, was believed to have been the 23rd of March. That festival was not idolatrous, and it was preceded by no Lent. “It ought to be known,” said Cassianus, the monk of Marseilles, writing in the fifth century, and contrasting the primitive Church with the Church in his day, “that the observance of the forty days had no existence, so long as the perfection of that primitive Church remained inviolate.” Whence, then, came this observance? The forty days’ abstinence of Lent was directly borrowed from the worshippers of the Babylonian goddess. Such a Lent of forty days, “in the spring of the year,” is still observed by the Yezidis or Pagan Devil-worshippers of Koordistan, who have inherited it from their early masters, the Babylonians. Such a Lent of forty days was held in spring by the Pagan Mexicans, for thus we read in Humboldt, where he gives account of Mexican observances: “Three days after the vernal equinox…began a solemn fast of forty days in honour of the sun.” Such a Lent of forty days was observed in Egypt, as may be seen on consulting Wilkinson’s Egyptians. This Egyptian Lent of forty days, we are informed by Landseer, in his Sabean Researches, was held expressly in commemoration of Adonis or Osiris, the great mediatorial god. At the same time, the rape of Proserpine seems to have been commemorated, and in a similar manner; for Julius Firmicus informs us that, for “forty nights” the “wailing for Proserpine” continued; and from Arnobius we learn that the fast which the Pagans observed, called “Castus” or the “sacred” fast, was, by the Christians in his time, believed to have been primarily in imitation of the long fast of Ceres, when for many days she determinedly refused to eat on account of her “excess of sorrow,” that is, on account of the loss of her daughter Proserpine, when carried away by Pluto, the god of hell. As the stories of Bacchus, or Adonis and Proserpine, though originally distinct, were made to join on and fit in to one another, so that Bacchus was called Liber, and his wife Ariadne, Libera (which was one of the names of Proserpine), it is highly probable that the forty days’ fast of Lent was made in later times to have reference to both. Among the Pagans this Lent seems to have been an indispensable preliminary to the great annual festival in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz, which was celebrated by alternate weeping and rejoicing, and which, in many countries, was considerably later than the Christian festival, being observed in Palestine and Assyria in June, therefore called the “month of Tammuz”; in Egypt, about the middle of May, and in Britain, some time in April.

To conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated, and, by a complicated but skilful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity–now far sunk in idolatry–in this as in so many other things, to shake hands. The instrument in accomplishing this amalgamation was the abbot Dionysius the Little, to whom also we owe it, as modern chronologers have demonstrated, that the date of the Christian era, or of the birth of Christ Himself, was moved FOUR YEARS from the true time. Whether this was done through ignorance or design may be matter of question; but there seems to be no doubt of the fact, that the birth of the Lord Jesus was made full four years later than the truth. This change of the calendar in regard to Easter was attended with momentous consequences. It brought into the Church the grossest corruption and the rankest superstition in connection with the abstinence of Lent. Let any one only read the atrocities that were commemorated during the “sacred fast” or Pagan Lent, as described by Arnobius and Clemens Alexandrinus, and surely he must blush for the Christianity of those who, with the full knowledge of all these abominations, “went down to Egypt for help” to stir up the languid devotion of the degenerate Church, and who could find no more excellent way to “revive” it, than by borrowing from so polluted a source; the absurdities and abominations connected with which the early Christian writers had held up to scorn. That Christians should ever think of introducing the Pagan abstinence of Lent was a sign of evil; it showed how low they had sunk, and it was also a cause of evil; it inevitably led to deeper degradation. Originally, even in Rome, Lent, with the preceding revelries of the Carnival, was entirely unknown; and even when fasting before the Christian Pasch was held to be necessary, it was by slow steps that, in this respect, it came to conform with the ritual of Paganism. What may have been the period of fasting in the Roman Church before sitting of the Nicene Council does not very clearly appear, but for a considerable period after that Council, we have distinct evidence that it did not exceed three weeks. *

* GIESELER, speaking of the Eastern Church in the second century, in regard to Paschal observances, says: “In it [the Paschal festival in commemoration of the death of Christ] they [the Eastern Christians] eat unleavened bread, probably like the Jews, eight days throughout…There is no trace of a yearly festival of a resurrection among them, for this was kept every Sunday” (Catholic Church). In regard to the Western Church, at a somewhat later period–the age of Constantine–fifteen days seems to have been observed to religious exercises in connection with the Christian Paschal feast, as appears from the following extracts from Bingham, kindly furnished to me by a friend, although the period of fasting is not stated. Bingham (Origin) says: “The solemnities of Pasch [are] the week before and the week after Easter Sunday–one week of the Cross, the other of the resurrection. The ancients speak of the Passion and Resurrection Pasch as a fifteen days’ solemnity. Fifteen days was enforced by law by the Empire, and commanded to the universal Church…Scaliger mentions a law of Constantine, ordering two weeks for Easter, and a vacation of all legal processes.”

The words of Socrates, writing on this very subject, about AD 450, are these: “Those who inhabit the princely city of Rome fast together before Easter three weeks, excepting the Saturday and Lord’s-day.” But at last, when the worship of Astarte was rising into the ascendant, steps were taken to get the whole Chaldean Lent of six weeks, or forty days, made imperative on all within the Roman empire of the West. The way was prepared for this by a Council held at Aurelia in the time of Hormisdas, Bishop of Rome, about the year 519, which decreed that Lent should be solemnly kept before Easter. It was with the view, no doubt, of carrying out this decree that the calendar was, a few days after, readjusted by Dionysius. This decree could not be carried out all at once. About the end of the sixth century, the first decisive attempt was made to enforce the observance of the new calendar. It was in Britain that the first attempt was made in this way; and here the attempt met with vigorous resistance. The difference, in point of time, betwixt the Christian Pasch, as observed in Britain by the native Christians, and the Pagan Easter enforced by Rome, at the time of its enforcement, was a whole month; * and it was only by violence and bloodshed, at last, that the Festival of the Anglo-Saxon or Chaldean goddess came to supersede that which had been held in honour of Christ.

* CUMMIANUS, quoted by Archbishop USSHER, Sylloge Those who have been brought up in the observance of Christmas and Easter, and who yet abhor from their hearts all Papal and Pagan idolatry alike, may perhaps feel as if there were something “untoward” in the revelations given above in regard to the origin of these festivals. But a moment’s reflection will suffice entirely to banish such a feeling. They will see, that if the account I have given be true, it is of no use to ignore it. A few of the facts stated in these pages are already known to Infidel and Socinian writers of no mean mark, both in this country and on the Continent, and these are using them in such a way as to undermine the faith of the young and uninformed in regard to the very vitals of the Christian faith. Surely, then, it must be of the last consequence, that the truth should be set forth in its own native light, even though it may somewhat run counter to preconceived opinions, especially when that truth, justly considered, tends so much at once to strengthen the rising youth against the seductions of Popery, and to confirm them in the faith once delivered to the Saints.

If a heathen could say, “Socrates I love, and Plato I love, but I love truth more,” surely a truly Christian mind will not display less magnanimity. Is there not much, even in the aspect of the times, that ought to prompt the earnest inquiry, if the occasion has not arisen, when efforts, and strenuous efforts, should be made to purge out of the National Establishment in the south those observances, and everything else that has flowed in upon it from Babylon’s golden cup? There are men of noble minds in the Church of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, who have felt the power of His blood, and known the comfort of His Spirit. Let them, in their closets, and on their knees, ask the question, at their God and at their own consciences, if they ought not to bestir themselves in right earnest, and labour with all their might till such a consummation be effected. Then, indeed, would England’s Church be the grand bulwark of the Reformation–then would her sons speak with her enemies in the gate–then would she appear in the face of all Christendom, “clear as the sun, fair as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners.” If, however, nothing effectual shall be done to stay the plague that is spreading in her, the result must be disastrous, not only to herself, but to the whole empire.

Such is the history of Easter. The popular observances that still attend the period of its celebration amply confirm the testimony of history as to its Babylonian character. The hot cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of Pasch or Easter Sunday, figured in the Chaldean rites just as they do now. The “buns,” known too by that identical name, were used in the worship of the queen of heaven, the goddess Easter, as early as the days of Cecrops, the founder of Athens–that is, 1500 years before the Christian era. “One species of sacred bread,” says Bryant, “which used to be offered to the gods, was of great antiquity, and called Boun.” Diogenes Laertius, speaking of this offering being made by Empedocles, describes the chief ingredients of which it was composed, saying, “He offered one of the sacred cakes called Boun, which was made of fine flour and honey.” The prophet Jeremiah takes notice of this kind of offering when he says,

“The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven.” *

* Jeremiah 7:18. It is from the very word here used by the prophet that the word “bun” seems to be derived. The Hebrew word, with the points, was pronounced Khavan, which in Greek became sometimes Kapan-os (PHOTIUS, Lexicon Syttoge); and, at other times, Khabon (NEANDER, in KITTO’S Biblical Cyclopoedia). The first shows how Khvan, pronounced as one syllable, would pass into the Latin panis, “bread,” and the second how, in like manner, Khvon would become Bon or Bun. It is not to be overlooked that our common English word Loa has passed through a similar process of formation. In Anglo-Saxon it was Hlaf.

The hot cross buns are not now offered, but eaten, on the festival of Astarte; but this leaves no doubt as to whence they have been derived. The origin of the Pasch eggs is just as clear. The ancient Druids bore an egg, as the sacred emblem of their order. In the Dionysiaca, or mysteries of Bacchus, as celebrated in Athens, one part of the nocturnal ceremony consisted in the consecration of an egg. The Hindoo fables celebrate their mundane egg as of a golden colour. The people of Japan make their sacred egg to have been brazen. In China, at this hour, dyed or painted eggs are used on sacred festivals, even as in this country. In ancient times eggs were used in the religious rites of the Egyptians and the Greeks, and were hung up for mystic purposes in their temples. (see figure 31 below).

Figure 31

From Egypt these sacred eggs can be distinctly traced to the banks of the Euphrates. The classic poets are full of the fable of the mystic egg of the Babylonians; and thus its tale is told by Hyginus, the Egyptian, the learned keeper of the Palatine library at Rome, in the time of Augustus, who was skilled in all the wisdom of his native country: “An egg of wondrous size is said to have fallen from heaven into the river Euphrates. The fishes rolled it to the bank, where the doves having settled upon it, and hatched it, out came Venus, who afterwards was called the Syrian Goddess”–that is, Astarte. Hence the egg became one of the symbols of Astarte or Easter; and accordingly, in Cyprus, one of the chosen seats of the worship of Venus, or Astarte, the egg of wondrous size was represented on a grand scale. (see figure 32 below)

Figure 32

The occult meaning of this mystic egg of Astarte, in one of its aspects (for it had a twofold significance), had reference to the ark during the time of the flood, in which the whole human race were shut up, as the chick is enclosed in the egg before it is hatched. If any be inclined to ask, how could it ever enter the minds of men to employ such an extraordinary symbol for such a purpose, the answer is, first, The sacred egg of Paganism, as already indicated, is well known as the “mundane egg,” that is, the egg in which the world was shut up. Now the world has two distinct meanings–it means either the material earth, or the inhabitants of the earth. The latter meaning of the term is seen in Genesis 11:1, “The whole earth was of one language and of one speech,” where the meaning is that the whole people of the world were so. If then the world is seen shut up in an egg, and floating on the waters, it may not be difficult to believe, however the idea of the egg may have come, that the egg thus floating on the wide universal sea might be Noah’s family that contained the whole world in its bosom. Then the application of the word egg to the ark comes thus: The Hebrew name for an egg is Baitz, or in the feminine (for there are both genders), Baitza. This, in Chaldee and Phoenician, becomes Baith or Baitha, which in these languages is also the usual way in which the name of a house is pronounced. *

* The common word “Beth,” “house,” in the Bible without the points, is “Baith,” as may be seen in the name of Bethel, as given in Genesis 35:1, of the Greek Septuagint, where it is “Baith-el.”

The egg floating on the waters that contained the world, was the house floating on the waters of the deluge, with the elements of the new world in its bosom. The coming of the egg from heaven evidently refers to the preparation of the ark by express appointment of God; and the same thing seems clearly implied in the Egyptian story of the mundane egg which was said to have come out of the mouth of the great god. The doves resting on the egg need no explanation. This, then, was the meaning of the mystic egg in one aspect. As, however, everything that was good or beneficial to mankind was represented in the Chaldean mysteries, as in some way connected with the Babylonian goddess, so the greatest blessing to the human race, which the ark contained in its bosom, was held to be Astarte, who was the great civiliser and benefactor of the world. Though the deified queen, whom Astarte represented, had no actual existence till some centuries after the flood, yet through the doctrine of metempsychosis, which was firmly established in Babylon, it was easy for her worshippers to be made to believe that, in a previous incarnation, she had lived in the Antediluvian world, and passed in safety through the waters of the flood. Now the Romish Church adopted this mystic egg of Astarte, and consecrated it as a symbol of Christ’s resurrection. A form of prayer was even appointed to be used in connection with it, Pope Paul V teaching his superstitious votaries thus to pray at Easter: “Bless, O Lord, we beseech thee, this thy creature of eggs, that it may become a wholesome sustenance unto thy servants, eating it in remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c” (Scottish Guardian, April, 1844).

Besides the mystic egg, there was also another emblem of Easter, the goddess queen of Babylon, and that was the Rimmon or “pomegranate.” With the Rimmon or “pomegranate” in her hand, she is frequently represented in ancient medals, and the house of Rimmon, in which the King of Damascus, the Master of Naaman, the Syrian, worshipped, was in all likelihood a temple of Astarte, where that goddess with the Rimmon was publicly adored. The pomegranate is a fruit that is full of seeds; and on that account it has been supposed that it was employed as an emblem of that vessel in which the germs of the new creation were preserved, wherewith the world was to be sown anew with man and with beast, when the desolation of the deluge had passed away. But upon more searching inquiry, it turns out that the Rimmon or “pomegranate” had reference to an entirely different thing. Astarte, or Cybele, was called also Idaia Mater, and the sacred mount in Phrygia, most famed for the celebration of her mysteries, was named Mount Ida–that is, in Chaldee, the sacred language of these mysteries, the Mount of Knowledge. “Idaia Mater,” then, signifies “the Mother of Knowledge“–in other words, our Mother Eve, who first coveted the “knowledge of good and evil,” and actually purchased it at so dire a price to herself and to all her children. Astarte, as can be abundantly shown, was worshipped not only as an incarnation of the Spirit of God, but also of the mother of mankind. (see note below) When, therefore, the mother of the gods, and the mother of knowledge, was represented with the fruit of the pomegranate in her extended hand (see figure 33), inviting those who ascended the sacred mount to initiation in her mysteries, can there be a doubt what that fruit was intended to signify? Evidently, it must accord with her assumed character; it must be the fruit of the “Tree of Knowledge”–the fruit of that very

“Tree, whose mortal taste.
Brought death into the world, and all our woe.”

The knowledge to which the votaries of the Idaean goddess were admitted, was precisely of the same kind as that which Eve derived from the eating of the forbidden fruit, the practical knowledge of all that was morally evil and base. Yet to Astarte, in this character, men were taught to look at their grand benefactress, as gaining for them knowledge, and blessings connected with that knowledge, which otherwise they might in vain have sought from Him, who is the Father of lights, from whom cometh down every good and perfect gift. Popery inspires the same feeling in regard to the Romish queen of heaven, and leads its devotees to view the sin of Eve in much the same light as that in which Paganism regarded it. In the Canon of the Mass, the most solemn service in the Romish Missal, the following expression occurs, where the sin of our first parent is apostrophised: “Oh blessed fault, which didst procure such a Redeemer!” The idea contained in these words is purely Pagan. They just amount to this: “Thanks be to Eve, to whose sin we are indebted for the glorious Saviour.” It is true the idea contained in them is found in the same words in the writings of Augustine; but it is an idea utterly opposed to the spirit of the Gospel, which only makes sin the more exceeding sinful, from the consideration that it needed such a ransom to deliver from its awful curse. Augustine had imbibed many Pagan sentiments, and never got entirely delivered from them.

As Rome cherishes the same feelings as Paganism did, so it has adopted also the very same symbols, so far as it has the opportunity. In this country, and most of the countries of Europe, no pomegranates grow; and yet, even here, the superstition of the Rimmon must, as far as possible, be kept up. Instead of the pomegranate, therefore, the orange is employed; and so the Papists of Scotland join oranges with their eggs at Easter; and so also, when Bishop Gillis of Edinburgh went through the vain-glorious ceremony of washing the feet of twelve ragged Irishmen a few years ago at Easter, he concluded by presenting each of them with two eggs and an orange.

Now, this use of the orange as the representative of the fruit of Eden’s “dread probationary tree,” be it observed, is no modern invention; it goes back to the distant times of classic antiquity. The gardens of the Hesperides in the West, are admitted by all who have studied the subject, just to have been the counterpart of the paradise of Eden in the East. The description of the sacred gardens, as situated in the Isles of the Atlantic, over against the coast of Africa, shows that their legendary site exactly agrees with the Cape Verd or Canary Isles, or some of that group; and, of course, that the “golden fruit” on the sacred tree, so jealously guarded, was none other than the orange. Now, let the reader mark well: According to the classic Pagan story, there was no serpent in that garden of delight in the “islands of the blest,” to TEMPT mankind to violate their duty to their great benefactor, by eating of the sacred tree which he had reserved as the test of their allegiance. No; on the contrary, it was the Serpent, the symbol of the Devil, the Principle of evil, the Enemy of man, that prohibited them from eating the precious fruit–that strictly watched it–that would not allow it to be touched. Hercules, one form of the Pagan Messiah–not the primitive, but the Grecian Hercules–pitying man’s unhappy state, slew or subdued the serpent, the envious being that grudged mankind the use of that which was so necessary to make them at once perfectly happy and wise, and bestowed upon them what otherwise would have been hopelessly beyond their reach. Here, then, God and the devil are exactly made to change places. Jehovah, who prohibited man from eating of the tree of knowledge, is symbolised by the serpent, and held up as an ungenerous and malignant being, while he who emancipated man from Jehovah’s yoke, and gave him of the fruit of the forbidden tree–in other words, Satan under the name of Hercules–is celebrated as the good and gracious Deliverer of the human race. What a mystery of iniquity is here! Now all this is wrapped up in the sacred orange of Easter.

Notes

The Meaning of the Name Astarte

That Semiramis, under the name of Astarte, was worshipped not only as an incarnation of the Spirit of God, but as the mother of mankind, we have very clear and satisfactory evidence. There is no doubt that “the Syrian goddess” was Astarte (LAYARD’S Nineveh and its Remains). Now, the Assyrian goddess, or Astarte, is identified with Semiramis by Athenagoras (Legatio), and by Lucian (De Dea Syria). These testimonies in regard to Astarte, or the Syrian goddess, being, in one aspect, Semiramis, are quite decisive. 1. The name Astarte, as applied to her, has reference to her as being Rhea or Cybele, the tower-bearing goddess, the first as Ovid says (Opera), that “made (towers) in cities”; for we find from Layard that in the Syrian temple of Hierapolis, “she [Dea Syria or Astarte] was represented standing on a lion crowned with towers.” Now, no name could more exactly picture forth the character of Semiramis, as queen of Babylon, than the name of “Ash-tart,” for that just means “The woman that made towers.” It is admitted on all hands that the last syllable “tart” comes from the Hebrew verb “Tr.” It has been always taken for granted, however, that “Tr” signifies only “to go round.” But we have evidence that, in nouns derived from it, it also signifies “to be round,” “to surround,” or “encompass.” In the masculine, we find “Tor” used for “a border or row of jewels round the head” (see PARKHURST and also GESENIUS). And in the feminine, as given in Hesychius (Lexicon), we find the meaning much more decisively brought out. Turis is just the Greek form of Turit, the final t, according to the genius of the Greek language, being converted into s. Ash-turit, then, which is obviously the same as the Hebrew “Ashtoreth,” is just “The woman that made the encompassing wall.” Considering how commonly the glory of that achievement, as regards Babylon, was given to Semiramis, not only by Ovid, but by Justin, Dionysius, Afer, and others, both the name and mural crown on the head of that goddess were surely very appropriate.

In confirmation of this interpretation of the meaning of the name Astarte, I may adduce an epithet applied to the Greek Diana, who at Ephesus bore a turreted crown on her head, and was identified with Semiramis, which is not a little striking. It is contained in the following extract from Livy: “When the news of the battle [near Pydna] reached Amphipolis, the matrons ran together to the temple of Diana, whom they style Tauropolos, to implore her aid.” Tauropolos, from Tor, “a tower,” or “surrounding fortification,” and Pol, “to make,” plainly means the “tower-maker,” or “maker of surrounding fortifications”; and to her as the goddess of fortifications, they would naturally apply when they dreaded an attack upon their city.

Semiramis, being deified as Astarte, came to be raised to the highest honours; and her change into a dove, as has been already shown, was evidently intended, when the distinction of sex had been blasphemously attributed to the Godhead, to identify her, under the name of the Mother of the gods, with that Divine Spirit, without whose agency no one can be born a child of God, and whose emblem, in the symbolical language of Scripture, was the Dove, as that of the Messiah was the Lamb. Since the Spirit of God is the source of all wisdom, natural as well as spiritual, arts and inventions and skill of every kind being attributed to Him (Exo 31:3; 35:31), so the Mother of the gods, in whom that Spirit was feigned to be incarnate, was celebrated as the originator of some of the useful arts and sciences (DIODORUS SICULUS). Hence, also, the character attributed to the Grecian Minerva, whose name Athena, as we have seen reason to conclude, is only a synonym for Beltis, the well known name of the Assyrian goddess. Athena, the Minerva of Athens, is universally known as the “goddess of wisdom,” the inventress of arts and sciences. 2. The name Astarte signifies also the “Maker of investigations“; and in this respect was applicable to Cybele or Semiramis, as symbolised by the Dove. That this is one of the meanings of the name Astarte may be seen from comparing it with the cognate names Asterie and Astraea (in Greek Astraia), which are formed by taking the last member of the compound word in the masculine, instead of the feminine, Teri, or Tri (the latter being pronounced Trai or Trae), being the same in sense as Tart. Now, Asterie was the wife of Perseus, the Assyrian (HERODOTUS), and who was the founder of Mysteries (BRYANT). As Asterie was further represented as the daughter of Bel, this implies a position similar to that of Semiramis. Astraea, again, was the goddess of justice, who is identified with the heavenly virgin Themis, the name Themis signifying “the perfect one,” who gave oracles (OVID, Metam.), and who, having lived on earth before the Flood, forsook it just before that catastrophe came on. Themis and Astraea are sometimes distinguished and sometimes identified; but both have the same character as goddesses of justice. The explanation of the discrepancy obviously is, that the Spirit has sometimes been viewed as incarnate and sometimes not. When incarnate, Astraea is daughter of Themis. What name could more exactly agree with the character of a goddess of justice, than Ash-trai-a, “The maker of investigations,” and what name could more appropriately shadow forth one of the characters of that Divine Spirit, who “searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God”? As Astraea, or Themis, was “Fatidica Themis,” “Themis the prophetic,” this also was another characteristic of the Spirit; for whence can any true oracle, or prophetic inspiration, come, but from the inspiring Spirit of God? Then, lastly, what can more exactly agree with the Divine statement in Genesis in regard to the Spirit of God, than the statement of Ovid, that Astraea was the last of the celestials who remained on earth, and that her forsaking it was the signal for the downpouring of the destroying deluge? The announcement of the coming Flood is in Scripture ushered in with these words (Gen 6:3):

“And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.“

All these 120 years, the Spirit was striving; when they came to an end, the Spirit strove no longer, forsook the earth, and left the world to its fate. But though the Spirit of God forsook the earth, it did not forsake the family of righteous Noah. It entered with the patriarch into the ark; and when that patriarch came forth from his long imprisonment, it came forth along with him. Thus the Pagans had an historical foundation for their myth of the dove resting on the symbol of the ark in the Babylonian waters, and the Syrian goddess, or Astarte–the same as Astraea–coming forth from it. Semiramis, then, as Astarte, worshipped as the dove, was regarded as the incarnation of the Spirit of God. 3. As Baal, Lord of Heaven, had his visible emblem, the sun, so she, as Beltis, Queen of Heaven, must have hers also–the moon, which in another sense was Asht-tart-e, “The maker of revolutions“; for there is no doubt that Tart very commonly signifies “going round.” But, 4th, the whole system must be dovetailed together.

As the mother of the gods was equally the mother of mankind, Semiramis, or Astarte, must also be identified with Eve; and the name Rhea, which, according to the Paschal Chronicle was given to her, sufficiently proves her identification with Eve. As applied to the common mother of the human race, the name Astarte is singularly appropriate; for, as she was Idaia mater, “The mother of knowledge,” the question is, “How did she come by that knowledge?” To this the answer can only be: “by the fatal investigations she made.” It was a tremendous experiment she made, when, in opposition to the Divine command, and in spite of the threatened penalty, she ventured to “search” into that forbidden knowledge which her Maker in his goodness had kept from her. Thus she took the lead in that unhappy course of which the Scripture speaks–“God made man upright, but they have SOUGHT out many inventions” (Eccl. 7:29).

Now Semiramis, deified as the Dove, was Astarte in the most gracious and benignant form. Lucius Ampelius calls her “the goddess benignant and merciful to me” (bringing them) “to a good and happy life.” In reference to this benignity of her character, both the titles, Aphrodite and Mylitta, are evidently attributed to her. The first I have elsewhere explained as “The wrath-subduer,” and the second is in exact accordance with it. Mylitta, or, as it is in Greek, Mulitta, signifies “The Mediatrix.” The Hebrew Melitz, which in Chaldee becomes Melitt, is evidently used in Job 33:23, in the sense of a Mediator; “the messenger, the interpreter” (Melitz), who is “gracious” to a man, and saith, “Deliver from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom,” being really “The Messenger, the MEDIATOR.” Parkhurst takes the word in this sense, and derives it from “Mltz,” “to be sweet.” Now, the feminine of Melitz is Melitza, from which comes Melissa, a “bee” (the sweetener, or producer of sweetness), and Melissa, a common name of the priestesses of Cybele, and as we may infer of Cybele, as Astarte, or Queen of Heaven, herself; for, after Porphyry, has stated that “the ancients called the priestesses of Demeter, Melissae,” he adds, that they also “called the Moon Melissa.” We have evidence, further, that goes far to identify this title as a title of Semiramis. Melissa or Melitta (APPOLODORUS)–for the name is given in both ways–is said to have been the mother of Phoroneus, the first that reigned, in whose days the dispersion of mankind occurred, divisions having come in among them, whereas before, all had been in harmony and spoke one language (Hyginus). There is no other to whom this can be applied but Nimrod; and as Nimrod came to be worshipped as Nin, the son of his own wife, the identification is exact. Melitta, then, the mother of Phoroneus, is the same as Mylitta, the well known name of the Babylonian Venus; and the name, as being the feminine of Melitz, the Mediator, consequently signifies the Mediatrix. Another name also given to the mother of Phoroneus, “the first that reigned,” is Archia (LEMPRIERE; SMITH). Now Archia signifies “Spiritual” (from “Rkh,” Heb. “Spirit,” which in Egyptian also is “Rkh” [BUNSEN]; and in Chaldee, with the prosthetic a prefixed becomes Arkh). * From the same root also evidently comes the epithet Architis, as applied to the Venus that wept for Adonis. Venus Architis is the spiritual Venus. **

* The Hebrew Dem, blood, in Chaldee becomes Adem; and, in like manner, Rkh becomes Arkh.

** From OUVAROFF we learn that the mother of the third Bacchus was Aura, and Phaethon is said by Orpheus to have been the son of the “wide extended air” (LACTANTIUS). The connection in the sacred language between the wind, the air, and the spirit, sufficiently accounts for these statements, and shows their real meaning.

Thus, then, the mother-wife of the first king that reigned was known as Archia and Melitta, in other words, as the woman in whom the “Spirit of God” was incarnate; and thus appeared as the “Dea Benigna,” “The Mediatrix” for sinful mortals. The first form of Astarte, as Eve, brought sin into the world; the second form before the Flood, was avenging as the goddess of justice. This form was “Benignant and Merciful.” Thus, also, Semiramis, or Astarte, as Venus the goddess of love and beauty, became “The HOPE of the whole world,” and men gladly had recourse to the “mediation” of one so tolerant of sin.

Section III — The Nativity of St. John

The Feast of the Nativity of St. John is set down in the Papal calendar for the 24th of June, or Midsummer-day. The very same period was equally memorable in the Babylonian calendar as that of one of its most celebrated festivals. It was at Midsummer, or the summer solstice, that the month called in Chaldea, Syria, and Phoenicia by the name of “Tammuz” began; and on the first day–that is, on or about the 24th of June–one of the grand original festivals of Tammuz was celebrated. *

* STANLEY’S Saboean Philosophy. In Egypt the month corresponding to Tammuz–viz., Epep–began June 25 (WILKINSON)

For different reasons, in different countries, other periods had been devoted to commemorate the death and reviving of the Babylonian god; but this, as may be inferred from the name of the month, appears to have been the real time when his festival was primitively observed in the land where idolatry had its birth. And so strong was the hold that this festival, with its peculiar rites, had taken of the minds of men, that even when other days were devoted to the great events connected with the Babylonian Messiah, as was the case in some parts of our own land, this sacred season could not be allowed to pass without the due observance of some, at least, of its peculiar rites. When the Papacy sent its emissaries over Europe, towards the end of the sixth century, to gather in the Pagans into its fold, this festival was found in high favour in many countries. What was to be done with it? Were they to wage war with it? No. This would have been contrary to the famous advice of Pope Gregory I, that, by all means they should meet the Pagans half-way, and so bring them into the Roman Church. The Gregorian policy was carefully observed; and so Midsummer-day, that had been hallowed by Paganism to the worship of Tammuz, was incorporated as a sacred Christian festival in the Roman calendar.

But still a question was to be determined, What was to be the name of this Pagan festival, when it was baptised, and admitted into the ritual of Roman Christianity? To call it by its old name of Bel or Tammuz, at the early period when it seems to have been adopted, would have been too bold. To call it by the name of Christ was difficult, inasmuch as there was nothing special in His history at that period to commemorate. But the subtlety of the agents of the Mystery of Iniquity was not to be baffled. If the name of Christ could not be conveniently tacked to it, what should hinder its being called by the name of His forerunner, John the Baptist? John the Baptist was born six months before our Lord. When, therefore, the Pagan festival of the winter solstice had once been consecrated as the birthday of the Saviour, it followed, as a matter of course, that if His forerunner was to have a festival at all, his festival must be at this very season; for between the 24th of June and the 25th of December–that is, between the summer and the winter solstice–there are just six months. Now, for the purposes of the Papacy, nothing could be more opportune than this. One of the many sacred names by which Tammuz or Nimrod was called, when he reappeared in the Mysteries, after being slain, was Oannes. *

* BEROSUS, BUNSEN’S Egypt. To identify Nimrod with Oannes, mentioned by Berosus as appearing out of the sea, it will be remembered that Nimrod has been proved to be Bacchus. Then, for proof that Nimrod or Bacchus, on being overcome by his enemies, was fabled to have taken refuge in the sea, see chapter 4, section i. When, therefore, he was represented as reappearing, it was natural that he should reappear in the very character of Oannes as a Fish-god. Now, Jerome calls Dagon, the well known Fish-god Piscem moeroris (BRYANT), “the fish of sorrow,” which goes far to identify that Fish-god with Bacchus, the “Lamented one”; and the identification is complete when Hesychius tells us that some called Bacchus Ichthys, or “The fish.”

The name of John the Baptist, on the other hand, in the sacred language adopted by the Roman Church, was Joannes. To make the festival of the 24th of June, then, suit Christians and Pagans alike, all that was needful was just to call it the festival of Joannes; and thus the Christians would suppose that they were honouring John the Baptist, while the Pagans were still worshipping their old god Oannes, or Tammuz. Thus, the very period at which the great summer festival of Tammuz was celebrated in ancient Babylon, is at this very hour observed in the Papal Church as the Feast of the Nativity of St. John. And the fete of St. John begins exactly as the festal day began in Chaldea. It is well known that, in the East, the day began in the evening. So, though the 24th be set down as the nativity, yet it is on St. John’s EVE–that is, on the evening of the 23rd–that the festivities and solemnities of that period begin.

Now, if we examine the festivities themselves, we shall see how purely Pagan they are, and how decisively they prove their real descent. The grand distinguishing solemnities of St. John’s Eve are the Midsummer fires. These are lighted in France, in Switzerland, in Roman Catholic Ireland, and in some of the Scottish isles of the West, where Popery still lingers. They are kindled throughout all the grounds of the adherents of Rome, and flaming brands are carried about their corn-fields. Thus does Bell, in his Wayside Pictures, describe the St. John’s fires of Brittany, in France: “Every fete is marked by distinct features peculiar to itself. That of St. John is perhaps, on the whole, the most striking. Throughout the day the poor children go about begging contributions for lighting the fires of Monsieur St. Jean, and towards evening one fire is gradually followed by two, three, four; then a thousand gleam out from the hill-tops, till the whole country glows under the conflagration. Sometimes the priests light the first fire in the market place; and sometimes it is lighted by an angel, who is made to descend by a mechanical device from the top of the church, with a flambeau in her hand, setting the pile in a blaze, and flying back again. The young people dance with a bewildering activity about the fires; for there is a superstition among them that, if they dance round nine fires before midnight, they will be married in the ensuing year. Seats are placed close to the flaming piles for the dead, whose spirits are supposed to come there for the melancholy pleasure of listening once more to their native songs, and contemplating the lively measures of their youth. Fragments of the torches on those occasions are preserved as spells against thunder and nervous diseases; and the crown of flowers which surmounted the principal fire is in such request as to produce tumultuous jealousy for its possession.” Thus is it in France.

Turn now to Ireland. “On that great festival of the Irish peasantry, St. John’s Eve,” says Charlotte Elizabeth, describing a particular festival which she had witnessed, “it is the custom, at sunset on that evening, to kindle immense fires throughout the country, built, like our bonfires, to a great height, the pile being composed of turf, bogwood, and such other combustible substances as they can gather. The turf yields a steady, substantial body of fire, the bogwood a most brilliant flame, and the effect of these great beacons blazing on every hill, sending up volumes of smoke from every point of the horizon, is very remarkable. Early in the evening the peasants began to assemble, all habited in their best array, glowing with health, every countenance full of that sparkling animation and excess of enjoyment that characterise the enthusiastic people of the land. I had never seen anything resembling it; and was exceedingly delighted with their handsome, intelligent, merry faces; the bold bearing of the men, and the playful but really modest deportment of the maidens; the vivacity of the aged people, and the wild glee of the children. The fire being kindled, a splendid blaze shot up; and for a while they stood contemplating it with faces strangely disfigured by the peculiar light first emitted when the bogwood was thrown on it. After a short pause, the ground was cleared in front of an old blind piper, the very beau ideal of energy, drollery, and shrewdness, who, seated on a low chair, with a well-plenished jug within his reach, screwed his pipes to the liveliest tunes, and the endless jig began. But something was to follow that puzzled me not a little. When the fire burned for some hours and got low, an indispensable part of the ceremony commenced. Every one present of the peasantry passed through it, and several children were thrown across the sparkling embers; while a wooden frame of some eight feet long, with a horse’s head fixed to one end, and a large white sheet thrown over it, concealing the wood and the man on whose head it was carried, made its appearance. This was greeted with loud shouts as the ‘white horse’; and having been safely carried, by the skill of its bearer, several times through the fire with a bold leap, it pursued the people, who ran screaming in every direction. I asked what the horse was meant for, and was told it represented ‘all cattle.’ Here,” adds the authoress, “was the old Pagan worship of Baal, if not of Moloch too, carried on openly and universally in the heart of a nominally Christian country, and by millions professing the Christian name! I was confounded, for I did not then know that Popery is only a crafty adaptation of Pagan idolatries to its own scheme.”

Such is the festival of St. John’s Eve, as celebrated at this day in France and in Popish Ireland. Such is the way in which the votaries of Rome pretend to commemorate the birth of him who came to prepare the way of the Lord, by turning away His ancient people from all their refuges of lies, and shutting them up to the necessity of embracing that kingdom of God that consists not in any mere external thing, but in “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” We have seen that the very sight of the rites with which that festival is celebrated, led the authoress just quoted at once to the conclusion that what she saw before her was truly a relic of the Pagan worship of Baal.

The history of the festival, and the way in which it is observed, reflect mutual light upon each other. Before Christianity entered the British Isles, the Pagan festival of the 24th of June was celebrated among the Druids by blazing fires in honour of their great divinity, who, as we have already seen, was Baal. “These Midsummer fires and sacrifices,” says Toland, in his Account of the Druids, “were [intended] to obtain a blessing on the fruits of the earth, now becoming ready for gathering; as those of the first of May, that they might prosperously grow; and those of the last of October were a thanksgiving for finishing the harvest.” Again, speaking of the Druidical fires at Midsummer, he thus proceeds: “To return to our carn-fires, it was customary for the lord of the place, or his son, or some other person of distinction, to take the entrails of the sacrificed animals in his hands, and, walking barefoot over the coals thrice after the flames had ceased, to carry them straight to the Druid, who waited in a whole skin at the altar. If the nobleman escaped harmless, it was reckoned a good omen, welcomed with loud acclamations; but if he received any hurt, it was deemed unlucky both to the community and himself.” “Thus, I have seen,” adds Toland, “the people running and leaping through the St. John’s fires in Ireland; and not only proud of passing unsinged, but, as if it were some kind of lustration, thinking themselves in an especial manner blest by the ceremony, of whose original, nevertheless, they were wholly ignorant, in their imperfect imitation of it.”

We have seen reason already to conclude that Phoroneus, “the first of mortals that reigned”–i.e., Nimrod and the Roman goddess Feronia–bore a relation to one another. In connection with the firs of “St. John,” that relation is still further established by what has been handed down from antiquity in regard to these two divinities; and, at the same time, the origin of these fires is elucidated. Phoroneus is described in such a way as shows that he was known as having been connected with the origin of fire-worship. Thus does Pausanias refer to him: “Near this image [the image of Biton] they [the Argives] enkindle a fire, for they do not admit that fire was given by Prometheus, to men, but ascribe the invention of it to Phoroneus.” There must have been something tragic about the death of this fire-inventing Phoroneus, who “first gathered mankind into communities”; for, after describing the position of his sepulchre, Pausanias adds: “Indeed, even at present they perform funeral obsequies to Phoroneus”; language which shows that his death must have been celebrated in some such way as that of Bacchus. Then the character of the worship of Feronia, as coincident with fire-worship, is evident from the rites practised by the priests at the city lying at the foot of Mount Socracte, called by her name. “The priests,” says Bryant, referring both to Pliny and Strabo as his authorities, “with their feet naked, walked over a large quantity of live coals and cinders.” To this same practice we find Aruns in Virgil referring, when addressing Apollo, the sun-god, who had his shrine at Soracte, where Feronia was worshipped, and who therefore must have been the same as Jupiter Anxur, her contemplar divinity, who was regarded as a “youthful Jupiter,” even as Apollo was often called the “young Apollo”:

“O patron of Soracte’s high abodes,
Phoebus, the ruling power among the gods,
Whom first we serve; whole woods of unctuous pine
Are felled for thee, and to thy glory shine.
By thee protected, with our naked soles,
Through flames unsinged we march and tread the kindled coals.” *

* DRYDEN’S Virgil Aeneid. “The young Apollo,” when “born to introduce law and order among the Greeks,” was said to have made his appearance at Delphi “exactly in the middle of summer.” (MULLER’S Dorians)

Thus the St. John’s fires, over whose cinders old and young are made to pass, are traced up to “the first of mortals that reigned.”

It is remarkable, that a festival attended with all the essential rites of the fire-worship of Baal, is found among Pagan nations, in regions most remote from one another, about the very period of the month of Tammuz, when the Babylonian god was anciently celebrated. Among the Turks, the fast of Ramazan, which, says Hurd, begins on the 12th of June, is attended by an illumination of burning lamps. *

* HURD’S Rites and Ceremonies. The time here given by Hurd would not in itself be decisive as a proof of agreement with the period of the original festival of Tammuz; for a friend who has lived for three years in Constantinople informs me that, in consequence of the disagreement between the Turkish and the solar year, the fast of Ramazan ranges in succession through all the different months in the year. The fact of a yearly illumination in connection with religious observances, however, is undoubted.

In China where the Dragon-boat festival is celebrated in such a way as vividly to recall to those who have witnessed it, the weeping for Adonis, the solemnity begins at Midsummer. In Peru, during the reign of the Incas, the feast of Raymi, the most magnificent feast of the Peruvians, when the sacred fire every year used to be kindled anew from the sun, by means of a concave mirror of polished metal, took place at the very same period. Regularly as Midsummer came round, there was first, in token of mourning, “for three days, a general fast, and no fire was allowed to be lighted in their dwellings,” and then, on the fourth day, the mourning was turned into joy, when the Inca, and his court, followed by the whole population of Cuzco, assembled at early dawn in the great square to greet the rising of the sun. “Eagerly,” says Prescott, “they watched the coming of the deity, and no sooner did his first yellow rays strike the turrets and loftiest buildings of the capital, than a shout of gratulation broke forth from the assembled multitude, accompanied by songs of triumph, and the wild melody of barbaric instruments, that swelled louder and louder as his bright orb, rising above the mountain range towards the east, shone in full splendour on his votaries.” Could this alternate mourning and rejoicing, at the very time when the Babylonians mourned and rejoiced over Tammuz, be accidental? As Tammuz was the Sun-divinity incarnate, it is easy to see how such mourning and rejoicing should be connected with the worship of the sun.

In Egypt, the festival of the burning lamps, in which many have already been constrained to see the counterpart of the festival of St. John, was avowedly connected with the mourning and rejoicing for Osiris. “At Sais,” says Herodotus, “they show the sepulchre of him whom I do not think it right to mention on this occasion.” This is the invariable way in which the historian refers to Osiris, into whose mysteries he had been initiated, when giving accounts of any of the rites of his worship. “It is in the sacred enclosure behind the temple of Minerva, and close to the wall of this temple, whose whole length it occupies. They also meet at Sais, to offer sacrifice during a certain night, when every one lights, in the open air, a number of lamps around his house. The lamps consist of small cups filled with salt and oil, having a wick floating in it which burns all night. This festival is called the festival of burning lamps. The Egyptians who are unable to attend also observe the sacrifice, and burn lamps at home, so that not only at Sais, but throughout Egypt, the same illumination takes place. They assign a sacred reason for the festival celebrated on this night, and for the respect they have for it.” Wilkinson, in quoting this passage of Herodotus, expressly identifies this festival with the lamentation for Osiris, and assures us that “it was considered of the greatest consequence to do honour to the deity by the proper performance of this rite.”

Among the Yezidis, or Devil-worshippers of Modern Chaldea, the same festival is celebrated at this day, with rites probably almost the same, so far as circumstances will allow, as thousands of years ago, when in the same regions the worship of Tammuz was in all its glory. Thus graphically does Mr. Layard describe a festival of this kind at which he himself had been present: “As the twilight faded, the Fakirs, or lower orders of priests, dressed in brown garments of coarse cloth, closely fitting to their bodies, and wearing black turbans on their heads, issued from the tomb, each bearing a light in one hand, and a pot of oil, with a bundle of cotton wick in the other. They filled and trimmed lamps placed in niches in the walls of the courtyard and scattered over the buildings on the sides of the valley, and even on isolated rocks, and in the hollow trunks of trees. Innumerable stars appeared to glitter on the black sides of the mountain and in the dark recesses of the forest. As the priests made their way through the crowd to perform their task, men and women passed their right hands through the flame; and after rubbing the right eyebrow with the part which had been purified by the sacred element, they devoutly carried it to their lips. Some who bore children in their arms anointed them in like manner, whilst others held out their hands to be touched by those who, less fortunate than themselves, could not reach the flame…As night advanced, those who had assembled–they must now have amounted to nearly five thousand persons–lighted torches, which they carried with them as they wandered through the forest. The effect was magical: the varied groups could be faintly distinguished through the darkness–men hurrying to and fro–women with their children seated on the house-tops–and crowds gathering round the pedlars, who exposed their wares for sale in the courtyard. Thousands of lights were reflected in the fountains and streams, glimmered amongst the foliage of the trees, and danced in the distance.

As I was gazing on this extraordinary scene, the hum of human voices was suddenly hushed, and a strain, solemn and melancholy, arose from the valley. It resembled some majestic chant which years before I had listened to in the cathedral of a distant land. Music so pathetic and so sweet I never before heard in the East. The voices of men and women were blended in harmony with the soft notes of many flutes. At measured intervals the song was broken by the loud clash of cymbals and tambourines; and those who were within the precincts of the tomb then joined in the melody…The tambourines, which were struck simultaneously, only interrupted at intervals the song of the priests. As the time quickened they broke in more frequently. The chant gradually gave way to a lively melody, which, increasing in measure, was finally lost in a confusion of sounds. The tambourines were beaten with extraordinary energy–the flutes poured forth a rapid flood of notes–the voices were raised to the highest pitch–the men outside joined in the cry–whilst the women made the rocks resound with the shrill tahlehl.

“The musicians, giving way to the excitement, threw their instruments into the air, and strained their limbs into every contortion, until they fell exhausted to the ground. I never heard a more frightful yell than that which rose in the valley. It was midnight. I gazed with wonder upon the extraordinary scene around me. Thus were probably celebrated ages ago the mysterious rites of the Corybantes, when they met in some consecrated grove.” Layard does not state at what period of the year this festival occurred; but his language leaves little doubt that he regarded it as a festival of Bacchus; in other words, of the Babylonian Messiah, whose tragic death, and subsequent restoration to life and glory, formed the cornerstone of ancient Paganism. The festival was avowedly held in honour at once of Sheikh Shems, or the Sun, and of the Sheik Adi, or “Prince of Eternity,” around whose tomb nevertheless the solemnity took place, just as the lamp festival in Egypt, in honour of the sun-god Osiris, was celebrated in the precincts of the tomb of that god at Sais.

Now, the reader cannot fail to have observed that in this Yezidi festival, men, women, and children were “PURIFIED” by coming in contact with “the sacred element” of fire. In the rites of Zoroaster, the great Chaldean god, fire occupied precisely the same place. It was laid down as an essential principle in his system, that “he who approached to fire would receive a light from divinity,” (TAYLOR’S Jamblichus) and that “through divine fire all the stains produced by generation would be purged away” (PROCLUS, Timaeo). Therefore it was that “children were made to pass through the fire to Moloch” (Jer 32:35), to purge them from original sin, and through this purgation many a helpless babe became a victim to the bloody divinity. Among the Pagan Romans, this purifying by passing through the fire was equally observed; “for,” says Ovid, enforcing the practice, “Fire purifies both the shepherd and the sheep.” Among the Hindoos, from time immemorial, fire has been worshipped for its purifying efficacy. Thus a worshipper is represented by Colebrooke, according to the sacred books, as addressing the fire: “Salutation to thee [O fire!], who dost seize oblations, to thee who dost shine, to thee who dost scintillate, may thy auspicious flame burn our foes; mayest thou, the PURIFIER, be auspicious unto us.” There are some who maintain a “perpetual fire,” and perform daily devotions to it, and in “concluding the sacraments of the gods,” thus every day present their supplications to it: “Fire, thou dost expiate a sin against the gods; may this oblation be efficacious. Thou dost expiate a sin against man; thou dost expiate a sin against the manes [departed spirits]; thou dost expiate a sin against my own soul; thou dost expiate repeated sins; thou dost expiate every sin which I have committed, whether wilfully or unintentionally; may this oblation be efficacious.”

Among the Druids, also, fire was celebrated as the purifier. Thus, in a Druidic song, we read, “They celebrated the praise of the holy ones in the presence of the purifying fire, which was made to ascend on high” (DAVIES’S Druids, “Song to the Sun”). If, indeed, a blessing was expected in Druidical times from lighting the carn-fires, and making either young or old, either human beings or cattle, pass through the fire, it was simply in consequence of the purgation from sin that attached to human beings and all things connected with them, that was believed to be derived from this passing through the fire. It is evident that this very same belief about the “purifying” efficacy of fire is held by the Roman Catholics of Ireland, when they are so zealous to pass both themselves and their children through the fires of St. John. * Toland testifies that it is as a “lustration” that these fires are kindled; and all who have carefully examined the subject must come to the same conclusion.

* “I have seen parents,” said the late Lord J. Scott in a letter to me, “force their children to go through the Baal-fires.”

Now, if Tammuz was, as we have seen,the same as Zoroaster, the god of the ancient “fire-worshippers,” and if his festival in Babylon so exactly synchronised with the feast of the Nativity of St. John, what wonder that that feast is still celebrated by the blazing “Baal-fires,” and that it presents so faithful a copy of what was condemned by Jehovah of old in His ancient people when they “made their children pass through the fire to Moloch”? But who that knows anything of the Gospel would call such a festival as this a Christian festival? The Popish priests, if they do not openly teach, at least allow their deluded votaries to believe, as firmly s ever ancient fire worshipper did, that material fire can purge away the guilt and stain of sin. How that tends to rivet upon the minds of their benighted vassals one of the most monstrous but profitable fables of their system, will come to be afterwards considered.

The name Oannes could be known only to the initiated as the name of the Pagan Messiah; and at first, some measure of circumspection was necessary in introducing Paganism into the Church. But, as time went on, as the Gospel became obscured, and the darkness became more intense, the same caution was by no means so necessary. Accordingly, we find that, in the dark ages, the Pagan Messiah has not been brought into the Church in a mere clandestine manner. Openly and avowedly under his well known classic names of Bacchus and Dionysus, has he been canonised, and set up for the worship of the “faithful.” Yes, Rome, that professes to be pre-eminently the Bride of Christ, the only Church in which salvation is to be found, has had the unblushing effrontery to give the grand Pagan adversary of the Son of God, UNDER HIS OWN PROPER NAME, a place in her calendar. The reader has only to turn to the Roman calendar, and he will find that this is a literal fact; he will find that October the 7th is set apart to be observed in honour of “St. Bacchus the Martyr.”

Now, no doubt, Bacchus was a “martyr”; he died a violent death; he lost his life for religion; but the religion for which he died was the religion of the fire-worshippers; for he was put to death, as we have seen from Maimonides, for maintaining the worship of the host of heaven. This patron of the heavenly host, and of fire worship (for the two went always hand in hand together), has Rome canonised; for that this “St. Bacchus the Martyr” was the identical Bacchus of the Pagans, the god of drunkenness and debauchery, is evident from the time of his festival; for October the 7th follows soon after the end of the vintage. At the end of the vintage in autumn, the old Pagan Romans used to celebrate what was called the “Rustic Festival” of Bacchus; and about that very time does the Papal festival of “St Bacchus the Martyr” occur.

As the Chalden god has been admitted into the Roman calendar under the name of Bacchus, so also is he canonised under his other name of Dionysus. The Pagans were in the habit of worshipping the same god under different names; and, accordingly, not content with the festival to Bacchus, under the name by which he was most commonly known at Rome, the Romans, no doubt to please the Greeks, celebrated a rustic festival to him, two days afterwards, under the name of Dionysus Eleuthereus, the name by which he was worshipped in Greece. That “rustic” festival was briefly called by the name of Dionysia; or, expressing its object more fully, the name became “Festum Dionysi Eleutherei rusticum”–i.e., the “rustic festival of Dionysus Eleuthereus.” (BEGG’S Handbook of Popery) Now, the Papacy in its excess of zeal for saints and saint-worship, has actually split Dionysus Eleuthereus into two, has made two several saints out of the double name of one Pagan divinity; and more than that, has made the innocent epithet “Rusticum,” which, even among the heathen, had no pretension to divinity at all, a third; and so it comes to pass that, under date of October the 9th, we read this entry in the calendar: “The festival of St. Dionysius, * and of his companions, St. Eleuther and St. Rustic.”

* Though Dionysus was the proper classic name of the god, yet in Post-classical, or Low Latin, his name is found Dionysius, just as in the case of the Romish saint.

Now this Dionysius, whom Popery has so marvellously furnished with two companions, is the famed St. Denys, the patron saint of Paris; and a comparison of the history of the Popish saint and the Pagan god will cast no little light on the subject. St. Denys, on being beheaded and cast into the Seine, so runs the legend, after floating a space on its waters, to the amazement of the spectators, took up his head in his hand, and so marched away with it to the place of burial. In commemoration of so stupendous a miracle, a hymn was duly chanted for many a century in the Cathedral of St. Denys, at Paris, containing the following verse:

“The corpse immediately arose;
The trunk bore away the dissevered head,
Guided on its way by a legion of angels.”
(SALVERTE, Des Sciences Occultes)

At last, even Papists began to be ashamed of such an absurdity being celebrated in the name of religion; and in 1789, “the office of St. Denys” was abolished. Behold, however, the march of events. The world has for some time past been progressing back again to the dark ages. The Romish Breviary, which had been given up in France, has, within the last six years, been reimposed by Papal authority on the Gallican Church, with all its lying legends, and this among the rest of them; the Cathedral of St. Denys is again being rebuilt, and the old worship bids fair to be restored in all its grossness. Now, how could it ever enter the minds of men to invent so monstrous a fable? The origin of it is not far to seek. The Church of Rome represented her canonised saints, who were said to have suffered martyrdom by the sword, as headless images or statues with the severed head borne in the hand. “I have seen,” says Eusebe Salverte, “in a church of Normandy, St. Clair; St. Mithra, at Arles, in Switzerland, all the soldiers of the Theban legion represented with their heads in their hands. St. Valerius is thus figured at Limoges, on the gates of the cathedral, and other monuments. The grand seal of the canton of Zurich represents, in the same attitude, St. Felix, St. Regula, and St. Exsuperantius. There certainly is the origin of the pious fable which is told of these martyrs, such as St. Denys and many others besides.” This was the immediate origin of the story of the dead saint rising up and marching away with his head in his hand. But it turns out that this very mode of representation was borrowed from Paganism, and borrowed in such a way as identifies the Papal St. Denys of Paris with the Pagan Dionysus, not only of Rome but of Babylon. Dionysus or Bacchus, in one of his transformations, was represented as Capricorn, the “goat-horned fish”; and there is reason to believe that it was in this very form that he had the name of Oannes. In this form in India, under the name “Souro,” that is evidently “the seed,” he is said to have done many marvellous things. (For Oannes and Souro, see note below) Now, in the Persian Sphere he was not only represented mystically as Capricorn, but also in the human shape; and then exactly as St. Denys is represented by the Papacy. The words of the ancient writer who describes this figure in the Persian Sphere are these: “Capricorn, the third Decan. The half of the figure without a head, because its head is in its hand.” Nimrod had his head cut off; and in commemoration of that fact, which his worshippers so piteously bewailed, his image in the Sphere was so represetned. That dissevered head, in some of the versions of his story, was fabled to have done as marvellous things as any that were done by the lifeless trunk of St. Denys. Bryant has proved, in this story of Orpheus, that it is just a slighty-coloured variety of the story of Osiris. *

* BRYANT. The very name Orpheus is just a synonym for Bel, the name of the great Babylonian god, which, while originally given to Cush, became hereditary in the line of his deified descendants. Bel signifies “to mix,” as well as “to confound,” and “Orv” in Hebrew, which in Chaldee becomes Orph, signifies also “to mix.” But “Orv,” or “Orph,” signifies besides “a willow-tree”; and therefore, in exact accordance with the mystic system, we find the symbol of Orpheus among the Greeks to have been a willow-tree. Thus, Pausanias, after referring to a representation of Actaeon, says, “If again you look to the lower parts of the picture, you will see after Patroclus, Orpheus sitting on a hill, with a harp in his left hand, and in his right hand the leaves of a willow-tree“; and again, a little furthe on, he says: “He is represented leaning on the trunk of this tree.” The willow-leaves in the right hand of Orpheus, and the willow-tree on which he leans, sufficiently show the meaning of his name.

As Osiris was cut in pieces in Egypt, so Orpheus was torn in pieces in Thrace. Now, when the mangled limbs of the latter had been strewn about the field, his head, floating on the Hebrus, gave proof of the miraculous character of him that owned it. “Then,” says Virgil:

“Then, when his head from his fair shoulders torn,
Washed by the waters, was on Hebrus borne,
Even then his trembling voice invoked his bride,
With his last voice, ‘Eurydice,’ he creid;
‘Eurydice,’ the rockes and river banks replied.”

There is diversity here, but amidst that diversity there is an obvious unity. In both cases, thehead dissevered from the lifeless body occupies the foreground of the picture; in both cases, the miracle is in connection with a river. Now, when the festivals of “St. Bacchus the Martyr,” and of “St. Dionysius and Eleuther,” so remarkably agree with the time when the festivals of the Pagan god of wine were celbrated, whether by the name of Bacchus, or Dionysus, or Eleuthereus, and when the mode of representing the modern Dionysius and the ancient Dionysus are evidently the very same, while the legends of both so strikiingly harmonise, who can doubt the real character of those Romish festivals? They are not Christina. They are Pagan; they are unequivocally Babylonian.

Notes

Oannes and Souro

The reason for believing that Oannes, that was said to have been the first of the fabulous creatures that came up out of the sea and instructed the Babylonians, was represented as the goat-horned fish, is as follows: First, the name Oannes, as elsewhere shown, is just the Greek form of He-annesh, or “The man,” which is a synonym for the name of our first parent, Adam. Now, Adam can be proved to be the original of Pan, who was also called Inuus, which is just another pronunciation of Anosh without the article, which, in our translation of Genesis 5:7, is made Enos. This name, as universally admitted, is the generic name for man after the Fall, as weak and diseased. The o in Enos is what is called the vau, which sometimes is pronounced o, sometimes u, and sometimes v or w. A legitimate pronunciation of Enos, therefore, is just Enus or Enws, the same in sound as Inuus, the Ancient Roman name of Pan. The name Pan itself signifies “He who turned aside.” As the Hebrew word for “uprightness” signifies “walking straight in the way,” so every deviation from the straight line of duty was Sin; Hata, the word for sin, signifying generically “to go aside from the straight line.” Pan, it is admitted, was the Head of the Satyrs–that is, “the first of the Hidden Ones,” for Satyr and Satur, “the Hidden One,” are evidently just the same word; and Adam was the first of mankind that hid himself. Pan is said to have loved a nymph called Pitho, or, as it is given in another form, Pitys (SMITH, “Pan”); and what is Pitho or Pitys but just the name of the beguiling woman, who, having been beguiled herself, acted the part of a beguiler of her husband, and induced him to take the step, in consequence of which he earned the name Pan, “The man that turned aside.” Pitho or Pitys evidently come from Peth or Pet, “to beguile,” from which verb also the famous serpent Python derived its name. This conclusion in regard to the personal identity of Pan and Pitho is greatly confirmed by the titles given to the wife of Faunus. Faunus, says Smith, is “merely another name for Pan.” *

* In Chaldee the same letter that is pronounced P is also pronounced Ph, that is F, therefore Pan is just Faun.

Now, the wife of Faunus was called Oma, Fauna, and Fatua, which names plainly mean “The mother that turned aside, being beguiled.” This beguiled mother is also called indifferently “the sister, wife, or daughter” of her husband; and how this agrees with the relations of Eve to Adam, the reader does not need to be told.

Now, a title of Pan was Capricornus, or “The goat-horned” (DYMOCK, “Pan”), and the origin of this title must be traced to what took place when our first parent became the Head of the Satyrs–the “first of the Hidden ones.” He fled to hide himself; and Berkha, “a fugitive,” signifies also “a he-goat.” Hence the origin of the epithet Capricornus, or “goat-horned,” as applied to Pan. But as Capricornus in the sphere is generally represented as the “Goat-fish,” if Capricornus represents Pan, or Adam, or Oannes, that shows that it must be Adam, after, through virtue of the metempsychosis, he had passed through the waters of the deluge: the goat, as the symbol of Pan, representing Adam, the first father of mankind, combined with the fish, the symbol of Noah, the second father of the human race; of both whom Nimrod, as at once Kronos, “the father of the gods,” and Souro, “the seed,” was a new incarnation. Among the idols of Babylon, as represented in KITTO’S Illust. Commentary, we find a representation of this very Capricornus, or goat-horned fish; and Berosus tells us that the well known representations of Pan, of which Capricornus is a modification, were found in Babylon in the most ancient times. A great deal more of evidence might be adduced on this subject; but I submit to the reader if the above statement does not sufficiently account for the origin of the remarkable figure in the Zodiac, “The goat-horned fish.” 

Section IV — The Feast of the Assumption

If what has been already said shows the carnal policy of Rome at the expense of truth, the circumstances attending the festival of the Assumption show the daring wickedness and blasphemy of that Church still more; considering that the doctrine in regard to this festival, so far as the Papacy is concerned, was not established in the dark ages, but three centuries after the Reformation, amid all the boasted light of the nineteenth century. The doctrine on which the festival of the Assumption is founded, is this: that the Virgin Mary saw no corruption, that in body and in soul she was carried up to heaven, and now is invested with all power in heaven and in earth. This doctrine has been unblushingly avowed in the face of the British public, in a recent pastoral of the Popish Archbishop of Dublin. This doctrine has now received the stamp of Papal Infallibility, having been embodied in the late blasphemous decree that proclaims the “Immaculate Conception.” Now, it is impossible for the priests of Rome to find one shred of countenance for such a doctrine in Scripture. But, in the Babylonian system, the fable was ready made to their hand. There it was taught that Bacchus went down to hell, rescued his mother from the infernal powers, and carried her with him in triumph to heaven. *

* APOLLODORUS. We have seen that the great goddess, who was worshipped in Babylon as “The Mother,” was in reality the wife of Ninus, the great god, the prototype of Bacchus. In conformity with this, we find a somewhat similar story told of Ariadne, the wife of Bacchus, as is fabled of Semele his mother. “The garment of Thetis,” says Bryant, “contained a description of some notable achievements in the first ages; and a particular account of the apotheosis, of Ariadne, who is described, whatever may be the meaning of it, as carried by Bacchus to heaven.” A similar story is told of Alcmene, the mother of the Grecian Hercules, who was quite distinct, as we have seen, from the primitive Hercules, and was just one of the forms of Bacchus, for he was a “great tippler”; and the “Herculean goblets” are proverbial. (MULLER’S Dorians) Now the mother of this Hercules is said to have had a resurrection. “Jupiter” [the father of Hercules], says Muller, “raised Alcmene from the dead, and conducted her to the islands of the blest, as the wife of Rhadamanthus.”

This fable spread wherever the Babylonian system spread; and, accordingly, at this day, the Chinese celebrate, as they have done from time immemorial, a festival in honour of a Mother, who by her son was rescued from the power of death and the grave. The festival of the Assumption in the Romish Church is held on the 15th of August. The Chinese festival, founded on a similar legend, and celebrated with lanterns and chandeliers, as shown by Sir J. F. Davis in his able and graphic account of China, is equally celebrated in the month of August. Now, when the mother of the Pagan Messiah came to be celebrated as having been thus “Assumed,” then it was that, under the name of the “Dove,” she was worshipped as the Incarnation of the Spirit of God, with whom she was identified. As such as she was regarded as the source of all holiness, and the grand “PURIFIER,” and, of course, was known herself as the “Virgin” mother, “PURE AND UNDEFILED.” (PROCLUS, in TAYLOR’S Note upon Jamblichus) Under the name of Proserpine (with whom, though the Babylonian goddess was originally distinct, she was identified), while celebrated, as the mother of the first Bacchus, and known as “Pluto’s honoured wife,” she is also addressed, in the “Orphic Hymns,” as

“Associate of the seasons, essence bright,
All-ruling VIRGIN, bearing heavenly light.”

Whoever wrote these hymns, the more they are examined the more does it become evident, when they are compared with the most ancient doctrine of Classic Greece, that their authors understood and thoroughly adhered to the genuine theology of Paganism. To the fact that Proserpine was currently worshipped in Pagan Greece, though well known to be the wife of Pluto, the god of hell, under the name of “The Holy Virgin,” we find Pausanias, while describing the grove Carnasius, thus bearing testimony: “This grove contains a statue of Apollo Carneus, of Mercury carrying a ram, and of Proserpine, the daughter of Ceres, who is called ‘The HOLY VIRGIN.'” The purity of this “Holy Virgin” did not consist merely in freedom from actual sin, but she was especially distinguished for her “immaculate conception”; for Proclus says, “She is called Core, through the purity of her essence, and her UNDEFILED transcendency in her GENERATIONS.” Do men stand amazed at the recent decree? There is no real reason to wonder. It was only in following out the Pagan doctrine previously adopted and interwoven with the whole system of Rome to its logical consequences, that that decree has been issued, and that the Madonna of Rome has been formally pronounced at last, in every sense of the term, absolutely “IMMACULATE.”

Now, after all this, is it possible to doubt that the Madonna of Rome, with the child in her arms, and the Madonna of Babylon, are one and the same goddess? It is notorious that the Roman Madonna is worshipped as a goddess, yea, is the supreme object of worship. Will not, then, the Christians of Britain revolt at the idea of longer supporting this monstrous Babylonian Paganism? What Christian constituency could tolerate that its representative should vote away the money of this Protestant nation for the support of such blasphemous idolatry? *

* It is to be lamented that Christians in general seem to have so little sense either of the gravity of the present crisis of the Church and the world, or of the duty lying upon them as Christ’s witnesses, to testify, and that practically, against the public sins of the nation. If they would wish to be stimulated to a more vigorous discharge of duty in this respect, let them read an excellent and well-timed little work recently issued from the press, entitled An Original Interpretation of the Apocalypse, where the Apocalyptic statements in regard to the character, life, death, and resurrection of the Two Witnesses, are briefly but forcibly handled.

Were not the minds of men judicially blinded, they would tremble at the very thought of incurring the guilt that this land, by upholding the corruption and wickedness of Rome, has for years past been contracting. Has not the Word of God, in the most energetic and awful terms, doomed the New Testament Babylon? And has it not equally declared, that those who share in Babylon’s sins, shall share in Babylon’s plagues? (Rev 18:4)

The guilt of idolatry is by many regarded as comparatively slight and insignificant guilt. But not so does the God of heaven regard it. Which is the commandment of all the ten that is fenced about with the most solemn and awful sanctions? It is the second:

“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.“

These words were spoken by God’s own lips, they were written by God’s own finger on the tables of stone: not for the instruction of the seed of Abraham only, but of all the tribes and generations of mankind. No other commandment has such a threatening attached to it as this. Now, if God has threatened to visit the SIN OF IDOLATRY ABOVE ALL OTHER SINS, and if we find the heavy judgments of God pressing upon us as a nation, while this very sin is crying to heaven against us, ought it not to be a matter of earnest inquiry, if among all our other national sins, which are both many and great, this may not form “the very head and front of our offending”? What though we do not ourselves bow down to stocks and stones? Yet if we, making a profession the very opposite, encourage, and foster, and maintain that very idolatry which God has so fearfully threatened with His wrath, our guilt, instead of being the less, is only so much the greater, for it is a sin against the light. Now, the facts are manifest to all men. It is notorious, that in 1845 anti-Christian idolatry was incorporated in the British Constitution, in a way in which for a century and a half it had not been incorporated before. It is equally notorious, that ever since, the nation has been visited with one succession of judgments after another. Ought we then to regard this coincidence as merely accidental? Ought we not rather to see in it the fulfilment of the threatening pronounced by God in the Apocalypse? This is at this moment an intensely practical subject. If our sin in this matter is not nationally recognised, if it is not penitently confessed, if it is not put away from us; if, on the contrary, we go on increasing it, if now for the first time since the Revolution, while so manifestly dependent on the God of battles for the success of our arms, we affront Him to His face by sending idol priests into our camp, then, though we have national fasts, and days of humiliation without number, they cannot be accepted; they may procure us a temporary respite, but we may be certain that “the Lord’s anger will not be turned away, His hand will be stretched out still.” *

* The above paragraph first appeared in the spring of 1855, when the empire had for months been looking on in amazement at the “horrible and heart-rending” disasters in the Crimea, caused simply by the fact, that official men in that distant region “could not find their hands,” and when at last a day of humiliation had been appointed. The reader can judge whether or not the events that have since occurred have made the above reasoning out of date. The few years of impunity that have elapsed since the Indian Mutiny, with all its horrors, was suppressed, show the long-suffering of God. But if that long-suffering is despised (which it manifestly is, while the guilt is daily increasing), the ultimate issue must just be so much the more terrible.

Continued in The Two Babylons Chapter IV. Section I — Baptismal Regeneration

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This is the next chapter after Chapter IV. Time of Antichrist’s Appearance.

IRENEUS had long previously conjectured that the “name of the Beast” was LATEINOS—the Greek spelling of the Roman LATINUS—as that name contains the mystic number six hundred and sixty-six, (l=30, a=1, t=300, e=5, i=10, n=50, o=70, s=200=666.) (Note from the webmaster: I don’t understand how or from where the author assigns a numerical value to these letters. Somebody held me please!) and Latins were supreme in Europe from Christ’s day until the disruption of the Roman Empire. Other patristic (church fathers) writers similarly located the Antichrist; for instance, Sybilla said: “The greatest terror and fury of his Empire, and the greatest woe that he shall work, shall be by the banks of the Tiber.”

The confirmation of the application of this to Rome by the unconscious testimony of Pagan poets and historians is very striking. By the grouping together of the first five heads,(Rev. xvii, 10) the order is not more marked in prophecy—of the succession of Roman rulers—than it was in history. The five forms of government, according to Roman historians, were Kings, Consuls, Decemvirs, Dictators and Tribunes. The Imperial was the one existing at the time of John and Paul. The seventh received a wound by the sword, (Rev. xiii.) and the resuscitated head became virtually the eighth (Rev, xvii. 11) all alike being pagan in origin and nature, as Daniel vii. teaches by its one headship.

The testimony to the title of Rome as the seven-hilled city includes Varro, Virgil, Ovid, Propertius, Martial, Lucan, and as to the five forms of government it includes Tacitus, Livy, Cassiodorus, and Onuphrius Pauvicinus.

The restraining power, therefore, referred to by Paul in 2 Thessalonians ii., was the Imperial power of heathen Rome, as vested in the succession of Caesars; hence the use of the neuter, to Katechon, and the masculine, ho Katechon. Hence his caution. This restraining power was swayed by a series of single persons (or a “Perpetual Person”), following one another in succession; ho antichristos similarly must be a series of single persons, or a perpetual person, the successor of the Caesars after the disruption of the Roman Empire by the sword of the Gothic Nations. The sixth head being the Augustan Caesar, the seventh is either the Diocletian Dynasty, which was displaced forcibly by the Constantinian, or else the seventh must be regarded as continuing till the sword of the Gothic nations gave it a deadly wound, which, however, was healed by the subsequent resuscitation of Roman Caesarism masquerading as “Christian” Pontifex Maximus, the ancient heathen title of the Caesars. Daniel vii. obviously teaches, by its one headship, that all the “heads” are but different manifestations of one and the same pagan form of rule.

The “deadly wound” spoken of in Rev. xiii. 3 was primarily inflicted by the Emperor Theodosius’s Edict for the suppression of Pagan worship. Gibbon (vol viii., p. 116) used this expression: “This last Edict of Theodosius afflicted a deadly wound on the superstition of the Pagans.” He added: “Like Thebes, or Babylon, or Carthage, the name of Rome must have been erased from the earth, if the city had not been animated by a vital principle, which again restored her to honour and dominion” (p. 161); and so healed the wound by making the Bishops of Rome a new Head, the Eighth, of Empire. And in the rise of Papal superstition to supremacy; the deadly wound inflicted on the Seventh Pagan Headship was healed.

Note from the webmaster: I never heard this interpretation of the “deadly wound” before. I always took it to be the Protestant Reformation and / or the resulting loss of papal temporal power when Napoleon exiled the Pope Pius VI in 1789.

Continued in The Antichrist: His Portrait and History – Chapter VI. Identification of Antichrist.

All chapters of The Antichrist: His Portrait and History

Continued from Chapter III. Characteristics.

THE time of the appearance of the Antichrist is definitely fixed by Daniel, by Paul, by John. The first, places it among the ten heathen horns of the Fourth Wild Beast, which horns necessarily are to be sought, neither in the old age and decrepitude of the Wild Beast, nor in its early youth, but, as in Nature, during its maturity and vigour. Hence they cannot be mushroom growths of three and a half years’ duration, but must be, as depicted, (Dan. vii. 8, 20; Rev. xvii. 12) contemporaneous with Antichrist’s one thousand two hundred and sixty years from the epoch of Apostasy’s maturity. The second, places its appearance at, or just after, the point when the Caesarean “let,” or hindrance,(2 Thess. ii, 6, 7) was removed out of the way,* a period fixed by history as somewhere between A.D. 330-476-684; a removal by degrees, and by successive stages; Constantine removing the seat of Cesarean power from Rome to Constantinople in A.D. 330,(Rev. xiii. 2, xvii. 11) then the last Western Caesar, Augustulus, being deposed by the Goths in A.D. 476; and then the entire Western Roman Empire being broken up and divided among the various Gothic tribes, described by Macchiavelli, the Romish historian, as numbering ten in the fifth century.

*Cardinal Manning, in his “Temporal Power,” Preface, pp. 42-46, said: “Now the abandonment of Rome was the liberation of the Pontiff, and from the hour of this providential liberation . . . no sovereign has ever reigned in Rome except the Vicar of Jesus Christ.” “The abandonment of Rome liberated the Pontiffs and left them free to become independent sovereigns, and take up the sovereignty the emperors had just laid down.”

The third, places its appearance at some point in history when the “throne,” or “seat” of power of the Roman heathen world, was conveyed by Satan—as “god of this age” (2 Cor iv. 4) —to the Revived Head (of the Ten Horned Wild Beast) which was the eighth in order of succession.

Daniel xi, appears to allude to the same epoch of time when it describes the “willful king” of the Romans (Dan. xi. 30, 36, 38) (“Kittim” being Italy), as honouring in his “seat” the Pagan God of Force—Hercules;(See ‘The Chair of St. Peter,’ by H. Forbes Witherby, pp. 76-84.) for it ties down the period in question to a “king” enthroned in the seat of Latin paganism in the “latter days,” extending from the “time of the end” of Daniel xi. 40 to the “time of the end” of Daniel 4, 6, 7—a period of one thousand two hundred and sixty years.

Hence the converging lines of Revelation point to the period between AD. 330 and the resuscitation of Pagan Caesarism after the break-up of Roman power in the West, a period followed by the “Dark Ages”; and they point also to a Latin power seated on the “throne” of the ancient Caesars; and so combine to fix the locality whence the Antichrist was to emerge, as the seven-hilled Metropolis (xvii. 9, 18) of the Fourth Wild Beast of prophecy—Rome.

Continued in The Antichrist: His Portrait and History – Chapter V. Name Locates Antichrist.

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This is the continuation of The Two Babylons II. Section II.—Sub-Section V.—The Deification of the Child

Now while the mother derived her glory in the first instance from the divine character attributed to the child in her arms, the mother in the long-run practically eclipsed the son. At first, in all likelihood, there would be no thought whatever of ascribing divinity to the mother. There was an express promise that necessarily led mankind to expect that, at some time or other, the Son of God, in amazing condescension, should appear in this world as the Son of man. But there was no promise whatever, or the least shadow of a promise, to lead any one to anticipate that a woman should ever be invested with attributes that should raise her to a level with Divinity. It is in the last degree improbable, therefore, that when the Mother was first exhibited with the child in her arms, it should be intended to give divine honors to her. She was doubtless used chiefly as a pedestal for the upholding of the divine Son, and holding him forth to the adoration of mankind; and glory enough it would be counted for her, alone of all the daughters of Eve, to have given birth to the promised seed, the world’s only hope.

But while this, no doubt, was the design, it is a plain principle in all idolatries that that which most appeals to the senses must make the most powerful impression. Now the Son, even in his new incarnation, when Nimrod was believed to have reappeared in a fairer form, was exhibited merely as a child, without any very particular attraction; while the mother in whose arms he was, was set off with all the art of painting and sculpture, as invested with much of that extraordinary beauty which in reality belonged to her. The beauty of Semiramis is said on one occasion to have quelled a rising rebellion among her subjects on her sudden appearance among them; and it is recorded that the memory of the admiration excited in their minds by her appearance on that occasion was perpetuated by a statue erected in Babylon, representing her in the guise in which she had fascinated them so much. This Babylonian queen was not merely in character coincident with the Aphrodite of Greece and the Venus of Rome, but was, in point of fact, the historical original of that goddess that by the ancient world was regarded as the very embodiment of everything attractive in female form, and the perfection of female beauty; for Sanchuniathon assures us that Aphrodite or Venus was identical with Astarte, and Astarte being interpreted, is none other than “The woman that made towers or encompassing walls,” i.e., Semiramis.

The Roman Venus, as is well known, was the Cyprian Venus, and the Venus of Cyprus is historically proved to have been derived from Babylon. (See chap. iv., sect. iii.) Now, what in these circumstances might have been expected actually took place. If the child was to be adored, much more the mother. The mother, in point of fact, became the favorite object of worship: To justify this worship, the mother was raised to divinity as well as her son, and she was looked upon as destined to complete that bruising of the serpent’s head, which it was easy, if such a thing was needed, to find abundant and plausible reasons for alleging that Ninus or Nimrod, the great Son, in his mortal life had only begun.

The Roman Church maintains that it was not so much the seed of the woman, as the woman herself, that was to bruise the head of the serpent. In defiance of all grammar, she renders the divine denunciation against the serpent thus: “She shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise her heel.” The same was held by the ancient Babylonians, and symbolically represented in their temples. In the uppermost storey of the tower of Babel, or temple of Belus, Diodorus Siculus tells us, there stood three images of the great divinities of Babylon; and one of these was of a woman grasping a serpent’s head. Among the Greeks the same thing was symbolized; for Diana, whose real character was originally the same as that of the great Babylonian goddess, was represented as bearing in one of her hands a serpent deprived of its head.

As time wore away, and the facts of Semiramis’s history became obscured, her son’s birth was boldly declared to be miraculous; and therefore she was called “ Alma Mater,” “the Virgin Mother.” That the birth of the Great Deliverer was to be miraculous, was widely known long before the Christian era. For centuries, some say for thousands of years before that event, the Buddhist priests had a tradition that a Virgin was to bring forth a child to bless the world. That this tradition came from no Popish or Christian source, is evident from the surprise felt and expressed by the Jesuit missionaries, when they first entered Tibet and China, and not only found a mother and a child worshiped as at home, but that mother worshiped under a character exactly corresponding with that of their own Madonna,“Virgo Deipara,” “the Virgin mother of God,” and that, too, in regions where they could not find the least trace of either the name or history of our Lord Jesus Christ having ever been known.

The primeval promise that the “seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head,” naturally suggested the idea of a miraculous birth. Priest-craft and human presumption set themselves wickedly to anticipate the fulfillment of that promise; and the Babylonian queen seems to have been the first to whom that honor was given. The highest titles were accordingly bestowed upon her. She was called the “queen of heaven.” (Jeremiah xliv. 17, 18, 19, 25). In Egypt she was styled Athor, i.e., “the Habitation of God,” to signify that in her dwelt all the “fullness of the Godhead.” To point out the great goddess mother, in a Pantheistic sense, as at once the Infinite and Almighty one, and the Virgin mother, this inscription was engraven upon one of her temples in Egypt:

“I am all that has been, or that is, or that shall be. No mortal has removed my veil. The fruit which I have brought forth is the Sun.”

In Greece she had the name of Hestia, and amongst the Romans, Vesta, which is just a modification of the same name—a name which, though it has been commonly understood in a different sense, really meant “The Dwelling-place” As the Dwelling-place of Deity, thus is Hestia or Vesta addressed in the Orphic Hymns:—

“Daughter of Saturn, venerable dame,
Who dwell’st amid great fire’s eternal flame,
In thee the gods have fixed their DWELLING-PLACE,
Strong stable basis of the mortal race.”

Even when Vesta is identified with fire, this same character of Vesta as “The Dwelling-place ” still distinctly appears. Thus Philolaus, speaking of a fire in the middle of the center of the world, calls it “The Vesta of the Universe, The HOUSE of Jupiter, The mother of the gods.” In Babylon, the title of the goddess mother as the Dwelling-place of God, was Sacca, or in the emphatic form, Sacta, that is, “The Tabernacle.” Hence, at this day,the great goddesses in India, as wielding all the power of the god Whom they represent, are. called “Sacti,” or the “Tabernacle.” Now in her, as the Tabernacle or Temple of God, not only all power, but all grace and goodness were believed to dwell. Every quality of gentleness and mercy was regarded as centered in her; and when death had closed her career, while she was fabled to have been deified and changed into a pigeon, to express the celestial benignity of her nature, she was called by the name of “D’Iune,” or “The Dove,” or without the article, “Juno,”—the name of the Roman “queen of heaven,” which has the very same meaning; and under the form of a dove, as well as her own, she was worshiped by the Babylonians.

The dove, the chosen symbol of this deified queen, is commonly represented with an olive branch in her mouth (fig. 25), as she herself in her human form also is seen bearing the olive branch in her hand; and from this form of representing her, it is highly probable that she has derived the name by which she is commonly known, for “Zemirami” means “The branch-bearer.”

When the goddess was thus represented as the Dove with the olive branch, there can be no doubt that the symbol had partly reference to the story of the flood; but there was much more in the symbol than a mere memorial of that great event. “A branch,” as has been already proved, was the symbol of the deified son, and when the deified mother was represented as a Dove, what could the meaning of this representation be but just to identify her with the Spirit of all grace, that brooded, dove-like, over the deep at the creation; for, in the sculptures at Nineveh, as we have seen, the wings and tale of the dove represented the third member of the idolatrous Assyrian trinity. In confirmation of this View, it must be stated that the Assyrian “Juno,” or “The Virgin Venus,” as she was called, was identified with the air.

Thus Julius Firmicus says:—“ The Assyrians and part of the Africans wish the air to have the supremacy of the elements, for they have consecrated this same [element], under the name of Juno, or the Virgin Venus.” Why was air thus identified with Juno, whose symbol was that of the third person of the Assyrian trinity? Why, but because in Chaldee the same word which signifies the air signifies also the “Holy Ghost.” The knowledge of this entirely accounts for the statement of Proclus, that “Juno imports the generation of soul.” Whence could the soul —the spirit of man— be supposed to have its origin, but from the Spirit of God? In accordance with this character of Juno as the incarnation of the Divine Spirit, the source of life, and also as the goddess of the air, thus is she invoked in the ‘Orphic Hymns’:—

“O royal Juno, of majestic mien,
Aérial formed, divine, Jove’s blessed queen,
Throned in the bosom of caerulean air,
The race of mortals is thy constant care;
The cooling gales, thy power alone inspires,
Which nourish life, which every life desires;
Mother of showers and winds, from thee alone
Producing all things, mortal life is known;
All natures show thy temperament divine,
And universal sway alone is thine,
With sounding blasts of wind, the swelling sea
And rolling rivers roar when shook by thee.”

Thus, then, the deified queen, when in all respects regarded as a veritable woman, was at the same time adored as the incarnation of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of peace and love. In the temple of Hierapolis in Syria, there was a famous statue of the goddess Juno, to which crowds from all quarters flocked to worship. The image of the goddess was richly habited; on her head was a golden dove, and she was called by a name peculiar to the country, “Semeion.” What is the meaning of Seméion? It is evidently “The Habitation” and the “golden dove” on her head shows plainly who it was that was supposed to dwell in her— even the Spirit of God. When such transcendent dignity was bestowed on her, when such winning characters were attributed to her, and when, over and above all, her images presented her to the eyes of men as Venus Urania, “the heavenly Venus,” the queen of beauty, who assured her worshipers of salvation, while giving loose reins to every unholy passion, and every depraved and sensual appetite— no wonder that everywhere she was enthusiastically adored.

Under the name of the “Mother of the gods,” the goddess queen of Babylon became an object of almost universal worship. “The mother of the gods,” says Clericus, “was worshiped by the Persians, the Syrians, and all the kings of Europe and Asia, with the most profound religious veneration.” Tacitus gives evidence that the Babylonian goddess was worshiped in the heart of Germany, and Caesar, when he invaded Britain, found that the priests of this same goddess, known by the name of Druids, had been there before him.

Herodotus, from personal knowledge, testifies, that in Egypt this “queen of heaven” was “the greatest and most worshiped of all the divinities.” Wherever her worship was introduced, it is amazing what fascinating power it exerted. Truly, the nations might be said to be “made drunk” with the wine of her fornications. So deeply, in particular, did the Jews in the days of Jeremiah, drink of her wine-cup, so bewitched were they by her idolatrous worship, that even after Jerusalem had been burnt, and the land desolated for this very thing, they could not be prevailed on to give it up.

While dwelling in Egypt as forlorn exiles, instead of being witnesses for God against the heathenism around them, they were as much devoted to this form of idolatry as the Egyptians themselves. Jeremiah was sent of God to denounce wrath against them if they continued to worship the queen of heaven; but his warnings were in vain. “Then,” saith the prophet, “all the men which knew that their wives had burnt incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great multitude, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying, As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee: but we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil.” (Jer. xliv. 15—17). Thus did the Jews, God’s own peculiar people, emulate the Egyptians in their devotion to the queen of heaven.

The worship of the goddess mother with the child in her arms continued to be observed in Egypt till Christianity entered. If the gospel had come in power among the mass of the people, the worship of this goddess queen would have been overthrown. With the generality it came only in name. Instead, therefore, of the Babylonian goddess being cast out, in too many cases her name only was changed. She was called the Virgin Mary, and, with her child, was worshiped with the same idolatrous feeling by professing Christians, as formerly by open and avowed Pagans.

The consequence was, that when, in A.D. 325, the Nicene Council was summoned to condemn the heresy of Arius, who denied the true divinity of Christ, that heresy indeed was condemned, but not without the help of men who gave distinct indications of a desire to put the creature on a level with the Creator, to set the Virgin mother side by side with her Son.

At the Council of Nice, says the author of ‘Nimrod’ “the Melchite section,” that is, the representatives of the so-called Christianity of Egypt, “held that there were three persons in the Trinity, the Father, the Virgin Mary, and Messiah their Son.” In reference to this astounding fact, elicited by the Nicene Council, Father Newman speaks exultingly of these discussions as tending to the glorification of Mary. “Thus,” says he, “the controversy opened a question which it did not settle. It discovered a new sphere, if we may so speak, in the realms of light, to which the Church had not yet assigned its inhabitant. Thus there was a wonder in heaven; a throne was seen far above all created powers, mediatorial, intercessory, a title archetypal, a crown bright as the morning star, a glory issuing from the eternal throne; robes pure as the heavens, and a scepter over all, and who was the predestined heir of that majesty? Who was that wisdom, and what was her name, the mother of fair love, and fear, and holy hope, exalted like a palm tree in Engaddi, and a rose-plant in Jericho, created from the beginning before the world, in God’s counsels, and in Jerusalem was her power? The vision is found in the Apocalypse, ‘a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.’” “The votaries of Mary,” adds he, “do not exceed the true faith, unless the blasphemers of her Son came up to it. The Church of Rome is not idolatrous, unless Arianism is orthodoxy.”

This is the very poetry of blasphemy. It contains an argument too; but what does that argument amount to? It just amounts to this, that if Christ be admitted to be truly and properly God, and worthy of divine honors, his mother, from whom be derived merely his humanity, must be admitted to be the same, must be raised far above the level of all creatures, and be worshiped as a partaker of the Godhead. The divinity of Christ is made to stand or fall with the divinity of his mother.

Such is Popery in the nineteenth century; yea, such is Popery in England. It was known already that Popery abroad was bold and unblushing in its blasphemies; that in Lisbon a church was to be seen with these words engraven on its front, “To the virgin goddess of Loretto, the Italian race, devoted to her DIVINITY, have dedicated this temple.” But when till now was such language ever heard in Britain before? This, however, is just the exact reproduction of the doctrine of ancient Babylon in regard to the great goddess Mother.

The Madonna of Rome, then, is just the Madonna of Babylon. The “Queen of heaven” in the one system is the same as the “Queen of heaven” in the other. The goddess worshiped in Babylon and Egypt as the Tabernacle or Habitation of God, is identical with her who, under the name of Mary, is called by Rome “the HOUSE consecrated to God,” “the awful Dwelling-place,” “the Mansion of God,” the “Tabernacle of the Holy Ghost,” the “Temple of the Trinity.”

Some may possibly be inclined to defend such language, by saying that the Scripture makes every believer to be a temple of the Holy Ghost, and, therefore, what harm can there be in speaking of the Virgin Mary, who was unquestionably a saint of God, under that name, or names of a similar import? Now no doubt it is true that Paul says (1 Cor. iii. 16): “ Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” It is not only true, but it is a great truth, and a blessed one; a truth that enhances every comfort when enjoyed, and takes the sting out of every trouble when it comes, that every genuine Christian has less or more experience of what is contained in these words of the same apostle (2 Cor. vi. 16): “Ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” It must also be admitted, and gladly admitted, that this implies the indwelling of all the persons of the glorious Godhead; for the Lord Jesus hath said (John xiv. 23): “If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him and WE will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”

But while admitting all this, on examination it will be found, that the Popish and the Scriptural ideas conveyed by these expressions, however apparently similar, are essentially different. When it is said that a believer is “a temple of God,” or a temple of the Holy Ghost, the meaning is (Eph. iii. 17) that “Christ dwells in the heart by faith.” But when Rome says that Mary is “The Temple” or “ Tabernacle of God,” the meaning is, the exact Pagan meaning of the term, viz., that the union between her and the Godhead is a union akin to the hypostatical union between the divine and human nature of Christ.

The human nature of Christ is the “Tabernacle of God,” inasmuch as the Divine nature has veiled its glory in such a way, by assuming our nature, that we can come near without overwhelming dread to the Holy God. To this glorious truth John refers, when he says (John i. 14): “The word was made ‘flesh, and dwelt (literally tabernacled) among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” In this sense Christ, the God-man, is the only “Tabernacle of God.”

Now it is precisely in this sense that Rome calls Mary the “Tabernacle of God,” or of the “Holy Ghost.” Thus speaks the author of a Popish work devoted to the exaltation of the Virgin, in which all the peculiar titles and prerogatives of Christ are given to Mary: “Behold the tabernacle of God, the mansion of God, the habitation, the city of God is with men, and in men and for men, for their salvation, and exaltation, and eternal glorification. . . . . Is it most clear that this is true of the holy church? and in like manner also equally true of the most holy sacrament of the Lord’s body? Is it (true) of every one of us in as far as we are truly Christians? Undoubtedly; but we have to contemplate this mystery (as existing) in a peculiar manner in the most Holy Mother of our Lord.”

Then the author, after endeavouring to show that “Mary is rightly considered as the Tabernacle of God with men,” and that in a peculiar sense, a sense different from that in which all Christians are the “temple of God,” thus proceeds with express reference to her in this character of the Tabernacle: “Great truly is the benefit, singular is the privilege, that the Tabernacle of God should be with men, IN WHICH men may safely come near to God become man.” Here the whole mediatorial glory of Christ, as the God-man in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, is given to Mary, or at least is shared with her.

The above extracts are taken from a work published upwards of two hundred years ago. Has the Papacy improved since then? Has it repented of its blasphemies? No, the very reverse. The quotation already given from Father Newman proves this; but there is still stronger proof. In a recently published work, the same blasphemous idea is even more clearly unfolded. While Mary is called “The HOUSE consecrated to God,” and the “TEMPLE of the Trinity,” the following versicle and response will show in what sense she is regarded as the temple of the Holy Ghost: “
V. Ipse [deus] creavit illam in Spiritu Sancto. R. Et EFFUDIT ILLAM inter omnia opera sua. V. Domina, exandi,” etc., which is thus translated: “V. The Lord himself created HER in the Holy Ghost, and POURED HER out among all his works. V. O Lady, hear,” etc. This astounding language manifestly implies that Mary is identified with the Holy Ghost, when it speaks of her “being poured out” on “all the works of God;” and that, as we have seen, was just the very way in which the Woman regarded as the “Tabernacle” or House of God by the Pagans, was looked upon. Where is such language used in regard to the Virgin? Not in Spain; not in Austria; not in the dark places of Continental Europe; but in London, the seat and center of the world’s enlightenment.

The names of blasphemy bestowed by the Papacy on Mary have not one shadow of foundation in the Bible, but are all to be found in the Babylonian idolatry. Yea, the very features and complexions of the Roman and Babylonian Madonnas are the same. Till recent times, when Raphael somewhat departed from the beaten track, there was nothing either Jewish or even Italian in the Romish Madonnas. Had these pictures or images of the Virgin Mother been intended to represent the mother of our Lord, naturally they would have been cast either in the one mold or the other. But it was not so. In a land of dark-eyed beauties, with raven locks, the Madonna was always represented with blue eyes and golden hair, a complexion entirely different from the Jewish complexion, which naturally would have been supposed to belong to the mother of our Lord, but which precisely agrees with that which all antiquity attributes to the goddess queen of Babylon. In almost all lands the great goddess has been described with golden or yellow hair, showing that there must have been one grand prototype, to which they were all made to correspond. “Flaw Ceres,” the “yellow-haired Ceres,” might not have been accounted of any weight in this argument if she had stood alone, for it might have been supposed in that case that the epithet “yellow-haired ” was borrowed from the corn that was supposed to be under her guardian care.

But many other goddesses have the very same epithet applied to them. Europa, whom Jupiter carried away in the form of a bull, is called “The yellow-haired Europa.” Minerva is called by Homer “the blue-eyed Minerva” and by Ovid “the yellow-haired;” the huntress Diana, who is commonly identified with the moon, is addressed by Anacreon as “the yellow-haired daughter of Jupiter,” a title which the pale face of the silver moon could surely never have suggested. Dione, the mother of Venus, is described by Theocritus as “yellow-haired.” Venus herself is frequently called “ Aurea Venus,” the “golden Venus.” The Indian Goddess Lakshmi, the “Mother of the Universe,” is described as of “a golden complexion.” Ariadne, the wife of Bacchus, was called “the yellow-haired Ariadne.” Thus does Dryden refer to her golden or yellow hair:—

“Where the rude waves in Dian’s harbour play,
The fair forsaken Ariadne lay;
There, sick with grief and frantic with despair,
Her dress she rent, and tore her golden hair.”

The Gorgon Medusa, before her transformation, while celebrated for her beauty, was equally celebrated for her golden hair:—

“Medusa once had charms; to gain her love
A rival crowd of anxious lovers strove.
They who have seen her, own they ne’er did trace
More moving features in a sweeter face;
But above all, her length of hair they own
In golden ringlets waved, and graceful shone.”

The mermaid that figured so much in the romantic tales of the north, which was evidently borrowed from the story of Atergatis, the fish goddess of Syria, who was called the mother of Semiramis, and was sometimes identified with Semiramis herself, was described with hair of the same kind. “The Ellewoman,” such is the Scandinavian name for the mermaid, “is fair,” says the introduction to the ‘Danish Tales’ of Hans Andersen, “and golden-haired, and plays most sweetly on a stringed instrument.” “She is frequently seen sitting on the surface of the waters, and combing her long golden hair with a gold comb.”

Even when Athor, the Venus of Egypt, was represented as a cow, doubtless to indicate the complexion of the goddess that cow represented, the cow’s head and neck were gilded.

When, therefore, it is known that the most famed pictures of the Virgin Mother in Italy represented her as of a fair complexion and with golden hair, and when over all Ireland the Virgin is almost invariably represented at this day in the very same manner, who can resist the conclusion that she must have been thus represented, only because she had been copied from the same prototype as the Pagan divinities.

Nor is this agreement in complexion only, but also in features. Jewish features are everywhere marked, and have a character peculiarly their own. But the original Madonnas have nothing at all of Jewish form or feature; but are declared by those who have personally compared both, entirely to agree in this respect, as well as in complexion, with the Babylonian Madonnas found by Sir Robert Ker Porter among the ruins of Babylon.

There is yet another remarkable characteristic of these pictures worthy of notice, and that is the nimbus or peculiar circle of light that frequently encompasses the head of the Roman Madonna. With this circle the heads of the so called figures of Christ are also frequently surrounded. Whence could such a device have originated? In the case of our Lord, if his head had been merely surrounded with rays, there might have been some pretense for saying that that was borrowed from the Evangelic narrative, where it is stated, that on the holy mount his face became resplendent with light. But where, in the whole compass of Scripture, do we ever read that his head was surrounded with a disk or a circle of light? But what will be searched for in vain in the Word of God, is found in the artistic representations of the great gods and goddesses of Babylon. The disk, and particularly the circle, were the well-known symbols of the Sun-divinity, and figured largely in the symbolism of the East. With the circle or the disk the head of the Sun-divinity was encompassed. The same was the case in Pagan Rome. Apollo, as the child of the Sun, was often thus represented. The goddesses that claimed kindred with the Sun were equally entitled to be adorned with the nimbus or luminous circle. We give from ‘Pompeii’ a representation of Circe, “the daughter of the Sun ” (see fig. 26), with her head surrounded with a circle, in the very same way as the head of the Roman Madonna is at this day surrounded. Let any one compare the nimbus around the head of Circe, with that around the head of the Popish Virgin, and he will see how exactly they correspond.

The explanation of the above woodcut is thus given in Pompeii, vol. ii., pp. 91, 92: “One of them [the paintings] is taken from the Odyssey, and represents Ulysses and Circe, at the moment when the hero, having drunk the charmed cup with impunity, by virtue of the antidote given him by Mercury, [it is well known that Circe had a ‘golden cup,’ even as the Venus of Babylon had,] “draws his sword, and advances to avenge his companions,” who, having drunk of her cup, had been changed into swine. The goddess, terrified, makes her submission at once, as described by Homer; Ulysses himself being the narrator:—

“’Hence, seek the sty, there wallow with thy friends.’
She spake, I drawing from beside my thigh
My falchion keen, with death-denouncing looks,
Rushed on her; she, with a shrill scream of fear,
Ran under my raised arm, seized fast my knees,
And in winged accents plaintive, thus began:
‘Say, who art thou,’ etc.”—Cowper’s Odyssey, x. 320.

“This picture,” adds the author of Pompeii, is remarkable, as teaching us the origin of that ugly and unmeaning glory by which the heads of saints are often surrounded. . . . This glory was called nimbus, or aureola, and is defined by Servius to be ‘the luminous fluid which encircles the heads of the gods.’ (On AENEID, lib. ii., v. 616, vol. i., p. 165). It belongs with peculiar propriety to Circe, as the daughter of the Sun. The emperors, with their usual modesty, assumed it as the mark of their divinity; and under this respectable patronage it passed, like many other Pagan superstitions and customs, into the use of the Church.” The emperors here get rather more than a fair share of the blame due to them. It was not the emperors that brought “Pagan superstition” into the Church, so much as the Bishop of Rome. See Chap. VII., Sect. II.

Now, could any one possibly believe that all this coincidence could be accidental? Of course, if the Madonna had ever so exactly resembled the Virgin Mary, that would never have excused idolatry. But when it is evident that the goddess enshrined in the Papal Church for the supreme worship of its votaries, is that very Babylonian queen who set up Nimrod, or Ninus “the Son,” as the rival of Christ, and who in her own person was the incarnation of every kind of licentiousness, how dark a character does that stamp on the Roman idolatry. What will it avail to mitigate the heinous character of that idolatry, to say that the child she holds forth to adoration is called by the name of Jesus? When she was worshiped with her child in Babylon of old, that child was called by a name as peculiar to Christ, as distinctive of his glorious character, as the name of Jesus. He was called “Zoro-ashta,” “the seed of the woman.”

But that did not hinder the hot anger of God from being directed against those in the days of old who worshiped that “image of jealousy, provoking to jealousy.” Neither can the giving of the name of Christ to the infant in the arms of the Romish Madonna, make it less the “image of jealousy,” less offensive to the Most High, less fitted to provoke His high displeasure, when it is evident that that infant is worshiped as the child of her who was adored as Queen of heaven, with all the attributes of divinity, and was at the same time the “Mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.” Image-worship in every case the Lord abhors; but image-worship of such a kind as this must be peculiarly abhorrent to His holy soul. Now, if the facts I have adduced be true, is it wonderful that such dreadful threatenings should be directed in the Word of God against the Romish apostasy, and that the vials of his tremendous wrath are destined to be outpoured upon its guilty head? If the sethings be true (and gainsay them who can), who will venture now to plead for Papal Rome, or to call her a Christian Church? Is there one, who fears God, and who reads these lines, who would not admit that Paganism alone could ever have inspired such a doctrine as that avowed by the Melchites at the Nicene Council, that the Holy Trinity consisted of “the Father, the Virgin Mary, and the Messiah their Son? Is there one who would not shrink with horror from such a thought? What, then, would the reader say of a church that teaches its children to adore such a Trinity as that contained in the following lines?—

“Heart of Jesus, I adore thee;
Heart of Mary, I implore thee;
Heart of Joseph, pure and just;
IN THESE THREE HEARTS I PUT MY TRUST.”

If this is not Paganism, what is there that can be called by such a name? Yet this is the Trinity which now the Roman Catholics of Ireland from tender infancy are taught to adore. This is the Trinity which, in the latest books of catechetical instruction, is presented as the grand object of devotion to the adherents of the Papacy. The manual that contains this blasphemy comes forth with the express “Imprimatur” of “ Paulus Cullen,” Popish Archbishop of Dublin. Will any one after this say that the Roman Catholic Church must still be called Christian, because it holds the doctrine of the Trinity? So did the Pagan Babylonians, so did the Egyptians, so do the Hindus at this hour, in the very same sense in which Rome does. They all admitted a trinity, but did they worship THE Triune Jehovah, the King Eternal, Immortal, and Invisible? And will any one say, with such evidence before him, that Rome does so? Away, then, with the deadly delusion that Rome is Christian! There might once have been some palliation (excuses) for entertaining such a supposition; but every day the “Grand Mystery” is revealing itself more and more in its true character.

There is not, and there cannot be, any safety for the souls of men in “Babylon.” “Come out of her, my people,” is the loud and express command of God. Those who disobey that command, do it at their peril.

Continued in Chapter III. Festivals. Section I.—Christmas and Lady-Day.

All chapters of The Two Babylons

Continued from Chapter II. True Meaning Of The Term.

As the “lawless one,” above all laws, as well as the “Man of the Sin,” ho anthropos tees amartias, and “the Son of Perdition,” ho uios fees apoleias, he exalts himself above all “called god,” or, that is an object of reverence, sebasma. The term ho anomos, in the Greek, corresponds to the Latin classical phrase, legibus solutus, applied to Roman Emperors’; “the expression was supposed to exalt the Emperor above all human restraints; and to leave his conscience and reason as the sacred measure of his conduct.”

As ho antikeimenos (2 Thess, ii. 4) he is an adversary, for Paul uses that phrase in Phil. i. 28 of the adversaries of Christians; hence he is described as warring with the saints.(Rev. xi. 7, xiii, 7; Dan. vii. 21)

As an oracle (Rev. xiii. 5, 6; Dan. vii. 7, 25; Isa. xxxvii. 23) he blasphemes God, God’s Name, God’s Tabernacle, God’s Heavenly ones, not by abuse, but by usurpation and falsehood. All which characteristics naturally are the logical outcome of the claim to be Christ’s Vicar, and the mouthpiece of God. Whosoever, in the pride of his heart, falsely assumes to be the oracle of God and Christ’s Vicar, cannot but utter “great things and blasphemies.” These are inseparable concomitants. He who claims to be Judge of all, (Harduin, VI., ii, 1650; and Cardinal Manning, 1880, in Pro- Cathedral, Kensington) but incapable of being judged by any, necessarily is the Lawless One. He who makes laws, but is above laws, is necessarily the Lawless One, for no earthly power can reach him.

Combine these features, and you have the Scriptural Antichrist, as Gregory, Bishop of Rome, A.D. 590, long ago perceived.

Such a climax of impiety is not to be reached by man, even though “energized by Satan,” in a brief space of time, or in the lifetime of one human being. Such an idea is contrary to all the marks by which the Holy Spirit has delineated the Antichrist. Particularly so in regard to duration. It is constantly overlooked by writers and speakers that no time limit is fixed to “the Apostasy,” beyond the statement that it began in apostolic days, (2 Thess. ii. 7; 2 John 7) and is to endure until the Second Advent. (Rev. xix. 2) But a definite time limit is fixed for the Antichristian Head of the Matured Apostasy, in “the latter times.” (1 Tim. iv. 1) This time limit is seven times mentioned in varying terms: “a time and times and half a time,” (Dan. vii. 25; xii. 7; Rev. xii. 14) “forty- two months,” (Rev. xi. 2, xii. 5) and “one thousand two hundred and sixty days,” (Rev. xi. 3, xii. 6) in symbolical phraseology. The precedent of the seventy “weeks” of Daniel ix., as well as logic and sanctified commonsense, combine to show that in symbolic prophecy a “time” means three hundred and sixty years, and a “day” a literal year. Hence three and a half “times” are one thousand two hundred and sixty literal years, a period accordant with the magnitude of the Apostasy, and with its duration, which we know has lasted over eighteen hundred years.

Hence the duration of the Bestial Head cannot be three and a half literal years, and must be one thousand two hundred and sixty years—a fact which renders it impossible for a solitary person to be “the Antichrist.” From the nature of the case, and from all the converging lines of identification, the Antichrist must be a “Perpetual Person.” Just as the British Throne enfolds an entire series of persons, each styled “the Sovereign,” so the “Seat” or Cathedra of Antichrist enfolds an entire series of persons styled “the Beast,” or “Little Horn,” or “Eighth Head” (of the “Ten Horned, Seven Headed Wild Beast”), or “Son of Perdition,” according to the various phases of the character portrayed; i.e., species and origin, position among rulers, power of persecution, religious apostasy and blasphemy.

Continued in Chapter IV. Time of Antichrist’s Appearance.

All chapters of The Antichrist: His Portrait and History

This is the continuation of the previous chapter The Two Babylons II. Section II.—Sub-Section IV.—The Death 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 had 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 honored as a hero; in death she will have him worshiped as a god, yea, as the woman’s promised seed, “Zero-ashta,” (the seed) who was destined to bruise the serpent’s head, and who in doing so was to have his own heel bruised.

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 Creeshna, (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 (lower) deities, is the genius of evil—a real Cacodaemon.” 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 the 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 “Engonasis” 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 Krishna, 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 this 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 Zoroastes, “the seed of the woman,” was given to him who had perished in the midst of a prosperous career of false-worship and apostasy, 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 apostasy from the true God, was just to give out that, though the great patron of the apostasy 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 apostasy 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 apostasy was not the death of a warrior slain in battle, but an act of judicial rigor, 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 Tammuz 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 Tammuz. 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 Tammuz.”

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 apostasy 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. Now, no doubt, the title and character of Hercules were afterwards given by the Pagans to him whom they worshiped as the grand Deliverer or Messiah, just as the adversaries of the Pagan divinities came to be stigmatized 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 apostasy 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 offense 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. 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 amount 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 offense 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 xix. 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. xi. 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 apostasy again rose 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 sympathizers; and for his share in it the chief actor was stigmatized as Typho, or “The Evil One.” 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. 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.” 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 apostasy, 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. xi. 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. 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 center, 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 harmonize.

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 honor 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 (an exhibition of optical effects and illusions).

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 practiced 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.

Now, in the hands of crafty, designing men, this was a powerful means of imposing upon those who are 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 apostasy, 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 worshiped with an enthusiasm that was incredible, and their images were everywhere set up and adored. 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 no 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 worshiped. But yet, as we shall afterwards see, among the civilized 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 worshiped 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 worshiped as the “Mediator.” As Mediator and head of the covenant of grace, he was styled Baal-berith, Lord of the Covenant (fig. 24:) —(Judges viii. 33). In this character he is represented in Persian monuments as seated on the rainbow, the wellknown symbol of the covenant. In India, under the name of Vishnu, the Preserver or Savior of men, though a god, he was worshiped as the great “Victim-Man,” who before the worlds were, because there was nothing else to offer, offered himself as a sacrifice. The Hindu sacred writings teach that this mysterious offering before all creation is the foundation of all the sacrifices that have ever been offered since.

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 Hindus 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 xx. 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. That 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.”

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 Savior of the world.” It has been all along well enough known that the Greeks occasionally worshiped the supreme god, under the title of “Zeus the Savior;” but this title was thought to have reference only to deliverance in battle, or some such-like temporal deliverance. But when it is known that “Zeus the Savior” was only a title of Dionysus, the “sin-bearing Bacchus, his character, as “The Savior,” 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 be honored 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 worshiped 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.” 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 worshiped 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 worshiped 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.”

Continued in The Two Babylons II. Section III.—The Mother of the Child

All chapters of The Two Babylons

Continued from Chapter I. Meaning of the Term

Now, from all the preceding, we see at once how to interpret Ho antichristos, composed of the high official name Ho Christos and the prefix anti, and thus forming the Divinely revealed title of that great special adversary of Christ and His Church, of whose coming future and direful doings the prophetic Scriptures give so many and such awful warnings; and revealed, too, at the very time when the official arrangements made by Augustus, and their Greek titles, were in full play in the Roman world. It is obvious from the above lists and facts that the true etymological and literal, as well as conventional, sense of this official Greek title, The Antichrist, can be no other than this: The pretended, self- styled divinely-appointed Pro-Christ, Vice-Christ, Substitute-Christ, Vicartal-Christ or Vicar-of-Christ, as also the Rival- Christ, the Aper (Someone who copies the words or behavior of another.) of Christ, the Antagonist of Christ, he who, having no sense of, nor relish nor heart for, the things of Christ, is the enemy and adversary of Christ—the usurper, conscious or unconscious, in Christ’s name, of Christ’s place, prerogatives, offices, titles and functions in the professing visible Church. Thus, doubtless, it includes all the characteristics in the threefold list, not excepting that of the spiritual Commander-in-Chief of all Anti-christian forces.

It should be remembered that Christ is said to have given Himself as an anti lutron (Greek meaning substitute. 1 Tim. ii. 6; Matt. xx. 28; Mark x. 45.) —a substitute or ransom in the stead of all—which shows what the Scriptural view of anti is. Neither Scriptural nor classic usage requires us to give another sense to this word, and to restrict it to one who openly, avowedly, and by force, opposes Christ or seats himself in some literal shrine made by man. For apostolic usage does not restrict the word naos to any literal shrine; and Paul—who alone employs the word, in 2 Thessalonians ii. 4, of the Antichrist—constantly applies it, in a spiritual or metaphorical sense, to the professing Christian body. (1 Cor. iii. 16, 17; vi. 19; 2 Cor. vi. 16; Eph. ii. 21.) So that consistency and sanctified common sense demand alike the application of the word naos to the professing Christian body, and of the word antichristos—to a false substitute, and therefore a disguised opponent, of Christ—a veiled enemy, not an open one.

The cogency is more evident when the Scriptural use of the word blasphemia, (Rev. xiii. 5-7) blasphemy,-is taken into account, for that term is invariably applied to religious impiety, never to religious opprobrium or foul language. Thus, in John 10:33: “We stone Thee for blasphemy; because Thou, being a man, makest Thyself equal with God.” This was the charge on which the High Priest condemned Christ. (Matt. xxvi. 64, 65) Compare also “He blasphemeth; for who can forgive sins, but God only?” (Matt. ix 3)

There are some twenty-five passages in the Acts of the Apostles where the Jewish Temple is called hieron, but not a single one where it is called naos>, nor is there one in any Epistle where it bears this name. The naos tou Theou, in the mouth of an Apostle, speaking to Gentile Christians concerning the future, could not mean the Jewish Temple. It could only mean the Christian Church. As the appellation, “Son of Perdition,” ties the meaning down to some professor of Christianity, so the word “blasphemy” equally restricts the sense to religious profanity. Thus these three loops and taches (buttons) concur in pointing to a false Christian, and negate completely any idea of Atheism.

As previously pointed out, a “wild beast” (Dan. vii. 3; Rev. xiv. 9, xiii. 2, 4, xvii. 11, xi. 7, xiii. 1) in prophecy is invariably the symbol, emblem, or sign, of a Gentile, heathen power. To this rule there is no exception. Hence it is obvious that, in prophecy, as the head” (Rev. xiii. 1, xvii. 9, 11) or “little horn” (Dan, vii. 8, 20) of a “wild beast” must be of like nature or origin, the eighth head, or “the beast,” as it is called, or the Antichrist, is necessarily of Gentile, heathen origin and nature —not Jewish.

Thus “the Antichrist” of prophecy is a false Christian, a veiled enemy of Christ, of heathen origin. He is also not only the outcome of the Great Apostasy,(2 Thess. ii. 6) but its consummated Head, its Apostolic Head, its False Apostle (2 Cor. xi. 13) or “Son of Perdition.” And, besides, he is ho anomos,(2 Thess. ii. 8) the lawless one, or the prime leader of the “mystery of anomia” (2 Thess, ii. 7) which was at work in apostolic days—some secret, religious, Satanically inspired (2 Thess. ii. 9; Rev. xvii. 5-7) apostasy from primitive truth, then working inwardly, but subsequently to burst forth into full power and to “reveal” the “Man of the Sin” in the plenitude of “deceivableness” and “strong delusion,” of “blasphemy” and of persecuting proclivities. Augustine said: “If John had said, ‘If any man sin I will pray for him’ . . . who would tolerate it of faithful Christians? Who not view him rather as Antichrist than an Apostle? ”

Continued in The Antichrist: His Portrait and History – Chapter III. Characteristics.

All chapters of The Antichrist: His Portrait and History

This is the continuation of the previous chapter The Two Babylons II. Section II.—Sub-Section III. The Child in Greece

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 to pieces.

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 worshiped 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.

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. 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 worshiped. 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.

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 worshiped 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, Wut—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 hand 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 dispatched 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.

Continued in Section II.—Sub-Section V.—The Deification of the Child

All chapters of The Two Babylons

Continued from The Antichrist: His Portrait and History by Baron Porcelli

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Baron Alfred Porcelli, R. E., was born in Palermo, Italy, his father being Colonel Baron A. S. R. Porcelli di S. Andrea, supporter of Garibaldi, the Italian liberator. His mother was a Scottish lady; and, as a young man, Baron Porcelli became a naturalized British subject, and served Queen Victoria in the Royal Engineers. He died at Hove, November 4th, 1937, at the advanced age of eighty-eight years.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Owing to high cost of printing in England, the Protestant Truth Society, of London, has given up the publication of Porcelli’s “ANTICHRIST.” This, according to a letter to us dated April 14, 1971, from A. L. Kensit, Secretary.

As a consequence, and because of the increasing interest of the book, in U.S. A., Canada, and other paris, the undersigned proposes, by God’s help, to continue this as a distinct service to Christ’s Church and witness to the unbelieving world.

Oid Fashioned Prophecy Magazine
Blackwood, N. J., U.S. A.

PREFACE

THE Author, in compiling this essay, has rigidly eschewed flights of fancy and theories, and has sought to place before the Christian reader facts, which require only to be duly weighed and compared with the prophetic Scriptures in order to produce conviction.

The condition of Christendom to-day is such as to cause serious alarm and distress to thoughtful minds, owing to the multiplicity of “isms,” which very often read plausibly, but, au fond, (at its heart) are sadly erroneous, owing to lack of care in observation and study; and, not less often, owing to hasty acceptance of theories which have no basis in truth. “To the Law and the Testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no Light in them.” – Isaiah 8:20.

May He, Who is Light, graciously grant light to all who peruse what is herein written, after a generation of careful study in many lands, and in many books. Britain’s danger to-day is extreme, chiefly because of non-recognition of her great enemy.

ALFRED PORCELLI.
Revised 1927, 1929, and 1948.

THE ANTICHRIST: His PORTRAIT AND HISTORY. BARON PORCELLI.

The prevailing cry in these days is for “fundamentals,” not fancies or theories, and there are many writers who deserve special commendation in their endeavors to cope with that demand. Baron Porcelli, in his book on “The Antichrist” has strenuously set himself out to provide us with facts, which, according to him, “require only to be duly weighed and compared with the prophetic Scriptures in order to produce conviction.” He deplores the multiplicity of “isms,” which lead to a hasty acceptance of theories which have no basis in truth. The author’s first point is to make clear the real meaning of the term “Antichrist,” and he puts forth arguments which the conscientious student cannot afford to ignore. The important points to note about the book, however, are:— It is written from the standpoint of the historical school of interpretation; is frankly anti-papal; and it gives supreme honour to the Bible. The book is interesting in these perplexing times, which, again to quote the author’s own words, “cause serious alarm and distress to thoughtful minds.”

Is order to ascertain the nature of “The Antichrist,” it is essential to be cautious in our dealings with Scripture phraseology, and to remember that, whereas we are accustomed ta Western modes of thought, tthe Bible writers were not so. They were all Orientals, and the languages employed by them—viz., Hebrew and Greek— did not, and still do not, lend themselves completely to modern Western terminology.

The very word “Antichrist” is a manufactured one, unknown to Hebrew usage, and has no corresponding equivalent in the Anglo- Saxon dialect. It is wrong, therefore, to jump to the conclusion that the mere sound of the word denotes its meaning. That is by no means the case. The true sense has to be discovered by careful study of (a) the context in which it is used; (B) the parallel passages —if any—in corresponding predictions; (c) similar Oriental terms in classical and Biblical writings.

A.—The Context.

Now, the word “Antichrist” occurs only in the Epistles of John, and, as there used by him, is applied to many persons existing in the first century. It is not confined to one particular individual, still to appear in subsequent days—“ It is tthe last time, and as ye have heard that the Antichrist (Ho Antichristos) cometh (erchetai), even now many Antichrists . . went out from us… Who is a liar but he that denieth, that Jesus is the Christ? He is the Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son.” – 1 John 2:18-22 “Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come (eleeluthota, already come) in the flesh, is not of God; and this is that spirit of the Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come, and even now already it is in the world.”-1 John 4:3

“Many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is coming (erchomenon, still to come) in the flesh, This is a deceiver and an Antichrist.” – 2 John 7

Observe the difference in the tenses, “is come” and “ is coming,” and the description of “the Antichrist” as a “liar” and “deceiver.” The spirit of Antichrist was already in the world in apostolic days. It is therefore wrong and mistaken to look for, or to suspect, some fresh spirit, some fin de siecle (French term meaning “end of century”) manifestation, and to dub that “The Antichrist.” We tread on safer ground when we combine John’s words, and read them thus: “The spirit of Antichrist ‘denies’ the true humanity of Jesus Christ, for it confesses not that He is come already in the flesh, and is coming again in the flesh. So doing, men are liars and deceivers and Antichrists. There were many such in John’s days.”

The context, moreover, does not support the idea either of one unique personality to appear in the “last days,” or of a blatant Atheist. On the contrary, John says of the Antichrists of his day: “They went out from us”—that is, they were Christian apostates, who held false views of our Lord’s humanity. These false views are explained by John: “Whosoever goes onward, and abides not in the teaching of Christ, has not God. He that abides in the teaching of Christ has both the Father and the Son. 2 John 9 To go beyond the limits of Christ’s teaching in regard to Himself is a denial of God, whereas to abide by it is to possess the Father and Son. As Christ repeatedly taught that He is “Son of Man,” as well as “Son of God,” and that, as “Son of Man,” He will once again revisit this earth, in propria persona,(in one’s own person, Matt, xxv. 13, xx. 18, xvi. 27; John iii. 13, vi. 62, v. 25.) any man who propounds views opposed to the obvious meaning of that teaching is a liar, a deceiver and an Antichrist. Compare the teaching in Canons I., II., VI., Session XIII, and Canons I., II., Session XXII., Council of Trent.

Now, the obvious meaning of that teaching is that Jesus Christ was a real man of proper humanity, who really died, really rose again, really ascended to Heaven, and will really return from Heaven in his Human body of glorified, but real, flesh. He who “denies,” or does not “confess,” by his teaching, this essential truth,” (1 John ii. 22.) “denies” the Father and the Son—in the sense of the word “deny” in Scripture, of course: “But ye denied the Holy One,” for example.(Acts iii. 13. 14, 23.) The Jews “denied” by ignoring the Lord’s identity, not by declaring He did not exist. They were the reverse of Atheists, being Deists of a particularly fanatical type. Still, their rejection was a “denial.” Just so is any teaching that ignores or invalidates the real humanity of the Lord a “denial” of His identity with the promised Messiah or Christ of God; and, therefore, John denounces teachers of that sort as “Antichrists.” He does not label them Atheists, or infidels, or unbelievers, however, but “liars” and “deceivers.”

B.—PARALLEL PASSAGES.

He adds that those to whom he wrote had heard that such persons would appear on earth.(1 John ii. 18.) Probably he alluded to some of the apostolic Epistles, for Peter had said: “There shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring im damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them,” (2 Pet. ii. 1) and Paul had amplified this by saying that in later times “some shall depart (or fall away) from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, through the hypocrisy of men that speak lies,” (1 Tim, iv. 1) and he warned his readers to “take heed to the teaching; continue in them” (1 Tim. iv. 16) —i.e., do not go beyond the revealed Faith, and do not depart from it: Paul also couples “seducers” from the Faith with deceivers,”(2 Tim. iii. 13) just as John brackets deceivers with liars and Antichrists. Whence it is clear that, to the Apostles, any addition to or departure from the primitive Faith taught by themselves, and involving “denial” of the Lord Jesus, is falsehood, deceit, and anti-Christianity. John singles out, as pre-eminently anti-Christian, any form of teaching that transgresses the basic fact of our Lord’s real humanity—which teaching involves rejection by God the Father and God the Son—for on that fact depends the entire fabric of man’s salvation and of God’s redemptive scheme, as worked out through Jesus the Christ, Who was born of a woman, and was “God manifest in the flesh.” (1 Tim. iii. 16)

The word “deny” (Bishop Latimer (Works, Vol. I., p. 521) said: “Another denying of Christ is this Massmongering. For all those that be Massmongers be deniers of Christ…”) used by John (Ho arnoumenos, “the one refusing ”) in no way implies Atheism or the denial of the existence of God. (Josh. xxiv. 27; Matt. x. 33; Titus i, 16; 1 Tim. v. 5; 2 Tim. iii. 5) It simply signifies heretical departure from the truth, and is so used constantly in the New Testament, and in the Septuagint. John particularly had in view his Gospel—written long before—in which he had laid down the basic truth that “the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.” (John i. 14) Men who, in any way, “deny” that basic truth are liars, deceivers, Antichrist, and, evidently, the “spirit of Antichrist” is that which fosters teaching opposed to that basic truth. It is the spirit of falsehood and deceit, -of departure from Christian truth, of apostasy, not of Athe- ism. It is enough to abide not in the teaching of Christ, to be without God. (2 John 9) It is enough to confess not the real humanity of Christ, to be without God. (1 John iv. 3) It is enough to confess not that Jesus the Christ is coming once again in the flesh, to be the Antichrist. (2 John 7)

There is no need to be an Atheist, therefore, to produce this effect. There is neither subtiety nor mystery in Atheism. It is mere materialism; whereas the “mystery of iniquity” has behind it all the subtlety of Satan. For Paul says, of “the Man of the Sin” (or great Apostasy), that his “coming (Parousia) is according to the energy of Satan,” (2 Thess. ii. 9) who, in this dispensation, poses as “an angel of light,” and utilises “false apostles, deceitful workers, fashioning themselves into apostles of Christ” and “ministers of righteousness.” (2 Cor. xi. 13, 14, 15) As “god of this age,” Satan “blinds the mind,” (2 Cor. iv. 4) and causes men to “walk in craftiness” and to “handle the Word of God deceitfully,” (2 Cor. iv. 2) and so hides the real Gospel of Christ, which alone is the Power of God unto salvation to those who credit it. (Rom. i. 16) We have in the New Testament no apostolic warrant for any other form of Antichrist than that sketched by John, by Peter and Paul, which is the reverse of atheistic, and is plainly crafty, pseudo-Christian, apostate, lying, deceitful, endued with satanic power, and handling the Word of God deceitfully—especially in regard to the basic truth of Christ’s proper humanity. Such is “The Antichrist” whose portrait is limned (described) , by John, by Peter, and by Paul in their Epistles.

If we turn to the Apocalypse, the portrait is amplified by the addition of particulars, such as that the Antichrist is an emanation from the abyss; (Rev. xi. 7, xiii, 7, xvii. 8) a foe to Christian witnesses, with whom it wars; and that it goes into “perdition”; thus identifying it with Paul’s “Son of Perdition”; (2 Thess. ii. 3) which term must have been chosen for a special purpose, viz., the identification of the bearer of that name—as it obviously connects him with the false Apostle, Judas, who alone bore that designation, and alone was “lost.” (John xvii. 12. 29) We shall be “wise” (Dan. xii. 3, 10) if we understand this hint, which plainly tells us that Judas was a type of the Antichrist; and that, therefore, we are to look for a False Apostle, and not for an Atheistic Prince, as is so unscripturally taught to-day. Can anything be less like the portrait of the Antichrist of John, Peter and Paul than the following: “A scholar, a statesman, a man of unflinching courage and irrepressible enterprise, full of resources and ready to look in the face a rival or a foe”? “a general and a diplomatist.” (Quotes from The Coming Prince, by R. Anderson, p. 169 & p. 170.) Many of us wish we had a few such in our midst. It is unfortunate that the author of this imaginary sketch should have omitted: (a) to explain wherein lies the “sin” of such a one; and (b) to complete the category of his imaginary hero’s enormities. For instance, why not add “an actor, an author, a sportsman, an artist, a musician, a philosopher, an astronomer, a scientist, a barrister-at-law, and LL.D. and K.C.B.”? Why limit the accomplishments of such a prodigy?—a prodigy wholly unknown to Scripture, and savoring more of Bombastes Furioso than of Satanic mystery and energy and guile.

In Daniel (Dan. vii. 8, 11, 20, 22, xi. 36-39) and the Apocalypse (Rev. xiii. 3-8, 15-18) the Antichrist is portrayed as a “little horn” speaking “great words” and making “war with the saints,” with a “look more stout than his fellow horns,” and with a “mouth speaking blasphemies against God, His Name, His Tabernacle, and them that dwell in the Heaven”; a “little horn,” which is also a “king” that “exalts himself” (just as Paul’s “Son of Perdition” does) “above every god,” and magnifies himself “above all,” honouring in his seat the god of Force (Hercules), and using “gold, silver and precious stones and pleasant things” in honour of his God (just as in the Apocalypse (Rev. xvii. 4, xviii. 12) his Church is represented as doing). This “little horn” or “king” is a “head” (Rev. xiii. 3, xvii 9-11) of the well-known symbol of the Romano-Latin power, the fourth “wild beast” of prophecy; i.e., it is a Pagan Latin Form of Rule, for invariably in prophecy a wild beast denotes a Gentile Pagan power. (Dan. vii. 3-7, viii. 3-20; Zech, i. 18, 19; Isa. xxi. 8, 9, xxvii. 1; Nah. ii. 13)

Hence the Antichrist is the eighth or last “horn” or “king” or “head” of the Romano-Latin Pagan Power; i.e., it, in addition to its religious apostasy, wields Pagan rule of a monarchical type within the confines of the Latin race.

In Zechariah (Zech. xi. 16, 17) the Antichrist is described as a “shepherd” that “eats the flesh of the fat” and “tears their claws in pieces” instead of exercising pastoral care over the poor and needy. In other words, he is an ecclesiastical overseer (Dan. vii. 8, 20) of grasping and rapacious tendencies, an episkopos, as Daniel describes him. And this remarkable point of identification is mentioned, viz., that towards the end of his career “the sword shall be upon his arm and upon his right eye; his arm shall be clean dried up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened,” a description corresponding to that in Daniel vii. 26, 2 Thess. ii. 8, of the “consumption” of Antichrist’s power, preparatory to his destruction at the Lord’s appearing, and of the darkening of his kingdom in retributive judgment. (Rev. xvi, 10) It is plain that here is indicated deprivation of power by some signal act or process of judgment, contemporaneous, mental obliquity; a process or act of judgment, moreover, connected with “the sword,” i.e., war.

C.—CLASSICAL AND BIBLICAL USAGE.

The name ho antichristos, the Antichrist, is thus described by the learned Elliott (Hore, Vol. I., pp. 67, 68): “A name very notable. For it was not a pseudo-Christ, as of those self-styled Christs (in pro- fessed exclusion and denial of Jesus Christ that the Lord declared would appear in Judea before the destruction of Jerusalem, (Matt. xxiv. 24. Mark xiii) and who did, in fact, appear there and then; but was a name of new formation, expressly compounded, it might seem, by the Divine Spirit for the occasion, and as if to express some idea, through its etymological force, which no older word could so well express, Antichrist; even as if the would appear some way as a Vice-Christ, in the mystic Temple or professing Church; and in that character act the usurper and adversary against Christ’s true Church and Christ Himself. Nor did it fail to strengthen this anticipation that the Gnostic heresiarchs, and others, did in a subordinate sense act that very part already; by setting Christ practically aside, while in mouth confessing Him, and pro- fessing (Acts. viii. 9. See also Irenzus, i. 20; Jerome, Tome IV., i. 114; Irenaeus, i. 24; Epiphanius i. 20, etc.) themselves in His place the power, wisdom and salvation of God.”

Elliott thus explains the Greek word Antichristos: “When anti is compounded with a noun signifying an agent of any kind, or functionary, the compound word either signifies a vice-functionary, or a functionary of the same kind opposing, or sometimes both.

In the New Testament the only compounds of the kind are used in the sense of the first class of words; as anthupatos —Pro-consul—Acts xiii. 7, 8, 12; xix. 38; and both on that account, and yet more because the old word, pseudo-Christ, would almost have expressed the idea of a counter-Christ, I conclude that this must be St. John’s intended sense of Anti- christ.” “I must particularly beg the reader to bear in mind that the word cannot with etymological propriety mean simply a person opposed to Christ; but either a vice-Christ, or counter- Christ, or both.”

“The name—the then new and very singular name that John gave it, under divine inspiration, of Antichrist, while admitting the secondary senses of an adversary of Christ, did yet primarily, indeed necessarily, indicate (according to the etymological formation of the word) that he would be so through his being in some manner a Vice-Christ, or one professedly assuming the character, occupying the place, and fulfilling the functions, of Christ. An excellent comment on its force and significance is furnished by the Romanists’ appellative of Anti-Pope (Greek, antipapa), an appellation given in the sense not simply of an enemy to the Pope, but of a a hostile self-substituted, usurping Pope, one occupying the proper Pope’s place, receiving his honours and exercising his functions.”

Such was the view generally adopted by the Fathers; Whether in reference to the prophecies of Daniel, St. Paul, or St. John, they speak of the grand enemy, therein alike prefigured, not as an Atheist so much, but rather as a usurper of Christ’s place before the world. So the Greek Fathers generally, e.g., Irenaeus, v.25 Hippolytus, Cyril, Chrysostom, Theodoret. The Latin Fathers did not enter into the proper force of the Greek compound, and thus expounded it as ‘an adversary of the Lord,’ so Cyprian; or ‘opposed to Christ,’ so Augustine. Justin Martyr and Chrysostom use antitheos, not as a professed rebel against God, but a usurper of His place, by blasphemously proclaiming himself equal to God.”

The learned Rev. M. W. Foye says: “Most English scholars are liable much to mistake the etymological and true meaning of the word Antichrist. After a due examination of the Greek prefix, anti, when compounded with a noun personal, I feel assured that the following may be laid down as a safe general—I would say, all but universal—rule, viz., the Greek anti prefixed to a personal noun; signifying a public ministerial functionary; or a ministerial official agent of any sort, public or private, signifies Pro, in the stead of, substitute, vice, vicar; prefixed to other personal nouns wt signifies emulation, rivalry, hostility.”

These three lists contain all the personal nouns that are found with anti prefixed to them except Christos. The following brief passage from Dion Cassius will put the rule beyond question, so, at least, as regards its first and second branches. “He retained in Italy the names both of imperator and of consul, but as to those rulers who, out of Italy, were governors in the stead of them (anti ekeinon), all these he entitled antistrategous and anthupatous.”

The learned Dr. Wordsworth says: “The person in whom this system is embodied is described as antikeimenos (2 Thess. ii. 4), i.e., literally, one setting himself in opposition, and particularly as a rival foundation, in the place of or against another foundation. Now, be it remembered . . . ‘Other foundation can no one lay than that which already laid (keitoi, remark the word), which is Jesus Christ’ (1 Cor. iii. 11). May not he who calls himself the Rock of the Church be rightly called ho antikeimenos?”

“Here is an Antichrist sitting in the Church and teaching errors disguised as Truth; an Antichrist speaking in the name of Christ. Here is a strong delusion, one that may ensnare the world.” (Union With Rome, page 23)

The learned Dr. Wylie says: “John looks for him in the guise of a Deceiver. ‘Little children,’ says John (First Epistle, ii. 19), “it is the last time; and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many Antichrists.” Antichrist, says John, is to be a liar (ii. 22). But if he comes boldly and truthfully avowing himself the enemy of Christ, how is he a liar? If he avows, without concealment, his impious design of overthrowing Christ, with what truth can he be spoken of as a deceiver? But such is the character plainly ascribed to him by John (2nd Epistle, verse 7). ‘This is a deceiver and an Antichrist.’ He who. does not confess when he is called to do so, denies. Such is the use of the word in these applications all through the New Testament. Such is the use John makes of it in this very passage: ‘For many deceivers are entered into the world who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.’ It is clear that Antichrist, as depicted by our Lord and by His Apostle John, is to wear a mask, and to profess one thing, and act another. He is to enter the Church as Judas entered the garden—professedly to kiss his Master, but in reality to betray Him. He is to be a counterfeit Christ. If Antichrist must necessarily be a deceiver—a false Christ —then no Atheist, or body of Atheists, can be Antichrist. No Pantheist, or body of Pantheists, can be Antichrist. They are not deceivers; they are open enemies. And not less does this mark shut us up to the rejection of the theory that Antichrist is a political character, or potentate, some frightfully tyrannical and portentously wicked king, who is to arise, and for a short space devastate the world by arms. This is an altogether different Antichrist from that Antichrist which prophecy foreshadows. Prophecy absolutely refuses to see in either of these theories the altogether unique and over-topping system of hypocrisy, blasphemy and tyranny, which it has foretold. When we are able to put aside some of the false Antichrists, we come more within sight of the true one. We turn now to the prophecy of Paul, and we shall be blind indeed, if, after the study of it, we shall be in any doubt as to whose likeness it is that looks forth upon us from this remarkable prediction.” “No one-man Antichrist, or Antichrist whose reign is to last for only three years and a half, can fulfill the conditions of Paul’s prophecy.”

The “Chronicles of Zachariah of Mytilene” (6th century) Ch. I., par. 1 (Burry’s Byzantine Texts), says: “King Justin made his sister’s son, who was General, Anti-Caesar, ed Justinian became Anti-Caesar on the 5th day of the week in the last week of the fast.”

Hales’ Chronology, Vol. II., Part I., p. 550, says: “The Vice-gerent of Jesus Christ, which, by a singular concurrence, meant the same as the obnoxious Antichristus—Antichrist— originally signifying a pro-Christ or deputy-Christ, or a false Christ who assumed his authority and acted in his stead.”

Continued in Chapter II. True Meaning Of The Term.

All chapters of The Antichrist: His Portrait and History

This is the continuation of the previous chapter of The Two Babylons II. Section II.—Sub-Section II. The Child in Egypt.

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 worshiped 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 the 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 their 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 symbolized by the Nebros, or “spotted fawn,” as we shall find he was symbolized, what could be the design but just covertly to identify him with Nimrod?

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 Ethiopians were Cushites, so AEthiops was Cush. “Chus,” says Eusebius, “was he from whom came the Ethiopians.” The testimony of Josephus is to the same effect. As the father of the Ethiopians, 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 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.”

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 Cash, says: “The Susians are called Kissioi,” that is, beyond all question, Cushites. 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.”

Now, this god, who was recognized as “the scion of Cush,” was worshiped 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 twofold 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.”

Thus from Assyria, Egypt, and Greece, we have cumulative and overwhelming evidence, all conspiring to demonstrate that the child worshiped 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: (Exod. xxiii. 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 defense 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 his deified successors as a title of honor. All tradition from the earliest times bears testimony to the apostasy 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 can give the least appearance of plausibility to an 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 worshiped 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 and Phoroneus, “The Emancipator,” than this Polynesian fable? 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 apostasy 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 defied 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? 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 apostasy in which the Giants rebelled against Heaven,” and in which apostasy Nimrod, “the mighty one,” as the acknowledged ringleader, occupied a preeminent place:

“God blessed Noah and his sons” (Gen. ix. 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 hands 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 band, who joined in the apostasy of Nimrod broke the covenant, and in casting off the authority of God, did in effect say, “Let us break his hands 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. 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. iv. 26), “Thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, when thou hast known that the HEAVENS do rule.”

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.

Continued in The Two Babylons II. Section II.—Sub-Section IV.—The Death of the Child

All chapters of The Two Babylons

I was very pleased and honored to receive a gift from Old Working Books & Bindery, the book you see in the above photo! It must be out of print. The author, Baron Porcelli, passed away in 1937. You can guess from his name that he’s Italian. He was born in Palermo, Italy and later became a British citizen.

On Aug. 31st I finished posting the last section of this book and made a PDF file out of it. The Antichrist: His Portrait and History

This is a message on the first page of text in the book.

An Appeal to Bible Students by Rev. E. P. Cachemaille

At the present time the most important matter in the interpretation of the prophetic visions is the identification of the Antichrist. Is he amongst us now; and if so, who is he?

The Martyrs, the Reformers, and the Historicists generally, down to the present day, guided by the visions from Dan. vii. to Rev. xix., have no doubts on the matter: The Papacy, that is the succession of the Popes, is the Antichrist foretold and described in Scripture. Many precious and holy lives have been given up in attestation of this belief; and if the historical explanation of these visions be honestly and continuously followed all along, and compared with the facts of history, it seems impossible to believe otherwise.

A truth so damaging to the great power that claimed to represent Christ on earth had to be nullified somehow, and towards the end of the sixteenth century the Jesuit Ribera put forth his counter-scheme, the main point of which was that in the visions of Revelation all from the Sixth Seal onwards belong to the time of the end, when an Antichrist shall appear and have a brief career. This scheme, if true, would have rehabilitated the Papacy, by relegating the appearance of an Antichrist to a far distant future, not yet reached even now. How Ribera explained Dan. vii. 8-11, 20-26, does not appear, but in this connection those passages cannot be ignored.

Now these two schemes—beyond all question decisively antagonistic to each other and impossible of reconciliation—are before us at the present time, and have a multitude of supporters, learned and unlearned; and the momentous question has to be faced and answered by the individual Bible student: Which of these two ought I to follow? Shall I ignore the witness of all those learned expositors, and especially of that noble army of martyrs, who were willing to suffer even to death for what they had learnt through the Spirit from God’s Word? And shall I instead adopt the teaching of the defender of their murderer, of the slayer of the witnesses of Christ? Surely we must reply, God forbid !

The Historicists, no less than the Futurists, look for a personal Antichrist at the last; it could not be otherwise. If the critical period at the end be short, he who fills it cannot be other than a person; there is no room for a succession. But here is the grand difference. The Historicist Antichrist of the end is the last member or members of a succession that has lasted for more than twelve centuries; whereas the Futurist Antichrist is an imaginary person, hitherto unknown, who appears at short notice quite at the end, and runs a career of only three and a half years’ duration.

The identification of the Antichrist, then, is the matter of supreme moment, as Ribera well knew. It must not be treated as a side-issue; it will powerfully affect us nationally and not only religiously. Explanations of the Apocalyptic visions by those who follow Ribera’s lead are of comparatively little importance. As these explanations are supposed to relate to the still future, they are not tied down by any of the facts of history, and imagination can have full play. However devout and spiritually profitable some of them may be, the test question is—Where do they place the Antichrist? If at the far end, they are consciously or unconsciously following the lead of the Jesuit, and are ignoring the teaching of centuries of European history and of a great cloud of witnesses.

I earnestly appeal, not only to lay Bible readers, but especially to my clerical brethren, to look dispassionately into this great business, not as mere partisans of a system, but as sober-minded, scholarly students searching for the truth. They ought to have definite views on a subject of such paramount importance, a subject too that is so wonderfully clearing up in our day.

The following text-books perhaps embody all that is best on this subject, but unfortunately all are now out of print and can only be obtained occasionally on the second-hand market: The Approaching End of the Age and Light for the Last Days, both by Dr. Grattan Guinness; The Visions of Daniel and of the Revelation explained on the Continuous Historic System; The Prophetic Outlook To-day; Antichrist and his Ten Kingdoms, by Albert Close.

Continued in Chapter I. Meaning of the Term

All chapters of The Antichrist: His Portrait and History

This is the continuation of the previous chapter of The Two Babylons II. Section II.—The Mother and Child. Sub-Section I – The Child in Assyria

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.

As Khon 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 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 have been 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 Khonso (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. 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 acknowledged, that the primitive Centaurus Was the same as Kronos, or Saturn, the father of the gods. 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. x. 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 Horseman 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.

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 honor 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. 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 Khonso, 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 worshiped 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 worshiped, 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 worshiped in Egypt with every physical characteristic of Nimrod. I have already noted 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.” 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, chap. i. 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 be 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 recognized 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 favorite 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 here presented,for that calf represented the divinity in the character of Saturn, “The HIDDEN one,” “Apis” being only another name for Saturn. The cow of Athor, however, the female divinity, corresponding to Apis, is well known as a “spotted cow; and it is singular that the Druids of Britain also worshiped “a spotted cow.” 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 worshiped even as he was, as Ninus, the CHILD in his mother’s arms?

Continued in The Two Babylons II. Section II.—Sub-Section III. The Child in Greece

All chapters of The Two Babylons

This is the continuation of the previous chapter, The Two Babylons II. Objects of Worship Section I.—Trinity in Unity.

While this was the theory, the first person in the Godhead was practically overlooked. As the Great Invisible, taking no immediate concern in human affairs, he was “to be worshiped through silence alone,” that is, in point of fact, he was not worshiped 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 Hindu Triad, and the religion of Hindustan is called by his name, yet he is never worshiped, and there is scarcely a single temple in all India now in existence of those that were formerly erected to his honor.

So also is it in those countries of Europe where the Papal system is most completely developed. In Papal Italy, as travelers universally admit (except where the gospel has recently entered), all appearance of worshiping 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 worshiped 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 worshiped 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 Plntus in her arms; and even in Tibet, in China, in Japan, the Jesuit missionaries were astonished to find the counterpart of Madonna and her child as devoutly worshiped 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.

SUB-SECTION I.—THE CHILD IN ASSYRIA.

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

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 (Ezek. viii. 14:) under the name of Tammuz, but he is commonly known among classical writers under the name of Bacchus, that is,“ The Lamented one.” 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 worshiped 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. 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 honor, 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.

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, epitomized 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 neighbors, and he conquered all nations from Assyria to Lybia, as they were yet unacquainted with the arts of war.” 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 valor, 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 be 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 Babal 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 harmonize. 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 dominion; 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 Gen. x. 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 authorized 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 Ashur 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 NEIGHBORHOOD of Nimrod as mighty a kingdom as Nimrod himself, Asshur building four cities, one of which is emphatically said to have been “great” (ver. 12); ’while Nimrod, on this interpretation, built just the same number of cities, of which none is specially characterized 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. Ashur 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, (ver. 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; (ver. 11), “Out of that land he went forth, being made strong, or when he had been made strong (asshur), and builded Nineveh,” etc.

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 neighbors, 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 Nimrod at this day.

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. x. 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.” Now, Hermes was the great original prophet of idolatry; for he was recognized 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.“

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 l. 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.” 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.” He who caused the confusion of tongues was he who “broke” the previously united earth (Gen. xi. 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 Gen. xi. 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.” 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 Jer. 50:23, where Babylon, as identified with its primeval god, is thus apostrophized: “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 to pieces,” (Jer. 50:2). 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 to pieces; therefore he himself is “broken to pieces.”

So much for the historical character of Bel, as identified with Janus or Chaos, the god of confusion, with his symbolical club. 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’s 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 xi. 38, we read of a god called Ala mahozim, i.e., the “god of fortifications.” 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 he 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. 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 worshiped 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 worshiped, 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-crowned” 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. 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 cast was worshiped 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 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 mahozim, “the god of fortifications.”

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. x. 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. 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 neighborhood 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 worshiped by our Pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors under the name of Zernebogus. This Zemebogus 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, analyzed and compared with the accompanying wood-cut (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 worshiped 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 xlvi. 1: “Bel boweth down, Nebo stoppet ,” 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,’ in loc.) be no more than another name for Bel himself, or a characterizing 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 the woodcut referred to, 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 who rebelled against heaven.

Now Nimrod, as the son of Cash, 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 worshiped; but among a people of a fair complexion, as the Anglo-Saxons, it was inevitable, that if worshiped 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 recognized 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 traveler, 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 headdress.

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 Hindu 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 modeled from this, consisting of a coronet with three points standing erect from it, in which Sir William Jones recognizes the Ethiopian or Parthian coronet. The open tiara of Agni, the Hindu 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 fieur-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. 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 symbolized 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-abirin,” “Lord of the mighty ones.” But “ Baal-aberin” (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.

To this mode of representing the mighty kings of Babylon and Assyria, who imitated Nimrod and his successors, there is manifest illusion in Isaiah viii. 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 symbolizing 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 overshadow Asia, and the other Europe,” from which he immediate ly concluded that he was organizing 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 “Baalaberin” can alone explain the remarkable statement of Aristphanes, 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”-—symbolized “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 Danaé, 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. These 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 symbolized 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. 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.”

Continued in The Two Babylons II. Section II.—Sub-Section II. The Child in Egypt

All chapters of The Two Babylons

This is the continuation of the previous chapter, The Two Babylons I. Distinctive Character of the Two Systems.

Section I.—Trinity in Unity

IF there be this general coincidence between the systems of Babylon and Rome, the question arises, Does the coincidence stop here? To this the answer is, Far otherwise. We have only to bring the ancient Babylonian Mysteries to bear on the whole system of Rome, and then it will be seen how immensely the one is borrowed from the other. These Mysteries were long shrouded in darkness, but now the thick darkness begins to pass away. All who have paid the least attention to the literature Of Greece, Egypt, Phoenicia, or Rome, are aware of the place which the “Mysteries” occupied in these countries, and that, whatever circumstantial diversities there might be, in all essential respects these “Mysteries” in the different countries were the same.

Now, as the language of Jeremiah already quoted, would indicate that Babylon was the primal source from which all these systems of idolatry flowed, so the deductions of the most learned historians, on mere historical grounds, have led to the same conclusion. From Zonaras we find that the concurrent testimony Of the ancient authors he had consulted was to this effect; for speaking of arithmetic and astronomy, he says: “It is said that these came from the Chaldees to the Egyptians, and thence to the Greeks.” If the Egyptians and Greeks derived their arithmetic and astronomy from Chaldea, seeing these in Chaldea were sacred sciences, and monopolized by the priests, that is sufficient evidence that they must have derived their religion from the same quarter.

Both Bunsen and Layard in their researches have come substantially to the same result. The statement of Bunsen is to the effect that the religious system of Egypt was derived from Asia, and “the primitive empire in Babel.“ Layard, again, though taking a somewhat more favourable view of the system of the Chaldean MAGI than I am persuaded, the facts of history warrant, nevertheless thus speaks of that system:—“Of the great antiquity of this primitive worship there is abundant evidence, and that it originated among the inhabitants of the Assyrian plains, we have the united testimony of sacred and profane history. It obtained the epithet of perfect, and was believed to be the most ancient of religious systems, having preceded that of the Egyptians.

“The identity,” he adds, “of many of the Assyrian doctrines with those of Egypt is alluded to by Porphyry and Clemens;” and, in connection with the same subject, he quotes the following from Birch on Babylonian cylinders and monuments:——“ he zodiacal signs ….. show unequivocally that the Greeks derived their notions and arrangements of the zodiac [and consequently their Mythology, that was intertwined with it] from the Chaldees. The identity of Nimrod with the constellation Orion is not to be rejected.”

Ouvaroff, also, in his learned work on the Eleusinian mysteries, has come to the same conclusion. After referring to the fact that the Egyptian priests claimed the honor of having transmitted to the Greeks the first elements of Polytheism, he thus concludes:—“These positive facts would sufficiently prove, even without the conformity of ideas, that the Mysteries transplanted into Greece, and there united with a certain number of local notions, never lost the character of their origin derived from the cradle of the moral and religious ideas of the universe. All these separate facts—all these scattered testimonies, recur to that fruitful principle which places in the East the center of science and civilization.”

If thus we have evidence that Egypt and Greece derived their religion from Babylon, we have equal evidence that the religious system of the Phoenicians came from the same source. Macrobius shows that the distinguishing feature of the Phoenician idolatry must have been imported from Assyria, which in classic writers, included Babylonia. “The worship of the Architic Venus,” says he, “formerly flourished as much among the Assyrians as it does now among the Phoenicians.”

Now, to establish the identity between the systems of ancient Babylon and Papal Rome, we have just to inquire in how far does the system of the Papacy agree with the system established in these Babylonian Mysteries. In prosecuting such an inquiry there are considerable difficulties to be overcome; for, as in geology, it is impossible at all points to reach the deep, underlying strata of the earth’s surface, so it is not to be expected that in any one country we should find a complete and connected account of the system established in that country. But yet, even as the geologist, by examining the contents of a fissure here, an upheaval there, and what “crops out” of itself on the surface elsewhere, is enabled to determine, with wonderful certainty, the order and general contents of the different strata over all the earth, so it is with the subject of the Chaldean Mysteries. What is wanted in one country is supplemented in another; and what actually “crops out” in different directions, to a large extent necessarily determines the character of much that does not directly appear on the surface.

Taking, then, the admitted unity and Babylonian character of the ancient Mysteries of Egypt, Greece, Phoenicia, and Rome, as the clue to guide us in our researches, let us go on from step to step in our comparison of the doctrine and practice of the two Babylons—the Babylon of the Old Testament, and the Babylon of the New.

And here I have to notice, first, the identity of the objects of worship in Babylon and Rome. The ancient Babylonians, just as the modern Romans, recognized in words the unity of the Godhead; and, while worshiping innumerable minor deities, as possessed of certain influence on human affairs, they distinctly acknowledged that there was ONE infinite and Almighty Creator, supreme over all. Most other nations did the same. “In the early ages of mankind,” says Wilkinson in his “Ancient Egyptians,” “the existence of a sole and omnipotent Deity, who created all things, seems to have been the universal belief: and tradition taught men the same notions on this subject, which, in later times, have been adopted by all civilized nations.”

“The Gothic religion,” says Mallet, “taught the being of a supreme God, Master of the Universe, to whom all things were submissive and obedient.”—(Tacit. de Morib. Germ.) The ancient Icelandic mythology calls him “the Author of every thing that existeth, the eternal, the living, and awful Being; the searcher into concealed things, the Being that never changeth.” It attributeth to this deity “an infinite power, a boundless knowledge, and incorruptible justice.”

We have evidence of the same having been the faith of ancient Hindostan. Though modern Hinduism recognizes millions of gods, yet the Indian sacred books show that originally it had been far otherwise. Major Moor, speaking of Brahm, the supreme God of the Hindus, says:—“Of Him whose glory is so great, there is no image.” (Veda) He “illumines all, delights all, whence all proceeded; that by which they live when born, and that to which all must return.” (Veda.)

In the “Institutes of Menu,” he is characterized as “He whom the mind alone can perceive; whose essence eludes the external organs, who has no visible parts, who exists from eternity . . . . the soul of all beings, whom no being can comprehend.” In these passages, there is a trace of the existence of Pantheism; but the very language employed bears testimony to the existence among the Hindus at one period of a far purer faith.

Nay, not merely had the ancient Hindus exalted ideas of the natural perfections of God, but there is evidence that they were all aware of the gracious character of God, as revealed in his dealings with a lost and guilty world. This is manifest from the very name Brahm, appropriated by them to the one infinite and eternal God.

There has been a great deal of unsatisfactory speculation in regard to the meaning of this name, but when the different statements in regard to Brahm are carefully considered, it becomes evident that the name Brahm is just the Hebrew Rahm, with the digamma prefixed, which is very frequent in Sanskrit words derived from Hebrew or Chaldee. Rahm in Hebrew signifies “The merciful or compassionate one.” But Rahm also signifies the WOMB or the bowels as the seat of compassion.

Now we find such language applied to Brahm, the one supreme God, as cannot be accounted for, except on the supposition that Brahm had the very same meaning as the Hebrew Rahm. Thus, we find the god Krishna, in one of the Hindu sacred books, when asserting his high dignity as a divinity and his identity with the Supreme, using the following words: “The great Brahm is my WOMB, and in it I place my fetus, and from it is the procreation of all nature. The great Brahm is the WOMB of all the various forms which are conceived in every natural WOMB.” How could such language ever have been applied to “The supreme Brahm, the most holy, the most high God, the Divine being, before all other gods; Without birth, the mighty Lord, God of gods, the universal Lord,” but from the connection between Rahm “the womb,” and Rahm “the merciful one?” Here, then, we find that Brahm is just the same as “Er-Rahman,” “The all-merciful one,”— a title applied by the Turks to the Most High, and that the Hindus, notwithstanding their deep religious degradation now, had once known that “the most holy, most high God,” is also “the God of Mercy,” in other words, that he is “a just God and a Saviour.“

And proceeding on this interpretation of the name Brahm, we see how exactly their religious knowledge as to the creation had coincided with the account of the origin of all things, as given in Genesis. It is well known that the Brahmans, to exalt themselves as a priestly half-divine caste, to whom all others ought to bow down, have for many ages taught that, while the other castes came from the arms, and body, and feet of Brahma—the visible representative and manifestation of the invisible Brahm, and identified with him —they alone came from the mouth of the creative God.

Now we find statements in their sacred books which prove that once a very different doctrine must have been taught. Thus, in one of the Vedas, speaking of Brahma, it is expressly stated that “ALL beings” “ are created from his MOUTH.” In the passage in question an attempt is made to mystify the matter; but, taken in connection with the meaning of the name Brahm, as already given, who can doubt what was the real meaning of the statement, opposed though it be to the lofty and exclusive pretensions of the Brahmans? It evidently meant that He who, ever since the fall, has been revealed to man as the “Merciful: and Gracious One” (Exod. xxxiv. 6), was known at the same time as the Almighty One, who in the beginning “spake and it was done,” “ commanded and all things stood fast,” who made all things by the “Word of his power.”

After what has now been said, any one who consults the “Asiatic Researches,” vol. vii., p. 293, may see that it is in a great measure from a wicked perversion of this divine title of the One Living and True God, a title that ought to have been so dear to sinful men, that all those moral abominations have come that make the symbols of the pagan temples of India so offensive to the eye of purity.

So utterly idolatrous was the Babylonian recognition of the Divine unity, that Jehovah, the Living God, severely condemned his own people for giving any countenance to it: “They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens, after the rites of the ONLY ONE, eating swine’s flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together” (Isaiah lxvi. 17). In the unity of that only one God of the Babylonians, there were three persons, and to symbolize that doctrine of the Trinity, they employed, as the discoveries of Layard prove, the equilateral triangle, just as it is well known the Romish Church does at this day. In both cases such a comparison is most degrading to the King Eternal, and is fitted utterly to pervert the minds of those who contemplate it, as if there was or could be any similitude between such a figure and Him who hath said, “To whom will ye liken God, and what likeness will ye compare unto him?”

The Papacy has in some of its churches, as for instance, in the monastery of the so—called Trinitarians of Madrid, an image of the Triune God, with three heads on one body. The Babylonians had something of the same. Mr Layard, in his last work, has given a specimen of such a triune divinity, worshiped in ancient Assyria. (Fig. 3.)

The accompanying cut (fig. 4) of such another divinity, worshiped among the Pagans of Siberia, is taken from a medal in the Imperial Cabinet of St. Petersburg, and given in Parsons’ “Japhet.” The three heads are differently arranged in Layard’s specimen, but both alike are evidently intended to symbolize the same great truth, although all such representations of the Trinity necessarily and utterly debase the conceptions of those, among whom such images prevail, in regard to that sublime mystery of our faith. In India, the supreme divinity, in like manner, in one of the most ancient cave-temples, is represented with three heads on one body, under the name of “ Eko Deva Trimurtti,” “ One God, three forms.”

In Japan, the Buddhists worship their great divinity Buddha, with three heads, in the very same form, under the name of “San Pao Fuh.” All these have existed from ancient times. While overlaid with idolatry, the recognition of a Trinity was universal in all the ancient nations of the world, proving how deep-rooted in the human race was the primeval doctrine on this subject, which comes out so distinctly in Genesis.

When we look at the symbols in the triune figure of Layard, already referred to, and minutely examine them, they are very instructive. Layard regards the circle in that figure as signifying “Time without bounds.” But the hieroglyphic meaning of the circle is evidently different. A circle in Chaldee was Zero; and Zero also signified “the seed” Therefore, according to the genius of the mystic system of Chaldea, which was to a large extent founded on double meanings, that which, to the eyes of men in general, was only zero, “ a circle,” was understood by the initiated to signify zero, “the seed.”

Now, viewed in this light, the triune emblem of the supreme Assyrian divinity shows clearly what had been the original patriarchal faith. First, there is the head of the old man; next, there is the zero, or circle, for “the seed ;” and, lastly, the wings and tail of the bird or dove; showing, though blasphemously, the unity of Father, Seed, or Son, and Holy Ghost. While this had been the original way in which Pagan idolatry had represented the Triune God, and though this kind of representation had survived to Sennacherib’s time, yet there is evidence that, at a very early period, an important change had taken place in the Babylonian notions in regard to the divinity; and that the three persons had come to be, the eternal Father, the Spirit of God incarnate in a human mother, and a divine Son, the fruit of that incarnation.

Section II.—The Mother and Child. Sub-Section I – The Child in Assyria

While this was the theory, the first person in the Godhead was practically overlooked. As the Great Invisible, taking no immediate concern in human affairs, he was “to be worshiped through silence alone,” that is, in point of fact, he was not worshiped 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 Hindu Triad, and the religion of Hindustan is called by his name, yet he is never worshiped, and there is scarcely a single temple in all India now in existence of those that were formerly erected to his honor.

So also is it in those countries of Europe where the Papal system is most completely developed. In Papal Italy, as travelers universally admit (except where the gospel has recently entered), all appearance of worshiping 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 worshiped 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 worshiped 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 Plntus in her arms; and even in Tibet, in China, in Japan, the Jesuit missionaries were astonished to find the counterpart of Madonna and her child as devoutly worshiped 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.

Sub-Section I.—The Child In Assyria.

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

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 (Ezek. viii. 14:) under the name of Tammuz, but he is commonly known among classical writers under the name of Bacchus, that is,“ The Lamented one.” 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 worshiped 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. 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 honor, 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.

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, epitomized 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 neighbors, and he conquered all nations from Assyria to Lybia, as they were yet unacquainted with the arts of war.” 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 valor, 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 be 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 Babal 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 harmonize. 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 dominion; 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 Gen. x. 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 authorized 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 Ashur 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 NEIGHBORHOOD of Nimrod as mighty a kingdom as Nimrod himself, Asshur building four cities, one of which is emphatically said to have been “great” (ver. 12); ’while Nimrod, on this interpretation, built just the same number of cities, of which none is specially characterized 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. Ashur 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, (ver. 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; (ver. 11), “Out of that land he went forth, being made strong, or when he had been made strong (asshur), and builded Nineveh,” etc.

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 neighbors, 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 Nimrod at this day.

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. x. 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.” Now, Hermes was the great original prophet of idolatry; for he was recognized 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.“

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 l. 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.” 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.” He who caused the confusion of tongues was he who “broke” the previously united earth (Gen. xi. 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 Gen. xi. 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.” 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 Jer. 50:23, where Babylon, as identified with its primeval god, is thus apostrophized: “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 to pieces,” (Jer. 50:2). 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 to pieces; therefore he himself is “broken to pieces.”

So much for the historical character of Bel, as identified with Janus or Chaos, the god of confusion, with his symbolical club. 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’s 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 xi. 38, we read of a god called Ala mahozim, i.e., the “god of fortifications.” 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 he 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. 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 worshiped 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 worshiped, 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-crowned” 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. 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 cast was worshiped 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 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 mahozim, “the god of fortifications.”

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. x. 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. 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 neighborhood 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 worshiped by our Pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors under the name of Zernebogus. This Zemebogus 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, analyzed and compared with the accompanying wood-cut (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 worshiped 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 xlvi. 1: “Bel boweth down, Nebo stoppet ,” 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,’ in loc.) be no more than another name for Bel himself, or a characterizing 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 the woodcut referred to, 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 who rebelled against heaven.

Now Nimrod, as the son of Cash, 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 worshiped; but among a people of a fair complexion, as the Anglo-Saxons, it was inevitable, that if worshiped 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 recognized 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 traveler, 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 headdress.

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 Hindu 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 modeled from this, consisting of a coronet with three points standing erect from it, in which Sir William Jones recognizes the Ethiopian or Parthian coronet. The open tiara of Agni, the Hindu 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 fieur-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. 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 symbolized 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-abirin,” “Lord of the mighty ones.” But “ Baal-aberin” (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.

To this mode of representing the mighty kings of Babylon and Assyria, who imitated Nimrod and his successors, there is manifest illusion in Isaiah viii. 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 symbolizing 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 overshadow Asia, and the other Europe,” from which he immediate ly concluded that he was organizing 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 “Baalaberin” can alone explain the remarkable statement of Aristphanes, 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”-—symbolized “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 Danaé, 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. These 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 symbolized 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. 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.

As Khon 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 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 have been 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 Khonso (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. 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 acknowledged, that the primitive Centaurus Was the same as Kronos, or Saturn, the father of the gods. 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. x. 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 Horseman 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.

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 honor 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. 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 Khonso, 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 worshiped 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 worshiped, 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 worshiped in Egypt with every physical characteristic of Nimrod. I have already noted 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.” 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, chap. i. 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 be 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 recognized 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 favorite 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 here presented,for that calf represented the divinity in the character of Saturn, “The HIDDEN one,” “Apis” being only another name for Saturn. The cow of Athor, however, the female divinity, corresponding to Apis, is well known as a “spotted cow; and it is singular that the Druids of Britain also worshiped “a spotted cow.” 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 worshiped 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 worshiped 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 the 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 their 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 symbolized by the Nebros, or “spotted fawn,” as we shall find he was symbolized, what could be the design but just covertly to identify him with Nimrod?

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 Ethiopians were Cushites, so AEthiops was Cush. “Chus,” says Eusebius, “was he from whom came the Ethiopians.” The testimony of Josephus is to the same effect. As the father of the Ethiopians, 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 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.”

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 Cash, says: “The Susians are called Kissioi,” that is, beyond all question, Cushites. 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.”

Now, this god, who was recognized as “the scion of Cush,” was worshiped 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 twofold 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.”

Thus from Assyria, Egypt, and Greece, we have cumulative and overwhelming evidence, all conspiring to demonstrate that the child worshiped 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: (Exod. xxiii. 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 defense 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 his deified successors as a title of honor. All tradition from the earliest times bears testimony to the apostasy 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 can give the least appearance of plausibility to an 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 worshiped 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 and Phoroneus, “The Emancipator,” than this Polynesian fable? 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 apostasy 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 defied 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? 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 apostasy in which the Giants rebelled against Heaven,” and in which apostasy Nimrod, “the mighty one,” as the acknowledged ringleader, occupied a preeminent place:

“God blessed Noah and his sons” (Gen. ix. 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 hands 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 band, who joined in the apostasy of Nimrod broke the covenant, and in casting off the authority of God, did in effect say, “Let us break his hands 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. 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. iv. 26), “Thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, when thou hast known that the HEAVENS do rule.”

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 to pieces.

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 worshiped 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.

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. 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 worshiped. 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.

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 worshiped 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, Wut—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 hand 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 dispatched 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 had 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 honored as a hero; in death she will have him worshiped as a god, yea, as the woman’s promised seed, “Zero-ashta,” (the seed) who was destined to bruise the serpent’s head, and who in doing so was to have his own heel bruised.

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 Creeshna, (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 (lower) deities, is the genius of evil—a real Cacodaemon.” 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 the 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 “Engonasis” 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 Krishna, 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 this 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 Zoroastes, “the seed of the woman,” was given to him who had perished in the midst of a prosperous career of false-worship and apostasy, 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 apostasy from the true God, was just to give out that, though the great patron of the apostasy 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 apostasy 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 apostasy was not the death of a warrior slain in battle, but an act of judicial rigor, 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 Tammuz 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 Tammuz. 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 Tammuz.”

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 apostasy 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. Now, no doubt, the title and character of Hercules were afterwards given by the Pagans to him whom they worshiped as the grand Deliverer or Messiah, just as the adversaries of the Pagan divinities came to be stigmatized 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 apostasy 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 offense 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. 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 amount 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 offense 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 xix. 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. xi. 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 apostasy again rose 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 sympathizers; and for his share in it the chief actor was stigmatized as Typho, or “The Evil One.” 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. 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.” 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 apostasy, 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. xi. 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. 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 center, 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 harmonize.

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 honor 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 (an exhibition of optical effects and illusions).

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 practiced 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.

Now, in the hands of crafty, designing men, this was a powerful means of imposing upon those who are 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 apostasy, 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 worshiped with an enthusiasm that was incredible, and their images were everywhere set up and adored. 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 no 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 worshiped. But yet, as we shall afterwards see, among the civilized 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 worshiped 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 worshiped as the “Mediator.” As Mediator and head of the covenant of grace, he was styled Baal-berith, Lord of the Covenant (fig. 24:) —(Judges viii. 33). In this character he is represented in Persian monuments as seated on the rainbow, the wellknown symbol of the covenant. In India, under the name of Vishnu, the Preserver or Savior of men, though a god, he was worshiped as the great “Victim-Man,” who before the worlds were, because there was nothing else to offer, offered himself as a sacrifice. The Hindu sacred writings teach that this mysterious offering before all creation is the foundation of all the sacrifices that have ever been offered since.

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 Hindus 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 xx. 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. That 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.”

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 Savior of the world.” It has been all along well enough known that the Greeks occasionally worshiped the supreme god, under the title of “Zeus the Savior;” but this title was thought to have reference only to deliverance in battle, or some such-like temporal deliverance. But when it is known that “Zeus the Savior” was only a title of Dionysus, the “sin-bearing Bacchus, his character, as “The Savior,” 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 be honored 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 worshiped 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.” 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 worshiped 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 worshiped 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.”

Section III.—The Mother of the Child

Now while the mother derived her glory in the first instance from the divine character attributed to the child in her arms, the mother in the long-run practically eclipsed the son. At first, in all likelihood, there would be no thought whatever of ascribing divinity to the mother. There was an express promise that necessarily led mankind to expect that, at some time or other, the Son of God, in amazing condescension, should appear in this world as the Son of man. But there was no promise whatever, or the least shadow of a promise, to lead any one to anticipate that a woman should ever be invested with attributes that should raise her to a level with Divinity. It is in the last degree improbable, therefore, that when the Mother was first exhibited with the child in her arms, it should be intended to give divine honors to her. She was doubtless used chiefly as a pedestal for the upholding of the divine Son, and holding him forth to the adoration of mankind; and glory enough it would be counted for her, alone of all the daughters of Eve, to have given birth to the promised seed, the world’s only hope.

But while this, no doubt, was the design, it is a plain principle in all idolatries that that which most appeals to the senses must make the most powerful impression. Now the Son, even in his new incarnation, when Nimrod was believed to have reappeared in a fairer form, was exhibited merely as a child, without any very particular attraction; while the mother in whose arms he was, was set off with all the art of painting and sculpture, as invested with much of that extraordinary beauty which in reality belonged to her. The beauty of Semiramis is said on one occasion to have quelled a rising rebellion among her subjects on her sudden appearance among them; and it is recorded that the memory of the admiration excited in their minds by her appearance on that occasion was perpetuated by a statue erected in Babylon, representing her in the guise in which she had fascinated them so much. This Babylonian queen was not merely in character coincident with the Aphrodite of Greece and the Venus of Rome, but was, in point of fact, the historical original of that goddess that by the ancient world was regarded as the very embodiment of everything attractive in female form, and the perfection of female beauty; for Sanchuniathon assures us that Aphrodite or Venus was identical with Astarte, and Astarte being interpreted, is none other than “The woman that made towers or encompassing walls,” i.e., Semiramis.

The Roman Venus, as is well known, was the Cyprian Venus, and the Venus of Cyprus is historically proved to have been derived from Babylon. (See chap. iv., sect. iii.) Now, what in these circumstances might have been expected actually took place. If the child was to be adored, much more the mother. The mother, in point of fact, became the favorite object of worship: To justify this worship, the mother was raised to divinity as well as her son, and she was looked upon as destined to complete that bruising of the serpent’s head, which it was easy, if such a thing was needed, to find abundant and plausible reasons for alleging that Ninus or Nimrod, the great Son, in his mortal life had only begun.

The Roman Church maintains that it was not so much the seed of the woman, as the woman herself, that was to bruise the head of the serpent. In defiance of all grammar, she renders the divine denunciation against the serpent thus: “She shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise her heel.” The same was held by the ancient Babylonians, and symbolically represented in their temples. In the uppermost storey of the tower of Babel, or temple of Belus, Diodorus Siculus tells us, there stood three images of the great divinities of Babylon; and one of these was of a woman grasping a serpent’s head. Among the Greeks the same thing was symbolized; for Diana, whose real character was originally the same as that of the great Babylonian goddess, was represented as bearing in one of her hands a serpent deprived of its head.

As time wore away, and the facts of Semiramis’s history became obscured, her son’s birth was boldly declared to be miraculous; and therefore she was called “ Alma Mater,” “the Virgin Mother.” That the birth of the Great Deliverer was to be miraculous, was widely known long before the Christian era. For centuries, some say for thousands of years before that event, the Buddhist priests had a tradition that a Virgin was to bring forth a child to bless the world. That this tradition came from no Popish or Christian source, is evident from the surprise felt and expressed by the Jesuit missionaries, when they first entered Tibet and China, and not only found a mother and a child worshiped as at home, but that mother worshiped under a character exactly corresponding with that of their own Madonna,“Virgo Deipara,” “the Virgin mother of God,” and that, too, in regions where they could not find the least trace of either the name or history of our Lord Jesus Christ having ever been known.

The primeval promise that the “seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head,” naturally suggested the idea of a miraculous birth. Priest-craft and human presumption set themselves wickedly to anticipate the fulfillment of that promise; and the Babylonian queen seems to have been the first to whom that honor was given. The highest titles were accordingly bestowed upon her. She was called the “queen of heaven.” (Jeremiah xliv. 17, 18, 19, 25). In Egypt she was styled Athor, i.e., “the Habitation of God,” to signify that in her dwelt all the “fullness of the Godhead.” To point out the great goddess mother, in a Pantheistic sense, as at once the Infinite and Almighty one, and the Virgin mother, this inscription was engraven upon one of her temples in Egypt:

“I am all that has been, or that is, or that shall be. No mortal has removed my veil. The fruit which I have brought forth is the Sun.”

In Greece she had the name of Hestia, and amongst the Romans, Vesta, which is just a modification of the same name—a name which, though it has been commonly understood in a different sense, really meant “The Dwelling-place” As the Dwelling-place of Deity, thus is Hestia or Vesta addressed in the Orphic Hymns:—

“Daughter of Saturn, venerable dame,
Who dwell’st amid great fire’s eternal flame,
In thee the gods have fixed their DWELLING-PLACE,
Strong stable basis of the mortal race.”

Even when Vesta is identified with fire, this same character of Vesta as “The Dwelling-place ” still distinctly appears. Thus Philolaus, speaking of a fire in the middle of the center of the world, calls it “The Vesta of the Universe, The HOUSE of Jupiter, The mother of the gods.” In Babylon, the title of the goddess mother as the Dwelling-place of God, was Sacca, or in the emphatic form, Sacta, that is, “The Tabernacle.” Hence, at this day,the great goddesses in India, as wielding all the power of the god Whom they represent, are. called “Sacti,” or the “Tabernacle.” Now in her, as the Tabernacle or Temple of God, not only all power, but all grace and goodness were believed to dwell. Every quality of gentleness and mercy was regarded as centered in her; and when death had closed her career, while she was fabled to have been deified and changed into a pigeon, to express the celestial benignity of her nature, she was called by the name of “D’Iune,” or “The Dove,” or without the article, “Juno,”—the name of the Roman “queen of heaven,” which has the very same meaning; and under the form of a dove, as well as her own, she was worshiped by the Babylonians.

The dove, the chosen symbol of this deified queen, is commonly represented with an olive branch in her mouth (fig. 25), as she herself in her human form also is seen bearing the olive branch in her hand; and from this form of representing her, it is highly probable that she has derived the name by which she is commonly known, for “Zemirami” means “The branch-bearer.”

When the goddess was thus represented as the Dove with the olive branch, there can be no doubt that the symbol had partly reference to the story of the flood; but there was much more in the symbol than a mere memorial of that great event. “A branch,” as has been already proved, was the symbol of the deified son, and when the deified mother was represented as a Dove, what could the meaning of this representation be but just to identify her with the Spirit of all grace, that brooded, dove-like, over the deep at the creation; for, in the sculptures at Nineveh, as we have seen, the wings and tale of the dove represented the third member of the idolatrous Assyrian trinity. In confirmation of this View, it must be stated that the Assyrian “Juno,” or “The Virgin Venus,” as she was called, was identified with the air.

Thus Julius Firmicus says:—“ The Assyrians and part of the Africans wish the air to have the supremacy of the elements, for they have consecrated this same [element], under the name of Juno, or the Virgin Venus.” Why was air thus identified with Juno, whose symbol was that of the third person of the Assyrian trinity? Why, but because in Chaldee the same word which signifies the air signifies also the “Holy Ghost.” The knowledge of this entirely accounts for the statement of Proclus, that “Juno imports the generation of soul.” Whence could the soul —the spirit of man— be supposed to have its origin, but from the Spirit of God? In accordance with this character of Juno as the incarnation of the Divine Spirit, the source of life, and also as the goddess of the air, thus is she invoked in the ‘Orphic Hymns’:—

“O royal Juno, of majestic mien,
Aérial formed, divine, Jove’s blessed queen,
Throned in the bosom of caerulean air,
The race of mortals is thy constant care;
The cooling gales, thy power alone inspires,
Which nourish life, which every life desires;
Mother of showers and winds, from thee alone
Producing all things, mortal life is known;
All natures show thy temperament divine,
And universal sway alone is thine,
With sounding blasts of wind, the swelling sea
And rolling rivers roar when shook by thee.”

Thus, then, the deified queen, when in all respects regarded as a veritable woman, was at the same time adored as the incarnation of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of peace and love. In the temple of Hierapolis in Syria, there was a famous statue of the goddess Juno, to which crowds from all quarters flocked to worship. The image of the goddess was richly habited; on her head was a golden dove, and she was called by a name peculiar to the country, “Semeion.” What is the meaning of Seméion? It is evidently “The Habitation” and the “golden dove” on her head shows plainly who it was that was supposed to dwell in her— even the Spirit of God. When such transcendent dignity was bestowed on her, when such winning characters were attributed to her, and when, over and above all, her images presented her to the eyes of men as Venus Urania, “the heavenly Venus,” the queen of beauty, who assured her worshipers of salvation, while giving loose reins to every unholy passion, and every depraved and sensual appetite— no wonder that everywhere she was enthusiastically adored.

Under the name of the “Mother of the gods,” the goddess queen of Babylon became an object of almost universal worship. “The mother of the gods,” says Clericus, “was worshiped by the Persians, the Syrians, and all the kings of Europe and Asia, with the most profound religious veneration.” Tacitus gives evidence that the Babylonian goddess was worshiped in the heart of Germany, and Caesar, when he invaded Britain, found that the priests of this same goddess, known by the name of Druids, had been there before him.

Herodotus, from personal knowledge, testifies, that in Egypt this “queen of heaven” was “the greatest and most worshiped of all the divinities.” Wherever her worship was introduced, it is amazing what fascinating power it exerted. Truly, the nations might be said to be “made drunk” with the wine of her fornications. So deeply, in particular, did the Jews in the days of Jeremiah, drink of her wine-cup, so bewitched were they by her idolatrous worship, that even after Jerusalem had been burnt, and the land desolated for this very thing, they could not be prevailed on to give it up.

While dwelling in Egypt as forlorn exiles, instead of being witnesses for God against the heathenism around them, they were as much devoted to this form of idolatry as the Egyptians themselves. Jeremiah was sent of God to denounce wrath against them if they continued to worship the queen of heaven; but his warnings were in vain. “Then,” saith the prophet, “all the men which knew that their wives had burnt incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great multitude, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying, As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee: but we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil.” (Jer. xliv. 15—17). Thus did the Jews, God’s own peculiar people, emulate the Egyptians in their devotion to the queen of heaven.

The worship of the goddess mother with the child in her arms continued to be observed in Egypt till Christianity entered. If the gospel had come in power among the mass of the people, the worship of this goddess queen would have been overthrown. With the generality it came only in name. Instead, therefore, of the Babylonian goddess being cast out, in too many cases her name only was changed. She was called the Virgin Mary, and, with her child, was worshiped with the same idolatrous feeling by professing Christians, as formerly by open and avowed Pagans.

The consequence was, that when, in A.D. 325, the Nicene Council was summoned to condemn the heresy of Arius, who denied the true divinity of Christ, that heresy indeed was condemned, but not without the help of men who gave distinct indications of a desire to put the creature on a level with the Creator, to set the Virgin mother side by side with her Son.

At the Council of Nice, says the author of ‘Nimrod’ “the Melchite section,” that is, the representatives of the so-called Christianity of Egypt, “held that there were three persons in the Trinity, the Father, the Virgin Mary, and Messiah their Son.” In reference to this astounding fact, elicited by the Nicene Council, Father Newman speaks exultingly of these discussions as tending to the glorification of Mary. “Thus,” says he, “the controversy opened a question which it did not settle. It discovered a new sphere, if we may so speak, in the realms of light, to which the Church had not yet assigned its inhabitant. Thus there was a wonder in heaven; a throne was seen far above all created powers, mediatorial, intercessory, a title archetypal, a crown bright as the morning star, a glory issuing from the eternal throne; robes pure as the heavens, and a scepter over all, and who was the predestined heir of that majesty? Who was that wisdom, and what was her name, the mother of fair love, and fear, and holy hope, exalted like a palm tree in Engaddi, and a rose-plant in Jericho, created from the beginning before the world, in God’s counsels, and in Jerusalem was her power? The vision is found in the Apocalypse, ‘a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.’” “The votaries of Mary,” adds he, “do not exceed the true faith, unless the blasphemers of her Son came up to it. The Church of Rome is not idolatrous, unless Arianism is orthodoxy.”

This is the very poetry of blasphemy. It contains an argument too; but what does that argument amount to? It just amounts to this, that if Christ be admitted to be truly and properly God, and worthy of divine honors, his mother, from whom be derived merely his humanity, must be admitted to be the same, must be raised far above the level of all creatures, and be worshiped as a partaker of the Godhead. The divinity of Christ is made to stand or fall with the divinity of his mother.

Such is Popery in the nineteenth century; yea, such is Popery in England. It was known already that Popery abroad was bold and unblushing in its blasphemies; that in Lisbon a church was to be seen with these words engraven on its front, “To the virgin goddess of Loretto, the Italian race, devoted to her DIVINITY, have dedicated this temple.” But when till now was such language ever heard in Britain before? This, however, is just the exact reproduction of the doctrine of ancient Babylon in regard to the great goddess Mother.

The Madonna of Rome, then, is just the Madonna of Babylon. The “Queen of heaven” in the one system is the same as the “Queen of heaven” in the other. The goddess worshiped in Babylon and Egypt as the Tabernacle or Habitation of God, is identical with her who, under the name of Mary, is called by Rome “the HOUSE consecrated to God,” “the awful Dwelling-place,” “the Mansion of God,” the “Tabernacle of the Holy Ghost,” the “Temple of the Trinity.”

Some may possibly be inclined to defend such language, by saying that the Scripture makes every believer to be a temple of the Holy Ghost, and, therefore, what harm can there be in speaking of the Virgin Mary, who was unquestionably a saint of God, under that name, or names of a similar import? Now no doubt it is true that Paul says (1 Cor. iii. 16): “ Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” It is not only true, but it is a great truth, and a blessed one; a truth that enhances every comfort when enjoyed, and takes the sting out of every trouble when it comes, that every genuine Christian has less or more experience of what is contained in these words of the same apostle (2 Cor. vi. 16): “Ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” It must also be admitted, and gladly admitted, that this implies the indwelling of all the persons of the glorious Godhead; for the Lord Jesus hath said (John xiv. 23): “If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him and WE will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”

But while admitting all this, on examination it will be found, that the Popish and the Scriptural ideas conveyed by these expressions, however apparently similar, are essentially different. When it is said that a believer is “a temple of God,” or a temple of the Holy Ghost, the meaning is (Eph. iii. 17) that “Christ dwells in the heart by faith.” But when Rome says that Mary is “The Temple” or “ Tabernacle of God,” the meaning is, the exact Pagan meaning of the term, viz., that the union between her and the Godhead is a union akin to the hypostatical union between the divine and human nature of Christ.

The human nature of Christ is the “Tabernacle of God,” inasmuch as the Divine nature has veiled its glory in such a way, by assuming our nature, that we can come near without overwhelming dread to the Holy God. To this glorious truth John refers, when he says (John i. 14): “The word was made ‘flesh, and dwelt (literally tabernacled) among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” In this sense Christ, the God-man, is the only “Tabernacle of God.”

Now it is precisely in this sense that Rome calls Mary the “Tabernacle of God,” or of the “Holy Ghost.” Thus speaks the author of a Popish work devoted to the exaltation of the Virgin, in which all the peculiar titles and prerogatives of Christ are given to Mary: “Behold the tabernacle of God, the mansion of God, the habitation, the city of God is with men, and in men and for men, for their salvation, and exaltation, and eternal glorification. . . . . Is it most clear that this is true of the holy church? and in like manner also equally true of the most holy sacrament of the Lord’s body? Is it (true) of every one of us in as far as we are truly Christians? Undoubtedly; but we have to contemplate this mystery (as existing) in a peculiar manner in the most Holy Mother of our Lord.”

Then the author, after endeavouring to show that “Mary is rightly considered as the Tabernacle of God with men,” and that in a peculiar sense, a sense different from that in which all Christians are the “temple of God,” thus proceeds with express reference to her in this character of the Tabernacle: “Great truly is the benefit, singular is the privilege, that the Tabernacle of God should be with men, IN WHICH men may safely come near to God become man.” Here the whole mediatorial glory of Christ, as the God-man in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, is given to Mary, or at least is shared with her.

The above extracts are taken from a work published upwards of two hundred years ago. Has the Papacy improved since then? Has it repented of its blasphemies? No, the very reverse. The quotation already given from Father Newman proves this; but there is still stronger proof. In a recently published work, the same blasphemous idea is even more clearly unfolded. While Mary is called “The HOUSE consecrated to God,” and the “TEMPLE of the Trinity,” the following versicle and response will show in what sense she is regarded as the temple of the Holy Ghost: “
V. Ipse [deus] creavit illam in Spiritu Sancto. R. Et EFFUDIT ILLAM inter omnia opera sua. V. Domina, exandi,” etc., which is thus translated: “V. The Lord himself created HER in the Holy Ghost, and POURED HER out among all his works. V. O Lady, hear,” etc. This astounding language manifestly implies that Mary is identified with the Holy Ghost, when it speaks of her “being poured out” on “all the works of God;” and that, as we have seen, was just the very way in which the Woman regarded as the “Tabernacle” or House of God by the Pagans, was looked upon. Where is such language used in regard to the Virgin? Not in Spain; not in Austria; not in the dark places of Continental Europe; but in London, the seat and center of the world’s enlightenment.

The names of blasphemy bestowed by the Papacy on Mary have not one shadow of foundation in the Bible, but are all to be found in the Babylonian idolatry. Yea, the very features and complexions of the Roman and Babylonian Madonnas are the same. Till recent times, when Raphael somewhat departed from the beaten track, there was nothing either Jewish or even Italian in the Romish Madonnas. Had these pictures or images of the Virgin Mother been intended to represent the mother of our Lord, naturally they would have been cast either in the one mold or the other. But it was not so. In a land of dark-eyed beauties, with raven locks, the Madonna was always represented with blue eyes and golden hair, a complexion entirely different from the Jewish complexion, which naturally would have been supposed to belong to the mother of our Lord, but which precisely agrees with that which all antiquity attributes to the goddess queen of Babylon. In almost all lands the great goddess has been described with golden or yellow hair, showing that there must have been one grand prototype, to which they were all made to correspond. “Flaw Ceres,” the “yellow-haired Ceres,” might not have been accounted of any weight in this argument if she had stood alone, for it might have been supposed in that case that the epithet “yellow-haired ” was borrowed from the corn that was supposed to be under her guardian care.

But many other goddesses have the very same epithet applied to them. Europa, whom Jupiter carried away in the form of a bull, is called “The yellow-haired Europa.” Minerva is called by Homer “the blue-eyed Minerva” and by Ovid “the yellow-haired;” the huntress Diana, who is commonly identified with the moon, is addressed by Anacreon as “the yellow-haired daughter of Jupiter,” a title which the pale face of the silver moon could surely never have suggested. Dione, the mother of Venus, is described by Theocritus as “yellow-haired.” Venus herself is frequently called “ Aurea Venus,” the “golden Venus.” The Indian Goddess Lakshmi, the “Mother of the Universe,” is described as of “a golden complexion.” Ariadne, the wife of Bacchus, was called “the yellow-haired Ariadne.” Thus does Dryden refer to her golden or yellow hair:—

“Where the rude waves in Dian’s harbour play,
The fair forsaken Ariadne lay;
There, sick with grief and frantic with despair,
Her dress she rent, and tore her golden hair.”

The Gorgon Medusa, before her transformation, while celebrated for her beauty, was equally celebrated for her golden hair:—

“Medusa once had charms; to gain her love
A rival crowd of anxious lovers strove.
They who have seen her, own they ne’er did trace
More moving features in a sweeter face;
But above all, her length of hair they own
In golden ringlets waved, and graceful shone.”

The mermaid that figured so much in the romantic tales of the north, which was evidently borrowed from the story of Atergatis, the fish goddess of Syria, who was called the mother of Semiramis, and was sometimes identified with Semiramis herself, was described with hair of the same kind. “The Ellewoman,” such is the Scandinavian name for the mermaid, “is fair,” says the introduction to the ‘Danish Tales’ of Hans Andersen, “and golden-haired, and plays most sweetly on a stringed instrument.” “She is frequently seen sitting on the surface of the waters, and combing her long golden hair with a gold comb.”

Even when Athor, the Venus of Egypt, was represented as a cow, doubtless to indicate the complexion of the goddess that cow represented, the cow’s head and neck were gilded.

When, therefore, it is known that the most famed pictures of the Virgin Mother in Italy represented her as of a fair complexion and with golden hair, and when over all Ireland the Virgin is almost invariably represented at this day in the very same manner, who can resist the conclusion that she must have been thus represented, only because she had been copied from the same prototype as the Pagan divinities.

Nor is this agreement in complexion only, but also in features. Jewish features are everywhere marked, and have a character peculiarly their own. But the original Madonnas have nothing at all of Jewish form or feature; but are declared by those who have personally compared both, entirely to agree in this respect, as well as in complexion, with the Babylonian Madonnas found by Sir Robert Ker Porter among the ruins of Babylon.

There is yet another remarkable characteristic of these pictures worthy of notice, and that is the nimbus or peculiar circle of light that frequently encompasses the head of the Roman Madonna. With this circle the heads of the so called figures of Christ are also frequently surrounded. Whence could such a device have originated? In the case of our Lord, if his head had been merely surrounded with rays, there might have been some pretense for saying that that was borrowed from the Evangelic narrative, where it is stated, that on the holy mount his face became resplendent with light. But where, in the whole compass of Scripture, do we ever read that his head was surrounded with a disk or a circle of light? But what will be searched for in vain in the Word of God, is found in the artistic representations of the great gods and goddesses of Babylon. The disk, and particularly the circle, were the well-known symbols of the Sun-divinity, and figured largely in the symbolism of the East. With the circle or the disk the head of the Sun-divinity was encompassed. The same was the case in Pagan Rome. Apollo, as the child of the Sun, was often thus represented. The goddesses that claimed kindred with the Sun were equally entitled to be adorned with the nimbus or luminous circle. We give from ‘Pompeii’ a representation of Circe, “the daughter of the Sun ” (see fig. 26), with her head surrounded with a circle, in the very same way as the head of the Roman Madonna is at this day surrounded. Let any one compare the nimbus around the head of Circe, with that around the head of the Popish Virgin, and he will see how exactly they correspond.

The explanation of the above woodcut is thus given in Pompeii, vol. ii., pp. 91, 92: “One of them [the paintings] is taken from the Odyssey, and represents Ulysses and Circe, at the moment when the hero, having drunk the charmed cup with impunity, by virtue of the antidote given him by Mercury, [it is well known that Circe had a ‘golden cup,’ even as the Venus of Babylon had,] “draws his sword, and advances to avenge his companions,” who, having drunk of her cup, had been changed into swine. The goddess, terrified, makes her submission at once, as described by Homer; Ulysses himself being the narrator:—

“’Hence, seek the sty, there wallow with thy friends.’
She spake, I drawing from beside my thigh
My falchion keen, with death-denouncing looks,
Rushed on her; she, with a shrill scream of fear,
Ran under my raised arm, seized fast my knees,
And in winged accents plaintive, thus began:
‘Say, who art thou,’ etc.”—Cowper’s Odyssey, x. 320.

“This picture,” adds the author of Pompeii, is remarkable, as teaching us the origin of that ugly and unmeaning glory by which the heads of saints are often surrounded. . . . This glory was called nimbus, or aureola, and is defined by Servius to be ‘the luminous fluid which encircles the heads of the gods.’ (On AENEID, lib. ii., v. 616, vol. i., p. 165). It belongs with peculiar propriety to Circe, as the daughter of the Sun. The emperors, with their usual modesty, assumed it as the mark of their divinity; and under this respectable patronage it passed, like many other Pagan superstitions and customs, into the use of the Church.” The emperors here get rather more than a fair share of the blame due to them. It was not the emperors that brought “Pagan superstition” into the Church, so much as the Bishop of Rome. See Chap. VII., Sect. II.

Now, could any one possibly believe that all this coincidence could be accidental? Of course, if the Madonna had ever so exactly resembled the Virgin Mary, that would never have excused idolatry. But when it is evident that the goddess enshrined in the Papal Church for the supreme worship of its votaries, is that very Babylonian queen who set up Nimrod, or Ninus “the Son,” as the rival of Christ, and who in her own person was the incarnation of every kind of licentiousness, how dark a character does that stamp on the Roman idolatry. What will it avail to mitigate the heinous character of that idolatry, to say that the child she holds forth to adoration is called by the name of Jesus? When she was worshiped with her child in Babylon of old, that child was called by a name as peculiar to Christ, as distinctive of his glorious character, as the name of Jesus. He was called “Zoro-ashta,” “the seed of the woman.”

But that did not hinder the hot anger of God from being directed against those in the days of old who worshiped that “image of jealousy, provoking to jealousy.” Neither can the giving of the name of Christ to the infant in the arms of the Romish Madonna, make it less the “image of jealousy,” less offensive to the Most High, less fitted to provoke His high displeasure, when it is evident that that infant is worshiped as the child of her who was adored as Queen of heaven, with all the attributes of divinity, and was at the same time the “Mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.” Image-worship in every case the Lord abhors; but image-worship of such a kind as this must be peculiarly abhorrent to His holy soul. Now, if the facts I have adduced be true, is it wonderful that such dreadful threatenings should be directed in the Word of God against the Romish apostasy, and that the vials of his tremendous wrath are destined to be outpoured upon its guilty head? If the sethings be true (and gainsay them who can), who will venture now to plead for Papal Rome, or to call her a Christian Church? Is there one, who fears God, and who reads these lines, who would not admit that Paganism alone could ever have inspired such a doctrine as that avowed by the Melchites at the Nicene Council, that the Holy Trinity consisted of “the Father, the Virgin Mary, and the Messiah their Son? Is there one who would not shrink with horror from such a thought? What, then, would the reader say of a church that teaches its children to adore such a Trinity as that contained in the following lines?—

“Heart of Jesus, I adore thee;
Heart of Mary, I implore thee;
Heart of Joseph, pure and just;
IN THESE THREE HEARTS I PUT MY TRUST.”

If this is not Paganism, what is there that can be called by such a name? Yet this is the Trinity which now the Roman Catholics of Ireland from tender infancy are taught to adore. This is the Trinity which, in the latest books of catechetical instruction, is presented as the grand object of devotion to the adherents of the Papacy. The manual that contains this blasphemy comes forth with the express “Imprimatur” of “ Paulus Cullen,” Popish Archbishop of Dublin. Will any one after this say that the Roman Catholic Church must still be called Christian, because it holds the doctrine of the Trinity? So did the Pagan Babylonians, so did the Egyptians, so do the Hindus at this hour, in the very same sense in which Rome does. They all admitted a trinity, but did they worship THE Triune Jehovah, the King Eternal, Immortal, and Invisible? And will any one say, with such evidence before him, that Rome does so? Away, then, with the deadly delusion that Rome is Christian! There might once have been some palliation (excuses) for entertaining such a supposition; but every day the “Grand Mystery” is revealing itself more and more in its true character.

There is not, and there cannot be, any safety for the souls of men in “Babylon.” “Come out of her, my people,” is the loud and express command of God. Those who disobey that command, do it at their peril.

Continued in Chapter III

All chapters of The Two Babylons