UBRARY

31924092360886
3 1924 092






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FRONHSPtECE TO VOL. ).ENOCH
of (&ob.
BY
)g.V.
LONDON:
TRUBNER & CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.(03
777/ r/^/-
LONDON:
S. & J. BRAWN, STEAM PRINTERS, 13, PRINCES STREET,
HIGH HOLBORN.
1WTHE BOOK OF GOD:
PART I. THE APOCALYPSE. Price 12s. 6d. Pp. 647.
CONTENTS.—The lifting of the Veil, 1—8. Definitions, 9—16.
Boox I.—A syllabus of the ancient Creed, in God and the Hoiy
Spirit, 17—31.—How the Creation began, and the Triad explained,
31—42. The necessity of a Revelation, and a Heaven-sent Messenger,
43—52. The Naros, or Sibylline Year 600, 53—72. The mystic
secret of the Naros and the Apocalypse belonged to the Greater
Mysteries, 73—94. Notes, 95.
BOOK II.—The splendour and magnificence of ancient art and
science, 117—133. Knowledge flowed from a common centre, 134—
139. Religious rites of all nations proved from their affinity to have
all emanated from One primeval faith, 139—172. The mythos of the
Phoenix explained, 172—180. Biblical views of Mythology and the
Trinity shown to be false, 180—183. Notes, 184.
BOOK III.—The Messianic and Cabiric Messengers of God, 197—
209. The Nemesis of Heaven, and the inevitable punishment of the
evil, 209—212. Notes, 214.
BOOK IV.—The common Apocalypse rejected by most eminent
theologians of all ages, 215—232. Is the most ancient work now
existing; and is in reality the composition of Adam, or Gaudama, the
First Messenger of God, 233—244. Proofs of this drawn from the
most ancient traditions of Egypt, Iran, Tsabaea, Greece, Palestine,
Babylonia, and Mexico, 244—266. Various mystical references to
Gaudama and his Revelations, with Rabbinical traditions, 260—
276. Proof that the Apocalypse existed in Rome, Wales, &c., 276 —
292. Traditions of the First Messenger and his Apocalypse, foundii
ADVERTISEMENT.
all over the world, 292—313. How the original and perfect copies of
the Apocalypse have disappeared, 313—318. Notes, 321;
BOOK V.—The authenticity of the Old Testament doubted by the
most eminent divines, 329 —342. Proved conclusively to be unreliable,
343—363. Utterly lost for several centuries, 364—382. Is written
in a language modern and incorrect; the work of numerous unknown
writers, 383—405; proscribed and destroyed throughout all ages, 405.
A list of lost Hebrew Scriptures, 409. Reasons why a new copy
should be forged, 410—414. Mistranslations of Old Testament, 419
—430. Doubts as to the New, 431—439. Repulsive character of
much of the Old Testament, 440—447- Notes, 448.
Boox VI.—All common chronology confused, and baseless as a
system, 481—489. The grand and majestic nature of the true
Apocalypse, 490—494. Invocation of the Supreme, 495. Summary,
497.
THE APOCALYPSE.
Greek text, with a new translation into English, 500. The Seven
Thunders, 612. Notes to the Apocalypse, 633. Index, 639.
PART II. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE APOCALYPSE.
Price 14s. Pp. 752.
CONTENTS.—BooK I.—Introductory remarks on former volume,
1—6. The Ancient Mysteries founded by the First Messenger of
God, 7—9. The Secret of God, 10. Universal diffusion of the Myste-
ries, 11—20. Difficulties in the way of their elucidation, 21—26.
^Enigmatical secrets of the Ancients, 27—42. Sublime nature of old
Theology, 43— 54. The internal nature of the Mysteries, 55—68.
Legends illustrative of some of the secrets, 69—76. The ten mystical
secrets of the Mysteries, 77—80. The Unity of God; the revela-
tion of the Holy Spirit, 81— 105. Curious symbolism in Ireland,
Greece, and Wales, 106—112. Notes, 113.
BOOK II.—The Messengers of God, Messianic and Cabiric, 154—
167. Kabir and his teachings; Oriental notions on these points, 168
—183. Alternate destruction and reproduction of worlds and beings,
184—206. The Doctrine of Transmigrations, 207—224. The Worship
of Adonis, 225—244. Notes, 245.
Boox III.—The Mysteries traced through various legends, Cupid
and Psyche, etc., etc , 261—298. Ceremonies of Initiation in Europe
andHindostan; theBoodh-Cymricdoctrines, 229— 348. Notes, 349.
BOOK IV.—Symbolism of Fire, Stones, Mountains, Waters, 370—
380. Its origin traced, and its essence developed, 381—390. ModemADVERTISEMENT.
iii
ignorance of symbolic language, 391—410. Some of the ancient mythi
explained, 411. Serpent, Dove, and Bee symbolism, 417—428. Water,
Fish and Fountain symbolism, 428—436. The Scarabaeus and But-
terfly symbol, 437—441. Letter and number symbolism, 441—461-
Notes, 462.
Boos V.—Dissertation on Mythology, 486—425. High Pagan
notions of the Divine, as contrasted with the Hebraic, 494—510. Greek
folly, the parent of much superstition and ignorance, 511—516. Rab-
binical frenzy, 517. Unity of all the Gods, 524. The Holy Spirit,
532. Jupiter as God, and a Messianic name, 532—544. Juno as a
symbolic name for the Holy Spirit, 545—560. Diana as the same,
560—570. Venns as the same, 571— 582. Minerva as the same, 583
—602. Vesta as the same, 602—619. Hades meant all Spirits, 620
—622. Hermes as a Messianic name and symbol, 623. Apollo as the
same, 628. Vulcan as the same, 647. Mars as the same, 65C. Dionysus
as the same, 655. Invocation of the Supreme, 677. Appendix on
Isis, 681. Notes, 687. Index.
PART III. A COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE.
Price 16s. Pp. 854.
CONTENTS.—Boox I.—Indian theology, its sublime and sacred
nature, 1—12. As contrasted with that of Greece and Rome, 13—21.
Black Virgin and Child, 23. Hindu mythology, 24—33. Creation,
Theocrasia, Menu-Taur, the Cow, the Breast, the Cock, Waters, and
other ancient symbols, 34—43. Sir W. Jones on the Gods of India
and Europe, 44—48. Comment on Oannes, Ianus, Iunonius, Jain-Esa,
Matutinus, Di-One, Gan-Esa, 49—58. Sir W. Jones on Saturn and
the Saturnian mythos, Menu and Ceres, 59—69. Comment on Fohi,
Crodo, Orus, Quetzalcoatl, Iamos, Minos, Branchus, Sosipolis, Saba-
zius, Nusa, 70—86. Sir W. Jones on Zeus, Vishnu, Siv, and Brahma,
the Creation, Neptune, Parvatti, Bhavani, and Eros, 87—102. Com-
ment on Water and the Balic Power; the White Stone, or Jupiter
Lapis; the Monolith, or Phallos ; Deu-Cali-On ; Al-Gabir, or the
Cabiric Messenger; Male-Female Nature of the Soul; Erlic Han;
Iswara ; Hindu mythos of the Holy Spirit; the Mother of the Gods,
Ceres, Astarte, 103—149. Sir W. Jones on Rama and Crishna, 150
—157. Comment on. The Bi-une, Osiris, Cadmus, Sesostris, Kiun,
Melek Aritz, Hercules, Ceann-Faolo, Lamb and Shepherd symbol,
150—183. Sir W. Jones on Sur-Ya, or God Iah ; Cali, 184—190. De-
luge of Atlantis, 190—202. Notes, 203.
BooK II.—The Seven Churches, 222. Memoir on by Chambers,iv
ADVERTISEMENT.
224—248. Comment on, 249—252. Memoir on by Goldingham and
another writer, 253—264. Memoir on by Maria Graham, 265—269.
Arka, or P'Adam Khetr, 269—276.
BOOK III.—Commentary on the various sections of the Apoca-
lypse :—
1.	The prologue to the Sacred Vision, 277—292.
2.	The splendid symbol of the Messiah of God, whose light was to
shine forth in heavenly Messengers, 293.
- 3. The initiation of the Prophet, 307.
4.	Vision of the Four Living Creatures, 309.
5.	The Prophet is uplifted into the Glory of God, 334.
6.	Heaven opens—the Throne and the_24 Ancients, 337.
7.	The Book of Heaven opened by the Lamb, 358.
8.	The Holy Spirit of God, and the Red Dragon, 376.
9.	The Sacred Hymn of Victory, 407.
-10. Explication of the Red Dragon, 408.
11.	The Four races of mankind, 409.
12.	ADAM, the First Messenger of God, A.M. 3000, p. 417.
13.	ENOCH, the Second Messenger of God, A.M. 3600, p. 434.
14.	Fo-Hi, the Third Messenger of God, A.M. 4200, p. 455.
15.	The submersion of Atlantis foreshewn, 466.
16.	BRiGoo, the Fourth Messenger of God, A.M. 4800, p. 473.
17.	Vision of an Universal Church which followed this Avatara, 484.
18.	Vision of the flying sickle, 487.
19.	Rise, growth, and condemnation of Serpent-worship, 488.
20.	ZABATCSHT, the Fifth Messenger of God, 5400, p. 493.
21.	The vision of the archangel Michael, 517.
22.	TH0TH, the Sixth Messenger of God, A.M. 6000, p. 519.
23.	Symbolic vision of this great Messenger's teaching, 531.
24.	AMOSIS, the Seventh Messenger of God, A.M. 6600, p. 535.
25.	Symbolic vision of the glory that was to follow, 544.
26.	The first four great monarchies of the Earth : the Indo-Ethiopic,
the Scythian, the Hindu, the Chinese, 545.
27.	The Medo-Persian and the Greek-Macedonian monarchies, 550.
28.	LAO-TsBU and JESUS, the Eighth and Ninth Messengers of GoD,
A.M. 7200 and 7800, p. 557.
29.	The coronation of these two Messengers in Heaven, 574.
30.	Their teaching shewn to be identical with that of their prede-
cessors, 577.
31.	Mo'AHMED, the Tenth Messenger, A.M. 8400, p. 579.
32.	The monotheistic hymn of praise in Heaven, 597.
33.	CHENGiz-KHAN, the Eleventh Messenger of God, A.M. 9000, p
604.ADVERTISEMENT.
V
34.	The Seven trumpet-bearing Angels, 614.
35.	The French Empire and Napoleon, 623.
36.	The Angels with the Seven last Plagues, 628.
37.	The great hierarchic Capitals of the world described, and their
fate predicted, 631.
38.	The lamentation of the wicked over their downfall, 644.
39.	The dirge of the Destroying Angel, 647.
46.	The symbolic vision of the British empire, 657-
41.	The symbolic vision of the American empire, 667.
42.	The final overthrow of all evil dominion by the monotheistic
power, 668.
43.	The Twelfth MESSENGER of God, A.M. 9600, p. 669.
44.	A vision of his followers, 675.
45.	The Voice of Heaven proclaiming his epiphany, 677.
46.	The glorious congregation of believers, 678.
47.	A vision of Angels who follow after the Twelfth, 684.
48.	The command given to the Sixth trumpet-bearing Angel, 686.
49.	The sounding of the Seventh Trumpet, 691.
50.	Prologue to the dissolution of the Kalpa, 695.
51.	Another vision of Angels who succeed the Twelfth Messenger,
701.
52.	The opening of the Fifth Seal, 704.
53.	The commandment to the Seven Angels, 704.
54.	The Seven Angels pour out their vials, 706.
55.	The opening of the Sixth Seal, 712.
56.	The vision of the Martyrs for Truth, 713.
57.	The opening of the Seventh Seal: and the end of the Kalpa, 719-
58.	The Majesty of the Lord God is seen, 722.
59.	The day of the Great Judgment, 727.
60.	The day of transmigrations into various life, 734.
61.	The renovation into new beauty, 735.
62.	Vision of the Holy Spirit, 742.
63.	The Messengers claim their followers from God, 743.
64.	The promises of the Holy Spirit to the good, 744.
65.	The vision of the New Paradise, 755.
66.	The same vision continued, 757.
67.	The River and the Tree of Life, 771.
68.	The glorification of the Holy City, 774.
69.	The ambrosial Waters, and the Trees of Heaven, 775.
70.	The great and final Commandment, 778.
Ancient mystical names of the Apocalypse, 779—782. Symbols 783
—785. Notes, 787. General Index, 805.VI
ADNERTISEMENT.
THE BOOK OF ENOCH,
THE SECOND MESSENGER OF GOD.
In 2 Vols., with Illustrations, price 10s.*
Vot. I. Preface.
Boos I. 1—18. Notes, 19—33.
„ II. 34—116. Notes, 117—175.
„ III. 176—338. Notes, 339—368.
VOL. II. BOOK IV. 1—147. Notes, 148—160.
THE BOOK OF ENOCH.
CHAP.
I.	The awakening of ENOCH.
II.	A Vision of the Past.
III.	A Vision of the Impending.
IV.	The Sun and Heavenly Signs.
V.	The Lights and Glories.
VI.	A Vision of Ten.
VII.	The Judgment of God.
VIII.	The Uniformity of Natural Law.
IX.	The Night-Watchers.
X.	The Outcry of the Earth.
XI.	The Judgment on Sam-Iaza.
XII.	ENOCH'S mission to the Watchers.
XIII.	Vision of the Valley of Sin.
XIV.	Orders of Life in the Universe. $
XV.	Vision of the Land of Shadow.
XVI.	A Sermon to the Sons of Men.
XVII.	A Vision of Mountains.
XVIII. The Seven luminous Stars.
TAt're?
* Less than cost price, but published thus, that Truth may be
diffused.ADVERTISEMENT.
vii
XIX.	A Vision of the Magnet.
XX.	A Vision of the Son of Man.
XXI.	Vision of the Rivers of Fire.
XXII.	The Celestial Lands.
XXIII. The Holy Mountain.
XXIV.	The Vale of Sweet Waters.
XXV.	The Ascension of the Seven Heavens.
XXVI.	Vision of the Messengers.
XXVII. Vision of Trees.
XXVIII. The Tree of Knowledge.
XXIX.	Celestial Gleams and Glimpses.
XXX.	THE VISION OF GOD.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOL. I. Frontispiece in folding plate. The Holy Spirit under two
aspects. The Circle of Inchoation. Characteristic signs given
to Enoch.
TiTLE-PAGE: The primeval hieroglyph of the Mexican and Indian
Fish-Avatar from AO.
PREFACE. The Holy Spirit as Isis unveiled.
Eleusinian Medal.
The Messenger, Assyrian Oannes.
The Fish-deity Dag-on, or Vishnu.
Eleusinian Medal.
P. 176. The Egyptian Holy Spirit, with her Son, the Messenger,
overshawdowed by Racham, the Sacred^Vulture.
191. The Man Fish Hermes.
258. Mexican AO and Boar-Avatar.
261.	The Sceptre of Bel-Ops.
262.	The Twelfth's Messenger's Rod.
293. The Symbolic Phcenix.
297. Hindu mythological Cave-carving.
309. The Incarnation of the Messenger.
322. Holy Spirit symbols.
326. Venus Cabira.
336.	Medal of the Naros.
337.	Papal Naronic symbol.viii
'ADVERTISEMENT.
VoL. II. Frontispiece in folding Plate. Cwenila, Holy Spirit, and
Sphinx-Virgin.
P. 1. The Descent of the Messenger front Heaven.
6.	Phrygian Holy Spirit with Rod and Key.
7.	Two headed Ianus, or Oan.
11. Holy Spirit insphered in Fire.
24. Zodiac of Enoch (engraved on copper).
27. Egyptian Isis.
35.	Assyrian carving.
36.	Marble from Nemroud.
37.	God, or Angel in the Sun.
66. Hindu Sri.
68. Holy Spirit, and Infant Buddha.
71.	Iao, also Adamas.
72.	Solar Messenger.
73.	Fo-Hi.
75. Three Medals of Thoth.
77. Enthronization of Lao-Tseu and Jesus.
79. Medals of the Twelfth Messenger.
85. Hindu AO.
87. Cabiric Medal.
91. Naga-Linga-Nandi.
96. Sphinx.
148. Eleusin Sun-Medal.
163. God in his Solar Aspect.
169. Medals of the Virgin Mother.
174. Lion-headed Serpent.
188. Apocalyptic medals.
190. Holy Spirit medals.
194. A Lion-God; Lion of the Haros.
196. God and the Holy Spirit.
212. Adi Buddha.
236. Sun-crowned Buddha.
250. Serpent Messengers.
281. Eight-pointed Mazonio Cross.
283. Cabiric medal.
291. The Golden Incense Altar of the Apocalypse ; the Magnet
Vase, and Olive Trees.WHILE this work is passing through the press, and while
I was deliberating whether it needed a Preface, a letter
reached me from a stranger in South Africa, which, with
my answer to it, somewhat enlarged, I think will serve
better than anything else for an Introduction. The
writer points to certain thoughts, animadversions, doubts,
which crossed his mind while perusing part of my BOOK
OF GoD ; and I suppose similar thoughts have arisen in
the minds of others. The reply which I subjoin may
help to disperse them.
To THE AUTHOR OF THE BOOK OF GOD.
NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA,
JAircA, 11, 1872.
SiR,—I am reading your work on the APOCALYPSE. I
have just finished the second volume. The subject, that
is General Mythology, on which you write, has been for
many years a matter of great interest to me, and of espe-
Aii
PREFACE.
cial study, and for some time I have looked upon it as
calculated to do the Christian world much good if deeply,
MorowyA/y, and religiously, studied. There are some things
in your work which come back to me as the echo of my
own thoughts. Your remarks in Book III, Vol. I, on
the Nemesis of Heaven, are	good. I hold,
too, to the truth of the Universality of God's love and
light-giving and active all-embracing operation. And
there are other things in your work which, though not
accepted truth in the religious world, have for years
formed a part of my own belief. I can even join with you
in the aspiration for a World's Faith.
Having made these remarks you will understand that,
in what follows, I am not writing as a blind, virulent,
uninquiring opponent.
I think, then, that you wrong the Jews. I quite agree
with you that neither they nor Europeans have under-
stood the Jew's position in God's world, and have there-
fore mistaken the position of the religious system sup-
posed to have come from the Jews among the religious
systems of other peoples. I think also you strangely
misunderstand Paul and Paul's teaching. I came to the
conclusion, some thirty years ago, that Paul has been
made the advocate of a system he wrote to overthrow.
Paulisni is the very reverse of Calvinistic exclusiveness
and Antinomianism. His Epistle to the Romans was
written expressly to assert the doctrine of universality
against Jewish exclusiveness. The evils existing in
Christendom are doubtless most fearful. But are they
to be attributed to Paulism 1 And are they not ex
ceeded, at least equalled, by the wickedness of ancient
R ome, and at the present time by that of the Chinese cities!
It appears to me that the way in which you allude toPREFACE.
iii
these three subjects, the Jew and his Scriptures, Paul and
Paulism, and the evils of European, and especially of
British Society, arises from some prejudice of your own
mind, similar to that of which you justly accuse others
in relation to so-called pagan religions, and that it is likely
to injure your Work in the estimation, not only of the
unthinking public, but of the thoughtful and re-
flecting.
Then it seems to me that, while objecting to the words
in which the Trinitarians express their belief you ex-
press your belief in Dualism in very much the same
way. And that you are not a Pantheist, although in
more than one place you assert that you are.
I should like to ask a few questions. What authority
have you for the version of the APOCALYPSE! Has any
copy, or portion of a copy, been found in arks, &c.!
And then, even if so found, is it a work, as given by
you, of that immense, world wide, all-time, embracing
importance which you so enthusiastically claim for it to
be ! And, if so, why has it been concealed till now 1
And how, and by whom, has the ark been opened
and the mystery made known 1 I have not given your
version any critical examination : but it appears to me
that you get the whole from the	and I
am at a loss to understand upon what principle the selec-
tion has been made, or alteration adopted. What is your
authority for your version, and on what principle has it
been accomplished !
I shall read Vol. Ill, and then re-read with more
care. In the meantime I write my general impression.
I should like to ask some other questions, and to be able to
refer to works which, in this out-of-the-way corner of
A 2iv
PREFACE.
the world, I do not possess. In the meantime believe me
to be,
Yours truly,
3/ay 20, 1872.
DEAR SiR,—Your letter of March 11 came to hand
to-day; I have read it with interest, as coming from so
great a distance, and from aniintelligent inquirer. I am
pleased that you recognise the truth of the Cabiric Mes-
senger, as put forth in Book III, and that we agree upon
the value of old Mythology in illustrating occult doc-
trines of religion, and throwing light upon the Past.
Only one man in a thousand can elevate his mind to a
conception of subjects like these : the condition of the
multitude sunk in ignorance, in mental sloth, and sen-
suality, and with hardly a desire to improve its condition,
or emerge from the Pit, is enough to draw tears of blood
from the eyes of such as wish them well.
I cannot soften or retract anything I have said of
* The medal prefixed to this letter represents the Holy Spirit.
The Mystic Vase indicates the source from which the Cabiri
spring, shewn under the symbol of Trees : the Wreath of Olive,
which also typifies the Holy Spirit, embraces them in its fold.
The letters E. K. indicate EuayyeXnrTys, or EwyyeXos
Kvptou, the Good Messenger of the Lord, or the Buddha. See
also the medal at the end of this letter for the same initials.
There the Man of the Sea, or the Twelfth Messiah, the Leviathan
of the Waters, is seen receiving from the Holy Spirit the Olive
Branch of sovereignty and truth. See Vol. II, 70, 88.PREFACE.
V
the Jews; though I personally regard many of the people.
I have friends among them than whom the world could
not produce any who are more honourable. But this must
not blind me to the system; nor could it be expected
that it should do so. As a nation the Hebrews have
been guilty of the greatest crimes ; and Europeans
for many hundred years have laboured under the
direst evils, because of a superstitious adherence
to Judaic authority, and a belief in their pretended
' mission as the most favoured nation of the Lord. And
this superstition requires to be dispelled—rudely and
roughly if you like—by the use of terms which can
leave no loophole to the reader to mis understand the
enormous crimes which are traceable directly to the pre-
valence of Judaic ideas upon those to whom their books
have come. <9%% o/ /As yuoufA a o/ yz're, out q/
tAe a	AreatA, out q/ tAe towyue sparAs
aud tempests.* This is the Voice of Prediction ; and by this
Voice I am constrained to act, as you would know, if you
; had read the whole of the Boon OF GoD, and seen that
in this way, as the Supreme himself has declared, are to
be opposed the rabbis, the priests, their teachings, and
their writings. These last, indeed, have done more injury
to mankind than the religious books of all other peoples
put together. There is hardly a Jew of the lower orders
who does not even at the present day, as a consequence of
, those books, and the doctrines derived from them, exult
in the murder of the innocent Jesus. The multitude
rejoice in his crucifixion as that of a blasphemer, an im-
) postor, and a seditious malcontent; and shrink not from
the invocation, Afe &/oo<7 Ae upou us own/ ou our cAiMrew,
but regard it as an honour and a source of pride. (Jfutt.
* See Part III, 672.vi
PREFACE.
xxvii. 25.*) It is absolutely necessary, therefore, that
they should be painted in their true colours, and I have
so painted them; not that I hate the Jews, but that I prefer
the Truth. Are we to do evil that good may cornel
I am sure you will not say so. Are we to abstain from
telling the truth, or should we falsify history, in order
that we may conciliate the rich and powerful; or ought we
to float along with false popular opinion that we may get
this or that one to our side because it is expedient to do
so 1 I am positive you would not advise this. Is it not
a well known maxim that to suppress the truth is to
suggest a lie 1 and can there be a worse suggestion of
falsehood than to allow any person to believe that the
Jews are the very chosen people of God, when their
career as a body, almost since the days of Amosis, has
been a violation of every law of God! There are, as I
said before, in spite of their rabbis, and wholly distinct
from the many, noble spirits, wise and good men and
women among the Hebrews ; but the doctrines of the
community, and the books on which they base those doc-
trines, lead direct to perdition. Hence I have spoken
freely of them as I do of petro-paulites ; another equally
pernicious sect. This age requires free speaking; it is
an age of smooth and slimy waters that need to be dis-
turbed. At present the fashion is to talk gently and
kindly, and almost sympathisingly, of crime and crimi-
nals. Humbug is our sovereign king. I abhor such a
fashion, and such a monarch. Hell and Satan deserve
no courtesy.t
As to Paul I think I know him well. I have cited
and commented in the Three Parts of the Boon or GoD,
upon some odious passages in his writings and to these I
* See Part III, 796. t Part III, 672. " And lo," &c.PREFACE.
vii
must refer you for a. better consideration of what the
" saint" was. I do not wonder that Swedenborg, who
had studied his works for over forty years, thought he saw
him in Hell, " connected with one of the worst of
devils I do not feel surprise that he speaks of him as
"a nefarious character.'' Tow may not believe that Swe-
denborg saw this in reality, or that he had any Divine
Visions of the future state. But I do believe that he
had ; and I have full faith in the Supernatural, which all
our present writers who think themselves Philosophers de-
nounce as something wholly unreal and incredible ; a
badge of fraud, or a sign of foolishness. The more any
one is versed in Philosophy, says this Great Seer, (as if he
foresaw the rubbish that now passes under that name) the
more his blindness and darkness ; the blindness increases
with the Philosophy, as might be proved by many ex-
amples. Wiser language than this did no man ever use ;
it particularly applies to the bastard philosophy now in
vogue, which doubts of everything and substitutes
nothing; leaving Man a rudderless wretch on the great
ocean of life, without a single star of light to guide his
miserable course. In the rabble of writers he is left in
doubt whether he is a man, a machine, a " miscegenation,"
or a monkey ; to whom God never sent a Revelation, or a
glorious glimpse of the Life to come ; but whom He
abandoned in the dreary wilderness, leaving him to chance,
to ignorance, and to ruin. If he adopts this unhappy
view how can he regard God as otherwise than callous
or indifferent to his welfare ? and the next step to this
stage of thought is either an absolute disbelief in a God
who could so neglect him, or a blasphemous assertion
that God is a Devil. This is what present scepticism
leads to—the scepticism of our simian sages who are of aviii
PREFACE.
different order, indeed, from the Samian—and it is a
miserable result. But let me ask this of those un-
happy infidels : JK/mf	f/te worM	tAe
<$*Mj?er7M;7wra7 7 What the East without its divine
Buddhas ; its Zaradusht bright as the Morning Star,
and the heaven-dreamer of Arabia? what the West
had not Jesus come from on high to rescue it from
rabbinism and the gods ? What would Europe have
been in the long night of the middle ages if certain
holy men and holy women had not had divine Visions of
the Celestial 1 Shall we say that these things are lies ?
or that they have ceased for ever ? Heaven forbid ! Yet
there will always be found shallow sceptics and sophists
who laugh in the face if one professes belief in those
Sacred Dreams ; and who—like even the erudite and
large-minded author of Nimrod—think the Seer of
Stockholm " disgraced" his age, or rather the lite-
rature of his age ; when in truth he was perhaps its
most distinguished ornament. Compare ZtwR with
his cotemporaries, Johnson, Wesley, and Goethe, and
see how grandly he shines. I have selected names
to which you cannot object : the first and second are
vulgarly supposed to impersonate nearly all the vir-
tues, and a great deal of the sciences; and the third
is looked upon by millions as a sort of demi-god in
intellect. To my judgment they are simply contemp-
tible when compared to Swedenborg. But while I hold
that Swedenborg saw this and other things in absolute
verity and fact, I do not believe in all he saw; there is a
great deal of fantasy mixed up with his truths, and these
must be apparent to the wise. Yet if you treat Swe-
denborg simply as a great man of immense knowledge
and splendid intellect, his opinion of Paul deservesPREFACE.
ix
high consideration. I am sure it is of more reai
value than that of professional divines who have large
emoluments to prejudice their views—people like the
annotators of VAe /ipea&ez-g' {JowM/tew&zry, who would
keep mankind if they could in the same fetters which
priestcraft forged for them from the beginning, and to
which it perpetually adds a new link, as every olden
ring becomes worn out or rusty, or rotten.
And here, perhaps, you may say (nor can I com-
plain if you do so), What is all this about the Superna-
tural! All my experience rejects it; the experience of
all my friends and acquaintances would do so too. I have
lived forty, fifty, sixty, year's in the world, you may ex-
claim, and have had no glimpse whatever of the things
you speak of Granted. But all minds, and all men are
not the same. Your friends have probably written no
great epics, and yet we know that great epics have
been written. Your friends may not, any of them,
have had what the Scots call " second sight," and yet
we know that many hundreds of that wise and noble
people have enjoyed and still possess it. In some men com-
mon sense exists principally—the sense that gathers gold
and silver—in others what I call spirit-sense ; that is,
a condition of the brain and of the inner nature, in
which things of this earth are subordinated to things
that appertain to Heaven. To minds of the first-named
order the Supernatural is a myth ; they reject it alto-
gether from the sphere of their belief Indeed I some-
times doubt whether they	accept it, even if they
tcowM. But there are others to whom the Supernatural
is true, and who would value little life on earth if it
were not cheered by heavenly gleams. You cannot
A 3X
PREFACE.
deny this without classing some of our most illustrious
names with those of fools or impostors, and this you
will hardly do. How many prophetic glimpses and
dreams have come even to ordinary men! How many
instinctive presentiments ! How many forebodings of
good and evil! Are not these supernatural? Was
not the Daimon of Pythagoras, and of Socrates, super-
natural ? I am sure you do not think that either of those
Sages wilfully lied. Was the Essence that conversed
with Tasso merely a myth, a mist of madness, a phan-
tom of his imagination ? But I need not ransack his-
tory or biography for multitudinous proofs of this kind.
Men of the world never will believe them ; and men above
the world never will reject them; and so the matter must
remain, I suppose, for ever on this sphere an undecided
thing. And it is right that it should be so. For if
God were to descend in thunders visibly upon this
earth, and command men to walk aright, I suppose
they would do so in obedience to the edict of the
Supreme—but where then would be their free will ?
and how would they differ from bonded slaves ? But
the obedience of slaves is not what God requires ; but
the love and worship of intelligent spirits who, by
^Ag/r owM g/Aor/3, not by what others tell them, make
their way towards Him. Therefore God has left men
to deal as they deem fit with the Supernatural; to
reject it, or accept it, as they please ; nor has He
clothed His Messengers with such miraculous gifts as
would carry conviction to the whole earth that they
were accredited servants of the Most High; for this
again would be to force obedience, not to win submis-
mission. God has given Revelationswhich prove themselves
to be true by their harmony and beauty, and there He hasPREFACE.
xi
stopped. He adds no other proofs of them than their
own intrinsic excellence. We have the testimony of the
Ninth Messenger, that it is only aw
yenerafton w/ncA	c(/?er a styn (Matt. xii. 39), and
we may be perfectly sure that it is in accordance with all
we know of God, that He abstains from any semblance
of leading men to the right way by any other than an
appeal to their reason ; an appeal that succeeds, when rea-
son listens. As every man has it in his power, if he really
tries, to find out true religion, and separate it from the
false, so also he has power to enter the Supernatural
Sphere, and to converse with Angelic Essences. 2?M% 7te
un'ZZ %ry ; and therefore he remains for ever ignorant,
and for ever outside. And it is hardly fair that he
should deny altogether the Paradise that blooms within
the Gates if he has never tried to approach those Gates.
But this is what he generally does. A man who clings to
sensuals cannot associate with spirituals. A man who
relies only on his common sense ; on his money-getting
passion, on his mere energy after caruals, will never
reach the higher, the spirit-sense—the soul illumination.
I know plenty of scholars and men of worldly wisdom
who think the Supernatural is all moonshine ; but I
never knew that any one of them had striven to attain
admission into the Circles of Light, which are not the
less real, because they are unseen of such. Every one
knows that a man cannot get money, or food, or learning
without labour ; every one thinks that he can get Truth
(which is the most precious of all things) without any
exertion at all of his own, but simply by listening to
some hired priests whose words he accepts as words of
wisdom. But if we want Truth, or Light, or any Beauti-
ful and Spiritual thing, we must labour for them quitexii
PREFACE.
as hard as we labour for gold, or aught else that we de-
sire to have. Neither Truth nor Light will come to any
man who does not want them with all his heart and soul;
who does not seek for them eagerly, and who does not
toil early and late for their attainment. Why should
men, whose god is their belly, expect that Pure and
Holy Spirits from the Invisible should come to /Ztewt ?
What sympathy, or	(to use a Swedenbor-
gian allusion), can there be between men of the earth,
and creatures of the heaven, that the latter should leave
their worlds of purest chrysolite to visit those who want
them not i—nay, who perhaps doubt of their very exist-
tence! Yet this is what many good people do perhaps
expect—I need not say in vain.
As I write this a fact appears in one of the papers upon
matters which may have sowte effect on those who treat the
Supernatural* with contempt. To me it is as nothing ; but
to others it may carry conviction beyond the clearest and
finest argument. The wife of the Common Serjemt of
London, Lady Chambers, beheld a few nights since what
actually took place on the other side of the Atlantic—seve-
ral thousands of miles away over the ocean. She saw a
gentleman in the cabin of his ship preparing for a bath;
she saw the ship give a sudden lurch; the gentleman was
thrown violently against a hot water pipe and severely
burned ; by the rebound in the opposite direction he was
thrown upon the other side of the ship and injured in
his back. She immediately communicated to her husband
what she had seen—she gave the most vivid description
* Upon matters of this and a similar nature the reader may
consult the numerous publications (Fuman	among the
rest,) of a very able and conscientious man, Mr. Burns, publisher,
of 15, Southampton Row, Holbom.PREFACE.
xiii
of it; she named the gentleman whom she had so beheld
in trance or vision. The gentleman arrived in London
some ten or twelve days after. Sir Thomas visited him
and found him on a sofa suffering from the effects of the
injuries he had sustained. lie told him what Lady
Chambers had seen. The gentleman was astonished, as
he might well be, and desired to hear it from the lady
herself, who was an old acquaintance. She came and
described all; and the event was, on inquiry, found to
synchronize with the dream, and to agree with all its
most minute details. This gentleman is the Recorder of
London—the Right Honourable Russell Gurney. Now, if
the spirit-sense can thus see what takes place three thou-
sand miles away, why should it not, if ethereally-minded,
penetrate also into the Sphere of the Unseen and behold
its wonders? If upon a matter of no importance, and
of interest only to those immediately concerned, the
spirit-soul lias this second sight, why should it not in a
matter of vital value to the whole of mankind—I mean
their knowledge of a future life ! This, remember, is not
the narrative of ignorant, or superstitious, or gossiping
people, who are generally regarded by philosophers with '
scorn; but is the actual experience of persons in a re-
spectable position in life, and not at all given to imagina-
tion. It is related everywhere, both by the Recorder
and Mr. Common Seijeant, and nobody doubts either the
sincerity of their belief or their ability to from correct
notions upon this as upon most other subjects.
But while I press the Supernatural upon you, do not
for one moment suppose that I believe in miracles, or
that I advocate their actuality. A miracle is a violation
of the Laws of God, under the Auspice of God himself,
which is absurd; the Supernatural is simply that inter-xiv
PREFACE.
communion with the Spirit-World from which no Spirit
in any sphere is, or ought to be, excluded by God, and
to which, if it be pure, it naturally inclines. The
"Magnet which supports the World" (to use the words
of Enoch) diffuses its heat, its light, its influence
through every existence in the world ; and these only
require to be brought into operation to unify them with
all sympathetic powers whether they be in the highest
heavens or in the lowest depths.
I am sorry that you cannot see Calvinism in the Epis-
tle to the Romans which you cite with approval. What
is the ninth chapter but predestination and election !
What is verse 21 in that chapter but the assimilation of
God to an all-powerful and unreasoning tyrant who can
do what he will with his own 1 and who is praised and
justiHed for doing so. But even if it were true that
Paul wrote some few things that were good, how can this
justify, or excuse, the great mass that is bad! And
is not the soul-destroying doctrine of Faith without works
and the blood-atonement which peoples earth with so
many criminals, and hell with so many millions, attribu-
table in a great measure to the dogmas which this man
has laid down! To me it is perfectly clear that Paul
wilfully and wickedly—a very Antichrist—set himself
up against Jesus, and laboured in every way he could to
destroy the creed which the Ninth Messenger came from
heaven to beautify and renew. And in this object Paul
has been too successful. For one preacher who takes his
text and his doctrine from Jesus on the Sunday, there are
twenty who take their text and their follies from Paul;
and for one man who models his life upon the teachings
of the Ninth Messenger there are a thousand who putPREFACE.
XV
their faith absolutely iu the blood-stained homicide of
the first Martyr.
I have not been to China, but I know Europe, and I
believe it to be impossible to overstate the amount of sin
and hypocrisy, and misery, which it contains. In Eng-
land, more especially, instead of Seven Trumpet-bearing
Angels, we have seventy-seven thousand who daily pro-
claim from the house tops that we are the most virtuous
and happy of mankind, while all around us gives the lie to
the false pretence. I believe that there is more vice,
wretchedness, poverty, and ignorance, in this " happy
land," with Paul for its teacher, and the Bible Society for
its guardian, than in any other land of which we have
record whether in the Present, or the Past; and that our
political system, which accumulates all the wealth in the
coffers of the rich, while it makes the poor every day
poorer, will end one day in a volcano of fire, of blood,
and ruin. Were I asked to point out a picture of hell
in miniature I need but lead my inquirer into some of
the frightful slums* of this and other great European
* Long after this was written I read in that able newspaper the
Ao7y -Yews (June 25, 1872), the following sketch of part of Lon-
don on the Prince of Wales's visit to Bethnal Green:—In modern
days princes do not imitate the Sultan Haroun Alraschid, and it
may safely be reckoned that the Prince of Wales had never before
penetrated into the squalid precincts of Bethnal-green. Truly
it was a strange, incongruous association, the glittering proces-
sion, with brilliant officials, stately guardsmen with nodding
plumes and jingling harness, pawing horses, and powdered wigs
of State coachmen—all this pomp and glory in Bethnal-green 1
The very air of the district is redolent of sordid poverty and
human misery. The Royal procession moved onward between
dense rows of people, of wAom a fctryeproportion Acre as /ami/tar
an acquaintance witA tAc panys of Aunyer as a West-end man Aas
of tAe way to A is c/uA. Among the gazers were many gaunt,
ragged men, stunted, narroto-cAested, and spider limited, Ay privation
from tAeir motAer's Areas! ; of lean, wan-faced women, bareheaded,xvi
PREFACE.
cities where, amid dirt and filth, vermin and disease, and
poisoned air, and squalid raggery, and rotten food, and
reeking cesspools, the poverty-stricken wretches, whom
we count by thousands, and call our brethren, pass their
days in blasphemy, drunkenness, and the vilest moral
and physical degradation, cursing God and the blessed
light, execrating the day they were born, and Riled with
the most malignant hatred of each other, and envy of all
and in limp, dingy prints, who, as fAey cuddM fo tAeir Arensfs
AydrocepAn/ows in/an/s, gazed in a kind of stunned amazement at
the novel splendour. On one side, as the procession moved down
the road, were Boundary and Half Nichols-streets, whither the
police go with the intuition of experience when a thief or a
burglar is wanted ; on the other, Club-row, the scene of the Sun-
day morning bird fair. Lower down Royalty passed the end of
Gibraltar-walk, in /Ae purlieus o/ wAicA vestrymen own Aouses in%o
(Ae rooms of wAicA ooze .from %Ae sewers percoAties,' and nearer the
Museum, close adjacent to the line of route, were Hollybush-
gardens, of good repute in the annals of blood poisoning. It would
have been unseemly to have asked the Prince to descend from his
carriage, and follow a guide through some of the dismal alleys of
Bethnal-green—to enter RMfe rooms wAere wAoie _/am<7es pi</ ?oye-
tAer Ay niyA/ on <Ae yfoor in fAeir cioiAcsthe dens whither children
hardly older than his own youngest born contribute to their own
maintenance by pasting labels on match-boxes at three-farthings
the gross ; the attics where the cadaverous weaver— descendant
of expatriated Huguenot—is glad to ply the shuttle eighteen
hours a day for less than as many pence; the back cellars inha-
bited by half bloodless women, who earn their weak tea and
scanty bread by making shirts at Hd. a piece, and Rud their own
thread. But nevertheless these and many other kindred mise-
ries abounded plenteously in side streets and squalid " gardens,"
as the bright sunbeams dashed on the splendour of the passing
procession, and as the people cheered the Prince. And if per-
sonal experiences of the kind referred to were not for him, he
might at least, as his carriage rolled on, glance at shops where are
retailed viands not dreamt of in the philosophy of the West-end—
cowheel at 3d. a pound, "Staggering Bob "at a penny a slice,
pork that passed the inspector by the skin of its teeth, traysful of
doubtful "pieces," on which, till the customer should arrive, the
Hies were luxuriating. See letter in the dfominy AVer of April 9,
1867, quoted in Part 11, 465.PREFACE.
xvii
who are more fortunate. And if I can show you many
self-made hells of this kind here, can you wonder that
there are millions of such which the wicked in other spheres
also make for themselves throughout the Universe ! and
which, must ever exist while Vice, as on this earth, has
rampant power, and Virtue is a thing to be praised but
slighted. And, when I go into an European Church, I
find all this set down to an ordinance and institution of
God, who has arbitrarily made these ranks and distinc-
tions in society, because it is His Will; and those who
pass their hideous lives in this most sad condition are
meekly told that it is " fActf s/afe o/ Zt/e to tc/a'cA it
prosed Cod to catt tAewt." Can you find anything worse
than this throughout the whole East to which you refer
me 1 Has God, indeed, cast all these people into this
condition! Has ZZe consigned them to this accursed
kind of life ! Has Z/e made all these slums and fearful
rat-holes, in which thousands upon thousands " made in
His image," and destined to live for ever, exist in misery,
and die of fever and 51th, from year to year 1 In Europe
we are taught all this, and many of us act upon it; for if
God, their Father, has made these wretches so, why
should Me interfere, or interpose between the Tempter and
the Tempted ? for is not every misfortune sent to man
only sent as a fried by a merciful Creator! and ought not
the tempted mortal to withstand it bravely like holy Job
of old! or* even as Jesus himself whenDiabolos, or Paul,
assailed him in the Wilderness! Hence we shut our
eyes to the fact that our political and wealth-worshipping
system has produced it all, and that the earth is wide
enough to feed all men well, if only our rulers recog-
nized the truth and acted upon its sacred dictates. Were
it not for the holy well spring of private charity whichxviii
PREFACE.
seems to How without cessation under the Auspice of the
Holy Spirit herself, I know not what would be the con-
dition of the poor in England ; but God surely never
meant that our brave and industrious people should be
dependent on personal benevolence and not on their own
right hands. But so it is. To resume. I have read,
a great deal about foreign peoples, and the result is
this, that I Hnd that they are almost always worse for
intercourse with Europeans, whether they go in the guise
of merchants or missionaries. Beyond this I need not
advance. I have done all I could, as far as inquiry and
research can do it, to make myself well acquainted with
the moral condition of each quarter, and I Hnd with sorrow
that petro-paulites (there are but few Christians), are, as
a rule, worse than the followers of Buddha, Brahm, or
Mohammed; while, to give the crowning point to
all their wickedness, they hypocritically pretend that they
are the best and purest of mankind, and affect to weep
over the condition of those lands from which all true
Light originally came, and still belongs.
I am a Dualist; for that, in the ordinary sense,
means a believer in Osiris and Typhon, Ormuzd and
Ahriman, A Good Principle, God, and an Evil Principle,
Satan; each perpetually contending with the other for
mastery and dominion—the one, preserving; the other,
destroying—each probably to be worshipped in turn by
the devotee ; the Hrst to confer wealth and give prospe-
rity ; the second to abstain from indicting evil. This is
the doctrine falsely and wickedly ascribed to the Fifth
Messenger; one of the most splendid luminaries that
ever shone upon the earth of man. I doubt if it was
ever taught by any but by such priests as now preach
atonement, transubstantiation, and the like ; though thePREFACE.
xix
petro-paulite forgers of the New Testament have ad-
vanced a step further, and sought to blend God and Devil
into one by assigning to HIM the qualities of a Satan. This
is theDualism of what is falsely called the Lord's Prayer, in
which God is entreated not to lead into temptation—as if
the Supreme Father of Love and Wisdom were a Jew
Fagin, whose peculiar calling it is to seduce and insti-
gate the innocent into crime, and when He has accom-
plished that awful end whose delight it is to torment them
in fire and darkness for having followed their Tempter.
This is an interpolation into the true prayer which Jesus
taught, and which his followers polluted, and it is a por-
traiture of God which I never can accept; but which
I would eradicate if I could with fire and sword, if
Reason failed to root it out. I am, therefore, no
Dualist. I am a pure Theist and no more. I believe
in God, who is alone to be worshipped. I believe in the
Holy Spirit of Light,* Beauty, and Love, who has been
created by, but is almost co-existent with, God, and, who,
though a subordinate Essence, is worthy of reverence
in the highest degree. Zaradusht c ailed her " the First
of Angels," and she is so. I believe that her existence
and most glorious attributes have been ignored by the
Churches; for this reason among others, that Man has
sought to degrade Woman, either into his contented
drudge, as we see in many savage peoples, or into a silken
slavery, so that she is his toy rather than his equal, and
he has, therefore, kept this Mighty Spirit out of view.
* I sometimes think that it was this Spirit-Sun, and not the
natural Sun, to which Lucretius alluded—
Largus item liquidi tons luminis dithereus Sol,
Irrigat assidue ccelum candore recenti.
That vast source of liquid light, the Ethereal Sun, which per-
petually laves heaven with ever-renewed brightness.XX
PREFACE.
And I hold that nothing could more elevate or ennoble
that sacred sex than their religious belief in this Virgin
of the Heavens, their Queen, their Sister, their Sympa-
thiser ; superior to all other created Powers; inferior
only to God himself, and next to Him in dignity and
beauty. Let the world be taught this, and all just
Woman-Rights will speedily follow ; let the world con-
tinue to ignore it, and the cry for Woman-Rights, un-
guided by this august faith, may grow into a demand for
what will in the end destroy all that is really feminine
and beautiful in the sex, One of the great objects of my
mission, and of the Truths I teach, is to free and elevate
Women, and this can be achieved only by securing their
belief in the Holy Spirit of God, His first great creation;
the Guardian Goddess of all women on the earths and in
the heavens. This was the creed of our forefathers here
and in the East; men whom I should be ashamed to
compare with the present race, so far higher were they
in knowledge ; and this Creed we should make every
effort to see restored.
We differ, I suppose, in our notions of Pantheism.
Pantheism simply means, God is All; it does mean,
All is God. It asserts that God is the Life of all that
lives : this is very different from what some say, that All
that lives is God. The words seem convertible, but they
are not so : a gulf broad as Infinity separates them.
As to your questions, I have but to refer you to the
BooK OF GoD itself for what 7 consider to be a complete
answer. My APOCALYPSE contains the fullest internal
evidence of what it purports to be : if it cannot take its
stand upon this internal evidence, it must, it may, pass
into oblivion. I write enthusiastically upon it, because
I yM its surpassing grandeur and truth. I have read, IPREFACE.
xxi
think, every yre<z% book that the earth possesses ; but I
never read one that came near the APOCALYPSE. If you
will sit down and peruse it, or the Boox OF ENOCH, not
by Sts and starts, or at intervals ; but as every truly great
intellectual work of moderate length ought to be perused,
that is, in one or two, or at most three, readings, you
will then probably appreciate each as they deserve ; and
be rapt as it were on wings of flame, into realms of
divinest thought, far and far away from earth. But if
on so reading them no such result follows, or if they do
not inspire you with nobler views than you had before,
or if you sit down to them after a full meal and a
bottle of port, or under circumstances adverse to all
exercise of the nobler energies of the brain, and thus
grow to think that they are merely human, and only
wild rhapsodies, then indeed you may be well warranted
in rejecting them as spiritual guides or teachers.
As to external evidence of the authenticity of the
APOCALYPSE, which may weigh with you, where internal
demonstration fails, tAere is wo	evtWewce eywa/iy
/or ctwy awciewt f/teo/oytca/ 600A The work is
joroMti by the almost innumerable allusions to it in
carvings, medals, writings, customs, and traditions, which
the whole earth, from the earliest period, seems to
furnish, and which you would perhaps have acknow-
ledged had you read the Commentary, and its exhaustive
evidence, before you wrote to me. I have often wished
that I were rich, so that I could bring before the world,
in one view, prints or engravings of the thousands of
carvings, memorials, frescoes, medals, going back to the
very morning of mankind, and all illustrating the
APOCALYPSE—illustrating it in a way that no other
Book is illustrated, and carrying absolute conviction ofxxii
PREFACE.
its being the first and oldest of books. These are now
scattered through many volumes—but I look forward to
a day, probably far distant, and when I shall be mingled
with the dust, when they will be collected together, and
published as external proof of the APOCALYPSE. I have
copied my edition of it from no manuscript, though I
feel certain that it exists in manuscript ;* but I have
moulded and modelled it under a Divine Auspice, and
on the same principle as I have dealt with the Boon OF
ExocH, which is now passing through the press. Those
who require ocular proof of everything, and deny God
unless you show Him visibly, will say this is fanaticism,
or madness, or imposture : those who are content to
judge by the effect which these works, when well studied,
may have on their own natures, will recognize in each
one a Celestial Hand, tracing on every page Celestial
Light. My mission is to promulgate Truth, but I
cannot, in this manifestation or phanerosis of myself,
compel any to receive it; and probably a thousand years
may pass before it is universally confessed. But to me
personally this is of no import, as I do not write for
fame, or money, or the usual incentives that operate on
the mind. I have laboured for more than a quarter of
a century night and day, in preparing for a task which
can bring no reward but the consciousness that I am
doing my duty ; learning and striving to teach the One
True Faith, which once pervaded the whole earth. The
Assyrian sign or semblance of the First Messenger,
* Among the lost writings of Democritus, are a Treatise on the
ZeMers seen at Babylon, another on the	ZeMers seen
at Meroe. What else can these be than the APOCALYPSE, the
Book of Enoch, and Fo-Ili, &c. See po%, 320.PREFACE.
xxiii
Oannes or Adama,'* after having Iain for centuries under
the mounds of Nemroud, has at length been disinterred,
and brought to Europe,
where it appears, as
offering its Sacred
Volume under a mys-
tic emblem : in like
manner that Sacred
Volume itself is dis-
interred, and from sur-
rounding mire, and
clay, and darkness, it
is sent forth to light,
to shed on all the
radiance of its words.
And if you will ponder
these matters in con-
nection with those
marvellous things con-
tained in the ApocA-
LYPSE regarding the
Twelfth Messenger, and
in the Commentary
upon it, you will
* The plate prefixed to this Preface represents Isis, the Egyp-
tian name for the Holy Spirit, unveiling herself, as She now for
the first time does, to all mankind. The medal prefixed to the
Letter, and which I copy from Cardinal Noris, is highly mystical,
and belongs to the Mysteries, one of whose secrets it declares,
but in the most occult way. The tail-piece is a mystical medal
from the same writer. See Vol. II. 79, 80. The student of the
preceding Parts of the Boon OF GoD can alone understand the
beauty and truth of these symbolic representations. I have ex-
plained in Part III. 565, the true history and nature of thesexxiv
PREFACE.
not regret the hours that you have given to them;
and you will probably t/tw for the first time see the
form of Holy Truth.
Hoping that I may find in you, when you have
thoroughly mastered the Boon OF GoD, a Missionary of
this Truth to the Childron of Africa, believe me to be
with respect and regard,
Sincerely yours,
ancient Medals. The legends which appear on them were
generally intended to mislead and mystify the exoteric; and
they succeeded. Each medal must be read independently of its
legend. S. C., for instance, to the profane vulgar of Horace, that
is, the exoteric or outsiders, meant <yena/us-Conau%ambut to the
Initiated it had (among others) the meanings given in various
parts of this Work. These medals are copied from medals of the
earliest ages : dates and eras were put on for purposes of myatifh
cation.(Eijf 35oolt at
BOOK I.
1.	I publish this Book for those who wish to walk in
the Paths of Light. They can ascertain for themselves,
if they think fit, whether the truths which it contains
are not in harmony with all history, and with all those
notions of the Supreme Lord of the Universe which
arise naturally within pure minds; in souls uncorrupted
by the poison of mysterious and incredible creeds and
foreign interpreters.
2.	In the essays introductory to the SACRED APOCALYPSE
of the First Messenger of God, many things were necessarily
omitted, or only incidentally treated of, which should have
come before the public fully, were it not that I was
anxious to compress as much as possible what I had to
say in the nature of a prologue. I am conscious that by
so restricting myself I have diminished that strength of
proof which I should wish the reader to feel and experi-
B
/2
THE BOOK OF GOD.
ence, as it were, at one moment; but, as I have stated,
I do not profess to do more than guide. It is not possible
for any one human being, no matter how long his life
may be extended, to bring to bear upon a subject like
this, all the illumination of which it is capable: nor, if
it were so possible, would he And readers who had either
patience, perseverance, or time to accompany him. All
that can reasonably be expected is that the way should
be pointed out, which conducts eventually to true Wisdom ;
and if the human race be once directed to that way, and is
too selfish or too indolent to walk in it, whom can it
blame if, at the end of human life, it finds itself enveloped in
utter ruin ? For as certainly as the sun is in heaven, is
it that they who do not think, inquire, reason, and act,
for themselves in matters of theology, but prefer to walk
in miyt and gloom, shall eventually pass into a Darkness
,<x!f!genial to their natures, from which there is no retreat:
equally sure and certain ps it that any religious tenet
which is not consistent with the teaching of the Messen-
gers of God, as put forth in these Books, is absolutely and
-jftmlly wrong in its beginning and its conclusion. The
man who voluntarily chooses darkness in this life, has so
educated his nature that, when it passes into another
condition of existence, it abides in darkness in that also,
and he who prefers ignorance to knowledge, or does not
labotir to attain it when he is on earth, will enter another
life with the same propensity, and abide there in as
savage, brutal, and irrational a state, as he has willed to
walk in, in this. (1.)
3. This declaration may savour of dogmatism, but it is
absolutely true nevertheless, and I am perfectly convinced
that every rational man will come to the very conclusionsENOCH.
3
to which I invite him if he will only with a sincere
desire to discover Truth, pursue the line of investigation
mapped out for him in these Essays. The great majority
of mankind cannot effectually do this, for they must
labour for their bread : but there are at all times men of
leisure who can do so, and upon their teachings of the
masses I rely in a great measure for the promulgation of
truly heavenly knowledge. For purposes of this sublime
nature it would seem as if Beneficent Power had given
them that leisure, and I can conceive no greater misuse
of life than to employ it in selfish idleness, or sensual
gratification, while so many millions perish every year in
the sloughs of ignorance and midnight darkness.
4. In the present Essay I shall advert to some of those
matters, which I could not embrace within the former
ones. I may appear in some places to go over ground
which I have trodden before ; but I shall insert nothing
which does not seem to me absolutely requisite as a light
to my readers' mind. The labours of a thousand master
intellects directed to one point, and that point the libera-
tion of mankind from their present systems of organised
and contented ignorance, under the rule of priestcraft,
would hardly be enough to make even a little way for
the next fifty years: how, then, shall it be when there
is only myself alone, at the present moment, to dispel
the prevailing mist ? I shall, however, do the best I can
to sow the seed, and I shall feel no envy or repining if I
bequeath to others the glorious harvest which I anticipate
will arise from the implanting of True Religon, and its
eventual diffusion over the whole earth. The flame
which I enkindle in the souls and spirits of men will in
the end be spread from one to many until in the end it may
B 24
THE BOOK OF GOD.
happily comprehend all. 7 shall pass away, but shall
remain. There shall be preachers, missionaries, and martyrs
of this philosophy, to the end of time. N o power can destroy
it; no creed can successfully resist it, although before its
final triumph it shall meet with persecution equal to that of
any of the other grand truths which men resisted but
have survived to bless. Yet in the hour of its triumph
let it beware of success, and shun the first approaches of
corruption. From its priests alone may this proceed, for
it is they who have ever destroyed the Creed of Heaven.
To the laity rather than to these I commit it; for the
laity, when in earnest, are ever the truest guardians of
Religion ; and if fAey be faithful to their trust, this Creed
can never die.
5. But while I bequeath it to the laity to guard, let
me exhort them not to change a Divine Creed like this
into a mere civil or political partnership, such as the
Wesleyans, the Mormons, and Dissenters generally have
done ; let them beware of blending fuzswMgs with that
which in its nature is spiritual and Celestial; for, if they
* do, its ruin will be speedy, and with its downfall will be
mixed their own. It is true that for a time it may by
such means seem to prosper; wickedness, as we know,
more frequently thrives in this base world than goodness ;
not in vain did the Chinese thinker say—
" Zef a warn Antrp %Ae Ae<w^ of at Affe, aw% fAe fo/ow.s of aM
eay/e, Ze% Aiwt <%ecewM Ats superiors, awaf oppress %Ao#e
Mow A:?/t; ZefAwn e%Zfs%fMfery, Zos^MaZoz?., prq/^'yocy, awrZ
cwatrfce om Aw atcZe, Ae wfKy&nf %Ae% a Ttsfwty <MMsfatMce
/ArowyA <!ffe." But the triumph is only transitory, and
these are arts that lead but to darkness and utter per-
dition.ENOCH.
6.	From the most early times a pure system oi mono-
theism or belief in One only and Supreme God and
Father, the Fiery Soul of the Universe, prevailed almost
universally over our earth. This is not the idea of the
ignorant or of the modern race of sceptics, who are
sedulously taught that primeval men were savages, and
that the moderns only are civilized ; but the remains of
art almost coeval with the very morning of mankind
on earth, that exist in China, in the Central Cities, in
India, Egypt, and Etruria, demonstrate the delusion of
the many.
7.	God taught man from the first. The condition of
the gorilla, or of the aborigines of Australia, and other
savage lands, is supposed by those who disbelieve in God
to have been the natural condition of all mankind over the
earth, and that they gradually arose by their own exertions
alone from barbarism to civilization; this is true, but not
all true. The early dwellers on earth, consisting at first
ef a few families, were uncultivated, except by those whom
God raised to be their teachers : the Twenty Four Ancients
or Pre-Adamite Sultans taught and ruled them. In their
primeval home they had thus the rudiments of civilization;
but as their offshoots travelled or emigrated, these sank
into ignorance, just as we see educated Englishmen who
have lived in the bush lose all the polish of society, and
degenerate into semi-savagery.
8.	Next to the Supreme was regarded with the most
profound reverence a Second Pure and Great Existence
who was called The Holy Spirit of God ; because She
was, as it were, the actual, breathing, immediate develop-
ment of that Sublime Essential Fire which constitutes
His being. From the union of these Two, Essence and6
THE BOOK OF GOD.
Emanation, or the Bi-Une AO, all spirit-existence was
held to be developed. Nor did this belief require much
argument to prove that it was true. All the powers of
the Universe which we see daily before us, proceed from
the influence of active vital energy upon passive existent
being ; nor can we form within our minds any other idea
as to the origin of things than this. And no truth can
be more certain than that there is an analogy in all the
operations of Nature ; and that the very same Law which
holds the whole astral universe in its place, regulates also
the suspension of a drop of dew on the cobweb of the
spider, or on the delicate petals of a rose.
9. The very constitution of the Spirit and Soul which
are conjoined in man, helps to demonstrate this Truth.
From the very beginning we find it part of the religious
belief of all peoples : (2) there was a Father, there was a
Mother ; the First presiding over the Law ; the Second
embosoming the Love that is in the Universe. Man
prays sometimes to God; he as often sighs for the
sympathy and support of the Holy Spirit of Heaven.
There are moments in the lives of the most hardened
sinners, when they dare not cast themselves before God ;
but when the feminine Power moves and melts them into
true sorrow, and they dissolve in tears before the Goddess-
Image. It is impossible to eradicate this sentiment from
mortality; it is innate; it is as powerful in India as it is
in Italy or Ireland ; it is part of the essence of existence.
If it were not true it would not be so. No one can
suppose that a spiritual want or impulse of this kind is
artificial or artificially produced. It is so pure in quality
that it must have been originally infused into the spirit
by God himself. It elevates ; it softens; it refines ; it isENOCH.
7
a feature of every creed in every part of the earth; and
although this alone would not demonstrate its truth, still
it must not go for nothing: for all its tendencies are beau-
tiful, and such assuredly must be of God.
10.	In what manner existence among created beings
began, was a point on which some of the wisest
did not agree. It must for ever remain as Warbur-
ton says, J/oyTMMR	wysferfwm. Some
supposed that the Holy Spirit emaned being, by the
sunlike action of the Supreme—as we see the earth
produce beautiful flowers: others held that by some
mysterious means, incomprehensible to finite creatures,
she became self-pregnant with the germs of all creation :
all agreed, however, that she was the most Perfect and
Immaculate o f Virgins ; and the most devout of Romanists
is equalled in his chivalric adoration of Mary, by the noble,
knightlike, and abiding faith which the pagan world from the
remotest time, held in the beautiful Queen of Heaven. (3)
11.	From these premises, Rowed the belief as to the
mode in which all that we now see, as distinguished from
that which we see not, has come into being (4) : the faith
in an existence of unbounded spheres of beauty, inhabited
by Spirits of transcendent light and force; those who are
designated, Intelligences, Powers, Archangels, as being
next in order to the Ineffable Spirit which was the
Second from the First; in the golden cycles and ages that
existed in those spirit realms, in the discontent and fall of
certain of those Spirits from their paradise bliss, and the
consequent necessity imposed on the Divine Being, to
fabricate material spheres for those creations which were
no longer pure enough for zones of light and Are ; in the
beneficent law by which their rise again into beautifulness8
THE BOOK OF GOD.
is ordained, if they shall have shewn a wish to do so; in
the just and inflexible ordinance, by which they gradually
descend into lower and lower phases of existence, according
to their increasing grossness of nature, (5) in the divine
compassionate affection, whereby the Father ever seeks,
through the medium of Revelations, to call his wandering
prodigal children to home and to himself; by the agency
of the Sacyasinha or Lion of God, and the universality of
this law, as proved by the appearance of various Messiahs
in countries the most distant from each other, and at the
exact periods when their advent was most absolutely
needed.
12.	All these things, to him who seeks, are as palpable
almost as the sun in his noonday splendour, and they
constitute the only true basis of all religion over the face
of the earth. They have been demonstrated in THE
Boox OF GoD, and to this treatise the reader is referred.
13.	But the deeps of ignorance in which mankind
voluntarily immerse themselves, are sufficient to fill any
one with dismay, when he considers how tremendous are
the interests involved in this suicide of the immortal
nature that is in human beings. Of the innumerable
millions upon earth, how small and insignificant is the
number of those who actually upon the life to come, or
meditate upon the true nature of their God. Everything
now is either blind faith in what has never been investi-
gated : superstition, or an abject credulity in the most
degrading fables, or a hidden infidelity which wears the
mask of religion. Superstition, says Plutarch, is an evil
no less to be avoided than Atheism : and the latter, I do
believe, leads to less actual vice than the conventicleism
which prevails. Hardly any one Mfcves, that is in theENOCH.
9
true sense of the word : hardly any one wn/wirM or seeks
to learn anything of the true Nature of Things; the
millions are contented with their present amount of
knowledge ; deeming not that it is in fact ignorance and
folly. He who seeks to teach them or draw their attention
from the sensual to the spiritual, from swinishness to intel-
lectualism, is listened to with impatience, or with adull ear;
and he can see that his auditor is but little interested in
that which is his all. Things divine, says the Ancient
Oracle, cannot be obtained by those whose intellectual
eye is directed to body : but those only can arrive at the
possession of them who, stripped of their garments,
hasten to the summit. I do not deny that great multi-
tudes talk, preach, and write upon this subject: 1 do not
controvert that as a theme it is one on which millions
and millions babble until they really believe that they
exercise thought, reason, reflection, and examination.
But nothing can be more superficial or shallow than their
notions upon this and all co-relative matters. How many
thousands every Sunday join in prayers on which they
have never once exercised the least ray of that practical
common sense which distinguishes them in all the matters
of ordinary life ; which regulates them in the purchase of
their Sunday dinner, or their holiday garment: or in the
sale of the commodity by which they gain their living :
how many thousands unite in hymns, of which they have
never once seriously examined the tendency, and which
in reality, breathe but idolatry, superstition, and foolish-
ness. If I were to make extracts from the various most
approved volumes of hymnology, and to comment upon
them, as their language would warrant, the pious reader
would be shocked at the odious, contradictory, and
B 310
THE BOOK OF GOD.
ridiculous qualities which he unconsciously joins in
attributing to God, and would in heart condemn himself
for having used his speech to so dreadful an end, and
for having voluntarily laid aside his reason, when he sang
those silly, blasphemous, and horrid rhymes.
14. The priests, who are the authors or advocates of
those hymns, and of the atheistic notions which they
imperceptibly inculcate, are, it is true, at the bottom of
all this terrible indifference to the future which is the
characteristic of modern life. Having bound in brazen
shackles, the souls and spirits of mortals, they have
re-rivetted their chains by a series of schemes, and by
interminable falsehood they keep their serfs in durance,
from which unfortunately for themselves the serfs evince
little or no anxiety to escape. They remind me of those
madmen who, happy in their delusions, think themselves
kings or princes, when crowned with straws or thorns,
and laugh derisively at those who would remove them
from their fancied thrones. What spectacle on earth can
be more saddening than to see a man immersed up to his
eyes daily in sensuals, and never once labouring after the
Truly Beautiful or Spiritual, but living wholly for the
acquisition and enjoyment of present corporeal delights ?
who has never given one month of his whole existence
to investigation either into what he is, what he is to be,
or what he ought reasonably to believe of religious faith i
but who doggedly maintains all the nonsense that he hears
on Sunday, from a man as carnal and as ignorant of all
that is really Good as he is himself—what sight, I ask, can
be more melancholy throughout unbounded Nature, than
to see such a man assured, like all our dying murderers,
after a beefsteak breakfast, of an immortal throne inENOCH.
11
heaven with Jesus Christ and the Apostles, if he sincerely
believes all his sins have been atoned for in the blood of
God!! and that a steadfast adherence to this faith is
alone necessary for his salvation 1 That such a believer
is absolutely insane, would be clear to any one who
exercised judgment; but judgment upon such matters is
seldom or ever used, and the priests and their cliques
persecute with such undying virulence and hatred, all who
differ from themselves, or who would attack their systems,
that man, who is naturally rather of an indolent than of
an inquiring disposition, sits down satisfied with things
as he finds them, and surrenders himself, spirit, soul, and
body, to the arch-impostor (6) or the fanatical dupe; both
of whom unfortunately exist in great numbers among
the priesthood of all religions. As a general rule it may
be taken that a large cohort of the sacerdotal Order
consists of honest fools, who, from early education and
indolent habits, and confirmed custom, ignorance, and
port, believe all the folly that they teach ; but there are
always great and accomplished rogues behind, who pull
the strings of these wooden puppets, and thus procure
for themselves popedoms, archbishoprics, and patriarchates,
in which they exercise the power of despots, and laugh
complacently at the madness of the many, which thus
so happily accomplishes the gain of the few. For who
can seriously believe that the profound and subtle scholars
whom every church enumerates among its janissaries, can
sincerely hold the wild, contradictory, and blasphemous
tenets which they put forth from pulpit and from desk ! or
can any one suppose that the accomplished minds that
have won pontificates and thrones, entertain the least
doubt that the Canons and Articles which they uphold12
THE BOOK OF GOD.
are false as the Books themselves on which they are
founded 1
15. The stedfastness with which they persecute all who
differ from them in opinion, and the unreasoning support
which their believers give them in such persecution, are
among the main sources of their vitality. Yet these
persecutors invariably profess the greatest attachment to
liberty of thought, and I have no doubt that they persuade
themselves that they do but maintain its liberty at the
very moment when they are doing all they can for its
destruction. The philosophers of Greece, at a most early
period, arrived at the knowledge of One only God, the
Father and the Fountain of all: it came to them from
the East, the source of all light. Yet when Anaxagoras
openly taught it, he was in consequence charged with
atheism, and narrowly escaped death: even at the
present moment there are writers who ignorantly
follow in the wake of his reverend accusers, and do not
hesitate to call him atheist. We know also that Pytha-
goras, one of the purest and greatest of men, was
relentlessly slaughtered when he preached reform and
exposed the falsehood of the Pagan priests: while
Socrates, like Jesus, was formally condemned and
murdered because he did not uphold the licentious
rabblement of deities in whom the pontiffs taught their
believing dupes to put their spiritual faith. The Jewish
parsons massacred the Ninth Messiah, Jesus, who laboured
to upraise the multitude from practical atheism ; and by
a woman of the same nation, Ahmed, the Tenth Mes-
senger of God, was poisoned, at the instigation doubtless
of some pious Rabbis who had persuaded her that in so
doing she was performing a service that would associateENOCH.
13
her name in glory with Judith, the sanctified assassin of
Holofernes. Wherever, indeed, a man is found whose great
aim is to uplift the souls and spirits of his fellows from
the atheism and mire of superstition, there the priests
and their detestable satellites are gathered like hyenas
ready to destroy and to devour him. The more beautiful
the truth which he preaches the more ravenously do they
foam with rage; for Beauty is the everlasting antagonist
of the Deformed, and the Deformed is the Demon whom
they adore ; and they who are in fact themselves but satans
and devil-worshippers, by loud outcries persuade the
multitude that the man who would fain by his teachings
clothe their minds in sunbeams, is in reality an emissary
of darkness, whom they should exterminate with all
speed. Where is there in prophet or apostle a more
sublime glimpse of the nature of the soul, of its aspirings
after the Eternal, and of its future imparadisation than
that which is contained in the following extract :—
16. A wise spirit, says my author, does not fear death :
nay, sometimes it seeks and goes forth to meet it of its own
accord.* For there awaits all actual beings for duration,
an Everlastingness; for place, Immensity; for action,
Omniformity. We pursue therefore a species of contem-
plation not light or futile, but the weightiest and most
worthy of an accomplished man while we examine and
seek for the splendour, the interfusion, and communication
of the Divinity and of Nature, not in meats or drink,
or any yet ignobler matter with the race of the thunder-
stricken,! but in the august palace of the Omnipotent, in
* As in cases of voluntary martyrdom.
+ That is minds, or pig-like natures, stunned and stupified by
superstitious fears. The writer here alludes, doubtless, to14
THE BOOK OF GOD.
illimitable sethereal space, in the infinite power that
creates all things, and is the abiding Being of all things.
There we may contemplate the host of stars, of worlds,
and their guardian deities (t.a presiding Powers), numbers
without number, each in its appointed sphere, singing
together, and dancing in adoration of the One Most High.
Thus from the perpetual, immense, and innumerable
goings on of the visible world, that sempiternal and
absolutely Infinite Majesty is intellectually beheld, and
is glorified according to his glory by the attendance and
choral symphonies of innumerable gods who utter forth
the grandeur of their Ineffable Creator in the expressive
language of vision. To HIM illimitable a limited temple
will not correspond—to the acknowledgement and due
worship of the plenitude of His Majesty there would be
no proportion in any numerable army of ministrant
spirits. Let us, then, cast our eyes upon the Omniform
Image of the attributes of the All-creating Supreme, nor
admit any representation of his Excellency but the living
Universe which He has created. Thence was man
entitled by Trismegistus /Ae MMrade, inasmuch as he
had been made capable of entering into union with God
as if he were himself a divine nature ; he tries to become
all things, even as in God all things are ; and in limitless
progression of limited states of being, urges onward to
the ultimate aim, even as God is simultaneously Infinite
and everywhere All. Yet the man who wrote this, which
seems as if it were the language of inspiration, and who
transubstantiation, communion of bread and wine, blood atone-
ment, scapegoats, and such follies, or rather crimes ; for what
crime can be so great as to debase the splendid image of God in
the minds of mortals ?ENOCH.
15
sought to make his fellows believe it as a portion of their
daily creed and thought (I mean Giordano Bruno) was
condemned by the priests as an Atheist, and was publicly
burned in Rome in the year 1600, by men who pretended
to infallibility, and by a Pontiff who styled himself the
Vicar of the Supreme. And many thousand Petro-
Paulite men, I have no doubt, rejoiced in such a burnt
offering to the Lord !
17.	Nor has the same persecuting spirit yet departed.
In England, indeed, it can but now and then proceed,
as in the cases of Priestley and Shelley, to those deadly
extremes to which its impulses would lead it; but it
makes amends for its lack of massacre by the moral
murder to which it consigns all who oppose the system of
s priestcraft. It excludes them living from rank or honour ;
it vilifies and defames every action of their lives ; it
educates the rising generation in the most ardent hatred
of those whose lives have been in fact a blessing to the
world; it shuts them out when dead from the pantheon
of the famous deceased; it would, if it could, deny them
even Christian burial, and it gloats over their memories
with a savage howl of cannibal vengeance in language
of the most odious defamation (7).
18.	Volumes would hardly suffice to show what sublime
ideas of God once prevailed over the earth, until they
were exterminated by superstition and the priests.
Consonant indeed to right reason and to all true ideas of
the Divine were the religious notions of the primitive
men. In what august colours they represented the
Heavenly Father! In what pure and shining lights
they placed his benevolence, his love, his tenderness to
all! How they demonstrated his government to be notTHE BOOK OF GOD.
16
partial, local, or provincial, like that of Jews and Paulites
(8), hut wide and all-embracing, like Infinity itself!
When contrasted with the base, narrow, and foul views
of God which are now commonly preached, how brilliantly
they gleam. 2/e indeed has been dragged from his
Empyreal Throne in Heaven, and degraded to the mise-
rable level of a rabbinical Lar or household gnome, who
sacrificed all things for the preservation of a robber and'
an apostate tribe. Let us hope for an age when He shall
be restored to the belief of men, in all His pristine light
and majesty, when Knowledge with one hand shall tear
down the pillars of the fane of hell, and with the other
rear aloft the adamantine walls of the true Church of the
One God, where all may wend to worship Him in wisdom
and benevolence, without one stain of the error that is
almost general.
19. In the present aspect in which the Petro-Paulite
God is presented to the popular eye, it is difficult either
to respect, revere, or love him. His caprice is shocking:
his injustice is inexcusable. Because the fabled Adam
disobeyed a command, which seems in its trifling nature
to be that rather of an oriental satrap than an omnipotent
Judge, and tasted an apple at the solicitation of his wife,
God curses him, and all posterity; dooms them to pain,
to misery, and to death, and as many hold to everlasting
damnation in fire ; and when his fit of anger has departed
promises that He will appease His own wrath, by the
murder of an innocent being, who is in truth Himself in
another form ; so that the act of injustice which He first
perpetrated in consigning unborn millions to a punish-
ment which they did not deserve, is to be wiped away by
another act of still more odious wrong, or folly, namely,ENOCH.
17
his own suicide in the crucifixion of his well-beloved Son,
whose voluntary, or, to judge from the gospels, involun-
tary (9) death in some inexplicable manner is to appease
his fury, to open heaven, and give admittance there to
those, who, but for that death, must have been perpetually
excluded. All nature, we are told, labours under the
operation of a curse launched in a moment of passion by
Him, who, truly regarded, is exempt from all infirmity;
and who, if He had indeed so acted, would appear to be
rather an Evil Demon, than a Beneficent Parent, and an
All-wise Guardian.
20. It is impossible to disguise from ourselves the
horrid nature of this creed ; but it is the foundation on
which all modern Petro-Paulism is based. We cannot,
if we would, shut our eyes to it—there it stands in naked
deformity, in undisguised and frightful wickedness. The
priests endeavour to conceal its dreadful features by
dinning in our ears, " faith," " belief," " mystery," and a
host of kindred words which, like skilful jugglers, they
commonly use to hide their art: by threats also of
" everlasting damnation" if we admit a doubt: but
scarcely a day passes in which it is not more and more
demonstrated that reason will no longer endure a God
or rather a Demon, of this nature; and it is become
impossible to believe that Heaven would not reject him
if he were there. That he could have been so long
worshipped, furnishes a curious instance how blindly men
believe when they are under the influence of superstition;
and how utterly they abandon the use of their under-
standing at the command of priests. Had they not
wilfully resisted the very plainest truths, the god of the
Jews would long since have been swept into the contempt18
THE BOOK OF GOD.
and oblivion into which pagan or mythologic Jupiter
himself has fallen ; and with infinitely greater reason too,
for Zeus was never so cruel as Jehovah (10).
21. To arrest mortals in their headlong course, is the
great object of this Book, and of God's Revelations of
Divine Truth : to bring them back to a true appreciation
of those wonderful provisions of the Supreme Being,
which have been utterly hidden, perverted, or denied by
the priests and preachers of error from the earliest time,
is the grand motive with which I write. I seek to
reconstruct the true Temple of God, and to crown it
with an image worthy of its Sublime original Architect.
I labour to destroy the unholy altars with which the
members of the sacerdotal order have crowded up all the
avenues to Truth, and waylaid those who sought her
Throne (11). The task is great, but yet is not impossible.
To succeed, it is necessary to walk with bold footstep.
Falsehood must be attacked with vigour; prejudices must
not be spared ; creeds and superstitions and the volumes
on which they are founded must be valiantly faced;
calumny must be looked for, and persecution must be
defied; but as the work on which I am engaged is the
work of God, these considerations are entitled to no
weight, nor can they operate in the least degree to check
my course. A day will come when all these things which
now may seem novel or paradoxical will be acknowledged
by enlightened man as the actual and positive soul and
body of philosophy itself; and when the Religion which
they support will be the creed of all the good and true
on earth.NOTES TO BOOK I.
Note 1 (page 2).—I am informed that certain persons into
whose hands some of my former writings have failen have com-
plained that they unsettled their minds, and therefore they
discontinued their perusal. Be it known that it is to unsettle
minds I write. It is better that their ignorance should be dispelled
here, even to the loss of their own comfort under a delusion, than
that they should live on in slavery of thought, and fall headlong
into Darkness when they die. For it is not possible that the
voluntarily ignorant can ever enter within the Regions of Light.
They suppose that when they stand before the Throne of the
Judge, he will try them, hear them, be moved by their tears, and
give them pardon. Let them know that no impure thing can
ever enter into the Holy Presence, even to be judged ; that they
can no more penetrate into the Regions of Heaven when they are
dead, than they can now, when they are alive, penetrate into the
Sun: and that those who on this earth wilfully or lazily shut out
the true Image of God from the eyes of their understanding,
thereby raise an impassable bar between Him and themselves,
which they never can surmount while they are so blinded.
Wandering in darkness, through the Abyss of Chaos, they are
blown as it were by a thousand conflicting storms ; victims of
terror, hate and passion; irrational and unhappy while their
delusions last; and only freed from their disastrous state when
by a bold effort they become self-emancipated from the chains
that bound them, and dare to think and reason for themselves.
As he in the fable, says Plotinus, who, by catching at his shadow
merged himself in the stream and disappeared, so he who is
captivated by beautiful bodies and does not depart from their
embrace, is precipitated, not with his body but with his soul,
into a darkness profound and horrid to the understanding,
through which, becoming blind both here and in Hades, he
converses with nothing but shadows. Anead i., lib. 6.
Note 2 (page 6).—There are in every climate, says Bryant, some
shattered fragments of original history, some traces of a primitive
and universal language, and these may be observed in the names20
NOTES TO BOOK I.
of Deities, terms of worship, titles of honottr, which prevail among
nations widely separated, and who for ages had no connection.
He might have added that this language prevailed in the days
when there was one and the same universal religion ; and that
each operated on each, as cause and effect. BooK OF GoD, Part
1.,	pp. 124—137. The distinguishing marks of one faith are found
in places the most remote from one another, from the German
forest to the Chinese temple. The Vandals had a god called
Triglaf ; one of these was found at Herlungerberg, near Branden-
burg : he was represented with three heads. Trium Deat, or
Lord in Three, was worshipped in a most magnificent temple at
Upsal, in Sweden. The Chinese Fohists have an idol which they
call Sanpao—it consists of Three, and the Japanese counterpart
of this has TAree ybces, and they call him the father of the sun,
moon, and stars. This idol symbolizes God with his Messianic
and Cabiric Messenger on his right and left. Boox OF GoD, Part
111.,	404. When designated as Father of the Sun, Moon, and
Stars, it alludes to God, the Centre, from whom proceeds the
Holy Spirit, LiyA^ (Gen. i. 3), typified by the Sun and Moon, and
the Stars, who are his Seraphic Splendours. This is equivalent
to what Orpheus calls Pan, Kooy/oKparop, Ruler of the Kosmos.
fun linguA /Egypti est Osiris. (Diod Sic.) PAan or PAuneus was
one of the names of Apollo (Macrob.) PAaneus Deus Sol. (Alex
ab Alex.)	RuKm, Fctfuca, CriaAna, -4 rum, are common
names of the Sun with the Irish Druids. The Sanscrit FctAni,
fire, is probably the root of Fen, or the Phoenician pn, phen,
a cycle. From this word the Druids made up their Phenniche or
Phoenix, and their sacred name Vau-Han. BOOK OF GoD, Index,
and Vau-Nus. Phcenis -rEgyptiis astrologise symbolum, was clear
to Bochart. (Ouseley*s Orient. Collect., Vol. III.) Indeed I
cannot doubt, says Higgins, that there has been one grand empire,
or one universal, one Pandsean, or one Catholic religion, with one
language which has extended over the whole of the old world,
uniting and governing at the same time' Columbo in the island of
Serendive and Columbo in the West of Scotland. This must have
been Buddhist, whether it ever really existed as one empire or
was divided into different states. J. nucalypsis, i. 44. Note that
Vau-Han means Lord of the Six or Naros, Vau being the numerical
character for 6, and the name itself being deeply sacred and
mystical. Han also means the Sun. Colonel Symes gives the
following account of a conversation which passed between a Kayn
and himself. We asked the man where he expected to go when
he died ? He replied that he should again become a child. WhoNOTES TO BOOK I.
21
will make you a child ? The Mounzing. Who are the Mounzing?
The Father and Mother of the world. 77mAas.sy (o J va, iii. 246.
And Maurice speaks of the old Indian legend of the triple god,
(1) Sree-Mun-Narrin, (2) the beautiful woman, Maha Lachsmi, and
(3) a Serpent, that is, God, the Holy Spirit, and Life. Those, he
says, are by the Hindus supposed to be wholly indivisible. The
one is three, and the three are one. 7hd. AmM?., iv. 750. So
Higgins, in Anaca/ypsis ii. 14, writes as follows: The history of
Tubs as given by Suidas is very remarkable. He says, Thulis
reigned over all Egypt, and his empire eafended even M Me ocean
(that is, it was a Pandean empire). He gave his name to one of
its isles (Ultima Thule). Puffed up with success, he went to
consult the oracle of Serapis, and after having offered his sacrifice,
he addressed to him these words : %% me, 0 Jfasfer o/ Fire, Me
Mae,' Me Aappy in Me Aig7tesf, w7m ruTesf Me course of Me sictrs ;
TeH me if ever Mere teas Aefore, one yreafer Man 7, or wiM ever Ae
one greater offer me 7 The Oracle answered him in these words ;
T^irsf God, oflerw'ard 7Ae h'ord, and wiM f7tem Me TTb/y Npirif .*
aM Mree are of Me same naMre, and maAe Auf one wAole ; of wAicA
f7te power is eiernai. Go away <?uicA7y, ALoriai, Mon w7to 7tasf Anf
an unceriain life 7 Going out from the temple he was put to death
by his own countrymen. The symbolists imaged the Perfect All
by the triple triangle conjoined within itself thus :
It was also called Ugeia.
Note 3 (page 7).—The religion of the Hebrews at first, after
they had passed into Palistan, was the adoration of the Stars and
other Spirits—Bal and all the host of heaven ; later their philo-
sophy became the worship of the Male and Female Principles
taught by the Magi in all the schools of the Semitic sages from
Babylon to Egypt, from Greece to the extreme coasts of Arabia.
They associated the Great Male Being, the Source of Light, Water,
Heat, Animation, Fire, with a Goddess. The Sidonian Bol or
Baal-Adon was united with the Queen of Heaven, to whom offer-
ings were made by the Hebrews. Their name, according to the
usage of those times, was that of the Shining God Abar, the
shining Bar of the Assyrian bas-reliefs. Fea, says Esdras (2, xvi.
62), am/ Me SpMd o/AMagAiy God wAicA made aM Mings. They
also called him Baga, Bacchus, Eacus, Iachos, Iachoh, Iahoh,
Acush, or Zeus Acasios (Hycsos), and we have seen that in Job
xxVM. 10, God and the Holy Spirit are called Saddai, or the22
NOTES TO BOOK I.
Almighty Ones. Chalcidius, explaining the ancient Trinity, thus
writes: This thing is to he conceived after this manner : that the
First Original of things is the Supreme and Ineffable God ; after
his providence a Second God, the establisher of the law of life,
both everlasting and temporary ; and the Third, which is also a
substance, is a certain keeper of this Law. Cudworf/t 7n%.
ii. 467. This is exactly the theory propounded by me. And I
strongly advise all lovers of truth to study Cud worth well; his
work will disperse a multitude of errors from the mind, which all
our Christian priests seem to have combined together to imprint
upon it. There is also a passage in Isaiah xlviii. 15. 16, which
doubtless contained in its original form a clear expression of the
Triune (God, the Spirit, and the Divine Messenger), but which
the rabbis have now utterly corrupted. I, even I, have spoken :
yea I have called him: I have brought him, and he shall make
his way prosperous. Come ye near unto me, hear ye this : I have
not spoken in secret from the beginning [nor in a dark place of
the earth,	a?%7 Arabic and Coptic ] from the time
that it was, there am I: and now the Lord God and his Spirit
hath sent me. Clarke's note upon it is as follows. And now the
Lord Jehovah hath sent me, and his Spirit. Who is it that saith
in Isaiah, And now the Lord hath sent me and his Spirit! in
which, the expression is ambiguous : is it the Father and the
Holy Spirit who have sent Jesus, or the Father who hath sent
both the Anointed and the Holy Spirit ? Oriyen	lib. i.
I have kept to the order of the words in the original, on purpose
that the ambiguity which Origen remarks in the version of the
Septuagint, and which is the same in the Hebrew, might remain,
and the sense which he gives to it be offered to the reader's
judgment. If this passage be read with the context, it will be
apparent that there has been a cutting and hashing here, to which
that of Puffs unfortunate tragedy (in the Critic) can alone be
likened ; but even out of the fragments a glimpse of the reality
may be caught. The Phigalensians worshipped Ceres (the Holy
Spirit) with a Dove in one hand and a Dolphin in the other.
Each was the symbol of a Messenger. The Dolphin came from
Delphi, which meant the Womb. Faber, Pay. Jdoi. iii. 90.
The Welsh Druids called her Ceridwen-Wrach, which Davies
translates Ceridwen the Fury : but Wracli is the same as Ruach
Aleim, or the Spirit of Aleim, and it really means Ceridwen, the
Holy Spirit. Hence they call her Rheen rym awyr, Sovereign of
the power of Air. The translation of Davies is proved to be
absurd by the name which he subsequently admits that she wasNOTES TO BOOK I.
23
known by, namely, Lleddv Ogyrven, the Gentle Goddess, a name
peculiarly appropriate to the Holy Spirit. 3fy%AoZo</y, 316. In
the composition of Irish words, Bhan, pronounced Vaun, implies
a Woman, as Wen does in the Welsh. Hence Chr-Id-Wen, the
Holy Woman of Id or God. Note in connection with this that
temples to Zeus Phuxios (the Fugitive) are said to have been
raised by Deu-Cali-On and his priests: this is a proof that he
himself had fled : it shows also that he had the true APOCALYPSE,
and knew of the flight of the Woman and the Man Child. She
was hardly ever separated from God, as they believed. Hence
their Image or symbol of the Bi-Une, which must now be familiar
to all who have read the previous Parts of the Boon OF GoD.
D'HancarvilJe gives a curious medal of the Bi-Une God, under
the symbol of the Bull, with the heroic human face which ancient
sculptors gave to the Supreme: he bears on his back a Dove.
Vol. 2, Plate xx., No. 3. The same plate contains a similar figure
of God as the Bull with a man's face : a beautiful winged Virgin
flying aloft is crowning him with a wreath, while underneath
appears theGreekletters IS, signifyingthelssaoftlieApocalypse,
also ' or the Pillar for God, and S for Sophia or Wisdom, and
Sao, the Greek Female name of the Saviour. The same symbolism
appears in the temple of the Syrian goddess Astarte, who was
precisely the same as the Cybele or Universal Mother of the
Phrygians, whose attributes have been already explained, and
may be found more regularly detailed in a speech of Mopsus in
the Argonautics of Apollonius Rhodius. " She was." as Appian
observes, "by some called Juno, by others Venus, and by others
held to be Nature or the Cause which produced the beginnings
and seeds of things of Humidity so that she comprehended in
one personification both these Goddesses, who were accordingly
sometimes blended in one symbolical figure by the very ancient
Greek artists. Her statue at Hierapolis was variously composed
so as to signify many attributes like those of the Ephesian Diana,
Berecynthian Mother, and others of the kind. It was placed in
the interior part of the temple, accessible only to priests of the
higher order, and near it was the statue of the corresponding
Male personification called by the Greek writers Jupiter, which
was borne by bulls as that of the Goddess was by Moms—lions of
the tribe of Jid. Between them was a third figure with a Golden
Dove on its head, which the Syrians did not choose to explain or
call by any name, but which some supposed to be Bacchus, others
Deucalion, and others Semiramis. It must therefore, says a
commentator upon this passage, have been an androgynous figure,24
NOTES TO BOOK I.
<4
and most probably signified the first-begotten Love or plastic
Emanation which proceeded from both and was consubstantial
with both, whence he was called by the Persians, who seem to have
adopted him from the Syrians, Mithras, signifying the Mediator.
The doubt expressed concerning the sex proves that the body of
the figure was covered, as well as the features, effeminate ; and it
is peculiarly remarkable that such a figure as this, with a Golden
Dove on its head, should have been taken for Deucalion, of whom
corresponding ideas must of course have been entertained ; whence
we are led to suspect that the fabulous histories of this personage
are not derived from any vague traditions of the universal deluge,
but from some symbolical composition of the Plastic Spirit upon
the waters, wMich was signified so many various ways in the
emblematical language of ancient art. This figure, which our
commentator, whose name I have forgotten, is so puzzled by,
was a symbol of the Messenger, on whose head the Dove
descended (Jo/tn i. 32, 33, 34). If it was ever called Deucalion,
it was simply Deu (a god), Cali (the Holy Spirit), Aun (the sun),
that is, the Sun-God of the Holy Spirit, which would convey two
meanings to the Initiated : first, that it was an emblem of the
Bi-Une, or Male-Female, the Sun-God and the Holy Spirit;
secondly, the Solar Emanation or Messenger whom she sends
forth. Dea-Kali-On, as I have already shown, was the leader of
the Ao-Yudians out of India: he pretended to be a Messiah :
hence the Dove or Holy Spirit is represented descending on his
head. But Ash-tr-di, or the Fire-Crown of God, is the same as
Olympian Juno, the Queen of Heaven, who is called in Hebrew
RwdetA wmahn, and	ALdc-
cAatA Aosmafm; both signifying her sovereignty in the celestial
spheres. Tr, *1]*), is a turtle dove. This is the Dove which the
first Christians were ordered to join with the Serpent [of Eternity].
In old paintings and medals the Serpent is frequently seen
twining itself round the Tree of Life, from which it draws its
nourishing food, and to which also it imparts some of its own
ever-living and everlasting mysterious essence. This symbolism
is alluded to in Stephanus. AV wcauit Adam wotnen uaroris
Few; eo yuod Hater asset cunctorum, viventium. Hew, Fiw, vet
PweM. Hewei wemtes.- aut S'ynace, CWuM. STEPH, on Gen.
iii. 20 : And Adam called the name of his wife Heva ; for this,
that she was the Mother of all who live. Heva is the Alive, or
the Living; Hevaeans, the Existent; in the Syriac it means
Serpents. To the same religious feeling may be traced the use
of serpent-bracelets. Clarke saw one which had been taken out25
NOTES TO BOOK I.
.+
of a tomb in Cimmerian Bosphorus. He calls it " one of the most
ancient specimens of art perhaps existing in the world." It was
made of the purest massive gold, and weighed three-fourths of a
pound. It represented the body of a Serpent, curved into an
elliptical form, with two heads (the Bi-Une): these meeting at
opposite points formed an opening for the wrist or ankle. The
serpent heads were studded with rubies, so as to imitate eyes,
and to ornament the back part of each head by two distinct rows
of gems. The rest of the bracelet was adorned with rude graved
work. Prave(s ii. 72. The Tri-Une are ever symbolized by the
Serpent (God), the Tree (the Holy Spirit), the Dove (the Messenger).
The Holy Spirit is called by Martianus Capella:
Ignoti vis summa Patris, atque prima propago,
Fomes sensiRcus, mentis fons, lucis origo.
The most perfect Energy and first emanation of the Unknown
Father,
The fuel that causes sensation, the formation of thought, the
source of light.
The Thespeans, says Pausanias, venerated from the fir i, Love,
beyond all the gods ; and they have a most a :'ent <' C '3
Divinity, which is nothing more than a rude stone. I do not
however, know who it was that instituted this high veneration of
Love among the Thespeans. Pignorius has given the print of a
medal in which Eternity seated on a throne, and w.th a royal
sceptre, holds in her right hand a Peacock with a nimbus round
the head : this is the Holy Spirit and the Messiah. JA;;sa /o'rea,
47. See Part III., General Index, Peacock.
Note 4 (page 7).—Faber (Pay. AM. i. 26) alludes to this, as
a very remarkable opinion, which was occasionally entertained
respecting the character of the Great Mother. She was by some
theologists esteemed a Virgin, and was thought by her own energy
alone to have given birth to the principal hero-deity. I do not
know why the reverend author is annoyed that a Virgin should
do this ; or should blame the pagans for thinking so. To my
mind it is a much more pure mythos than that of the adulterine
birth of Jesus ; which is probably untrue. He adds, after this,
that the speculation was reduced to practice, so far as it was
capable of being thus reduced, by one remarkable class of ancrcnt
priestesses. In imitation of the supposed wrymify of the Great
Mother, colleges of maids under a regular monastic discipline
were established ; and, whether in the old Continent, or in that of
America, a breach of their vows; of chastity was visited by the
most severe and horrible punishment. Upon generation from the
C26
THE BOOK OF GOD.
earth I cite the learned, orientalist Dr. Pococke :—This opinion,
he says, of animals rising out of the earth at first was not peculiar
to Epicurus, on whose account it hath lain under some odium ; the
Stoics were of the same mind, and the Pythagoreans and the
Egyptians, and I think all that supposed the Earth to rise from a
Chaos. Neither do I know any harm in that opinion, if duly
limited and stated, for what inconvenience is it, or what diminu-
tion of Providence, that there should be the principles of life, as
well as the principles of vegetation in the new earth ? As to the
spontaneous origin of living creatures, Moses plainly implies that
there was a particular action, or ministry of Providence, in the
formation of the body of man ; but, as to other animals, he seems
to suppose that the earth brought them forth as it did herbs and
plants (Gen. i. 24, as compared with verse 11.) * * The ancients,
both the Stoics and Aristotle, have supposed that there was some-
thing of an ethereal element in the malegeneture from whence the
virtue of it chiefly proceeded; and, if so, why may we not
suppose at that time some general impression or irradiation of that
purer element to fructify the new made earth. Moses saith there
was an incubation of the Spirit of God upon the mass, and without
all doubt that was either to form or fructify it by the mediation
of this Active Principle. But the ancients speak more plainly
with express mention of this Ether, and of the impregnation of
the earth by it as betwixt male and female—a notion which St.
Augustine saith, Virgil, did not take from the fictions of the
poets, but from the books of the phlosophers. The similarity,
says Higgins, or rather the coincidence of the Cabalistic, Alexan-
drian, and Oriental philosophy, will be sufficiently evinced by
briefly stating the common tenets in which these different systems
agreed ; they are as follows :—All things are derived by Emana-
tion from One Principle, and this Principle is God. From Him
a substantial Power immediately proceeds, which is the Image of
God and the Source of all subsequent emanations. This Second
Principle sends forth by the energy of emanation other natures
which are more or less perfect, according to their different degrees
of distance in the scale of emanation from the First Source of
existence, and which constitute different worlds or orders of being,
all united to the Eternal Power from which they proceed. JfaMer
is nofAiny more fAan iAe mosf remote e/fecf q/ fAe emanaiive energy
o/ iAe Deify. The material world receives its form from the
immediate agency of Powers, far beneath the First Source of
Being. AW is fAe necessary effect o/ iAe im.per/ec/ion o/ maMer.
Human souls are distinct emanations from Deity, and after theyNOTES TO BOOK I.
27
are liberated from their material vehicles, they will return through
various stages of purification to the fountain whence they first
proceeded. Anacalypsis, i. 72. Beausobre further says that
Chalcidius, Methodius, Origen, and Clemens Alexandrinus, a most
formidable phalanx of authorities give it this sense. The latter
quoted a sentence from a work of St. Peter's now lost. Beau-
sobre gives us the expression of Clemens, " TAis is tcAaf <$!. Pefer
soys wAo Aos wry weM untfersfood (Ais tcord. G*od Aos made tAe
Aeawn and fAe earfA Ay fAe Principle. (Dieu fait le ciel et la
Terre dans la Principe). This Principle is the Holy Spirit, who
is called Wisdom by all the prophets. Here is evidently the
doctrine of the Magi, or of Emanations. This recondite mythos is
dimly alluded to by Proclus on Timaeus. The Artificer of the
Universe, he says, prior to his whole fabrication is said to have
betaken himself to the Oracle o/* Ah'yAi, to have been there filled
with divine conceptions, to have received the principles of
fabrication, and (if it be lawful so to speak) to have solved all
His doubts. Night, too, calls upon the Father Zeus to undertake
the fabrication of the Universe, and Jupiter is said by the
theologist Orpheus to have thus addressed Night:—
0 Nurse supreme of all the powers divine
Immortal Night; how with unconquered mind
Must I the source of the immortals fix ?
And how will all things but as one subsist
Yet each its nature separate preserve ?
To which interrogation the Goddess thus replies :—
All things receive enclosed on every side
In ASther's wide ineffable embrace :
Then in the midst of A5ther place the Heaven
In which let Earth of infinite extent,
The Sea and Stars the crown of Heaven be fixed.
And Jupiter is instructed by Night in all the subsequent mundane
fabrications ; but after she has laid down rules respecting all other
productions, she adds:—
But when your power around the whole has spread
A strong coercive bond, a golden chain
Suspend from zEtber.
Thus far Proclus. But the first subsistence of the Goddess
Night, is at the summit of that divine order which is called by the
Chaldean theologists, /nfe/KyiA/e and af fAe same fime /nfef/ecfuaZ.
She is besides the Mother of the gods who are nourished with
intelligible food from the contemplation of her Divinity, and on
this account she is called the Nurse of the Gods.
c 228
THE BOOK OF GOD.
Note 5 (page 8).—I have already alluded to this in Boon of
GOD, Part II, 27, 28. The mythos shadows forth, that sensual
enjoyment was one cause why Spirits lapsed from the Paradise of
Heaven. So it was from having eaten some grains of a pomegranate
that Proserpine was prohibited from ascending into the upper air
out of the realm of Hades; that is, the participation of sensuals,
binds the spirit to obscurest darkness.
Note 6 (page 11).—Richard Laurence, Archbishop of Cashel,
defending the sacred forgeries of the Petro-PauHtes and Jews,
says: Of the conduct to which I am alluding, Z Rnow no AeMer
de/ence than that which occurs in A Dissertation upon the Second
Book of Esdras, by Dr. Francis Lee, who makes the following
reflections upon the subject: You know nothing was anciently
more common, or AeM more innocent, than such personations of
authors. And if this in succeeding ages came to be the occasion
of some mistakes, especially among the vulgar and less critical
readers, it is not much to be wondered at; but it is not then to be
imputed as a crime to them, who had no thoughts of deceiving
any by it, or (which is all one) of whom it doth not appear that
they had.	Zsatice Pedis, p. 177. This is very good in an
Archbishop. The covenant which the "saints" and the " churches"
make with their benighted and ignorant followers, resembles
exactly that which Nahash the Ammonite made with the men of
Jabesh, " On this condition will I make a Covenant with you
7 may %7<.rws% owi aX year riy/d eyes." 1 SAM. xi.
Note 7 (page 15).—Horne, in his 7?drodaciion fo i7;e <3crip7ares,
thus exemplifies my words. Lord Herbert, Hobbes, Lord Shaftes-
bury, Woolston, Tindal, Chubb, and Lord Bolingbroke, says this
wretched writer, were all guilty of the vile hypocrisy of lying.
The morals of Rochester and Wharton need no comment.
Woolston was a gross blasphemer. Blount solicited his sister-in-
law to marry him, and being refused shot himself. Tindal was
originally a protestant, then turned papist, then protestant again,
merely to suit the times, and was at the same time infamous for
vice in general and the total want of principle. He is said to
have died with this prayer in his mouth: " If there is a God I
desire that He may have mercy on me." Morgan had no regard
to truth, as is evident from the numerous falsifications of Scripture
as well as from the vile hypocrisy of professing himself a Christian
in those very writings in which he labours to destroy Christianity.
Voltaire was a shameless adulterer; his total want of all principle,
moral or religious, his impudent audacity, his filthy sensuality,
his persecuting envy, his base adulation, his unwearied treachery,NOTES TO BOOK I.
29
his tyranny, his cruelty, his profligacy, and his hypocrisy, will
render him for ever the scorn of mankind. Rousseau, a thief, a liar,
and a debauched profligate, who alternately professed and
abjured the Roman Catholic and Protestant religions without
believing either, and who died in the very act of uttering a
notorious falsehood to his Creator, as well as Paine anti other
advocates of infidelity, are too notorious to render it necessary to
pollute these pages with the detail of them. 10th ed., pp. 41-2.
And as they have begun, so will these hirelings of the False Church
continue to the end, the malignant foes to all who teach.
Note 8 (page 16).—Jesus, when he first began to preach, did not
address himself beyond the circle of the mere Jews. Ciw no!
lAal wAicA M Aoly unlo (Ac doys (so the Hebrews politely called all
other people) neilAer cac! ye your pearls before swine les! lAey
Irample lAem under fAeir /eel, and lurn ayain and rend you.
Matt. vii. 6. And it was the obstinate bigotry of the Jews, and
their most determined resolution not even to listen to the
preachings of Jesus, that first drew the earliest followers of the
Ninth Messenger .to an enlarged and liberal comprehension of his
true mission to all mankind. Hence we find him saying : And
olAer sAeep, lAere are, wAiclt are no! o/ lAis /old. 7'Aose also /
must briny, and lAey s/tall Aear my voice ; and lAere sAad Ae one
/old, and one sAepAerd. <7oAn x. 16. It is obvious that this can
never be, until the truths propounded here are universally adopted.
Paul also was forced to profess this doctrine — For lAe
ecriplure eailA, IPAosoever AelievetA on Aim sAad nol Ae asAamed.
.For lAere is no di/erence between lAe Jeu, and lAe GreeA : /or lAe
same Hord over ad is ricA unlo ad lAal cad upon Ahn. For
wAosoever sAad cad upon lAe name of tAe Ford sAad Ae saved,
How lAen sAad lAey cad on Aim in wAom lAey Aave nol believed ?
and Aow sAad lAey Aelieve in Aim of wAom lAey Aave nol Aeard f
and Aow sAad lAey Acar wilAouf a preacAer 1 And Aow sAad lAey
preacA, eacepl lAey Ae senl ? as il is written, How Aeauli/ul are lAe
/eel of lAem lAal preacA lAe yospel of peace, and briny ylad lidinys
of yood lAinys /
Note 9 (page 17).—The manner in which Jesus was appre-
hended, says one of the writers on the New Testament, shows
that he was not much known at that time, and it shows also that
the meetings he then held with his followers were in secret, and
that he had given over, or suspended preaching publicly. Judas
could not otherwise betray him than by giving information where
he was, and pointing him out to the officers that went to arrest
him, and the reason for employing and paying Judas to do this,30
THE BOOK OF GOD.
could arise only from the causes already mentioned, that of his
not being much known, and living concealed.
Note 10 (page 18).—The recent war which has desolated France,
and paralysed Germany, is perhaps the best comment on the
overwhelming amount of crime that, in the nineteenth century,
exists among civilized peoples, and in creeds that profess belief in
Christianity. Never since the world began was there a more
gigantic deed of guilt committed than, first, the declaration of war
by the fallen Emperor, and second, its murderous continuance by
the King even unto the bitter end, and after all had been gained-
Butchery, rape, robbery, extermination by tire, hangings in cold
blood—these awful scenes marked the path of Prussia ; while the
sacred name of God was ever invoked by her sovereign, as if HE
Messed the work of devils. France has perished by her own
crimes: she gave herself up to her priests, who fostered her in
ignorance and allowed her to wipe off her iniquities by masses and
confessions, and holy relics, and all the trumpery of Satan. As
fast as they were so wiped off they were renewed, and France, like
Spain, was a hot-bed of iniquity. She sought the ruin of Prussia
with cold-blooded cruelty, and accomplished her own instead.
This was just; it was the Descent of Nemesis. But nothing can
justify the bloody spirit of robbery and slaughter with which
Prussia swept over France; nor has Paganism anything more
terribly branded on her brow. The deductions to be drawn from
these facts are—1, that as on this earth guilt sometimes becomes
its own self-punisher, so also it does in other spheres; 2, that
retribution always attends it, and that there is no forgiveness and
no escape ; and 3, that men are no better now under the Christian,
or rather Petro-Paulite teaching, than they were in the worst days
of savage barbarism, but are at least as bad, if not worse. What
Judaism was in the days of Paul we learn from that writer; it
resembled the pseudo-Christianity of the present age. BeAold, he
says, tAou art called a Jew, and restest in tAe taw, and maAest tAy
boast of* God. A nd A?iowcst Aw will, and approves! tAe tAinys tAat
are more excellent, beiny instructed out of tAe law; And art
consent tAat tAou tAyself art a yuide of tAe Mind, a liyAt of tAem
wAicA are in darAnes's. An instructor of tAe /ooh'sA, a teacAer of
babes, wAicA Aast tAe/orm of Anowledye and of tAe trutA in tAe law-
TAou tAere/ore wAicA teacAest anotAer, teacAest tAou not tAyself ?
tAou tAat preacAest a man sAouM not steal, dost tAou steal ?
TAou tAat sayest a man sAouM not commit adultery, dost tAou
commit adultery ? tAou tAat abAorrest idols, dost tAou commit
sacriteye ? TAou tAat maAest tAy boast of tAe law, tArouyA breaAinyNOTES TO BOOK I.
31
/Ae /aw dMAonourM/ /Aou Got/.? f^or /Aename o/ Got/ is A/a^pAemed
amoHt/ /Ae Grn/i/cs /ArouyA you, os i/ is wi//en. ROMANS ii. See
Part I, 358. This cannot be better supplemented than by
the following which I cut out of a newspaper :—Dr. Lankester
began the proceedings in the section for the Repression of Crime
by reading a paper on " Infanticide." He gave statistics, which
showed that in London i/ prerai/cd /o an enormous eadeni. A great
majority of the mothers who gave birth to illegitimate children
were domestic servants. Nine out of every ten of the children
that were killed were destroyed within two hundred yards of the
house in which they were born. It was also a startling fact that of
the unfortunate mothers who murdered their infants one in six
died. Mr. C. H. Bracebridge considered that it was /Ae mos/ modes/
pir/s wAo des/royed /Aeir cAddren. Sir E. Wilmot having offered a '
few observations, Dr. Mary Walker, of New York, spoke on the
subject. She attributed much of the fault as due to the great
desire to hide the fact. This arose in a great measure from the
want of sympathy on the part of their own sex. One great thing
would be accomplished when the man was regarded with as much
scorn as the woman was now. There was not so much infanticide
in the United States as there was in this kingdom—at least, she
judged so from the accounts she had read. She accounted for this
by the fact that in America they were more temperate. Her
observation of immoral men and women was that the large
majority of them were habitual drinkers. In America children
were not looked upon as responsible for the acts of their parents,
and the speaker quoted instances to prove that illegitimacy was
no bar to social position or improvement of that position. Neither
were children unduly respected because their parents happened to
be very well to do. The Rev. Mr. Solly followed, urging the
suggestion which had been made by the Secretary of the Association
for Enforcing the Laws for the Protection of Women, that every
act of seduction should de /itc/o be regarded as an act of marriage.
Mr. Thomas Chambers, common serjeant, strongly opposed the
suggestion of Mr. Solly. It would be a premium to domestic
servants to entrap the sons of their masters.
Note 11 (page 18).—In the Boox of GoD, Part III, it is shewn
that this earth is one of the Hells, and consequently that the
sufferings which are endured upon it are not to be charged against
God, but are the natural result of man's own wickedness and
bad government, it being a law that all <S*in punisAes i/ae//*. This
truth at once gets rid of an objection to the benignity of God
which has been raised from olden time, because He permits32
THE BOOK OF GOD.
misery to exist. But if earth is made a place of misery by its
own inhabitants, how could God make it otherwise unless he
deprived them of their free will, and made them into slaves,
puppets, or automatons ? Part I, 39, 89. Besides, there mwsf
necessarily be places where Evil punishes itself by its own
hands, and thus produces its own reformation. Will any one
deny that this Earth might be made a scene of comparative
happiness, peace, and plenty, if men only willed it, and laboured
to make it so by subduing their evil propensities and passions 1
But men, as men, never try to do this, but give themselves up
to a mad desire after gold, women, and power. Labours are
good, says Pythagoras, but pleasures are in every respect bad. For,
as we came into the present life for the purpose of punishment,
it is necessary that we should be punished. Iamblichus' Life
of P., cap. 18. These observations will, I hope, meet and answer
certain passages in a new periodical called FYeehyM, in which
God is represented as a Devil. One of the writers speaks thus :—
I confess I see nothing to shake my opinion, either in the arguments
of the more rational, though optimist of my antagonists, or of a
'' Believer." I feel that I would have much rather noi have come
into life. God or no God, that is a feeling very common to men.
When we are wretched, we desire an end of misery; when we
are wretched only in prospective, still the coming shadow darkens
life. I have no love to God—supposing a God exists. Why should
I have such ! I think a God exists, who is quite indifferent whether
we suffer or not—per/ecth/ mdi^erent to evih I have often envied
the Atheist. He looks forward to annihilation no doubt with
complacency. I repeat once more " there is no such luck for us."
Gpd, as you call the Author of all things, is an economist, no
doubt. 1 see no reason to believe that anything is destroyed.
Hell, then, may be true—nay, it is true. 7'Ais ts LTeH. The Author
of Nature may not be exactly a Malignant Being ; but to imagine
for an instant that he cares about the amount of evil endured is
Billy. Christ found he had made a mistake, and at last asked
in bitterness, "My God, my God ! why hast thou forsaken me!'
The Theists are very angry with bigots because of the cruelty
ascribed to God. I ask if there is not more cruelty in Nature
than in Revelation ? The only difference is that the cruelty of
God, as taught in theologyis for ever. ***** God could
not annihilate himself. I wish he could and would. I have
not the slightest hope of man. We are radically bad—meant to
be so. We are devils. We live in hell, and fancy we are sometimes
happy? Never. Stretched on the rack of this "tough world,',NOTES TO BOOK I.
33
we ask the heavens to be "more just." Everyman's faith is
sure to fail sooner or later. I have heard clergymen complain
bitterly of God. The sheer Negationist sneers at anything. There
is, however, a good deal of unbelief as to the truth of such
unlimited belief among " Infidels." One of your correspondents
allows that God made alligators, tigers, &c. Well, then, those
monstrous jaws were not formed for nothing. You would never
persuade the victim of such horrible creatures that he ought to be
glad to be sacrificed. Don't tell me of the benevolence of Nature !
The system of things is atrocious. Ask any humane man if he
could have found it in his heart to create a world so hideous.
And I don't believe, for an instant, that it will ever be otherwise.
I don't believe in Darwin's theory; I think the apes are less
inclined to torture one another than we are. I don't see that
with civilization we become humane. I firmly believe we shall
exist for ever, no better off than we are at present. Yours, &c.
A Sceptic." Vol. I, p. 314. Again :—" Being a Pessimist, I ask
whether it is true that there is more good than evil in the world ?
I think not. I should like to know how many men in a hundred
you will find who can honestly say they are glad that they exist.
.Per/mps three ; but I should be inclined to say, hardly two. I
ask whether, granting the existence of a God, he is able to put an
end to evil ? If he is not, where is his omnipotence ? If he is
able, and will not, where his benevolence ? But if there Be a
Devil who can thwart his Maker, and if God had foreknowledge,
as theology asserts, why was he made ? If it be true that hun-
dreds of millions of years have elapsed since the earth began,
how was it that it took such an enormous period to produce an
insignificant result. Everything to MM is a farce. After all, as we
cannot prove either wisdom or benevolence in Nature, as there is
no proof of a future life, what alternative is there but to make
the best of the present. If we are sick of life, for my part, it
seems to me there is no immorality in suicide. We never asked to
come into being, and therefore it is obvious we have a right to
cease to be. I perfectly agree with those who think there is no
moral basis in Atheism. What then. I didn't form the world.
The responsibility for whatever happens may be left to whatever
Power or Cause created so wretched a failure. It is better to
believe in no God than in a cruel, vindictive, and heartless Being
who allows the evil to be so mighty, and the good so powerless.
7d. p. 318. See posf, Book 11, cap. i, s. 6.
c 3Cb? Booh of (Sob.
BOOK II.
1. And as the belief in the ONE was universally pre-
valent in ancient times, so connected with it, was the
existence of one grand and glorious system of religion
and of arts and sciences, proceeding under a common
language, from one common centre, which folded mankind
within a circle of unity, such as was consistent with that
common creed, but which has not existed since, and
could not exist while opposing sects and priesthoods
flourished. Immeasurably superior in all true astronomical
and mathematical science were the primitive ages to those
which boast so loudly of their own excellence; and,
though it is true that the men in those far remote times
did not possess railroads or telegraphs, they were
beyond the present race of mortals in true science, and
in mechanical skill, and they have left behind them
works of so stupendous a nature, as if they were GiantsENOCH.
35
who framed them in sport for a race of pigmies to
admire, but who fail indeed to equal. The whole mecha-
nical art of the earth, as it is now practised or known,
could hardly carve the monoliths, or obelisks, con-
struct the stupendous cave-temples, poise the loggan rocks,
or lift the mighty stones which those ancient engineers
appear to have accomplished with the most perfect ease.
It was but the other day that all the mechanicians of
England declared it to be impossible to raise a monolith
to the memory of the Prince Consort, such as the Queen
was anxious to have erected, or to convey from Egypt
a gigantic phallos of the past, which now lies prostrate
in the sands, and which was offered to us in grateful
commemoration of Albert by the Khedive. But the
men who constructed Stonehenge or Elora, or carved
the Elephanta Cavern, or raised the Siam temples (Part
III, 446), would have had no difficulty at all in trans-
porting that pillar from one end of the earth to the other,
and they were accustomed to accomplish feats even still
more difficult.
2. That ancient men, possessed of all the highest
philosophical refinement and subtlety, should have been
eminently distinguished as well in theological and
spiritual knowledge, can hardly now be a source of
surprise. Accordingly we find, if we accurately seek, that
their religious tenets were enlarged and amplified into a
majesty of conception such as might be expected from men
deeply grounded in the august and splendid ideas of the
Universal which their Books, and the APOCALYPSE in
particular, could not fail to suggest. It was their fixed
and positive belief, for it was founded on Celestial Revela-
tions, that man is in reality not an animal at all; a36
THE BOOK OF GOD.
development from something slimy or horrible; but a
; and that he was once an angel of light in heaven ;
that he fell from heaven into a state pf delusion and
darkness, and that he can only re-ascend by working his
way gradually into a state of light; having purified
himself in a place of great temptation or punishment,
like the present earth—in one word, they believed in
the pre-existence of the soul in another sphere before
its descent upon its present habitation. If the fallen
spirit thus purifies itself it will have shewn that it is
worthy of its primal place, and will ascend like fire into
the home from which it has loosely wandered; but if it
is so wedded to sensual passion that it will not lift its
aspirations to the Supreme, with what hope can it
presume that it shall ever again behold the face of Him
from whom it has flown into revolt ? This unhappy fall was
occasioned, as I have shewn, by passion, or concupiscence,
or discontent of some kind;—-a desire for greater glory,
knowledge, beauty, or power, and consequently an envy
of others, a selfish admiration and love of self, and an
accusation of the justice of God, which being intrinsi-
cally a crime, would necessarily cause a fall from heaven.
Part I, 39. And this idea was beautifully shadowed
forth by one of their philosophers, who declared that
every Soul was a Venus or divine nature, a mirrored image,
as it were, of the Holy spirit, as was intimated by the
generation of Venus herself from God, and the conception
with her of Cupid or Celestial Love; wherefore the soul
that was in a purely natural state was said to love God,
and to desire ardently to be united with Him as some
beautiful virgin with an illustrious hero ; but when it
was sullied with selfishness and descended to generationENOCH.
37
which was earth, then, being courted by the amorous
allurements that are here below, and being deceived by
their false appearances and fascinations, it changed itsdivine
and heavenly love for one that was gross and mortal;
albeit, if it again shook off its wanton affections and
kept itself immaculate, it would return back upon
ethereal wings to its own Fountain and Father in
Heaven. The same truth was exquisitely conveyed in
the Gnostic legend of Cupid and Psyche, epitomised by
me in Part II, 261, in the Indian ashlogue; fAe
s/wf %Aa% twee	wi Aeawn,	%Ae
-Beaufy, M Mow co%/M&% wi at 6o<Zy o/ c/g/z/emawf, wAicA
; and no less strikingly by the
Ninth Messenger, Jesus, in his parable of the Prodigal
Son (man), who left his father's house (heaven) and was
reduced to tend and live with swine (earth) (1).
3. The strongest argument, says a certain writer,
against a prior state of existence is, that we are not
conscious of it; and to be punished for what we have
no knowledge or remembrance, of at the time we are
punished, can have no tendency towards our amend-
ment, which is, or ought to be, the great object of
punishment. If this is " the strongest argument,"
it is weak indeed. Is there any man who is con-
scious—that is, who recollects—that he was an infant ?
Not one—yet by this mode of reasoning it might be
proved that he never was an infant. Is there any
who is conscious of his existence while he is in a sound
dreamless sleep ? Not one—Yet by this argument it
might be demonstrated that he does not live while
he is asleep. The fact is, this " strongest argume it"
is no argument at all if it were true; but it is33
THE BOOK OF GOD.
not true. Is there any thinking man alive, unless he
be a Darwinian, and self-consciously the son of a
gorilla, who is not sometimes intuitively certain that
originally he was something better, higher, nobler, than
he now is ? who does not feel within him dreams, hopes,
splendid soaring fancies, glorious and heroic aspirations,
reminiscences, as it were, of celestial gleams and glimpses
as far uplifted above his mortal condition as the stars of
heaven themselves 1 I should imagine and hope that there
are but few. And the reason why this consciousness is not
stronger within us is, that it is sedulously drilled out
of us as we grow up, and are educated by parsons and
pedagogues, in the narrow views that encircle us from
our cradle; and hence it is assumed that we are not
conscious, whereas, in truth, we are only not conscious,
because we have been moulded to be so. If an English
child were brought up in perfect ignorance of the laws,
the annals, the records of his country and her people; of
the existence of a Supreme Being and of the certainty of
a future state, would it be fair to accuse him when he
was grown to man's estate of not being " conscious " of
that which he ought to have known and appreciated, but
which his ignorant or barbarous guardians sedulously
prevented him from knowing at all ? Equally unfair is
it to use the fact against the reality of a prior existence.
But this assumed unconsciousness is only partially true
in the little truth that belongs to it. It may be alleged with
some show of reason of an European, whose intellectual
growth in all matters of theology is dwarfed from the
bud ; but it cannot be advanced with any verity, so far
as it regards an Oriental, with whom the doctrine of an
ante-terrestrial life is as positive, and as self-evident aENOCH.
39
truth, as any other that he knows. 2Ze is conscious of
it, because from his earliest years he has imbibed it
among his primal lessons ; and Ae adheres to it as one of
those sacred principles of whose divine certainty he is
as convinced as he can be of any that he can attain to,
by a process of reasoning, aided in some measure by a
degree of self-knowledge. The western biblical who
ignores this ennobling truth is as great an object of com-
passion or contempt to him as he no doubt is a theme for
laughter to the sage, enlightened by the Thirty Nine
Articles, who rates his own perfections so highly that he
thinks he can have but newly come from the hand of the
All-Perfect, and fondly looks upon himself as one of His
latest and most improved fabrics, though he must in the
same breath own that he is nearly all evil. (2) Nor are
tAey less mad, who hold with some modem sceptics, that
so far from an archangelic original they are the lineal
descendants of parrots, oysters, or monkeys, developed by
some wonderful process of absurdity into Hunts, Dar-
wins, and such like. See Book of God, Part III, 413
(3).
4. The weakness or falsehood of the argument is not
confined to this particular alone. It is utterly derogatory
to the true idea of God that He punishes us individually
as a magistrate would, because we have sinned. God does
not punish any one ; but the Laws of God enact, and the
Viceroy Nemesis sees, that all Evil punishes itself, and
thus Evil works its own cure, by convincing the criminal
that he is foolish in his errors. Men are perpetually
punished for that of which they are not conscious, and
God has nothing to do with it: though men are ready
enough to say that it pleased Almighty God. A man40
THE BOOK OF GOD.
goes to sea in a leaky ship, but he has no knowledge of
the fact ; he is punished by being drowned. What has
God to do with this 1 A man rides a vicious horse, and
does not know that it is vicious, and he is killed : or he
walks into a beautiful country, and is not aware that
poisonous exhalations are wafted from its Rowers or
grasses, or that asps are hidden in its roses— and so he
perishes. What has* God to do with this 1 The man
suffers in a state of unconsciousness : but the unconsci-
ousness is in most cases his own fault. If he were wise
he would have learned the condition of the ship, the
nature of the steed, the character of the country. He
has neglected to seek out this information, and he suffers
for his neglect. In the same way it is his duty to inquire
acAy it is that he is a man! wAy he suffers 1 wA<% is the
nature of God 1 wAa% is the scheme of his laws and
polity ? wAc^Acr He permits suffering without a reason!
wAcfAer He delights to afflict the pure of heart 1 If he does
all this, he will then be satisfied of his pre-existence, and
will begin to know in part the object that God designs.
But if he do it not, he never cun know. And the fact is,
that Ac wt'M no% do He immerses himself voluntarily
in ignorance and absurdities (4) ; he envelopes his head
in clouds and mists; he gives himself up to another man
to think and judge for him; he seeks a priest, and asks
him what he shall believe ; he justifies himself by faith;
he pursues gold, or power, or pleasure, with all the
energies and lusts of his soul, or he persuades himself
that he is in reality a tail less monkey, unconnected with
God or the Immortals, and then he cries out that he
never knew he was at any time anything higher than a
mere man, or a poor ape. Of course he did not know it,ENOCH.
41
because he never cared or sought to know it; like the
student alluded to in a previous part, he does not like to
unsettle his mind ! and if he ignorantly exclaims against
God, and denounces him as a Devil	32), for
condemning him to the many miseries which beset
mortals, he may be prepared to hear it answered in thun-
der :—The miseries which you endured you should have
Anoww were j ust; but you never sought to know or to
inquire; why then do you cry out against your Maker,
when you should rather blame your own negligence, and
your own querulousness, in supposing that 7 could,
without cause, afHict the innocent, or su3er the virtuous
ever to be unhappy 1 Part III, 462.
5. The ante-terrestrial condition of the soul, or animating
essence, being thus known, together with the laws that
regulate its rise and fall, it can excite no surprise that
the ancients should have been equally well acquainted
with the ordinances that govern its nature when it has
passed away from earth. The transmigration of souls,
a belief once profoundly entertained by the greatest,
best, and wisest, men, and the cherished faith of whole
nations when philosophical ideas of God, the Soul,
Eternity, and Heaven, were far more perfect than at
present, seems to have almost perished from Europe, and
is now preserved only in the East, from which, as all
knowledge originally came, so it would seem that all true
knowledge likewise is destined to revert. Yet it is a
belief founded on all reason, and on all enlightened notions
of God's universality and benevolence : and it is strength-
ened by those wonderful instances of the vivid memory
of places never seen before by the fleshly eye, but which
to the spiritual vision are familiar, of which there are so42
THE BOOK OF GOD.
many well authenticated narratives. Few men are there
of those who think at all, who have not at times in the
midst of lovely or beautiful scenery, or amid the sublime
wildernesses of the ocean, been suddenly impressed with
the conviction, strong and thrilling, that they were not
there for the first time then, but that in some other
condition of life, they roamed in the very places which
then appeared to them in so lovely a light. The impres-
sion is too powerful—I may add, is too general—to be
that of fancy only ; and there is'no doubt whatever that
it is merely a recovering recollection of pre-existence in
the soul. But all this is laughed at in the West. When
an orthodox European of the ordinary typeis questioned as
to his future, he answers unhesitatingly that, in the resur-
rection of the dead, or the future life, he hopes to have
the same body of blood, bones, muscles, organs, and
intestines, that he possessed here, and that this material
mass of corruption, again collected from winds and
waters, from trees, grasses, birds, from fishes, worms, and
beasts, will be endued with an immortal energy that
will keep it sound and strong for ever. As God gives no
organs that are without their use, it follows from this
that man will eat, drink, digest, excrete, generate, and
sleep, in the celestial spheres—a grosser idea than any
that has ever been attributed either to " benighted
Pagans" or to the Mohammedan paradise, by those
western doctors of the church who have, upon the least
possible shadow of evidence, assigned the wildest figments
to the inspired and glorious Prophet of Arabia. (5) And as
this material body will enjoy material, that is sensual,
pleasures in heaven, if its owner be a believer in the
atoning blood of Jesus, or have eaten and drank him on aENOCH.
43
sufficient number of sacrament Sundays, (6) so those who
obstinately reject all such mediations, or like the sinful
Jews think that a cock slain, a goat azazel, or a crucified
infant, is of equal value, will descend with their fleshly
incubus into a place of hideous torment: into fire and
brimstone where mocking devils with iron prongs toss
them from flame to flame ; where they are slowly devoured
by worms that never die, and where they incessantly call
out for a drop of water to cool their tongues, parched and
swollen, while demons jeer them, and Abraham placidly
answers that they may thirst on. Part III, 488.
6. But in the primal theology no such dark abomina-
tion was known or would be endured: it was the
invention of the priests who instituted saint and devil
worship; and with saint and devil-worship an innume-
rable series of cognate falsehoods, which they have
transmitted unimpaired to their successors in the faith.
The ancients held that the same laws which regulated
the condition of the lapsed spirit before it came on earth,
guided and governed it, by the like analogies, after it had
left the earth. As every spirit in heaven is free, so
every man on earth is free to rise above or sink beneath
his condition of humanity. The sage who feeds his
thoughts with luminous dreams of the Divine, who
separates himself from the selfish, sensual, grovelling, or
adder-like or wolfish crowd, and, content with little,
employs his life in learning, teaching, and diffusing good ;
who fixes not his all in earthly prosperity, but, satisfied
with life, uses life only for purposes of self-improvement,
self-purification, and general utility to others, irrespective
absolutely of his own worldly gains, and who follows
Virtue for her own beautifulness only (7), is as certainly44
THE BOOK OF GOD.
superior to the ordinary tribes of men, and therein
approaches nearly to the excellence of an angelic spirit,
as the drunkard or the glutton, the thief or the assassin,
the liar or the seducer, the hypocrite and double-tongued,
is below the standard of human nature, and, ceasing to
be a man, approximates to the condition of a venomous,
or filthy, or cunning beast of prey. When the sage dies
he ascends into a higher state of being : he is not worthy
of heaven, for only archangelic spirits of light, after
innumerable changes and cycles of existence, can reach
that paradise-orb : but he is worthy of a world of happi-
ness far superior to any that can be found on an earth,
or rather on a hell, like this ; and to that world he goes;
qualified to reascend once more into a loftier Zone, if his
pure purposes still continue, and his enlarged energies
are devoted to the Beautiful; destined to redescend
again to this sphere of mire and mammon, if he be still
hampered with the passions of mortality. But the
wretched man who, while on earth, has deliberately
plunged into the vices that I have enumerated, must
descend into a condition of life that is in unison with his
corporeal and beast-like longings, and there he must
continue until he desires to be re-admitted into his last
condition as a man, with all those faculties renewed that
can elevate him from man into a more august form of
being. With the desire to rise, the will comes, and with
the will the energy that uplifts; and thus every creature's
condition, whether he be on earth, or in the various
Spheres, depends absolutely on his own excellence, or his
own negation of excellence. This, it will be seen, is in
precise harmony with all the physical laws of God, that
we behold in exercise around us every day; it is foundedENOCH.
45
on exact justice, and regulated by the most divine
impartiality; it has nothing to do with hells or devils,
which do not and cannot exist anywhere, except in this
sense, that	7s woi TTgavew, way &e reyar&ci!
as 27g/7, inasmuch as it is to some extent a place of
suffering or trial; and every one who is not absolutely
a ministering spirit of love or knowledge in the active
service of the Supreme may be regarded as unblest;
inasmuch as he is excluded from that Celestial Presence
and Beatific Vision which can alone confer perfect happi-
ness. Hence arose the doctrine of transmigration (8),
which, true in the sense that I have unfolded, is entirely
absurd in the sense generally entertained. Transmigration
simply means this : that every spirit passes into that
condition of visible or invisible existence for which its
own self-made habits and desires render it peculiarly
Utting: it never did and never cowM mean that a man
like Fenelon, dying, passed into the body of a rat, or a
murderer, like Rush, could soar from the scaffold and
re-appear in the form of a dove; although this is the false
light in which the writers for the churches have always
taken care most fraudulently to represent it; and in this
aspect it is popularly received in Europe, and treated as
a proof of Eastern insanity.
7. But as the virtuous spirit that has passed from
earth receives a clothing for its new manifestation in a
higher world, of a more divine, lovely, and less material
nature than that which it possessed upon the terrestrial
globe; as it grows to be a winged and fire-bright creature,
shining with a starry brilliancy and grandeur; enlarged
also in its mental capacities, and with all its excellencies
more fully developed, so as to make it harmonize with its46
THE BOOK OF GOD.
superior growth in existence, so in like manner the soul
that has enslaved itself to sensualism, and taken pride in
cunning, or been lustful after gold, or titles, and has
grovelled in corruption, and has brutalized all its finer
instincts in swinery, or wolfism, or serpentine or syco-
phantic habits, subsides into an order of life lower than
that in which it had before appeared, and is attached to
a medium for its new mode of being, which will best suit
or gratify the propensities it has acquired. The orthodox
Christian of course dissents from this, and if it has not
believed in an atonement, plunges it at once into a
burning Lake of Hell from which it can never again
emerge,* where its punishment can serve no purificatory
end, and can tend to no purpose of example, but where
it writhes for ever, as if to gratify the vengeance that
seems inherent in their fancied God. The papist more
charitably sends it into purgatory, from which a few
masses, bought by a few shillings, will probably release
it, without any excellence of its own, or any feeling of
repentance, or any effort at amendment. Reflection can
hardly fail to satisfy any one that the ancient belief is
more philosophic than the modern; and as it is more in
analogy with all the other acknowledged laws of God,
and is in every way more consonant to His nature, it
requires but the exercise of reason to admit it into the
mind as an enduring truth, while the other alternative
is horrible to think of and shocking to believe.
8. Modern notions upon the future condition of man
are therefore freely borrowed from paganism in its most
* Out of hell, says one of the saints, there is no redemption.
And see Mark ix. 48. This doctrine seems to have been taken
from Virgil. J5neis vi. 126—9.ENOCH.
47
debased condition; the priests have not ascended to the
primal fountains from which all truth flowed. Had they
done so, they would not have polluted Christianity with
their dogma of hell, demons, and fire unending—a dogma
that has made infidels in great numbers, and could only
operate upon the lowest minds; a dogma also utterly
adverse to all true conceptions of the Divine, who never
frightens men into excellence, but rather wills to lead
them by the surpassing beauty of excellence itself. And
if He has denounced punishment on the guilty, in words
of terrible solemnity, by His Messengers, it is not that
He may deter from vice by the mean principle of fear, but
that no loophole may be left to the impious, who if He
did not speak so, would not fail to say that his silence
left them free to do as they pleased ; and as we know by
experience to what frail straws sin-desiring men will
cling for the purpose of gratifying their passions, it was
true policy in the Supreme Lord to make his views of
vice known to men. And if the Messengers whom He
has sent have used the strong and fiery and figurative
language of the East to convey to the mind a more varied
picture than mere words without symbols could transmit,
it must be ever remembered that what is thus used
metaphorically must never be taken to the strict letter,
though this is what the priests of error always do; and
this is what their hoodwinked followers suffer them to
do with impunity, by surrendering up their own reason to
the reason of such guides, and employing themselves
wholly on the pursuit of gain, the chase after pleasure, or
the glorification of self.
9. How beautifully Zaratusht, the Fifth Messenger, has
described the resurrection, may be learned from the48
THE BOOK OF GOD.
following extract (part of a dialogue between himself and
the Logos or Holy Spirit) which I cite from the true
now lying before me. What a sublime and
splendid image it conveys ! How worthy of the paradise
scene where it is described, and how wholly in accordance
it appears with all that is known of God or of the Future,
either from revelation, reason, or experience. Contrasted
with the resurrection described by Paul, and believed by
his followers, and the corporeal palingenesis of all the
early Christian fathers, it shines like light from heaven
itself: yet this was the well-known faith of all our
forefathers in the olden ages, which are popularly com-
misserated as days of sin and darkness; and this is the
doctrine itself as it was revealed to all more than four
thousand years ago by one of the most divine of teachers
and philosophers:—
ZABATUSHT.
O Mihr !* more splendent in thy brightness
Than the emerald-fiery stars of the wholly-shining arch,
Answer unto me ; make thou known
The condition of man's spirit after death.
Is it dissipated into invisible air,
Like the cloud that lately shone so luminous!
Or doth it pass into some other form!
And if so, whence comes that form 1
Mins.
When the pure spirit ascends from earth,
It scents the perfume of odoriferous trees;
* Mihr, according to the learned Orientalist Hyde, signifies
Love, Benevolence, Mercy. (De Deh'y. Fe%. Pers., p. 105.) This
is the Greek Eros, or Divine Love : the Madonna, or Holy Spirit
of Heaven.ENOCH.
49
It feels as if it were still in body;
It knows not that it is free from chains.
A sweetly-scented wind conveys it
To the Ethereal Regions of the Upper Zone ;
A music, rich, divine, and pure,
Surrounds, salutes, and fills it.
It beholds an image of its own holiness,
Like a beautiful virgin budding into bloom ;
Sacred, starry-shining, star-crowned,
With snow-white wings. To it, it speaks.
Who art thou, O beautiful one 1
Who art thou, 0 virgin-light of heaven!
Never have I seen or dreamed of aught
So pure, so lovely, so divine as thou art.
It answers thus : In me thou seest
An image of thy thoughts, thy life, thine actions ;*
I am thy conscience symbolized before thee,
Beautiful, as thy deeds have been.
Then the pure ascending spirit
Passes into this new form of existence.
It animates that heavenly phantom,
And ascends, virgin-like, on high.
So also, in the %(%, which Brigoo published, six hundred
years before the coming of Zaratusht, the last moments
of a man, and his ascent to God, or his lapse to darkness,
are thus finely described :—
When strength departeth from a Man,
And the moment of death is close at hand,
Those who are present demand of the dying,
* The same idea and truth is conveyed in the Book of Enoch
where the beautiful Virgin reveals herself to the Second Messenger
and calls herself the Spirit of his spirit. See po^, Chapter I. (9).
D50
THE BOOK OF GOD.
Knowcst thou me, 0 child !
So long ns the spirit hath not left the body,
And consciousness remains, he knoweth them;
But when the spirit hath departed from the body,
Then indeed he knoweth them no longer.
And this spirit, if it be pure and holy,
Is attracted upwards by the rays of the Sun,
As thou hast seen his glorious beams
Drink up the waters of the sea.
He who hath directed his contemplations to God,
And hath sought the Beautiful One all his days,
His spirit passing through the arch of his brain
Ascends upwards by the path of the Sun's rays;
Quick as the thought of man,
It goes through the centre of the Sun,
And Hashing unscathed through lucid fire,
It ascends, a star into a paradise.
In the regions of pure flame,
In the golden zones, amid pellucid waters,
That sparkle like a sea of sunbeams,
It moves, it gleams in lightning-flashes.
But they who are grossly ignorant and irrational,
Who have not sought, or wished to know or find
The Beautiful One who sitteth in the Heavens,
Whose throne is circumambient light and glory;
Their spirits pass not through the illuminated brain ;
Neither do they attain unto the Sun's rays;
But going out through the baser parts,
They wander in corporeal spheres.*
* I do not know, nor have I ever had time to inquire, whether
there be anything in what is called Spiritualism ; but as far as I
do know, and assuming the appearances of the Departed to beENOCH.
51
The Spirit of Light winch endureth no evil thing,
Which knoweth not passion, or death, or sensualism,
Whose every desire is holy, pure, and sacred,
Unto that Blessed One they cannot attain.
10. Whoever indeed has meditated on the nature of
his soul—or rather his spirit, for the soul is merely the
medium by which the vital and immortal spirit is con-
nected with the body—cannot avoid coming to the
conclusion that it has pre-existed in some grand condition
of being; that it is not probable it only began to be,
some nine months before the birth, and that it was then
for the first time created by God, and effused into matter,
for no crime which it had committed, but merely because
it pleased its Creator so to punish it. For I suppose it
will not be denied that to confine a spirit in a body
is a punishment to that spirit (11). The vulgar belief is
of course that one which represents God to be unjust.and
cruel and despotic ; and which degrades the spirit as
much as possible, supposing it to be formed by the slime
of human parents; but as this idea is scarcely worthy of
a beast, so I beg that any of my readers who entertains
it will lay aside my book at once, for he is not fit to
speculate on the matter which it contains. And indeed
it is so dreadful a blasphemy to suppose that God creates
spirits, or suffers mortals to create them for the purposes
of the dreadful unions which sometimes happen, or that
human beings can create them for such ends, that I can
scarcely reflect upon it or upon its holders with any
true, it is evident that they have been Spirits so bound to
sensualism and earth, that they never have been able to get
beyond it into any of the higher Spheres, and hence their igno-
rance may be accounted for (10).
D 252
THE BOOK OF GOD.
degree of patience. And if I am intolerant at all, it is
of such frightful and depraved notions.
11. What has become of the innumerable millions of
spirits which in mortal shape have developed themselves
on earth since it first was peopled with life ! Many of
our Petro-Paulite friends hold that they are in a state of
coma or collapse, piled up like barrelled herrings, and that
they must so continue until the Day of General Judgment,
which for aught that is really known may be a thousand
millions of years off. But if every spirit be regarded as an
energy, or a force, we know well that Nature utilizes
everything with the most rigid exactness ; and She who
will not suffer even a lump of mud or dirt to lie unpro-
ductive, is not likely to permit so glorious and active an
essence as the spirit and soul are, to remain paralyzed ;
shut up as it were for ages of ages in a charnel-house of
dead and useless bones. Or if again we hold with others
of the same creed, that many are in bliss, and many are
in hell, and many are in purgatory, while vast multitudes
are nowhere in particular, we must take up the idea that
the majority of men, who, by their vices are really little
better than the fierce or sluggish animals of the forest,
and who are far inferior to the elephant, the horse, the
ant, or the bee, are nevertheless worthy of an archangelic
companionship with the Lord of Heaven; or are thrust
into fire that dieth not, wherein they must writhe and
howl through everlasting centuries, tormenting themselves
and torturing each other with demoniac fury and malig-
nity ; or are mildly corrected until their relations have
paid for masses enough to induce the Judge of perfect
justice to violate one of His grandest attributes, and to
bestow forgiveness for money; the offender himself havingENOCH.
53
done nothing in the way of self-amendment; and likely
to be left in almost hopeless captivity if his friends or
relations have no cash with which to bribe the holy
turnkey of the church. As these views are perfectly
inadmissible and absurd, we are forced to come to the
conclusion that souls and spirits perpetually active are as
perpetually taking to themselves new manifestations, high
or low, in accordance and correspondence with their
powers, desires, and affections.
12.	Had the Rabbins allowed us to possess the genuine
Hebrew books, I doubt not that in them we should
have seen a perfect correspondence with the ancient
Indian theology, in which the pre-existence of the soul
has ever formed a prominent feature. " Perhaps the
sadness of men," says the author of Sacontala, a play
exhibited before kings more than 2,000 years ago,
" otherwise happy on seeing beautiful forms and listen-
ing to sweet melody, comes from some faint remembrance
of past joys, and the traces of connection in a former
state of existence." (Act V., scene 1.) And this whole
doctrine of the metempsychosis and metasomatosis, or
transmigration of the spirit, pervades the Indian theology
even in its present and most corrupted form.
13.	These later ages, says the learned Glanville, have
concluded the matter to lie between immediate
and	yet I find that the more ancient
times have pitcht upon ytre-eans/ewce as more likely than
either: for the Platonists, Pythagoreans, the Chaldaean
wise men, the Jewish Rabbins, and some of the most
learned and antient Fathers were of this opinion. * * '*
The first of these opinions that offers itself to trial is,
that God daily creates human souls, which immediately54
THE BOOK OF GOD.
are united to the bodies that generation hath prepared
for them. On this side are our later divines and the
generality of schoolmen. But not to be borne down by
authorities, let us consider what reason stands against it.
Therefore if our souls came immediately out of the
hands of God, when we came first into these bodies,
whence then are these enormously brutish inclinations,
that strong natural proclivity to vice and impiety, that
are extant in the children of men ! All the works of
God bear his image and are perfect in their kind. Purity
is his nature, and what comes from Him, proportionably
to its capacity, partakes of his perfections. Everything
in the natural world bears the superscription of his
wisdom and goodness,—and the same fountain cannot
send forth sweet water's and bitter. Therefore 'tis a part
of our allegiance to our Maker to believe that He made
us pure and innocent; and if we were but just then
framed by Him, when we were united with these terres-
trial bodies, whence should we contract such degenerate
propensions ? Some tell us that this impurity was
immediately derived from the bodies we are united to;
but how is it possible that purely passive insensible
matter should transfuse habits or inclinations into a
nature that is quite of another make and quality 1 How
can such a cause produce an effect so disproportionate 1
Matter can do nothing but by motion, and what relation
hath that to a moral contagion! How can a body that
is neither capable of sense nor sin infect a soul as soon as
it is united to it with such vicious debauched dispositions ?
But others think to evade by saying that we have not
these depravities in our natures, but contract them by
custom, education, and evil usages. How then comes itENOCH.
55
about that those that have had the same care and industry
used upon them, and have been nurtured under the same
discipline and severe oversight, do so vastly, and even to
wonder, difler in their inclinations! How is it that
those that are under continual temptations to vice are
yet kept within the bounds of virtue and sobriety ? And
yet that others, that have strong motives and allurements
to the contrary, should break violently out into all kinds
of extravagance and impiety 1 Surely there is somewhat
more in the matter than those general causes which may
be common to both, and which many times have quite
contrary effects. This hypothesis that God continually
creates human souls in these bodies, consists not with the
honour of the Divine attributes^ for how stands it with
the goodness and benignity of that God, who is Love, to
put pure and immaculate spirits, who were capable of
living to Him and with Him, into such bodies as will
presently defile them, deface his image, pervert all their
powers and faculties, incline them to hate what He most
loves, and love what his Soul hateth ; and that, without
any knowledge or concurrence of theirs, will mar them,
as soon as He hath made them, and of dear children
render them, rebels or enemies, and in a moment, from
being like angels, transform them into the perfect resem.
blance of the first apostates, devils ? Is this an effect of
those tender mercies that are over all his works ? And
hath that Wisdom, that hath made all things to operate
according to their natures, and provided them with what-
ever is necessary to that end, made myriads of noble
spirits, capable of as noble operations, and presently
plunged them into such a condition wherein they cannot
act at all, according to their first and proper dispositions,5G
THE BOOK OF GOD.
but shall be necessitated to the quite contrary, and have
other noxious and depraved inclinations fatally imposed
upon their pure natures 1 Doth that Wisdom that hath
made all things in number, weight, and measure, and
disposed them in such exact harmony and proportions,
use to act so ineptly! and that, in the best and noblest
pieces of his creation 1 Doth it use to make and presently
destroy 1 To frame one thing, and give it such or such a
nature, and then undo what He had done and make it
another ? And if there be no such irregular methods
used in the framing of inferior creatures, what reason
have we to suspect that the Divine Wisdom did so vary
from itself in its noblest composures! And is it not a
great alfront to the Divine Justice to suppose, as we are
commonly taught, that as soon as we are born, yea, and
in the womb, we are obnoxious to eternal wrath and
torments, if our souls are then immediately created out
of nothing 1 For to be just is to give every one his due ;
and how can endless unsupportable punishments be due
to innocent spirits, who but the last moment came
righteous, pure, and immaculate out of their Creator's
hands, and have not done or thought anything since,
contrary to his Will or Laws, nor were in any the least
capacity of sinning! Aye, but the first of our order, our
general head and representative, sinned, and we in him :
thus we contract guilt as soon as we have a being, and
are liable to the punishment of his disobedience! This
is thought to solve all, and to clear God from any shadow
of unrighteousness. But whatever truth there is in the
thing itself, I think it cannot stand upon the hypothesis
of the soul's immediate creation, nor yet justify God in
his proceedings. For if I was then newly createdENOCH.
57
when first in this body, what was Adam to me, who
sinned above 5,000 years before I came ont of nothing !
If he represented me, it must be as I was in his loins ;
that is, in him, as an effect in a cause. But so I was not
according to this doctrine, for my soul owns no Father
but God, its immediate Progenitor. And what am I
concerned then in his sins, which had never my will or
consent, more than in the sins of Mahomet or Julius
Caesar 1 nay, than in the sins of Beelzebub or Lucifer 1
And for my body, 'tis most likely that never an atom of
his ever came at me, or if any did, he was no cause on't.
Besides, that of itself is neither capable of sense, sin,
guilt nor punishment; or admitting that we became
thus obnoxious as soon as in the body on account of his
default, how doth it comport with the Divine Justice in
one moment to make such excellent creatures, and in the
next to render them so miserable, by thrusting them into
a condition so fatally obnoxious; especially since they
were capable of living and acting in bodies more perfect
and more accommodate to their new undefiled natures !
Certainly could they have been put to their choice,
whether they would have come into being upon such
terms, they would rather have been	for ever.
And God doth not use to make His creatures so as that,
without their own fault, they shall have cause to unwish
themselves.
14. That this tenet was in Europe the absolute creed
of such men as Pythagoras, Epicharmus, Empedocles,
Cebes, Euripides, Plato, Socrates, Euclid, Philo, Virgil,
Cato, Cicero, Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus, Psellus, Boe-
thius, and others of the most wise and learned that ever
lived, weighs not in the least with the Petro-Paulite sage,
D 358
THE BOOK OF GOD.
Mid probably he has never exercised a thought upon the
subject. Yet he would do well to consider that, when
the disciples said to the Ninth Messenger himself; /Some
MM/ /Aa/ %Aow art .7oA% tAe AtaytMt, sowM	a?uZ otAers
Jerew/as, or ome o/* tAo pro/iA^ts; thus regarding him as a
transmigrated teacher, and probably having heard that
he had privately hinted to his disciples that he was so :
Jesus neither repudiated the possibility of such a change,
nor even denied that it was applicable to himself; things
that we may be certain that sublime Teacher, who could
not endure that those around him should remain in
ignorance, would have done, had the theory which the
disciples spake of been untrue. (12) .Ifat. xvi. 14 ;
JfarA viii. 28; AnAc ix. 19. And see Afat. xviii. 10,
where the same subject was again brought prominently
before the notice of the Master. Again, when on another
occasion the disciples asked Jesus; Jfaster, wAo Jit/ sin,
tAi.s* WMW or Ai-s parents, tAat Aewas MinJ? and when
the Master answered, Ye^tAer Ae wor Ais joorewts; he could
not mean the latter literally ; but he admits, as it were,
that the blind man himself might have sinned before bis
birth, and this means transmigration.	ix. 2. And
if it were necessary, or worth while, other portions of
the Old and New Testament might be referred to in
proof of this belief: but no proof is necessary. See the Index
to Book of God, Part III, s. v. Pre-existence and Trans-
migration. The Druids conceived the Soul to be a lapsed
Intelligence, and since the extremity of ANNWN is the
highest and lowest point of existence, the Soul, to regain
its former state, was forced to pass through all the inter-
mediate ; and many of the Druidical ideas on this subject
wonderfully accord with those of Vedantis and Suhs, whoENOCH.
59
conceive that human souls differ Mt (Zgyrcg ad infinitum,
but not at all in kind, from the Divine Spirit, of which
(to use Sir Wm. Jones's words) they are particles, and in
which they will ultimately be absorbed. We read in one
of the Triads, that the Soul is an inconceivably minute
particle of most refined matter, necessarily endued with
life and never dies: but at the dissolution of our body
it passes into another, either higher or lower in the scale
of existence. The Brahminical ideas on this subject are
of the same nature, excepting that nothing material is
imputed to the Soul.	(the soul) proceeded from
God by emanation, wherefore BRAHM, as the Source of
all things, is named	frrea?	The
^Egyptians maintained corresponding doctrines; the
^Egyptian Thcence, according to Euripides, averred that
the Soul possessed uw	falling into an
immortal aither. The transmigration of souls was con-
nected with the	Koaytov, or the Soul of the Uni-
verse, more or less, as is evident from the sixth JEneis of
Virgil, and in the accounts of that Infinite Spirit
whom they denominated </*0as 1103^UJ, and Krou^ts,
^HO^ I, the same sentiments may clearly be traced.
Closely connected with this branch of our disquisition
are the Triads; contained in the Book of God, Part
II, pp. 342—8, to which the reader is referred.
With these Maurice's Dissertation on the Hindu
Bobuns, &c., &c., admirably accords: " Creation is
still in its infancy....................God	will, by the
progressive operations of his providence, bring all beings
to the point of liberty. .	.	. The path of happiness
is open to man to all eternity." Caesar also testifies of the60
THE BOOK OF GOD.
Druids: "They believe the World a thing made, and
some time about to perish in 6re." Appian likewise
avers of the Germans : The Germans despise death from
a hope of a life above. Much to the same purport are
Lucan's spirited verses :—
Et vos, barbaricos ritus, moremque sinistrum
Sacrorum Druidae, positis repetistis in armis
Solis nosse Deos, et cceli Numina vobis
Aut solis nescire datum : nemora alta remotis
Incolitis lucis. Vobis auctoribus, umbrae
N on tacitas Erebi sedes, Ditisque profundi
Pallida regna petunt; regit idem spiritus artus
Orbe alio, longse (canitis si cognita) vitae
Mors media est, &c.
" And you Druids, after arms were laid aside, sought
once again your barbarous ceremonials and the ruthless
usages of your sacred rites. To you alone has it been
granted to know the Gods and the Divinities of Heaven,
or alone to know that they do not exist. In remote forests
do you inhabit the deep glades. On your authority
the shades seek not the silent abodes of Erebus, and
the pallid realms of Pluto in the depths below ; tAe
MM3 fSpM'it groviMVM o^Aer Km&s wt anotAer worM ; death
is the mid space in a prolonged existence, if you sing
what is ascertained to be truth," &c., &c. From
some of the Triads, translated by Mr. Edward
Williams, it appears that they had ideas of a future
judgment, and the Flachamna, or Heaven of Heavens,
of the Irish Druids floating in Ncamliagas, answers to
that of Trimurti, which floats in Akass, or ce/Mtiu/
cBt/nr. Mr. Moor's Hindu Pantheon will furnish
numerous resemblances among the Indians: the GreekENOCH.
61
writers among the ^Egyptians, and the Edda amongst the
Gothic tribes ; the Cel tee particularly believed that warlike
exploits were a sure title to future happiness, as Pel-
loutier observes : " Aussi, lorsque les Irlandaises etaient
accoucMes d'un fils, priaient-elles Dieu, qu'il fit la grace
a cet enfant de mourir it la guerre, et les armes a
la main—likewise when the Irish women were deli-
vered of a son, they prayed to God that this child
might have the good fortune to die in war with arms
in his hands.	JoMrKctZ, Vol. xviii. p. 60.
15. This subject is inseparably connected with another
of the highest importance in the present as in all
other spheres. That every creature forms its own
organization is one of those divine truths which
require only to be considered to be universally acknow-
ledged, and the knowledge of it shows how far advanced
in wisdom were the primeval races of mankind. The
soul or spirit has a creative instinct from its primal
creation by God, when it was formed full of light,
majesty, and beauty, and with all its inclinations tending
unto light, majesty, and beauty : but as a well-educated
man often perverts his powers, and while he confesses
the force of Moral Loveliness, waywardly inclines himself
to evil : so with the spirits before God, they gradually
altered their condition by inclinations after things which
it was impossible that they should possess, and thus
as I have shown, fell from heaven. (13) But the active,
laborious, and creative instinct remained, and will remain
for ever; it is an attribute inseparable from the spirit
which derives it in direct descent from the Almighty
Creator. When, therefore, they desired to live again—
for every secession from the Divine is a species of62
THE BOOH OF GOD.
death—God enabled them to do so by freely allowing
them to fabricate pscychical (soul-like) or physical
(body-like) organs for the development of the qualities
which they possessed; nor could He, indeed, have hin-
dered them except by destroying their creative instinct
and violating one of His own Laws—which He, the
Legislator, could not possibly do. And this property
of self development, applies to every condition of being;
there is no greater dissimilitude between the complex
structure of a man and a mite, than there is between
a man and an archangel; the mite is just as capable
of fabricating the simple shell which its living essence
uses as the instrument of earthly existence, as the very
highest spirit would be, of developing a medium for its
own enjoyment. And as a spirit that had reduced its
splendid nature by successive falls from higher to lower,
in the course of innumerable ages, until it had at last
become a very small and almost imperceptible existence
—a spark from a candle as compared with the sun—
could only develope itself in a shape consistent with
that inferior state ; it follows that every living being is
morally and intellectually an exact representation of the
soul or spirit that animates its external form. And as
the whole Universe, or Kosmos, is filled with spirit-life,
developed actually, or desiring to be developed, so the
latter is irresistibly attracted, as it were, by a magnet,
to that peculiar form of development for which its pro-
perties are in harmony. This truth, which has never
been made known to all before, is occultly alluded to by
Pythagoras thus:	yon A?ww &y wAow yon were
wnwfe, yon wt// Anow yowreey. When, therefore, a spirit
passes from surrounding space into a human medium, andENOCH.
63
begins to fabricate a physical development for itself in
the womb, it fabricates such organs as will best accom-
plish those designs which it believes to be most excellent,
and the most likely to fulfil its own notions of happiness.
Thus a spirit with strong animal and sensual inclinations,
or with a lust of power like Napoleon, would fabricate a
brain and corresponding parts to carry out these inclina-
tions when it came into terrestrial existence and began to
live upon the earth ; and the intellect being equal to the
will, and the materials on which it worked equal to the
intellect, it would succeed; but God would not then be,
as many hold, the Prime Agent, who sent that evil spirit
upon the earth to ravage, devastate, and destroy. So
likewise a spirit which placed its happiness in imaginative
beauty like Shelley, in mere reasoning like Aristotle, in
administrative subtlety like Machiavelli, or in practical
benevolence like Fenelon, would fabricate for itself those
organs in the brain, which would naturally direct and
animate all its pursuits to the end desired ; but it would
not be God who gave to either one or the other their
remarkable qualities, while he made their next door
neighbours hard, selfish, gross, or idiotic. This is what the
phrenologists and predestinarians (14) say/ who, Ending
* Thus a good man, and sound thinker, says :—'' In October,
1835, I saw another example of the same kind in the jail of
Newcastle, in the person of an old man of 73, who was
then under sentence of transportation for theft, and whose
whole life had been spent in crime. He had been twice trans-
ported, and at the age of 73, was still in the hands of justice, to
suffer for his offences against the law. These are facts, and being
facts, if is Cod toAo Aus ordained tAem."—CoMBE's .Vora/ PAi/oso-
pAy, 3d ed., p. 68. To a mind that recognises in God nothing but
the most Perfect and Universal Love, and an absolute impossibi-
lity from His Divine Essence and Nature, that He can in any64
THE BOOK OF GOD.
certain organs that usually accompany propensities, such
as destructiveness in a murderer, secretiveness in a thief,
&c., declare that God makes those organs, and thus they
render Him accountable equally for human crime as well
as human excellence; but the truth is that God does
not make those organs, but that every spirit makes them
for itself out of surrounding matter, and G od is no more
answerable for the immoral propensities of a man, than He
is for the crookedness of a tree, or the obliquity of a moun-
tain stream. As a tree grows, or a stream runs, by laws
immutable, so does man grow and man walk; and God no more
interferes to plant the spirit-seed in fruitful or unfruitful
soil, or when planted there to endow it with good or evil,
than He does with the current of the winds, or the laws
of gravitation, which roll the acorn or rivulet in their
natural course; the one falling in a forest, or a wilderness,
the other carried over rocks, or gliding amid fragrant
herbage.
16. The opinion of the ancient Greek philosopher
Simplicius on a subject nearly akin to this, is not without
interest, and it certainly is far more beautiful than the
notions that seem at present to prevail. For he holds
that the stars have no influence upon the soul that is j^i
man, because it is	and is imperishable;
but that the body, which is the instrument used by the
soul, is affected by them; that every body is constructed
so as to be in exact harmony with the nature of the sold
or life that animates it; and that by a careful examina-
way whatever be connected with human crime or human misery,
the above extract seems horrible. Yet there are multitudes of
good and sensible men, who adopt its sentiments without a
notion of what they lead to.ENOCH.
65
tion of this instrument, as a whole and in its parts, skilful
persons might be able to conjecture of what nature was
its animating soul. Nor can they err much herein, for
always pna&e M.se o/
(Zaw/oya	otou	,* and their appetites may be
discerned according to the nature of their bodies, which
are accommodated to those appetites. That the germ of
phrenological and physiognomical science may be seen in
this, is evident; but the Greek sage was too pious and
too reverent to propound the fatalistic notions of writers
like Combe and his school, who hold that God, having
put a soul into a body with certain tendencies and
appetites for good or evil, punishes it if it gratifies the
last, and rewards it if it subserves the first, when it has
no free will of its own to guide its choice in the selection.
17. Here it may be asked, if this be so, why are not
all men equally skilful in the fabrication of their external
forms : for if God made them all alike, and did not give
one man greater powers than another, all human beings
should be equal at least in intellectual capacity 1 If this
introduction were intended to be a piece of reasoning like
Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, I could
with ease demonstrate in every particular the proposition
which I have advanced. But it is not designed to be a
mere argument. It is an exposition of certain sacred
truths, which cannot be made either stronger or weaker
by any force of reasoning, inasmuch as they are true.
Briefly, however, it may be suggested that God made all
Spirits equal in the very beginning, when He first created
them: that is, He gave them equal, but not uniform or
similar powers. One choir were Spirits of Wisdom ; one
choir Spirits of Love ; one choir Spirits of Knowledge ;66
THE BOOK OF GOD.
one choir Spirits of Beauty ; one choir Spirits of Justice;
and so on until the whole assemblage of divine excellencies
was exhausted. But though wisdom predominated in the
Spirits of the first-named choir, it must not be considered
that they were therefore devoid of Love or Knowledge,
or Justice or Beauty; they possessed all the divine
qualities, but Wisdom was the chief. So with the Spirits
of Love, they also possessed wisdom and all the heavenly
attributes, but love was the predominant excellence.
This is in accordance with one of the Laws of God, who
makes nothing uniform and the same, but is delighted
and delights in variety. But that they were all equal in
the very first, and all consubstantially as one, is proved
by the sympathy which still binds existences as if in one
band, and which connects the highest with the humblest,
and the stranger with the stranger. We have them then
equally happy, but with different qualities. We have a
change, caused by the incidents which I have disclosed.
We have a Spirit of Wisdom, sinking into a lower state,
and by that fall losing intellectual and moral force and
beauty. We have it again ascending, if it has proved
itself worthy to ascend; or descending still lower, and
losing again, as it descends. We have innumerable
myriads of millions on which those changes perpetually
operate, through the millions of ages which have elapsed
since God first began to emane or to create. Will these
produce no variety! Will these not account for the
diversity which we now see in all human beings!—a
diversity not produced immediately by the hand of God,
who cowM not be so unjust as to make one man a king of
men (intellectually) and another a moping idiot, or a
grinning lunatic. At each new change a new medium ofENOCH.
67
development is needed for the spirit: it is an everlasting
essence, which can never be wholly extinguished, for it is
of the Fire of God : it exists, and be somewhere, and
we know that God will not permit it to be inactive, for
inaction is against all the fundamental Laws of the
Supreme. Something must be done with it, and it must
live in some place. Now comes in the Law of Attraction
which we see exercised before our own eyes a hundred
times in the day, though we may be unconscious of it;
and this Law universally prevails. The damned, says
Bidpai, attract the damned: the blessed attract the
blessed: although this must not be taken as wiMwrsaKy
true. The disembodied spirit comes under this Law, and
is attracted to a Sphere of Life and a condition of being in
unison, or as nearly as can be, with its own attributes.
This attraction is modified by circumstances and chances :
it is by mere accident that one spirit is attracted to the
owner of a throne, and another to the inmate of a hovel.
But being attracted into body, it begins to operate upon
the surrounding matter. If the matter be good, equally
sound and good will be its physical development: if the
matter be weak or feeble, or corrupted, or subject to
disease, equally so will be the form which it fabricates.
God does not himself send one man upon the earth with
an iron constitution which will enable him to enjoy
perfect health and strength for a hundred years, while to
another He gives that puny fragile form which a single
blast can wither and destroy; or which, if it survives for
years, subsists only in a state of chronic misery. These
things are pure accident: at all events it is better to
believe this than to accuse the Divine Father of actual
injustice on the earth, while an excuse is offered that He68
THE BOOK OF GOD.
will set it all right in heaven. And what I say of the
physical, I apply also to the intellectual organization,
which is the exact representative of the spirit that makes
it. All the spirits that come upon the visible earths have
different powers, modified by almost innumerable changes,
the result of varied existences and transmigrations during
millions and millions of years. They are no longer equal
nor uniform, as they once were. Some have considerable
intellectual strength—these were once among the Spirits
of Wisdom, or the Spirits of Knowledge, and they retain
still a portion of that faculty which then predominated,
even though it may be millions and millions of degrees
reduced in force. In some again the softer attributes
prevail—these were once among the Spirits of Love ;
and so on to infinity. Thus by the simplest rules of
logic the diversity of the human family is at once
explained, and the mind relieved from the dread necessity
of imputing to the Supreme Governor of the Universe
the moral evil which prevails, and for which He necessa-
rily must be considered in a great measure responsible, if
He makes the present soul with its various errors, and
the existing body with its innumerable corruptions ; and
causes the great majority of mortals to lead a life of
hardship, misery, and starvation.
18. Let us illustrate this truth a little more : let us take
the spirit of Alexander the Great for an example. This
fiery particle was once, in ages far remote, a Spirit of
sublime power in the sacred presence of the Supreme. It
became restless : was inflamed by ambition; it grew dis-
contented : it lapsed into a lower sphere. Its archangelic
manifestation of course ceased : it was reduced in course
of time to its simple element, an electric spark, a flash ofENOCH.
69
6re. This Hash may, in a mighty sphere like Jupiter,
have animated a great power, a daimon, a hero, an
emperor. But though the opportunity of re-ascension
was afforded to it, it became still more corrupt, and
lapsed again, let us say, until it fell on man's earth. The
fire-fl ash still existed, but of course in a lower and less
luminous condition. To become a manifestation, that is,
to develope its powers, is a weceMr/y for every spirit-
nature. In the spirit spheres, it developes itself in
light; but this spirit had fallen away from the immaterial
to the terrestrial spheres, and must of course assume a
material development. This is an universal law. Spirits
thus lapsed wander thick as motes in a sunbeam until
they are attracted to natures in accordance with their
own; but it is matter entirely of chance unto what
special natures they are so attracted. The fire-flash which
afterwards became Alexander, had it been attracted
to a lion, would have developed itself as a lion : having
been attracted to a human magnet, it became a conquer-
ing man. It was not God who sent that spirit into a
man : it was pure accident. God therefore did not send
Alexander on the earth : God did not fabricate his form,
nor aid in making him a triumphant blood-spiller. But
the spirit-flash magnetized into the human organization,
developed in the womb, organs and a body for itself,
capable of carrying out the essential powers, purposes,
and longings of its nature. It was attracted to Philip,
or to the father of Alexander, whoever he may have
been, for his true paternity was and is matter of doubt.
Let us assume however that Philip was his real father.
Philip possessed accordant though perhaps inferior quali-
ties : it mingled itself with Philip's blood and nature; it70
THE BOOK OF GOD.
became an animalcule, and was transmitted by him to
Olympias, who combined in a high degree physical and
mental properties suitable for the development or mani-
festation in the Resh of the spirit so transfused. Within
her the spirit-animalcule worked out its own physical and
cerebral organization, and thus came into terrestrial
existence with a mechanism, self-made, the most suitable
for carrying out its natural powers. It was bom to a
throne ; it was brought up under circumstances peculiarly
favourable for its success; everything around it was
calculated to give it help; and so it became Alexander
the Great. Had chance wafted it to the jungle instead
of to Macedon, it might have been a tiger or a lion ; had
accident carried it into the sea, it might have developed
itself as a sword-fish, a cayman, or a shark. And thus
it is that all spirits fabricate their own development: not
assuredly from a miscegenation of parrots, monkeys, and
the Lord knows what, as the Darwinian sages suppose.*
19. Our soul, says Plato, was somewhere before it came
to exist in this present human form ; whence it appears
to be immortal, and as such it will subsist after death.
And again : 7% %7te %)erpef%a7 c7rc7e o/* wafwre,
are wMK?e OM% o/ <7ea<% as we77 as %Ae <7eatZ o/ %Ae
The same philosopher informs us that some of
the ancients who held these opinions were not without
suspicion that what is now called death is rather a
nativity into life ; and that what is now called a genera-
tion into life is rather to be accounted a sinking into
death. Who knows, says he, whether that which is
* These wise children, however, may be supposed to know their
own father: and if they profess to be the offspring of apes and
monkeys, why should we disbelieve them ?ENOCH.
71
denominated	be not indeed rather	and
whether that which is styled	be not rather /tvtuy ?
This doctrine will be found, like others hinted at here,
in Enoch. The ancients to whom Plato refers were the
first propounders of this system, from whom all nations
have equally derived their tenets; and the absolute im-
mortality of the soul, passing, however, through a long
series of different forms, is at once the doctrine taught in
the Divine Apocalypse, in the Books of Enoch and Fohi,
in the Bhaga-Vad-Geeta, in the traditions of the Celtic
Druids, and in the lore of the old Babylonians and
Egyptians. Similar to the notion of Plato was that of
Empedocles. There is no production, says he, of anything
which was not before; no new substance made which did
not really pre-exist. Therefore, in the generations and
corruptions of inanimate bodies, there is no form or
quality really distinct from the substance produced and
destroyed, but only a various composition and modification
of matter. But in the generation and corruption of men
and animals, where the souls are substances really distinct
from the matter, there is nothing but the conjunction and
separation of souls and particular bodies existing both
before and after :	q/ awy wew soM%
w/ticA twM wo% &e/ore, Mor
q/ a?M/	In short, nothing dies
or utterly perishes ; but things being variously concreted
and secreted, transposed and modified, change only their
form and shape, and are merely put into a new dress. It
were more easy to multiply citations than to avoid
tediousness; yet I cannot refrain from noticing the
curious account of the Pythagorean system which has
been delivered to us by Ovid. To the generally professed72
THE BOOK OF GOD.
doctrines of the everlastingness both of spirit and matter,
the Samian philosopher superadds some of the precise
tenets which the mythic Buddha promulgated at his last
incarnation. The passages which I transcribe exist in
the J7e%(Mno?yAoses, book xv., where Pythagoras is intro-
duced as thus enunciating secret and divine doctrines.
20. And since a god inspires me, he says, I will yield
to the impulse of the inspiring deity ; unfold mysteries,
open the skies, and unveil the dark oracles of the August
Mind. I will sing of mighty truths, long concealed from
human eyes, which the wits of former ages have not been
able to explore. How am I pleased to travel along the
sphere of stars; and, leaving earth, and this listless
habitation of mortals, to mount upon a cloud, and scale
the height of towering Atlas: thence at distance, to
survey the wandering souls of mistaken mortals; to
encourage them, anxious and fearful for the state of
future things, and lay open the whole series of Fate.
O feeble race! why thus alarmed by the vain fear of
death 1 Whence this dread of Styx, and darkness, and
empty names, the fictions of poets, and dreams of an
imaginary world! Whether the body is consumed by
the flame of the funeral pile, or crumbles into dust, the
prey of time, think not that in this you can suffer any
real harm. (?Mr sow/s arg not ywfy'ect to	Zearing,
Z7teir /ormer seats, are received into <7(^erent 7taMtatio?M,
an7 renew //is in ofAer /arms.* Aren 7 (/or 7 remember
* This was the constant assertion of this preeminently wise
and pure Sage, whose love of truth was so great that it is impos-
sible to doubt his sincerity in the belief: will people say then
that Pythagoras was mad ? I suppose so. See ante, 32, and
the allusions of Jesus also to his pre-existence, ante, 37, 38, which
was an allusion of exactly the same nature as that of Pythagoras,ENOCH.
73
4% weZZ) wAo	Z/ie^e ZruZAs tw ZAg Zfmg o/* Z/w
yyo/ctw war, FapAqrAws, fAg aon of TkwzZAovs; aw// Awe
w my oppo.se <7 Areas/ ZAg Aeavy spear o/* Z/se yowmygr son of
^lZreMg. 7 ZafgZy ?'ecoZZeeZe7 /As AwcAZer, wAwA 7 More ypovt
my /e/i! arm, as 7 saw iZ Aa^yray ta ZAe ?gmpZg of .7a/to
aZ Aryos, wAere J Aas yhrmerZy reZywe^. All things are
thus but altered ; nothing dies. 7'Ae soaZ wawcZers yro?a
p/ace Zo pZace, a?r7 seizes aay AoeZy Za :'Zs way. The souls
pass often into hmnan bodies, while others actuate the
limbs of beasts ; and, without perishing, change only their
appearances ; and as the pliant wax receives new figures,
changes its form, nor retains the wonted impression, and
yet is itself still the same, in like manner know that the
soul continues unchanged, and only assumes a variety of
different shapes. And since I am borne along in an
ample sea, and have given my sails without reserve to
the winds, know, that /toZAuty MftZwre eoMZZmws wt Z7w
sama sZaZe; aZZ ZAwrys are w perpefwaZ yZaa:; every
ybrm is fZeeZMty, amZ decays. Time itself runs on in a
continued flow, like a river rolling from its fountain.
For neither can a river, or the flying hours, stop ; but, as
wave is impelled by wave, and that before is urged by
that behind, and urges at the same time its predecessor
wave, thus the minutes Hy; and thus pursue in successive
course, still changing, ever renewed. For those that
were vanished, new ones succeed; and the fleeting
moments are ever on the wing. We see that darkness,
though the Ninth Messenger for good, reasons did not specifically
state that he had been Amosis in a former generation. It was
said of Pythagoras as of Jesus, that he tranquillized the sea, so
that his disciples might pass over it. Iamblichus, Life of P., cap.
28. Jesus had deeply studied the Pythagorean philosophy.
E74
THE BOOK OF GOD.
by a kind of natural impulse, emerges into light, and
that the shining rays of Phoebus take place of the sable
shade of night : nor is the face of heaven the same, when
wearied animals slumber in midnight ease, and the
Morning Star rises bright on his shining steed: and
again, a different face succeeds, when Aurora, daughter
of Pallas, ushering in the morn, spreads over the firma-
ment the splendour of day. Even the orb of Phcebus,
when first he rises from the ocean, or downward bends
his chariot to the earth, is covered with red ; but, high
in his meridian course, he shines serene, as there the
firmament is of aetherial make, and far removed from the
infection of the world below. Nor is the appearance of
nocturnal Diana ever alike or the same : for her face
to-day, if she advances to her full, is less than that of
the succeeding night; but greater when she contracts
her orb. Nay the elements themselves abide not in the
same state : attend, and I will teach you what vicissitudes
they undergo. This unperishing world contains four
bodies, elemental, and productive of the rest. Of these,
two, earth and water, are heavy; and, by their proper
weight, tend downward to the centre. The other two,
air, and fire, still purer than air, as they are void of
weight, and pressed down by no incumbent force, mount
aloft into the upper skies, which though separated, and
distant from each other in place, yet all things are com-
pounded of these, and are all resolved into these again.
Thus earth, dissolved, rarities into water; and water,
expanded, changes to air : the air subtil, and purged of
its weight, refines into the pure element of flame.
Thence they return in a contrary course, and untwist,
with restless toil, the curious web. For fire, condensed,ENOCH.
75
changed to gross air, air to water, and water warps, and
rolls itself into a mass of earth. Thus nothing abides in
its proper form ; but Nature, shifting continually, raises
up one shape after another. Nor does anything in this
mighty world perish or fall to nothing, but only alters
and changes its appearance. % Tww, M
w7ta4	we were uo/; a?:<% %o <7te, w (o cea.se
ayyear wAa7 we eeewe<2 /tere^q/bre; w7ien perAaps 7/w Mwe
e7e?7tew7s are rar?'ows/y M?M?ec7 aw<7 com&7wec7, awZ,
o^er respect, eon^?nw w7*a7 77tey were : M0^7M?!y, 7 am a/%
6e77eve, c<wt%t?twee 7owy wwJer 7Ae sa?ne ./arm. Thus
have the various ages of the world declined from gold to
iron; thus has the fortune of places so often been
changed. I have seen what once was solid earth trans-
formed to sea, and the ocean, in its turn, become solid
land : shells of fishes often lie far distant from the sea,
and rusty anchors are found on the tops of mountains.
What was formerly a plain has been changed by a current
of waters into a valley ; and mountains, by a Hood, have
been levelled to a plain. Marshes are often changed to
dry sand, deserts; parched heaths sometimes stagnate
with standing waters. Here Nature has opened new
fountains, there shuts them up; and rivers, roused by
earthquakes, break out, or vanish and subside (15).
21. All this is ancient and even modern Eastern
theology, while, if we believe the missionaries, the people
themselves, so far from being puriHed thereby, are, like
Europeans, immersed in ignorance and falsehood. If
they are, however, it is not the fault of their religion,
but of the priests who have corrupted it. Nevertheless,
full credence is not to be given to the descriptions which
these people disseminate. They are just as likely to be
E 276
THE BOOK OF GOD.
wrong as Celsus was in his description of the early
Christians, if we may rely upon the observation of the
profound and splendid Origen. The Egyptian philosophers,
he says, have sublime notions with regard to the Divine
Nature, which they keep secret, and never discover to
the people but under a Veil of fables and allegories.
Celsus is like a man (or a missionary) who has travelled
into that country, and though he has conversed with
none but the ignorant vulgar, yet takes it into his head
that he understands the Egyptian religion. All the
Eastern nations, the Persians, the Indians, the Syrians,
conceal secret mysteries under their religious fables.
The wise men of all these religions see into the sense and
true meaning of them, whilst the vulgar go no further
than the exterior symbol, and see only the bark that
covers them.	i., p. 11. Those who draw their
notions of the Eastern theology from such false and
shallow writers as Ward, or of the Oriental philosophy
from such teachers as Mosheim ; or indeed from any but
recondite sources, would do well to meditate on these
reflections, which are as true now as they were when
written, so many centuries ago. There is scarcely one
work, professedly treating of the religions of the East,
which is not disfigured by falsehood or ignorance; and
the great bulk of Europeans, who pride themselves on
their civilization and extensive knowledge, are the dupes
of the most fatal errors, propagated by the most ignorant
of mankind, respecting the religion of three-fourths of
the inhabitants of the earth.
22. Having thus noticed how profoundly wise were
the Ancients in all that related to religion and religious
truth, I may be allowed to go farther, and to state thatENOCH.
77
the labour of an entire life, illuminated by the highest
learning and the warmest enthusiasm, could scarcely do
justice to the sublime and grand ideas of God and the
Future which prevailed in those distant ages among
nations whom we have been sedulously taught to consider
barbarous or savage. Cudworth has done much to
develope the magnificence of the oriental theology ; but
he writes almost without a practical purpose, and so
remains unread. Yet it is impossible not to be filled
with deep shame when we contrast those ancient ideas of
God and the Future with those which are now universal.
Ash an European at the present moment what he is 1
whence he is 1 and how he is formed ! and he will plainly
answer that he knows nothing about it, and probably
laugh at you for being so silly as to speculate on such
nonsense. His ignorance is something fearful to contem-
plate : his sordid love of money or sensualism absorbs
his every faculty of mind and body. He knows that he
is alive, and he thinks that he has a something which he
calls a soul; but where his body came from, or how it
got united to his soul and spirit, or what sort of thing
these may be, appears to him to be so deep a mystery,
that he really never thinks of either, but consoles himself
with the hope that it will be " all right in the end," and
that his priest is just as ignorant as himself. But the
primeval men, taught by God, through His Messengers
Gaudama and Enoch, would have been ashamed to have
thought or answered so. They knew that every man
was an animated principle consisting of a triune force,
rationality, sensitiveness, and corporeality. According
to the ancient system, says Payne Knight, there were
two souls : the one, the principle of thought and percep-78
THE BOOK OF GOD.
tion, called Nous and	; and the other the mere
power of animal motion and sensation, called TuR??.
And this creed, which is true, is unrecognized now.
They maintained that it was absolutely necessary to
believe in the first place that the God who is the
Fabricator of man produced his form, his condition, and
his whole essence in the image and similitude of the
world itself, and that the Eternal exhibited him by the
artifice of a divine fabrication in such a way that in a
small body he might put forth the power and essence of
all the elements : Nature for this purpose bringing them
together, and also so that through the medium of the
Divine Spirit which descended from the Celestial Intellect
he might prepare an abode for man, which, though fragile,
might be similar to the Universe itself. Thus the creature
which was made in imitation of the Universe was governed
by an essence similarly divine; was endowed with a por-
tion of the first attribute of God, or of the Divine Idea,
which is Wisdom ; had a portion of the generative power,
and a portion also of immortality. In like manner every
animal, they said, was a microcosm like man ; beginning
with the wise elephant and descending to the meanest
insect: a portion of the same mind or wisdom, and the
same generative power was visible in all. Every plant
too was a microcosm of the animal, and possessed a por-
tion of mind. The sun-dower turned itself to the God of
day; the pimpernel opened to the sun, and shut itself to
the storm. The ash-tree planted in a bank, with one
root hanging down, turned it inwards till it met the
earth; the sensitive plant, like the youthful maiden, at
first shrunk from the touch of man. Every plant had
the living principle and the organs of generation, andENOCH.
79
thus everything, and the whole Universe, and every part
of the Universe, was an image of the Supreme Being ;
and all were mystically and divinely one, God being at
the very highest summit of the Golden Ladder, which
was from earth to heaven: gods, archangels, angels,
spirits, mortals, living essences at the bottom ; and each
blending and melting into each, like the notes of a divine
melody, finely, imperceptibly, and beautifully.
23. A creed so exquisite as this, even if it were but a
baseless dream, would shine like the sun itself, when
contrasted with the murky darkness in which the religions
of the West find and keep their followers : but when we
know that this creed is absolutely and entirely true, our
admiration of its loveliness is not less powerful than our
acknowledgment of its wisdom. Nor did their ancient
knowledge end here; but it extended itself even into the
actual constitution of the whole essence and form of
man himself, which they declared to be compounded of
sensitive and rational essence—the former made of the
first principles of the elements ; the latter a direct ray of
fire from God transmitted through the Holy Spirit, as a
sunbeam through crystal, but in a state of lapse from
Him, the Pure, the Perfect The Spirit of Life receives
and emanes all life from the Eternal; the soul is formed by
this Spirit, and is in its nature feminine like her; the
body is the joint product of the spirit and the soul
operating on particles taken from all the elements. Hence
the Spirit of God is called Pra-Kriti, Maya, or Illusion,
because she perpetually clothes beings with forms that are
not their own, but are, 1. from God; 2. from herself and
the elemental essences; 3. from the corporeal parts of the
elements. This JAtya, according to certain learned80
THE BOOK OF GOD.
Brahmins, means also the tendency of the Divine Being
to diversify or multiply itself in creating worlds. She is
regarded as the Mother of Nature and of the inferior divi-
nities. Sir W. J ones says, the word Jfctyct or THwsr'oM has
another sense more abstracted in the philosophy of the
Vedantas, where it signifies the system of perceptions
which Divine Omnipotence makes to be produced in
the understandings of His creatures, but which has no
reality independent of the mind. In effect, Maya mysti-
cally means the Holy Spirit, which is the Divine Agent
in the fabrication of the varied All that appears through-
out the infinite Creation, though the Brahmins are so
deeply ignorant at present, that they know it not. When
a spirit changes its soul, and is conjoined to another soul,
higher or lower in the scale of organization, according to
the spirit's properties, this change is called metempsy-
chosis ;—when it transmigrates from one body into
another, as from a man into a lion, it is called metasoma-
tosis. In the Book of Job this distinction between the
soul and spirit is alluded to. The spirit of God hath
formed me (the soul), and the breath of the Almighty
Ones	hath given me life (the spirit), xxxiii. 4.
In the Epistle to the Hebrews, which bears the name of
Paul, but which every divine who is a scholar knows
was not written by Paul, it is expressly mentioned, iv.
12. For the Word of God is quick and powerful, and
sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the
dividing asunder of soul and spirit. This distinction also
is noted in the 7?oo% o/	wi. 14. The spirit
when it is gone forth returneth not ; neither doth the
soul that is received up come back.* This spirit is called
* The soul has three vehicles—one ethereal, another aerial,
and the third, this terrestrial body. The first, which is luminousENOCH.
81
afwta, and it is emaned immediately from the Spirit of
God ; it is enveloped in a radiant sheath of light, which
is called aAom&cwa,* or the soul; this spirit and soul thus
conjoined are the architects of their own corporeal deve-
lopment, and fashion a body in harmony with their own
desires; making for themselves such organs as they think
fit: as we see fishes weave their curious shells, birds
their nests, spiders their webs, butterflies their aerial
forms, &c. This is the creative instinct. All beings,
therefore, form their own bodies and make themselves
what they choose to be. Thus, when the ancients saw a
man the offspring of adultery, incest, or brutal violence
offered to some innocent maiden, they did not suppose, as
all modern Christians must do who hold that the soul is
and celestial, is connate with the essence of the soul, and in
which alone it resides in a state of bliss in the stars. In the
second, it suffers the punishment of its sins after death. And
from the third, it becomes an inhabitant of the earth.—TAYLOR,
7'Aeorefic ArifAwefic, p. 244. Ovid also says :—
Bis duo sunt homini : manes, caro, spiritus, umbra,
Quatuor ista loci bis duo suscipinnt,
Terra tegit camem, tumulum circumvolat umbra,
Orcus habet manes, spiritus astra petit. (16)
* Dr. Adam Clarke, commenting on the words attributed to
Daniel, "I was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body,"
vii. 15, has the following note:—" The words in the original are
uncommonly emphatic. My spirit was grieved or sickened
nidneA, within its sheath or scabbard. Which,
I think, proves—1. That the human spirit is different from the
body. 2. That it has a proper subsistence independently of the
body, which is only its sheath for a certain time. 3. That the
spirit may exist independently of its body, as the sword does
independently its sheath." One would have thought that he
could have had no difficulty in seeing that sheath here eannot
mean body, but ntusf mean soul, and that it is the very aAon:-
hara, or scabbard, of the oriental philosophy, which I should have
thought this learned writer had mastered.
E 382
THE BOOK OF GOD.
created at conception, that God made himseif a party to
these crimes, was present at them, aud actively interfer-
ing as it were, formed a soul which was to animate the
body generated by such a devilish connection; but they
held that the soul existed already though it was in a state
of lapse from heaven and was wandering in space; that
it was a particle of fire attracted to the sphere of earth,
because its desires were of an earthly nature, and it could
not satisfy these desires until it became connected with
body ; that *t became magnetically attracted to such
natures as were most in unison with its own longings,
connected itself with them, and was by them transfused and
transmitted into corporeal being; that it made organs
for itself from the surrounding matter, by the creative
instinct which all souls possess; that if this matter were
accidentally corrupt or insufRcient, it could deal only with
what it had, and hence some men were born with fine
persons and some with foul, and some with great organs
of intelligence, and some with scarcely any : all of which
they held to be the result of the conditions just named,
and not any one of which they held to be the particular
act or providence of God. They would have shuddered
at their own blasphemy, if they could have supposed even
for an instant that God expressly made a soul to fulfil
the object of an adulterous or incestuous union ; or that
he dismissed one man blind into life, and another lame,
aud another diseased in all his organs, while he sent
others brave, intelligent, and in all respects models of
what man in his best condition on earth ought to be (17).
These doctrines were reserved for Europe and its super-
stitions, and it can scarcely be matter of surprise that
where they are thus held the whole of the population are inENOCH.
83
the most debasing state of ignorance, and ready to
commit any blasphemy against the holy nature of the
Supreme Father. That there are wise and good men
among the laity, and also among the clergy, who do not
hold such views, I would fain believe ; but, after a long
and not inattentive inquiry into the tenets which the
latter hold forth from their pulpits, I can only say that I
have not heard them disavowed, nor have I ever heard of
any attempt made to lead the people into a better system
by those who profess to be their oracles of truth.
24. So far, indeed, from disabusing the minds of their
audience of things that are false, the bishops and priests
all agree rather to pretend that, until Jesus preached, the
whole world was in ignorance of God, of the existence of
divine natures, of the immortality of the soul, and of a
future condition of being for the essence of man, and I
have met many persons, otherwise enlightened and
sensible, who really believed this was so (18). No later
ago than the 14th of June in this year, 1870, I myself
heard the Bishop of Wincester (Dr. Wilberforce) in the
inaugural sermon, which he preached at Ardingly College,
in Sussex, reiterate this falsehood, for he told his audience
as a fact that " a Christian child has more real knowledge
than the greatest heathen philosopher," though in what
that knowledge consisted he wisely refrained front
explaining. And this was stated by a bishop of our own
days, and in a country where the vast mass of the people
are sunk in an ignorance which one might weep to think
of. What must not these holy men have ventured upon
in other times, when one of them ventures on such an
assertion in the present? Yet can any fact in history
be more perfectly established, than this, that from the84
THE BOOK OF GOD.
very first, tlie name, the character, and the providence of
God were confessed and adored by all men, and that his
Archangels and Messianic Messengers were owned if not
generally understood 1 It seemeth to me, says a most
ancient writer, that there is, not only One Spirit, but
that there is One, the Greatest and Highest God, who
governeth the whole Universe, and that there are many
others besides Him, differing indeed as to their power ;
but that One God reigneth over them all, who surpasses
all in strength, greatness, and excellence. This is that
Supreme Lord who contains and comprehends the
Kosmos; but the other Divine Natures are they who,
together with the revolution of the Universe, orderly
follow that First and Intelligible God. The Ethio-
pians, says Strabo, acknowledge One Eternal Supreme
Being, who is the First Cause of things; and believe
in another Deity, who is Immortal, Nameless, and
wholly Invisible ; that is the Holy Spirit. The Supreme
Lord, says Seneca, copying the language of primeval
wisdom, when he laid the foundation of this most beau-
tiful fabric, and began to erect that structure than which
Nature knows nothing greater or more excellent, to the
end that all things might be carried on under their
respective governors orderly, albeit, he Himself superin-
tended the whole, so as to preside in chief over all, yet
did He generate divine beings, as subordinate ministers
of His kingdom under Him. Maximus of Tyre expressly
declares that it was the general understanding of all the
Gentiles, from the very first ages, that there was but One
God, the King and Father of all, but many divine ones,
the sons of God. Even the doctrine of an infinity of
inhabited worlds was taught in Greece by AnaximanderENOCH.
85
and Xenophanes, who were merely its recipients from far
remote predecessors, and afterwards by Diogenes Apol-
loniates, B.C. 428, and by Democritus, B.C. 361. They
taught that there is at all times an infinity of co-existent
worlds (world-islands) throughout endless and unbounded
space : and that it is as absurd to think there should be
only one world in space, as that in an extensive held
properly cultivated there should grow up no more than
one single blade of corn. It was the opinion of Demo-
critus that some of these worlds resemble each other,
whilst others are entirely dissimilar. This was 2400
years ago. Yet recently we had a controversy among
some of our learned philosophers and divines whether
the earth was not the only one of the innumerable
planets which was peopled. The orthodox and the
divines of course maintained that it was, and proved
by the Scripture that all the rest of space, with its
living stars and systems, was a blank vacuity, wholly
devoid of existence. And yet by such as these the
philosophy of the Past is mocked at as but foolishness.
The whole world, says Apuleius, worshippeth only One
Supreme Deity in a multiform manner under different
names and different rites—which different names, adds
Cudworth, for One and the Supreme God might, therefore,
be mistaken by some of the sottish vulgar amongst the
Pagans, as well as they have been by learned men of these
later times, for so many distinct unmade and self-
existent deities.
25. Pythagoras, whose name in Welsh singularly
enough means explication of the Universe, from the
verb pyfAayort, to explain the system of the universe,
(Owen's Zh'c/Minary, ver&. : Picfef. Prce/.), thus ex-86
THE BOOK OF GOD.
pounded At# theology more than five hundred years before
the boasted Christian sera. " God is neither the object of
sense, nor subject to passion ; but Invisible, only Intelli-
gible, and supremely Intelligent. 7%	Ae fs KAe
(Ae /fyAf,	Aw 77e	^Ae TrwfA. He is
the Universal Spirit that pervades and diffuses itself over
all nature. All beings receive their life from Him.
There is but One only God, who is not, as some are apt
to imagine, seated above the world, beyond the Orb of
the Universe; but being himself all in all, He sees the
beings that 611 His immensity ;—the only Principle, the
Light of Heaven, the Father of all. He produces every-
thing : He orders and disposes of everything : He is the
Reason, the Life, and the Motion of all beings. That
God, says Iamblichus, and it would be difficult to define
him more augustly, who is the Cause of generation, and
the whole of nature, and of all powers of the elements
themselves, is separate, exempt, elevated above, and
expanded over, all the powers and elements in the World.
For being above the World, and transcending the same,
immaterial and incorporeal, supernatural, unmade, indi-
visible, manifested wholly from himself and in himself,
He ruleth over all things, and in himself containeth all
things, and because He virtually comprehends all things,
therefore does He impart and display the same from
himself.
26. Historians, both sacred and profane, says Abb§
Tressan, in his Mythology, speak of Egypt as one of the
wisest of nations, and one of the eulogiums which the
inspired writings pass on Moses and on Solomon is, that
they were skilled in all the sciences of the Egyptians. We
must carefully distinguish then between the ignoranceENOCH.
87
which reigned among the multitude and the profound
wisdom of those who cultivated the sciences and had
read the works attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, or
thrice-great [Thoth]. According to this celebrated man,
"God existed	Cm/y before all beings. He is the
source of all that is intelligent—the Finst incomprehen-
sible Principle—himself all-sufhcient and Father of all
Essences. We shall likewise give Zoroaster's defini-
tion of Him : it is the most beautiful production of
antiquity. Eusebius has preserved it in his Evangelical
Preparation; he transcr ibed it literally from a book of
Zoroaster's still extant in his time, entitied, J. tSacrer/
Co/fgcftoM of .Persian JPoMtwMwfs. God, it says, is the
First of incorruptibles, Eternal, not begotten. He is
not composed of parts; there is nothing like Him, or
equal to Him. He is the Author of all good, the most
excellent of all excellent beings, and the wisest of all
Intelligences : the Father of Justice and good laws, self-
instructed, all-sufhcient in himself, and the original
Author of all Nature. Orpheus declares that there exists
an Unknown Being, who is the highest and Most Ancient
of all beings, and Author of all things : this Sublime
Being is Life, Light, and Knowledge; three names
expressive of that power which out of nothing formed all
things visible and invisible.
27. The religion of the Hindu sage, says Coleman, in
his Jfy(Ao7oyy of Pre ZZrupMg, as inculcated by the Veda,
is the belief in, and worship of, one great and only God
—omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, of whose
attributes he expresses his ideas in the most awful terms.
These attributes he conceives are allegorically (and allego-
rically only) represented by the three personified powers88
THE BOOK OF GOD.
of Creation, Preservation, and Destruction—Brahma,
Vishnu, and Siva, while the Father is described as the
Almighty, iniinite, eternal, incomprehensible, self-existent
being ; He who sees everything, though never seen ; He
who is not to be compassed by description, and who is
beyond the limits of human conception; He from whom
the universal world proceeds; who is the Lord of the
universe, and whose work is the universe; He who is the
light, of all lights, whose name is too sacred to be pro-
nounced, ai d whose power is too infinite to be imagined
BRAHM ! the one, unknown, true being, the creator, the
preserver, and destroyer of the universe. Under such,
and innumerable other definitions, is the Deity acknow-
ledged by the Veda, or sacred writings of the Hindus.
I believe, says Varro, epitomising one of the most
ancient creeds, that God is the Soul of what the Greeks
calls Kosrnos, the Universe, and that the Universe
itself is God. But as a wise man is so denominated
from his Mind, though he consists of mind and body,
in the same manner the Universe is called God from
the Mind that predominates. It is divided into two
parts, Heaven and Earth; and Heaven into other two,
Ether and Air; and Earth into water and land. The
highest of these is the Ether, next Air, then Water,
and lastly Earth. wAtcA /bur par%3 arg /a// o/ Kwny
; the Ether and Air of those that be immortal,
but land and water of the mortal. From the utmost
circumference of heaven to the orbit of the moon,
inhabit ethereal minds, the Host of Heaven, who are
not only understood but seen to be celestial gods. Be-
tween the moon's orbit and the height to which the
winds and rains ascend are aerial beings not to beENOCH.
89
perceived by the eye but only by the mind, and they
are called Heroes, Lares, and Genii.
28. The following may be given as a brief summary
of the Orphic theology—the oldest known in Europe,
having been taught fourteen hundred years before the
Christian sera :—
1.	Before the Creation, God was united with whatever
is, in such manner that in Him were contained all
things that are, or have been, or shall ever be, and thus
from all eternity did all forms remain concealed within
His Essence.
2.	At a fixed time God separated these from Himself,
and thus gods, goddesses, the sun, stars, moon, planets,
and all that is, were produced.
3.	By the laws of emanation, therefore, all things
participate in the Essence of God, and are His parts and
members, and nothing is devoid of the Divine Nature.
4.	As every part of the Universe participates of the
Divine Nature, each part may be justly considered to be
in itself also divine.
5.	The essence of God thus proceeding from Him,
and being present tn all things, is the sole animating
power.
6.	Hence also as all things are not only from God,
but also in God, an infinity of the Divine must be
admitted.
7.	This Divine Nature may be venerated in its parts
by those who from the infirmity of human nature are
unable to comprehend any idea of the Supreme God,
who from most is Concealed, Invisible, and Unknow-
able.
8.	No image or representation of God is lawful since90
THE BOOK OF GOD.
He is diffused throughout the Universe, and the Universe,
therefore, is His only proper Image.
9.	Since all things have proceeded from God, they
must all return to Him, and this reunion will be the
highest state of beatitude to which the pure and pious
can attain.
10.	But many transmigrations and purifications must
take place before this can happen, or the lapsed Soul be
so purified as to admit of its returning to that Source
from which it emanated.
29.	These sublime and holy ideas concerning the
Supreme Essence, and more especially those contained
in numbers 7 and 8, now pervade the whole of that vast
community of mortals who constitute the followers of
the Tenth Messenger, and have helped to imbue their
faith with much of its inherent grand simplicity, while
the contrary feeling among Christians has tended to
degrade the Idea of the One.
30.	Why should we seek, says the august Arabian
sage, to comprehend what cannot be comprehended 1 It
is a tree which hath neither root, nor trunk, nor any
branch, for the thought to lay its hold upon. It is a
riddle in which man can find neither a literal nor a
metaphorical sense, and of which man can give no satis-
factory explanation. God is infinitely above the capacity
of our understandings, and we always lose ourselves when
we would comprehend, or guess at what He is. Let it
suffice, therefore, that we adore him with religious silence.
In the same spirit was the definition of God given by an
ancient Irish priest. God is Beginning—without a
beginning; a finer idea than anything in the vaunted
Psalms of the Hebrews, where God is too frequentlyENOCH
91
represented as a Man, rather than as the Universal
Ruler and Creator. This may be supplemented by a
further exposition of the creed which " benighted
heathens " held, until Paul and his rabblement threw back
the world into barbarism and ignorance.
31.—1. There is One First Cause of all things, whose
nature is so immensely transcendant that it is even
Super Essential, and in consequence of this it cannot
properly either be named, or spoken of, or conceived by
opinion, or be known or perceived by any being.
2.	That if it be lawful to give a name to that which
is truly Ineffable, the appellations of One, and fAe
CooJ, are, of aH others, the most adapted to it; the
former of these names indicating that it is the Principle
of all things; the latter, that it is the ultimate Object of
Desire to all things.
3.	That this Immense Principle produced such things
as are first and proximate to itself, just as the heat
t'vwTMtfMtfefy proceeding from fire is most similar to the
heat of the fire, and the light wytmeahufe/y emanating
from the sun to that which the sun essentially contains.
Hence this Principle produces many principles proxi-
mately from itself.
4.	That since all things differ from each other, and
are multiplied with their proper differences, each of these
multitudes is suspended from its one proper principle.
That in consequence of this, all beautiful things, whether
in souls or in bodies, are suspended from One Fountain
of Beanty. That whatever possesses symmetry, and
whatever is true, and all principles are in a certain
respect connate with the First Principle, so far as they
are principles, with an appropriate subjection and analogy.92
THE BOOK OF GOD.
That all other principles are comprehended in this First
Principle ; not with interval and multitude, but as parts
in the whole, and number in the monad. That it is not
a certain principle like each of the rest, for of those one
is the Principle of Beauty, another of Truth, and another
of something else ; but it is simply Principle. Nor is it
simply the Principle of Beings, but it is the Principle of
principles; it being necessary that the characteristic
property of principle, after the same manner as other
things, should not begin from multitude, but should be
collected into One Monad, as a summit, and which is the
Principle of Principles, or God.
5.	That such things as are produced by the First Good,
in consequence of being connascent with it, do not recede
from essential goodness since they are immoveable and
unchanged, and are eternally established in the same
blessedness. All other natures, however, being produced
by the one good and many goodnesses since they fall off
from essential goodnesses and are not immovably estab-
lished in the nature of Divine Goodness, possess on this
account the good according to participation.
6.	That as all things considered as subsisting casually
in this Immense Principle, are transcendently more
excellent than they are when considered as effects pro-
ceeding from him ; this Principle is very properly said to
be all things	to all	denoting exempt
transcendancy. Just as number may be considered as
subsisting occultly in the Monad, and the circle in the
centre, this Occult being the same in each with casual
subsistence.
7.	That the most proper mode of venerating this
Great Principle of Principles is to extend in silence theENOCH.
93
ineffable parturitions of the soul to its ineffable cosensa-
tion ; and that if it be at all lawful to celebrate it, it is
to be celebrated as a Thrice Unknown Darkness, as the
God of all Gods and the Unity of all unities; as more
Ineffable than all silence, and more Occult than all
essence; as Holy among the holies, and Concealed in its
first progeny—the Intelligible Gods.
8.	That self-subsistent natures are the immediate
offspring of this Principle, if it be lawful thus to
denominate things which ought rather to be called
ineffable, unfolding into light from The Ineffable.
9.	That incorporeal forms or ideas resident in a divine
intellect are the paradigms or models of everything
which has a perpetual subsistence according to nature.
That these ideas subsist primarily in the highest intel-
lects ; secondarily in souls, and ultimately in sensible
natures; and that they subsist in each characterised by
the essential properties of the beings in which they are
contained. That they possess a paternal, producing,
guardian, connecting, perfective, and uniting power.
That in divine beings they possess a power fabricative
and gnostic; in nature a power fabricative but not
gnostic ; and in human souls in their present condition,
through a degradation of intellect, a power gnostic but
not fabricative.
10.	That this world, depending on its Divine Artificer,
who is himself an Intelligible World replete with the
archetypal ideas of all things, is perpetually Bowing, and
perpetually advancing to being, and compared with its
paradigm has no stability or reality of being. That
considered however as animated by a Divine Soul, and
as being the receptacle of divinities from whom bodies94
THE BOOK OF GOD.
are suspended, it is justly called by Plato a Messed
God.
11.	That the great body of this World which subsists
in a perpetual dispersion of temporal extension, may be
properly called a whole with a total subsistence; or a
whole of wholes, on account of the perpetuity of its
duration; though this is nothing more than a flowing
eternity. That the other wholes which it contains are
the celestial spheres, the sphere of aether, the whole of
air considered as one great orb, the whole earth and the
whole sea. That these spheres are parts with a total
subsistence, and through this subsistence are perpetual.
12.	That all the parts of the Universe are unable to
participate of the Providence of Divinity in a similar
manner; but some of its parts enjoy this eternally, and
others temporarily ; some in a primary, and others in a
secondary degree; for the Universe being a perfect
whole, must have a first, a middle and a last part. But
its first parts, as having the most excellent subsistence,
must always exist according to nature; and its last parts
must sometimes exist according to, and sometimes con-
trary to nature. Hence the celestial bodies, which are
the first parts of the Universe, perpetually subsist
according to nature ; both the whole spheres and the
multitude coordinate to these wholes; and the only
alteration which they experience is a mutation of figure,
and variation of light at different periods; but in the
sublunary region, while the spheres of the elements
remain on account of their subsistence as wholes always,
according to nature ; the parts of the wholes have some-
times a natural and sometimes an unnatural subsistence;
for thus alone can the circle of generation unfold all theENOCH,
95
variety which it contains. The different periods, therefore,
in which these mutations happen, are with great propriety
called by Plato periods of fertility and sterility; for in
these periods a fertility or sterility of men, animals, and
plants takes place; so that in fertile periods mankind
will be both more numerous, and upon the whole inferior
in mental and bodily endowments, to the men of a barren
period. And a similar reasoning must be extended to
irrational animals and plants. The most dreadful conse-
quence likewise attending a barren period, with respect
to mankind, is this, that in such a period they have no
scientific theology, and deny the existence of the immediate
progeny of the Ineffable Cause of all things.
13. That as the divinities are eternally good and
profitable, but are never noxious and ever subsist in the
same uniform mode of being, we are conjoined with them
through similitude when we are virtuous ; but separated
from them through dissimilitude when we are vicious.
That while we live according to virtue, we partake of
the Gods; but cause them to be our enemies when we
become evil: not that they are angry (for anger is a
passion, and they are impassive), but because guilt pre-
vents us from receiving the illuminations of the Gods,
and subjects us to the power of avenging demons. Hence
if we obtain pardon of our guilt through prayers and
sacrifices, we neither appease the Gods, nor cause any
mutation to take place in them, but by methods of this
kind, and by our conversion to a divine nature, we apply
a remedy to our vices, and again become partakers of the
goodness of the Gods. So that it is the same thing to
assert that divinity is turned from the evil, as to say that
the sun is concealed from those who are deprived of sight.96
THE BOOK OF GOD.
14.	That a divine nature is not indigent of anything.
But the honours which are paid to the Gods are performed
for the sake of the advantage of those who pay them.
Hence, since the providence of the Gods is extended
everywhere, a certain habitude or fitness is all that is
requisite for the reception of their beneficent communica-
tions. But all habitude is produced through imitation
and similitude. On this account temples imitate the
heavens, but altars the earth. Statues resemble life, and
on this account they are similar to animals. Herbs and
stones resemble matter, and the animals which are
sacrificed the irrational life of our souls. From all
these however nothing happens to the Gods beyond what
they already possess, for what accession can be made to a
divine nature 1 But a conjunction of our souls with the
Gods is by these means effected.
15.	That as the world, considered as one great com-
prehending whole, is a divine animal, so likewise every
whole which it contains is a world possessing in the first
place a self-perfect unity proceeding from the Ineffable
by which it becomes a God : in the second place a divine
intellect; in the third place a divine soul; and in the
last place a deified body. That each of these wholes is
the producing cause of all the multitude which it con-
tains, and on this account is said to be a whole prior to
parts, because considered as possessing an eternal form
which holds all its parts together, and gives to the whole
perpetuity of subsistence, it is not indigent of such parts
to the perfection of its being. And it follows by a
geometrical necessity that these wholes which rank thus
high in the universe must be animated.
16.	That of the Gods some are mundane but othersENOCH.
97
are supermundane, and that the mundane are those who
fabricate the world. But of the supermundane, some
produce essences, others intellect, and others soul; and
on this account they are distinguished into three orders.
Of the mundane Gods also, some are the causes of the
existence of the world, others animate it, others again
harmonise it, thus composed of different natures; and
lastly, others guard and preserve it when harmonically
arranged.
17.	That man is a microcosm comprehending in himself
partially everything which the world contains divinely
and fofafO/. That hence he is endued with an intellect
subsisting in energy, and a rational soul proceeding from
the same causes as those from which the Intellect and
Soul of the Universe proceed. And that he had likewise
an ethereal vehicle, analogous to the heavens, and a terres-
trial body composed from the four elements, and with
which also it is co-ordinate.
18.	That the rational part of man, in which his essence
consists, is of a self-motive nature; and that it subsists
between intellect, which is immovable both in essence and
energy, and nature, which both moves and is moved.
19.	That the human as well as every mundane soul
uses periods and restitutions of its proper life. For in
consequence of being measured by time it energizes
transitively and possesses a proper motion. But every-
thing which is moved perpetually, and participates of
time, revolves periodically and proceeds from the same to
the same.
20.	That as the human soul ranks among the number
of those souls that somettwes follow the mundane divini-
ties, in consequence of subsisting immediately after
F98
THE BOOK OF GOD.
daimons and heroes, the perpetual attendants of the
Gods, it possesses a power of descending infinitely into
the sublunary region, and of ascending from thence to
real being. That in consequence of this, the soul, while
an inhabitant of earth, is in fallen condition, an apostate
from deity, an exile from the orb of light. That she can
only be restored while on earth to the divine likeness,
and be able after death to reascend to the intelligible
world, by the exercise of the cafAartm and
virtues; the former purifying her from the defilements of
a mortal nature, and the latter elevating her to the
Vision of true being. And that such a soul returns after
death to her kindred star from which she fell, and enjoys
a blessed life.
21.	That the human soul essentially contains all
knowledge, and that whatever knowledge she acquires
in the present life is nothing more than a recovery of
what she once possessed, and which discipline evocates
from its dormant retreats.
22.	That the soul is punished in a future for the
crimes she has committed in the present life; but that
this punishment is proportioned to the crimes, and is not
perpetual; Divinity punishing not from anger or revenge,
but in order to purify the guilty soul, and restore her to
the proper perfection of her nature.
23.	That the human soul on its departure from its
present life will, if not properly purified, pass into other
terrene bodies ; and that if it passes into a human body,
it becomes the soul of that body, but if into the body of
a brute, it does not become the soul of a brute, but is
externally connected with the brutal soul, in the same
manner as presiding daimons are connected in theirENOCH.
99
beneficent operations with mankind; for the rational
part never becomes the soul of the irrational nature.
24. Lastly, that souls that live according to virtue,
shall in other respects be happy; and when separated
from the irrational nature, and purified from all body,
shall be conjoined with the Gods, and govern the whole
world together with the deities by whom it was pro-
duced.
32. The FiRST CAUSE, says Taylor, the Platonist, in
his notes to Pausanias, according to the Pythagorean and
Platonic philosophers, on account of his transcendent
simplicity, was called THE ONE ; this name being adapted
the best of all others to a nature truly ineffable and
unknown. But it is impossible that such a nature
could produce this visible world without mediums
(intermediate powers) ; since, if this had been the case,
all things must have been like himself, natures ineffable
and unknown. It is necessary therefore that there
should be certain Mighty Powers between the First
Cause and us : for we in reality are nothing more than
the dregs of the universe. These mighty Powers, from
their surpassing similitude to the First God, were very
properly by the ancients called gods, and were considered
by them as perpetually subsisting in the most admirable
and profound union with each other and the First Cause,
yet so as amidst this union to preserve their own essence
distinct from that of the Highest God. Hence, as Proclus
beautifully observes, they may be compared to trees rooted
in the earth; for as those by their roots are united with
the earth, and become earthly in an eminent degree
without being earth itself) so the gods by their summits100
THE BOOK OF GOD.
are profoundly united to the First Cause, and by this
means are transcendently similar to, without being, the
First Cause. But these mighty Powers are called by the
poets a (7oMen CAawt, on account of their connection with
each other and their incorruptible nature.
33. Zaleucus, who lived about a thousand years before
the Christian sera, and who is said to have been chief
ruler among the Locrians, left them and ordained the
following summary of religious belief, which appears to
me very much superior to any that I can find in the
same short space among teachers of greater pretension.
Every man, he says, ought to be convinced of the
existence of God. He who shall observe the order,
harmony, and music of the Universe, cannot believe that
chance has formed this splendid structure. He should
be master also of his own mind - he should purify his
soul, by disengaging it from all evil inclinations ; holding
it as his creed that the Supremely Pure cannot be adored
by the corrupt; and that THE DrviNE has no likeness to
those miserable human beings who allow themselves to
be dazzled by magnificent ceremonies, or by sumptuous
offerings. Virtue only, and the constant desire to do
good, are pleasing in the eyes of Him. He therefore
who sincerely labours to be just and true in his prin-
ciples, and conforms his daily life to those ends, will
make himself beloved in the eyes of God. ZeZ every
worZaZ Muw avowZ wAaZ way Zea<% At'w wZo (Ztsyrace, before
%Ae ZTeewenZy ZZwZer, wore aww'oweZy ZAan /Ae winor ew'Z
o/poverty : _/br Ztonovr M Aesfowe^Z Ay a// /Ae wtse on Atw
!oAo pre/ers yostt'ce ?o were weaZtA. The many whom
their violent passions drag into evil, men, women,
children, citizens, common people, should be taught toENOCH.
101
have the Divine Ones before them, and to reflect often
on the severe judgment which they shall be bound to
execute on the sinful. They should see perpetually in
front of their eyes the form of Death, that fatal hour
which awaits us all; an hour wherein the recollection of
our past crimes will be attended with dread remorse;
and when the doers of evil will repent that all their acts
had not been subjected to the severe but salutary laws of
entire equity. Let each one therefore so rule his life as
if every moment of his life were to be the last; but if
some evil power should at any time ensnare, to the
commission of crime, a frail mortal, let him fly a suppliant
to the feet of the Altar; let him pray to Heaven to give
him its assistance, and shield him from the power of all
sin; let him entreat that he may be supported and led
on in life by the Spirit of Beauty, whose counsels shall
conduct him into virtuous thoughts and deeds, vividly
the while bringing before his eyes the mildness, but the
indexible justice of the Most High God. There is
nothing, says the Abbe Bazin, in his ZZi^ory o/ 77M7o-
soy/ty, c. 27, in all antiquity which is superior to this
simple but sublime fragment, dictated by reason and by
excellence; but all antiquity, he might have added, is
full of fragments equally sublime. And this is so,
whether we begin with the philosophers and teachers
immediately preceding the advent of J esus, or ascend to
the first rise of religion among the Chinese, when it was
proclaimed to that most ancient people that there is One
the First Principle, who hath no beginning, who hath no
end. He hath made all things. He governs all. He
is infinitely good, infinitely just: He illuminates ; He
sustains ; He governs the Universe : a finer definition of102
THE BOOK OF GOD.
God than I have ever read in any Christian writer, or
ever heard preached from any Christian pulpit (19).
34. Plato proposes as the most proper way to form the
minds of children that little moral tales should be told
them by their mothers and nurses as soon as they can
speak. But as these enticing tales, if of a bad tendency,
might lead young minds to vice, he is at great pains to
give some remarkable restrictions concerning the species
of t*les he would alone have told. As first that no
authorized tale must teach that ever	wan war tw
or any discord or unbecoming passion incident to
the Divine Nature. Then, that as the Supreme Being
is always just, good, and beneficent, no god must ever be
said to be the cause of any real ill to men. And lastly,
since the Deity is One simple Essence, always true in
word and deed, he neither transforms himself into various
shapes to appear to men, nor does He impose upon our
senses by empty phantoms, much less deceive us by false
speeches, or by sending delusive signs to men whether
asleep or awake. Wherefore the Gods in any tale must
never be represented as transforming themselves like
jugglers, or leading people astray with any sort of
sophistry in words or deeds. These cautions were
chiefly intended against Hesiod, Homer, and -TEschylus,
out of whose poems he produces instances of tales
unworthy of the Divine Nature, and of whose bewitching
imagery the philosopher is so apprehensive, that he will
not allow such stories to be told to young persons, neither
with an allegory nor without one. For, says he, a young
creature is not capable of observing what parts of the
Tale may be allegorical and what not; while in the
meantime the impressions made at these years on theENOCH.
103
imagination are scarcely to be afterwards wiped out, but
for the most part remain indelible during life. It has
often occurred to me to ask myself what would Plato
think if he lived now, in the boasted sera of civilization,
when we are really more ignorant of true knowledge
than we were centuries ago. How would he be shocked
to End the greater portion of the Christian world
believing as true the absurd amd blasphemous theology
of Milton's Paradise; and accepting Zt&sroMy the meta-
phorical language of the Old and New Testament. Yet
it is thus that they are taught in Sunday school and
pulpit; and fables which the ancient world would have
laughed to scorn, or branded as most impious, are
positively believed by millions of our Paulites, and are
hypocritically supported by scholars and philosophers,
who in their souls despise them for their atheistic
tendency. But the fate of Socrates has made most men
timid, and the timidity of the wise has made the world
a slave.
35. The ancients held that the conversion of a man
from vice to vir tue, from ignorance to knowledge, from
an adoration of the earth to the worship of heaven, was
the work of time, and the result of labour; that a long
self-purificatory process was to be gone through, and that
to this end it was absolutely essential that man should
&nom The moderns, in great multitudes, hold that this
is wholly absurd; that conversion is the miraculous work
of the Holy Ghost effected in one moment; that it is
the result of grace, though no man knows what grace
means, nor has it ever been intelligibly defined; and
that on the whole it is far better to be ignorant than to
possess knowledge ; for that the ignorant are peculiarly104
THE BOOK OF GOD.
the favoured of God, who primarily regards " babes and
sucklings," while He generally leaves the wise and
learned to shift for themselves, as best they may. To
knowledge, if it be restricted wholly to their own
peculiar tenets, with the most resolute determination
to abjure and persecute the tenets of all other sects, the
priests do not offer any especial objection; but as a
general rule they laud the extremely ignorant, and say
that it was for those their Redeemer came, to them
especially he preached, and with them almost all his
social hours were passed. " The deepest impressions of
evil custom and the darkest stains of corrupted nature
are suddenly wiped out and effaced," says Warburton in
his Doc^Hwe o/* Grace (p. 72), illustrating that wondrous
agent; and this indeed constitutes an article in the creed
of many millions, who aver, moreover, that the wholly
illiterate are most generally the objects of this divine
transformation. But have they ever asked themselves
this question, If so thorough an alteration can be
wrought in a man by the immediate operation of the
Spirit of God, and the worst may in an instant have
their habits of vice changed to habits of virtue and
goodness, why does a Being of infinite mercies and
unbounded power ever make use of severe methods with
His children ? Why did He work a miracle to destroy a
world and to sweep away the innocent babe with the
guilty offender, the blushing virgin and the hoary robber,
as in the case of their fabulous Flood, when another
miracle equally easy to Him, and, as it ought to seem,
far more consonant with his divine paternal character,
might have made them all good and happy in a moment!
Would any earthly parent c&vwn. his children, when heENOCn.
105
could as easily preserve their lives, and make them
virtuous and happy! (20). A philosophical reply to this
would be difficult; but the satisfactory response always
given is somewhat as follows: We are unable to com-
prehend the purposes of God; in another life they will
be all cleared up; all we now know is that 77a cM
but He did none can tell, and nobody is entitled to
ask. Our duty is to believe and tremble, &c., &c. That
a day will come when even children will mock this
solution, though urged upon them by all the bishops in
the land, I am quite positive ; but at present it imposes
on the understanding of many wise, many shrewd, and
many good men ; and is of course a vital doctrine with
the profoundly ignorant who constitute the bulk of
believers, and who gladly hear that they are the
favourites of heaven.
36. The ancients held that it was wwpossiMe for God
to change, for mutability is an attribute of the erring
and imperfect; that it was impossible for God to rest
or go to sleep, but that His creative powers were
being incessantly developed, action being the great
distinctive badge of His Omnipotent Nature, and that it
was impossible for Him to do anything which contra-
dicted any of His own enactments : no matter how
strong the apparent necessity for his so doing should
seem to be. The modems hold that with God all
things are possible ; that He has the most entire defiance of
time, space, law, and circumstance ; that He could change
himself into a monkey, a rat, or a devil, if He liked ;
many of them hold that He is the latter already (See
32); that He could destroy a whole world of inno-
cent beings if it pleased Him; that He could tell lies,
F 310G
THE BOOK OF GOD.
commit robbery, swear falsehood, and so on, if it suited
His notions at any particular period, and they cite the
Old Testament in proof of these opinions. It requires
no argument with any one who is sane to convince him
that these things are absolute impossibilities with God
—that He could not under any contingency do or effect
them any more than that He could annihilate himself;
and that to suppose He could must necessarily lead to
the most fearful impieties—as indeed all false notions of
the Supreme inevitably do. God caw do nothing what-
ever that is inconsistent with beauty, purity, justice, or
truth. Does this detract from His all-power 1 By no
means. It merely signifies that His transcendent per-
fections, are so vast, so measureless, so exquisitely
splendid, that even to suppose that He could ever depart
from them in the least particular, is to derogate from
His majesty. The ancients learned their knowledge of
these things from the primeval theology ; but we from the
most ignorant of teachers. Can it excite wonder that
we are so many thousand of years behind them in that
true science of religion which does indeed exalt to
heaven 1
37. How often have I heard it used in argument, when
any of the awful representations of the Divine Nature,
which are contained in the corrupted Old Testament are
pointed out, and it has been urged that they are repug-
nant to every true notion of the All-pure; how often,
I say, have I heard the biblical maintain, no doubt
with perfect sincerity, that it was entirely right, for
" cannot God do anything he pleases, and why should
man arraign it!" How often have I seen sensible
thinkers imposed on by this jargon, which, if they hadENOCH.
107
only at all considered it, must have instantaneously
dissolved away into ruin, but which the fatal poison of
" faith, belief, or everlasting damnation," &c., infused into
them from youth prohibited them from examining by the
light of reason, and constrained them even to accept as an
indisputable axiom. And thus error is preserved and
propagated, and sophisms that when really inspected
prove to be more unsubstantial than air, are gravely pro-
pounded from desk and pulpit, from porch and platform,
as unquestionable truths of philosophy, which to doubt
were as heinous as to deny the existence of God. How
many millions are there in Europe who gravely hold that
God can do whatever he likes ; that he can repent, grieve,
lie, equivocate ; eat and drink, generate men like any
other man, advise robbery, suggest rape, murder, &c., &c.;
how many thousands are there who would rise up and
stone a man in the streets if he attempted to teach them
that it is wnpossthZg for God to do all, or any one, of these
things. But these destructive falsehoods must in time
perish, unless this earth is fated a/w^ys to be a hell;
though before they do so, men must really be taught that,
unless they awaken from their present lethargy, and
inquire, and think, and learn, they are preparing for
themselves a heritage of death and misery throughout
ages of ages.
38. The ancients held that, when a spirit lapsed from
God, it wandered for a thousand years, during which
period it permeated many spheres, living in each according
to the physical development in which it made itself
manifest. For instance, if a spirit in one of the sub-
celestial spheres inclined itself to an evil thought, and
cherished ideas of concupiscense or sensualism, it became108
THE BOOK OF GOD.
a man, we will say, for seventy or eighty years. If
during its life as man it purified itself from its corporeality,
and sublimely aspired to something higher and nobler, it
attained a higher stage of existence, in which it lived for
two, or perhaps three, hundred years ; and, if it still
progressed upward from that, it became a daimon, whose
life might reach to six hundred years or more, until the
thousand years were exhausted, when it reascended to the
sphere from which it fell, and from thence anew recom-
menced its uprising course to higher and higher. But if,
while it was man, it degenerated still lower than the
nature of man,* and became a swinelike drunkard or
glutton, or a wolfish assassin, rejoicing in blood, or of a
cruel, cold, and venomous nature, like a preacher or a
serpent, it descended into a physical conformation suit-
able to its mental and moral qualities, from which it
sank still lower and lower, or gradually rose higher
and higher until the thousand years were exhausted,
when it was brought to judgment for the past. If it
was then found to be irremediably evil, it was cast out
into Darkness ; the small vivic spark which it contained,
imperceptibly fading away into the merest gleam, until
it at length exhausted itself and was dissolved for ever :
losing by that dissolution its heritage of an immortal hap-
piness with God in heaven.
39. This, it will be seen, was a creed of the most
harmonious beauty. It differed much from the modern
notion that God thrusts the wicked, and very often
the innocent also, whom He has predestinated to sin,
* These truths, and others that I have only glanced at, will be
found in Enoch.ENOCH.
109
and who are undoubtedly a portion of himself and
made in his own image, into burning lakes and pitchy
gulfs, where they are everlastingly tormented by re-
vengeful and spiteful devils, with no view to their
amendment, with no pretence to their operating as an
example, with no possibility of their escape. And so
fond is God their Father of subjecting his children to
this fiery tartarus, that He employs the chief of the
devils to tempt them into sinfulness (He himself having
no prescience or foreknowledge as to how they will act
when tempted) so that He may reward them for their
resistance—which is generally unaccomplished—or tor-
ment them for their submission, which unhappily is their
most usual fate. And this chief devil possesses enormous
power ; is omnipresent; is the Prince of Air or Space ;
is almost next to God in sovereign dominion, and in
contriving intellect, and wages everlasting war with the
Almighty and his pure Spirits; nor can the Omnipotent
Maker and Master of the Universe reduce him to sub-
mission, or repress his wickedness, but is simply con-
strained as well as he can to counteract his horrible
devices. Great scholars argue for this ; great churchmen
hold it; the masses are taught that it is divine truth,
but somehow or other man's instinct rebels against it,
and there rests at the bottom of almost every human
heart an innate notion that it is all a lie, imagined
or invented in the days of Jewish or monkish barbarism
to frighten the ignorant; but wholly without any war-
ranty in fact. They who	declare that it is not
possible for power and evil to be combined together by
any agency of God ; that all sin is weakness ; and that
if even an archangel rebelled against God, it would not110
THE BOOK OF GOD.
be possible for him when thrust out from heaven to be
an archangel any longer; but that he must assimilate
himself to the spheres in which he lives, and that as every
new crime would sink him lower and lower in the scale
of being, he must gradually die out, as a lamp does when
the oil that fed it is exhausted, or the wick that caught
the flame is burned into ashes. And this they hold to
be the true end and punishment of all who in their lives
deny a heaven.
40. These are truths most essential to be promulgated;
these are facts that are absolutely necessary to be known,
that the soul may be rescued from the polluting ignorance
in which it has been plunged and kept by the self-
interested teachers of the people. Even the learned
Schlegel, who had been brought up a biblical, and who
to the last was a most bigotted supporter of what is called
orthodoxy, avows his surprise, when on an examination
of the Oriental theology, he found how grossly and
wickedly he had been deceived in youth. Our astonish-
ment, he says, is perhaps still more excited by discovering
that a belief in the immortality of the soul is bound up
with the idea of Divinity, in this most ancient system of
superstition, than at	no Me	o/
tAcrr	o/* (7oeZ. Immortality was not with them
a mere probability, deduced gradually, the result of long
study and reflection; not some vague imagining of an
undefined and shadowy world; but a	so
and decided that the idea of a future life
ruAw/	aMc/ wK/w/se o/*	the
grand aim and object of all laws and arrangements,
carried out even in the most trifling details. Yet why
this erudite German should have been astonished thatENOCH.
Ill
God revealed himself to India, he does not say, nor indeed
would it be easy for him to explain, unless he supposed
that God, like some capricious stepfather, sent the
Hindus upon the world as outcasts unworthy of His
care. The fact, however, of idea of God, and their
knowledge of celestial laws, being so far greater than
those which form the basis of mere European creeds,
furnishes a reason why all endeavours at their conver-
sion to western views have failed, except among the
lowest, poorest, and most degraded outcasts. An attempt
by Christians to enlighten Orientals on the subject of
God, is about as wise as if an idiot sought to initiate a
Sage into the wonders of philosophy. In all true theo-
logical knowledge, in all profound, august, or ennobling
ideas of the Divine Polity, the West is hundreds of
years behind the East; nor can it ever attain the
splendid heights of speculation to which these men have
reached, until it seeks its inspiration at other sources
than those from which it has so long drawn it, and
enlarges its views of God's providence; until it can
understand the broad, beautiful, and comprehensive
basis developed in the Divine Books of God; a basis
that appears as universal in its nature as the very laws of
light and air themselves.
41. With all this blaze of knowledge before us, clear
and shining as the light of the Orient, the question
arises, how comes it to pass that the whole West is
still in darkness ? and why are Europeans now more
hopelessly ignorant of their past, their present, or their
future, or of the sublime and pure nature of the Supreme
Being, than our forefathers are shown to have been in
remote ages, when orthodox historians tell us that all112
THE BOOK OF GOD.
was superstition ; when philosophers hold that we were
monkeys or savages ; and priests pretend that there was
nothing but impiety? The answer seems to me to be
this, that the Church, whether of Rome, or of Luther,
which now sways the consciences of men, wages an
incessant war upon the acquisition of true knowledge,
and perpetually interferes to dwarf the intellect and to
destroy the growth of education. That the Popes for the
first fifteen hundred years of Christendom, and from
thence also until this moment did, and have done, all
they could, to keep the world in a state of barbarism, is
now a truism so universally acknowledged, and so loudly
proclaimed by Protestant writers, that no man would
condescend to argue it ; for to do so would imply that the
matter might be disputed, or that our senses had
deceived us as to patent facts. That great scholars
arose in those dark ages proves nothing; for those men
were not the children of the papacy, but were the
disciples and missionaries of knowledge, and they were
as entirely independent of that odious superstition, as if
it had no existence. The Papal church, supreme in
Europe, was based on ignorance, and could only be
maintained while ignorance continued. The whole
efforts of the clergy, therefore, had been and are directed
to this one end, to keep the world in their leading strings,
by crushing out the mind of the world. That they did
so, and succeeded, history proves; that they still labour ,
in that awful and unholy calling is clear to all who take
the trouble to investigate; and that to this one end the
soldiers of that fearful fabric must necessarily adhere or
be destroyed, is the inevitable conclusion to which thoseENOCH.
113
arrive who have found her to be Falsehood, and who
know that Knowledge is her deadly foe.
42. The Lutheran churches pursue the same course.
Holding to a creed devised by a narrow-minded and
illiterate monk, whose early training had for ever incapa-
citated him from broad, comprehensive, or enlightened
views ; who, though a passionate thinker and a bold
writer, and a man of daring courage, was absolutely
ignorant of everything, but mere monastic theology, than
which it would be difRcult to discover more exquisite
fooling ; and who in his later years of beer and bigotry,
was so immersed in vulgar squabbles about manaical
dogmas, that lie had no time, even if he possessed the
intellect, to enlarge his stock of ideas, (21) the Protestant
sects, dissipated into a thousand despicable conventicles,
every one of which calls itself " Christ's people," have
clung with desperate tenacity to the smallest and most
degrading notions of the power, majesty, and wisdom of
the Supreme Being ; of the universality of His Laws, and
the unchanging grandeur of His attributes —notions that
would shock a Pagan, but which receive a ready approval
among the simple savages of the South Seas, or the dark-
skinned lowly races of Africa. With these communities
the Divine Fabricator of the Universe, is a white-tied
parson, with the wretched changing passions, and the
still more wretched wants and necessities, of a parson;
now enraged, now capricious, now deceitful, now encou-
raging deceit; breathing pestilence and death upon the
very beings whose hearts he has hardened so as to
make them merit these calamities; swearing many
oaths, and immediately after, violating those oaths; the
instigator to murder, the patron of incest, the pardoner114
THE BOOK OF GOD.
of adultery, the seducer of a young virgin who was the
affianced wife of another, so that true Christianity
between Peter and Paul is like Jesus crucified between
two thieves. But why pursue the dreadful theme? or
why commit to print the fearful thoughts that naturally
arise in the mind, as the Atheist God of Petro-Paulite
Europe looms before us, covered with the blood of
millions, whom a belief in his dark mystery has borne
into mighty ruin ? (22)
43. But this most horrid irreligion can exist, only while
men continue as they now are, as illiterate as pigs.*
It is not possible for an educated mind that has fAowyA/
upon the subject to believe such madness. The vast
majority of men believe and think not ; if they rea-
soned at all, and reasoned with knowledge, the whole
system were undone. Respecting such creeds as these,
one may cite what Terence says of love: (?M<r res fw se
wegwe wtot/wwt	; ea?w cowsr/M)
reyerc wow jwfes : these are things that have in them
neither common sense, nor even moderation : you cannot
bring common sense to bear upon them. Accordingly the
life-long labour of the sects, the scope and tendency of
their schools and institutes, the entire current of their
theological literature, has been steadily directed to one
end, and that end is to deprive men of their ordinary
sense, and to prevent them from acquiring real knowledge.
How often have I heard from pulpits, and read in books,
the priestly maxim that the poor and ignorant are
* ZHe	ywrisA, is the language of one of the
psalmists. But beasts do not perish. Ps. xlix. 20. Never since
Christianity degenerated into Petro-Paulism, have we seen, Glory
to God on high ; Peace on earth ; Good will towards men.
ii. 14.ENOCH.
115
those who are most likely to inherit the kingdom of God ;
and that learning leads more frequently to evil than to
the everlasting welfare of souls ! How often have I
heard letters denounced and literature derided, unless it
was of a certain class written in accordance with the
thirty-nine articles, the Athanasian Creed, or the last
number of some evangelical magazine whose compilers
were the most degraded of fanatics; or the last false-
hood which had been wafted from Africa, and which
detailed the conversion of some unhappy black from the
worship of his fetish to the adoration of a devil. (23)
Tracts are the food on which the sects flourish ; and what
educated man that ever read a tract did not arise from it
with a blush for the wickedness of those who composed,
and a tear for the folly of those who were misled by, its
vain and sickening teachings ? These people abuse
Rome, and are marvellously eloquent on her hatred of the
light; thev affect to sympathise with her unhappy fol-
lowers as if alone were the serfs of Satan; but they
are themselves walking in the Shadow of the Valley of
Death, and they do all they can to seduce others into the
same wilderness. They cry everlastingly that Popery is
the enemy of knowledge, and that by withholding truth
she destroys souls ; but there is not a single volume which
they put forth, or a single sermon that they preach, in
which they do not labour with all their zeal to diffuse
ideas of the Divine Father, which are as opposite to
his true nature as Light differs from the darkness of hell.
It were easy to go into details; but of what use were it
to unveil heaven to those who shut their eyes to the sun,
and groping in deep gloom, franctically cry out, how
beautiful are the beams we see ! Yet this is the condition116
THE BOOK OF GOD.
of most; and those who not be misled by priests go
headlong into the abyss of infidelity, because they can
behold no other alternative. Let us pray upon our bended
knees, and with hearts sincere as are the hearts of angels,
that the day may not be far distant when an end shall
be put to this most evil state of things ; when the prac-
tical atheism that prevails, and which has reduced man
from his grand condition of a thinking creature to the
mean and grovelling employment of a mere money getter,
grinding and ground, enslaving and enslaved, may be
unknown ; and the odious sects that have fattened on his
ignorance may be swept like demons into chaos, as the
Church of God arises, a Virgin of the Heaven, shining
out of Heaven, ready to go forth and walk the earth with
peace, with knowledge, and with piety, in her sweeping
starbright train. (24)NOTES TO BOOK II.
Note 1. (page 37).—This doctrine of the pre-existence of the
soul, and of all human beings, is also alluded to in the words, "/or
Hou didd (ore me Aefore He /oundalion of (Ae world," and in " 0
glorify Hou, me Hine oum self, wilA He glory wAicA 7
Ami wiH (Aee Aefore He teorM was."—" IPAal, and if ye Had see
He eon of man ascend uy wAere Ae was before ?"—"7 came/orH
/rom lAe TYtiAer, and am come inio lAe world; again 7 leave He
world and go io He J'aHer."—" A"o man AaH ascended uy io
Aeaven, Aui Ae iAai came down from Aeaven "—the whole of which
establish the eastern creed of emanation and pre-existence far
more clearly than any that are cited in support of the so called
mysteries of Christianity. Jesus, like Pythagoras, always insisted
on his pre-existence. So also did the Welsh Druid Taliesin. I
have already shown that Metempsychosis is the ensouling of the
spirit, so that it may be developed in a material sphere ; Meta-
somatosis is migration from body to body, as from man to man,
and animal to animal, and Palingenesia is regeneration : a new
birth. Part I, 10, 13.
Note 2 (page 39). — Pc searcA (Ae Ncriylures, says Jesus (JoAn v.
39), /or in (Aem ye (AinA ye Aave everlasling 1/e, and Hese are Hey
wAicA lesf/y of me. Testification can be made only in the case of
what has passed. It is never used in the way of prophecy. And
in conformity with its true import, you will find from one end of the
Jewish writings to the other, the concurrent tenor to be that
of the sacred Messenger's /ormer ayyearance uyon He earH as
Jfan. In my APOCALYPSE there is a singular confirmation of this.
In section 30, we read that the eidolon of Jesus went to the
eidolon of Amosis, and took a Book out of his hand and ate it, or
made it part of himself, whereupon the Seventh Messenger said
to this Divine Phantom, who was, in fact, his own re-appearance,
Act <re waXtv 7rpo</n?Tevaat enu Xaot; «at eOveau. K. T. X.
It is fit that thou shouldst prophecy a second fime (or in a second
appearance) to peoples and nations. BooK OF GoD, Part I, 548.
See also Part III, 573. And to add more to the mystic wonder118
THE BOOK OF GOD.
of this prophetic speech, it is directly conveyed that Jesus was to
preach not only Aaots to the peoples, that is the Hebrews, but
aiso expect to the nations, or the gentiles, which was the great
characteristic of this large-minded Jew, who burst the iron tram,
mels of Mosaicism, as then understood, and became like a true
Messiah, an Universal Preacher.
Note 3 (page 39).—In the Dai/y Verna, Oct. 20, 1871, we read
as follows:—Sad effects of Darwinism.—At Carlisle yesterday a
respectable-looking young man deliberately climbed on to the
parapet of the bridge and jumped into the Riven Eden. Several
people witnessed the occurrence, but no help could be rendered
and the man was drowned. Soon afterwards an old man arrived
at the police-office with a small parcel for the chief constable. It
was found to contain a memorandum, and had been sent by the
suicide, wAo gave as Ats reason /or sey-desfruction /Ao/ /Ae Darwin
tAeory Aaving proved men fo Ae descended /ram monkeys Ae did not
desire to Hve any Amger. He left a sovereign for the man who
found his body, and 5s. for the messenger. He gave the name of
Howard, and stated his residence to be Cardiff. And the volumes
in which such filth is taught are purchased in thousands, by
thousands anxious to prove themselves of monkey breed and
origin.
Note 4 (page 40).—There was shown me on the sea-shore, says
Poncet, within two musket shots of the city, a sepulchre which
my guides declared to be that of Eve ! !.—Journey /o AAysstnia.
Who does not feel half inclined to weep, when he reads in Nim-
rod : " If Cush were, os / suppose, 500 years of age at the siege
of Babel, and begot a son at 30, his eldest son, if living, would
then have been 470, or very nearly /bur cen/uries older than the
youngest!!"—i. 255.
Note 5 (page 42).—The followers of Mohammed, however, put
some rather puzzling questions to our Petro-Paulites. " Why,'*
said Murrane Sing (a Hindoo who was present, and could read
English), "do you not convert the Jews, who live among you,
know your virtues, and the excellence of your faith, and whose
forefathers knew of the prophecies, and saw the wonders men-
tioned in your Vedas !" I replied they were a stubborn race, and
the denunciations against their race had been fulfilled; and I
instanced the occasions and times. "That is the more in favour
of my argument," replied Murrane; "for if, under the sufferings
they have endured, and the accomplishment of the curses threat-
ened them, they still remain obstinate and sinful; how are me to
be convinced, much less converted, who know nothing of theseNOTES TO BOOK II.
119
signs and wonders of which you speak, and have neither had
promises or threats held out to us, except by mortal like ourselves
who may or may not intend well ? at least, they have nothing to
show us to the contrary but windy word!." He then referred to
Paul, who, he observed, undoubtedly was a prophet, and whose
mission, though it appeared very probable, had made no effect on
King Agrippa, who was as civilised as the Hindoos ; yet he was
not to be persuaded, even though one of the principal propagators
of it was present before him ; " then how," he added, " am I to be
persuaded by those who are neither saints nor prophets."— Winders
o/* 2%wa, 433.
Note 6 (page 43).—The iniquity, says Rammohun Roy, p. 207,
of one's being sentenced to death as an atonement for the fault
committed by another, is so palpable that, although in many
countries, the human race think themselves justified in detaining
the persons of those men who, voluntarily making themselves re-
sponsible for the debt or the persons of others, fail to fulfil their
engagements: nevertheless, every yuef man among fAem wcndd
sAudder cd tAe idea o/* one's Aeing ytd io deaiA ybr a crime com-
miiied Ay anoiAer, even y tAe innocent man eAouM widinyiy o^er Ais
Ai/e in A eAay o/* tAat of Aer.
Note 7 (page 43).—The wise and magnanimous Pythagoreans,
Platonists, Peripatetics, and Stoics, among the ancients, looked to
virtue as its own reward, and performed what is right, because it
is right to do so. And though they firmly believed in the immor-
tality of the soul, their conduct was not at all influenced by the
hope of future reward. This great truth, that virtue brings with
it its own recompense is at present obsolete. Life of Pythagoras,
cap. 31.
Note 8 (page 45).—I should like to know whether there is a
single reader of these pages who is not acquainted with persons
who, even in this life, have transformed themselves into, and
carry with them, all the attributes of beasts, and fishes, and
birds? How many wolves, and foxes, and bears, and rats, in
human form has he not seen ? how many pikes and sharks ? how
many vultures, and magpies, and parrots ? Does he see no proof,
around him of the old belief that certain persons were metamor-
phosed at times into Wehr-wolves ? A man has but to use his eyes
and he will see transmigration before him in half the people he
meets. Euripides, in a fragment of the Crysippus, thus says :—
Those things which spring from the Earth, go back again to the
Earth ; those Which spring from an Ethereal stock return to the
heavenly vault: nofAing yerieAee tAat Aos once Aad an eaiatence. The120
THE BOOK OF GOD.
meaning of this is ; God is eternal and everlasting ; Life unto the
ages of ages, as in the APOCALYPSE ; everything has come from
Him, and therefore there is nothing that can ever die. Beautiful
wisdom, andsublime truth: worthy of the APOCALYPSE from which
it came.
Note 9 (page 49).—The Shepherd of Hermas was probably
aware of this. In the Ninth Similitude he describes a celestial
Vision : About that Gate stood Twelve Virgins, * * clothed
with linen garments * * they were so handsome and delicate,
and stood with such firmness and constancy, as if they would
carry the whole Heaven * * then I said : What, sir, are these
Virgins ? He said unto me: these are the Holy Spirits, for no
man can enter into the Kingdom of God, except these cloathe him
with their garment. These allusions, which began as early as the
APOCALYPSE, and were continued thus by Enoch, may have been
among the reasons why the order of Vestal Virgins was insti-
tuted.
Note 10 (page 51).—-Boaden, in his Life of Mrs. Siddons, notices
a passage in Shakespere parallel to one in Cicero, in the specu-
lation of Claudio as to what becomes of the spirit after its separa-
tion from the body : whether it may not be "Blown with resistless
violence round about the pendant world." This is from Cicero
in the Dream of Scipio : Coryori&u# eAtpsi circum ferram ip.sam.
vo&chtnfur. Cicero took the idea from the Greeks, and they from
the East. No spirit that inclines to the senses can leave the
terrene sphere to which it is attached.
Note 11 (page 51).—If we attend to the pre-existence of human
souls, says Taylor, in his notes to Pausanias, and consider the
crimes which they may have committed in former periods of exist-
ence on the earth, and at the same time consider that nothing
escapes the penetrating eye of Providence, and that all its admi-
nistrations are consummately just, we May Ac sare fAaf no man is
panisAed ei/Aer whA dea/A, or toi/A fAe loss of Ais possessions, or is,
in sAorl, oppressed wdA any caia/ndy nnyusliy. For though the
conduct of such a one in that period of his existence in which he
suffers may deserve a milder destiny, yet it may be safely con-
cluded that, in some past period of his existence, it has been such
as to demand the punishment which he endures. It must, how-
ever, be observed that this doctrine does not hold good with
respect to truly worthy men, by which I mean heroic souls ; for
the. calamities which befal others when they happen to these are
sent by Divinity as purifications necessary to the perfection of
their virtue. The number of these, however, is but small, andNOTES TO BOOK II.
121
consequently the exceptions to this observation are but few. This
may be taken as an answer to those people, who Dot knowing that
earth is a place of punishment, or one of the helis, call God a
Devil for having sent them there. As well may the criminal in
his cell call the Judge a Devil for having imposed the sentence of
the Law.
Note 12 (page 58).—When the Jews fled from Aoud, they
carried with them this tenet among others of their native land.
It has been to some extent cleared out of their scriptures : only
a few glimpses of it remain. Yet that it was the common belief
of the Priests and Levites in the days of the Ninth Messenger, is
apparent from the questions which were propounded to John by
the sacerdotal order: And tAis is /Ac record of JoAn, wAen tAe
Jews se?d J*ries/s a//d Aerifes .from Jerusalem fo asA Aim, WAo or/
/Aon .? And Ae con/essed, and denied not; /nd confessed, / am no/ /Ac
CAris/. And/AeyasAed Aim, B'Aat tAen? Ari/Aon Alias.? A/id
Ae sai/A, / am not. Art tAou tAat ^ropAet.? And Ae answered, Al?.
7'Aen said tAey ante Aim, IPAo art tAou ? tAat we may give an
answer to tAem tAat sent ns. IFAat sayest tAou of tAyse/f ? //e said, /
am tAe Boice of one crying in tAe w/Zderness, A/aAe straigAt tAe way
of t7w Lord, as said tAe propAet Asaias. A nd tAey wAicA were sent
were of tAe jf/tarisees. A nd tAey asAed Aim, and said unto Aim,
WAy Aaptizest tAou tAen, if tAou &e not tAat CArist, nor Alias, neitAer
tAat propAet ? JoAn answered t7wm, saying, / Aaptize witA water:
Aut tAere standetA one a/nong you, wAom ye Ano/o not. John i.
Here the transmigration of Elias, or Esaias, into the bodily
appearance of the Baptist, is assumed as a matter fully accor-
dant with possibility, and in harmony also with the popular
religion : nor does John at all set his face against the tenet, but
contents himself by a simple denial that he was either of those
prophets. Elias, as we know, was the Rabbinical name for Lao-
Tseu, the Eighth Messenger. See Boos of GoD, Part II, 543;
Part III, 558.
Note 13 (page 61).—This doctrine I find thus stated in the
writings of a most intelligent thinker who had deeply studied
* the Past: The souls or spirits of every human or organised
mortal body inhabiting this globe, and all the regions of the
material universe, are precisely the remainder of the unpurified
angels who fell from their obedience in heaven, and that still
stand out in contempt of their Creator.—JfoZweM Aist. Arents.
Note 14 (page 63).—This article of predestination is founded
on these verses of Paul to the Romans, viii. 28 30, connected
probably with Ephesians, i. 4-6, iii. 11. And we AnowtAat ad
G122
THE BOOK OF GOD.
/Aings worA foge/Aer/or good Zo /Aem /7ta/ Zone God, /o ZZtem w7/o are
/Ae CaZZed ctccor^iwg io Ais purpose. dbr wAom Ae did/breAnow
Ae also r/A/ predesdna/e To Ae con/brmed To /Ae image o/ Ais son, /7<o/
Ac migA/ Ac /Ae /nt/ Aorn among many Are/Aren. .Moreover, wZtont
Ae did predes/ina/e /Aem Ae a/to caZZed; and wAom Ae caZZed, /Aem
aZso Ae/us/iAed; ant/ wAom Ae Jus/iAed, /Aem aZso Ae g/oriAed. But
these doctrines, which are used by Calvinists to show an universal
system of predestination by God to the joys of heaven or the
flames of hell, are in reality applied by Paul to the descending
Messengers of Heaven, whom he ignorantly believed to be chosen
for that purpose by the Supreme ; not knowing the true way
in which they happen to be made manifest, and which I have
explained in Part I, page 63. Thus millions live in the most
wicked faith, because a man 1800 years ago wrote upon a subject
which lie did not understand. Jesus, I have no doubt, revealed
to his more immediate friends, the true nature of this Secret
of God; but Paul never saw Jesus, or, if he did, he probably
would have stoned him as he did Stephen, Jefs viii. 1.
Note 15 (page 75).—If I had time thoroughly to examine the
Metamorphoses of Ovid, I think that a great deal is con-
tained in them which is connected with the deepest Eleusi-
nianism. Ovid and Jesus may have met in the same mazonic
lodge, and from the latter the poet may have learned somewhat.
Is not the re-appearance of this Messiah clearly pointed
out in the prophetic chant, when Occ-Ur-Oe sang the secrets
of the Destinies—7'a/o?*i/?u arcana caneAa/. Grow, child, the
sovereign restorer of health to the whole world: to thee shall
mortal bodies often owe their continuance in being: nay, your
skill shall reach to the recalling of souls from the empire of the
dead. But when by once daring to give proof of this thy
power, you have raised the jealousy of the gods, disabled by
your grandsire's bolts, you shall no more confer this mighty
beneHt: Au/ /rom a god Ae cAanged info a Zi/eZess carcase, and
again resuming /Ae figure o/* a god sAaZZ /wice renew your
des/iny. MET. 630. That a Messenger is meant is clear; the
divine Healer is the son of Phcebus (the Light of Life, or God),
and is brought up by Chi-r-Aun. Compare with this section 29
and 30 of the APOCALYPSE, and the words of Luke vii. 18, which
seem to be almost a paraphrase of the lines of Ovid. A ;nZ JoAn
caZZing un/o Aim /wo o/ Ais discipZes, sen/ /Aem /o Jeans, saying A r/
/Aw Ae /Aa/ .sAonZ/Z come 7 or ZooA we /or ano/Aer 7 H'Aen /Ae men
were come un/o Aim, /Aey said, JoAn diap/M/ Aa/A sen/ us un/o /Aee ;
saying, Ari /Aou Ae /Aa/ 37/ouAZ come 7 or ZooA we /or ano/Aer 7NOTES TO BOOK II.
123
And in /Ac same Aour Ae cured many M* /Aeir i;tfrmi/ies and pZayues
and q/* cuiZ spiri/s: and un/o many /Zta/ were AZind Ae yane siyA/.
7'Aen Jesus answeriny eaid un/o (Aem : Co your way, and ied JoAn
wAa/ /Ainys ye Aaoe see?: and Aeard: Aow /Aa/ /Ae Mind see, Me /ante
waZA, /Ae Zeners are cZeansed, /Ae deaf Aear, /Ae dead are rawed, J-c.
Note that this passage, which relates what happened long after
Jesus had been in his ministry, flatly contradicts John i., which
purports to narrate what happened before he began it. See
an/e, p. 117, that wonderful passage in the APOCALYPSE where
the re appearance of Amosis in the person of Jesus is distinctly
predicted.
Note 16 (page 81).—The soul is an ethereal vehicle of aspherical
form: it is avyoetS^s, or luciform, throughout diaphonous or
transparent, and of a star-like nature. Hence Marcus Antoninus
beautifully observes: The sphere of the soul is then luciform
when the soul is neither extended to anything (external or cor-
poreal), nor inwardly concurs with it, nor is depressed by it, but
is illuminated with a light, by which she sees the truth of all
things, and the truth that is in herself. Book 2. Chaudama, the
Indian Adam, taught that men have souls : the one of a subtle
quality, which is the intellectual principle : the other of a coarser
nature which presides over the senses. The Siamese call him
Sommona-Chadam, the First Messenger of Heaven. See Boos of
GoD, Part 11, 483 ; Part III, 239, 242, 427, 430. He is said by the
Talapoins, or Siamese priests to have appeared as a black man
and come to Siam. See Part III, 433. Sommona by some is said
to mean, deuo/ee of /Ac/ores/s. The sect of Somaneans derives its
name from this.
Note 17 (p ige 82).—Four different opinions, says Gibbon, have
been entertained concerning the origin of humau souls. 1. That
they are eternal and divine. 2. That they were created in a sepa-
rate state of existence before their union with the body. 3. That
they have been propagated from the original stock of Adam, who
contained in himself the mental as well as the corporeal seed of
his posterity. 4. That each soul is occasionally created and
embodied in the moment of conception. The last of these sen-
timents appears to have prevailed among the moderns: and our
spiritual history is grown less sublime without becoming more
intelligible. /7/M. c. xlvii.
Note 18 (page 83).—It is saddening to find a learned scholar
like Bryant among the witnesses of untruth, yet I would
hope that the following passage was a slip of the pen rather than
deliberately false. I am sensible, he says, that there are persons
G 2124
THE BOOK OF GOD.
who maintain that the knowledge, both of God and his attri-
butes, was well known to the ancients. But when we come to
inquire who those ancients were, we find them to be otdy /Ac
people q/* Greece ant/ if# colonies, who bore but a small propor-
tion among the kingdoms of the earth.. And when we look into
the time, we End it to be a few years before the birth of
Socrates, which is comparatively late in the era of mankind.
On tAe .Scriptures, p. 6. A more utter falsification of history
than this cannot be paralleled. The people of Greece and its
colonies really knew less of God and his nature than almost any
other people : they were likewise a comparatively recent people '
yet Minos gave them divine laws and Orpheus sang the most
divine theology 1400 years before the tera of Jesus. There is
scarcely any excuse for Bryant's statement. Sir William Jones
lias proved that one of the Vedas was written 1580 years before
the Christian sera, and grander glimpses of the Supreme are to
be seen no where than in these Hymns. Yet even these were but
the vestiges of a still older and finer theology.
Note 19 (page 102),—It is the fashion when the absurdities of
the Old Testament are pointed out, to say that the writers
knew they were absurdities, and the Holy Spirit who dictated
them, certainly did, but that they accommodated themselves to
the ignorance of the times. Bolingbroke deals well with this
trash. It is said, he writes, that the sacred authors writ agree-
ably to the vulgar notions of the ages and countries in which
they lived, out of regard to their ignorance and to the gross con-
ceptions of the people, as y tAeae autAors Aad not writybr ad aye#
andy*or ad countries, or a# i/ tru/A and error were to Ae ybdowed
Me/as/Mon wAere tAey prevailed. This condescension then is very ill
placed, and it would have become much better the great men we
speak of, to have raised their fellow creatures up than to have let
themselvesdown. Bolingbroke iii. 452. We have not even the grace
to defend their fables, as the Pagans did, but take them all to the
very letter. Speaking of the statements respecting the Gods in
Homer, Maximus Tyrius says, " For every one hearing such
things as these concerning J upiter and Apollo, Thetis and Vulcan,
will immediately consider them as oracular assertions, in wAicA
tAe apparent is di%renty*rom tAe latent meaning."
Note 20 (page 105)—People listen to these falsities as they do to
tlie ages of the Patriarchs, and the millions spent by Solomon,
and they adopt them without thinking ; they perpetually resound
from desk and pulpit, and the listeners are so ignorant that they
know not what they hear; but take for granted that everythingNOTES TO BOOK II.
125
is true. Who has not beard over and over again that God
predicted the dispersion of the Jews, because of their cruci-
fixion of Jesus. The learned editor of Afezdcan Annuities
telis us very differently. The dispersion of the Jews, he says,
M nowhere of/mM 'o m fAe O'tf Tesfamct/ as a judgment
with which God threatened to visit that people on account of the
crucifixion ; those who may choose to maintain that it is, will do
well to point out the passage in Scripture in which the allusion is
contained. But if a nation has a right to be heard in its own
defence, which the Jews certainly have, the argument by which
they attempt to prove that their present dispersion is not owing
to the cause above referred to will be found to possess consider-
able weight with every unprejudiced mind, since arguing from the
justice of God, they contend that he would not have punished a
whole nation for a crime committed only by a few, and that even
on the supposition that the whole nation were equally guilty of
it, then their posterity eighteen hundred years after must be
as innocent of it as were their forefathers eighteen hundred years
before, possessing even an advantage over them, in not being the
progenitors of so evil a generation, vi. 501. In the same w ay
the godly are constantly told by the interpreters of prophecy,
that a (fay in the Old Testament means a year. Now, if all pro-
phetic days are to be so construed, let us see into what absurdities
we should be led. In Gen. vi. 3, God announces in the way of
prediction that the days of men shall be 120 years before the
flood comes upon them. The rule in question, i.e. one day for a
year would make a respite for the antediluvians of 43,200 years,
so that their disregard to Noah's threats of a Hood would be no
very strange matter. So in Gen. vii. 4, God declares that after
seven nights he will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and
forty nights, and did any one ever dream of making this the same
as saying that after seven years it shall begin to rain, and shall
continue to do so forty successive years ! Many other instances
of the like nature might easily be added. But if any one doubts
still, let him interpret Dan. iv. 32, in accordance with the principle
of a day for a year. According to this Nebuchadnezzar must
have been mad, and eaten grass for 2,520 years—discipline enough
to humble a king even as insolent as he.
Note 21 (page 113).—Father Simon, a competent, though it may
be admitted a prejudiced, authority, thus describes Luther, who.
it should be premised, had scarcely any knowledge whatever of
Hebrew. " He thought that by reading of morality, and bawling
against those who were not of his opinion, he might very much illus126
THE BOOK OF GOD.
trate the Word of God; but one may easily see by his own books,
that he was but a turbulent and passionate man, who had only a
flashy wit and quick invention. There is nothing great or learned
in his commentaries upon the Bible : everything is low and
mean; and as he had studied divinity, he has rather composed
a rhapsody of theological questions than a commentary upon the
scripture text. To which we may add that he wanted under,
standing, and that he usually followed his senses rather than
his reason. For example, can anything be more foolish than
his exposition of the Serpent in Gen. iii. He affirms that iAe
.Serpen/ Ae/ore Ais pnnisAmenf was a Aandso?ne creaiure and weni
upon iwo_/eei: he, moreover, assures us that Ae/ore iAe Delude (Acre
was no rainAow : and that God created it for those very reasons
which are set down in Gen. ix. This shows how little he had
studied the scripture style, and how ignorant he was of the sym-
bolical sense thereof."
Note 22 (page 114).—In the Old Testament, as well as in the New,
God is represented as repenting of his works, as being moved with
anger, vexation, grief, joy, love, and hate; as moving from place
to place, having arms with hands and fingers ; a head with face,
mouth, tongue, eyes, nose, ears, a heart, bowels, back, thighs,
legs; as seeing, being seen, speaking and hearing, slumbering,
waking, &c. No one capable of sound reasoning can for a moment
imagine that these, or any other descriptions of God, are intended
to convey literal notions of the unsearchable, incomprehensible
Being. HanwnoAun 7?oy, p. 130.
Note 23 (page 115). —If the history of the fall of Adam and Eve
be allegorical (and who can doubt that it is ?), the history of the
atonement by the blood of Jesus, must also be allegorical; for, if
there were no fall, then there was no need of an atonement. So
also Cain and and Abel are allegorical; the mythos was invented
by priests to show that blood was more agreeable to God than the
harmless sacrifice of flowers, fruits, and incense. Having esta-
blished this, the next step was to prove that God, who delighted
not in the blood of bullocks (Zs. i. 11), or in the strength
of the horse (Ps. cxlvii. 10), was especially delighted in
the blood of his only beloved son. The creed of the Hebrews is
indeed atheism, irreligion, and blasphemy, in their worst and
most debasing forms. That God selected Jews to be his chosen
people, not for any virtues they might have, but Aecause if leased
Aim io do so, is the theory laid down by the writer of Exodus vii.
6, 7, 8. .For iAou ar! an Aoh/ people unio iAe Pord i Ay Cod: iAe
Lord !Ay God AaiA cAosen iAee io Ae a special people anio Aimsel^NOTES TO BOOK IL
127
aAoue ad people /Aa/ are upon /Ae face of /Ae ear/A. 7*Ae Lord did
noC se/ Ale lore upon you nor c/toose you Aecause you Mere more in
numAer /7tan any people ; /or ye mere /Ae fewes/ of ad people : Lu/
Aecause /Ae Lord lovedyou, a/oiAecause Ae wou id Aeep iAe oaiA wAicA Ae
Aad eworn un/o yourfa/Aers, Aa/A /Ae Lord Arouy/d you ou/ wi/A a
miyA/y Aand, and redeemed you ou/ of /Ae Aouse of Aondmen, from
/Ae Aand of FAaraoA Kiny of Fyyp/. This, it will be seen, repre-
sents the Great Father, not only as a most capricious, but a most
odious, tyrant; who, blind to the virtues of all others on the earth,
selected as his own peculiar favourites and spoiled children the
most hideous horde of murderers, robbers, ravishers, sodomites,
and blasphemers, that ever cursed the globe with diabolical
deeds. This is in conformity with their usual debased ideas of
God. His weakness and mortal nature they indicated in that
verse of Exodus, which reduces the Supreme to the level with the
poor little Pagan penates of a corrupt age. /n sir days /Ae Lord
made Ar-aren and ear/7e, and on /Ae seoen/A day Ae rested and was re-
/resAed.'/ xxxi. 17. The same odious ideas of God's whimsicalities
in loving not whom he should Au/ wAom Ae /AouyA/ //, are con-
veyed in Romans ix. /'or /Aey are no/ ad /srael, wAicA are of
/srael: ^et/Aer Aecause /Aey are /Ae seed of -4 AraAam, are /Aey ad
cAi/dren : Au / in /saac sZtad /Ay seed Ae called. TAa/ is, Z'Aey wAicA are
/Ae cAddren of /Ae yiesA, /Aese are no/ /Ae eAddren of God: Au/ /Ae
cAi/dren of /Ae promise are eoun/ed /or /Ae seed. /''or /Ais is /Ae
word of promise, J / /Ais /erne wid 7 come, and -SaraA sAad A a re a
son. dnd no/ only /Ais; Au/ wAendeAecca also Aad conceived Ay
one, eren Ay our/a/Aer /saac. (For /Ae cAddren Aeiny no/ ye/ Aorn,
nei/Aer Aauiny done any yood or end, /Aa/ /Ae purpose of God
accordiny /o election miyA/ s/and, no/ of worAs, Au/ of Aim /Aa/
cade/A ;) // was said un/o Aer, TAe e/der sAad seme /Ae younyer.
ds i/ is wri//en, daceA Aave / Zoned, Au/ Hau Aare / Aa/ed. II'Aa/
sAad we say /Aen 7 /s /Aere unriyA/eousness wi/A God 7 God/orAid.
For Ae sai/A /o 3/oses, 7 wid Aaoe mercy on wAom / ?oid Aave mercy,
and wid Act re compassion on wAom /wid Aave eompassiom /Aen
i/ is no/ of Aim /Aa/ wide/A, nor of Aim /Aa/ runne/A, Au/ of God
/Aa/ sAewe/A mercy. For /Ae scrip/ure sai/A un/o F/taraoA, Fcen
ybr /Ais same purpose Aave / raised /Aee up, /Aa/ 7 miyA/ sAew my
power in /Aee, and /Aa/ my name miyA/ Ae declared /ArouyAou/ ad
/Ae ear/A. 7'Aerefore Aa/A Ae mercy on wAom Ae wid Aave mercy,
and wAom Ae wid Ae Aardene/A. 7'Aou wid say /Aen un/o me, H'Ay
do/A Ae ye/ yindy*aud 7 For wAo Aa/A resided Ais wid 7 TVay Au/,
O man, wAo ar/ /Aou /Aa/ replies/ ayains/ God ? NAad /Ae /Ainy
.formed say /o 7dm /Aa/ formed i/, It'Ay 7tas/ /Aou made me /Aus 7128
THE BOOK OF GOD.
77a/A noZ Z7w pof/er power ot/er f Ae cZay, o/* ZAe Mme /temp /o maAe
o«e ceeaeZ anfo Aonoar, and ano/Acr anfo ditAonour 7 lEAaZ (/ Cot/,
?t':Z/myfosAewAw wra/A, a;;d ZomaAe Aie power Anow;z, e;idare<Z
w/ZA ?nacA Zowy sa^/eriny /Ae t/esee/s o/ wraZA /Zfed Zo de^/r-acZion :
.1 nd /7caf Ae mZyAZ maAe Anown /Ae rZcAes of AZs y/ory on /Ae aesse/s
<y mercy, wAZcZt 7w /t/rd a/ore prepared an/o y/ory, even as, wAom
7ce Aa/7t caZZed, no/ q/* /Ae Jews onZy, Au/ aZso q/* /Ae Gru/tZee 7 * * *
Tor wAom Ae dZd/bre/no:o, Ae aZso did pre<7ee7mcc7e /o Ae c<m/brme<7
to tAe i^naye q/* Aw <S'on, /7ta/ Ae miyA/ Ae /Ae /rs/Aorn asnony many
Are/Aren. J7oreot/er wAom Ae did prec7ee/ina7e, /Arm Ae a/eo caZZed :
one/ wAom Ae caZZed, /Aem Ae cd.so jm/c/cecZ: and w/com Ae Jus/i/ied,
/7wm Ae aZso yZor(/ed. ll'Aat eAaZZ we /7cen say Zo ZAe.se /Ainys 7 7/
God Ae/or ae, wAo can Ae ayains/ ae 7 77e ZAaZ spared no/ Aie own
Am, Au/ de/iwred Ai)n ap ybr ae a/Z, Ao?o sAaZZ Ae no/ wi/7t A inc aZso
/reeZy yew ae aZZ ZAc'nye 7 ll'Ao eAaZZ /ay any/Ainy /o ZAe cAarye q/*
God's eZec/ 7 7/ As God ZAaZ yaeZcAeZZc. So that between Jew and
Paulite, the philosophic Christian, if such there be, is left in a
very Slough of Despair. Mr. Hails challenges me, says Sir W.
Drummond, to produce a solitary proof that the Patriarchs were
polytheists. I do not say that they were practical polytheists :
but I say that I doubt whether Jacob had clear notions of the
nature and unity of the Divine Being. Mr. Hails is a Hebrew
scholar. I ask him, whether the words of the vow (Gen. xxviii.
20) do not run literally as follow : 7/ A'ZoAcm wiZZ Ae wc'Z/c me, and
w/ZZ Aeep me in Z/cis way /An/ 7yo, and wcZZ yive me Aread /o ecd and
raimen/ /oped on, no /Aa/ 7re/arn Zomy/a/Aer's/coase in peace, /7ten
sAaZZ Jr AocaA Ae Zo me /or jB/oAisn. Now these words in sense
amount to this: 7/' God will do certain things for my benefit,
ZAen Jehovah shall be my God. But what is the meaning of this,
if Jacob had understood that Jehovah was God and the sole God!
Had he been sure of this would he have ventured to make condi-
tions with Jehovah ? and is it not implied in the vow that, if the
conditions be not granted, Jehovah should not be considered as
Jacob's God ? Mr. Hails does not deny that Jacob's vow implied
a bargain : but he says that such bargains are common even
among us Christians, and yet what should we think of his theo-
logy, who ventured to say : If God will do this and that for me,
then Christ shall Ire my God. Such language would surely offend
us, or at least would give us reason to think the person using it
had not clear notions of the Divine Nature and Essence. Mr.
Hails says that Jacob's vow fairly interpreted amounts to this :
That on his return to his country, which God promised should
take place, he would more unreservedly devote himself to theNOTES TO BOOK II.
129
service of the Elohim or God. I confess myself unable to elicit
any such meaning from the words of the patriarch. On the con-
trary, it seems to me that Jacob sets out with the admission of
the existence of Elohim or God, and that he then proceeds to say
i/ God do certain things for me, in such a manner as I may expect
from the words spoken unto me by Jehovah, who declared himself
to me in a vision to be the God of Abraham and Isaac, ZAezz I will
recognize Jehovah as God. CZosa. Journ. viii. 166. This miserable
and degraded view of their God is at the foundation of the
Hebrew faith. Thus we have Jeremiah coolly describing the
mutability of the Immutable. 0 Aouse of ZwaeZ cannoZ A do w.'Uz
you us ZAw poZZer A saizA ZAe Lord. .BeAoM a-s ZAc cZay M in zAe
poZfer's Aunt/, so are ye in mine 7zazzd, 0 Aou.se of 7sraeZ. AZ wAaZ
insZcsZ 7 sAaZZ spec A concerning a naZion, and concern iny a Ainy-
dom, Zo pZucA up, and paZZ down, and to destroy iZ; 7/' ZAaZ nation,
ayainat wAom 7 Aave pronounced, tumfrom ZAeir en'Z, 7 wzZZ repent
qf tAe eviZ Z/zaZ 7 ZAowgAZ to do unto to ZAenz. And at wAaZ inatant
7 sAaZZ .speaA concerning a nation, and concerning a Azngdom, to
AuiZd and Zo pZant it; if it do euiZ in my szyAZ, ZAaZ it oAey not my
uoice, tAen 7 wiZZ repent qf tAe yood, wAerewitA 7 .said 7 would AeneAt
tAenz. Jer. xvii. Nearly the same characteristics distinguish our
Paulites from most other believers. Man ventures, says a shrewd
observer, into the boldest presumptions. He finds fault with
everything; his selfishness is never satisfied ; his ingratitude is
never at an end. He takes on himseif to direct the Almighty what
to do, even in the government of the Universe. He prays dicta-
torially. When it is sunshine he prays for rain, and when it is rain
he prays for sunshine. He follows the same idea in everything
that he prays for ; for what is the amount of all his prayers, but
an aZZempZ Zo maAe ZAc A ZmzyAZy cAanye Aw mind, and act other-
wise than he does. It is as if he were to say, Thou knowest not
so well as I. One of Bishop Watson's sophisms, in his Letter to
Paine, may here be noted. You think it repugnant to God's
moral justice, he says, that he should doom Zo r7e.sZrucZion the
crying or smiling infants of the Canaanites. Why do you not
maintain it to be repugnant to his moral justice that he should
crying or smiling infants to be swallowed up by an earth-
quake, drowned by an inundation, consumed by a fire, starved by
a famine, or destroyed by a pestilence ? The word of God is in
perfect harmony with his works—crying or smiling infants are
subjected to death in both. But is there no difference between
the maZuraZ rc.sz'ZZ of God's laws, as they regulate the elements,
and his express command to kill and slay 1 The evils indicted on
G 3130
THE BOOK OF GOD.
the Canaanites resulted from an ea^roordmary inferpoaifion of the
Divine authority. Evils brought on mankind by the operation of
the Laws of Nature cannot be said to be produced by any such
interposition. If the literal interpretation of the Book of
Joshua be followed, God appears to have apeciady interfered to
destroy the seven nations. In the Book of Nature, from the
perusal of which one infers the moral justice of the Deity, no
example can be found of his interference with the course of
nature's laws for the purpose of destroying his creatures. If the
Cabir does so, and does so wrongly, he must answer for it, as for
any other crime.
Note 24 (page 116).—As to the Petro-Paulite notion of God, it
is arrived at thus. We take a passage from Paid and a passage
from Peter, and some passages from the Jew priests of the Old
Testament, and the Jew converts of the New, and having thus
formed a piece of patchwork, we cry out, This is God—there is
no other. 1 transcribe here from the writings of a very learned
priest of the Church of England, 7iM views of the Old Testament,
while he was yet a free man.
VIEW OF THE BIBLE.
All that I have heretofore written, he says, in favour of the Scrip-
tures, must be understood in reference to the great principles of
truth and duty unfolded and inculcated in them, and not in refe-
rence to every sentence, or every narrative, or everybook which com-
monly goes under the name of Scripture. From my earliest days
I have been accustomed, in reading the Scriptures, to pass lightly
over those portions of them which revealed no truth, which sup-
plied no proof or illustration of any great principle, which
inculcated no duty, or which contained no good example, and to
fix my mind on those portions of Scripture which unfolded the
character of God and the ways of his providence, which recorded
events illustrative of God's character and the principles of his
government, which inculcated the principles of human duty, and
furnished examples of obedience to those principles. From the
first of my recollection I have regarded the Bible as a Religious
or Moral Lesson.Book ; as a book to make men good ; as a book
that aimed at making people wise for the purpo.se of making them
good. And all that I have said of the Bible is to be understood
or interpreted on this principle. My high commendations of the
Scriptures are not to be understood of every thing contained in
the book, but of its great principles, of its religious and moral
teachings only. Those commendations are nof to be understood
of all that is said about the law of Moses, the erection of theNOTES TO BOOK II.
131
tabernacle, the Genealogies of the Antediluvians, or the Genealo-
gies and Chronologies of the Jews, or of the Song of Solomon, or of
every particular passage in the Psalms, or of all the dark passages
in the Prophets, or of the difficult passages in the Epistles of
Paul, or every portion of the Gospel attributed to John, or of the
Revelations. True, I did, till a few years ago, regard the whole
of the Scriptures as the word of God: I considered the Bible to
be divine as a whole, and I spoke of it accordingly. At the same
time, those portions of the Bible which occupied my mind at
those times, those portions on which I formed my judgment of
its character and worth, those portions of Scripture to which all
my commendations did in reality refer, and the on/y portions to
which those commendations can with truth or propriety be
applied, are those portions containing revelations of great religicus
truths, and inculcations of great, unchanging moral duties.
When a man has been taught wrong notions respecting the
Scriptures in early life, it is difficult for him to free himself from
their influence. It is astonishing how one false notion respecting
the Scriptures will blind a man to the real character of the Scrip-
tures. It is astonishing how one false notion respecting the
Scriptures will influence a man's words in speaking and writing
of them. In short, it is astonishing how one false notion instilled
into the mind in infancy, will cause a man to speak and write of
the Scriptures for years together, in the most irrational and
untruthful way, even after he has become in most things a rational
character. I never could read the Scriptures, from my earlier
days, without seeing many things in them which looked strange
and unaccountable. I never could read the Scriptures, from my
earlier days, without having my feelings shocked by several por-
tions of them. Some of those portions I was accustomed to regard
as mysterious, and I passed them over accordingly. Still I could not
help feeling that other passages were not exactly mysterious, but
revolting rather. Had I dared to think, and to speak my
thoughts, I should have said that they were not exactly unin-
telligible, but erroneous ; that they were not exactly truths
unrevealed, but doubtful or fabulous traditions. My thoughts
of the Scriptures at present are exceedingly different from what
they were in my early days. I still regard them as of infinite
vajue, and would do my utmost to preserve them to future
ages. I regard them as of infinite value, and think them
calculated to do an immense amount of good: but I am
far from regarding them as one whole piece of unbroken
or unmingled truth. I believe their tendency, on the whole,
is good ; but I am far from thinking that the tendency of132
THE BOOK OF GOD.
every particular portion is good. There are, in my judgment,
n umerous passages of Scripture which are calculated to do great
harm, and still more numerous portions that can hardly by any
possibility do good. I believe that the yeneraf principle.! inculcated
in the Bible are true ; but I am far from believing that every par-
ticular statement, or every particular history, is true. I believe
that the Bible contains hundreds and thousands of errors, both
with respect to matters of fact, and matters of truth and duty.
I believe that the Bible contains errors of almost every descrip-
tion ; historical errors, geographical errors, chronological errors,
philosophical errors, grammatical errors, rhetorical errors, logical
errors, theological errors, moral errors, prophetical errors, poetical
errors, zoological errors, astronomical errors, and geological errors :
errors in short, of every description. I question whether there is a
single book, from the book of Genesis to the book of Revelations,
which does not contain a number of errors, and errors of various
kinds. As I have said, I have not the slightest objection to the
leading religious and moral principles of the Bible. On the con-
trary, I regard them with the utmost respect and reverence. I
believe them to be, in truth, revelations from heaven. I believe
the course of life which the leading precepts of the Bible incul-
cate, is the way both to peace on earth, and to happiness in
heaven. I believe that in proportion as the great leading principles
of religion and duty unfolded and inculcated in the Bible are
understood and reduced to practice, will mankind become happy
and prosperous, intelligent and godlike. All that I have said of
the Scriptures, all that I have written in their favour, I still
regard as perfectly true, when understood as referring to their
great leading principles of religion and virtue. It is not therefore
any evil deeds ; it is not any love of darkness; it is not any
hatred of light; it is not any unchristian, inhuman, or ungodly
motive ; it is not any regard to interest, or reputation, or ease; it
is not from a love of money or of friends, or from a love of any
sensual or forbidden pleasure, that I speak of the Bible as
an imperfect book ; but the contrary. My present belief with
respect to the Bible, arises from a love of light and of virtue, and
not from a love of darkness or of vice. It is not because my
deeds are evil that I reject and oppose the common notion, that
the Bible is an absolutely perfect book, an unmixed revelation of
truth and duty; nor is it from any inclination to indulge in evil
deeds for the future. On the contrary ; it is because my deeds
are righteous, and because I wish the deeds of others to be right-
eous, that I thus speak of the Scriptures. If I speak against the
orthodox notions of Scripture inspiration and infallibility, it isNOTES TO BOOK 11.
]33
from a. zeal for truth and for religion, and not from a zeal for
error or impiety. And my character, so far as it is known, will
bear witness to the truth of these statements. Nor have I been
hasty in coming to my present opinions respecting the Scriptures.
I have, on the contrary, been exceedingly slow. I have given up
my belief in the orthodox notion of Scripture inspiration and
infallibility with the utmost reluctance. I held and defended the
orthodox notions as long as I conscientiously could. I used my
understanding to the utmost to find out reasons for rejecting the
opinions which I now feel obliged to entertain, and for holding to
the opinions which were taught me from my youth. I say, I have
moved very slowly. I have proceeded most deliberately. I have
taken not a single step till reason and conscience obliged me to
take it, and I have lot moved a single inch or hair's breadth
farther, than a regard to truth and conscience required me to
move. It has not been therefore any contempt for God that has
led me to form my present opinions, but, on the contrary, a devout
and most reverent regard for God.
I thought it proper to make these statements before I pro-
ceeded to point out a number of passages of Scripture, which
appear to me to be doubtful, fabulous, erroneous, or of evil
tendency. Having made these statements, I proceed to my
observations.
I shall begin with the beginning, and proceed, as I have time
and opportunity, to the end.
I. I question the truth of the Mosaic account of creation. I
have no doubt but that the earth and the heavens created,
nor have I any doubt but that the earth and the heavens were
created by God. I believe that every living thing, and every herb
and tree were created by God; that there was a time when there
was not a living thing upon earth ; that every living thing at
present existing, did once	to be; that the races of every
living thing existing began to be ; that the Auman race began to
be ; that there was a time when man did not exist; that man was
created by God ; that man was provided for by God ; and that,
as to its su/?c!a;ice, the Mosaic account of creation is, in general,
true: but in many of its ^wZicuZars, it is, in my judgment,
doubtful, or plainly fabulous. I do not believe, for instance, that
the whole work of creation was begun and completed in six days.
I do not believe that creation proceeded in the orxZer in which it is
recorded in the book of Genesis. Nor do I believe that the
creation was completed in the fimc stated in Genesis. It is pro-
bable, in my judgment, that the work of creation occupied thou-
sands of years, if not scores and hundreds of thousands.134
THE BOOK OF GOD.
Again; I do not believe that there is a	or soM
.frame uxn%, between the earth and the cloudy or watery regions
of the air, dividing the waters in the air, from the waters on the
earth.
I do not believe that God, at any period, resM from his work,
I believe that God has continued his work from the beginning to
this hour; that he labours as much now, as he ever did ; that he
laboured as much on the seventh day of creation, as he did on
the first, or second, or third. I believe that the work of creation
is going on perpetually ; that the work of creation has from the
beginning been gradual; that the process of creation has not
been interrupted by either days or nights ; that the work of God
has been going on from the beginning, and will continue to go on
without interruption or cessation, world without end.
It appears to me, from the book of Genesis, that the writer
was a very imperfect philosopher ; that he held erroneous notions
respecting the atmosphere and the heavens, and that he had no
certain knowledge either with respect to the period when creation
commenced, the manner in which creation proceeded, or the
changes through which the earth and the heavens had passed,
from the time when they were first brought into being. I regard
tiie Mosaic account of the creation, I mean its ^ariicuiar siafe-
menfs, as fabulous.
It is plain, from the account itself, that Moses, if Moses was
the author of the account, knew little either of Geography or
Astronomy. For instance, he did not know that that which was
the morning in one part of the world, was the evening in other
parts of the world ; and that that which was noon in one part of
the world, was midnight in other parts of the world. He appears
to have imagined that the morning and the evening were the
same in all parts of the earth ; that there was one portion of
time when it was day everywhere, and another portion of time
when it was night everywhere ; that at one time it was day to
God, and not night ; and that at another time it was night to
God, and not day ; whereas in truth it could be no such thing.
It is always day, and it is always night, in some parts of the
world ; it is always morning and it is always evening. To GoD,
who is everyu^ere, it is both day and night, morning and evening,
midnight and noon, at the same time, and at aH times. To God,
there could be no such thing therefore as a particular time when
it was morning or evening, unless God had limited himself to one
particular part of the earth, and spoken of one particular part of
the earth, regardless of all other parts.
Again, the writer of the book of Genesis appears to haveNOTES TO BOOK II.
135
supposed, that the day and night returned in every part of the
earth in twenty-four hours, whereas, in truth, in some parts of
the earth the day and night return only once in a year. At the
poles there is but one day and one night, but one morning and
but one evening, the whole year round. A polar day is six
months, and a polar night is the same. Thus the account of
creation contained in the book of Genesis is built on false notions
of Geography and Astronomy, and the account of the origin of
the Sabbath, or of the sanctification of the seventh day, is also
built on these erroneous conceptions.
While I am alluding to the Sabbath, it may be well to observe,
that there is no fixed portion of time which can be kept as a
Sabbath-day by all the people of the earth ; for that which is
day to one part of the earth, is night to other parts ; and that
which is morning to many parts of the earth, is evening to other
parts. Suppose the Sabbath to commence in Leeds at twelve
o'clock on a Saturday night, and suppose the Sabbath to be
observed at exactly the same, time through every part of the
earth ; the consequence would be, that in Germany it must
commence at half-past twelve on a Sunday morning, in Hungary
at one, and a little farther east at two, a little farther east again,
at three. In America it will commence at nine on Saturday
evening, and on every other spot on earth it must commence at a
different hour of the day or of the night. Some would have to
begin their Sabbath at noon, some at two o'clock, some at four
o'clock, some at six and seven and eight in the evening, some at
ten and eleven in the evening, and others at six, seven, or eight
in the morning, and others at every possible diversity of time.
In some parts of England we should have to begin at one
minute, and in other parts at another minute, and even the
minute itself would have to be divided into seconds, and the
seconds into minims. The Sabbath, it is plain, could never be
intended by God for universal observance. In other words, it
could never be designed by God, that all mankind should spend
exactly the same portion of time as a day of rest, for no two
portions of the human family have exactly the same season and
measure of day-light to be thus spent.
II. I regard the account of the garden of Eden as a doubtful or
fabulous story. I regard as doubtful or fabulous the account of
man's creation. Man	be made out of the dust of the
ground ; he might be first formed, and then endowed with life ;
but I yue^h'on whether this was the case or not I doubt the
account respecting the tree of knowledge and the tree of life, the
first command and the first offence. 1 doubt the account of the136
THE BOOK OF GOD.
formation of woman from the rib of the man. I doubt the account
respecting the naming of ail the living creatures by Adam. 1
doubt the account of the first temptation. I do not believe that
the serpent had ever the power of speech, or that it ever was the
most subtle of the beasts of the field, or that Eve was ever
accosted by the serpent, as the account in Genesis states. I
believe that God made man, and that he made woman ; that he
made woman to be a help meet for man, and that he provided
man food at his creation, and that man and woman were intended
to live together in marriage, in a devoted and lasting union. I
believe too that man was tempted and sinned. In suMance, the
account of Moses in reference to these matters, may be perfectly
true; but as to the particularybnn of the story, I believe it to be
fabulous.
I am going a loug way in my opinions, but I cannot help it. It
wtusf be right to inquire after truth, and my inquiries necessarily
lead me to those conclusions. It could never be right to give up
inquiry for fear it should lead me to conclusions at variance with
the opinions I have been accustomed to hold. If people were to
give up inquiring whenever inquiry was likely to lead them to a
change of opinion, there could be no improvement in the world :
no error would ever be detected ; no truth would ever be dis-
covered ; the old, however bad, would remain for ever, and the
time would never come when we should have all things new.
It musf be right to inquire ; it must be right to inquireyreefy and
yearfe&sfy. Why should a man be q/raM of the result of inquiry ?
It is impossible that God can be offended with honest inquiry
after truth. It is impossible but that God should be well yleugey
with the honest and diligent pursuit of truth. And it is impossible
that inquiry should prove in/y?'ioMS_to truth : it is impossible but
that inquiry should prove yriengMy to truth. I will therefore
proceed. I will examine the Scriptures, and declare the results
of my examination, without reserve. I have no doubt there is a
God ; nor do I doubt but that his blessing must rest upon me in
my labours. I have no doubt but that religion is true, and that
inquiry will prove conducive to its interests.
The idea that inquiry can ever lead to the overthrow of religion,
is foolish. Let me utter a prophecy. The day will never come
when there will be less religion in the world than there is now.
The day will never come when religion will decline amongst the
simple-minded, uncorrupted portion of our race. The day will
never come when religion will be really endangered. The foun-
dations of religion are laid deep. They never can be overturned.
They are laid in the heart, in the nature of man, and can neverNOTES TO BOOK II.
137
be destroyed but with our race. As long as there are men, there
will be religion. If the Bible should be utterly exploded, religion
will remain. But the Bible will not be utterly exploded. It will
be revered for ever. The great principles of religion and duty
unfolded and inculcated in the Bible, will always make the Book
venerable, as long as time shall endure. It is only portion# of the
Bible that will fall into disrepute. It is only the imperfections
and errors mixed up with the revelations of the Scriptures that
will ever be endangered. TAose portions of the Bible wiW fall
into disrepute. They may not quite perish : but they will cease
to be believed. They may still be preserved, as a record of the
errors and follies, the weaknesses and peculiarities of ages past;
but they will cease to be regarded as divine revelations, as infal-
lible records. They will be regarded, as they are, in fact, as the
relics of a comparatively dark and uncultivated, but still an
interesting age.
I say religion will never be endangered. Its foundations will
never be shaken. Its influence will never suffer a general or a
lasting decline. Mankind will no more ever cease to be religious,
than they will cease to be animal. The greatest danger to religion
arises from the frauds that have been resorted to for its support.
Nothing has done more towards shaking people's faith in the
truth of religion, than the falsehoods that have been invented
and imposed upon people with a view to promote the interests of
religion, or to strengthen people's faith. But even these will not
endanger the interests of religion permanently. They will cause
men to doubt and to disbelieve for a Cme. They will cause </reaf
number# thus to doubt and disbelieve ; but they will never cause
men yeneraMy to doubt or disbelieve, much less will they cause
men permanency to doubt and disbelieve. The effect they will
produce will seem to threaten the interests of religion in the
estimation of some, but they will on/y seem to threaten them.
Those persons who think that religion is in danger, do not
understand what religion is, or they are not at all aware of the
true foundations of religion. Many of those who profess to be so
concerned for the interests of religion, are themselves unbelievers
in heart. The man that understands religion, and that knows on
what foundation it rests, will 'no more doubt the perpetuity of
religion, than he will doubt the perpetual revolution of the
seasons. He will no more fear that religion will be overthrown
or annihilated, than he will fear the extinction of the sun, or the
destruction of the earth. The man that understands religion,
and knows on what foundations it rests, has as 6rm a faith in its
truth, in its power, in its eternity, as he has in the goodness and138
THE BOOK OF GOD.
perfection of the laws of the nniverse, or of the laws of human
nature. Religion cannot be overthrown, either by the revelations
of the wise, or the mistakes of the ignorant. I shali therefore
proceed, with my remarks on the Scriptures.
I may state, that though I regard the early portions of Scrip-
ture as fabulous, I still consider them, in many cases, as truthful
and useful fables. Though they are fables, they are still, to some
extent, in harmony with the great principles of religion. For
instance, they are based, in general, upon the great principles
that there is a God,—that God created the heavens and the
earth,—that God made man,—that man is an accountable
creature, a moral agent, the subject of divine Government,—
that there is a distinction between good and evil,—that there are
some things which man is bound to do, and other things that he
is bound to leave undone,—that maa's happiness depends on his
obedience to the law of God,—that if man does evil, he will be
punished; and that if he does good, or lives aright, he will be
rewarded,—that the man who obeys God is safe, but that the
man who disobeys God is in danger,—that obedience to God and
happiness are inseparable, and that disobedience to God and
wretchedness are equally so,—that the whole universe is under
God's control, and that He does what He pleases both in heaven
and in earth,—that He can make all nature an instrument of
chastisement to offending man, or a means of joy and blessedness
to obedient man. I say the accounts contained in the Scriptures
are, in general, based on those great principles of religious truth,
and tend to unfold and illustrate those principles, and are, there-
fore, so far calculated to promote religion. I cannot doubt but
that many of the Scripture records are fables, yet they are, in
many cases, fables that are calculated to exert a favourable
influence on men's minds. Who originated those accounts is
unknown. It would be foolish to suppose that any single
individual originated them. They were probably the production
of a multitude of minds operating for ages. The person who first
wrote them, only collected them perhaps, and reduced them to
something like form and order. The person who first put them
in the form in which they stand in the book of Genesis, very
probably took them from records or books that had been written
previously. No doubt he regarded them himself as true. He
probably selected them from other accounts or traditions, less
worthy of regard.
I ought to add, that the account does not appear to agree
exactly with itself. There appear, in fact, to be two or threeNOTES TO BOOK II.
139
accounts, two or three different traditions, joined together in the
same book. The first account represents God as making man and
woman on the sixth day. It represents Him as making man and
woman at the same time. It gives not the slightest intimation
that woman was made out of a part of the man, or that she was
made affer man at all. It represents God as making man in his
own image ; as creating man male and female; as giving them
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,
&c.; as blessing them, and commanding them to be fruitful, and
multiply, and replenish the earth. It represents God as giving
them every herb bearing seed upon the face of all the earth, and
every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, for meat.
This account appears to end with verse third of the second
chapter. At verse fourth of that chapter, a second account seems
to begin. ' These are the generations of the heavens and of the
earth when they were created, &c.' In this account God is repre-
sented as making man first, and as allowing him to live for a
length of time alone. God also is represented as planting a garden
for man in Eden, and placing man in it. He is also represented
as giving man the fruit of the trees of this garden for his food,
and not the herb of the field, as is stated in the former case. This
second account also contains the story of the tree of knowledge of
good and evil, said to be placed in the midst of the garden, and
of the tree of life, &c. It also represents God as putting man into
the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. After all this has
been done, and after an indefinite and unmentioned portion of
time has passed, God is represented as saying, ' It is not good
that man should be alone : I will .make him an help meet for
him.' Then God is represented as forming out of the ground
every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and as bringing
them unto Adam to see what he would call them. Here the
beasts of the field and the fowls of the air are represented as
being made after man, and as being created for man's comfort.
Then the length of time that must have been taken up in the
process of placing all the fowls of the air and all the beasts of the
Held before Adam, to afford him an opportunity of naming them
all, must have been very considerable. We can hardly regard it
as the work of a day or even of a week. W e are next told that
' Adam gave names to all cattle, to the fowls of the air, and to
every beast of the field, but that for Adam there was still found
no help meet for him.'	comes the account of the creation
of woman. The Lord God, it is said, caused a deep sleep to fall
upon Adam, and, while he slept, took one of his ribs, and closed140
THE BOOK OF GOD.
up the flesh instead thereof, and of this rib the Lord God made a
woman, and brought her unto the man, &c. I say the whole of
this account differs widely, and that in several important particu-
lars, from the account contained in the first chapter, and the first
three verses of the second chapter.
There is another matter which deserves to be observed. In the
account God is simply spoken of as GOD. ' GoD created the
heavens and the earth.' ' GoD said, Let there be light: GOD said,
Let us make man, &c.' The only name of the Supreme Being in
all this part is simply GoD. But in the second account God is
invariably designated by another name. Here he is called the
LouD GOD, and he is spoken of as the LoRD GoD in every passage
that occurs. ' The LoRD GoD made the earth and the heavens.
The LORD GoD had not caused it to rain. The LORD Gon formed
man of the dust of the ground. The LoRD GoD planted a garden.
The LORD GoD made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the
sight. The LORD GoD took the man and put him into the garden,
&c.' This difference, on any other principle than the one sug-
gested, namely, that there are two distinct accounts, written
originally by different parties forming two separate traditions con-
taining two different and even irreconcileable histories of the
origin of man, and of the creation of the world, is to me unac-
countable. The author of the book of Genesis must therefore be
considered as simply putting on record what he considered the
best existing traditions respecting the origin of man and the
creation of the universe. It is not unlikely that the two accounts
contained in the first chapters of the book of Genesis, were the
productions both of different nations and of different ages.
To proceed. I question the truth of the account contained in
the seventh verse of the second chapter, where it is said that the
Lord God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life. The
passage represents God as a man, and attributes to him the acts of
a man, and such representations of the divine Being cannot be
correct. Some may say that the writer speaks of incomprehensible
things ; things which cannot be expressed in human language. I
answer, Why then attempt to express them ? Why meddle with
things incomprehensible and inexpressible ? If a thing cannot be
expressed in human language, it is best not to express it at all-
Besides, if the thing as it is stated in the Scripture were true, to
know that God gave man life by breathing into his nostrils, could
be of no use to us. Nor could it be of any use to us to have some
incomprehensible truth expressed, or rather concealed, under such
a form of expression. My belief is, that the writer of the accountNOTES TO BOOK II.
141
regarded God as bearing the likeness and form of a man, and as
literally breathing into the nostrils of man as one man might
breathe into the nostrils of another. I regard the account as an
indication of the rude opinions held respecting the Deity and his
manner of operation in ancient times.
I do not believe that the first man gave names to all cattle, and
to all the fowls of the air, and to every beast of the field. Nor
do I believe that whatsoever Adam, or the first man, called every
living creature, was originally the name thereof. I should rather
believe that Adam, or the first man, was not acquainted with a
tenth of all the living creatures on the face of the earth, and that
of course he did not give names to them all.
I do not believe in the account given in the second chapter of
Genesis respecting the creation of woman. I should rather believe
that it was the result of an attempt, on the part of some one,
to account for the origin of marriage, and the devoted and
mutual affection of husbands and wives. I regard the account
as a fable. I still consider it a beautiful fable, and not without
truth.
Again ; I cannot see what good it could do to posterity, to be
told that the first man and woman were both naked and were
not ashamed. The thing might be perfectly true, and yet not
necessary to be recorded, nor calculated to be of any use when
recorded.
I do not believe that the serpent was ever more subtle than all
the beasts of the field, nor do I believe that it ever had the gilt
of speech. Of course, I regard the account of the first temptation
as fabulous, as well as the account of the first transgression, and
of the effects resulting from that transgression. I regard the whole
as a fable. The fable is not without truth, nor is it without
utility, perhaps. I have, however, no doubt but that it is a fable.
In this account tbe representation of God is still that of a being
like man. He is represented as walking in the garden in the cool
of the evening ; as having a voice to be heard as man's voice is
heard; and the first man and his wife are represented as hiding
themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of
the garden, while God is represented as standing in another
place, and calling out to Adam, Where art thou 1
I do not believe that God ever cursed the serpent. I do not
believe that the serpent had any thing to do with the first temp-
tation. I do not believe that the serpent is cursed above all cattle,
and above every beast of the field. I believe that no beast of the
field is cursed. I see no reason to believe that the serpent is in a142
THE BOOK OF GOD.
more unhappy position than many other beasts of the held. It
can move more quiekiy than many. It has greater power titan
many. It has as safe a retreat, and as happy a home, as most
other living things. It has as much power to protect itself from
other living things, and even from man himself, as most other
animals. Nor do I believe that the serpent was doomed to go
upon its belly in consequence of any thing that it did in the earlier
ages of the world. I believe the serpent never went otherwise
than on its belly. And it is certain that dug/ is not the meat of
the serpent. Serpents, like many other living things, prey upon
other animals, and live on them. Serpents eat ducks and geese,
insects and birds, rabbits and hares, and even sheep and calves,
and in some cases even oxen and men. There is no reason to
believe that a?q/ serpent lives upon dust, and it is certain that
serpents yeneraf/y do not live upon dust.
Nor do I believe that God put enmity between the serpent and
the woman, or between the seed of the serpent and the seed of
the woman. It is true, that there is a dread of serpents, as there
is of many other reptiles ; but there is no ground to believe that
the serpent is any more hostile to man than many other living
creatures, or that man is more hostile to serpents than to many
other living creatures. I regard the whole of this story as an
attempt to account for notions and feelings existing when the
story was framed, by the active inquiring mind of the half-
enlightened author. MeD probably wondered that serpents went
upon their bellies,—that they had not either wings or feet, as
most other living creatures had ; and they imagined this evil deed
of the serpent as the cause. They attempted to account for the
fact by this fable. They had besides, no doubt, an opinion that
serpents lived upon dust, and theyframed the fable to account for
this imaginary fact also. Solomon had an idea that ants laid up
grain in summer for the winter, as his ancestors appear to have
had the idea that serpents lived upon dust. Both were wrong.
Later researches have proved that both these opinions were false;
that ants do not lay up grain for the winter, and that serpents do
not live upon dust. Some may say that the words do not meow
that the serpent shall live upon dust, but only that in eating its
food, it should eat a quantity of dust along with it. But if i/ds
were the meaning of the passage, it would be no more true of the
serpent than it is of all other animals. We all eat a quantity of
dust with our food. Nor is there any proof that the serpent eats
a greater quantity of dust than other animals. It is probable
the serpents eat less than many others. Many serpents live amongNOTES TO BOOK II.
143
the grass, where there is very little dust indeed. They are accus-
tomed to lick over their food before they swallow it. They there-
fore take their food in a cleaner state than many other animals.
The birds perhaps eat more dust than any other kind of
animals, especially the birds that live on grain and on worms.
And it is a fact, that birds do literally pick up grains of dust
or sand. But there is no reason to believe that serpents do any
thing of the kind.
Nor do I believe that the sorrow or pain experienced by women in
conception or child-bearing, are the result of the first transgression.
The sorrow and pain of child-bearing would have existed, I have
no doubt, if sin had never been committed. The lower animals
suffer pain in conceiving and bringing forth their young. Even
birds suffer pain in laying their eggs.
Nor do I believe it to be a fact, that the desire of the woman is
to her husband, auy more than the desire of the man is to his
wife. In Eastern nations, and in early times, this might be the
case, when men had several wives, or when men who had but one
wife had several concubines ; but not in a natural state of society;
not in any state of society where the natural laws of marriage are
respected. Women, of course, are not all alike. They differ as
men differ, and in one case desire may be stronger in one sex, and
in another case stronger in the other ; but the account contained
in the text, in my judgment, had its origin in ignorance of human
nature.
Nor do I think, that man's dominion over woman is the result
of the first transgression, or is any appointment of God at all. I
believe it to be a piece of usurpation on the part of man. I
believe it to have originated in man's own sensuality and injustice.
God no more intended man to be lord over woman, than he in-
tended woman to be lord over man. God intended man and
woman to be mutual helps and mutual comforts, devoted and
enduring friends. He neither intended the woman to be lord over
the man, nor the man to be lord over the woman ; but both to be
loving and equal. I consider the tendency of this part of the story
to be very injurious. It gives countenance to a piece of grievous
usurpation on the part of man, and encouragement to a piece of
injustice and wrong inflicted on woman. It tends, when regarded
as a divine revelation, to perpetuate the degraded and unhappy
condition of woman, and the unjust and mischievous usurpation
of man.
I regard the account that the woman was the first in the
transgression, as equally fabulous as the words just noticed, andTHE BOOK OF GOD.
141
as originating in the same cause. 1 consider it as a proof, that
the men in those days, when the story was first framed, were the
principal or only writers, and that the women were kept in a state
of degradation, deprived of the benefits of spiritual and literary
culture. If woman had happened to have had the supremacy in
those early days, and man been held in a state of degradation, the
story would probably have represented man as the first transgres-
sor, and woman as the second only.
Again, I do not believe that God ever cursed the ground on
account of the first man's sin. I do not believe that he ever cursed
the ground at all. Nor do I believe that God intended man to
eat of the fruit of the ground in sorrow all the days of his life. I
rather believe that he meant man to eat of the fruits of the earth
with gladness and gratitude.
Nor do I believe that thorns and thistles were brought forth by
the earth in consequence of a curse from God, or in consequence
of man's first transgresssion.
Nor do I believe that man was ever doomed to eat the herb of
the field alone. In the first chapter of Genesis, verse 29, God is
represented as giving man the ,/ru% of ewry tree for food, as well
as every seed-bearing herb. 7%ia passage, Gen. iii. 18, represents
God as denying man the use of the fruit trees, and confining him
exclusively to herbs.
Again, I do not believe that God doomed man to toil, or to eat
his bread by the sweat of his face, on account of transgression. I
believe that labour was intended for man, or that man was
intended for labour, from the beginning. Nor do I believe that
labour is a curse : I regard it as a blessing, It is essential to
man's happiness. It is essential to health. It is essential to
man's spiritual improvement. It is essential to man's purity and
virtue.
Nor do I regard thorns and thistles as a curse. I regard them
rather as a blessing If the earth brought forth nothing but what
was good for food, man would have no labour at all; and if he
had no labour, he would miss one of the greatest blessings and
enjoyments of life. If the earth had brought forth nothing but
what was agreeable to man, man would not have had the neces-
sary exercise for his intellect; and his intellect, in consequence,
would never have been strong. The existence of thorns and
thistles, and other things causing difficulty and pain, obliges man
to think, and reason, and plan, and thus strengthens or develops
his intellect, and makes him a more spiritual, rational and god-
like being. I believe it is well for man that he has to eat hisNOTES TO BOOK II.
145
bread in the sweat of his face, or, in other words, that he is
obliged to labour for his bread. I do not believe that God ever
intended men to labour as much as some people labour, nor do
I believe that God ever intended that men should labour as
little as some other people labour. I believe that God intended
that every man should labour moderately ; but that no one
should labour to excess. I believe that God intended that every
one should labour sufficiently to call into exercise all his powers,
sufficiently to call them into vigorous exercise : but I do not
believe that God intended men to labour to such an extent as
to stretch their powers beyond their strength, so as to injure
their health, or to take up so much of their time as to leave
them no leisure for rest, recreation, or intellectual and benevolent
pursuits.
I do not believe that death is the result of man's first trans-
gression. I believe that death existed before man was made, and
that man himself would have died if he had never sinned. I
believe that death is the original appointment of God ; and that
God never intended mankind to live for ever on earth: that
from the beginning he designed both man and other animals to
fall under the law of death. I believe that he intended gene-
ration after generation to give place to succeeding generations,
that life may always be new upon the earth. And this appears
to me to be essential to human improvement. The death of the
old, who, in the present state, become incapable of farther
intellectual and moral improvement, is necessary to the farther
improvement of the young. If the old had lived for ever, they
would have ruled the world, and have rendered its improvement
impossible. It is well that the old are removed, when they have
learned all that they intend, or all that they are able to learn,
and discovered all that they are likely to discover, and carried
on improvement as far as they are disposed to carry it : I say
it is well for the old to be removed, to give place to more active
and reforming spirits, and leave the way open to perpetual and
indefinite improvement.
I do not believe that God made Adam and Eve coats of
skin and clothed them. I believe that the first coats were
made by man; that when God had given man intelligence, he
left him to make his own coats, as well as to prepare his own
food.
I do not believe that man, by his first transgression, became as
God: nor do I believe that God, to prevent man from putting
forth his hand, and taking also of the tree of life, and eating, and
II146
THE BOOK OF GOD.
living for ever, drove man from his first habitation, and placed
ehernbim and a flaming sword to prevent his return. I regard
the whole as a fable.
I have doubts as to the truth of the accounts contained in
the early part of the book of Genesis generally. I have no moral
objection to the account of Abel and Cain: the account con-
tains elements of important and practical truth. The account
is	on truth. It goes on the principle that God loves
righteousness and hates injustice ; that he rewards the good and
pnnishes the bad; that he is willing to forgive the bad on con-
dition that they become good; that he is no respecter of persons,
but only a respecter of cAuracfers ; that when God accepts of
men's offerings it is on account of the goodness of those who
offer them ; that goodness is everything with God. All these are
great and important principles, and they are all mixed up with
the story of Cain and Abel. They are illustrated and enforced
by the story.. The story is therefore caculated to do good.
It may with propriety be regarded as a divine revelation. It
is a divine revelation. All unfolding of truth and of duty is
divine revelation. At the same time, the account is possibly a
fable.
I do not believe that God ever said to Cain, that if he would
do well, he should rule over his brother Abel. This part of the
account seems to be founded on the old bad doctrine of the rights
of primogeniture ; the doctrine that the first-born had a right to
be lord over his brethren. This part therefore is false, not only as
to matter of fact, but as to principle on which it is based as well.
It is also mischievous in its tendency. It is calculated, so far as
its influence goes to promote the perpetuation of those unnatural
and mischievous customs and laws, which give peculiar and exclu-
sive privileges to the first-born.
I do not believe that God fixed a mark upon Cain, to prevent
those who might find him from slaying him. Indeed, judging
from the account in the Book of Genesis itself, there could not be
many people living that would be likely to find him or slay him.
Besides, fixing a mark upon Cain would be the way, as it seems
to me, to increase his danger of being slain.
Nor do I believe that Cain built a city.
Nor do I believe the accounts that are given with respect to
the first artificer in brass and iron, or the first maker of harps
and organs, and the first dwellers in tents and keepers of cattle.
I regard all these things as guesses, conjectures, fables, uncertain
traditions.NOTES TO BOOK II.
147
Nor do I believe that in early times men lived many hundreds
of years. I very much question whether men ever lived longer
than they do at present.
Nor do I believe the story respecting the sons of God inter-
marrying with the daughters of men, and giving birth to a race
of giants. I see no reason to believe that there ever were greater
or taller men upon earth than there are at the present day. The
story of giants, and of inter marriages between angels and the
daughters of men, or between gods and the daughters of men,
which are prevalent amongst all, or nearly all, nations, as well as
amongst the Jews, I regard as fabulous.
Nor do I believe that there ever was a time when the earth was
full of violence ; when every imagination of the thoughts of man's
heart was evil, only evil, and that continually. There never was
anything like it, I believe.
Nor do I believe that God ever repented that he had made
man on the earth, or that it ever grieved him to the heart, or
grieved him at all, that he had made man.
Nor do I believe that God ever destroyed the whole human
race, with the exception of a single family, from the face of the
earth.
Nor do I believe that he ever destroyed all the beasts and
creeping things, and all the fowls of the air.
Nor do I believe that it ever repented God that he had made
these things. I regard the whole story respecting the deluge as
another fable. The account very probably originated in attempts
to account for the diluvial remains abounding in almost every
part of the world. I have no doubt there have been deluges. I
have no doubt but that those parts of the world which now are
mountains, were many or all of them once the beds of the sea ;
and that other parts of the earth that are now under the sea,
were once dry land, My belief however is, that those deluges
took place before man was created, and not in consequence of
man's wickedness. And I question whether even those deluges
were any of them universal. They were probably all partial
deluges, caused by the passing of the ocean from one part of the
earth to other parts, in consequence of the elevation of the beds
of the ocean in some places by volcanic action, or by other influ-
ences or forces under the direction of God, with which we are at
present unacquainted.
I do not believe that any man ever made such an ark as that
which Noah is represented as making. Nor do I believe that an
ark of three hundred cubits in length fifty cubits, and in breadth
H 2148
THE BOOK OF GOD.
and thirty cubits in height, even reckoning the cubit to be a full
half yard, could ever have answered the purposes which the ark
of Noah is represented as answering. Imagine a ship 150 yards
long, twenty-five broad, and fifteen high ; would such a ship
hold two of every kind of living thing, whether fowls or cattle
or creeping things, and fourteen of every clean beast and bird ?
And would it, in addition to all this, hold food for all these fowls
and creeping things, and beasts of the Reid, to serve them for
three hundred and seventy-five days,—ten days more than a
year ? To me it seems impossible. A ship three times as large
would not hold two of every kind of bird, and beast, and creeping
thing upon the face of the earth, with food sufficient to serve
them all for a year and ten days ; much less would it hold, in
addition, fourteen of all clean beasts and of all clean fowls, with
food sufficient for them for a year and ten days. Look at the
immense number of caravans that are necessary to hold the beasts
that are exhibited in shows from time to time. Yet the largest
of those exhibitions do not contain one hundredth part of all the
beasts, and creeping things, and fowls upon the face of the earth.
They contain but a very small specimen of a comparatively small
portion of the alranyc and wiM animals of	counfrie*. They
contain no oxen, no asses, no horses, no pigs, no common fowls,
no common wild animals, no common birds, no common reptiles
or vermin ; much less do they contain two of each kind of unclean
bird and beast, and fourteen of each kind of every clean bird and
beast ; still less do they contain sufRcient food for all these kinds
of animals to serve them for three hundred and seventy-five days,
or upwards of a year. An ark a hundred and Rfty yards long,
twenty-Rve broad, and Rfteen high, would not contain food for a
couple of every kind of bird, and beast, and creeping thing upon
the face of the earth for upwards of a year, much less would it
contain the animals and their provisions both. Only imagine
what a vast amount of Resh would be necessary to supply the
bears, and lions, and tigers, and crocodiles, and eagles, and hawks,
aud owls, and foxes, and wolves, and hyenas, and jackals, and all
the other kinds of birds, and beasts, and creeping things, that live
upon Resh ! Then imagine the quantity of hay, and straw, and
corn, that would be necessary to feed all the grazing kinds of
cattle, and all the various kinds of birds and creeping things that
live upon grain and fruit. Then imagine the vast amount of
insects that would be necessary for those kinds of birds, which,
like the swallow, live almost exclusively upon them. Then think
how far many of the animals must have had to travel to reachNOTES TO BOOK II.
149
the ark. Some kinds live only in the cold countries, others
only in the hot, and others only in the temperate. Many of them
would therefore have to travel many thousands of miles; some
eight or ten thousand miles. Their food too would in many cases
have to be fetched from the same elimates in which they lived.
The story is monstrous. If we had found it in an African or Chinese
ancient book, we should have pronounced it fabulous at once.
Then again, according to the story, there were but eight
persons in the ark, four men and four women. Could these four
men and women attend to the wants of a couple of every unclean
bird and beast and creeping thing on earth, and to fourteen of
every clean bird and beast ? Could they have supplied them with
food, and drink, and bedding, and air, and kept them clean during
the whole of that period ?
Then imagine the number of young ones that, according to the
usual course of events, would be produced in that period. Then
take into account the size of some of the animals of those early
ages, now no longer remaining, such as the mammoth and other
megatheria. I say the story is altogether monstrous.
Then again, according to the account, this vast capacious ark
had but one window, and but one door, and this one window and
this one door were both closed. What would the endless multi-
tudes of animals do for air ? And what would they do for water ?
For the water would all be salt, would it not ? And how would
the filth of the vast establishment be cleared away ? And how
would the eight men and women be protected from the filthy
odours that must fill the place ?
Again, the account appears to be inconsistent with itself.
In one place it tells us that two of every sort of living thing
were to be brought into the ark, male and female ; then another
part of the story tells us that of every clean beast Noah should
take the male and the female by sevens, that is, seven males and
seven females.
In other parts the account betrays ignorance. It tells us that
the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and that the
windows of heaven were opened; or, as the Hebrew has it, the
flood-gates of heaven were opened. This statement goes on the
old foolish principle, that in the heavens was a FIRMAMENT, or
firm partition, and above that firmament a vast collection of
water, ready to be poured down whenever the windows or flood-
gates in the firmament should be opened, and that under the
earth were concealed similar quantities of water, all ready to
burst forth and overwhelm the. earth whenever a way should be150
THE BOOK OF GOD.
made for them. Both those notions, so far as we can discover,
are erroneous. There certainly is no firmament, that is, no fixed,
firm frame-work or partition between us and the starry heavens,
above which are treasured stores of water. And those who have
penetrated deep into the earth have discovered, that the deeper
they go, the warmer does the earth become, an indication that
/ire rather than wafer is contained in the unfathomable depths of
the earth. Some may say that the opening the windows of
heaven is a figurative expression, only meaning the commencement
of heavy showers. There is however no proof of this. My belief
is that the expression was used by the author literally, and that
it is to be taken literally by the reader. For myself, I do not
think that there is water sufficient in the earth and in the air
to cover the highest mountains fifteen cubits above their summits.
Of course nothing is impossible with God. God could make water
in abundance at pleasure. But the story does not intimate that
God made any water for the occasion, but simply that he /ef foose
the waters which were already made, and that the result was,
that all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were
covered, fifteen cubits and upwards. We also grant that God
could have kept the various kinds of animals without food for
three hundred and seventy-five days. But the story does not
intimate that God did so. It tells us that food for all the various
animals was taken into the ark. It is also true that God could
have fed the animals, and have supplied them with water and
bedding, without the attentions of man. But it is equally true
that he could have kept both them and man alive without the
help of an ark. Now the story goes on the supposition, that pro-
vision was made for all those animals in the natural way, and,
thus understood, the story is absurd ; the things which it relates
are impossible.
Again ; suppose the animals had been well provided for in the
ark, how did they live when they came forth from the ark ? The
ark rested high on the top of a mountain. The ground we may
naturally expect would be bare. The soil would have been washed
away into the valleys: the deposit in the valleys and on the
mountain side would have covered the grass, had there been any.
But the grass could not have grown for the three hundred and
seventy-five days during which the flood continued. Where are
the animals to find their sustenance then ? Where shall the dove,
the sparrow, and the domestic fowl find grain ! Where shall the
swallow and its mate find insects ? Where shall the ox, and the
ass, and the horse find hay, or straw, or grass ? Where shall theNOTES TO BOOK II.
151
other birds and beasts End fruits and vegetables on which to
subsist ? And where shall the ravenous beasts find flesh ? Then
all the various kinds of animals must, according to the story, be
provided for in one place, in one climate, and at one season of
the year; whereas in the present state of things, each climate has
its peculiar race of animals, and each race of animals can live and
thrive in its own peculiar climate alone. The maker of the story
has betrayed ignorance on a hundred subjects, and manifested
great forgetfulness on others. He seems to have had no idea of
the number of the different kinds of animals existing on the face
of the earth. He appears to have had no idea of the amount of
food which a couple of every ravenous beast, and seven couples
of many other birds and beasts w ould devour in the course of a
year. He appears not to have thought of the attention which so
many different kinds of animals would require, or of the skill as
well as the time and strength that would be requisite for feeding
and watching and bedding them, and for keeping them dry and
clean. He appears never to have thought either of the number
of hands that would be requisite for the work, or of the quantity
of air that the animals would require. I say he appears to have
been ignorant of a vast number of things connected with the sub-
ject of his story, and to have forgotten and overlooked a great
many more.
Then again, what need could there be for a flood to destroy the
inhabitants of the earth ? And if God had repented that he had
made man,—if it had grieved him to the heart that he had made
him, why should he allow any part of the race to escape 1 If he
wished to favour Noah on account of his righteousness, how easy
it would have been to have translated him to heaven. And if he
was grieved that he had made man upon the earth on account of
man turning out so wicked, why renew the experiment, and risk
another disappointment! I do not say that all those questions
contain proofs, decisive proofs, that the story is false : I only say
that they are questions which naturally arise in my mind, and
tend, when the falsehood of the story is once discovered, to
increase one's wonder that the story should have been so long
believed.
The story of sending forth the raven and the dove, and of the
return of the dove with the olive leaf, has something rather
beautiful and interesting in it. But had we met with the same
stories in the sacred books of the Chinese or Hindoos, we should
have regarded them at once as fabulous.
After Noah went forth from the ark, the account says he built152
THE BOOK OF GOD.
an altar unto the Lord, and took of every clean beast, and of
every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar; and
the story adds, ' And the Lord smeMed a sweet savour, and said
in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's
sake, though the imaginations of man's heart be evil from his
youth ; neither will I again smite any more every living thing as
I have done.' Now what should we have thought if we had read
such a story in the sacred Books of the Chinese or Hindoos ? The
idea conveyed of God, when he is represented as smeWiay a sweet
savour, and resolving on that account never more to curse the
ground, or to destroy mankind, or to smite any more the living
tribes of the earth, is certainly not very worthy of God. The
account is interesting as indicating the low and unworthy notions
entertained of God at the time when the account was written, but
can hardly be regarded as a true revelation of God's character
and pleasure.
In the chapter following, God is represented as teaching man,
that he would require the blood of any animal that destroyed a
human being, and the blood of every man that should destroy a
brother man. ' Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his
blood be shed.' I cannot believe that God ever uttered these
words. Besides, the story is quite inconsistent with the acoount
before noticed respecting Cain. God, so far from being represented
as requiring Cain's blood for the blood of his murdered brother,
is represented as setting a mark upon Cain, lest any one finding
him should kill him. How could God in one case require that
whosoever shed man's blood, should have his own blood shed by
man, and at the same time interfere by miracle to prevent a man
who had shed the blood of his own good brother, from having his
blood shed in return !
It is worthy of remark, that the reason assigned for requiring
the blood of the murderer or manslayer to be shed, is a reason
that would be of force from the beginning ; namely, ' Whosoever
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed ; for in Me
imaye of God made 7/e mam.' This reason would be as powerful
in the days of Cain as at any after period. Yet, according to the
story, Cain was protected; his blood was no% shed. God inter-
posed by miracle to prevent it from being shed. This is an
additional proof, not only that the accounts are fabulous, but
that the accounts contained in the Book of Genesis are by different
authors, and by authors of different sentiments.
We said, on a former occasion, that there were %wo accounts of
the creation. We may add now, that taking in the account ofNOTES TO BOOK II.
153
the Hood, we have %Arce different works or accounts in that book ;
or, if not three, one of the accounts must be regarded as interrupted
at verse 3rd of the second chapter, and as commencing again with
the fifth chapter. But there appear to me to be fAree, if not /our
different accounts mixed together. In the first account God is
always spoken of simply as God: in the second He is always
spoken of as the Lord God : in the third He is frequently spoken
of as the Lord, and occasionally as God: and then in the account
that follows, God is spoken of as God again, and not as the Lord,
or as the Lord God.
Another portion of the history of Noah deserves attention.
God is represented as saying, 'I will .establish my covenant with
you ; and this is the token of the covenant; I do set my bow in
the cloud, and it shall be a token for a covenant between me and
the earth,' &c.	' And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud
over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: and I
will remember my covenant, which is between me and you, and
every living creature of all flesh ; and the water shall no more
become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the
cloud ; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the ever-
lasting covenant between God and every living creature of all
flesh that is upon the earth.'—Gen. ix. 14—16.
We observe, first, that the rainbow is here represented as
originating after the flood. Before the flood there was no rainbow,
according to this story. Now we grant that this is possible, but
we think it very improbable. We believe that there have always
been rainbows ever since there were sunshine and showers at the
same time.
Again : God is represented as saying, ' I will look upon the
rainbow, that I may remember the everlasting covenant.' Could
God need any such means to assist his memory ? Is it possible
that God should forget, or that God should need any help to
remember things?
The account of Noah's drunkenness, and of the conduct of his
sons on that occasion, may be true, though to me it appears to
be fabulous. We are especially disposed to call in question the
truth of the latter part of that account. Here Noah is represented
as cursing his son Canaan, and dooming him to be a servant of
servants unto his brethren; as blessing Shem, and giving him
the lordship over Canaan, and dooming Canaan to be his servant;
as blessing Japheth, and giving Canaan to be Ais servant also.
We think that God could never encourage Noah to curse his own
offspring; that God would rather instruct Noah to forgive his
H 3154
THE BOOK OF GOD.
offending child, to teach him the error of his way, and bring him,
if possible, to repentance. The curse and blessing of Noah have
been represented as prophecies by many. They are treated as
prophecies by Newton. The words are applied to the posferMy
of Noah's sons, and the abject and servile state of the negro race
has been accounted for by them; while by others the prophecies
have been pleaded as a justification of kidnapping and enslaving
the negro race. The negro race have been represented as the
children of Ham. They are spoken of as the children of Ham in
one of Wesley's hymns. The whites are represented as the
descendants of Shem and Japheth, and these prophecies are
considered as foretelling, that through all future ages of time,
the whites shall enslave the blacks. These prophecies have, in
consequence, been productive of no little mischief. Their influ-
ence is mischievous still. We regard the story as a fable; it can
therefore do us no harm : but those who regard it as a revelation
of God's character, and as an infallible record of God's doings,
are liable to be injuriously influenced by it.
In the tenth chapter we are told, that by the descendants of
Japheth the isles of the Gentiles were divided, every one after
his tongue, and that the sons of Shem every one after their
tongues took possession of certain other lands. Here, in this
tenth chapter, it is intimated that the descendants of Noah spoke
different languages. It is not however till we come to the
eleventh chapter that we meet with any account of the con-
fusion of languages. This is not a contradiction, but it looks
suspicious.
In the eleventh chapter we have an account of the building of
Babel. This appears to us to be another fable. 'The whole
earth was of one language and of one speech,' the story tells us,
and then it adds, that they journeyed from the East, that is, all
the people of the earth journeyed ; and that as they journeyed,
they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and dwelt there : that
there they commenced a city and a tower whose top should reach
unto heaven, for the purpose of making themselves a name, and
of preventing themselves from being scattered abroad on the face
of the earth. We can see no marks of truth or rationality about
this story. It seems very unlikely that all the inhabitants of the
earth should move eastward together; that they should take up
their dwelling in one plain ; that they should all unite in building
one city and tower, and all this after having so lately been com-
manded to multiply and rep/en^A tAe eurfA, and after it had been
told us in the previous chapter, that they had gone into differentNOTES TO BOOK II.
155
parts of the world, dividing the islands and the continents accord-
ing to their tongues, and families, and nations.
Again, in the fifth verse we are told, that the Lord came down
to see the city and tower which the children of men builded.
This is another unworthy representation of the Divine Being, but
in perfect harmony with most of the representations of God given
in this book before. God is then represented as saying, ' Behold
the people is one, and they have all one language, and this they
begin to do : and now nothing will be restrained from them which
they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there con-
found their language, that they may not understand one another's
speech.' Did God wish to restrain men from accomplishing great
things ? But how could the building of a tower have prevented
men from being scattered abroad over the face of the earth ?
True, it might have operated as a centre of union ; it might have
served as a place of resort to those who could travel; but it never
could have prevented mankind from spreading abroad over the
face of the earth. They must necessarily have taken in fresh land
as the population increased, and consequently have spread farther
and farther from their common centre; and in course of time
they must have crossed over the mountains, and passed beyond
the seas, in search of food and necessaries. No, the erection of
a city and a tower whose top should reach to heaven, could never
have prevented the spread of mankind over the face of the earth.
Nor does it seem likely that the confounding of their language
would have prevented them from remaining together, or long
prevented them from understanding each other. It must have
required a miracle, entirely suspending or changing man's nature,
to have prevented them from understanding each other for any
length of time. Put a thousand men of different languages
together, if a thousand men of different languages could be found
on the face of the earth, and how long will they remain together
before they begin to understand one another ? Not a day. They
will understand one another in some things at once. They will
understand each other in other things very shortly; and before
a week or a month had passed, they would be able to transact
business, or to join in carrying forward any great undertaking,
without difficulty.
Besides, there is reason to believe that diversities of language
originated gradually; that they originated as they are now
originating in some places, and as they are now passing away in
other places. The origin of the diversities of language was156
THE BOOK OF GOD.
exceedingly different, I am persuaded, from that which is assigned
in the account before us.
In the twelfth chapter, the history of Abraham commences.
I am inclined to think that in the following parts of the history
of the Book of Genesis, we have less of fable, and more of fact;
though 1 imagine that even here the fable abounds to a consider-
able extent, and that the fabulous and real are so blended
together, as to render it impossible for them ever to be separated.
I shall not dwell on every particular part of the story, but make
remarks on portions of the story here and there. I shall not
confine myself to remarks on the truth or falsehood of the story,
but give my thoughts of the character and tendency of its
different portions.
And, first, let me observe, that while Abraham is set forth as
a good man, a man of God, a man whom God has engaged
specially to bless, a man to whom God is represented as saying,
' I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth
thee ; and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed
I say while Abraham is thus set forth as a good mau, and as a
special favourite of God, we are told, that when Abraham went
into Egypt, he requested his wife to say that she was his sister,
lest the people of Egypt should kill him in order to get possession
of her. She accordingly called herself his sister. The Egyptians,
as Abraham had anticipated, were struck with Sarah's beauty,
and the princes commended her before Pharoah, and she was
taken, accordingly, into Pharoah's house, as a concubine or wife.
Pharoah treated Abraham well for her sake, it is Baid, and gave
him sheep, and oxen, and asses, and men-servants, and maid-
servants, and she-asses and eamels. And Abraham consented to
allow his wife to be thus taken from him to be a harlot or a
concubine to the Egyptian monarch. Rather than risk his life,
he would teach bis wife to lie, and lie himself, and allow his wife
to be taken from his side by a sensual monarch, for the vilest
purposes. We are next told that God plagued Pharoah and his
house with great plagues because of Sarah, Abraham's wife : that
Pharoah, having discovered the trick that had been played upon
him, called Abraham and said, ' What is this that thou hast done
unto me 1 Why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife ?
Why saidst thou, she is my sister, &c. ? And they sent him
away, and his wife, and all that he had.' Not the slightest inti-
mation is given in the story that the writer considered the conduct
of Abraham blameable. No expression of disapprobation of hisNOTES TO BOOK II.
157
conduct is to be found in the account. Yet nothing can be
plainer than that his conduct was mean, and deceitful, and
cowardly, and selfish, and brutal. We do not say that the same
amount or degree of virtue could be expected of men in those
early times as now, but we do say that men writing a revelation
from God would not represent a man who could act so unworthily,
as a special object of God's favour, without some explanation. A
story like the one before us would be calculated, if taken as a
revelation from God, to encourage lying, and cowardice, and
brutality. We say again, if such stories had been found in the
sacred books of the Chinese or the Hindoos, they would have
been referred to as a proof that those books were the fabulous
productions of erring and imperfect men.
There is a story in the 13th chapter respecting a strife between
the herdmen of Lot and the herdmen of Abraham, and of a
dispute between Abraham and Lot in consequence. Here Abraham
appears to advantage. His conduct on this occasion is truly
beautiful. 'And Abram said unto Lot, let there be no strife, I
pray thee, between me and thee, aud between my herdmen and
thy herdmen; for we be brethren. Is not the whole land before
thee ? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me : if thou wilt take
the left hand, then I will go to the right; or- if thou depart to
the right hand, then I will go to the left. And Lot lifted up his
eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well
watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and
Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of
Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. Then Lot chose him all the
plain of Jordan ; and Lot journeyed east : and they separated
themselves the one from the other. Abram dwelled in the land
of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched
his tent towards Sodom.'—Gen. xiii. 8—12. This was noble of
Abraham. Such conduct as this would deserve the divine
approbation.
In the next chapter we are told, that in a war waged by Che-
dorlaomer and others against the king of Sodom and others, the
king of Sodom was conquered, and that Lot and his goods were
taken, and carried away by the conquering party, and that Abra-
ham, when informed of the disaster, armed his trained servants
and pursued the captors, smote them, and brought back all the
goods, and brought again his brother Lot and his goods; and the
women also, and the people that had been captured, and that
when the King of Sodom, whose goods and property had been
carried away, said to Abraham, ' Give me the persons, and take158
THE BOOK OF GOD.
thou the goods to thyself.' Abraham answered the King, and
said, ' I have lifted up my hand unto the Lord, the Most High
God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I wfll not take from
thee a thread even to a shoe latehet, and that I will not take any-
thing that is thine, lest thou shouldst say, I have made Abraham
rich. This too was a noble act, though the motive, as expressed in
the last words, was not of the highest order.
The first PRIEST that is mentioned in the Bible, is Melchizedec.
The only thing that is recorded of him is, that he went out to
meet Abraham, when he was returning victorious from his con-
flict with Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were in league with
him, and blessed him, giving him bread and wine, and taking
tithes of all the spoils that Abraham had taken in the war. This
is the history of priestism in all ages. The priest goes forth to
meet the victorious, not the vanquished ; to bless the conqueror,
and represent his victory as the gift of God ; to give the victorious
chief a little bread and wine, and take a tenth of all the spoils in
return. I say this is the history of priestism in all ages ; to
flatter the prosperous, to support the powerful, and to take a tenth
of their property or plunder in return.
There are several stories in the fifteenth and sixteenth ohapters
of Genesis, on which I shall hazard no opinion : I may, however,
observe, that Abraham is reported to have gone in to one of his
female slaves, and to have had a son by her, and that no intima-
tion is given that his conduct was considered by the writer to be
unnatural or wicked. Now nothing is more certain, than that
adultery or polygamy is a transgression of God's laws. Man is
plainly designed for marriage, but he is as plainly designed for
marriage with one alone; and it seems to me amazing that wc
should have ever regarded a book as an unmixed revelation of
truth and duty, as a perfect and infallible guide in knowledge and
righteousness, which could records deeds of adultery, without
uttering a word of condemnation against them ; that could set
forth a man as the friend of God, at the very time he was trans-
gressing God's laws.
The next thing recorded of Abraham is, that he gives per-
mission to Sarah, his wife, to abuse and torture Hagar, who
is now with child, till the poor oppressed one can endure no
longer, but is forced to flee from her cruel mistress. Yet nothing
is said condemnatory of either Abraham or Sarah. Every thing
they do is spoken of, or passed over, as though it were perfectly
right.
While Hagar is seated by a fountain of water in the wilderness,NOTES TO BOOK II.
159
the angel of the Lord is represented as saying to her, ' Return to
thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands.'
Now, we grant that the things that are here recorded of Abra-
ham and Sarah, are at variance with the spirit and teachings of
other portions of Scripture : but this does not at all alter the fact,
that this portion of Scripture holds forth to our admiration as a
special favourite of God, and to our imitation as a pattern of
piety, a man who is guilty of lying, of cowardice, and of adultery,
and who, when his bond slave is with child by him, gives permis-
sion to his wife to abuse, to beat, and torture her as she pleases,
till her station becomes intolerable, and she flees into the wilder-
ness for safety.
We are next told, that the angel of the Lord who appeared
unto Hagar, told her that she was with child, and should bear a
son, and should call his name Ishmael, and that her son should
be a wild man, and that his hand would be against every man,
and every man's hand against him. This is a curious story. I
should rather myself believe that the prophecy was invented to
account for the war-like character and habits of the Ishmaelites,
than that the prophecy had been uttered before Ishmael was
born. This prophecy is generally applied to Ishmael's descen-
dants. It is thus applied by Newton and Adam Clarke. Adam
Clarke applies to Ishmael's descendants the words that are used
in Job xxxix. 5, 8, of the wild ass, and says, that ' nothing
can be more descriptive of the wanderiny, lawless, Jree-Aootbiy life
of the Arabs, the descendants of Ishmael, than this passage.' He
then proceeds to say :—
' God himself has sent tAem outfree ; he has loosed them from
all political restraint. TAe wilderness is tAeir AoAitation, and in
the yarcAed laud, where no other human beings could live, they
Aave tlteir dwellinys. 7'Aey scorn, tAe city, and therefore have no
Jfxed habitations ; for their nHdtitude they are not afraid; for when
they make depredations on cities and towns, they retire into the
desert with so much precipitancy, that all pursuit is eluded: in
this respect, tAe cryiny of tAe driver is disreyctrded. They may be
said to have no lands ; and yet t/;c ranye of tAe Mountains is tAeir
pasture, they pitch their tents and feed theirylocAs wherever they
please; and they searcA offer every yreen tAiny, are continually
looking after .prey, and seize on every kind of property that comes
in their way.
It is further said. Ais Aand sAatt Ae ayainst every man, and every
man's Aandayainst Aim.—Many potentates among theAbyssinians,
Persians, Egyptians, and Turks,have endeavoured to subjugate the160
THE BOOK OF GOD.
wandering or wiki Arabs ; but though they have had temporary
triumphs, they have been ultimately unsuccessful. Sesostris,
Cyrus, Pompey, and Trajan, all endeavoured to conquer Arabia,
but in vain. From the beginning, to the present day, they have
maintained their independency; and God preserves them as a
lasting monument of his providential care, and an incontestible
argument of ?rn/A of Di??ine HeueZafion. Had the Pentateuch
no other argument to evince its divine origin, the account of
TsAmael and the-prophecy concerning his descendant, collated
with their history and manner of life, during a period of nearly
fAousand years, would be sufficient. Indeed the argument is
so absolutely demonstrative, that the man who would attempt its
refutation, in the sight of reason and common sense would
stand convicted of the most ridiculous presumption, and excessive
folly.'
Now I do attempt its refutation. The argument, so far from
proving the Book of Genesis to be a Divine revelation in the
sense in which Adam Clarke uses that phrase, proves it to be no
sucA ZAiny. Could it be God's intention that a race of men should
live in a wild and lawless state, supporting themselves asyree,
Aootrs, as general roMers and murderers,—that their hands should
be against every man's hand, and every man's against them, for
thousands of years in succession,—and that, in order to fulfil a
prophecy delivered in the infancy of time, lawlessness, plunder,
war, and murder, should be perpetuated in their most savage
forms for ever ? The notion is monstrous, IFe think that the
man who can build an argument for the unmixed divinity, for
the absolute infallibility of the book of Genesis, on such a story,
and on such a prophecy, does Amtse?/ stand convicted of ridicu-
lous presumption and excessive folly. 1% believe that God meant
men for peace, and that ultimately he will bring wars to a universal
and perpetual end.
But again, we do not believe that the passage under considera-
tion has been fulfilled in the history of the Arabs at all. We do
not think that the hands of the Arabs have been against every man,
and that every man's hands have been against them. The history
of the world proves that it has nof been so. The prophecy then
has never been fulfilled. It was not fulfilled in /sAmaeZ Aimse/f;
and it has not been fulfilled in his po.de rdy. Indeed, Ana! it been
fulfilled in Ishmael, Ishmael would doubtless have perished in
his younger days. If every man's hand had been against Ishmael,
could Ishmael have possibly escaped? And if the world at large
had been against his descendants, could his descendant haveNOTES TO BOOK II.
161
escaped.? If the world at large were against the descendants of
Ishmael at present, the descendants of Ishmael would perish in a
year. The prophecy then is proved false. But even supposing
that it had been fulfilled to the present time, it would have to be
falsified by and by, or else of/wr prophecies, of a more cheering
and godly character, must prove false; for many prophecies fore tel
a time when wars shall cease : when peace shall spread through
every land, and when all mankind shall be gathered together
into one community; when there shall be one dock, under one
shepherd ; when the kingdoms of the world shall become the
kingdom of God and of his saints ; when they shall not hurt
nor destroy in God's holy mountain, but when the earth shall
be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the
sea.
In chapter xviii., God is represented as saying to Abraham,
that he would form a COVENANT with him; and this was the
covenant, that every man-child in Abraham's household should
be circumcised, and that the man-child who was not cir-
cumcised should be cut off from his people. I need not say,
Can any one believe that God would ever make such a covenant ?
for wawy believe that he made such a covenant. I believed it
myself till lately: that is to say, I received it as true ; I
acquiesced in it ; but I did it unthinkingly, unreasoningly; and
others, no doubt, do the same. I now believe this story no
more. I regard it as a fiction. I have no doubt that the story
originated in the prevalence of circumcision amongst a certain
part of mankind, and not that circumcision originated in a cove-
nant between God and Abraham. Circumcision is a bloody, an
unnatural rite : it is worse than the custom of sacrificing animals;
and God, I am persuaded, could never either require it, or take
pleasure in it. ' Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is
nothingin other words, circumcision is no reconMnendaiion of
man to God, and uncircumcision is no oAsfacie to man's acceptance
with God, and never was. That which God has required of man
in all ages has been, not that they should wound and torture their
bodies, or endanger their health and their life, but that they
should avoid evil and do good ; that they should live soberly,
righteously, and godly; and that they should do justly, love
mercy, and walk humbly with their God.
There are several other stories of less importance in this chapter,
which we may pass over without remark ; but there is one verse
which ought to be noticed, which is as follows : ' And all the men
of his house, born in the house, and bought with money of the]62
THE BOOK OF GOD.
stranger, were circumcised with him.'—Gen. xvii. 27. From this
it is piain, that Abraham was not only a slave-AoMer but a slave-
Auyer ,* that he Z/wA'l in men. Yet nothing is said condemnatory
of this conduct. Though kidnapping, and man-stealing, and
trafficking in human beings are condemned in other parts of the
Scriptures, they are connived at or spoken of as matters of course,
passed over uncensured, in the history of Abraham, who is held
forth as the special friend of God, aud the pattern and example of
God's people.
In the 18th chapter, there are many things on which I am
hardly prepared to give judgment ; yet there are some that must
not pass unnoticed. Three men or three angels are represented as
visiting Abraham, as eating and drinking with him, and as then
foretelling that Sarah should have a son. Sarah, who overheard
their conversation, LAUGHED; but being observed, and asked why
she laughed, she denied it, and said she did not laugh ; yet no
intimation is given that Sarah did wrong in this lying. She is
censured for douMng wAelAer .sAe sAowM Acre a cAiW wAen sAe was
geZZing near a Aundred years oM, but no reproof is given to her for
lying.
In the twentieth and twenty-first verses of this chapter, we
have the following: ' And the Lord said, Because the cry of
Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very griev-
ous ; I will go down now, and see whether they have done
altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and
if not, I will know.'—Gen. xviii. 20, 21. Here God is represented
as sitting at a distance from Sodom and Gomorrah, and
receiving reports of what was passing there from others; but,
being doubtful whether the reports brought to him were correcZ or
not, he forms the purpose of going down and resizing the neigh-
bourhood Aimsey, to see whether the people bad done altogether
according to the reports that had reached him; and if not, to know
exactly how the matter stood. Nothing can be plainer, than that
the writer of this book regarded God as a MAN ; and that he consi-
dered him limited as to place, and believed him to derive his
knowledge of things at a distance, from the report of his messen-
gers. It is also to be observed, that the person who is here spoken
of as the Lord, appears to be the same individual or individuals
who ate of Abraham's butter, and milk, and veal, and bread, as
stated at the commencement of this chapter. It is said that
Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo, ZAree men stood by
him. These three men Abraham is represented as addressing as,
My LORD. ' He said, My Lord, if now I have found favour inNOTES TO BOOK II.
163
thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant: let a
little water, 1 pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest
yourselves under the tree: and I will fetch a morsel of bread,
and comfort ye your hearts ; after that ye shall pass on : for
therefore a?e ye come to your servant. And they said, So do,
as thou hast said.'—Gen. xviii. 3—5. I know, of course, the
explanation which certain Trinitarians would give of the matter.
They would say that those three men were the Trinity; that
one of the men was God the Father, that the other man was
God the Son, and that the third man was God the Holy Ghost;
and they would account for Abraham's addressing those three
as, My LORD, on the principle that God the Father, God the
Son, and God the Holy Ghost were one God. They would
account, I suppose, for the fact of these three persons in the
Godhead being called three men, on the principle that one of them
was to be incarnate/, and become a man, about two thousand years
after, and on the principle also, that as the three divine persons
were one God, the incarnation of one of them, might justly lead
to the whole three of them being spoken of as three men. On
what principle those Trinitarians would account for the fact, that
these three men, God the Father, God the Son, and God the
Holy Ghost, needed to themselves, and wasA their/cef, and
ea/, I cannot tell. They no doubt would say that this part of the
passage was exceedingly mysterious. Nor can I tell iu what way
they would account for the fact that God the Father, God the
Son, and God the Holy Ghost, should all of them live at a dis-
tance from Sodom and Gomorrah, and know nothing of what was
passing there but by hearsay; that they should have in their
employment as messengers, persons in whom they could not
place confidence, and on whose testimony they could not rely ;
and that they should be obliged, when they wish to know the fru?A
of the reports brought to them, to take a journey and go down to
Sodom and Gomorrah themselves, to examine with their own
eyes and thus see whether the people there had done according
to the report that had reached them. I say I cannot tell how
those Trinitarians would account for fAG part of the story. I
know no explanation they could give of it, but the common one,
that it is exceedingly mysterious. To me the whole account seems
a jumble of ignorance, of error, and confusion. One thing is
perfectly plain, that the writer's notions of God were exceedingly
low and limited.
I may further observe, that in the seventeenth chapter, God is
represented as saying, that he would give to Abraham and hisTHE BOOK OF GOD.
IGA
seed, the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession, and as
promising that he would be ZAeZr God. I judge from this passage,
that the Jews, from the earliest ages, understood that Jehovah
was one God out of a numAer, and that while oZAer gods were the
gods of oZAer nations, Ar w as engaged to be ZAeir God, theirs ezcZu-
weZy ; ZAeir God, and not the God of oZAer nations. This notion
was manifestly the notion of the writer of the Book of Genesis,
and this notion appears manifestly to have prevailed amongst the
Jews in the time of Christ and his Apostles. This was one of the
great Jewish errors which the Apostle Paul disproves in his
Epistle to the Romans. He there proves, that there is but one
God, and that that one God is the God of the GenZiZes as well as
of the Jews; thus combating the notion inculcated in the Old
Testament, that God was a local and partial God : one God out of
a number.
The following part of the chapter contains an account of a
conversation between Abraham and Jehovah, with respect to
the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha. In reply to Abraham's
entreaty, God engages, that if he should find fifty, forty, thirty,
twenty, or even Zen righteous persons in Sodom, he will spare the
city for their sake. It appears from this passage also, that Abra-
ham did not yet suppose Jiehovah to know for certain, whether
there were ten righteous persons there or not. Jehovah is
represented as being still in (ZouAZ as to the number of righteous
men that were there ; as being only on his journey to make
inquiries, and as saying, ' IF I find in Sodom fifty or ten right-
eous men, I will spare the city for their sakes.'
The next chapter contains the account of the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrha, and of the events connected with their
destruction. The first part of the chapter tells us, that two
angels visited Lot at Sodom, and eat with him, and that before
the angels lay down for the night, the men of Sodom com-
passed the house round, both old and young, all the people from
every quarter, and demanded that Lot should bring the men
out, that they might make use of them in the commission of
an unnatural crime. This I regard both as a gross and pal-
pable falsehood, and as a most indecent story. The idea that
nZZ ZAe men in ZAe ci/y, ZwZ7t oM antZ youny, a/Z the people, from
every yuarZer, should come and make such a demand, is mon-
strous. The following verses make the story still more monstrous.
Lot goes out to the men of the city, and tells them, that he re/uses
to give up his yuesZs to be thus abused, and says, ' I have Zwo
(ZuuyAZers, which have not known man, let me, I pray you,NOTES TO BOOK II.
165
bring fAent out unto you, and do ye unto them as is good in
your eyes, only unto these men do nothing.' Could any mortal
man make such a proposal as this ? And if any man on earth
couM be found capable of making such a proposal, should we
call him righteous ? Impossible. I cannot believe that a man
could make such a proposal, much less can I believe that a person
who could make such a proposal, would be called by God himself
a righteous man.
Then follows the story of the destruction of the place by fire
and brimstone from heaven, the conversion of Lot's wife into a
pillar of salt, for looking behind her on her escape from the
city to the mountains. I question the truth of this part of the
story also. I think it very probable that the state of the soil
in that neighbourhood gave rise to the story. The ground in the
neighbourhood where Sodom and Gomorrha are supposed to have
been situated, abounds with bitumen pits. It was oily, pitchy.
And there are frequent eruptions of a bituminous or oily matter
from the lake near that place. From this state of things in the
neighbourhood, the story or fable very probably had its origin. But
the idea that a man who could offer his daughters to be abused
at pleasure by a whole city of men, men of the filthiest and
most abominable character, should be called a righteous man,
and set forth as an example to others, is monstrous. The idea
that a book containing such a story could be appointed by
God as an infallible guide to truth and righteousness, is almost
unaccountable.
The story that follows is, if possible, more palpably false, and
more grossly indecent, than what has gone before. I refer to the
story respecting Lot and his daughters while they were living in
a cave in the mountains. I won't repeat it, for though I am
wishful to reveal the true character of the Bible, I cannot induce
myself to pollute the pages of my tract with an accouut so filthy
and horrible. But let it be observed, in the first place, that the
elder daughter of Lot is represented as saying to the younger one,
'Our father is oM.' Let the age of the father be taken into
account, and then let the reader of the story judge whether that
which follows could be true. I not only regard the story as merely
improbable; but as absolutely impossible. The thing recorded
never couM take place. But if such a thing And taken place, it
ought never to have been recorded in any AooA, much less in a
book intended to be read by all mankind as a guide to truth, to
virtue, and to heaven. I believe the story originated in the hatred16G
THE BOOK OF GOD.
which the Jews had to the Moabites and Ammonites, the reported
descendants of Lot.
In the twentieth chapter we are told that Abraham again in
effect denies Sarah to be his wife, by calling her his signer, and
that in consequence of his faithlessness he loses his wife. The
story, however, tells us, that God warned Abimelech, the person
who had taken possession of Abraham's wife, against touching
her, &c. In this case Sarah yoMM her husband in a lie. Abra-
ham says of his wife, ' She is my sister,' and Sarah says of her
husband, ' He is my brotherand both consent, through fear, a
needless fear, to the vilest and most abominable arrangement. Yet
Sarah is set forth even in the New Testament as an example
for women to follow, and Abraham, as an example for men to
follow. Good men are called the children of Abraham, and Christian
women are told that they are daughters of Sarah, if they do weW,
and are not terrified with any amazement: as if Sarah had not
been terrified, and that without reason ; and as if Abraham had
not been cowardly, when there seemed danger. Abimelech is
represented as giving Abraham a terrible, but just rebuke for his
misconduct. Abraham excuses himself by saying, that he was
afraid they would kill him for Sarah's sake, if they found that
Sarah was his wife. Hence it appears, that rather than risk his
life, Abraham would consent to have his wife taken and used as
a prostitute. Abraham says, ' I thought surely the fear of God
is not in this place.' He seems to have thought himself more
religious than other people, though ready to prevaricate or lie, and
even to give up his wife to prostitution.
In the seventh verse, God is represented as saying to Abime-
lech, ' Restore to the man his wife, for he is a PROPHET, and sAaM
ynzy_/br fAee, and %Aou sAuH Hee ? while it is plain, through the
whole of the chapter, that Abimelech was as good a man as
Abraham, if not a better. I should rather have supposed that
Abraham needed the prayers of Abimelech, than that Abimelech
needed the prayers of Abraham, and that God would as soon have
heard the prayers of Abimelech as the prayers of Abraham. True,
Abimelech fooA the woman; but he took her under the impression
that she was an mnwwrM woman; and he surrendered her as
soon as he knew his error. In my judgment A^raAam. was the
most criminal.
The story contained in the seventeenth and eighteenth verses of
this chapter, I shall not quote. I believe it to be false: but whether
false or true, it is a piece of indecency, and ought never to haveNOTES TO BOOK II.	167
been found in a book professing to be a guide to knowledge and
virtue.
The next chapter begins by telling us that Jehovah visited
Sarah, as He had previously promised, and did to Sarah as He
had spoken, and that Sarah conceived and bare a son. Then
follows an account of the expulsion of Hagar and her child from
Abraham's house, at Sarah's instigation. This expulsion of Hagar
and her child, Abraham's son, was exceedingly grievous to Abra-
ham, as might be expected. But the next verse tells us, that God
said unto Abraham, ' Let it noZ be grievous in thy sight because
of the lad, and because of thy bond woman ; in all that Sarah has
said unto thee, hearken unto her voice, &c.' Thus God comes to
urge Abraham to obey the unreasonable demands of his wife, and
perpetrate the unnatural deed to which she had urged him : and
Abraham sent away Hagar, and her child, his son, and she wan-
dered in the wilderness till her bottle of water was gone. When
Ishmael was on the point of perishing of thirst, hie outcast mother
sat over against him, and lifted up her voice and wept, and accord-
ing to the story, had not a miracle been wrought, the outcast and
her child must have perished.
In the following chapter we are told, that God bade Abraham
take his son Isaac, and offer him for a hurnZ-q^rwy, and that
Abraham in obedience to the command, went up into a mountain,
bound his son, and stretched forth his hand and took a knife to
slay him, but was prevented from doing so by the timely interpo-
sition of the voice of God. Many disbelieve this story. I disbe-
lieve it myself. If God had wished to try Abraham's faith, he
would have tried it, in, my judgment, by requiring him to do
something Zrwly pood, or to abstain from something reaZ/y evM. It
is plain that Abraham had not yet distinguished himself by a
consistent discharge of the common duties of morality. It is
plain that he had not got rid of the fear of death,—that he had
not broken off the habit of lying, and that he had not given up
slave-holding or the slave-trade. There was no necessity therefore
to try his faith by requiring him to do something beyond or out of
the circle of common duties. There was enough to exercise his
faith wizAin that circle. If God had need to try Abraham's faith
in orderto satisfy AinMeZ/respecting Abraham's character, he would
have done it, in my judgment, by requiring of him abstinence
from those moral evils which still clung to his character, or the
performance of some of those moral duties by which Abraham
had not yet distinguished himself. I believe it impossible that
God should command a man to kill his own son, and burn his168
THE BOOK OF COD.
body as a sacrifice, in any case. I believe the story contained in
this chapter to be an immoral one, as well as a false one; and if
the crime of murdering their own children had not been a most
horrible and unnatural one, there is reason to beiieve that numbers
of people would have been induced by this story to have committed
the horrible deed.
I have read a report of one man murdering his child under an
impression that God required him to imitate the virtue of Abra-
ham ; and the reason why Abraham has not had more imitators is,
that human nature is too good and too strong to be generally cor-
rupted or perverted by such stories.
Still, as I have said with respect to former parts of the Book of
Genesis, so may I say of idpart, that though the stories, in my
judgment, are fables, there are still mixed up with many of them
important religious elements. God is still represented in general
as hating that which is evil, and loving that which is good ; as
punishing the wicked, and rewarding the good. So far the influ-
ence of those fables is good. But the Kne between good and evil
is not correctly drawn, and in many cases God is represented as
conniving at evil in his favourites, and as taking very little notice
of true goodness, when found among the uncovenanted ones, such
as Abimelech.
In chapter twenty-five, we have a very improbableand indelicate
story respecting the birth of Esau and Jacob. I shall not repeat
it. My readers^can examine it, and judge of its character forthem-
selves. To me there are several things in the story that seem
improbable. It seems improbable that twin children of the same
father and the same mother, should differ so widely from each
other as is here represented ; that one should be born red, all over
like a hairy garment; and the other plain and smooth. It appears
equally improbable that the child that was born second, should
take hold of the heel of the first-born with his hand. The story
contained in the 22nd verse, about the children struggling toge-
ther before they were born, and about the expectant mother,
asking counsel of God, and the erplunufion which the Lord is
represented as giving of the matter, namely, that fwo nations were
in her womb, and two manner of people, and that the one should
be stronger than the other, and that the elder should serve the
younger, is, in my judgment, a most foolish and ridiculous story.
It proves, too, that the man who wrote it, either knew little
about human nature, or that he was exceedingly thoughtless
and credulous with respect to the character of the tales he
reported.NOTES TO BOOK II.
169
It is in reference to those two children, Jacob and Esau, that
God is represented as saying, by one of the prophets, 'Jacob have
I loved, and Esau have I hated.' But it is difHcult to find in what
Jacob's worth or virtue consisted, and in what Esau's vice or
wickedness consisted. There is not, that I can find, in the whole
story, a single discreditable thing recorded of Esau ; nor is there,
that I can find, a single deed of remarkable virtue recorded of
Jacob. If I were to judge of the characters of Jacob and Esau
from what is recorded in the Scriptures, I should give preference
to Esau's. True, Esau .soM Ais Air^ArigAf, but Jacob AouyAf it, and
bought it under circumstances exceedingly discreditable to him.
Esau sold his MrfArtyAf; but he sold it to saw Ais A/e. He was
faint and ready to die, and asked Jacob to give him a little of
some pottage that he had been preparing, and the unnatural and
hard-hearted brother had the villany to propose that Esau should
sell him his birthright for a little of the pottage; and Esau
replied, ' Behold, I am at the point to die, and what profit shall
this birthright do me ? And Jacob said, swear to me this day ;
and he sware unto him ; and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.
Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils ; and he did
eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised
his birthright.' Esau did despise his birthright; that is to say,
he valued his K/c more than his birthright. And did wisely.
What man of sense would not do the same ! Who would !t<d sell
the privileges of a birthright, to avoid starvation. I wish some
others had despised their birthright as Esau did ; it would have
been much better for the world. If our English and Irish Aris-
tocrats had despised fAeir birthright, this country would have been
far more prosperous and happy than it is. It is their unwidinyness
to part with their birthright as it is called ; it is the law of Entail
and Primogeniture, made to prevent them from selling their birth-
right, that has done so much to impoverish and destroyfhekingdom.
Would to God that our Aristocrats, and that the Aristocrats of the
nations generally, had sold their birthright; it would have been an
infinite blessing to the world. Yes, Esau despised his birthright,
and he proved himself wise in so doing. He sold it to save him-
self from starvation; and he acted like a man of sense in so
doing. And Jacob AouyAt it, and proved himself a selfish and
ambitious man in so doing. He bought it' for a mess of potage,'
and thus proved himself an extortioner. He took advantage of
his brother's necessity to get hold of his birthright. He refused
to give his brother a little pottage to save him from starvation,
unless his brother would give him his birthright in return ; and
I170
THE BOOK OF GOD.
in doing so he proved himself one of the greatest and vilest of
sinners, one of the most cruel and unnatural of the human race.
I say, taking the story as it stands, supposing the story is as here
recorded to he true, Esau w^s the better man, and Jacob was the
worse man. Yet the Scriptures tells us, that God loved Jacob,
and that he hated Esau ; which, according to the yq/Hesf interpre-
tation, means, that God loved Jacob than he loved Esau.
While Adam Clarke foolishly condemns Esau for selling his birth-
right to avoid perishing, he very properly adds : ' What shall we
say of his most unnatural brother Jacob, who refused to let him
have a morsel of food to preserve him from death, unless he gave
him up his birthright. Surely he who AouyAf it under such cir-
cumstances, was as as he who aoM it. Thus Jacob verified
his right to the name of	This is very good, only
Adam Clarke ought not to have confenfed himself with saying,
that he who, under such circumstances,	the birthright was
as And as he who soM it; he ought to have said he was much,
incomparably worse.
In chapter twenty-six we have an account of Isaac telling a
similar lie to that which his father told, and that for a similar
purpose, namely, to save -himself from death. ' And Isaac dwelt
in Gerar. And the men of the place asked him of his wife ; and
he said, she is my sister : for he feared to say, she is my wife; lest,
said he, the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah ; because
she was fair to look upon.' It however appears, from the after
part of the story, that he had no need to be thus afraid ; that
Abimelech was a virtuous, conscientious man.
In chapter twenty-seventh we have the account of the fraud
practised upon Isaac in his old age, by Rebekah and Jacob,
and of the consequent anger of Esau, and of Jacob's flight to
his Uncle Laban. Isaac was old and about to die, and he
wished Esau, who was a hunter, to go and fetch him some
venison, and make him some savoury meat, such as he loved,
that he might eat it, and that his soul might bless him before
he died. Rebekah, who heard what Isaac her husband said to
Esau, conspired with Jacob, her younger son to deceive her
husband, and to defraud Esau of his father's blessing. But the
story is too long to repeat, and my readers, or most of them
at least, are acquainted with it, and all can read it as it stands
in the Bible. Rebekah and Jacob succeeded by fraud and
lying, in imposing upon Isaac, and inducing him to give a
blessing to Jacob instead of Esau. When Esau came back, and had
found how his father had been imposed upon, and how he hadNOTES TO BOOK II.
171
been defrauded, he was exceedingly sorrowful and angry, and
resolved to be avenged on his brother. Rebekah, however, got
Jacob sent off to his uncle's, where he remained for fourteen
years or upwards. How Esau afterwards forgave his brother,
and even refused his proferred gifts, my readers have read, and
may read again, for themselves. The remarks I would make
on the story are these:—First, it hardly seems likely that
Rebekah and Jacob should be uhfe to impose upon their father
in the way that is recorded. Secondly, if they practised the im-
positions recorded, they were most deceitful and unworthy charac-
ters. Thirdly, if the latter part of the story be true, then Esau was
an affectionate brother, and a noble-hearted and generous-minded
man, and Jacob was a deceitful, selfish, crouching brother, and ail
unworthy man. Fourthly, if all this was true, then it is impossible
that Jacob should be an object of God's special approbation and
esteem, and that Esau should be an object of his abhorrence.
Fifthly, whether the story be regarded as true or false, it has cer-
tainly no good tendency. The best character in the story is spoken
of as an outcast from God's affeetionate regards, and the worst
characters in the story are represented as objects of God's special
love and blessing.
The account of Jacob's sojourn with his uncle Laban, of the
manner in which Laban oppressed and cheated him, of his marriage
to Leah and Rachel, of his taking to himself the female slaves of
Rachel and Leah, and having children by them, and of the
bargain made between Rachel and Leah, as recorded in chap, xxx,
14 to 21, comes next. It would be too tedious to make lengthened
remarks on it. Some portions of the story are indelicate, others
of them seem exceeding improbable, and none of them, that I can
see, are calculated to be of any moral or religious use. On the
contrary, the story generally represents God as working miracles
to bless and prosper a false, a deceitful, and unnatural man ; a
man too who was a polygamist and an adulterer; a man whose
leading characteristics were cunning, and selfishness, and fraud.
It is doubtful, however, whether the story &e correct. Some
portions of it are probably true; but the truth is probably mixed
with a greater amount of fiction. But I cannot enter into parti-
culars.
In the thirty-second chapter we have a strange account of Jacob
wrestling with a man, from evening till the break of day, and of
his prevailing at length upon the man to bless him. This man is
spoken of as God. Jacob is represented as saying, ' I have seen
God face to face.' It is stated that Jacob, in his wrestling with
I 2172
THE BOOK OF GOD.
God, had his thigh put out of joint, and the last verse of the
chapter concludes the story as follows :—'Therefore the children
of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the
hollow of the thigh, unto this day ; because he touched the
hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrank.' I should judge
that this story of Jacob wrestling with God, originated in some
foolish custom which prevailed amongst the Jews, of not eating of
a certain part of the animals which they killed.
In the thirty-second chapter we have an account of the meeting
between Esau and Jacob, a meeting most creditable to Esau, sup-
posing the story to be correct.
In reference to the conduct of Rebekah and Jacob, Adam Clarke
expresses himself very strongly, and in his note at the conclusion
of chapter twenty-seven, he has these words :
'In the preceding notes, I have endeavoured to represent things
simply as they were. I have not copied the manner of many com-
mentators, who have laboured to vindicate the characters of Jacob
and his mother in the transactions here recorded. As I fear God,
and wish to follow him, I dare not bless what he hath not blessed,
nor curse what he hath not cursed. I consider the whole of the
conduct both of Rebekah and Jacob in some respects deeply
criminal, and in all highly exceptionable.'
With respect to the story about Jacob's influencing the offspring
of Laban's cattle, causing the sheep to bring forth ringstreaked
or speckled lambs at his pleasure, as well as with regard to some
Other portions of Jacob's story, Adam Clarke has the following
remarks at the end of chapter thirty:
' We have already seen many difficulties in this chapter, and
strange incidents for which we are not able to account. 1. The
vicarious bearing of children. 2. The nature and properties of
the mandrakes. 3. The bargain of Jacob and Laban, as related
ver. 32 and 35, and 4. The business of the parti coloured flocks,
produced by means of the females looking at the variegated rods,
may be, especially the (Arce last, ranked amongst the most diffi-
cult things in this book. Without encumbering the page with
quotations and opinions, more diversified than the flocks in rela-
tion to which they are proposed, I have given the best sense I
could; and think it much better and safer to confess iynorance,
than, under the semblance of unsdom and learning, to multiply
conjectures.'
I once thought Adam Clarke right; but now I think it better,
instead of confessing ignorance, and acknowledging mysteries, to
express doubts as to the truth of the story, and charge the mystery
upon the fabulous character of the story.NOTES TO BOOK II.
173
On the character of Jacob, A. Clarke has the following re-
marks :
' The Zalen! possessed by Jacob was a most dangerous one : he
was what may be truly called a scheming man ; his wits were still
at work, and as he devised, so he executed, being as fruitful in
esyedients as he was in jdans. This was the principal and the
most prominent characteristic of his life ; and whatever was ex-
cessive here, was owing to his mother's tuition—she was evidently
a woman who paid little respect to what is called worcd principZe,-
and sanctified ad Rnds q/ weans, by the goodness of the end at
which she aimed; which, in social, civil, and religious life, is the
most dangerous principle on which a person can possibly act. In
this art she appears to have instructed her son; and, unfortu-
nately for himself, he was in some instances but too apt a profi-
cient. Early habits are not easily rooted out, especially those of
a bad kind How far God approved of the whole of Jacob's
conduct, I shall not inquire: it is certain that he attributes his
success to divine interposition, and God himself censures Laban's
conduct towards him: see chap. xxxi. 7—12. But still he
appears to have proceeded Jarf/ter than this interposition autho-
rized him to go, especially in the means he used to improve his
own breed, which necessarily led to the deterioration of Laban's
cattle ; for, after the transactions referred to above, these cattle
could be but little worth. The whole account, with all its Zh/Afs
and shades, I consider as another proof of impartiality of the
divine historian, and a strong evidence of the authenticity of the
Pentateuch. Neither the spirit of deceit, nor the p<nrlMtKly of
JriendsAip could ever pen such an account.
True, neither the spirit of deceit nor the partiality of friendship
ever could pen such an account; ner could the spirit of know-
ledge, of truth, aud of piety. It was the spirit of ignorance and of
superstition, or the spirit of piety mixed with gross errors and sad
misconceptions of right and wrong, and of the character and
government of God, that originated and penned the story. And
it is the same spirit which perpetuates a belief of the story at the
present time. And the fact that the success of Jacob's trickery
was attributed to divine interposition, is of itself sufficient proof
of this. So far from considering this story as another proof of
the authenticity of the Pentateuch, 1 consider it as another and
as an unanswerable proof, that the Book of Genesis is, to a great
extent, a collection of fables.
There are certain chronological dif&culties connected with these
stories, into which I need not enter. I am reviewing the Bible174
THE BOOK OF GOD.
as a re/igious, a nrnraf book. I am examining the claims of ortho-
dox priesthoods, to have it regarded as an infallible guide to
truth and duty, so that questions of chronology are of less im-
portance.
We have next the story of Joseph, which, on the whole, is an
interesting and instructive story. It does, however, contain some
portions that are objectionable. It contains some portions too
which have every air of improbability. It is, however, on the
whole, superior to the rest of the stories contained in this book.
The history of Joseph is, however, interrupted in the middle, by
a most filthy and indelicate story respecting Judah, aDd respecting
Err and Onan, his sons. Fornication, in its vilest forms, is here
treated as a matter of course, and stories of bargains between
patriarchs and harlots are given without the slightest intimation
that there was any thing amiss in such transactions. Joseph too is
represented as a diw'ner or mctyicmn. He is also represented as
; and what is worse, he is further represented as obtaining
from all the Egyptians their land, on condition of supplying
them with corn during the famine, thus securing the whole of the
land to the monarch, and reducing the Egyptians generally to
slavery. These parts of the history of Joseph are to his discredit,
and as no fault is found with Joseph for those things, we consider
the story calculated to exert an unfavourable influence upon
morals and upon human interests.
We come next to Exodus. Here we have an account of the
birth of Moses, of his being cast out, and found by Pharoah's
daughter, and nursed by her as her son, of his conduct when he
came of age, and of his labours to deliver Israel his people from
their bondage in the land of Egypt. How much of this story is
true, and how much of it is fabulous, I do not presume to say. I
must, however, make some remarks on the contest between Moses
and the Egyptian magicians.
It is said that when Aaron cast down his rod in the presence of
Pharoah, it became a serpent, and then it is added, that Pharoah
called the wise men and the sorcerers, who did in like manner with
their enc/MtnfnMnAs, and f/teir rods became serpents. Aaron, how-
ever, is represented as having the advantage in this respect, that
Aaron's rod waKowed the rods of the sorcerers and magi-
cians. JVtM I regard as utterly fabulous. Men yeuernMy would
have regarded it as fabulous, if they had found it in the sacred
books of any other nation. The story is, in my judgment, mon-
strous.
Aaron next stretches out his hand upon the waters of Egypt,NOTES TO BOOK II.
175
upon their streams, their rivers, and their ponds, and they become
biood, and there was blood through all the land of Egypt, both
in vessels 'of earth, and in vessels of stone; all the waters that
were in the river were turned to blood ; the fish that was in the
river died, and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not
drink of the water of the river ; there was blood throughout all
the land of Egypt. It is then added the rnayicians of Egypt did
so with their eacAanimenfs, and that Pharoah's heart was har-
dened. This story we consider both as fabulous and mischievous.
It not only records what we believe to be untrue, but gives the
plainest countenance possible to false notions respecting the power of
magicians or sorcerers, representing them as able to work miracles
equal to the miracles said to be wrought by Moses and Aaron.
But here we rest. We shall carry our review of the Bible
no farther for the present. We think it sufficient to have
presented to our readers our views with respect to the earlier
portions of the Bible. Those who are wishful to ascertain the
character of the Bible throughout, can pursue their own inquiries
at their own leisure. They have only to take the Bible, and
compare its statements with each other, with known facts,
with the laws of nature, and with the dictates of common sense,
and they may come to a tolerably correct conclusion with respect
to the character and merits of different portions." Thus far the
writer proceeds ; and, as I think, he has done good service to the
cause of Truth and God, 1 hope he will not be angry with me for
inserting his viesys, however widely he may differ from them
now.Rooh of ^ob.
BOOK III.
1. In the present Volume is contained the Book of
ENOCH the PROPHET, the Second Messenger from God to
man. He is called the Prophet, because he first made
known to the Initiated in the Mysteries the terrible
convulsion which buried Atlantis in the bottom of the
sea. It had been foreshadowed in the Seven Thunders
(Part I., 613); but these, as I have noted, were sealedENOCH.
177
up, so that the world knew them not; in the same way
as the Book of Enoch was in part a sealed Volume, and
not communicated to the profane. Enoch's revelation of
the Divine Law, which was once the Code of an immense
empire, and was known to priests and divines throughout
the world, disappeared mysteriously at an early period of
the so-called Christian sera, when the Petro-Paulite
churches and their felonious priests began to destroy
every book which was not in complete conformity with
their systems (.4c^ xix. 19 ; see Part I., 432—3); and
has only recently been put forth, but in an imperfect
shape. The present edition is alone genuine ; and a
perusal of it will show that it was in harmony with the
true version of the APOCALYPSE, and was in unisoD
with the structure of sham Christianity which Papal
Rome and its satellites reared on the ruins of Truth.
And this fact of course explains its disappearance for so
many hundred years.
2. The fate of apocryphal writings in general, says
Laurence in his dissertation on the Book of Enoch, has
been singular. On one side, from the influence of
theological opinion, or theological caprice, they have
been sometimes injudiciously admitted into the canon of
scripture; while on the other side, from an over-anxiety
to preserve that canon inviolate, they have been not
simply rejected, but loaded with every epithet of con-
tempt and obloquy. The feelings perhaps of both parties
have on such occasions run away with their judgment.
For writings of this description, whatsoever may or may
not be their claim to inspiration, at least are of consider-
able utility where they indicate the theological opinions
of the periods at which they were composed. This I178
THE BOOK OF GOD.
apprehend to be peculiarly the case of the Book of
Enoch; wZMcA, us Aaviwy wMww/6s%Zy wrtMert Ae/ore
^Ag (ZocZrwws o/ C/trM/tawi/y were yroM^ZyaZetZ Zo ZAe
worM, MMsZ q^br<Z M.s, w7wM ZZ re/ers Zo ZAe wuZMre w^Z
cA.ur<wZgr o/* %Ae JfcssiaA, ae Zz repeaZccZZy (Zoes so re/er,
cretZiMe yroo/* o/* wAaZ were Z7w ^ewtsA opZaZo?M MpoM ZAose
poZuZs Ae/ore Z7w AZrZ/^ o/ CArZsZ, aw/ co?Me$MeHZZy Ae/ore
Z7te yossi&Ze yretZowtwawee o/* zAc CAwZZaM ereecZ. The
Bishop does not inform us, in the foregoing passage, by
whose judgment or authority the canonicity of books is
to be determined ; whether it is to be decided as at the
Council of Nice. Part I., 109. All the ancient fathers,
and now our modem ones, admit that the Old Testament
was submitted to a careful review by Esdras and the
Synagogue, who did as they pleased with them. Buxtorf,
TtAertas, i. 10. Every part of the Jewish scripture, says
Tertullian, was reviewed by Esdras. Z7e CwZZM Fhew.,
c. 3. Whether you say, says Jerom, that Moses was the
author of the Pentateuch, or that Esdras reformed the
work, is a matter of indifference; implying that the
latter was quite as likely as the former. tZ TZsZpZcZ. ii.
212. And the reverend and right reverend compilers
of what is called TspwtAer's CoMMertZary cite these
passages with approbation; nor do they venture to deny
their truth. See Part I., 77. It is folly therefore to
talk of canonicity as being a certain test of truth. Any
one who seriously contended for the infallibility of
Esdras, or the Synagogue, on that or on any other
matter, would expose himself to just scorn. No books
ought to be in the Canon whose internal evidence proves
that they cannot be of God.
3. The version of Enoch which has been put forth byENOCH.
179
the Archbishop is in many respects taken from an
original that is spurious. To a critical eye, as Laurence
admits, it presents the obvious appearances of having,
been the work of two or three different persons, living
in different periods, as Murray confesses, just as the
bulk of the writings which now constitute the Old
Testament are at length proved to be. This fact did not
escape the notice of the Archbishop: but wedded to a
system of which he was one of the Praetorian guard, it
did not occur to him that it was expedient to separate
the true from the false, the old from the new ; and he
has accordingly translated the whole of what he had,
treating it however as a figment by some ingenious Jew
whom he supposes to have lived before the advent of
Jesus. Why this person forged it in Hebrew, as is
supposed, but without any basis ; how it became lost ;
why it should have been translated into the Abyssinian,
and perhaps the Greek, and into no other known lan-
guages ; /tow allusions have been made to it in the
Zohar; and under what delusion Tertullian, in his
tract on Idolatry, wrote when he spoke of it as the
composition of wos%	propAe% AnocA, MMptret/
%o propAecy Ay %Ae IMy <Sp:r:f the learned Archbishop
has not thought it worthy of his notice to explain; but
he has, like all such writers, indulged in assertions and
speculations which he would have his readers accept
without any reason, as if they furnished in themselves
the most convincing proofs. It is impossible not to be
struck with the cool way in which he disposes of
Tertullian, who, himself a staunch believer in the
existence and authenticity of a Book of Enoch, in proof
of which he gives many arguments, is thus disposed of by180
THE BOOK OF GOD.
the Archbishop : " With the arguments of Tertullian in
proof of its inspiration and authenticity I have nothing
to do "—as if the authority of an independent writer and
a Christian Father at so early a period was of no value
at all : and as if an orthodox Archbishop was entitled to
treat them with contempt. That it was classed by some
of the fathers, as they are called (in many instances,
indeed, fathers of lies) among the apocryphal tracts,
demonstrates nothing. Apocryphal does not mean
spurious, as the multitude is taught to believe : it means
" hidden," that is, a book, or something else, concealed
from the general laity, because it contained secrets which
it was not deemed advisable that the general laity should
know. And that Enoch, the conservator of the Mysteries,
should enwrap in darkness certain portions of his own
Book, as he was forced to do certain portions of the
Apocalypse, is hardly a matter of surprise. Jesus
himself alluded to a time when all the Sacred Writings
which had been so studiously kept from the knowledge
of the people should be made public : 7 /wre is wo^Atny
tvAicA sAaZZ woZ Ae	wetZAer was awyZAiny
AeyZ secret (a?roKpv<%)ov) Aw? tAat sAowM cowte a&roa<7.
Mark iv. 22. And that time is come. Yet Irenaeus
in the second century, and Clemens of Alexandria, and
Anatolius Bishop of Laodicea, if their testimony be worth
anything, do not speak of it as though they denied its
authenticity; Tertullian in the same age quotes from it
as authentic; nor does Origen, who in most matters of a
theological character is worth a phalanx of those canonized
impostors, throw any doubt upon the work, though he
admits that it was not wholly accepted by the churches.
It is quoted on various occasions in the Teamen?ENOCH.
181
o/* f/M	a work which Nitzsch has
shown to belong to the latter part of the first cen-
tury or the beginning of the second. It will be
easily perceived wAy it was that the Church then
dominant, which spent its days and nights in for-
gery, mutilating, interpolating, corrupting, or destroy-
ing* every manuscript that contained aught that was
repugnant to its young desire of universal despotism,
should exclude this work from what it called the Sacred
Canon; and as the fathers were the humble slaves of this
ambitious harlot (Part III., 637), and as all their writings
have descended to us, filtered through their unholy hands,
it becomes impossible either to rely on what the latter
wrote, or on that which, coming to us from the most
suspicious guardianship, is declared to have been their
genuine composition. I regard therefore with contempt
the reported opinions of those writers on any matter of
sacred history ; and I cannot conceal my surprise that in
the present days any one of independent mind or unbiassed
reason should refer to them as authorities upon any
controverted matter (1).
4. Whatever the current of opinion may be, the Boon
OF ENOCH must now stand upon its own intrinsic worth.
If its internal evidence supports it, no opinions of dead
men can destroy its value ; if it possesses not this internal
* The interpolation of new doctrines into old books, and the
putting forth of modern figments under ancient names, is occultly
alluded to by Jesus under the symbol of new wine in oM AoMiee.
Matt. ix. 17 ; Mark ii. 22 ; Luke v. 37, 38. It is wonderful that
no man has as yet attempted to explain the numerous mystic
sayings of this Messenger : many of them deeply tinged with the
symbolism of Hindustan and of Pythagoras, who is supposed by
some to be the Shanskrit Bud'ha Gooros, or Teacher of Wisdom.182
THE BOOK OF GOD.
evidence, no proof that I can offer will persuade the world
that it is genuine (2). If it be a Book of Truth, it is a
Book of God ; and he who i/MM&s will be persuaded that
it is Truth. If it be, as that most learned, but not always
wise man, Herbert, the author of Nimrod, iv. 43, calls
Laurence's Enoch, " an infamous volume," it must wend
the way of all such. Now does it go forth among man-
kind to make its own way as it may deserve. Those who
examine it fairly will be convinced that it is one of the
most ancient and authentic Volumes in the world ; those
who are too lazy, too cunning, or too sensual to do so,
will go to their priests to ask them how they shall
believe, and their priests, as usual, will add a new rivet
to their fetters, and tell them that it is apocryphal. So
be it. But there shall come a day when God himself
will arise upon his Throne, and demand from every being
a reason for the faith that was in him ; and when the
trembling spirit answers to its Lord that it believed or
disbelieved according to its smooth-faced parson, and
sought no knowledge by its own exertions, it is easy to
conjecture what the judgment of the Lord will be. 77e
sAaM say Mnio Deyari /ram me, ye cwrse<i, /Zte
ewrZas/wty /ire, yweyarec/ /or /Zse afew'i an<Z /n'.s awyeis.
Matt. xxv. 41; and out of that Fire, when shall they
ascend 1
5. In speaking of the Book of Enoch as here given,
and treating it as different from the Book of Enoch
alluded to by ancient writers, the reader will bear in
mind that there was probably an authentic and certainly
a forged or interpolated copy : as there always has been
a true and a false Apocalypse. It is impossible now to
know whether those ancient writers who allude to theENOCH.
183
volume refer to that which was true or that which may
be regarded as only a fabrication. Sufficient for the
present purpose is it that they had a Book of Enoch
which they treated as a genuine and inspired revelation.
The Cabbalists, says a writer in Kitto's
thought that AtocA was	%Ae ctM^Aor, but whether
of the forged or the lost Enoch we do not know. And
why should not Enoch be really the author! If it
contained, as the Old Testament does, and part even of
the New, views of God, or of Truth, inconsistent with
the supreme dignity and purity of the First, or with all
that we can conceive of the Second, then indeed we might
reject it; but I challenge the biblical to point out in this
work a single sentence which can lower the idea of God
in the mind of any, or at all liken Him to the Jewish
ghoul whom they call Jehovah. But this challenge will
never be accepted. The orthodox believer will take
everything from his parson, and nothing from his own
reason. He was well described by Richard Baxter many
years ago, and as he was then—poor wretch !—so he still
continues to be. Few Christians among us, he says, for
aught I And, have any better than the Popish implicit
faith on this point, nor any better arguments than the
Papists have to prove the Scripture to be the Word of
God. They have received it by	; godly ministers
and Christians tell them so ; it is impious to doubt of it;
therefore they believe it. *	*	* It is strange to
consider how we all abhor that piece of popery as most
injurious to God of all the rest, which resolves our faith
into the authority of the Church; and yet that we do
content ourselves with the same kind of faith, only with
this difference—the papists believe scripture to be the184
THE BOOK OF GOD.
Word of God, because Church saith so ; and we,
because our Church or our leaders say so. Many a
thousand do profess Christianity, and zealously hate the
enemies thereof upon the same grounds, to the same end,
and from the same corrupt principles, as the Jews did
hate and kill Christ. It is the religion of the country,
where every man is reproached that believes otherwise.
Had they been born and bred in the religion of Mohammed
they would have been as zealous for him.	p. 2.
6. That from a very early period there was a forged
copy may be learned from a tenet attributed to Enoch by
one of the Hebrew Rabbis, but of which tenet no trace
exists now in the spurious edition of Bishop Laurence, or
in the authentic copy contained in this volume. Moses
Maimonides introduces the Prophet as discoursing thus :
" Since God has created these heavenly bodies, and placed
them on high in their exalted spheres ; since he has put
honour upon them, and uses them as his ministers, it is
but reasonable that we should praise and extol and put
honour upon them likewise; for this is the intention of
the Blessed God, that we should magnify and reverence
whomsoever He hath magnified, just as a king desires
that his ministers should be honoured, which is doing
honour to the Prince himself." It is impossible that
Enoch, the Messenger of God, and the preacher of
Monotheism, could have written thus in praise of star-
worship. So likewise we read in Laurence's Book of
Enoch as follows (Cap. 68), that among the inventions of
one of the fallen angels was the knowledge of writing.
" He taught men to understand writing, and ink, and
paper. Therefore numerous have been those who have
gone astray from every period of the world, even to thisENOCH.
185
day. For men were not bom for this, thus with pen and
ink to confirm their faith : since they were not created,
except that, like the angels, they might remain righteous
and pure ; nor would death, which destroys everything,
have affected them.	fAefr Zvww/e&M tAey
and by this also its power consumes them." Here
the hand of the priestly interpolator, the everlasting
enemy of knowledge, betrays itself: it is needless to add
that no such passage exists in the genuine Book of
Enoch : nor could any Minister of God preach it. But
Dr. Laurence translated it as he found it in Ats spurious
copy, without, as it would seem, suspecting, or perhaps
caring, that it was a wicked corruption of the text. The
fact is, priests are never ashamed of this teaching. In
the	C'owwMwfary we have the Bishop of Ely
gravely telling us, that man should not seek to learn
what is good and evil from himself, but from God only !
and that he should not set up an independent search for
more knowledge than is fitting. This is guarded language,
but it shows what is still in the minds of the priestly
order. The same right reverend writer disgraces himself
by a repetition of the old exploded fable that Zaratusht
was an associate of Daniel. See Part III., 510. When
bishops are capable of these infamies in the 19 th century
with the blaze of public opinion upon them, what may
they not have done in other ages, when they were
all-powerful, and when the laity were no better than a
cloud of smoke 1
7. It is obvious enough why the Jews in fAew* copy of
Enoch had the passage cited by Moses Maimonides ; it
was to prop up their system of judicial astrology. Of
the great science of astronomy the Jews never possessed186
THE BOOK OF GOD.
any knowledge; but they clung obstinately to all that
related to magic, witchcraft, and judicial astrology, and
declared the stars fore-figured all earthly events; a doctrine
which brought them immense gains from all who were
so foolish as to be misled, and strengthened their political
influence in all those countries where they had any.
Some of them indeed averred that the stars exerted a
direct influence on human actions; but the more artful
pretended that they did not make but signify ; for that
the heavens were only a kind of divine Volume in whose
characters they that were skilled may read or spell out
human events. And the priests declaring that they
alone were skilled, the reader may judge for himself how
great must have been their emolument from this source.
For the same reason the paragraph against knowledge
was interpolated and promulged. Knowledge from the
very first, even to the present moment, has been de-
nounced as an evil thing by the priests of sin ; the
Hebrew tract writers declared that tasting the Tree of
Knowledge brought death and misery unto the earth and
final damnation in hell ; and from their days till now we
find all the sacerdotal cohort, from the Pope of Rome to
the crawling missionary, marshalled against the diffusion
of true knowledge, and persecuting its enlightened
preachers.
8. Laurence, citing the spurious portion of the Book
which he edited, as evidence in favour of his hypothesis,
argues therefrom that the whole was composed after the
Hebrew captivity, and by some one who had the writings
of Daniel before him. But the writings of Daniel are
themselves a fabrication. Part I, 404, 456 ; as he himself
was a foul traitor. Part II, 509. With equal reasonENOCH.
187
might it be argued in reply that the Jews who forged
Daniel's prophecy had the Book of Enoch before them,
and interpolated passages or ideas from it into their
figment. Arguments of this kind, therefore, go for really
nothing. They are based upon the assumption that every
portion of the Old Testament is genuine, than which a
wilder folly never existed. The want of coherence among
the several parts, says the writer in Kitto's Cyc/opcedw,
is obvious. Detached portions are put together without
regard to their mutual connection. The work seems, in
fact, to be made up of several pieces, w/twA Aawny Aeew
.separa/e/y composed, were afterwards thrown together
without care. Let the reader compare the genuine Enoch
here given with the double or three-fold, or quadruple,
Enoch of the Archbishop, and he will perceive that the
whole ground of this reasoning entirely fails. The one
is harmony ; the other chaos.*
9. The Bishop, indeed, himself remarks that the book
may have been composed	periods : perhaps it
might be also added, that there may have been different
tracts, CM we// as	composed Ay	aw/Aws. If
Laurence really believed this, it may be asked why he
translated and even edited such a figment 1 But this line
of interrogation would hardly have suited a dignitary of
the reformed church. It is clear that the Bishop, at the
last moment, dreaded the work which he published, and
even threw doubts upon it as far as he could, as it opposed
his system. And this, 1 think, may explain as weli, why
such learned and accomplished men, as the reverend
* On chapter 64 the Archbishop himself admits that it is not
Enoch who writes, Auf some one who relates a Vision of Noah.188
THE BOOK OF GOD.
author of Nimrod, have laboured to befoul the Book of
Enoch with all their might and knowledge. It might
explain also why practically the Book has disappeared
from the public, and is only at rare intervals accidentally
found at a bookstall. The writer in Kitto's CycZopcEEh'a is
forced to confess that "the Book of Daniel presents
similar featuresbut almost every student knew this
already.
10.	It is evident, says the Rev. Mr. Murray, in his
2?nocA	that the work of at least two different
authors, living in countries removed from one another*
Ay wot /ass t/rcMt tArrty deyrees o/ Za/r'twde, is combined in
one portion of this book. The same author, having cited
various allusions to the Book of Enoch, in the Testaments
of the Twelve Patriarchs, says : I conclude therefore that
we have in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs at
least some indirect testimony of the former dilapidation
of this Book, if not of Z7re separate eaMZerwe o/ tZs
But all this sort of objection applies as
well to all the tracts in the Old Testament as it does to
Enoch. Why, then, are not %7wy given up by the priests.
The answer is, that on the authenticity of Enoch their for-
tunes do not depend; but that if the Old Testament is
confessed to be what it is, in great part a forgery, the
bishops and rich parsons will no longer have their thousands,
but sink into ruin with the church itself, which is based
upon those false scriptures.
11.	Grotius says of Enoch : Credo initio librum fuisse
exiguum, sed cum tempore, quemque ea quae voluit ei
addidisse, ut in libris illis abstrusioribus factum est seepe : I
believe that at first, it was a little book, but that in
course of time, each person added to it what he pleased,ENOCH.
189
as has often been done in books of an abstruse kind.
-dtZ. Fprst. yM/Z. The last part of his remark applies
with great truth to Isaiah and such tracts; but I think
the true Book of Enoch was rather subtracted from
than added to. See Part III, 536. The present Book
is far more comprehensive than that edited by Lau-
rence.
12. In the .JposZoZtcuZ CoyMO'O/Zt'oR-s, book 6, cap. 16,
we read as follows : We have sent all things to you, that
ye may know our opinion, what it is; and that ye may
not receive those books which obtain in our name, but
are written by the ungodly. .For yow are wot to attest
to zAe	o/ tZto apoat/M, 5wt to /Ag watwre o/ tAe tArw/s,
aw(Z tAetr settM optwfoTM. For we know that Simon and
Cleobius and their followers, have compiled poisonous
books under the name of Christ, and of his disciples;
and do carry them about in order to deceive you, who
love Christ, and us his servants. And a mow/ tAo uwcMwts
also some have written apocryphal books of Moses, and
Enoch, and Adam, and Isaiah, and David, and Elias, &c.
Here it will be observed that the writer, if he is not
intentionally ambiguous, makes an important distinction
between books of a modern date, which bore the name of
Jesus, and those of a far remote antiquity which he calls
Among these he classes Enoch; so that it is
absurd to pretend that it was written only a short period
before the advent of the Ninth Messenger, which most
of the biblical commentators do. Jerome likewise in his
comment on Psalm 122, 3, says : The Book is manifestly
to be accounted among the Apocrypha, and the uwcMwt
intrepreters have so spoken of it. But if it were of the
date assigned to it by modem writers, the word atwcfewZ,190
THE BOOK OF GOD.
as used in this early period of the Church, would have
no meaning whatever. Tertullian intimates that it was
rejected from their canon by the Jews of his day, because
it seemed to help Christianity—alluding doubtless to the
Messianic passages which figure so largely in it, and in
the Apocalypse. But the rejection of it by the Jews,
because it alluded to a Messias, is surely no valid reason
why it should be rejected byjjhristians. And Tertullian
evidently had little respect for any such grounds of
rejection as that.	151. The reader will bear in
mind that the forged book of Enoch, which is mentioned
in the	is not necessarily the
same as that which Laurence edited, any more than the
Kirani mentioned in Part I, 260, was the true volume
of the same title. See General Index, s. v. Kirani.
13.	Father Kircher says of the Book of Enoch, a
fragment of which he cites in Greek : Et quamvis is liber
apocryphus sit, quia tamen	est, et ante
Christi tempora	scriptus, &c.
GMtp.	ii. 68. And a more learned and large-
minded scholar than Kircher, the Papal Church never
produced. What conclusion can we draw from his calling
it " most ancient!" 1 Had he seen the copy, which
I believe to be in the Vatican 1 or had he heard of it
from some of those who were entrusted with the secret ?
I believe that in the crypts at Rome, there are genuine
copies of many of the true Scriptures of the Messengers.
See Part I. 260, 314. Part III, 115.
14.	Whether the Book of Enoch was placed among
the Canonical Books or not does not matter in the least:
the First Epistle of St. Clement to the Corinthians, and
the Epistle of the Hebrews, have been placed among theENOCH.
1!)1
sacred writings. .BtsAop IFa&e'g	5.
And a great many other well known forgeries were once
Sj placed. What are many of the Canonical Books
themselves, but clear and manifest figments ! written to
support a system, and not to diffuse Truth. What is the
Book of Jonah and his Whale ? It has occult relation, it
is true, to Oannes, the Man-Fish, who came out of the
ocean to reprove the guilty and to teach the ignorant :
but f/tts is not the reason why it has been placed in the
Jewish Canon. Part III, 421.
15. In the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs allusions,
as I have before said, are made to this Book. In Juda we
find : I have read in the Book of Enoch the Just, that
you will act with impiety in the last days. In the Tes-
taments of Levi, of Nepthalim, and Benjamin, and
Daniel, nearly the same language is used ; the latter
says also : I have read in the Book of Enoch the Just
that your prince is Satanas, &c. These quotations are
conclusive that the book was not the fiction of a Christian ;192
THE BOOK OF GOD.
no Jew would refer to it if it were so, and the author of
the Testaments was unquestionably a Hebrew. He cites
Enoch (whom the Jews callMetatron, the Great Scribe, as
in the Targum of Jonathan), as he might quote Job, or
one of the Hindu hymns which pass under the general
name of Daoud. And I think also that no Jew would
have composed this Book without full reference to Adam
and Eve, and Kain and Abel, and some of the other
primeval hetions on which his faith is founded. He
would certainly have lauded circumcision.
16. A similar observation tells against its being forged
by a Christian. The name Jesus wever occurs even in the
modern copy of Enoch; from which the inference is
clear that it was ante-Christian. No follower of the
Ninth Messenger would have written a work professedly
sacred, in which name was not prophetically mentioned
with honour as the Messenger of Heaven, and /M# death
as the perfection of Martyrdom. We find Behemoth and
Leviathan in Laurence's copy. Would any Christian
insert these rabbinical fables 1 It follows from these facts
that the Bishop's Enoch is not the exclusive compo-
sition of either a Christian or a Jew, but a hybrid
production of Jews and Christians jumbled up together.
Compare this with my Enoch, which is all coherence,
and decide between. Note that there is no good ground for
supposing that the passages relating to the Messiah
were interpolated in after times by Christians : for, as
the learned Hoffman well remarks, they constitute
yar/s of the whole, being intimately interwoven
with the pieces to which they belong. This goes to
show therefore that these passages were Apocalyptic, or
revealed in accordance with that Divine Prediction.ENOCH.
193
They would hardly have been interpolated by the Jews.
The thoroughly	character of the work, as
distinct from the Jewish, the sympathy with, and
allusions to, yt're,	sp/em/oMr, the anye/ic orders,
the pictures of the glorious radiance of the Sun and
Moon, and the attendant planets, all tend to corrobo-
rate the idea that the writer belonged to the purest
and the primeval school of the East, as distinguished
from any mere Hebrew offshoot; the school that was
the immediate child and successor of the First Messen-
ger, and the Hierophants of the Seven Churches. In
those regions in which the true Enoch lived, the splen-
dour of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, is of such wonderful
grandeur as cannot be imagined by a native of duller
climes; hence by no Christian or Hebrew writer is
the beauty of the heavenly host celebrated, because in
truth it has not been perceived. A European who has
visited the East beholds with astonishment and rapture
the sparkling lustre of the celestial luminaries ; the
glory of their light is ten-fold that which he has been
accustomed to see; and then for the first time does he
learn what the true Orientals really mean when they
compare all that is bright and beautiful to those
majestic brilliant lights which shine upon them through
a dazzling atmosphere, by day and night, like gods
from Spheres of Paradise. Its astronomy, such as it is,
also negatives a Jewish authorship. It may be asked,
says the learned Vallancey, why are not the constella-
tions and astronomical terms more clearly expressed in
the scriptures ? The answer no doubt is, that the Jews
wof/Mwy o/ t7te swMMwe scMwce.
17. The Archbishop himself makes an observation
K194
THE BOOK OF GOD.
which appears to be subversive of his own theory.
Alluding to the awkward fact that Jude—a sacred and
inspired writer, as he is denominated—in his Epistle, has
cited a passage which exists in the present work; the
right reverend translator thus proceeds : It may perhaps
be remarked as a singularity, that a book composed at
less than one hundred, perhaps at less than fifty years
before Jude's Epistle was written, should in so short a
space of time have so far wtposec? Myon /Ae	as to
be reputed by any the genuine production of the patri-
arch Enoch. To this objection the critic gives no satis-
factory reply, and he might also have added, that if Jude,
the actual brother of Jesus, wrote under celestial auspices,
and at the dictation of the Holy Spirit, and if, as we are
told (2 7Vw. iii. 16), ctM	M gwew Ay inspira/Mw
o/* GM, it is a singular circumstance that this holy
writer, thus admitted to the councils of the Most High,
should have deemed to be divine, a wretched forgery, by
some outcast Jew, and that his teacher and own brother,
God, should have permitted him, not only to remain
under so dangerous an error, but should have further
allowed him to publish it, and so impose on others as a
sacred work, the clumsy falsehood of some designing
Hebrew. I suppose it will not be maintained that the
forgery, which had imposed upon the public, had likewise
imposed on the Holy Spirit under whose auspices Jude
wrote ; and upon Jesus, the actual terrestrial God of the
Universe. For this reason Jerome would reject Jude
altogether from the Canon as a vagabond ; not regarding
the voice of the Church in his favour, or the authority
which he might claim as being " the brother of our
Lord."ENOCH.
195
18.	It is scarcely credible, says a writer in Kitto's
CycZopcedt'a, that Jude, writing by inspiration, would
have sanctioned a _/itZ.se sZaZentewt. It may be added,
would he have sanctioned a forged volume ? The writer,
however, appears to console himself in the end by the
glorious reflection that Enoch advocated the eferntZ?/ q/*
AeZZ yfre; and this thoroughly orthodox sentiment half
reconciles him to anything of a different nature which
exists in Enoch's writings. The passage cited by Jude
will be found in chapter VII. of the present edition.
19.	It is well known, says Archbishop Laurence, that
the most ancient remains of the Cabala are contained
in the Zohar or Splendour; a species of philosophical
commentary upon the Law, combining theologicalopinions
with the allegorical subtleties of the mystical school. In
this celebrated compilation of what was long supposed
to constitute the hidden wisdom of the Jewish nation,
occasional references are made to the Book of Enoch, as
to a Book care/M^Zy preservedyront yeneratton Zo yenerofton.
The following passage from it will sufficiently demonstrate
that the Cabalists were acquainted with a written compo-
sition in their own language under the title of the Book of
Enoch, not with a mere traditional record of such a com-
position, and that this Book, in an important part at
least, was the same as that which still exists in Ethiopic.
The Holy and the Blessed One, it is said, raised hint
(Enoch) from the world to serve Him; as it is written :
For Coe/ ZooA Af/n. .Front zAaZ Zww a 2?oo% was &Fuered
cZoum wAtcA was caZM FAe JfooA o/* AbtocA. In the hour
that God took him, He showed him all the repositories
above : He showed him the Tree of Life in the midst of
the Garden ; its leaves and its branches. Ife see aZZ zAt's
K 2196
THE BOOK OF GOD.
?Ms 2?oo&. From this extract it is perfectly evident
that the writer in the Zohar had no doubt that there then
existed an authentic copy of the Book of Enoch ; that he
wrote probably with the work before him, and that it
never entered into his thoughts that it was forged in
modern times by one of his own people. But whether he
possessed the genuine work as here given, or the forged
and mutilated transcript which comes from Abyssinia, it
is of course impossible to know : and indeed is hardly
worth five minutes to enquire. But there is another
passage in the Zohar of a similar description, which has
been quoted by Manasseh Ben Israel in his Latin tract
Da AesMTwcfMwe	Amst., 1636, 335. We
find in the Book of Enoch, he says, that after the Holy
and Blessed One had caused him to ascend, and shewed
him all the repositories of the superior and inferior
kingdom, he showed him the Tree of Life, and the Tree
(t. e., the Book of the Apocalypse), respecting which
Adam had received a command, and he showed him the
habitation of Adam in the Garden of Eden. See
General Index to Part III, s. v. Tree. These allusions
of the Zohar to the repositories of the celestial and ter-
restrial kingdoms, and to the Tree of Life in the Garden
of Eden, shewn to Enoch after his ascent into Heaven,
are distinctly stated to have been taken from a volume
entitled the Book of Enoch, and the very same allusions
will be found in the present [Laurence's] version : Now
the authors of the Cabalistical remains wrote or conveyed
down their recondite doctrines in Chaldee. Scarcely
therefore, I apprehend, will it be questioned that the copy
of the Book of Enoch, which they cited, was written
either in that language or in Hebrew. For they appearENOCH.
197
to have regarded it as the genuine work of him whose
name it bore, and not as the spurious production of a
later age. Had they been solely acquainted with a Greek
copy, which is very improbable, they could never have
contemplated it as an original; but they certainly seemed
to invest that to which they referred with this high and
distinguished character. The conclusion is obvious. So
far Dr. Laurence, who in this, as I apprehend, suggests
that the Rabbins believed the work to be genuine. Yet
he comes to the conclusion that the Book was not genuine,
but was written subsequent to Daniel, that is, to that
part of Daniel which speaks of the Ancient of Days
coming to judgment! But as this reference does not
belong to Daniel, but in reality to the Apocalypse of the
First Messenger, the archbishop's reasoning from that
supposed fact falls to the ground. In the same way he
argues from the manifestly spurious and interpolated
parts that the wAoZe is modern; whereas true criticism
would have taught him to separate the false from the
true, and to have based his arguments upon the latter
only. As well might Waller's song, (7o Zwe/y Ao.se, be
proved to be modern, because Kirke White added a final
verse to it, with which it is now usually printed. Equally
absurd is the Archbishop's suggestion that because it was
cited in the Zohar, it must rreceMarr/y have been written
in Hebrew ; I only wonder why a scholar could have so
committed himself. If it be asked why should it have
been translated into Greek 1 why was it not promulgated
in its original language 1 I can only answer, why were
the Gospels so translated 1 Why were not they preserved
in their supposed primal Syriac 1 Why was Enoch
translated from its original into 2Ethiopic, and perhaps198
THE BOOK OF GOD.
Greek, and why has the latter been destroyed ? Sealiger
had no doubt that the Greek fragments of Enoch pre-
served by Syncellus were a version from Hebrew,
but the Hebrew itself (if it ever existed) was
only a version from another and a dead language.
I am of opinion that the Rabbis destroyed the
genuine Enoch, because it seemed to support Chris-
tianity, and because its broad, grand, and universal
teachings, formed for mankind, not for castes or sects,
struck at the very roots of the despicable and impious
cliquerie which they substituted for the Amosian revela-
tion ; and that the Church of Rome suppressed it, because
it taught the descent in cycles of the Heavenly Messen-
gers, which annihilates the fiction of Peter and the Popes
in the chair of Jesus, as being Ats and God's sole represen-
tatives and Pontiffs on the Earth.
20. I should not be dealing candidly, however, if I did
not state that I cite the Zohar, not because 7 regard it in
the least, but that others may. I have already expressed
my opinion as to the value of Rabbinical writings. They
are worse even than the legends of the monks. I hold
them in the most utter contempt. But there are people
who do not, and for whom they may have value. I cite
here another instance of the utter abominableness of
Rabbinical literature ; what I cite is a specimen of what
it all is. Nimrod quotes, but without animadversion,
the frightful rabbinical story about Noah given in Part
III., 461 :	TMC/u.s oyy)orfwntfafem cwm Aoa pu/er
y'aceref, tVTiws twrKct co?n/<re7<ew7en.s, facife^ne
sw&mwmwwn carmine mayico, ymfrn	ef iiium
^ertVem, perwuie ct^ne c<M%m%um, e#eca7, neyae <7et?;ee^s
Aon /temei/cm wMam ylecMn7are potarf. iv. 377. ThisENOCH.
199
abomination was invented by the Jews for the purpose of
showing, first, that Noah had no other children than
Shem, Ham, and Japhet, and that they (the Jews) were
descended from Shem, the best and holiest; and secondly,
that Cham, the father of the Asiatics and Africans, was
one of the most accursed of wretches, whose posterity,
and more particularly the Canaanites, it was lawful to
subjugate, ravish, murder, and destroy; just as it was
right to exterminate the Moabites, who were the fruit of
the fabulous incest of Lot. Thus there was a bloody and
damnable and cruel motive at the bottom of these Rabbi-
nical lies. But Canaan, says Nimrod, that honest, splendid,
but in many respects most erring priest (iv., 381), was
Aorn. wAe% AbaA ?'s s<ZM% /o /owe cwr.secZ Aww, that
is, at the feast of thanksgiving, when they came out of
the ark. And this is proved by Gen. x., 1—6. Yet the
pious and episcopal commentator, in the Speaker's edition,
ignores this, and gravely treats of the curse, as if Canaan
had been in existence, wAew Ae mMsf Aave Aitoowt very we/Z
/Aa/Aewoswof. Parti., 423. But what will not priests
and bishops say 1*
21. Some have doubted whether the art of writing was
known so early as the days of Enoch, but these doubts
* Alanus de Rupe, a Dominican monk, scmpfcs no/ /o rctMe /Ze
power o/* /7tc price/ ctove /7ta/ o/ God /timeey: aileging that God
spent a whole week in creating the world, and disposing it into
proper order, whereas a priest, every time he says mass, with a
word or two produces not a mere creature but the Supreme
Being himself, the Origin of all things. ArcAwo/oy. xi. 396.
We, in this nineteenth ceutury, live among men and women—
learned and even good men, and wise and blameless women—who
believe these things; and we commisserate the peoples of the
Past, who never held such a monstrous creed. And wild and
maniacal as it is, it is rather on the increase than otherwise.200
THE BOOK OF GOD.
may now be considered as exploded for ever. Hierogly-
phics, say the compilers of 7%e	Commcn/ary,
are as ancient as the earliest Egyptian monuments, and
the cursive hieratic character is to be found in monu-
ments, parchments, and papyri	before /7tg time of
J/OMS. The famous group of figures in the tomb of
Chnoumhotep at Beni Hassan, which belongs to the
12th Dynasty, represents a scribe as presenting to the
governor a roll of papyrus covered with an inscription
bearing the date of the sixth year of Osirtasen II. This
was certainly many	&gfore tAe Aaoc?M#; according
to most scholars even Agfore /Ae of -dArctAam. But
the most remarkable of all is the papyrus found by M.
I'risse, written in the hieratic character, and translated
by M. Chabas, which contains two treatises; the first,
consisting of twelve pages, is the conclusion of a work,
of which the earlier part has been destroyed. It treats
of moral subjects, and is written in an elaborate and
elevated style. The second treatise is by a royal author,
son of the king next preceding Assa, in whose reign the
work is composed. This is considered to be 7Ae mo#?
of	-V<S'^. It is attributed to a prince cf
the 5tli Dynasty, who represents himself as weighed
down with age, and invokes the aid of Osiris to enable
him to give to mankind the fruits of his long experience.
an7i</Mt7y of 7Ats c7ocwneHt is MtcuZcn/oMg. The true
meaning of this is, that yoe.s for Aeyow7	of %Ae
fnMecZ AoocAic .Mwye : but this of course our bishop
could not say. It is observed by Ewald ((?Mc7McA%e <As
Fo7Aes 7srae%i. 77) that the words for wife, AooA, and
wA, belong to all the branches and dialects of Semitic,
except that the Ethiopic and South Arabic have aENOCH.
201
different phra.se signifying fo torife. From this he infers
that writing in a book with ink must have been known
to the earliest Semites Ae/ore f7^y separate? fn/o f/tefr
fribes,	aw<%	that is, bq/bre %7te
F7oo</; which was once pretended to be universal, but
which is now given up by those reverend gentlemen.
Nimrod, than whom no man is more erudite, says, that
to doubt the preservation in writing on cylinders or
columns of anfe&VwvMw wwAs were presumption, ii. 471.
Such, he adds, are the Columns of Atlas (the Apocalypse
of Adam, or the Book of Enoch), " which comprehend
both earth and heaventhose of Sesostris; those of
Hermes Trismegistus; of Seth; and those of the
Gnostico-Druidic Gwydion* or Widdon Gan-hebon,"
which had written upon them every art and science in
the world." The books of Cham (Chadam) are said to
have been studied by Pherecydes. 7/t.s worAs were f7;e
inosf yhwwws arcAwes o/ %7te JfysTer/ee, and were celebrated
as the Books of Hermes, Thoth, Cheiron, or Dardanus.+
Cham was said also to be the sacred Ophion (Fo-Hi) and
the author of those seven volumes containing all the
Oracles and Fates of the World, which Beroe (BR.OA,
the Holy Spirit), the foundress of the oldest city, was
said to possess. To the same origin we must refer the
* That is, Gaudama. Part III., 423. As to Sesostris, see
Part III., 170. A record of the First Messenger exists in the
Cares qf Aadatni, in the southern Maratha country. They are
similar in form to those of Elora, and were Cave-Temples, in
which the Eleusin Mysteries were celebrated by those who were
Initiated into the Lesser mazonry of Chadam, and the more
advanced science of Phre-Mazon, which Enoch and his Pontiffs
diffused over the earth.
+ Dardanus means Enos and Enoch.
K 3202
THE BOOK OF GOD.
two antediluvian Pillars of Seth in the unknown land of
Siriad, which Josephus idly interprets as of Seth, son of
Adam. The Seth in question is the Zethus of Thebes'
walls. But this Zethus (the god of life) is a name for
Buddha in Pali: it appears on Greek coins as Zathos.
PrtHMp's	v. 548. The Pali is now the great
depository of Buddha religious literature in Ceylon.
Perhaps it is Seth as well—there is a likeness between
the two; and there is hardly any one who has studied
etymology who will not come to the conclusion that
Za-Thus, Sa-thus, and Buthus or Buddhas is actually
the same person, but under a different form of spelling.
These are primeval and prehistoric names : but they
relate to the same great man, and they go back to the
earliest ages of letters and writing. Bishop Horsley, who
wrote in days when these matters were not as well
understood as they now are, says that letters were older
q/*	that is, they belonged to
primeval times, the times of the Pre-Adamite Sultans:
the times to which those names, like that of Chadam and
Adam and Gaudama belong. It was a general and
ancient tradition in the days of Johannes Cassianus that
Cham had written books, and made inscriptions upon
stone or metal. Now, if Cham were a name for the
First Messenger, Chadam or Oannes, a name, be it
observed, which simply connected him with the Sun,
which Cham really signified (See Part III., Cham-El,
Cham-On, Chemosh, Haman, and Om, in the Primitive
Roots), this carries the knowledge of writing up to his
day. Cham, the Messiah, at his death, like Zeus-Ammon,
Cecrops, and Cadmus (all Messianic names) was
/ormec/ wfo a	His remains were sumptuouslyENOCH.
203
interred in a City which Vesta (or Beroa, Br, a, o, the
Holy Spirit) built. All this is mythic and suggestive,
but only to the wise. Note that Bishop Horsley, to his
comment above cited, impudently or absurdly adds that
to fragments of patriarchal prophecy Z7<e CreeA /<7<:Zoso/)7rers
were probably indebted for their notions of the soul's
immortality and the unity of God. " And to no other
source can we refer %7re eape<%atww ZZrat	wt tAe
TfeaZZrerr Mw/d aZ /wye o/ a yreaZ ygrso?raye fo arise m
some yarZ q/* fAe AasZ, /or /7te yerteraZ aduanZayg o/ marr-
AirrcZ." But the Greek philosophers of whom this bishop
speaks were men of the most contracted ideas, and drew
all their knowledge from the East, though they were
generally unable to enlarge their minds to its universal
grandeur. I have already proved that this expectation
was founded, not on Jewish prophecy, which nobody
regarded, but on the most ancient Book in the world,
namely, the true Apocalypse of Adam or Gaudama; and
in Hindostan, where these pretended or imaginary patri-
archs were never heard of, and, if heard of, would have
been scouted as liars, tricksters, and schemers, the
doctrine of Ten Divine Incarnations has existed for
many thousands of years.
22. Davies, the reverend and learned author of CeZZic
-AeMarcAe#, having summed up a large number of par-
ticulars which in his judgment proved the great antiquity
of writing, concludes thus : If to all these presumptive
arguments of the high antiquity of writing we add that
the most ancient nations in various parts of the world,
those which were first regularly settled, and were most
tenacious of their primitive customs and institutions,
such as the Chaldseans, the Assyrians, the Egyptians,204
THE BOOK OF GOD.
the Phrygians, the Pelasgi, the Indians, and the Turde-
tani are found to have possessed the art of alphabetical
writing, and that several of these societies regarded
letters as coeval wi/Zt	^7te
race, we shall have abundant reason to conclude
that letters were certainly known to mankind before the
separation of families and very probably 5e/ore /7te (ZeZwye.
See Part III., 308. This seems to conclude the question.
But I will quote one other honest chronicler. The Tur-
detani, says Strabo, possess monuments, writings, poems
and laws in verse sna Z7tows6Mc7 years oM as they report,
iii. This carries us back nearly 8,000 years ago.
Did Strabo see these monuments 1 He does not say; but
he speaks of the fact as one which he did not doubt.
These Turdetani were the original inhabitants of Spain :
a branch probably of the most ancient Etruscan family.
See Part III., 309. And from the general accuracy of
Strabo, I think it may be said, that when he penned this
passage, he did so on grounds satisfactory to his own
enquiries.
23. Laurence founds the main basis of his disbelief on
an anachronism, as he supposes. The chiefs of the East,
he says, among the Parthians and Medes are mentioned,
t7;.e Par^taws were	wwh'Z 250 years 5e/ore
JesMS. Now if we had the ortywzaZ Enoch, and the word
Parthians were found in it, this argument might be of
value; but when only an Ethiopic translation exists, and
it is unknown what word in the original appeared to the
translator to be the synonyme of Parthian, and when we
know likewise that it was a common habit with ancient
transcribers of MSS. to put glosses of their own in the
margin, in the same manner as Orion, Pleiades, andENOCH.
205
Arcturus are found in our Job, it is illogical to conclude
that this debateable word was the word of Enoch. The
kings of the East, or of the sunrise, is a phrase that
belongs properly to the Adamic Apocalypse (Section 54),
and was probably copied from it by Enoch; but whom
the later Prophet meant to designate by the unknown
word, which the Ethiopian scribe thought to be properly
rendered Parthian, it is impossible to say without having
the original Book of Enoch before us. And I am quite
sure that a scholar like Dr. Laurence did not think
that this was a valid objection to the antiquity of Enoch.
24. For some thousands of years there has prevailed a
sort of belief that Enoch never tasted of death. Does
this mean that the Book of Enoch never was destroyed!
had never met the fate which has befallen so many other
divine books! We must bear in mind that this saying
was probably put forth by the Eleusinian mystics—the
men of symbols in the simplest things : the men who
invented those extraordinary names for the Apocalypse
which I have collected in Part III., 779—782. Such a
meaning would agree with all that we know of the types
and figures in which these Illuminati were accustomed to
clothe all their arcane knowledge (3) : that it was meant
KferaMy is out of the question. Those splendid Sages,
crowned with all lore, knew better than to say that any
Maw with mortal organs could live for one moment in a
celestial or ethereal sphere.	discovery was reserved
for modern days. Be not deceived, says the old mystic,
by the number of the names; for Ae u;Ao M	Kwg.
This alludes to the Messiah under his names of Zeus,
Bacchus, Adam, Chadam, Cham, &c. Part I., 505 ; Part
III., 302. Under these various appellations he m'ght206
THE BOOK OF GOD.
seem to the vulgar to be perpetually existent, that is,
perpetually a Man who lived alternately between earth
and heaven; but the Sage said, this cannot be. And as
we know that Enoch is not on earth, where else but in
an ethereal and spirit-region could he be ! The allusion
therefore may be well supposed to have reference to the
preservation of his writings, rather than to a condition
of life which is impossible. Yet we shall see, in a subse-
quent section, that a great scholar and thinker, the author
of Nimrod, actually believed that Enoch never died, but,
like Elias and the Virgin Mary, was translated alive into
Paradise —a region somewhere near the Moon. See Part
I., 357, 453.
25. It is not without significance that although
according to Cardinal Mai, a manuscript copy of Enoch
has been for centuries among the Ethiopic codices of the
Vatican; and although the whole learned world, as well
as the theological, has felt the greatest curiosity after it,
the curators of that great establishment, with unlimited
resources at their command, have never, until within a
very few years, given the least hint to the world that
they possessed it, or the world would undoubtedly have
asked for its publication. And so it is, as I believe, with
the true Apocalypse, of which they have a copy. See
Part I., 260, 314. Neither have they given the least
hint whether their Enoch agrees with the copy published
by Laurence. Why the Greek translation of Enoch, of
which a fragment only is preserved by Syncellus, should
have wholly disappeared since the eighth century, is a
matter of which I entertain little doubt the Vatican
could tell the reason. Note that on comparing the
fragments of Enoch which are given by Syncellus withENOCH.
207
the corresponding passages in the Ethiopic of Laurence,
it will be evident that the Greek is not a transcript or
translation of the latter, but is probably taken from an
older and less mutilated copy. And amid the many
learned and pious commentators on the Book of Enoch,
as far as I have been able to know, no one has given any
satisfactory reason why there should be a copy in Ethiopic
which does not agree with the copy in Greek, so far as
we can judge by the fragment which Syncellus published.
26. Manetho tells us that he took /tts history from
some Piliars in the land of Seriad, on which they were
inscribed in the sacred dialect by the first Hermes
(Adam); and after the Flood (of Atlantis) were trans-
lated out of the sacred character into the Greek tongue
in hieroglyphic signs. This alludes to a copy of the
Apocalypse, and in all probability to the writings of
Enoch superadded; for we know that the Sixth
Messenger in after ages decyphered these Pillars. Part
I., 265; Part III., 522. And if this be so, it may
have been the same on which Syncellus or the Abyssinian
scribe founded their imperfect transcripts. See yosf,
section 33. The Jews, who robbed the traditions of all
people, in the same spirit as they " spoiled the Egyptians,"
have interpolated this Legend in their tracts, and applied
it to their forged scriptures. Part I., pp. 373—6. But
of what crime were not the Rabbis capable 1 Bunsen,
alluding to the Two Pillars of Seth (or the Seedling)
mentioned by Josephus, on which the records of ancient
wisdom were traced, says : Those Pillars, it is obvious,
Acwe reference %o 2?oo& of A/toc/t: perhaps also
to the pillars of Akikarus (or Adam), the Prophet.
See Part I., 257; Part II., 295. I consider this a208
THE BOOK OF GOD.
most happy conjecture. But several recent writers, and
among them Bunsen, assert, that the Hebrew patriarch
Seth never had any existence; but that he was the
Egyptian god Seti, whom the Jews transferred from the
banks of the Nile with so many other things that were
not theirs: and then made him to be one of their own
progenitors. SeePartHI., 71, 179. I myself, however,
see no reason to doubt that there was a man Seth, though
I do not say that he was a Hebrew. The Drusi or Kurdi
of Mount Lebanon, says Hyde (Appendix 515) have a
Book of Scripture entitled Seth Sohuph, or 77<e AooA of
Net/t. Part I., 245; Part III., 429. Ursinus says:
There may be seen at Rome, in the Vatican library,
CMwwwM of a spMure _fw?K in which the learning of
Adam and of the sons of Seth is contained. Z)e
207. But of these tracts the curators of the Vatican
have given no copy to the world, though I think they
would be deeply interesting : they have probably destroyed
them since Ursinus wrote. I am not sure but that these
Two Pillars have occult reference as well to the Two
Staves, or Swords, or Sceptres, of which I shall presently
speak : albeit I can give no account of the Eight Columns
whereof Ursinus writes. The reader must always remember
that a// awctewt arcutte synt&oZs Awve sepera/ myg/ica/ wMcwt-
wt<7S, like those extraordinary and mazonic names for the
Apocalypse to which I have already alluded. See Part
11.,	274, 284; Part II., 68, 152, 472, 624, 671 ; Part
111.,	697, 801.
27. Fabricius, collecting the opinions of the various
learned men who have enquired into this subject,
observes that they generally agree in considering that
not only Pythagoric or Platonic doctrines are containedENOCH.
209
in this collection of the Enochian scripture, but that it
includes also Angara,	-EyyyZacce <7o<?/r0i<2 :
fragments of the most ancient Egyptian learning. The
reader who consults the Oracles in Chap. XVI., will have
full proof of this. They maybe said to contain the germs
of all the philosophic lore of the Past. These are the
Parables mentioned, but absent from Lawrence's Enoch.
On the 44th Oracle in Chapter XVI. was partly founded
that reverence for Lakes which extends all over the
earth, from the extremities of China to the ends of
Britain. Thus in the Cambrian mountains we have
Llyn Creini, the Lake of Adoration, or of the Sun, upon
Cevn Creini, the Mount of Adoration ; and Llyn Urdynn,
the Lake of Consecration, or of Holy Fire, in Merioneth-
shire ; and Llyn Gwydd Tor, or the Lake of the Grove of
Tor, Aur, or God, in Montgomeryshire. These names
evidently imply that religious ideas of the most sacred
character were connected with these Lakes. A Lake
signified among the mystics the Holy Spirit. Strabo
says that the Gauls consecrated their gold in certain
Lakes; and adds that Lakes were their most inviolable
sanctuaries. We also learn from Justin, that in a time
of public calamity, the priests of the Gauls, that is, the
Druids, declared to the people that they should not be
free from the pestilential distemper which then raged
among them Z'M %Aey sAouM Acre tZyyetZ yoM aw<7
stiver yoMe/t Ay war a?aZ sacri/gys wt ZatAs o/ 7'AowAntge.
This idea is certainly Enochian. The same writer says :
Many persons resorted to a Lake at the foot of the
Gevaudan mountain,	(o J/oozt, under the
name of Helanus (Hel-Ani, the Ship, or Wisdom of God),
and thither cast in, some the human habits, linen, cloth,210
THE BOOK OF GOD.
and entire fleeces ; others cast in cheese, bread, wax,
and other things, every one according to his ability ; then
sacrificed animals and feasted for three days. Part II.,
546. In Part III., 776, we find that this was parcel
of the Egyptian religion. In connection with the words
cited by Fabricius, Enoch says : 7 Awe seen %Ae
of nM %Atny.s ,* and these words are quoted and explained
by Origen on the supposition that fAo	qf/AoPropAc^
AeAeM eren (Ac	o/*	matter. In another
place, Origen quotes the following: There is One God
who comprehends all things, but who himself is compre-
hended by no one; and he adds that in the Book of
Enoch things similar to these are described. I must
again refer my reader to the Oracles ; but he will search
in vain for these things, or anything like them, in the
pretended copy of the Book of Enoch which the Archbishop
of Cashel has published.
28. Laurence mentions a most remarkable circumstance,
which to any but himself would appear almost a con-
clusive test as against the Judaic authorship of this
volume. In proof, he says, that the author could not have
resided in Palestine, it is only necessary to take into
consideration what is stated relative to the length of
the days at various periods of the year.
evnZewce sceyng	Mpow (Ao pow(. For having divided
the day and night into eighteen parts, Enoch distinctly
represents the longest day in the year as consisting
of twelve out of these eighteen parts. Now the pro-
portion of twelve to eighteen is precisely the same as
sixteen to four and-twenty; the present division into
hours of the period constituting Day and Night. If
therefore we consider in what latitude a country mustENOCH.
211
be situated to have a day sixteen hours long, we shall
immediately perceive that	COMM
a coMM^ry. We may then safely conclude that the
country in which he lived must have been situated not
lower than forty-five degrees north latitude, where the
longest day is fifteen hours and a half; nor higher
perhaps than forty-nine degrees, where the longest day
is precisely sixteen hours. This will bring the country
where he wrote as high up at least as the northern
districts of the Caspian and Euxine Seas : probably it
was situated somewhere between the upper parts of
both those seas [t. e., near Samarcand], See ^03%, section
77. He then strangely enough adds : It is of no im-
portance to fix with accuracy the country in which this
book was written: it is sufficient to be assured that
resK/ec/ a
jMcfcEM,	accovwt w %
0/' <7wy anc/	seasons o/' fAe year/nKy
/n-oves. I should have thought that to any one but an
archbishop of the wealthiest church in the world, it would
have seemed of great importance to fix the locality in which
the writer of a disputed book lived and composed it,
and I can hardly think he was serious when he declared
to the contrary. It is of the essence of absurdity to
suppose that a /oryfny Jew in the neighbourhood of
Samarcand (where no community of that religion was ever
known) sat down coolly some years before the advent of
Jesus to fabricate in Hebrew a copy of the lost writings
of the ancient Prophet Enoch, with no apparent object,
and with the almost insuperable difficulty before his eyes
of ever being able to have it transmitted to Jerusalem
the recognized seat of his sect; and with the positive cer-212
THE BOOK OF GOD.
tainty that, if he succeeded in doing so, it would be
scouted by the Rabbis as an impudent attempt on their
credulity. And, if he knew anything of the fate which
had befallen his predecessors in the line of prophecy, he
might well expect if he fell at any future time into the ,
hands of the Rabbis, that 7te also would have to endure a
like condemnation. Part I, 460.
29. This celebrated and very interesting remnant of
antiquity, says Higgins, has been translated into English
by Bishop Laurence, who maintains that he has succeeded
in shewing from internal evidence, that it was written
after the Babylonish captivity, but before the reign of
Herod. I am of opinion, if I understand the Bishop, that
it contains internal evidence of a much earlier date. I
do not profess to be certain that I understand either the
seventy-hrst chapter or the Bishop's note upon it, but if
I am right in my supposition that the writer makes the
Equinox fall, in his time, at the beginning of Aries, Z7iew
%7ie t/aZe o/ 7716 worA Awe 6eem <t&ove 2,400 years
Ae/bre	t7ie Za7e.s7. The Bishop says: " TheybwrZA
gate in his description is that which is situated due East
at sun rising, and due West at sun setting, and which,
answering to the sign of Aries, the sun enters at the
Vernal equinox. It is very clear that if the sun at the
Vernal equinox was at the beginning of Aries, the book
must have been written as early as I have stated above.
Though Bishop Laurence limits the period before which
it must have been written to the end of Herod ; the fact
noticed by Maurice (T/isZ. TZi'mZ. i. 405) that it is quoted
by Eupolemus, shows that it was well known in Greece
previous to the year before Christ 200. Bishop Laurence
in his preliminary dissertation, p. xli., endeavours to
disguise the fact of the quotation of this book by Eupo-ENOCH.
213
lemus, but I think he fails. Mr. Maurice states it
broadly and honestly, as he generally quotes, and as I
think every one who carefully examines what Laurence
has said may see reason to believe, correctly too. After
observing several	of Bishop Lau-
rence's, Higgins adds : " If there were any doubt of the
two, I would much prefer the respectable old Maurice.
The following are the passages which I contend are wilful
mistranslations, pious frauds of the Bishop. Er rats tKxXe-
ctats otrn-avv ^eperat <L$	—7'Ae c/twe/t cotMuZersti moi
aw MMpw-eoZ jwwZwcZum.* Again, Non recipi a quibusdam
—wed wnwersaZZy re/ecied. No doubt I shall be accused,
as I have been before, of a rage against priests, and for
illiberality in what I say against them in many passages
of this work. How can I do otherwise than speak
against an order, against whose frauds and usurpations
on the rights of mankind this work is expressly levelled
—this work whose leading object is to undeceive mankind
now the slaves of its arts ? I trust I am not insensible
to the private virtues of great numbers of priests, the
dupes of their order—of their chiefs—but what am I to
say, or to think, when I find a reverend doctor of Oxford,
*	I was at first inclined to regret that Higgins should have so
spoken of Dr. Laurence, pome ocioyenario ; but, on further reflec-
tion, I agree with him. Nothing can be more uncandid or untrue
than the aged archbishop's allusion to the passage in Jude: who,
he says, quotes the work, " not indeed, as the indisputable pro-
duction of Enoch himself, 5ut aa one (Merited io Zunt." It is in
this way that ecclesiastical writers like this bishop, and the
Bishop of Ely, perpetually attempt to deceive their readers.
*	The true translation is: 7n iZte eZ(ureZ(es ii M noi cZioyeiZter
accepted (M diubte. This is very different from Laurence's
version.214
THE BOOK OF GOD.
in the nineteenth century, guilty of such baseness as that
which I have exhibited above, and as a consequence,
instead of being disgraced for such an act, made an arch-
bishop ? Since his promotion, I am told, he has sup-
pressed his translation. If the suppression of it be an
act of remorse let him say so. I hope it is so. But I
believe it is suppressed for a very different reason. Jwo-
ca/ypsM, i. 544. Of course,headds,itisheldbyourpriests,
who have already more sacred books than they can
manage, to be a forgery; but Bishop Laurence admits
that it is noticed by Clemens Alexandrinus and Irenaeus,
and that neither of them alludes to its spurious character.
The truth is, that it is quoted by them precisely like any
other canonical sacred scripture. Faustus quoted the
Book of Enoch against Augustine, who, instead of deny-
ing its genuineness, admits it, and I do not think it
appears that this admission is granted by way of wyM-
WMwfMM /MMHwew. In short, I have no hesitation in
saying that it is, in my opinion, to the full as well
established as a work existing before the time of Christ
as Isaiah is ; for Isaiah is not quoted by any author that
I remember before the time of Christ. Josephus says
that the Pentateuch only was translated by the Seventy,*
and by w/mm or the remainder of the Jewish books
were translated no one knows. Every argument which
applies against Enoch, as stated above, applies against
Isaiah, and I am much mistaken if the argument does not
go further. In defiance of Bishop Laurence's misrepre-
sentations I think there is evidence to prove that they
were both ye?Mra%/ admitted since the time of Christ;
* See Part I. 371. Clemens Alexandrinus was one of the most
learned men of his age.ENOCH.
215
that is as much admitted as any other book of the canon
by the generality of Christians. But there were no
books against which some Christians did not make objec-
j ections, and the class of books called oyoXoyovyera, or
" acknowledged," by Eusebius, never dM eaM/. Bishop Lau-
rence has <M&07MWMC<z%y proved the Book of Enoch to
have been composed between 45 and 50 degrees of north
latitude. We have seen that in Northern India, we
have the Jewish history of Solomon, David, &c., and that
the Arabians had the same history ; there is also in each of
these countries the story of Saul; but it is very remark-
able that in both of them, he is called by a name
unknown to the western Jews—viz., Talut. The lan-
guage in which we find the Book of Enoch, the African
Ethiopic, furnishes ground for much curious observation,
and supports in a very remarkable manner what I have
said respecting the emigration of the Jewish tribe from
Upper India. Part III, 207, 433. The following passage
of the Book of Enoch is so clearly descriptive of Mount
Meru, the Holy Mount, that it cannot be mistaken, and
proves the author to have been intimately acquainted
with the Hindu doctrines.
I went from thence into another region.*
30. The conclusion which Higgins draws from the
foregoing, that the writer was well acquainted with
Hindu doctrines, would be more accurately stated, if he
had said that the passage which he cites was in harmony
with the Hindu religion as we now see it; for Enoch was
the second Buddha, and lived many centuries before
Brigoo, the fourth Buddha, preached, and the writings of
the last-named Holy Messenger were of course framed
* See chapter XXIII.216
THE BOOK OF GOD.
with tins Vision before him. The vision in Enoch is but
another view of the Mount Zion of the Apocalypse, and
the allusion to the clustering palm identifies with it the
Phoenix of Meru (4); the Tree of Life and Knowledge,
whose branches are words, whose purple leaves are
letters, whose fruit is the Messianic Messenger of
Heaven, and the Blood-Red Cabir or Bull of Battle
also. Part III, 540, At the gate of Paradise, says
Nimrod, iv. 300, two wonderful beings called Bulls, or
(in some very ancient dialects) Cherubs, were placed.
They were so called from having the head of a Bull, but
they had also three other heads, that of a Man, of a Lion,
and of an Eagle. The Fiery Sword revolved in front of
the Cherubim, and was God's igneous presence. Nimrod
did not know that this Cherubic was anagrammatically the
Cabiric sword which smote with destruction all the sinful
who sought while in sin to enter Paradise. These beings,
when imaged in the temples, symbolized also Isis and
Osiris, as they guarded Heaven from all intrusion by
the profane. Part I, 109. There are other allusions, as
will be seen, to the North, the venerated cradle of man-
kind, in the Visions shown to this sublime Minister of
Truth, and many passages which have their counter-
part in the Sacred Books of almost all peoples. But
these will be made apparent to the student as he pro-
ceeds.
31. In this Book, continues Higgins,	i.
551, we find a clear description of a future Messiah or
Incarnate Saviour. Most of the Jewish, as well as the
Pentateuchian history is to be found here, as are also
some of the most striking of the doctrines of the Hindus,
so that the close connexion between India and its authorENOCH.
217
cannot be disputed. The whole serves to show the abso-
lute uncertainty of a religion founded on documents of
this kind. It is much more clear than Isaiah ; and has,
to say the least, as much evidence in favour of its genuine-
ness. When was the prophecy of Isaiah first known 1
Josephus proves that it was not translated with the Pen-
tateuch ; and, though he pretends to show that Isaiah
was known to Ptolemy, and gives a letter of Ptolemy
respecting him, this is not cotemporary evidence, but the
mere assertion of a partisan hundreds of years after
Isaiah's death. In its prophecy of a Saviour the Book of
Enoch is much clearer than Isaiah, though it does not, as
Isaiah does in the case of Cyrus, give him by name. It
will not be denied that it is very extraordinary that this
Book written between 40 and 50 degrees of North latitude
should be found to be part of the Sacred Canon of the Ethio-
pians of Africa, /Ae	wAo 7mve swcA	pwo'Zs' o/
Z/tefr	wrf7t %7;e Fwt/MS, and that the
oldest copy we have of it is in the language of this
country. When I consider that in many countries these
doctrines had become forgotten or were lost; that in no
one country in the time of the Romans, were they all
known, and that they are the doctrines, or rather the
fragments, of the doctrines of different ages, and of
widely separated countries, which doctrines constituted
those of a primeval nation, 7	7te7p	fo a
very remote cera	e^Mfe/tce. I must not omit to
notice a very extraordinary part of the prophecy relating
to the Flood. It says :—
And I saw that the earth became inclined,*
And that the moment of destruction was at hand.
* The reader will find this passage differently translated, posf,
cap. Ill, also in cap. VII. See Boon or GoD. Part I, 613.
L218
THE BOOK OF GOD.
This is a most extraordinary assertion, that the Flood was
caused by the disturbance of the axis of the earth, and is
so totally original and unexpected, that Bishop Laurence
has placed it at the end of the book, because, he says, it
is an evident interpolation; but he gives no reason for
this, and has none, I suppose, except that he cannot give
the author credit for the astronomical doctrine of the
change of the earth's axis. I look upon it as a very
curious and ancient tradition respecting the cause of the
Flood, which has been considered to have been its real
cause by many both of the ancient and modern philo-
sophers.
32. We are told, continues Higgins	ii.
310), that the earth laboured, and was shaken violently,
and that the earth became inclined, and that the moment
of destruction was at hand. I think few persons who
have read the Book of Enoch will deny that this is a
most curious and striking tradition. It is a tradition of
common sense supported by all the outward natural
appearances of the earth. Enoch afterwards says, that
the earth was destroyed because hidden secrets had been
discovered, and in chapter lxvii. he makes Noah say,
that he, Enoch, gave Noah the cAaMc^rMficct?	or
styws o/ fAe secret tA/wys inscribed in his Book, and con-
cealed in the parables.* I think it will not be denied
that I could scarcely have wished for anything more to
my purpose than all this, which is evidently no copy
from the Bible. It directly admits the existence of sym-
* See, Cap. Ill, where the true passage is contained. In
the Book of Enoch, by Laurence, it is mere nonsense. The
reader will find some of these signs in Part III, 718, and in the
folding plate in this volume.ENOCH.
219
bolic or numeral writing, and that it had been kept
secret. I ask is it not possible that from some cause
the axis of the earth may have been suddenly changed
as Enoch says 1 Every natural appearance strongly
supports the doctrine that the change has been sudden,
and a sudden large change no more operates against the
fact of the earth being governed by general laws, than
a breaking out of a volcano so operates. And I am of
opinion that the diminution of the angle of the planes
of the two axes is not the effect of a periodical oscil-
lation, but is the effect of the conservative power which
we everywhere see around us, operating to restore the
globe to the first state from which is has been moved.
I believe one of the most powerful obstacles with many
persons to the reception of the opinion that the change
in the axis of the earth was the effect of what we vul-
garly call accident, is to be found in their conception
of the greatness of the event or effect. They acquire
this idea from a comparison of that event with themselves,
and with every day facts like volcanic eruptions. But
the idea is a delusive one. They ought to compare it with
the motions* going on among the innumerable suns and
worlds moving in the starry firmament which our astrono-
mers know, by means of their telescopes, are changing every
day—wme arm#	fo in^o axisAMce sowM
%o	or fo	If persons would think
upon this, they would see at once that the change in the
axis of the earth is only a trifling matter. It will be said
* Kepler, who was wont to say that there are as many comets
in the sky as fishes in the ocean, has had his opinion endorsed in
later times by Arago, who has estimated the number of these
bodies which traverse the solar system as 17,500, OQO.
L 2220
THE BOOK OF GOD.
that if the two planes coincided, the equatorial regions
would not be habitable from heat, and the polar regions
from cold. Well, and what then? Are the poles habit-
able now ? The heat of the one is no more an objection
than the cold of the other. But after all, is this so certain ?
All these considerations are mean and contemptible to
the person who duly estimates the immensity of the Uni-
verse, the diminutive character of our globe, and the
little nests of quarrelsome pismires which infest it and
fancy themselves somebody.
33. All the traditions maintain that a person whom we
call Noah, by some means, no matter what they were,
foresaw that destruction approached. Tradition says that
he erected pillars with inscriptions in the land of Suri-Ad,
or the Holy Sura. It also says that he buried the Sacred
Books in the City of the Book, Sephora. We have the
City of Boc-Hara in North India, which means the Book
of Hari, or Aur : both of them meaning the Supreme
Fire, or Light, of the Universe. Every one knows that
floods have taken place, and if we consider them inde-
pendently of mythology, and if we use our endeavours,
their nature and effects may perhaps in some degree be
collected out of the scraps of traditions left to us; for
7 .see wofAwry wnpro&aMe Mt	Auvtny coww t/own fo ns,
conccnM wr y!cftons or %)ar<zMeg, SMtce toe Anoto %A<% if Ac
Me o/ ^wuMes is one o/ f/te nrosf sfrtAtny cAurctc/ert'sftcs
o/ /Ac reZtyton to Ate A ts coMfctwree? tn Ae.se AAsfortes. Now,
if we suppose that ruin did not happen in a moment, but
that a year, or even more time, was required to effect the
whole by successive earthquakes, is it not possible, if such
a scientific and sacerdotal government existed, as I have
contemplated, that the Supreme Pontiff and his court mayENOCH.
221
have saved themselves and their sacred literature in a
ship or floating house ! No person who has read the
essay of Governor Pownall on the ships of the ancients,
will doubt that they had ships nearly as large, and nearly
as sea-worthy against a rushing flood, as ours ! I suppose
there were several or many of these ships, and that only
one or two were saved; — the probability is, that the
Pontiff, or Patriarch, would be in one of them because Ae
would secure the best ? And why should not the axis of
the earth have become changed to its utmost extreme by
various shocks 1 IFAy sAoMM sowe q/ tA*?	an<2
wosf wo/gMf sAocAs Aave p/ace A%KcAre<Zs or fAo
q/ years 6e/ore f a?uZ wAy sAoaM wo^ fAe /a.s^ sAocA Aewe
Aeen a very wto^erafe one, y'M.s-f ewouyA fo JfAtwh's,
or fo AreaA fAe	q/ /Ae	/AowyA /a.s/;i?q/ at
Mtferva/s ybr a year or wore ? If religious prejudice did
not stand in the way I am quite certain that some theory
not very dissimilar to this would be universally thought
probable. The probability in the last case is, that it hap-
pened after the discovery of writing by symbols, but before
its discovery by syllabic letters (5). The Druidical circles
mark the wwwera^s, but nothing like Teffgrg, and it is
worthy of observation that the word &pAora HIBD;
which is the Hebrew name of the town where the books
were said to be preserved, means much more properly a
cypAer, or figure of notation, than a letter. Part I, 241;
Part III, 520. By a little forcing /ef/er may be made out
of it; but its meaning is sywAoZ q/* wo/a/MW. It is also
worthy of observation that the word used by Enoch for
the signs of the secret things in this Book is not trans-
lated by Laurence	but cAaracferfsftca/ warAs. And
by a note on the latter word it is explained sfgw : this222
THE BOOK OF GOD.
shows that, in the Bishop's opinion, ZeMer is not meant.
His explanation can apply to nothing hut sywt&oZs similar
to those of the Chinese. The result, says Nimrod, iv. 91,
arising from the earth's new axis was a vicissitude of
climate such as had never been known before. TwM
prwuzw stcct's er yerwr/Zws	C<zwc&M%, eZ rentes
yZetctes m/sZrfcZrt	Then first the air began to
glow with dry heats, and ice hung bound by the winds.
Ov. Jfet. i. 119. The change of seasons introduced a
remarkable change in the appearance of nature. The
greater number of trees became deciduous, the approach
of winter being the signal for them to shed their leaves.
A certain number, however, were so constituted that they
were enabled to hold each individual leaf long enough
for the tree to appear always green. That is a topic
which is not to my knowledge elsewhere alluded to, and
which would seem capriciously chosen, if we did not
regard the age and meaning of the Prophet. This proves
that the author of Nimrod had no doubt of the Atlan-
tean, that is the true, deluge.
34. A further observation may be made on f/te styws o/
secret fZt/wy.s, that we find traces of them still in the
strange unknown idols and characters of the Central
Cities, and their long-lost inhabitants—idols and charac-
ters which to the Spaniards appeared magical, and so
they hastened to destroy them. These characters have
in many cases resemblances also to the primeval Tartarian
figures. Hence we find Humboldt exclaiming that striking
analogies exist between the monuments of the old conti-
nents and those of the Toltecs, who, arriving on Mexican
soil, built those colossal structures, truncated pyramids,
divided by layers, like the temple of Belus at Babylon.ENOCH.
223
Whence did they take the model of those edifices 1 Were
they of the Mongol race 1 Did they descend from a
common stock with the Chinese, the Hiong-nu, and the
Japanese 1	2% ts wow cowfessecZ zAaZ ZAe oryyfwaZ coZoyyf^Zs
of ZAe CwZraZ ^fynerfcas cayne yhom dsia, wAZc/t cowZayyts
oZZ ZAe pAysfcaZ ayaZ yaewZaZ proZoZypes of ZAe race. Lan-
guage, mythology, religious dogmas, the very style of
architecture and their calendar as far as it is developed,
point to that fruitful and central source of human disper-
sion and nationality. Can it be doubted after this that
Enochian priests carried his religion into the American
continent!
35. Numerals, adds Higgins, vol. ii., 443, offer them-
selves so readily as symbols, and must be so well adapted
to aid the memory, and to fix the meaning, that I really
cannot imagine how they could be overlooked. But I
have no doubt that they were in fact the origin or cause
of the written language being discovered—the language
was an effect of them. If this numeral Chinese language
were the written language of the Pontiff, we see how
easily he could communicate with the most distant
nations long after their spoken languages had deviated
from the original, so far as not to be intelligible to one
another. The knowledge of this would be confined
necessarily to the sacred caste. AveryZAwy Ze?n7.s Zo #Aou?
ZAaZ ZAe orfyfyyaZ of ZAM Zayyywaye owyAz Zo Ze pZacetZ yyy
C/MMese ParZary, wAtcA 2?afZZ7,	Zwtyaeus, ayaZ
ZyoZeez/ aZZ ZAe y/tosZ ZearaetZ pAaZosopAers ayree Za seZecZZyyy
as ZAe AZrZApZace of y/taaAZae/. About the beginning of
the French Revolution, the celebrated philosopher Bailli
published his History of Ancient Astronomy, in which
he endeavoured to prove that the first race of men a/Zer224
THE BOOK OF GOD.
/Ae y%oo<%* had been situated on the east of the Caspian
Sea, and thence had extended towards the South. In his
treatise on the Origin of the Sciences in Asia, he has
undertaken to prove that a nation possessed of profound
wisdom, of elevated genius, and of an antiquity far
superior even to that of the Egyptians or Indians, soon
after the Hood, inhabited a country to the North of India
proper, between the latitudes of forty and fifty, or about
fifty degrees of north latitude, the birthplace of the Book
of Enoch" a country of about the latitude of London.
He proves that some of the most celebrated observations
and inventions relating to astronomy, from their peculiar
character, could have taken place only in those latitudes,
and he maintains that arts and improvements gradually
travelled thence to the Equator. The people to whom
this description is most applicable are those near Mount
Imaus and northern Tibet, a country in which very cele-
brated colleges of learned men were anciently established,
particularly Nagracut, Cashmere, and Bocharia. Mr.
Hastings informed Mr. Maurice that an immemorial
tradition prevailed at Benares, which was itself in modern
times the grand emporium of Indian learning, and therefore
the less likely to preserve such a tradition against itself
that all the learning of India cameyrom a coMittr?/
w Tyrees of	On this, Mr. Maurice
says : This is in fact the latitude of Samarkand, the
metropolis of Tartary, and by this circumstance the
position of M. Bailli would seem to be confirmed. See
Book of God, Part III., 310. Astronomical calculations,
* He should have said before ; but in his days the fable of the
Noacliic Flood was credited even by the learned.ENOCH.
225
tradition, and the evidence of old writers all confirm the
doctrine advanced by Bailli. See Part II., 9, 11 ; Part
III., 494.
36 The Hyperboreans, or Macrobians, says Nimrod,
iv., 355, who live a thousand years each in great wealth
and felicity upon delicious fruits and ambrosial dews,
and	po/w etrc/e, are a mythic people whose
fable is compounded of the traditions of the Garden of
Eden, and of the longevity and splendour of the antedilu-
vians. They were a pacific race, descended from the blood
of the Titans (from the Sun) dwelling under the luminous
Palace of Boreas (the Creative Fire, Br-As) that is, at the
North pole of the earth and under that of heaven, and
governed by King Arimaspus. *	*	* t's
Aor/A 2'o/e wan accow!%e<%	Sai's in
Egypt was spiritually the same city as Athens in Greece;
their Mysteries were the same; and Sai's is the Egyptian
name (Isis or Asis) for the Goddess Athene. Sa'is was
hieratically placed under the North Pole; not, says
Proclus, because it is so, nor because its climate is cold,
but because t/ /wr7a%as o/* a!	pecw/Mr
/row 6'ocZ. Mount Meru, according to the Puranas, is a
glorious habitation lying to the North of India. The
Tower of Babel was called the Mount of the Congregation
in the sides of the North. The isle of Cyzicus in the
Propontis was anciently called Arctonessus, or Isle of
the Great Bear, because the nurses of Zeus sojourned
there and were transformed into bears. The psalmist
says :	/or	Joy o/ wAoTe
M	074 .stt/cs o/ Aor^A. xlviii., 2. These
authorities can leave no reasonable doubt in the mind of
any that Enoch belonged to the region of Tibet; that he
L 3226
THE BOOK OF GOD.
was the natural successor of the First Messenger in that
region, and that his name and perhaps his Book was
carried by the fugitive Aoudyans from Ind into the land
of Balistan.
37. The system of astronomy, detailed by Enoch, says
Archbishop Laurence, is that of an untutored but accu-
rate observer of the heavens. He describes the eastern
and western parts of heaven, where the Sun and Moon
rise and set, as divided each into six different Gates,
through which these orbs of light pass at their respective
periods. In the denomination of these Gates, he begins
with that through which the Sun passes at the winter
solstice, and this he terms the yirst Gate. It of course
answers to the sign Capricornus, and is the southernmost
point to which the Sun reaches both at rising and at set-
ting. The next Gate at which the Sun arrives in its progress
towards the east at rising, and towards the west at setting,
and which answers to the sign Aquarius, he terms the
gecoiuZ Gate. The next in continuation of the same course
of the Sun, which answers to the sign Pisces, he terms the
t/nAZ Gate. The /owtA Gate in his description is that
which is situated due east at sun-rising, and due west at
sun-setting, and which, answering to the sign Aries, the
Sun enters at the vernal equinox. With this ybwtA Gate
he commences his account of the Sun's annual circuit, and
of the consequent change in the length of day and night
at the various seasons of the year. His Gate is now
to be found in the Sun's progress northwards, and answers
to the sign Taurus; and his s:a;t/t Gate is situated still
further north; which, answering to the sign Gemini,
concludes at the most northern point of heaven to which
the Sun arrives, and from which it turns at the summerENOCH.
227
solstice, again to measure back its course southward.
Hence it happens that the same Gates which answer to
the six signs alluded to in the Sun's passage from the
winter to the summer solstice necessarily also answer to
the remaining six of the twelve signs of the Zodiack in
its passage back again, viz., the SKEf/t Gate answers to
Cancer, as before it did to Gemini ; the to Leo, as
before to Taurus; the ybwf A to Virgo, as before to Aries ;
the fAtrc/ to Libra, as before to Pisces; the	to
Scorpio, as before to Aquarius; and the Jw'st to Sagittarius,
as before to Capricornus. The turning of the Sun both
at the winter and summer solstices, the first at the most
southern, the last at the most northern point of its pro-
gress, must have always struck the eye of those who
contemplated the variety as well as splendour of its daily
appearance. The astronomy of Enoch was perhaps formed
in this respect upon the same principles as the astronomy
of Homer, who places the situation of the island Svpwy or
Svpoy, under the	o/	.Odyss., lib. xv., v.
404.	* * * He reckons the solar year at 364 days,
adding his four supernumerary days to the four quarters
of the year, viz., at the vernal equinox, the summer
solstice, the autumnal equinox, and the winter solstice.
Had he been conversant, adds the Archbishop, with the
wisdom of the Egyptians, he would not have computed
the year at 364 days; for long before his time Herodotus
records that in Egypt it was computed at 365 days.
ETrctyovcrt ava Tray tTos Twre	rov
they add every year five supernumerary days. Herod,
ii., 4. As Enoch lived many hundred years before
Herodotus, or the palmy days of Egyptian science, he
could hardly be conversant with it: the fact which the228
THE BOOK OF GOD.
Archbishop puts forth as a proof of his want of knowledge,
is in fact a proof of his remote antiquity. Part I., 187 ;
Part III., 392, 436 (6). There are shallow persons in
plenty who will mock at this chapter, yet who believe
that Balaam was taught by his Ass, and that Jesus was
a wizard who changed water into wine. I will not argue
with such, but simply say that those who reverently and
wisely read it may venerate and wonder, exclaiming in the
inspired language of the Sixth Messenger, If thou wilt
see Him, consider the Sun; meditate, and consider the
course of the Moon : consider also the glorious order of
the Stars. O thou Ineffable, O thou Unutterable ! be
praised in silence.
38.	In this book, says the Archbishop, clear and
distinct allusions are made to a Being, highly exalted
with the Lord of Spirits, under the appellations of the
Son of Man, the Elect One, the Messiah, and the Son of
God. Disputes have arisen respecting the nature of the
Son of Man, described in the vision of Daniel; and
Unitarians contend that his existence commenced at the
birth of Jesus Christ: affirming, without fear of contra-
diction, that no Jew of any age ever held the opinion of
his pre-existence, much less ever regarded him as an
object of divine worship. But that the Jewish doctrine
before Christ upon this point was totally different from
that which the Unitarians assert it to have been, I have
shown in my remarks on the first book of Esdras. The
present publication, however, affords further and more
decisive testimony upon the same subject.
39.	The passage which the Archbishop cites from Esdras
is as follows. Thou shalt be taken away from men, and
from thenceforth thou shalt remain with my Son, whereENOCH.
229
those are who resemble thee, until the times be ended,
xiv. 9. But as it is well demonstrated now that the
Apocalypse was the first Revelation of God, and was
known to all the high pontiffs, it is clear from whence
this allusion was derived. A was wo/ a ycwwA, 5w/ a
primeval Ae/tcf. And the rabbis who put forth as genuine
the visions of Esdras, as well as Daniel, merely re-echoed
the teachings of the First Messenger, while they inter-
wove with the real writings of Esdras some of the
thoughts of Enoch himself. Few /a/Aer ^lAraAam
refoice<7 /o see my (fay, a?nf Ac saw if, awf was yAwf, says
Jesus, in John viii., 56, from which we learn that this
Brahmin priest, hundreds of years before the Jews left
Aoudyea (Part III., 120, 158, 207, 433, 755), had read
the Apocalyptic and Enochian writings, and had learned
from them of the succession of the Messengers. I know
not whether it has ever occurred to any of my readers,
but it is clear that the crafty and hypocritical Isaac is
plainly described in Genesis not to be the son of
Abraham, but the son of God by Sara, just as Jesus was
by Mary—both being the wives of other men at the
time. Gen. xxi., 1. So the priest of God, Balaam,
whoever he may have been, says (Num. xxiv., 17—19),
7 sAaM see Aim, Aw/ wo/ wow; 7 #AaM AeAoM Aww, Av/ wo/
w?'yA : /Aere sAa/Z come a <S*/ar oa/ of Fa-CowA (the Land
of Cobi) a/wf a *Sceptre sAa/% m'se ow/ of 7ssa-/?a-F/ : oa/ of
Fa-CowA .sAaM come Ae /Aa/ sAaZZ Aave (fomiwtow. The
other verses are rabbinical interpolations and forgeries,
but enough remains for my purpose. The Star out of
the Land of Cobi, or Tartary, is the Phoenix, which, says
Paracelsus, is the Soul of the Great Iliaster—and Iliaster
is the Star of God, that is, the Messenger of Heaven.230
THE BOOK OF GOD.
There is a passage in the Testament of Levi which says
that	o/ a wew .Priest s7ta77 rise wt Aeuven Me
^ar o/* a	ra<7ia^'Ky /Zse	o/* Z:wotoMye w
sim o/ ^/te <7ays. Is not this an occult allusion by one of
the Initiated into the Naronic Secret! and does it not
prove, when added on to so many other proofs, that
among certain classes of the olden writers, Indians,
Pagans, Jews, and Gnostics, the grand Avatar-Secret of
the Apocalyptic Mysteries had been learned, and that
they hinted at them whenever they got a chance to do
so, but in a way that the vulgar could never understand ?
In another place, Paracelsus declares that if	iMe
ytrwMMS was so disposed towards any one, or if he wanted
any person, that person might easily attain to what
Enoch has attained, and be placed in a state of longevity
amidst the eether and clouds. He will not define, he
says, what is the Iliaster's mode of life and being, but he
declares that the Bird Phoenix is the Soul of the Great
Iliaster.	Zowya, c. 2. The latter part of this
indicates, that Paracelsus was an Initiate, and knew
something of the Naronic Cycle, of which the symbolic
Phoenix is the Soul: but the First Iliaster is the Holy
Spirit, or Star of God, who inspires into one of the Great
Archangels the desire to descend and be a Messenger;
and so renders himself worthy to attain that super-
transcendent splendour in which Enoch and the other
Messias are placed after their earth-pilgrimage and
passion. So much for an explanation of the Balaamic
Star. What is the Sceptre 1 The Sceptre is an allusion
to the Bel-Ops Serpent-Sceptre which appears in a
subsequent section, and on which was based the Serpent-
Pillar, erected by Amosis as a sign of salvation. PartENOCH.
231
III., 487, 489. This Serpent is called in the Targum
" a Saviour," and is the Messianic Sceptre of the Shali-
Vhan, or Bearer of Salvation. What shall we think of
Kalisch, one of the most favourite of the Biblical writers,
saying, Almost throughout the East, the Serpent was used
as an emblem of the Evil Principle; and what shall we
say of the Bishop of Ely in the ^eaAer's ComweMtary,
writing of the curse on the Serpent in Genesis, and
saying, At Zts cyirttMa/ siywZ/7caMce t7 M a cMr.se ow (Ac
Otte / / / as if any rational or educated person—as if
any bishop—now believed that God permitted a Devil-
Power for the purposes of temptation. Kalisch, when he
wrote this, and the Bishop of Ely, when he gave it a sort
of approval, ought to have well known, and to have
scorned themselves as liars for penning so deliberate a
falsehood. But I never yet knew or read of any of
those reverend reviewers who cared for truth if he saw
any immediate object of gain in view.	^ezyewt Acts
/com tfme a'wweTHorZaZ Aeew %se<7 a# (Ac symAo/ of (Ac Dtwte
Ret'wy : beginning in India, and travelling through Egypt
into Europe we find it among the Gauls, Celts, Sarma-
tians, and Scyths. Quintus Curtius says that the Temple
of Jupiter Ammon, had a rude stone whereon was drawn
a	or sepyewtwae AZwe, (Ac sywAoZ o/* (Ac ZZeZty. And
the custom among the Greeks and Romans of depicting
the Messenger of the Gods, Hermes, with a caduceus of
twisted serpents as an emblem of his divine commission,
was derived from this ancient symbol. I need not again
allude to the Mosaic Serpent, nor to what the thrice
great Messenger of Egypt, Thoth, said, (Aat (Ac Mature of
&rpew(6' woe cKvtwe, sptrttvaZ, am/ fyneows, tMoswacA as
(Aey wove rayt<ZAy Ay (Ae eytrit, anc/ wftAoMt Aaw& aw<%232
THE BOOK OF GOD.
/eet. In the Old World and the New, says Archdeacon
Hardwick, fAe	was	%o sym&oKae tAe
A?yAes^ /arms o/ Ae7wy, as fAe (?o<7 ; as %Ae C?'ea!
J/ofAer o/tAe Aw?naw	aMf/ evew as %Ae A/r.s^ Prtw-
c?y7g o/ a77 ^7n'ays. Note that the common Irish notion
that their mythical Saint Patrick banished all the snakes
from Ireland means that some Roman priest overturned
the universal religion of the Serpent Worshippers there.
When the Egyptians, says Horapollo, would represent
the Universe, they delineate a Serpent bespeckled with
twwya?e<Z scales, devouring its own tail: by the scales
intimating the Stars in the Universe. This animal is
extremely heavy as is the Earth, and extremely slippery
like the Water : moreover, it every year puts off its old
age with its skin, as in the Universe the annual period
effects a corresponding change, and becomes renovated.
And the making use of its own body for food, implies
that all things whatever which are generated by Divine
Providence in the World undergo a corruption into them
again. This was signified also in the Mysteries, where
the Initiated was ^enigmatically told: 7'Ae Aa/7 Aas
AeyoMem a	; fAe	Aos AeyoMen a
40. Murray says that in more than one of these books
of Enoch may probably be found the or7yfaa7s of writings
ascribed to Hermes and Osiris. This assigns great anti-
quity to Enoch's Prophecy. Kircher says :	wws%
a?rcww% OsAA awwwy tAg Ayyp^'ans was TZtmocA, and it
certainly appears from the testimony of many authors
that all which the Greeks wrote concerning Osiris, and
the benefits which he conferred upon mankind, has been
imputed by the Arabians and Chaldaeans to Enoch. The
mission ascribed by Am Ben Joseph to Enoch agreesENOCH.
233
with some part of the present books. " The Most High
God sent to them Idris that he might persuade them to
worship the Biessed and Glorious God, and he gathered
them together, and rebuked them for their great wicked-
ness." In the Canon Chronicus of Marsham, many
authors are referred to as proving the identity of Thoytlu
of Mercury, and Osiris: while the name of Hermes is
quoted by this author as belonging to one of the Cabiric
Messengers. And Iamblichus says, that the ancients
called u/7	o/	by the name of
Hermes—that is, Messianic. Lib i. de Myst. In another
place the author of Awoc/t	does not hesitate to
assign portions of the Book of Enoch to a period ante-
rior to the Fifth Messenger Zaratusbt. If, he says, in the
fragments of Zoroaster, confessedly so ancient, we discover
traces of a knowledge of the truth concerning the future
judgment, and especially concerning the agency of Fire,
whether natural or moral, in the purification of the
world, we shall reasonably conclude that this knowledge
must have been gained from some Prophecy extant at that
period, and the resemblance in these fragments to the
doctrines of the Book of Enoch will, therefore, tend in
some degree to confirm the probability that f/n's
w a very wWy aye. This is very strong from the
biblical point of view, and is not easy of refutation. But
Zaratusht, though no doubt he had the writings of Enoch
and his other Messianic predecessors before him, learned
not from them only but by direct inspiration from
Heaven.
41. Iamblichus observes that Pythagoras and Plato
acquired their knowledge of philosophy from the inspec-
tion of the Columns of Hermes; that is, from the pillars234
THE BOOK OF GOD.
of Ach-Icarus, or Seth, or the Apocalypse; or from some
of the volumes of the Messengers who preceeded them.
Pythagoras certainly travelled from India into China,
and as he was personally acquainted with Lao-Tseu in
his old age, or with some of his immediate friends and
disciples, he thus became acquainted with the writings of
theMesssengers. See 181. Nor is this inconsistent
with the declaration attributed to Plato, that he had written
nothing concerning spiritual things as of his own autho-
rity ; while Strabo expressly declares that, although Plato
acquired his knowledge of things celestial from the
Egyptian priests, they still communicated to him only a
part of the Mysteries with which they were acquainted : Ta
TroXXa a7r€R'pm/'afTo ot /?ap/3apot—the Barbars concealed
many things. And herein they showed consummate
wisdom, for Plato, though a writer of the most ornate
style, was in truth only a shallow pretender to the highest
principles of true philosophy; and of theology his know-
ledge was superficial.
42. Anius was a name for Enoch. He was the son of
Rhcea, or the Holy Spirit, impregnated by the Sun. Part
I, 247. He was Ionichus and Ianus, which is an anagram
of Anius, and this, as I have shown, was an Incarnation.
Part III, 303. My reader need not be told of Ani and
its cognates, which are fully explained in the preceding
parts of the Book of God. See General Index. Anius
was priest of the Sun. He was also Aniketos, the Un-
conquerable, and Anch-Isis. The White Sow, which
yEneas brought from Troy, which escaped from his ship,
and was found at Lauro-Lavinium with thirty pigs, and
whose colour gave its name to the city Alba, signified the
worship of the Holy Spirit imported at the same timeENOCH.
235
into Italy and Albion by priests, who bare the name of
Enos, Eneas, or Enoch, and built the ship Temple Ani.
See Part III, General Index, Ani and Sow. The White
Sow was the Sowa, or Sevaha, of the Arabs. Alcoran, cit
Hyde, Fet. Pers., c. 5, Hottinger, Hist. Orient I, vii.,
156. Enoch was also honoured by the Greeks under
the symbolic, and perhaps local, name of Aristomenes—
that is, Menes, or Menu, the most excellent. He was
the son of a Virgin by a Serpent; he instigated his
countrymen to revolt against the superstitions of the
hour, and engaged them in a Holy War, aided by the
hierophants of the Mysteries; he himself fought sur-
rounded by eighty chosen Messenians [Messianic fol-
lowers] of the same age as himself; he puts his enemies to
Hight, and pursues them to a sylvan pear tree, on which the
Sons of God had ever sat; here he loses his shield, but finds
it again in the secret sanctuary of Trophonius [a com-
pound of radicals indicating Three, a Voice, a Serpent, a
Tree, and the Yoni]. He intended to have marched into
Sparta itself, but was deterred by seeing in the night the
spectres of Helen (the Holy Spirit) and the Sons of God
—just as in the Commentary on the Apocalypse we have
seen Chengiz Khan turned back from the conquest of
Hindostan. He is thrown into a deep chasm called
Ceadas, but is miraculously saved by an Eagle. He is
taken prisoner by seven Cretan bowmen. A Virgin sees
in a dream a Lion without talons led along by Wolves ;
but she thought that he was freed from bonds by her
self; that she caused him to resume his wonted courage
and gave him his talons, and that thus at length the
Wolves were torn in pieces by the Lion. Hence she
gave the seven Cretans in abundance, and as soon as236
THE BOOK OF GOD.
they were intoxicated, and in a deep sleep, drew out a
dagger with which she cut the bonds of Aristomenes, and
he, receiving the dagger from her, slew his insidious
enemies. In this we trace something of the Sampson
mythos; indeed, there is a good deal of pagan mythology
interwoven with the lives of many of the Jewish heroes.
Finally, as the Messenians possessed something belonging
to arcane mysteries [the Apocalypse] which, if destroyed,
would be to the everlasting ruin of Messene ; but, if
preserved would, according to the oracles of Lycus, the
son of Pandion (the Wolf, the Son of God), be the means
of restoring Messene in some future period to its pristine
condition; this Arcanum, Aristomenes, who knew the
Oracles, carried away as soon as it was night, and buried
it in the most solitary part of the mountain Ithome
(Thammuz), which is Atham-as, or Adam.
43. Enoch was known in Egypt as Anachus, one of
the four Egyptian Lares ; in Arabia he is called Idris ;
and one of his Hindu names is Herames, which is another
form for Hermes, or the Messenger. He was also sur-
natned Atlas, and Annedotus. Am Ben Joseph in his
history says : The son of Jared was born, Enoch. This
is Hermes. He himself is Idris—that is to say, Osiris
the Prophet. (AJ//?. Ayy/^tac., i. 167. Kircher also,
quoting from Abenephi, adds : Adris himself among the
Hebrews has been called Henoch : among the Egyptians
Osiris and Hermes, and he was the first who before the
Flood had the knowledge of astronomy and geometry.
He went into Ethiopia, and Nubia, and other places, and
calling men together he instructed them in many things.
Note that Ethiopia in the ancient days was nomerr yrrre-
and may be said to have meant any unknown region.ENOCH.
237
It must not be confined to African Ethiopia. He adds :
The Hebrews derive their name of Osyris, or Asyris,
from Adris, which, with them, is synonimous with Enoch.
The change of <7 into & is very common in the Chaldee.
The earthly Osiris symbolizes the Messenger. Part II,
661. Idris comes from the Arabic root Ders—f.e., pro-
found meditation. The Mussulmans, says Herbelot,
believe that God delivered to this Prophet thirty volumes,
in which all the secrets of the most profound science were
contained. Hence the great veneration paid throughout
the Orient to the writings of Enoch, or Idris. By the
Welsh he was called Idris-Gwawr, or the Fire Messenger,
(see General Index to Part III, Gwawr), and also Idris,
the Giant. In analogy with the golden bedstead of
Enoch, mentioned afterwards, we read that in Cadr
Idris, in North Wales, on the very summit, there is an
excavation in the solid rock resembling a cowcA, and it is
said that whoever should rest a night in that seat would
be found in the morning either dead, raving mad, or
endued with a supernatural genius. A similar tradition
exists as to the Cadr, or Kedar Nauth, inHindostan.
See part I, 104. This has mystic relation to Al-Kadr.
See General Index. And in strange confirmation of
this creed, the Mussulmans at the present day believe
that madness is a species of inspiration and worthy of
respect. Great wit to madness nearly is allied ; thus
here also the East is linked in thought to the West. By
the side of a lake, near the foot of the mountain, are
three large stones called Tre Greienyn. Davies thinks
they obtained their name from Greian, the Sun. They
are magnets, or meteoric, or Sun-Stones, and are symbols
of the Triadic Power, and of the Three Cabirs : they are238
THE BOOK OF GOD.
typical also of Three Mountains mentioned by Enoch in
liis 13th chapter. Idris, says Davies, in Greek, implies
an expert or skilful person, and Idresh, ty*l*D, in Hebrew,
from Dresh,	to seek, search, inquire diligently.
Hydres has a similar meaning in Welsh. Note that a
Messiah, and more particularly a Kabir, is called in the pri-
mitive scriptures, a Mountain, a Jupiter Lapis, to indicate
his strength and majesty, and his being high exalted above
earth and earthly things. In the Oriental languages Gibr
and Gibl may be regarded as one and the same. Gebel
is the Arabic for a Mountain, and Sinai and Tabor are
called Gibel-Thaur, or the Mountain of Thor, the
Northern Cabir. Zamolxis, a Getic name for Enoch,
was called in very ancient times Gebelizis, the Mountain
of Hezus, or Isis (Herod, iv. c. 94), and the Roman
Emperor Marcus Antoninus Varius, a profound mystic,
styled himself Gabalus, the Sun. The depositories of
that secret learning which Zoroaster brought down from
the Fiery Mountain are the Gebirs. Nimrod regards it
as synonymous with Gabr, or Kabir, the mighty One, iii.
510. Note, that the name Lucumon, or Mountain of
Light, signifies a Supreme Ruler, and Theocrator in the
Old Etruscan.	iii. 64. From a passage of
Hecateeus, preserved by Diodorus Siculus, I think it is
evident (says Payne Knight) that Stonehenge, and all the
other monuments in the North, belonged to the same
re/tyiwt	appears, af sowM re?nofe perfoc? fo Aave pre-
over fAe wAoZe worfAerw. AemfspAere. According to
that ancient historian the Hyberboreans inhabited an
island beyond Gaul, as large as Sicily, in which Apollo
was worshipped in a circular temple considerable for its
size and riches (KA. ii.), Apollo, we know in the languageENOCH.
239
of the Greeks of that age, can mean no other than the Sun,
which, according to Caesar, was worshipped by the Ger-
mans, when they knew of no other deities except Fire
and Moon. The island, I think, can be no other
than Britain, which at that time was only known
by the vague reports of Phoenician mariners,so uncer-
tain and obscure, that Herodotus, the most inqui-
sitive and credulous of historians, doubts of its
existence. And Hu (the Sun, or God) and Ceridwen
(the Moon, or Holy Spirit) were both venerated, as
we know, at Stonehenge. That a knowledge of the road
to Britain should be lost, says Higgins, does not appear
more wonderful than the loss of the road to the Americas.
And yet no unprejudiced person can doubt, when he has
considered all the circumstances of similarity which have
been pointed out between many religious rites, names
and local customs, of the natives of Mexico and the
Asiatics, that the former were originally peopled from
the latter, by means of ships, and not by passing by an
almost impassable passage over the frozen regions near the
North Pole. In our own days an instance of a country
found and lost again, may be seen in Rennel's Geographical
History of Herodotus, p. 714, where he shows that New
Holland, after being discovered, was wholly forgotten.
Ce/tic	107.
44. Was Columbus the first discoverer of America, or
did he only rediscover that continent after it had, in
remote ages, been found, peopled, and forgotten by the
Old World ? It is curious that this question has not
been more generally raised ; for it is very clear that the
people whom Columbus found in America must have
been descended from emigrants from the Old World, and
therefore America was known to the Old World before240
THE BOOK OF GOD.
Columbus' time. We must believe that there was at one
time communication between the Old World and the
New. Probably this communication took place on the
opposite side of the world to ours, between the eastern
coast of Asia and the side of America most remote from
Europe; and it is quite possible that the inhabitants of
eastern Asia may have been aware of the existence of
America, and kept up intercourse with it while our part
of the Old World never dreamt of its existence. The
impenetrable barrier the Chinese were always anxious to
preserve between themselves and the rest of the nations
of the Old World renders it quite possible that they
should have kept their knowledge of America to them-
selves, or at any rate, from Europe. The objection that
the art of navigation in such remote times was not suffi-
ciently advanced to enable the Chinese to cross the Pacific
and land on the shores of America is not conclusive, as
we have now found that arts and sciences which were
once generally supposed to be of quite modern origin,
existed in China ages and ages before their discovery in
Europe. The arts of paper-making and printing, among
others, had been practised in China long before the Euro-
peans had any idea of them. Why, then, should not the
Chinese have been equally, or more, in advance of us in
navigation ! The stately ruins of Baalbec, with gigantic
arches across thd streets, whose erection would puzzle our
modern engineers, the Pyramids, and other such remains
of stupendous works, point to a state of civilization, and
the existence of arts and sciences, in times of which
European historians give no account. One fact corrobo-
rative of the idea that the Old World, or, at least, someENOCH.
241
of the inhabitants of Asia, were once aware of the exist-
ence of America before its discovery by Columbus, is
that many of the Arabian writers are fully convinced
that the ancient Arabian geographers knew of America,
and in support of this opinion point to passages in old
works in -which a country to the west of the Atlantic is
spoken of. An Arab gentleman, General Hussein Pasha,
in a work he has just written on America, called " En-
Nessr-Et Tayir," quotes from Djeldeki and other old
writers to show this. There is, however, amongst Chinese
records not merely vague references to a country to the
west of the Atlantic, but a circumstantial account of its
discovery by the Chinese long before Columbus was born.
A competent authority on such matters, J. Haulay, the
Chinese interpreter in San Francisco, has lately written
an essay on this subject, from which we gather the fol-
lowing startling statements drawn from Chinese historians
and geographers :—" Fourteen hundred years ago even
America had been discovered by the Chinese, and de-
scribed by them. They stated that land to be about
20,000 Chinese miles distant from China. About 500
years after the birth of Christ, Buddhist priests repaired
thete, and brought back the news that they had met with
Buddhist idoisand religious writings in thecountry already.
Their descriptions, in many respects, resemble those of
the Spaniards, a thousand years after. They called the
country ' Fusany,' after a tree which grew there, whose
leaves resemble those of the bamboo, whose bark the
natives made clothes and paper out of, whose fruit they
ate. These particulars correspond exactly and remark-
ably with those given by the American historian, Pres-
cott, about the maquay tree in Mexico. He states that the242
THE BOOK OF GOD.
Aztecs prepared a pulp for paper-making out of the bark
of this tree. Then, even its leaves were used for thatch-
ing ; its fibres for making ropes; its roots yield a nour-
ishing food; and its sap, by means of fermentation,
was made into an intoxicating drink. The accounts
given by the Chinese and Spaniards, although a
thousand years apart, agree in stating that the natives
did not possess any iron, but only copper; that they
made all their tools, for working in stone and metals,
out of a mixture of copper and tin; and they, in com-
parison with the nations of Europe and Asia, thought
but little of the worth of silver and gold. The religious
customs and forms of worship presented the same cha-
racteristics to the Chinese fourteen hundred years ago
as to the Spaniards four hundred years ago." There is,
moreover, a remarkable resemblance between the religion
of the Aztecs and the Buddhism of the Chinese, as well as
between the manners and customs of the Aztecs and
those of the people of China. There is also a great
similarity between the features of the Indian tribes of
Middle and South America and those of the Chinese, and
as Haulay, the Chinese interpreter of whom we spoke
above, states, between the accent and most of the mono-
syllabic words of the Chinese and Indian languages.
Indeed, this writer gives a list of words which point to a
close relationship ; and infers therefrom that there must
have been emigration from China to the American conti-
nent at a most early period indeed, as the official accounts
of Buddhist priests fourteen hundred years ago notice
these things as existing already.
45. Davies applies to the Druids of Britain the account
given by Diodorus Siculus, from Hecateeus. Opposite toENOCH.
243
the coast of Gallia Celtica there is an island in the ocean,
not smaller than Sicily, lying to the north, which is
inhabited by the Hyperboreans, who were so named
because they dwelled beyond the North Wind. This
island is of a happy temperature, rich in soil, and
fruitful in everything, yielding its produce twice in the
year. Tradition says that Latona (the Holy Spirit)
was born there, and for that reason the inhabitants
venerate Apollo (her Son, the Sun-Messenger) more
than any other god. They are in a manner his priests,
for they daily celebrate him with continual songs of
praise, and pay him abundant honour. In this island
there is a magnificent Grove, or precinct of Apollo,
and a remarkable Temple of a round form, adorned
with many consecrated gifts. There is also a city
sacred to the same God; most of the inhabitants of
which are	who continually play upon their
harps in the Temple, and sing hymns to the god,
extolling his actions. This city reminds us of the
Indian and African Cities of the Sun (Heliopolis) of
which history is full. The Hyperboreans use a peculiar
dialect, and have a remarkable attachment to the Greeks,
and especially to the Athenians and the Delians, de-
ducing their friendship from remote periods. It is
related that some Greeks formerly visited the Hyper-
boreans, with whom they left consecrated gifts of great
value, and also that in ancient times Abaris (the
Father of Lions), coming from the Hyperboreans into
Greece, renewed their friendship with the Delians. It
I: also said that in this island the moon appears very
near to the earth; that certain eminences of a terres-
-M 2244
THE BOOK OF GOD.
trial form are plainly seen in it; that the god Apollo
visits the island once in a course of nineteen years, in
which period the stars complete their revolutions, and
that for this reason, the Greeks distinguish the cycle of
nineteen years by the name of the Great Year. During
the season of his appearance the god plays upon the
harp,* and dances every night, from the vernal equinox till
the rising of the Pleiades, pleased with his own suc-
cesses. The supreme authority in that city and sacred
precinct is vested in those who are called Boreadse,
being the descendants of Boreas, and their governments
have been uninteruptedly transmitted in this line. The
topography of this island accords precisely and exclu-
sively to the local {position of Britain. Some have
objected that the words, Kara Tas apterous, do not simply
mean Zyiny towards tAe nor/A, but imply a higher lati-
tude than that of Britain ; but this island, viewed from
the coast of Gaul, appears to be under the Bear, and
the same Diodorus, lv. 21, when speaking expressly of
Britain, describes it as urro avr^v T^u Apxrov xetpeviyv,
lying under the She-Bear herself; that is, governed by
Arc-Turus, and Ar-Thor, the Boar Avatar of Baratha,
or Hindustan : hence its mythologic Messenger King or
Pontiff Arthur. See Part III, 391.	188.
T'rom this, I think, it is clear that the religion of
Enoch was first renewed, I suppose, with that of Chadam
in this island of Britain by Abaris, the Shining One,
Priest of the Abiri, the wearer of the many coloured
coat of splendours, like the Serpent, the Scarabeeus, and
* See Part II, 464; Part III, 120, 324, 425, 476.ENOCH.
245
the Salmon,* who at the same time brought with him
from Tibet, or Samarkand (Part III, 461), fe/Mcopea,
with which the Druids brought the Moon, the symbol of
the Holy Spirit, near to the earth, and that the Messen-
ger God visits it at the end of the revolution of the Great
Year, or the Natonic Cycle, which Diodorus mistook for
that of Meton. This return of Apollo isfoundedon the same
tradition as that which I have shown prevails in Mexico,
Part III, 474, 476, 477. The " consecrated gifts " were
Apocalyptic and Enochian books, and the symbols ;
probably also the Revelations of other Messengers.
Davies, alluding to what Hecataeus has said, that the
Druids of Britain had discovered mountains in the Moon,
adds: The notice which modern discovery has veri-
fied so amply respecting the appearance of the Moon,
must be very interesting in an ancient author concerning
any people whatsoever. It seems to indicate the use of
something like feZescopes, and whatever may have been
intended by it, our triads mention Drych ab Cibbdar, or
* A curious remnant of this belief, that the Salmon typified
the Saviour Messenger is mentioned in ArcAceoloyia, ii. 17. I
cannot pass by Aberavon, says the writer, without mentioning a
ridiculous superstitious belief of our common people, that every
CArMfnuM day neominy, and at no other time of the year, a
large Salmon exhibits himself in the river, and permits himself to
be taken up by any person, and this has been attested for a certain
truth by persons who have actually touched him, but who
thought it was the greatest impiety to take him prisoner. See
Part III, General Index, Salmon, and Sam-On. The gorgeous
Oriental dress made of beetle wings gleaming with a thousand
splendid hues, is a still subsisting memorial of the "coat of many
colours," which was appropriated to the Messenger, and whieh
was emblematic of his Rainbow Mother in Heaven, and of his
own appearance as he was seen in Vision by one of the Inspired
Revealers of Holy Truth.246
THE BOOK OF GOD.
Cilidwr, %Ag specwAm o/' tAe sim o/ pervcK/tny y^awcg, or
o/ ^Ae searcAer o/ mystery as one of the secrets of the
Island of Britain. Celt's ResearcAes, 192. For the
telescope in ancient Mexico, seePart I, 131. Upon this
subject Higgins remarks : " There is one supposition
which, as it appears to me, maybe reasonably entertained,
and may perhaps go a long way towards removing much
difhculty, which is to suppose that %Ae (eZescope was An.oww.
/o a very _/ew o/ ^Ae priest, a?M7 Aep% Ay %Ae//t Mt private
/or /Ae M.se o/t/y o/ ^Ae persons	tn^o fAe J/tyAer
Jfys^ertes." The ancients knew that the milky way
consisted of small stars; this it is thought that they
could not have known without telescopes. AziMt 7Ks%.
jls^r., iii. 16.
46. Connected with the mysticism of the Druids in all
they did, the annotator on Camden, having described a
strong fortress seated on the top of one of the highest
mountains of that part of Snowdon which lies towards
the sea, gives the following account of an ancient temple.
About a mile from this, he says, stands the most remark-
able monument in all Snowdon, called Y Meineu Hirion
(the Sacred Place of Menu), upon the plain mountain. It
is a circular entrenchment about 26 yards diameter, on
the outside whereof are certain rude stone pillars, of
which about twelve are now standing, some two yards,
and others five feet high, and these are again encompassed
with a stone wall. It stands upon the plain mountain as
soon as we come to the height, having much even ground
about it; and not far from it there are three other large
stones (a trilithon) pitched on end, in a triangular form.
Gibson's (Jarndw, Col. 805. From this description, says
Davies, quoted out of Camden, we may infer that theENOCH.
247
Temple of the Gyvilehi is a work of the same kind as
those circular monuments of stone which have attracted
the notice of the curious, from the South to the North
extremity of this Island, and which our best antiquaries
pronounce not only to have been temples of the ancient
Britons, but also to have been	npon
: fn -s'Aor?, ?o Aaee
^tseTf, or certaw cye7es co!W^M/a/i'o)M &o7ucetZ /70m f/te
s7n<Zy o/ astronomy. Hence the frequent repetition of
6toe7ve, nineteen, thirty, or sMcty stones which has been
remarked in the circles of these monuments. J/yt7to/oyy,
302.
47. The following observation of Mr. Barrow, the great
astronomer, says Higgins, applies in a singular manner in
support of the observation of Mr. Davies respecting the
Budd was creed in this country. He says that t7*e Z/tncfn
reftytoa syrea<% ocer t7<e M7to7e eartA/ that Stonehenge is
one of the temples of Boodh, and that astronomy, astrology,
arithmetic, holy days, games, &c., may be referred to the
same original.* The following passages I have extracted
from the unpublished manuscripts of Bishop Chandler
in the British Museutn. The words in italics confirm
these views. The	spoke about the Pyrenees
(though mixed with many Spanish and French words)
shows the original of this people, and of part of the
inhabitants of Spain. The ancient idiom, mingled with
words of the Eastern languages, of Egyptian, Northern,
Irish, and barbarous Greek, joined with a term conform-
able to Many /anynayes of* 7'artary and of the Indies,
shew that these people came by land yhom fZte ne7yA6owr-
7tooc/ of %7te FwiCMM	The Briton, or ancient Celtic,
Vail. Coll., Vol. VI., pp. 330, &c.248
THE BOOK OF GOD.
differs from the Teutonic but as a dialect. The Etruscan,
Umbrian, and Pelasgian are dialects of the same barbarous
language spoke by the first colonies in Asia Minor, who
came from the East of Greece. A co^ec^ow o/ tAe
Awropeam Aantyuayea wouM proM tA^ yeopZe came a// yro??r
t/te Ay tAe AortA; <wtd tAut tAme touyMes wAicA Auw
Anen	Ay	Mi/?Mrou3 Muce, Awd /Ae//i Ay ^Ae
mgauM o/* Auter co/oMMS, %Act% came	Tln/a 4fwuw awd
G/eece 7o 7^u7y. The Basque and several languages of
fZ'ar/ury have a like conformity in the turn and words ;
as also with the Indian tongues on this side of the Ganges.
They seem all to be colonies of the same stock and others
east of Caucasus, which separates the greater Asia from
Armenia to China into north and south. So far the Bishop.
And it is to the true and sublime religion of this people,
as taught by the Druids, that I seek to bring back all
English-speaking peoples : the rest will follow in due
course.
48. Robertson, in his Thwz* #ArewyA fA% Zde o/* Jfhw,
speaking of our great ancestral priests, thus describes
them. The Druids were the most venerable of human
characters: as priests, they were deemed sacred ; as
legislators, politic; and as philosophers, enlightened and
humane; while the nation cheerfully paid them the
veneration due to the ministers of God, and the magis-
trates of the people. Their government was truly
patriarchal : they were the sacred fathers of their
country. Amid their umbrageous oaks they sacrificed
at the altar, and from the throne of justice gave laws to
the nation. To render their civil character more
venerable, they concealed from the vulgar several of
their rites and ceremonies; and from this mysteriousENOCH.
249
policy some writers have presumed to condemn their
worship as barbarous and inhuman. But their doctrines
were pure and sublime, combining the unity of God, the
immortality of the soul, and a just distribution of future
rewards and punishments. They were also scientific
observers of nature and teachers of moral philosophy.
Their precepts were never committed to writing, but
delivered in verse to their pupils, who, by the intense
study of many years, imprinted them on the memory.
Residing in woods and caves, they were distinguished by
the austerity and simplicity of their manners; and thus
by their knowledge, wisdom, and virtue, obtained a
sovereign influence over the minds of the people. They
decided all public and private controversies. The impious
were awed at their frown, and the virtuous rejoiced in
their smiles; while from their judgment there was no
appeal. No laws were instituted by the princes or
assemblies without their advice and approbation : no
person was punished with bonds or death without their
passing sentence; no plunder taken in war was used by
the captor until the Druids determined what part they
should select for themselves. Their power, as it sprang
from virtue and genius, was not hereditary, but conferred
on those whose merit might sanction the choice.
o/*	Nor are our Irish brethren
less lineally descended from the believers in this sublime
religion. Faber observes : It is a curious circumstance,
that the ancient Irish should also have a Zaradusht, and
that they and the Persians (who in this instance seem to
have confounded together the primitive and the later
Zaradusht) should have designated his mother by the
name of Doghdu or Doghda. The close resemblance
M 3250
THE BOOK OF GOD.
between the religion of Persia and that of the British
Isles was observed by Borlase ;	cowpie
o/ oM	o/ %Ae Druitfs, Jfuyi, awcf
Aru/iwwM, /MM Seen .sOzca	ee/nS/ts7te</ Sy
Vallancey, Wilford, Maurice, and Davies. Buy. AM.
But why is it a eypers^Ion, any more than Petro-
Paulism 1
49. Many of the Irish Deities are precisely the gods
of Hindustan. The Neit corresponds to the Hindu
Naat, and to the Neith of the Egyptians.
Saman .................to...Samanaut.
Bud ...................to...Bood.
Can ...................to... Chandra.
Omti, 7.e., he who is...to...Om, or Aum.
And Esar....................to...Eswara.*
Creeshna, the name of the Indian Apollo, is actually an
old Irish word for the sun.t The Irish had a Deity
named Cali. The altars called Mutura Deorum, in con-
sequence of being the birthplace of the God, probably
in the plural number from his being considered in his
capacity of Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer, on which
they sacrificed to her, are at this day named Leeba Caili,
or the bed of Cali. This must have been the Cali of the
Hindus. On the whole, nothing can be more striking
than the observation of Pliny, who seventeen or eighteen
hundred years ago, speaking of the Druids of Britain,
says : Britain at this day celebrates the Magian rites
with so many similar ceremonies, that you might suppose
them to have been given to them by the Persians. In
* Maurice's Hist. Hind., Vol. II., p. 171.
t Asiatic Res., Vol. I., p. 262.ENOCH.
251
Britain, says Hyde, the Numen of Minerva was wor-
shipped, in whose temple it is reported that there was
perpetual fire; and Camden	p. 747) reports
that in the County of Kildare there was an inextinguish-
able fire of St. Brigid, as in the adyta of Vesta, and that
it was kept up by holy virgins, never being permitted to
smoulder.	Per., 148. In the Basque we find
Ioun, Iauna, which is a god : in the Sclavonic Iunak, a
hero, which is the Irish Aonach or Enoch. Cornificius
calls him Eanus, or Enos.
50. In Ireland and Wales, as well as England, we
have repeated instances of twelve pillars of unhewn
stones being set up, and also of an altar at the same
time. Here is the practice of using unhewn stones, and
of plastering them. Now, were they placed in circles, or
were they not 1 Although the writer of the book of
Joshua, writing many years after the stones were set up,
speaks very familiarly of the place Gilgal as of a place
well known; it by no means follows that it was called
Gilgal when Joshua set up the stones. It probably had
not then this name, but acquired it afterwards from the
circumstance of the stones placed there. This I infer
from the name Gilgal. Part II., 566; Part III,, 327.
On which Parkhurst says : Gl, a roundish heap of stones ;
and Cruden, in his Concordance, calls it a wheel, a revo-
lution. Parkhurst says, in another place, ytZ denotes ft
reuoTMtwa. This is the same as the Celtic Ceal or Cil—
the G, the third letter of the Arabic, Hebrew, and Greek,
denoting 3, becoming changed for C, the third letter of
the Latin, &c., and always in old time pronounced K, as
in Caesar—Kaisar in German. The Mazorites, for the
supplied vowel in the word glgl, give the i, then it is252
THE BOOK OF GOD.
gilgl. This shows the tradition in their day. From
these stones the place became called the place of the
s/owe circle. From this came the names of our parishes,
which were called from places of Druidical worship Oils
or Ceals, thus—Kilpatrick, Kilkenny, Kildare (that is,
literally, the Kil of the Grove), &c., &c. Almost always
where these towns or parishes have the name of Kil,
remains or traditions of the Druids are to be found.
51. In a poem of Taliesin's, which is called the
appeasing of Lludd, the following very singular passage
occurs :—
" Llwyth lliaws, anuaws ei henwerys, &c."
A numerous race, fierce they are said to have been,
Were thy original colonists, Britain, first of isles,
Natives of a country in Asia, and the country of Gafis ;
Said to have been a skilful people, but the district is
unknown,
Which was mother to these warlike adventurers on the
sea,
Clad in their long dress, who could equal them !
Their skill is celebrated, they were the dread of Europe.
It is observed by Mr. Roberts that there is a Gabis, the
capital of Gabaza, a province of Usbek Tartary, of which
he says that it is too far to the East of the route of the
Cimmerians to admit of the supposition of its being the
place intended by the poet, further than as intimating
some place bordering on the Caspian Sea. He then goes
on to observe that in a work called the Triads it is stated
that TZw wriyAfy, who first settled in Britain, came from
the summer country, which is called Deffrobani, that is,
where Constantinople is at present. So we may closely
trace the Deities of the Shanscreet school in the namesENOCH.
253
of the Druidical gods—thus, one of Godama's names was
Teithan (the Titan of the classics), which is well known
to be Daitya, from whence Vishnu is called Daityarih :
in one ode he is called by the name of the Indian Beli ; in
another he is styled Budd or Buddwas. According to
General Vallancey, Crishna is an Irish epithet of the
Sun: in all these we may discover Bali, Daitya or
Aditya, Buddha and Krishna. Add to these he is
denominated Prith, which is the Shanscreet of Frithu;
but as Prith he is considered to be Rex Awyr, and
Rheen Rym Awyr, King of the Air, Sovereign of the
Power of Air, probably analogous to Puruhutah, one of
the names of Indra, the Indian god of the firmaments;
yet independently of this, the identity is established,
because Vishnu is sometimes Indra, and Prithu is a
title of Vishnu. The Celtic Ner, evidently the Nereus
of the Romans, is the Naros and the Narayana of the
Puranas. The nine damsels of Ceridwen, and the corres-
ponding virgins of Runic lore, may be identified with
Apollo and the Muses, and Krishna and his Gopya. The
Druids venerated the mistletoe; and I have been assured
by an officer in Scindias army that an excrescence
from the oak has been discovered in India, which the
natives regard with the highest honour. In the magic
rod of the Druids we discern the sacred staff of the
Brahmins; both possessed consecrated beads, both made
almost endless lustrations, both wore linen tiaras; and
Mr. Maurice remarks that the circle (Brahma's symbol)
and the crescent, that of Siva, were both Druidical
ornaments. CZass. .Town., xviii. 57.
52. The transmigration of the human soul from one
body to another, through different stages of existence,254
THE BOOK OF GOD.
was at one time received by the greatest proportion of
mankind. Diodorus Siculus, speaking of the Gauls, says
that the opinion of Pythagoras prevails much amongst
them, that men's souls are immortal, and that there is a
transmigration of them into other bodies, and after a
certain time they live again; and therefore in their
funerals they write letters to their friends, and throw
them into the funeral pile, as if they were to be read by
the deceased ; and, as in that intermediate state in Virgil,
before the waters of Lethe were to be imbibed, the Druids
allowed a certain space between each transmigration.
All animated beings, say the Triads, originate in the
lowest point of existence (Annwn); whence, by a regular
gradation, they rise higher and higher in the scale of
existence, till they arrive at the highest scale of happiness
and perfection that is possible for Unite beings..........
Beings, as their souls by passing from ferocious, go to
more gentle and harmless animals, approach the scale of
humanity.............Man,	by attaching himself to evil, falls
into such an animal state of existence as corresponds with
the turpitude of his soul, which may be so great as to cast
him down into the lowest point of existence ; whence he
shall again return through such a succession of animal
existences as are most proper to divest him of his evil
propensities..........The	sacrifice of animals raises them
to a state of humanity...........Man, on arriving at a
state ct&ove humanity, recovers the perfect-recollection of
all his former modes of existence, and to eternity retains
it. The bard Taliesin asserted that he had been thrice
bom: that he had been a blue salmon, a dog, a stag, a
roebuck on the mountain, the stock of a tree, a spade, an
axe in the hand, a pin in a forceps for a year and a half,ENOCH,
255
a cock variegated with white, a stallion, a buck of yellow
hue, a grain, which vegetated on a hill, which the reaper
placed on a smoky recess, which the Hen with red fangs
(Ked) received; that nine months he was an infant in
her womb; that he was Aedd ; that he was an offering
before his sovereign ; that he died, that he revived, that
he had been a leader, and that now he is Taliesin. Hence
our bard writes : I require men to be born again, in con-
sideration of those liberal ones, which will be lost.
Wherever the Pythagorean philosophy prevailed, these
doctrines were found. In Persia, in China, and in Egypt,
they were religious fundamentals ; and in India they were
universally received from time immemorial. The verses
quoted by Halhed well elucidate them : As throwing
aside his old garments, a man puts on others, that are
new; so, our lives quitting the old, go to other newer
animals. The reader is referred to Book of God, Part II.,
334—848 for a summary of the most ancient and philo-
sophic lore on this abstruse subject, and to the General
Index ver&o, Transmigration.
53. Among the arcana of nature, says Higgins, which
our Druids were acquainted with, there are many pre-
sumptions, if not positive proofs, for placing the art of
making gunpowder, or artificial thunder and lightning,
though like all other mysteries, they kept the invention
of it a secret. Some learned men allow that the priests
of Delphos were in possession of this art; though for
the service of their God, and the interest of their own
order, they kept it a mystery. The storm of thunder
and lightning which, in three several attempts made to
rob their temple, kindled in the face of the invaders as they
approached it, and drove back with loss and terror, both256
THE BOOK OF GOD.
Xerxes and Brennus cannot be imagined any other than
this.* Providence cannot be supposed to have taken
such concern in the preservation of that idolatrous edi-
fice, as to work a series of miracles so very seasonably in
its favour. Whoever reads the accounts which we have
of the celebration of the Mysteries of Ceres, will plainly
see that it was this secret which constituted the most
wonderful part of them. The probationers who were to
be Initiated were led into a part of the temple that
was full of darkness and horror. Then, all of a sudden,
a stream of light darted in upon them. This quickly
disappeared, and was followed by a terrible noise like
thunder. Fire again fell down like lightning, which
by its continual flashes struck terror into the trembling
spectators, t The cause of this artificial lightning and
thunder is plain. And if the priests of Delphos, or the
lazy monks of later times, could find out such an art,
which the old Chinese philosophers are said to have been
acquainted with, and which seems to have made a part
in the Mystery of the Egyptian Isis, why may we not
suppose that those great searchers into nature, the
Druids, might also light upon the secret! *	*	* We
may observe in Lucian's satirical description of the
Druidical Cave, near Marseilles, a plain evidence of this
invention. There is a report, says he, that the grove is
often shaken and strangely moved, and that dreadful
sounds are heard from its caverns, and that it is some-
times in a blaze without being consumed. In the poem
of Daryo, son q/*	q/ As/, phenomena of a
* Vide Temple's Miscell, on Anc. and Modern Learning. Herod,
and Diod. Sicul., &c.
+ Diod. Sicul. and Plut. in Anc. Hist. Athen.ENOCH.
257
somewhat similar nature are mentioned. No ordinary
meteors would have been so much noticed by the poet,
nor so much dreaded by the people. The Gallic word for
lightning is	or .DeTcwxtcA, literally the dash or
flame of God ; or	or	the Rame or
Rash of the Druids. And in a well known fragment of
Ossian, in which he speaks of some arms fabricated by
Suno, the Scandinavian Vulcan, the sword of Oscar is
distinguished by this epithet, and compared to the Rame
of the Druids; which shows that there was such a Rame,
and that it was abundantly terrible. Dr. Smith says
truly: Everything within the circle of Drw'or
Magic, or to speak more properly within the compass of
natural experimental philosophy, was the study of the
Druids, and the honour of every wonder that lay within
that verge was always allowed them. Mr. Maurice states
that, in his opinion, the Hindus had the knowledge of
gunpowder ecen /rom	remote	and in
this he is supported by Mr. Crawford. Antiqu. ii. 443.
As Res. ii. 149. That the art of making gunpowder was
known even before the days of the First Messenger may
be argued from the language of his Apocalypse, section
48. For the yocin/A there spoken of expresses that black
and blue smoky colour which arises from the discharge
of gunpowder. The jacinth, or hyacinth, of the ancients
was a dark colour tinged with ccerulean such as we see
in violets. Kai TO tor ycXav trrt, Kai a ypayrra vaKtt*0os.
Id. x. 28.	M ant/ Ayacw^A. After
which Virgil says :	nigres vio&B snn%. Ecl. x. 39.
By Rre, sulphur, and the blue-black smoke, I think,
therefore, that gunpowder of the most destructive quality
is meant. If the art was not known in 7tis days, it was258
THE BOOK OF GOD.
prefigured in the Apocalypse, and having been once sug-
gested its discovery would follow as a matter of course.
The reader is referred to Part III, 687.
54. I have already shown that George of England was
a Messianic symbol-name. Part 1, i. 299. So the Boar-
Avatar of India is Arcturus, Apx-Tos (the Bear), and
Arthur of England, who symbolizes the Messenger, and
was the British Hermes; and we find the same symbol
in Mexico, thus,
where the Boar is seen to issue
from the Mystical AO; His counterpart is Arthur of
England, who is a type of the Messenger. IKm, too,
we find with a sacred sword, Excalibar; the Sword of
the Shining Spirit Cali : under his name of St. George, he
has a Magical Sword called As-Kal On, the Fire of Cali,
the Sun, and we learn that he draws another Faerie Sword
out of a Cleft in a Rock, an euphemism for the Holy
Spirit. Part II, 199; Part III, 115, 116, 474, 476,
504, 516. This was in the Enchanted Garden of Orman-
dine, as we read in the Seven Champions of Christendom.
Part I, chapter 10. In the Cymric legend we read thus
of an Arthurian Sword, which is presented from a ;
another euphemism for the Holy Spirit: the Goddess of
Waters. So they departed, and as they rode Arthur
said : 1 have no sword. No matter, said Merlin, hereby
is a Sword that shall be yours. So they rode till they
came to a Lake which was a fair water and broad. And
in the midst of the Lake, Arthur was aware of an Arm,
clothed in white samite, that held a fair Sword in the
Hand. So said Merlin, yonder is that Sword that IENOCH.
259
spake of;	fo t/ze Zm7y o/ /7te ZuZ:g, and if she
will thou mayst take it; but if she will not, it will not
be in thy power to take it. So Arthur and Merlin
alighted from their horses and went into a boat. And
when they came to the Sword, that the Hand held, Sir
Arthur took it by the handle, and took it to him, and
the Arm and the Hand went under the water. Then
they returned unto the land and rode forth. And Sir
Arthur looked on the Sword, and liked it right well.
And some say, proceeds the legend, that King Arthur
is not dead, but hid away into another place, and men
say that he shall come and reign again. And there is on
his tomb this verse : 7/tc jucet	Aea: t/MO/t&wR
AeayMe	Here Arthur lies, King once, and
King to be. And in Gervas of Tilbury we read of
Arthur, or rather of Ar-Thor (his Scandinavian name),
yhAu/ose	tempora cre</
reyzMWt : whom the Britons believe, according to
legends, to be about to return again into his kingdom
after a given period. So we shall by-and-bye 6nd the
same mythos related of Elias, the Fire of God, another
Messianic symbol-title. Cerp. TWz. De 7?ey. Z)'r?7. 48.
See Part III, 47 6. So Imam Mahidi returns, and unites in
one, the European and Oriental faiths. He is surnamed
Motte Batthen, the Secret, the Concealed. Part II. 471.
So the Druses believe that the Tenth Incarnation will
appear again, conquering all the earth. Note, that the
Rosy Cross, means among other things the Messianic
Cross, wielded by the Cabir, and red with the blood
of the Infidel; purple red like the Phoenix : a truth
of which Mr. Hargraves Jennings, in his learned and
interesting volume, AostcrMcioww, does not seem2G0
THE BOOK OF GOD.
to have been aware. Note also that in this Arthurian
legend, it is a Hand only that is seen, as in the Apoca-
lypse, section 3 (Part I, 505); the Hand of the Central
Cities, and the Alhambra. See Part III, 301, 488,
504. God, says Nimrod, i. 55, has no Peace for men at
present; he has brought none into the world, but a
Sword, of which the last days of the gentiles will
witness the most awful ravages.	says the
Ninth Messenger, %Aaf 7 am coms 4o sent/peace OM ear^A.
7 came ?to7%o sew//peace Awf %Ae swxw<7 Matt. x. 34. In
this the reader will see in the change of tense, 7 come,
and 7 came, a singular allusion to his present as a
Messiah, and to his past career as a Cabir, and he may
feel assured that this was not unintentional; for no man
ever appeared on earth who was more subtle in the use
of language than Jesus, or whose words require a deeper
investigation. He often speaks as if to conceal his
thoughts. And in this remarkable avowal, he not only
alluded to his former appearance as the Cabir Amosis,
but he also referred to the coming of his successor, the
Tenth Messenger, whom he knew the Apocalypse had
foreshown to be the Second Cabir. Part III, 588, 595.
The Keys of Death, which the symbolic Messenger in the
Apocalypse, section 2, holds in his hands, probably
alludes to the Cabiric Sword. Parti, 505. Part III, 302.
The Jews figuratively denominated these the Messiah of
Peace, and the Kabir of War, as the Two Hands of
God, and called them Binah, or the Two Menus or Mes-
sengers ; the two Inas; while they designated the Holy
Spirit, Imma, or the Mother of the Universe. These
things may be found in Zohar, and in the Rabbi Mena-
chem ; but they are hardly worth the search amid theENOCH.
261
heap of chaff. See the account of the Trimourti Image :
Part III, 404.
55. Cyrillus, in his first book against the Emperor
Julian, relates out of Artapanus, that there was a Rod
preserved in the Temple of Isis, and worshipped as a
monument of Moses. The same is testified by Eusebius,
lib. 9, de Praep. Evang. c. 4. This is the Rod, or Staff,
mentioned in Part I, 275 ; the mystical Rod given to
the Twelfth Messenger, Part III, 698, 785, in which
latter page it is erroneously printed as having been given
to the First. Ovid refers to it when he speaks of the
symbolic Ianus, holding a staff in the right hand, and
the apocalyptic key in the left. 7%/e
awMsfrd. On this rod also were founded the vari-
ous legends as to the divining rod, upon whose truth or
falsehoodl expressno opinion (7). But there is another Rod
also, the Sword-Sceptre of Pelops, or rather of Bel-Ops,that
is, AO, or God and the Holy Spirit. Nimrod calls it " the
prototype of all the magical wands." It differs in many
things from the Rod given to the Twelfth Messenger,
but it is of the same genus. See Nimrod, ii. 20, iii. 251.
There are twelve symbols graven on it. That nearest to
the Serpent's head represents the Sun and Oannes, the
Greek and Assyrian name for the First Messenger. The
cross signiSes Enoch : the Snake is a Chinese hierogly-
phic for Fo-hi, the Dragon-man. The three points in
triangular shape symbolize Brigoo. This is followed by2G2
THE BOOK OF GOD.
the Sol-Tpse sign for Zaratusht. The monad in the
paraleUogram is Thoth. The lines that follow signify
Amosis : the square is Lao-Tseu; at the present day this
square is in the centre of Chinese coins ; Jesus is repre-
sented by lines also, indicating that he was the same as
the Seventh Messenger. The three symbols that
succeed represent respectively the Tenth, Eleventh and
Twelfth Messengers. This Sword-Sceptre is an ana-
logue of the Twelfth Messenger's Rod, as I have said.
4=4)
The hieroglyph at the point signifies Adam, who is
denoted by the triple-tau : after him is Enoch or 2Enoch,
whose initial letter is given with the triune sign. The
third is a pure Chinese symbol, but also a triple-tau, signi-
fying Fo-hi ; the fourth indicates Brigoo with the triple-
tau ; the fifth and sixth are Zaratusht and Thoth, each
with the triple-tau ; the seventh is Amosis also with the
triple-tau ; his creed is symbolized by the triangle. See
Part II, 204. But this triangle is surmounted by a cross
or triple-tau to show the re appearance of the Seventh
Messenger as the Ninth. In the eighth symbol we have
another Chinese primitive also with the triple-tau indi-
cating Lao-Tseu. Ahmed is signified by the ninth symbol,
representing six lines, or the Naros, and also triple-tau;
while in the tenth, or Z, with a double cross, we see Zengis,
or Chengiz Khan, with the triple-tau, in both appearances,
as a conquering Cabir, and a humble wayfaring Messiah
with the same cross as the Seventh Messenger to signify
a re appearance. Part I, 187. The Sword-Deity Aci-ENOCH.
263
naces, or the Fire-Snake, which is only another form of
Azonaces, the Great Angel, who taught the Fifth Mes-
senger (Part III, 514, 515), was one of the highest
objects of pure Scythistic adoration. If it be asked how
was that, since Fire and Light was the only visible form
of the Deity among the Magi, the answer is ; 1, that the
Fire burning around and before the Cherubim was one
source among others of Fire Worship, and this Fire had
the shape and appearance of a Sword ; 2, that the Cabiric
Sword was imaged as Acinaces and Ares, the Lion, the
fire-red-light Mars. By others the Sword was symbolized
as a Spear-head ; the Persians called it Acinaces, and the
Spear-head is the lily of Susa of the gods, and of the
Franks. The Tlascalan gateway was formed on the
model of the Serpent-Sword. See Squier's
18. Note that these two Swords were mys-
tically alluded to by the Ninth Messenger in a part of
the evangel which passes under the name of Luke xxii.
38, but which has evidently been cut to pieces by the
priestly forgers and interpolators and castrators. Part III,
596. 614. It was but a short fame before this that
Jesus had spoken of the Periclyte Ahmed, who he knew
would avenge his death on the Sons of Darkness ; John
xiv. 16; but the whole has been altered by the
Church. In the Eleusinian lodge, to which the Ninth
Messenger belonged, types or images of these very
Swords were represented, and they were thus referred
to either by himself or by one of his trusted con-
fidants. There was once a Mazonic body called the Grand
Kaiheber, who probably knew of the Cabiric Sword, but
the petro-paulite element is gradually corroding, poison-
ing, and destroying whatever of truth was to be found in264
THE BOOK OF GOD.
English mazonry. Dermot, in Ahiman Rezon, says :
There is now in Wapping a large piece of scrolework
ornamented with foliage, painted and gilt, the whole at
an incredible expense, and placed before the master's chair
with a gigantic Sword fixed thereon. Sometimes the
Sword is under the Serpent symbol; the latter, however,
is the ancient Ophite type of Wisdom, Virginity, and
the Eternal. It has nothing to do with the Genesis
serpent, as so many of the Mazons hold. Note, the
mythos of the Book (the Rod) and the Sword in the
mystical story given, Part II, 75, and be assured that
there is not a single one of these wild, and appa-
rently foolish, legends of mythology, which does not
breathe some sacred truth. Note likewise that, in the
so-called prophecies of a Messiah, in the Old Testament,
he is spoken of as Conqueror and King, as often as he is
as J udge and Preacher. This proves that these Hebrew
writers had some vague glimpse of the great truth, and
knew of the difference between the Messiah of Peace and
the Kabir of War. Neither Philo, nor Josephus, how-
ever, had the least particle of this knowledge ; by neither
is the advent of a Messenger mentioned. The omission
is of slight consequence, as Philo was only an antiquary
and a very poor creature; and Josephus—if there ever
was such a Jew—is a writer of whom every true Hebrew
may well be ashamed. Note also that the Mazonic symbol
of /noortZs crossed, commemorates these swords. The
restorers of that ancient order must have had .some
inkling of truth, though I fear it was but slight. It is
matter of the deepest import to observe that the Apoca-
lyptic Hand, mentioned in Part III, 304, 488, 504, is a
common emblem through the vast South American ruins,ENOCH.
' 265
where it is exhibited on the rocks, and in the temples, as
a, Red Hand, or a Hand of Fire ; sometimes outstretched
towards the human figure (the First Messenger) as if
about to raise him to the Empyrean ; sometimes pointing
upwards with Fingers of Light like the Idaei Dagtuli,
mentioned in Part II, 543, 610. The natives call it
Kabah, a primitive word : implying that it was the
Sacred Hand of the Holy Spirit. Hence, perhaps, the
confession of one of our most orthodox clergymen ; many
a tenet, says Archdeacon Hardwick, in the general creed
of Anahuac, bears no small resemblance to tAe drcams o/
Aasferw. Asia, and the cosmogonic theories of other
ancient nations. It was held, for instance, quite as firmly
in the New World as in the Old, that the material globe
had passed through a limited number of chronological
cycles, each concluded by a grand catastrophe. To quote
the language of Humboldt, we find the same traditions
reaching from Etruria to Tibet, and forward to the ridge
of the Mexican Cordilleras. CArfs^ aad ofAcr
ii. 162. This learned priest offers no explanation of this
universality of creed.
55. When the missionary priests of Enoch or Anach
established either a colony or a church, they called it
Cadr Anak, pjj? *11!*!, which is the same as the Welsh
Cadr Idris. Book of God, Part III., 374, 435—6. So
Caer Sidi was a mystic title for Stonehenge. Part IT.,
145. Caer signifies a Throne, an Oracle. yfrcAceo/oy. i.
317. These sons of Anak, says Gale, were the most noble
and renowned amongst all. Philo-Biblius, the interpreter
of Sanclioniathon, speaks of XNA (Chna), which was a
name for Enoch. This Chna was afterwards called
XHNA (Chena), which, according to hieratic usage, is
N266 '
THE BOOK OF GOD.
by anagram, Enach. Chna again is really Chen,	a
Priest or Pontiff. See Part I., 112, for an account of
this primitive radical: also pp. 10, 21, 46, 303, and Part
III., pp. 10, 173, 180, 418, 460, 508, 607, 667, 695.
This Chna, or Chen, or Chena, also enters into the name
of the Mexican god Cwenila, given in the Plate; and
when conjoined with HELIOS, makes Chen-Elios, or
Pontiff of the Sun, the very name of that Deity. He is
the Khan-Oulos, or King of the Earth. Part III., 675.
The name Elias is a form of the Greek Helios or the
Sun. Those who waited for the coming of Elias, or
Mahidi, or the Sun-Messenger, were called Heliadae,
expectants of the days when the Artifex should come.
Part III., 666;—S aecia ubi ceelitus Elias Artista redibit,
atque patefaciet quae hue usque occulta fuerunt. Chna,
according to Gale, is the same as Phcenix, which we
know was a Messianic symbol and Tree. Book i., ch. 6.
Note that Apollodorus tells us that Cadmus, who is
Chadam, Gaudama and Adim, is the son of Phcenix—that
is, the Son of the Cycle. Gale, in his Court of the
Gentiles, mentions a tradition that Cadmus, when he
landed at a certain place, made a more than ordinary
impression with his foot in the mud. Book i. chap. 6.
See, in the General Index, Part III., Sri-pud, and 240,
252, 430. The mythi there alluded to connect Cadmus
indisputably with the Chadamic footprint in Ceylon,
and with Ceres or Sri, the Holy Spirit. The old Hindu
invocation to Sri or Ceres, the Goddess of Arts, of
Eloquence, and Nature, before whom they bow with
offerings of rich perfumes, flowers and rice, may be cited
here, as illustrative of the various qualities which have
been assigned by this people to the Holy Spirit, of whichENOCH.
267
Sri is the symbolic name. May the Goddess of Speech
[the Spirit of Tongues] enable us to attain all possible
felicity : she who wears on her locks a young moon ;
who shines with exquisite lustre; whose body bends
with the weight of her full breasts [Dea Multimammia] ;
who sits reclined on a white lotos, and from the
crimson lotos of her hands pours radiance on the in-
struments of writing, and on the Books produced by
her favour, <4s. Acs. iii., 272. The Druid hymns to
Ceridwen bear a striking resemblance in many points to
this.
56. These traces, as it were, of one foot—of one
mythos, to be found almost universally over the
inhabited earth, are like the Adamic traditions, and
such as could only have been made in primeval ages,
by a man born for all mankind, and who exercised an
influence over all mankind. At a remote period, says
the learned Dr. Wait, there was probably but little
ra<7tc<z% difference in the mythi of nations, nor were their
fundamental principles varied, even when slighter shades
of discrepancy became discernible in consequence of
national peculiarities, local enactments, or peculiar
circumstances affecting different branches of the great
body of mankind. But, how these variations originated!
what train of events induced them ? how many of them
were rendered indispensable by acquired habits ? are
questions no longer to be solved. The Asiatic origin of
the northern nations* stands on evidence too strong to
* Linguain Danicam antiquam, cujus in rythmis usus fuit,
veteres appellArunt AsAMAL, id. est, Asiaiicam, vel AsARUM,
<Semtonem, quM eum ac Asid Odinas secant in Daniam, Norwe-
giam, Sueciam, aliasque regiones septentrionales inwgeHt. Stef.
Trasf. ad Sax. Gram. Historiain.
N 22G8
THE BOOK OF GOD.
be combated, and has been of late years too fully proved
to require a detail of the fact. It must also be manifest
to every one acquainted with the structure and vocables
of the languages, the traditions, philosophy, and rites of
the people, that, at some period anterior to any surviving
record, a connection existed between the Hindus, the
Persians, and the Greeks. The eastern names, which
often occur in the Runic	and in Icelandic
poetry ; the occasional propensity to alliteration, observ-
able both among Goths and Celts, although not carried
to the same extent as in the works of Hariri and
Hamadani; the many analogies of doctrine in the
the FMas, and	and their similarity
in philosophical speculations,* added to other proofs,
constitute a chain of demonstration, which, however
broken may be some solitary links, may be sufficiently
reunited for every purpose of investigation. Thus, many
parts of the account of the cosmogony from the body of
Ymer, the Nornir, the Valkyriar, the Wrisks,f Lesliies,
and Berstues, Zlebog, Ben Veneco, Odin, Vil$ and Ve,
the bridge Bifrost, Asgard, Gladsheim, and Valhalla, the
giants and dwarfs, the cow Audumbla, the ash Yggdrasil,
the ages of mankind, the Urdar-fount, and the well of
Mimer, the snake-king Nidi tug, the different worlds, and
divine residences, the Asynier,+ &c., &c.; the account of
Surtur, and of the destruction of the world, together with
the new earth arising from the sea, have such direct
* See the works of Grater, Vond er Hagen, Ruhs, the Grimms,
Stuhr, Mone, Magnusen, &c.
+ Pieart, v. iii., p. 476, records, that the inhabitants of South
Caffraria worshipped a being depicted like a wrisk or satyr.
7 Goddesses inhabiting Vingolf, by some supposed to be analo-
gous to the Amazons.ENOCH.
269
counter parts in Hindu and classical mythology, that,
were other evidences wanting, these particulars would
sufHce to establish a primitive connexion between these
different people. But, in the classical pages, the proofs
of an Asiatic origin are still more forcible, and the sepa-
rate, as well as collective, examples are still more conclu-
sive : the verbal forms, the style of language, and the
allusions in the	and the Odyssey afford to the
Orientalist convictions not to be shaken by any minor
difficulties or objections, that, in the age of Homer,
traces of the connexion, on which we insist, not to be
mistaken, must have existed, at least in the poetic, and
probably still more so in every colloquial dialect of
Greece. Some mutual similarity of phraseology we like-
wise occasionally notice in the writings of the Persians
anti Arabs.
57. If we discover the same fables and the same
spiritual agents dressed in the proper garb of the country
in which they have been naturalized, we shall not be
arrogating to ourselves any undue authority in referring
the pantheon of nations to the East. The fates, the
muses, and the nymphs, whether oreads, dryads, naiads,
or nereids, the satyrs and the fauns meet us in every
research : demigods or mortals, offsprings of a heavenly
and earthly parent, dXt^tsaKa., portents, auguries, and the
whole machinery of a priesthood working upon popular
superstitions, and veiling their hidden knowledge in
symbols and phantoms of the imagination, everywhere
are presented to our view. Here we see Amphitryon
doubtful whether Hercules was his son, or the offspring
of Jupiter; there Sam Neriman, whether Zal was the
son of a Dev or Pari, or could possibly be his own.270
THE BOOK OF GOD.
Here, the horses of Achilles speak with a human voice ;
there the golden-winged goose in the episode of
possesses the powers of speech. One part of the globe
presents us with Zal and the Simorgh, another with
Achilles and Chiron : one* exhibits Zal fostered by a
lioness, another Romulus and Remus by a she-wolf: in
this Sam Neriman, in that Hercules, slays the hydra
which devastated the circumjacent country. The AEgis
of Minerva becomes the 2Egis-hialmr of the AMa. India,
Greece, and Rome represent to us Cupid with his bow
and arrows, who was so depicted by the pagan Arabs.
Sir Wm. Ouseleyt even traces a resemblance to the
caduceus of Mercury in the silver wands of the Turkish
Chiaouses. The Chinesei likewise have a fable answer-
ing to that of Salmoneus : their Shin-hwan are the Dtt
Zocorwm; the European witch is the Indian d'hakan;
the Scotch sien-sluai, the Persian paristan. Hesiod's
<MA.axes	are the Furuhers of the
—a doctrine believed by the Chaldees and
Egyptians, and asserted by the philosopher Julian, in his
work irepi Aatporor. Burckhardt even suspects Briareus
to have been a Beduin chief conquered by some king of
Egypt; but his authority merely rests on an Arabic
proverb still applied to the Beduins,
Cut olf one head, and a hundred will spring up
in its place.
The Sirens likewise have been identified by some writers
with the Syrian Derceto or Atergatis, and have been
* Some copies of the	represent Zal as fostered ty c
pon.
t V. iii., p. 462.
I Cf. Martini #is%. Sin. Picart v. iv. p. 193.ENOCH.
271
supposed to have been intended by the	of
Isaiah. The fatidical Brazen Head, one of which,
according to William of Malmesbury, Gerbert fabri-
cated, was a superstition common to Jews, Arabs, Celts,
and Goths : of it a description is given in the Targum of
Jonathan Ben Uzziel and in Don	The ceremo-
nies of the new year were, in like manner, similar in
many parts of the globe, and those of the ancient Saxons,
according to Olaus Wormius, Schaeffer and Polydore
Virgil, exhibited close analogies to the Nauruz of the
Persians. The sword-dance of the northern nations had
decidedly an Asiatic origin, and even on the shores of
the Mississippi, traces of the Indian Kurmavatara may
be detected, together with traces of the ancient tradition
of the gods assuming the forms of animals to escape the
fury of Typhon, in their wild legend,* that the world
after the deluge was restored	and that the
scum of the sea, collecting itself
became a vast expanse of ground.
58. A question, which has been much agitated and
variously determined, now arises: are there any traces
of this mythology in the Hebrew writings! That there
is a certawt analogy between the cosmogonies of the
Hindus, Parsis, Hesiod, and Moses, must be a fact per-
ceptible to every one. The Sanskrit
With the history of Enoch, that of Ganymede ; with the
visit to Abraham's tent, that of Jupiter, Neptune, and
Mercury, as well as the story of Philemon and Baucis ;
with Lot's wife, Eurydice and Niobe ; with the intended
offering of Isaac, the omen of the eagle and child, which
followed Agamemnon's prayer in the ; with different
* Picart, v. iii. p. 74.TIIE BOOK OF GOD.
272
parts of Sampson's life, Nisus, Theseus, Ajax, Achilles,
and Hercules, whose pillars some have not scrupled to
identify with those in Dagon's temple; with Daliiah's
treachery, that of the daughter of Nisus; with the history
of Jephthali's daughter,* * * § those of Iphigenia, Polyxena,
and the daughter of Idomeneus; and with the madness
of Saul, that of Bellerophon and Hercules, have been
compared by writers in no way deficient in erudition.
It is still more singular, that coincidences with the
history of David and Uriah, intermixed with that of
Ahab and Naboth,! together with allusions to a famine
corresponding to that in the time of Ahab,+ are to be
found in the Cingalese history of Ceylon. That famine
also, which was the consequence of the slaughter of the
Gibeonites, has been contrasted with that in the time of
Hilgeus, on account of the death of Androgeos. Different
parts of Elijah's§ life have been in like manner compared
* Ludovicus Capellus traces the analogy from a hypothesis,
that Iphigenia is a corruption of 'Iet^Ttyereta ! !
-f- See the A nna!a o/ Orient Ziieraiure, pt. iii. 427, 428.
I /A., p. 432.
§ His division of the waters has been compared to Ceorgic. iv.
360; Livy, xxvi. 45 ; .?end-Muesia, iii. 15 ; his sustenance by
Orilmn,	to Livy 1. 4; Diod. Sic. ii. 4; Justin 1. 4;
Philostr. in ri/. A poll. i. 5; Zend-Awsia, ii. 30. About these
however, there is no small dispute. Some by changing
the vowels, understand nrerclianie morinyyrom place io place, some
Arabs, others the inhabitants of Arabah, against which last idea
Michaelis has urged very powerful arguments. Cf. Bochart
//leroz. ii. 14. Peykert de	Eliam Proplietam alentibns,
Petzold de hominibus h Bestiis enutritis. Other analogies to his
life have been drawn from Philost. Ml. Apollon. iv. 45 ; Plin. ii.
54 ; /I.	305 ; O<1. #' 143 ; ii. 203. With some in Elishah's,
Apollodorus, ii. 7; Mela, iii. 9 ; Pausan. iv. 32; Herod, i. 67,
ii. 14 ; Soph. .7,71. Colon. 1518, have been identified.ENOCH.
273
with the legends of Semiramis and Glaucus, and the
apotheosis of Romulus, &c. Hercules with the xtupyupos
Mtwy, called xqros by the scholiast, has also been identified
with Jonah,* * to whom some have not hesitated to re&r
his adventure with Hesione, and that of Perseus with
Andromeda. The custom of throwing a guilty person
overboard in a storm (which fate Oderic of Porsenau
relates, that he nearly encountered from the Saracens),
being one of the most ancient superstitions, we can have
but little difficulty in imagining a similar legend to have
been current in different countries, and as those with
whom Jonah undertook his voyage were Phoenicians,
their maritime connexion with most parts of the then
known world would still further favour its extension.
59. The general analogy is still increased by the vene-
ration in which various!* nations held the sacred name.
The Je were not more scrupulous about enunciating
than the Bramanas about enunciating^	* Menu
says, that it is Brahm, f. e., it is emblem ; that all rites,
oblations to fire, and solemn sacrifices to fire shall pass
away, but that this shall never pass away, whence, being
the symbol of Brahm, Lord of Created Beings, it is called
Equally unwilling were the Gabrs to pronounce
Honover, and the Peruvians Pacha-camac. Not less
striking was the almost universal reverence for the num-
* Father Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, mentions fishes of a vast
size near that cataract of the Paraguay which is named El
Salto Grande, coupled with the tradition of an Indian having
been swallowed whole by one of them, and afterwards ejected
on earth. See Dobrizhoffer, AAip. v. i. 185, 186.
j* Plutarch de /side et Oeiride, p. 388, ed. Reiske, interprets the
Tcetor as the yroicts xcd et&qous rou on-os.
N 3274
THE BOOK OF GOD.
bers /Areg, seveM, and /o?'/y. Jacob served .sgt'gn years for
each of his wives, and the Arabs of ancient times fre-
quently did the same. Hence the Moors transmitted
the custom to the Spaniards, as we perceive in the
Spanish ballads. Thus, in that of Calainos,
J*or we Ze sert't siete anos,
&M twZer^s Mt soZtZocZa ;
At eZ /ampoco Mte Za cZfo,
At yo Za cZemaMtZort'a.
In another, Count Carlos paid his addresses for sewn
years to the Princess Clara, and in that of Prince
Baldwin the bride was brought seven Zwnes, in different
dresses, to the bridal chamber. The practice of serving
for wives was also common among the savages of Hud-
son's Bay, and the Laplanders were accustomed to
serve for them a year after marriage, at the expiration
of which they took them away, and became free. The
Moors, and after them the Spaniards also, applied this
number to sortilege, precisely in the same manner as
the Pagan Arabs are stated to have done. Accordingly,
when Bertram's father sought his son after the battle
of Roncesvalles, his friends cast lots seven /tmes.
Siete veces ecAan sner/e,
<2 HMM Zg voZverA Zwscar.
The Moors did the same when they tried to seize the
Spanish admiral Guarinos. Hence, when Count Irlos
was forced by the king to leave his young wife, and
fight with the Moor Aliarde and his troops, he says,
Siete anos, Za ConeZesa,
Siete anos mg esperaeZ;
<Sr & Zos ocZro MO vwM'ere,
A Zos nneve vos casacZ.ENOCH.
275
The universality of religious ablutions in the east is
not so surprising, on account of the climate. To different
rivers, however, different degrees of sanctity were
ascribed, the cause of which either consisted in the salu-
brity of their waters, or in some mythological legend
attached to them. Naaman preferred the Aban and the
Pharpar to the waters of Israel; and the oracle of Tro-
phonius could not be consulted until the inquirer had
several times bathed himself in the river Hercyna.
Parallels might indeed be continued to an unlimited
length. As the priestly and prophetic ofEces were com-
bined in Samuel and Elijah, so they were in the ancient
Persian kings, in Amphiaraus and Chalcas : as the Levi-
tical priest was under restrictions concerning the ascent
of the altar, so was the Flamen Dialis for the very
reason detailed in Ax. xx. 26. Respect to seniors, and
the desire of a numerous progeny, were also general cha-
racteristics of various nations, and to some of the J ewish
festivals and rites, counterparts have been cited by anti-
quaries among the ^Egyptians, the Hindus, the Persians,
and the Chinese. The ass of Balaam has also been com-
pared to that of Silenus, to the horses of Achilles and
Adrastus, the ram of Phryxus, thebull of Europa, thelamb in
2Egypt during the reign of Boccoris, and the elephant of
Porus, according to the fancy of different writers. The rod
of Moses, educing water from the rock, has been assimilated
to the hoof of Pegasus producing Hippocrene, and the
storm of hailstones, recorded in </ogAwa, to that in the
history of Hercules (Strabo 1. iv., p. 183. Dion. Hal. 1.
41) and to that commemorated by Diodorus Siculus,
which fell on the army of Xerxes, as they attempted to
plunder the temple at Delhi. See Livy, 1. i. 31, xxii. 1,276
THE BOOK OF GOD.
and Hgen de i?M&re Zctyddeo. Jena, 1793. With
Agamemnon's prayer in 77. /I' 412, and the fabie of
Jupiter and Alcmena, the phaenomenon of the sun and
moon in the days of Joshua has been contrasted, and
even Nebuchadnezzar has been made the counterpart of
the Minotaur ! The most extraordinary analogy, however,
exists between the words of the scholiast on Aristoph.
Jc/mrn. v. 242, and the biblical description of the disease,
which the Philistines suffered on account of the ark :
/nyrtcavTos roe Oeou, votros KaTCKiy^-cv cts Ta a;8ota Ttav
dvdpMv, Kat To ScAov av^KCCTOv lyv a!s8' dvrctTroi' Trpos T^v
vocov KpstTTora ycvoyacvtyv iraarys Tcyv^ys, aTrca-TaX^yo-av
Stccjpot yicra cnrovSiys' ot 8e CTravcXf?ovTcs c^-aaav, to. a tv
ctvat yaotoyv TauT^yv, ct 8ta 7rda-)ys Tt/rtys ayotev Tov Qcov.
Ilctadcvrcs orv Tots syyyeXpcvots ot ' Adtyvatot t^aAAovs
t8tyrc Kat 8%toata KaTccKcraaav, Kat TovTOts cycpatvov Tor
Ocov, Mroyatoypa Trotovyaerot Too Tradoos.
60. Enoch in course of time became a Messianic
name. It will be seen, says Murray, that (7ta same aactent
M/tfer is alluded to under the various appellations of
Hermes, Amun, or Thamus, Thoyth, Mercurius, Zoroas-
ter, Osiris, Idris, or Adris, and Enoch. That various
appellations, or various actions and writings, should have
been ascribed in the long course of ages to the same
original is not, indeed, to be wondered at; for each
successive generation, interpreting in their own way the
traditions which had been handed down to them, and
combining the testimony of history with the contents of
such books as might be within their reach, would hardly
fail to add somewhat of perplexity or error to the diffi-
culties which might already exist; and thus truth and
falsehood gradually mingled together, would produce atENOCH.
277
once a diversity and a consent of opinion : a diversity as
to later additions, and a consent as to the more ancient
truths which still survived. Hence that knowledge
which, though common to all, appears to have been
derived through separate channels of tradition, must
have had a foundation in facts so early, or in books so
old, that they might have become the sources of tradition
to nations who have had little afHnity of customs, or of
language, since the earliest ages. All these considerations
may probably show, how it was that the learned author
of 7'Ac C'a/nA/uZyg Aey came to the opinion that Enoch
was one of the Hindu Buddhas. The object of this
writer, who had lived long in the East, was to win the
Hindus to petro-paulism by identifying one of the
supposed Hebrew prophets with one of their own sacred
men. It is consonant to reason, says he, that a race o/
/new ewM?:ewf/y ytoMS, tewactoMS of /Ac cKtfwe oriyw. of
tAcir re/iyton, should be gratified in finding that Europeans
equally with themselves believe the will of God to have
been promulgated by those persons whom they figuratively
term the " Mouths of God." Hitherto their great lumi-
nary.Buddha, the son of May-a, whom one sect worship
as an Incarnation of the Deity, from his having been
exempt from death, hath been represented by Europeans
as an impostor. The time is arrived when the natives of
India shall learn from the orthodox ministers of our
church, by identifying their prophet with Enoch, that
every Christian considers Buddha as a type of that
Blessed Spirit to whose religion they are desirous of
converting them. It must he obvious to every unpre-
judiced mind, that the propagation of the gospel in
foreign parts will be furthered in proportion to the278
THE BOOK OF GOD.
tolerance with which it is recommended; and that we
should always endeavour to convince others, that while
we contend for the purity of our own religion, we by
no means deny the divine origin of theirs. In lieu,
then, of condemning the religion and ridiculing the
Prophets of the Hindus, if we would convert them, we
should compare their religion and their Prophets with
our own. How gratifying to a Brahmin must it be to
read in our scriptures recorded, that their divine Buddha
under the name of Enoch walked with God, and was
translated to heaven in the eighty-eighth year of the
Cali age. St. Jude did not despise the doctrine of the
Hindu prophet, when he spake of the Revelations of
Enoch as a book of undoubted authority in his time.
The learned author adds that his observations were the
result of a long and intimate knowledge of the cha-
racter, religion, and manners of the Hindus, and that
chronologically speaking, according to the most ancient
and sacred Institutes of the Brahmins, Enoch was one of
the Prophets whom the Hindus call Buddha; but his
views were too broad and too enlightened for his time
(1820), and the priests of the European propaganda
through the East never ventured to enter on the course
which he advised; though his volume is one of great
interest, and contains the profound truth that Enoch
was, in fact, one of these sacred Avatars whom the
Brahmins reverence as Buddha. 7'Ae second RwtMAa,
he says, cowM Ztave wo of/ter FwocA. For it is
recorded that, in consequence of the Vedas* being
stolen, and idolatry being introduced, the deity actually
* The Apocalypse. Enoch, or Enosh, has an analogy to the
divine name for the Holy Spirit, Gaun-Isha.ENOCH.
279
descended from his paradise to redeem mankind ; that
he was absent from heaven a day and night of the
gods, and re-ascended to heaven, when the night of
Brahma was completely ended. Enoch sojourned on
earth 365 years. Here we read years for days. For
it is expressly said, "a year of mortals is a day and
night of the gods and regents of the universe." We
have not only the period of his sojourn on earth, but
of his birth and translation. Enoch was born A.M.
623.* This was about the time in which Apollodorus, who
copies from Berosus, places the appearance of Annadotus,
or the Fish-deity of the Chaldeans. Enoch, according
to Buxtorf, obtained the epithet of Ambassador of God ;
according to Elmachinus, he measured the circular orb of
heaven; according to Bedavius he received Sacred Books
from the Almighty. The Hindus represent the Deity when
he delivered the prophecy, in the form of the Saphari,
or Fish-deity (Part III, 61). Eusebius represents him
as a Fish endowed with divine intellect. According to
Dow, when he wrote, the two principal Sastras were
more than 4,800 years old; these are considered by the
Hindus as the production of the second Menu. They
believe that they were compiled by the son of Swayam-
bhava from the revelations of Buddha immediately after
his ascension, which took place at the close of the first
night of Brahma, or his day of 24 hours, which answers
to the translation of Enoch. This incarnation of the
deity is described as follows : Buddha, the author of
happiness, and a portion of Narayan, the Preserver of all,
appeared in this ocean of natural beings at the close of
the Dwapar, and beginning of the Cali-Yug. He, who
* The writer really meant in the beginning of the Second Naros.280
THE BOOK OF GOD.
is Omnipotent and everlastingly to be contemplated, the
Supreme God, the Eternal ONE, the Divinity worthy to
be adored by the most pious of mankind, appeared with
a portion of his Divine Nature. Jayadeva describes him
as bathing in blood, or sacrihcing his life to wash away
the offences of mankind, and thereby to make them par-
takers of the kingdom of heaven. Part III, 521. Abul
Pharagius says: Enoch was an observer of the pure
commands of God; he did that which was good, and
avoided that was evil, and continued in the worship of
God to the end of his life. Those who have any know-
ledge of the worship enjoined at the Pagoda in Travancore,
or of the annual festival held there in honour of the
Trimourti, cannot hesitate to pronounce that the adora-
tion of the Deity which is traced back for more than 5000
years, originated with Enoch ; that the Hindus date their
divine Veda at the period when Bedavius supposes that
the divine Volumes were sent from heaven ; that they
ascribe the Sastras to the same person w lib tn Elmachinus
represents as the inventor of letters, is as presumptive
proof that the same persons were intended, and that the
birth of the former being traced back to A.M. 621,
antoMnts to ct posture proof that the Buddha, celebrated
by the author of the Dabistan, was Enoch, the son of
Jared. So far this enlightened writer.* Buddha was the
* The doctrine of the renewal of worlds, which forms so pro-
minent a feature in all the primeval theology of China and India,
is thought to be hinted at by one of the Hebrew or Hindu trac-
tarians ; where, speaking of the providence of God to all things,
he says, "That thou yiceet thetn they yather: thouopenest thine
hand; they are f/ted with good. T/touhideet thy face; they are
troubled.' thou tahest away their breath ; they die and return to the
duet. Thou sendee! forth thy SPIRIT, they are created; and thou
reneweet the face of* the earth. Ps. civ. 28—30.ENOCH.
2S]
first word that signified Incarnation or Messenger. He
was a Buddha, meant, He was a Messiah. Enoch is
caiied Edris in the Koran, Surat 19. But the Arabians,
says Sir W. Drummond, also hold that Edris, or Enoch,
was the same with Elijah. See Hottinger de Muham-
medis Genealogist. Again, the Arabians and Jews had
the tradition that Pliinehas, the son of Eleazer, revived
in Elijah. Thus the Jewish and Arab traditions unite
Enoch and Elijah, and Elijah and Pliinehas, and Ar-
Thor and Saint George. Part I, 229. Now, how came
the Cabbalists to think of Phinehas 1 Enoch and Elijah
are the only men that have lived on this earth, and
that are said to have escaped death. The Egyptians
appear to have built the fable of the Phoenix on the
true history of Enoch, whom they would call Phenoch;
and when the mythical translation of Elijah took
place, his disappearance, like that of Phaethon, in a
fiery chariot, probably induced the orientalists to con-
sider him as the same with Enoch, and further to
improve on the story of the Phoenix by making that
bird revive amidst the flames. It seems plain that the
Jews and Arabians had gotten possession of some tra-
dition which connected the fabulous Phoenix with Enoch
and Elijah, and no doubt they fancied that the name
of Phoenix was to be traced to Phinehas. This, there-
fore, seems to be the evident reason why they fabled
that Phinehas,. and perhaps Enoch, was revived in the
person of Elijah. I have already shown that Elijah
was a secret Hebrew name for Lao-Tseu, the Eighth
Messenger. Part II. 513; Part III, 558. The apha-
* So the Roman poet Ennius always declared that he had once
been Homer.282
THE BOOK OF GOD.
nism of the Messenger is, in fact, commemorated in the
mystical words : Cw/ws yxtfer esf <SbZ,	vero Z^na,
eww FeM^Ms w veMtre sue : The whirlwind hath
carried off in its embrace that One, whose Father is the
Sun, whose Mother is the Moon; words which the
Initiated (like Ovid) well understood as applying to
Enoch, and which the poet divulged under the Ph'ae-
thontic mythos. The Arabians likewise tell us that
Elijah, who was the same with Enoch and Phinehas, was
also Al Choder, or Kidder, who flourished in the days of
Aphridun, the Phoenix, an Oriental word for this symbol,
which reminds us of his Mother Aphrodite, the Holy
Spirit; thus indicating the belief among these that the
Messiah and his Mother was one. This Phinehas, as well
Phen, Phenosh, and Phenoch, are forms also of Faunus,
which is the Indian Shal-Vahan, or the God Bearer, and
the Cymric, Vau-Nus, or Vau-Han. I believe, indeed,
that Vau-Nush is but Phenoch softly pronounced, and
that it truly represents the Second Messiah. Note that
Elijah and Elisha, are as purely imaginary and mythical
characters as St. George of England, St. Denis of France,
King Arthur, or any of the Pagan divinities; the
names are symbolical of the Messenger only; the one in
his Cabiric, the other in his Messianic development. On
the Hindu name of Enoch, Herames, the Hebrew Horam,
DIH, was founded. Hutchinson had no doubt that it
was synonimous with Hermes. So Hermon in Hebrew,
signifies yreett	in allusion tot the affinity
between the Messenger and the Sun. In the Caherman
Nameh we read that Burage, Meherage, and other philo-
sophers and astronomers, having consulted all sorts of
writings, treating of astronomy and geometry, for theENOCH.
283
purpose of casting the horoscope of Sam Souvar, the son
of Neriman, finally resorted to the Book of Enoch, to
guide them in those parts of knowledge the most sublime
and mystic which it contained. SeeuM^g, section 6. But
this must have been the forged wizard volume. The
Mussulmans still speak of Enoch's embassy to the
Kainites, by which they mean the Night-Watchers, who
were on earth, and the apostate spirits who were in
prison, to whom our Prophet went. The reader will
remember that Jesus is said to have preached after his
death to the imprisoned spirits. 1 Peter, iii., 19.
61. In the Cosmodromium of Doctor Gobelin Persona,
the following curious narrative occurs in his account of
Alexander the Great when in India. It probably comes
from the same source which so generally connected this
great Messenger with magic and alchemy. And now
Alexander marched into other quarters equally danger-
ous ; at one time over the tops of mountains, at another
through dark valleys, in which his army was attacked by
serpents and wild beasts, until after three hundred days
he came into a most pleasant mountain, on whose sides
hung chains or ropes of gold. This mountain had two
thousand and fifty steps all of purest sapphire, by which
one could ascend to the summit, and near this Alexander
encamped. And on a day, Alexander with his Twelve
Princes, ascended by the aforenamed steps to the top of
the Mountain, anti found there a Palace marvellously
beautiful, having Twelve Gates, and seventy windows of
the purest gold, and it was called the Palace of the Sun,
and there was in it a Temple all of gold, before whose
gates were vine trees bearing bunches of carbuncles and
pearls, and Alexander and his Princes having entered the284
THE BOOK OF GOD.
Palace, found there a Man lying on a golden bedstead ;
he was very stately and beautiful in appearance, and
his head and beard were white as snow. Then
Alexander and his princes bent the knee to the Sage who
spake thus : Alexander thou shalt now see what no
earthly man hath ever before seen or heard. To whom
Alexander made answer : O Sage most happy, how dost
thou know me! He replied: Before the wave of the
Deluge covered the face of the earth I knew thy works;
He added : wouldst thou behold the most hallowed Trees*
of the Sun and Moon, which announce all future things 1
Alexander made answer : It is well, my lord ; greatly do
we long to see them ; to which the Sage : If ye be pure from
all conversation with women, then, indeed, it is lawful for
ye to see those Trees. Alexander answered, We be pure.
Then the Sage said : Put away your rings and ornaments,
and take off your shoes (Part II, 323, 354), and follow
me. Alexander did so, and choosing out three from the
Princes, and leaving the rest to await his return, he
followed the Sage, and came to the Trees of the Sun and
Moon. The Tree of the Sun has leaves of red gold, the
Tree of the Moon has leaves of silver, and they are very
great, and Alexander, at the suggestion of the Sage
questioned the Trees, asking if he should return in triumph
to Macedon 1 to which the Trees gave answer, No ; but
that he should live yet another year and eight months,
after which he should die by a poisoned cup. And when
be inquired, Who was he who should give him that
poison 1 he received no reply, and the Tree of the Moon
said to him, that his Mother, after a most shameful and
unhappy death, should lie long unburied, but that happi-
* See Part I, 247-8 ; Part II, 75.ENOCH.
285
ness was in store for his sisters. Alexander was much
grieved at this ; but the Sage commanding him, he went
back with his Princes, and returned by the way that he
had come, whereupon the Sage lying down again on the
couch said to Alexander: Get thee back, for unto no
one is it permitted to advance farther. Of that Sage,
a letter from Alexander to Aristotle says that he
would not allow him to offer incense to these
Trees, or to sacrifice any animal, but only to kiss
the trunk of each Tree, and to think while he kissed
what question he would have answered. And from these
things, I am of opinion, that this Sage must have been
Enoch, who, before the Deluge, was translated by God,
and is reported to be yet alive on earth, 104, 105.
The Palace of the Sun here mentioned was a Temple of
God, in which the Apocalypse and the Book of Enoch
(the Trees of the Sun and Moon) were consulted in olden
times as Oracles by those who sought to obtain knowledge
of the Future. It appears to me, as well to be an ana-
logue of the Palace of the Sun, mentioned in the story of
Phaethon by Ovid. The reader may compare with this
the singular narrative of Harpocration given in Part I,
258. I quote these mythical legends because a silver
current of truth runs through each ; the wise reader will
separate it from the Fable ; the unwise will laugh, like the
student in Gil Blas, who made himself so merry over the
tomb-inscription : 7/ere flies 5wiecZ ?Ae soui of 7icen%ia%e
Pcfer Garcias, and went his way mocking, while his saga-
cious comrade found and pocketed the hidden treasure.
62. The first, who according to oriental tradition bore
the name of Hermes, was he who appeared next after
Adam, at the commencement of the second Solar Cycle286
THE BOOK OF GOD.
(the Naros), and him they call Edris or Enoch : hy the
Chaldaeans he is surnamed Ouriai', or Douvanai, the
divine Enos ; and this title means likewise the Grand
Master and the Teacher of the World. This alludes to
the Ma-Zonic Lodge. He is also called Hermes Al-ao-
phal : the phallic energy of God, AO. Herbelot is not
positive whether Ouriai is not the same as Egyptian
Orus, which we know was a Messianic symbol-name.
The Book of Hermes says that he was born in the
conjunction of the Sun with Mercury, or in the great
Naronic Cycle. He is called King, Sage, Philosopher,
and Prophet. The Arabs hold that Douvanai means,
His followers, says the legend, revered
him so highly, that after his death they made images of
him, and worshipped them, which led them eventually to
idolatry. This epithet of tAe	as may be inferred
from Proclus on the Cratylus, was given by the ancients to
certain gods in common. For, speaking of the Christians
of his time, he observes : Men of the present day do not
believe that the Sun and Moon are Divinities, nor do
they worship the other Celestial Natures, who are our
/jtzwows and Governors, leading back immortal souls, and
being those that fabricate and give subsistence to mortal
souls. I should, however, say that men of this kind
who dare to entertain such an irrational opinion respect-
ing the Celestials, are hastening to Tartarus. See General
Index to Part III., 4'. v., Saviour. I need not remind
my classical reader of Juno Sospita, or the Holy Spirit,
in her salutiferous character, nor is it necessary for me to
repeat that the brothers Castor and Pollux were called
The Saviours.	iii. 264. See Part III., 558,
560, 565 (8).ENOCH.
287
63. Fabricius gives, on the authority of Abulpharagius,
a tradition that Enoch (a missionary priest of his religion)
went into Ethiopia, that is, Asiatic Ethiopia, and taught;
and Kessceus says that the Tsabceans boasted themselves
to be the heirs and possessors of the Book of Enoch. By
the priests of the Enochian faith also, who carried into
Southern America the Hindu creed in Maya, was founded
the magniBcent hierarchy of Maya, of which the sole
remnant are the mighty ruins of Mayapan, or Pan, the
All, and Maia, or Maya, the Hindu name for the Holy
Spirit of Heaven. This magnificent city was constructed
by those Mayan builders who, already fw. f/te	o/
AAfory, erected towns and palaces and pyramid temples
rivalling those of Egypt in area and magnificence. CZtrMf
of Zier J/asfers, ii. 136. Note that the sovereign and
sacred title of Ynca, which the Pontiff-King bare, was
an analogue of Enoch. Part III., 411, 412, 434. Squiers,
in his Aboriginal Monuments of the Mississippi Valley,
writing of their Sacred Works, and their magnitude,
says: It is difficult to comprehend the existence of
religious works extending with their attendant avenues
like those near Newark in Ohio, over an area of little
less than _/oMr syware nw/es. We can find their parallels
only in the great Temples of Abury and Stonehenge in
England, and Carnac in Brittany, and associate them
with a mysterious worship of the Sun, or an equally
mysterious Sabianism. 27. Of this Ethiopia, which may
mean South America, for it was Mowtem yewra/e, Herbert
writes: The word	is of doubtful signification,
but those are entirely wide of the mark who would
understand it of the swarthiness of the skin ; because
signifies voice and voice only, and it has only been con-288
THE BOOK OF GOD.
founded with tnstMa /mun, by the ignorance of
interpreters. The best opinion I can form of this word
is to suppose that in the ancient holy language, or that
of the gods, it was equivalent to acrtoirts,
Fbt'ce o/ (Ae	(that is, of one of the Cherubic or
Heavenly Manifestations). The gods were born on the
banks of the river Nilus Oceanus, and the first name
(except Oceanus) which that river bore was Aeros the
Eagle. The same bird was not only the Messenger and
Armour-bearer of the God Jupiter, but he was the power
that conferred upon the man Jupiter his godhead and
universal monarchy. Afwwod ii. 45. In another place,
he says : aero;, an Eagle, is a noun formed from a<u, cto,
Ho, I blow ; and although it is a bird, it is that cherubic
bird by which the Holy Spirit is typified, ii. 21. But
the Holy Spirit was sometimes called AO. Davies, in
his Mythology, has many allusions to the Eagle of
Gwydion, Adama, the Hermes of the British Druids,
which dwelt in an ./Ethereal Temple, and which he
identifies with the Eagle of Br-Ynach (the creative
Enoch). He distinguishes this noble bird from the two
dusky eagles of Gwenddo-leu, which guarded his treasure,
wearing a yoke of gold, and which were in the daily
habit of consuming two persons for their dinner, and the
like number for their supper. Such, he says, is the lan-
guage of the Triads; and if this does not imply the
sacrificing of human victims to some divinity who
acknowledged these birds for his symbols or his attri-
butes, I know not what to make of it. 462. See in the
General Index to Part III., s. v., Eagle. These myths
show that the Eagle in Wales, as elsewhere, was some-
times a symbol of the Holy Spirit; and that, as in someENOCH.
289
places, she was honoured by bloodless sacrifices, so in
others, as to Indian Kali, or Thuggee, she was appeased
< by blood offerings. The treasure-guarding dusky Eagles
were probably the Gridins of the East. The Scythian
or Hyperborean doctrines and mythology, says Sir W.
Jones, may also be traced in every part of those Eastern
regions ; nor can we doubt that Wod or Odin, whose
religion, as the Northern historians admit, was intro-
duced into Scandinavia by a foreign race, was the same
with Buddli, whose rites were probably imported into
India at the same time, though received much later by
tlie Chinese, who soften his name to Fo. The architecture
we call Gothic, says Lord Valentia, existed in Arabia
long before it was known in Europe. The Welsh
Divinity Hu-On, or the Supreme God, is the same as
the Arabic Hou, of whom Chardin makes mention. Hu
aud Odin, says Dr. Wait, was one and the same character,
worshipped under different titles. He was called Buddwas,
as appears from the Myvyrian archaeology, and we have
shown Odin to be in like manner resolved into this
mythological personage. (%M. tTowrn. xviii. 53. The
truth is, they all had occult reference to the First,
Second, and Third Messengers.
64. Enosh, or Anoscli, son of Seth, son of Adam,
though said to be of another race, means Enoch. He
was Sovereign Prince and Grand Pontiff; and first dis-
tributed alms among the poor. He established also public
tribunals for the administration of justice throughout the
lands subject to his pontificature. He is also said to have
been the first who planted Palms and distributed dates ;
but this must have symbolic reference to his Messianic
character, as Palms are mentioned by his predecessor in
0290
THE BOOK OF GOD.
the Apocalypse. There is a most curious passage in
Philo Judaeus referring to this name, which the student
of the Mysteries will understand : He who places all his
hope in God as in the Author of his existence, shall
obtain for the prize of his victory in the game of life
that living person who is a compound of the Mortal and
Immortal, being neither the same with, nor yet different
from him by whom the prize is obtained. This living
person the Chaldees denominate Enos. On	nnt/
Part III., 743. I have used Nimrod's
version, which is different from and better than the
common one. It alludes occultly to the finding of the
Messiah by the truth-seeking spirit; that Messiah who,
Mortal (as man), and Immortal (as an archangel), is yet
not different from the lowliest, who is also a Son of God.
The author of Nimrod deeply studied the Book of Enoch ;
but had not comprehended its divine nature. What shall
we say or think of the following! The prophecy of
Enoch, he says (iv. 44), o/ wZuc/A /Ae wiewmry was never
eafwcf even ennony /teamens, was handed down to the
days of St. Jude, and from them down to ours. It is
comprised in the six first chapters of the ^Ethiopian
Book of Enoch ; and I shall presently show that it is
the genuine effusion of the Prophet who hath not seen
death. Immediately after the conclusion of that holy
song, the disgusting and heretical history begins abruptly
in these words. The reverend author then cites Chapter 9
of this edition, and thus continues : That doctrine is the
basis of the Sabian superstition, and of more than half
the crimes and extravagancies of the Cabalists and
Rosycrucians. But Nimrod, strange to say, takes the
narrative in its	sense, as if it implied a physicalENOCH.
291
connexion between spirits and mortals, whereas it only
asserts an alliance between the Sons of the Faithful and
the Daughters of the Infidel; and as nearly all his
objections to the authenticity of the Book are founded
on this mistake, they are of no value. He then indulges
in some wild dreams that Enoch is still alive in Paradise,
the terrestrial heaven, of which the fiery Cherubini
barred the ingress to all men besides; and there he says
that Enoch and Elias both are, and the latter will
reappear in his due Cycle like Imam Maliidi. He
quotes an author who calls St. George Hidjir Iljas, ce.,
Elias the Flourishing, Kidder-Elias, and the commen-
tator says he was so called because he had the same
spirit as Elias by metempsychosis. The emperor John
Cantacuzene says that the Mussulmans call St. George
Chetar (Kidder) Eliaz. I have cited this passage for its
eccentricities. It is marvellous that so accomplished a
man as Herbert could have drivelled so. He really did
not understand the book which he presumed thus to
criticise. There is a great deal of nonsense in Laurence's
edition, but hardly any so bad as to justify this criticism.
In a subsequent page (iv. 93) Nimrod says that the first
six chapters before spoken of are " antediluvian " ; and
in a part still later he appears to think that the sons of
God were not angels, but men.
65. Wilford, in his Astatic .ZfegearcZte#, tells us that
Deva-Nusha,* or Dionysius, L&, holy Anush, or the Div
* The holy island Devenish, in Ireland, still retains its Enochiau
and Indian name. So Cashel is Indian ; Cashi-el Loch Derg is
from Durga, Goddess of Lakes ; and Achil island commemorates
Achiles-war, the Txt rd of Achil, a famous shrine at Aboo, in th
o 2292
THE BOOK OF GOD.
of Mount Nyssa, a name for the Second Messenger,
visited the Countries in the West, Europe and Atlantis,
and there built Cities called after his own name : he gave
also his name to rivers. His route is thus described in
the Puranas (that is, the Lion-Book, and the Book of
Hari, the Saviour). He first descended from the elevated
plains of little Bokhara, with a numerous army, and in*
vaded [diffused the Apocalyptic and Enochian books and
tenets through] the countries of Samarcand, Bahlac, and
Cabul, which were then inhabited by the Sakas, Sikhs,
and Sacasenas; he conquered afterwards Iran, Egypt,
and Ethiopia; and proceeding afterwards through the
dwip of Vahara or Europe, he conquered Chandra dwip
or the British islands. He went thence into Curu, which
includes the northern parts of Europe and the whole of
Siberia; having conquered China, the countries to the
south of it, and India, he returned to the plains of Meru,
through the pass of Hurdwar. All this means colonization
by Enochian priests, who spread the tenets of the True
Religion, and thus were called Conquerors. The Seven
Pagodas, or Churches, were in those days like the Romish
College of Propaganda. Note that in the Semitic, Enos
means pre-eminently The Man : that is, the Messenger;
the Man of men; and it is said that in his days,
(that is, the Night Watchers) Aegwt %o mct&e
w	o/* <7e7MwaA
66. The primary meaning of the Hebrew Jonech pjy
or the Phcenix, is to encircle. This, I think, has relation
interior of Western India, mentioned by Colonel Tod. Fheninsa
Pharsa, or the Phcenix of Brightness, was an Irish name for
Phenoch or Enoch.ENOCH.
293
to the Hindu Yoni, and Yoneg, delight. Book of God,
Part III., xxvi. 391. Sir W. Drummond says: It is
out of the traditions which remained to the Egyptians
of the history of Henoch, confounded with that of Anak,
that I conceive the fables told of Phoenix, the son or
grandson of Neptune (the Holy Spirit) to have been
formed. The Palm-tree having been chosen as a solar
symbol, was named p3y, onech, or Phoenix, after Enoch,
or Phenoch, in whom the priests of Egypt recognized the
[Naronic) Year personified; and the fabulous bird received
on the same account the same appellation. The primary
meaning of Henoch, "pjH, in Hebrew is Initiation.
Part II., 56, 65, 572. Phoenix, the symbol of the
Messenger, and more especially of the Sixth, the offspring
of Phen, is thus delineated
in a medal of Constantine,
who affected to be a Mes-
siah. Part III., 789. T.
R. S. means p, with S. for
Saviour. I T think it
may be the mystic Ababil
or ABA-BEL, a bird men-
tioned in the Koran, and
which also signifies a Tree.
The reader will remember that the Eighth and Ninth Mes-
sengers in the Apocalypse are symbolized by Trees. Bryant
has shown thatPhoenix was not the name of a country only,
but was also a term of honour applied to many places. He
also observes that it was the name of <z 7Vee, which was
always held in the highest honour, and was thought to
be immortal, as, if it died, it obtained a second life by
renewal. Hence it was an emblem of immortality among294
THE BOOK OF GOD.
All nations. It is probably to its renovating property
that the Psalmist alludes when he says, %7te rtyA/gOM.s
.s/tzt/Z	777:8 Z7;e Pu7w Zree. Its name in Hebrew
is	7Mr. In John xii. 13, we find the expression,
Ta /3ai'ot TMr </)owKMr—branches of Palm trees. It is
mentioned in the Maccabees that the Jews entered the
temple upon a solemn occasion, Mera atrtceMs sat /?at'<or.
It was called /3at or Bai in Egypt, and from its supposed
immortality the Egyptians gave the name Bat to the
Soul. E<rrt jaer yap To /3at,	This word Bai is
formed from the Tuba trees which are mentioned by
Mohammed (Part III., 777), every leaf of which was a
living Soul. Tzetzes, in his Methomerica, says Nimrod,
either makes Phoenix a colleague of the Son of the
Morning, or, as I rather think, puts Phoenix in apposition
to Mem-n-On (the Six hundred of the Sun). Memnon,
when dead, was transformed into a Bird, incomparable
for beauty and sagacity, the Ori-On [or Orus of the Sun]
of the Indians, and Phoenix of the classical writers.
Memnon was the Son of Aurora (the Holy Spirit). Now
Phoenix was the Bird of the Morning and also of Paradise;
his dwelling was in the very East, at the Gate of Heaven,
in the Land of the Spring, and in the Grove of the Sun,
upon a plain of unalloyed delights, lying twelve cubits
higher than the highest of Mountains, and which alone
of all the earth was unhurt by the Fire of Phaeton and
the Water of Deucalion. But with all this, Phoenix was
likewise a 7*ree, sacred to the glory of conquerors. Oizo:
yra/MM, PAcemo: ea we womew 7m6eZ. Upon the highest
umbo of the Achillean Shield stood a Palm or Phoenix
Tree, and upon the summit of that again sate Martial
Virtue [or the Cabir emblem] with her hands uplifted toENOCH.
295
heaven. The Palm is therefore another God Tree. iii.
389. See Part III., General Index, Matutinus. Aurora,
the Goddess of Morning, is a name for the Holy Spirit;
it is Aur-aur-Ra, Fire, the Ray or Emanation of Fire;
in other words, the Fire that is emaned from God.
Pallas, another of her names, was Flame issuing from
Zeus. Probably one reason for this vast variety of
different names being given to the Messenger is that
mentioned in the Apocalypse. Part III., 611. The
mythologist Apollodorus occultly alludes to it as the
Keuthonymus or Name-Concealer, ii. 201.
67. Atlas, or Atlaz, was the son of Iapetus and
Clymene : the Moon-Voice. He had a great number of
flocks of every kind, that is, he was a Shepherd-Prince
or a Good Shepherd; and to him also belonged the
beautiful Gardens so celebrated in antiquity, which
contained the Golden Apples, and abounded with every
species of fruit, the care of which he entrusted to a
Dragon. The meaning of this is, that he possessed his
own and Gaudama's Apocalypse, and that he watched
his Mysteries with the care of a Dragon. It alludes
also to the secrets contained in the Revelation of the
First Messenger, and which Revelation was known by
the name of TAc J/ystfc DraytMt: so called for one reason,
as commemorating the defeat of the Fire-breathing Dragon
without a name, whom Hercules, the Messiah, slew to
present his destroying Juno, the Holy Spirit. Ptol.
Heph. ap Phot., p. 147. See Apocalypse, section 8, and
Part III., 376. Note what Nimrod says, that there were
two Holy Gardens, in each of which was a Serpent-
Guarded Tree ; and on one of them Golden Apples, and
on the other the Fleece of a Golden Sheep; but the Apple296
THE BOOK OF GOD.
and the Sheep are one and the same, for /o/Aov is the
Greek name for both alike. Atlas having been informed
by an Oracle that a Son of Jupiter (a Son of God) would
dethrone (that is, succeed) him, he refused to Perseus (or
Brightness) the rites of hospitality, and even offered him
violence. Perseus showed him the Head of Medusa (the
Apocalypse), intimating to him that he was only owe of
the Messengers, and must without envy give way to his
successor (Part I., 100,116); on which Atlas was changed
into a mountain (see Apocalypse, section 13), which the
ancients said supported heaven. Atl-Az is Fire Stone,
Jupiter Lapis, the Magnet. The meaning of this mythos
is clear. In analogy to this word, Perses, we have the
sect of Patsees, who represent in a measure the fire-bright
truths of Zaratuslit, though in a very diminished form.
They are a body, however, animated by most noble views
of religion. A similar mythos is related of Phen, Phani,
Phenocb, or Phineus, but in a distorted form. Ovid
tells us that in a contest with Perseus, the latter, by
showing him Medusa's head, transformed him to stone,
lib. v. 233. Other mythologists relate that he was carried
off by the Fire-Winds to the land of the Milk-Eaters—
that is, to the Garden of Paradise, where the food only
was fruits and milk, and where the learned author of
Nimrod thinks that he still remains, though others say
that he has again appeared, and, like Hesiod, Pythagoras,
Taliesin, Ennius, and Jesus animated a new form (9).
These legends evidently relate to the same person ; they
strangely connect Pheneus, Enos, Phenoch, and Atlas,
who were in reality the same person. Note that Iapetus,
the father of Atlas, was the same as Chadam, and was
the son of Heaven and Earth, and that his mother, Cly-ENOCH.
297
Mene, is Cali-Mena and Cl-Meni, names for the Holy
Spirit; the name, too, of the mother of Phaeton. In
another mythos connected with Enoch under his name of
Atlas, the Heaven-bearer we read that the Hesper-Id
Gardens, kept by the daughters or disciples of Atlas,
contained the Golden Apples which Yuno, or Yoni (the
Holy Spirit), presented to them on the day of her marriage
with Jupiter (God, or Jid). These were Apocalyptic and
mystical secrets contained in the Books of Chadam and
Enoch. Hercules (a Messiah) entered the Garden, and
carried off those apples to Argos. This was the eleventh
labour of a life employed in doing good, after which
followed his conquest over Hell, typified by his chaining
Kerberos, when he received a complete suit of armour
from the Gods, and ascended to heaven. All these myths
are clear to those who study my Book of God. The last
labour of Jesus was his descent into Hell; then, like
Hercules, he went to Heaven. In the following, which
is copied from a drawing by Colonel Coombes of a carving298
THE BOOK OF GOD.
in one of the Cave-Temples of southern India, we see The
Serpent of Eternity embracing the Tree of Life, or the
Phcenix Tree, and contemplating with delighted eye the
happiness of His creatures, while the lion-clothed Mes-
senger leads Sin, personified as a Dog of Hell, captive in
his leash. Note that it was after Hercules obtained the
Golden Apples that he passed the river Evenus and slew
Nepus. Evenus, as Court de Gebelin observes, is literally
Water of the Sun. So it was after Jesus said, 7 /pave %7te
wo?*M yo to t7te 7'at7ter (John xvi. 28), that he crossed
the brook Cedron, or the Receptacle of the Sun, in imita-
tion, as John puts it, both of Hercules and of the Angel
who, in the Apocalypse, passed the Water of Liberation.
See Part I., 609 ; Part III., 776.
68. Enoch, or the sacred congregation of the Seven
Pagodas, who inherited his Book and doctrines, sent
priests and missionaries over the earth, but principally to
the great Central American plains, where the remnants
of his religion and his name Anahuac are still found.
The Egyptians, says Nimrod, commemorated the magnifi-
cence of Enochia, or Enoch's land, in their legend of
Atlantis, iv. 302. This I regard as a most wonderful
guess by this learned priest. We End one of his legates
or representatives in Africa. In Windhus's Journey to
Meguenez, a tradition is mentioned that Idris founded
the city of Fez, or Fire, and was the first Arab Prince
who reigned in Barbary : he was sainted, and his tomb
is a sanctuary. There is a city, he adds, which takes its
name from this Saint, which stands close under the high
mountain Zar-On (the Rock of the Sun), which they say
as yar as tAe yrcat wwawtawt JtZas. But the Idris
here mentioned was only a high priest of the EnochianENOCH.
299
faith. The reader will do well to bear this in mind,
regarding not only the Second but indeed all the more
ancient Messengers. Many foolish and false things are
related of them, which have reference only to priests, to
colonizing missionaries, and professors of their faith, and
to preachers from their sacred writings. To colonizing
priests of this kind may probably be referred ruins such
as those described by a writer in the A^aZaZ JfercMry,
under date of February 2, 1869, when treating of the
ruins of a place named Simbaoe :—A day's march from
Andowa, between two hills, at the end of a vast and
fertile valley, are the ruins of Axum. Incredible flights
of stone steps conduct the traveller up the summits of
th.e hills, in one of which are found deep grottoes and
vast halls, cut out of the rock and ornamented with
columns. The adjoining valley, shaded by majestic trees,
is filled by the remains of the city, consisting of huge
blocks of stone. Very little of the <%6&rM reveal their
former purpose. There may, however, be distinguished
two groups of fourteen or fifteen obelisks thrown down.
Seven of them are covered with ornaments, and are not
less than thirty-six feet in length.	MosZerytecea o/'
awetewt arcAtfectare rerert/ Zo tM	o/* twt ctwcMwZ
ctvZZM^ftow %7te 7tear% of A/Hca, w7t?'c7i 7tag (ZfsapyearetZ
ayawt, tZtowancZ^ of years awtee. Niebuhr tells us of a
mighty Abyssinian empire existing here, and says it was
so powerful that even the Roman and Parthian strength
could not prevail against it. This last statement was
taken from a Greek inscription found among the ruins
engraved in stone. On the reverse side is another
engraving in some ancient language, which has not yet
been deciphered. The savage tribes guard these ruinsTHE BOOK OF GOD.
300
with jealous care. No living animal is allowed to be
killed in them, no tree permitted to be destroyed, every-
thing connected with them being held sacred, as belonging
either to a good or evil power. The Basutos often tell
us, when asked if they acknowledge God, about the big
stones in the Banyai, where all created things are to be
seen, even sphinxes, pyramidal-shaped buildings, and cata-
combs.
69.	Fynyk and Kouyunik, on the route to Nineveh,
are evidently Phenochian names and memorials. The
Yezidi worship also preserves two Apocalyptic and
Enochian names for God and the Holy Spirit: Melek
Isa, and Sheikh Adi. Layard mentions this, but he
has evidently blundered in the matter. It is impossible
that they could have called Isis or Isa a King. So
he has blundered in supposing the Yezidi to be Devil-
worshippers. There are no professed devil-worshippers
in the East, or in the West, though there are many
millions who, I fear, practically adopt and follow that
faith. In the same district we have Mah Hananisho, or
Enosh the Great. At Kouyunik was a grand colossal
image of the Fish-God, Oannes. The walls, says Layard,
were more elaborately decorated than those of Nemrood
and Khorsabad. Almost every chamber explored, and
they amount to above seventy, was panelled with
alabaster slabs, carved with numerous figures and with
the minutest details. Each room appears to have been
dedicated to some particular event, and in each apparently
was the image of the King himself. The name is also
found in American Anahuac.
70.	In the golden age of Anahuac (see Part III., 78,
434, 455) we are told that the oom sprang up with suchENOCH.
301
luxuriance that one ear became a burden for a man ;
cotton grew of all colours so as to supersede the art of
dyeing ; other products of the soil were so abundant that
the life of the community might be described as one
perpetual feast. The palaces were constructed of gold,
of silver, and of precious stones; the air was laden with
rich perfumes, while the birds in brilliant plumage
gladdened every heart with their enchanting music. All
this points to an era, when the Enochian religion
reviving the Chadamic, brought peace and purity and
earnest industry in its train, from Asia into the mighty
Kingdom of Atlantis, from which it diffused itself in
time throughout the vast regions of Central America,
until it grew corrupt and hideous in the hands of the
priests, who seem to have been invented for hardly any
other purpose than to poison and pollute the Revelations
of God. The wild man of America, says Archdeacon
Hardwick, alluding to the Red Man, who is at present
the true representative of the race whom the Enochian
colonizing pontiffs taught, and who have filled the Central
continent with their mystical and stupendous buildings,
is in fact a wor.sArpper o/ aZZ aAove /Mm and aZZ arouwd
Arm. zAe .sAres, ZAe woods, ZAe wafers are Aus AooAs,
ZAey a/.so /arm Ais oracZes arrd Ais drvru.rZtes. Rervaded
Ay some <SprrtZuaZ Fssewce, every Zea/* zAaZ rusZZes r'u ZAe
yoresZ, yurZe as m.ucA a.s ZAe yreaZ orAs ZAaZ move w stAmZ
ma/esZy across zAe ,/irmameaZ, cowveys Zo Arm a messaye
yl om ZAe Z7ztsee% JForZd. F^Ae ZAreaZeutuy cZorrd. ZAe yeutaZ
sAotoer, ZAe Z/yAZnr'uy, zAurrder, am/ ZAe worZAeru aMrora,
powers o/ every /rue, aud awrmaZs o/ every sAape awd
species, are aZZAe reyarded as rusZ/rtcZ wrZA superuaZuraZ
vM'fue, aud as yifZed Zo enAindZe ru ZAe Aumau AearZ ZAe302
THE BOOK OF GOD.
o/* awe or /ore, o/ at7o?*aftOM or o/ dgprecah'o?:.
C/n'i'e/ awd o/7ter Jfas^re, ii., 128. The archdeacon sees
in this sublime confraternity between all living things,
between the flower, the moon and the star, only that
dreaded thing Pantheism : but who will deny that in
thus bringing the soul and spirit into direct communica-
tion with all the beautiful existent works of the Supreme^
the religion which achieves so great a result is far superior
to that stolid, sensual, chaw-bacon Petro-Paulism now
prevalent, which reduces its believers to a condition of
hardened and idiotic selfishness, akin to that of swine.
The mountain tribes of Armenia, according to Layard,
still worship venerable oaks, great trees, huge solitary
rocks, and other grand features of Nature. Compare a
common Red Indian, or Armenian mountaineer pantheist,
as described above, with a common English protestant in
the rural districts, and how infinitely superior is the first.
The one communes with Nature in her silent grandeur,
in her glorious features; the other thinks- but of his
belly; bis	5owu?n is pork, or cheese and beer.
But even this divine sympathy with life universal, which
thus so exquisitely exists in these untutored Children of
the Forest, as it does through Hindostan, is subordinated,
as Prescott says, to the sublime conception of One Great
Spirit, the Creator of the Universe.	o/* PerM
Part III., 354, 370, 371, 372.
71. There are but few of the Burmas, says Dr.
Buchanan, writing 80 years ago in the dgt'ot/c Pesetwc/tM,
who do not read and write; almost every man carries
with him a parawaik in which he keeps his accounts till he
can repeat them from memory, and takes memorandums of
anything curious, vi. 307. Would that this could be saidENOCH.
303
of England, where not one person in every ten can read
and write, and where the most appalling ignorance seems
almost universal. Yet Bull looks down with great con-
tempt upon the Burman, who is as far above him in
every particular as a civilized man is above a savage.
72.	The Mexican name for God is Tao-Te, which is
the Tao of China, and the Tua of the South Sea Islanders.
Theos, deva, deus, tius, are but forms of Tao. They
beheld in Him, says Archdeacon Hardwick, the Being by
whom we live; Omnipresent; that knoweth all things
and giveth all gifts, without whom man is as nothing ;
Invisible, Incorporeal; One God of perfect perfection
and purity; under whose wings we find repose and a
sure defence. He was worsZnippetZ Ay some eZewtec% spirt/s,
wt%AoM% wwaye, sacrf/fce, or %emp7e,* 7w was ca//e<7 ?7w
Cawse o/ aM cawses,	Ha^er o/* aM %7wtys. He
was reverenced as the parent and productive Principle in
Nature. CArfs^ aw7o^7wrJfasters, ii. 139. As Tez-Cat-
Li-Poka, he is addressed as the	Jftrror, a phrase
entirely Asiatic. See Part III, General Index, s. v.
Mirror. How blest were the condition of Europeans,
could they be brought to believe in this manner. How
splendid and ennobling are these views, if we contrast
them with those which are now generally entertained.
Do I dream, if at times I behold as in celestial phantasy
the realization of this Golden Age among mankind! the
return of my coutrymen to the faith of their fathers !
73.	In Greece, Enoch was known at a very early
period as Inachus (son of Oceanus and Tethys, or Tit-Is)
(see General Index, s. v. Teat) the founder of Arg, or
Argos : hence the Hellenes were called Inachi and Ina-
chidte ; that is, of the Enochian creed. Cush, the Son,304
THE BOOK OF GOD.
says Nimrod, i. 11, was also known as Ina-Chus, and the
Institutes of Cush, or of some other divine Lawgiver,
were revered by the Saxons as the Laws of Ina. These
Institutes were in reality the Books of Enoch which the
Saxons received from the old Britons. Ina, as the reader
of the former volumes knows, was part of the mystic
Shek-Ina, and Chus, or Cush, is Darkness. Part III,
xiii. Ina-Chus is, therefore, the Dark or Concealed One
of Ina, the Holy Spirit; Yuno, or Juno.
Holy Spirit, was called ZwncAt'a Bos.
Enoch	ZwacAMs (Od. ii. 3, 21).
Io, or Isis, the
Horace calls
Arg, Argi, or
Arichi, is the Lion of the Naros. Part III, 442. Ionosh,
or Anius, the first king of Thessaly, was a son of the
Sun, and was the first who coined gold and silver. See
Book of God, Part III, 437, 443. At Iconium, says
Nimrod, there lived for more than fArce Awich'ecZ yenrg,
one Annachus, concerning whom it was foretold that when
he died all men would perish. Suidas mentions that he
was a king who reigned before Deucalion, and prop/tesMcZ
tAey/oocZ, and made supplications together with the whole
assembly of the people in order to avert the same. The
sojourn of Enoch was 365 years, and iZ M	fo
AarAowr a cZowAf ^Ar<Z Ae Zs Acre	ii. 481—3. This,
Iconium, was so called because it contained the Icon,
or Image of God, set up there in the Apocalypse, perhaps
also in the Book of Enoch. Other places have been
identified with his name, such as Anuchta in Susiana, and
the Heniochi in the Caucasus. Buttman, in his Mytho-
logy (and in this all our Petro-Paulite priests follow him),
identifies Enoch with Annachus, who was distinguished
for his piety, lived 300 years, and predicted the deluge of
Deucalion—i. e, the destruction of Atlantis. IndeedENOCH.
305
there is hardly any land which does not contain legends
of this illustrious Pontiff.
74. This great Messenger was more than any other
connected with the prophecy of the Atlantean Deluge :
hence a reason why the symbolic Phoenix, which
was an analogue, or an anagram of his name, was so
generally unified with him. True it is that it was to
Chadam in the Apocalypse this great catastrophe was first
shown ; but it was in the Mysteries as perfected by the
Second Messenger that its advent was more decidedly
discussed. It overshadowed them with a species of
supernatural awe, which could not but deeply impress
the mind with religious reverence ; with such a purpose
in view the Great Judge allowed it to be occultly shown
to his people in the Oannian semi-civilised age. In these
mystic assemblies it was symbolized as Phoenix. Hor-
apollo says : That the Egyptians depicted this Bird, to
denote—1, The soul or spirit dwelling for a long period
here ; 2, An inundation; 3, J %rare77er refwrwny %o 7ns
TMfHM coMMfry q/fer a 7ony	4, Any lasting re-
establishment or period renewed. The word Phoenix,
therefore, may be in reality a corruption, as we have
shown, of Phenoch or Enoch, and the four emblems
enumerated above, all have relation to this Messenger,
or rather to all of the Messianic rank. The reader who
has studied the preceding Parts of the Book of God,
will know to what these allusions relate. He will know
also why the very soul of ancient religion was enwrapped
in secrecy and mystery. Philo, of Alexandria, acquainted
with the philosophical opinions of the Orientals, and
those of the Greeks, endeavoured some time before the
Christian era, to convince his people of the excellence306
THE BOOK OF GOD.
and superiority of a	o/*	which
had been long since founded in the bosom of the Jewish
religion. Like the Bauddha system it taught that the
sethereal region was peopled with inhabitants of an
immortal nature; some of kindred with the earth, and
addicted to its pleasures, descended to attach themselves
to other spirits, for which they had a worldly desire ; but
that others of them, disgusted with the vanities of life,
considering the body as a prison, fled on light wings to
Heaven, where they passed the remainder of their exist-
ence. Others of them yet more pure and excellent, dis-
daining all the temptations that earth could offer, became
the Ministers of the Supreme God, and the agents of the
Great King, seeing all and understanding all. Similar
opinions are entertained by the Bauddhas regarding the
origin of mankind; and Mr. Hodgson's account of this
subject seems but a version of what is related in Genesis
about the association of the Nephilim with the daugh-
ters of men; by which mankind, falling from their state
of original purity, came under the dominion of the
passions, and a spirit of discord. The Nepaul statement
of the same history is, that the half male and female
beings inhabiting in light and purity the Abhaswara
Bhuvana, and who had never yet in their minds conceived
the sexual desire, or known the distinction of sex, having
eaten of the earth lost the power of dying back to their
Bhuvana, and were obliged to remain on earth, where
they lived on its fruits, and associated with each other.
All this identifies Chadam and Enoch with Tibet and
Hindostan, and the Jews, with their leader Deu-Cali-On,
under whom was their true Exodus from Asia. See Part
III.ENOCH.
307
75. The fiery aphanism of Enoch, when he was wrapt
in vision to the Empyrean, is disguised but commemo-
rated by Ovid under the mythos of Phaethon. This
youth is the child of the Sun by Cl-Mena, or the Moon-
Voice, the Holy Spirit; he is taunted with being an
impostor, and with his mother's consent he finds his way
through .-Ethiopia and India to the Palace of the Sun.
This was raised high on stately columns, bright with
radiant gold and carbuncle that rivals the flames ;
polished ivory covered its highest top, and double folding
doors shone with the brightness of silver. The work-
manship even exceeded the material; for there Mulciber
had carved the sea circling round the encompassed earth,
and the orb of the earth, and the heavens which hung
over that orb. The earth has upon it men and cities, and
woods, and wild beasts, and rivers. Over these is placed
the figure of the shining Heaven, and there are six
signs of the Zodiac on the right door, and as many on
the left. Soon as the son of Clymene had arrived
thither by an ascending path, and entered the house of
his parent, he immediately turned his steps to the pre-
sence of his father, and stood at a distance for he could
not bear the refulgence nearer. Arrayed in a purple
garment Phoebus was seated on a throne sparkling with
brilliant emeralds. On his right hand, and on his left,
the Days, the Months, the Years, the Ages, and the
Hours, were arranged at corresponding distances, and the
fresh Spring was standing crowned with a chaplet of
blossoms; Summer was standing naked and wearing
garlands made of ears of com. The classical reader
knows how the Sun made oath by Styx to grant the
desire of Phaethon : how the youth begged permission to308
THE BOOK OF GOD.
drive the Horses of the Sun for one day ; how his father
dissuaded him in vain. And now the watchful Aurora
opened her purple doors in the ruddy east, and her halls
Riled with roses. The stars disappear ; Titan orders the
swift Hours to yoke the horses; the goddesses lead forth
the steeds snorting Rames and Riled with the juice of
ambrosia. Phaethon leaps into the chariot, while the
Rery horses Rll the air with neighings, sending forth
Rames, and beat the barriers with their feet. The result
is known. Phaethon disappears in Rame, stricken by the
hands of God himself, for so the disguised mythos ran.
Every scholar who has made mythology his study admits
that Phaethon is a name for Enoch ; an Eleusinian name
in all probability ; let the reader now compare the Apo-
calypse, section 13, with the description of the Man on
the Rre-red horse, and he will ask himself in vain how a
poor illiterate Jew, like the fabulous John, who is sup-
posed to have composed this great and most profound
work, the Apocalypse, could have known anything—even
a thousandth part of the mythologies of all nations and
peoples which are contained in it. To make the mythos
complete, Phaethon, when fallen, is received in Heri-
danush, the Garden of Juno, or of the Saviour (Part
III, 21, 76, 139). Phaethon means the Gleaming On,
or Sun, and is a name given to the Messenger, whose
grand desire to illuminate the earth with sunlight leads
so often to a sudden and ignominious death. The Tsa-
baeans called Phaethon Auriga, or Heniochus, which we
know was the Star of Enoch; thus they were identiRed
by that wise race. The impregnation of the Divine
Virgin by the Sun, is curiously shown in the following
print, of which the learned Inman	ii.,ENOCH.
309
648), writes thus : If I had been able to search through
the once celebrated Alexandrian Library, it is doubtful
whether I could have found any pictorial representation
more illustrative. The Holy Virgin, the mother of the
Messiah, is seen here in front of an altar, the altar of
the Apocalypse, section 20. God in h<is solar aspect is
surrounded by Eleven glorious Spirits or Archangels;
the Twelfth is infused into the Immaculate Womb, and
is represented in the picture, which is copied from a
Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, printed at Venice,
1582, under the license of the Inquisition. It seems
clear that the ecclesiastics who sanctioned this publica-
tion, were, like Steheln (Part III, 291), Mazons of a310
THE BOOK OF GOD.
high degree, who well understood the true meaning of
the true Apocalypse of the First.
7 G. Wilford, in the	speaks of the
City of Bam yan, or Balch, near which the First Mes-
senger preached, and I think it can hardly be doubted
but that it was visited by Enoch or his missionary
priests also. He alludes to the statues of God and the
Holy Spirit which are near it. The city of Bamiyan
[Autn and Yoni], he says, consists of a vast number of
apartments and recesses cut out of the rock, some of which
on account of their dimensions are supposed to have
been temples. They are called Samach'h in the language
of the country, and Samaj in Persian. There are no
pillars to be seen in any of them, according to the infor-
mation I have received from travellers who have visited
them. Some of them are adorned with niches and carved
work, and there are to be seen the remains of some
figures in relievo. Some remains of painting on the
walls are still to be seen in some of them; but the smoke
from the fires made there by the inhabitants, has almost
obliterated them. It is said by the Ayeen Akbery that
there are about 12,000 of these recesses.* But what
* It was the Circle of Inchoation which is represented in the
folding plate, and which typified the wanderings of the lapsed
Spirit in search of its centre, the Sun, which gave their origin to
these labyrinthine Cave-Temples, of which we every day have
some new discovery. They are said to have been first invented by
Tubal-Kain, or Vulcan, at Enochia. In the centre is the Heaven of
God, symbolized as a Shining Sun. The manner in which entrance
is to be accomplished is not without a certain signi Seance. The great
feature of the puzzle is to avoid that path which is the most
tempting. Having once been put on the track, though the tra-
veller's object is to get into the centre, he must, nevertheless,
avoid every opening that,	leads him nearer to theENOCH.
311
never fails to attract the notice of travellers are two colossal
Statues, which are seen at a great distance. They are
erect, and adhere to the mountain from which they are
cut out. They are in a sort of niches, the depth of
centre. Another feature is, after passing from the first circle into
the second, to work on continually to the left. Outer, means
towards the circumference; inner, means towards the centre;
eirc/e, means the space between the lines. With these general
directions on starting, the track may be followed up with compa-
rative ease. 1. Enter at the foot, and turn to the right, following
the outer circle as far as you can, till you enter the second circle.
2. Now proceed to the left, and continue till you meet with a
shoulder ; passing round this, you encounter two openings ; select
the outer one. 3. Following up this circle and still continuing ever
afterwards to keep to the left, you will be conducted to a similar
shoulder, which must be passed round, and the outer opening
taken. 4. Still continuing to the left, we reach an inner circle ;
the first opening to the right must be passed unheeded (this is a
trap), and by pressing on we make another advance; two openings
are observable ; take the outer one, and again avoid the adjoining
opening to the right. 5. Pass round the left shoulder of the T,
and continuing the road, you arrive at the _/oof of the spme T,
pointing to the centre. There are two roads open to the traveller;
choose that to the left, which will lead to a shoulder. 6. At this
point you had better pause to view your position, and know it
again in case of losing your way. There you find four openings,
and by following the rule at first laid down, you must take the
least tempting, and pass up to the outermost turning. 7. Follow
this road ; pass round a shoulder; avoid the first turning on the
right; pass along until introduced to the tenth circle. Still con-
tinue to the left; pass the two openings on the right, and you
arrive at a small perpendicular line poiuting to the centre, and &
number of openings ; avoid all these ; pass round the line to the
left; turn the corner ; take the opening on the left, which, fol-
lowed up, advances us two circles. 8. On entering the next circle
turn sharp round to the left, and you will advance rapidly. 9.
Here two openings to the right lead apparently to the centre (these
are traps); therefore continue till you meet with a shoulder with
two openings ; take the outer one ; pass on to the left, and you are
immediately at the end of your difficulty.312
THE BOOK OF GO.
which is equal to the thickness of the statues. It is said
in the Ayeen Akbery, that the largest is eighty ells high,
and the other only fifty. According to the author of the
Pharang Jehanghiri, cited by T. Hyde (De Fe%.
Per, 132), they are said to be only fifty cubits high;
which appears to be the true dimensions. At some distance
from these Two Statues is another [the Messenger] of a
smaller size, being about fifteen cubits high. Natives
and Persian authors who have mentioned them agree
neither about their sex nor their names. The few Hindus
who live in these countries say that they represent Bhim
[God] and his Consort; the followers of Buddha, that
they are the statues of Shah-Ama [King Aum, f. e., God],
and Sal'sa'la [Issa, the Saviour Goddess.] In another
place Wilford calls her Sa-Ras-Ala, which is Issa, the
Wisdom of God. As. vi. 527. Has in the Arabic
is a title for a Ruler, who is supposed to be an imper-
sonation of wisdom—the sovereign, as we in England
say, can do no wrong. It is the Hindu Rajah and the
Latin Rex. The Musselmans insist that they are the
statues of Kay-Umurz and his Consort—that is to say,
Adam and Eve—and that the third is intended for Seish,
or Seth, their son; whose tomb, or at least the place
where it stood formerly, is shewn near Bahac. This is
in some measure confirmed by the author of the Pharang
Jehanghiri, who says that these statues existed in the
time of Noah [that is, were immeasurably ancient] ;
though he gives them different names, and supposes the
third to represent an old woman called Nesr, more gene-
rally represented with the countenance of a Vulture.
See Part II, 415, 535. Part III, Primitive Roots.
Racham, xxii. Rach-Aum is the Spirit of God. It is butENOCH.
313
another form of Ruach Aieim. Part II, 271, 427, 433.
Part IIT, 135, 320, and the Sikh, or Sak, word Rahim,
or the Merciful: each from the same roots. The word
is preserved in the Arabic	ra/wnam	; in.
the Name of the most Merciful God. This Sacred
Symbol-Bird is seen on the head of the Egyptian Holy
Spirit in the engraving, aw/e, 176 : Isis with the youthful
Messenger Orus in her arms. On her head is the Sun.
In allusion to this Heavenly Vulture Racham, or the
Holy Spirit, we read that Twelve Vultures were
shewn to the founder of Rome—that is, that he was a
Pontiff who was acquainted with the mystery of her
Twelve Sons, the Messengers. The Messiah sometimes
assumes this form with his Mother. Thus at the left
hand gate of Troy, where stood the shrine of Apollo, the
Tree of God was planted, upon which Minerva (the Holy
Spirit) and Apollo (the Messenger) were seen to sit in the
form of Vultures. 11. vi. 237 ; vii. 60. Some interpre-
ters, says Nimrod, iii. 496, were disposed to construe the
Twelve Vultures as of	Jfew wAo	reit/M
swccess:ve7y /Ac	empire. This was the correct
interpretation. Note, that Racham, means Ray or
Sunbeam from God (Light, Gen. i. 3), a beautiful emblem
of the Holy Spirit. These statues, continues Wilford-
are so much defaced that I believe it is difficult to
ascertain their sex. Travellers do, however, agree that
one of them at least is a beardless youth [the Messen-
ger ; beardless like Hermes, Jesus, Pythagoras, or
Apollo], some more particularly insist that the swelling
of the breasts is remarkably obvious, and that both look
towards the East; so that when the Sun rises they
seenr to smile, but look gloomy in the evening. Their
p314
THE BOOK OF GOD.
dress, as described to me, is much the same with that
of the two figures half buried near Tuct Rustum, near
Istacar, in Persia : with this difference, that the female
figure has no head dress, but the male has such
a tiara as is worn by the supposed female figure at
Tuct Rustum. These statues were visited at least ten
or twelve different times by a famous traveller called
Me' Yan Asod Shah, who is a man highly respected, both
on account of his descent from Mohammed, and his
personal character. He informed me lately that these
Two Statues are in two different niches, and about forty
paces distant from each other. That the drapery is
covered with embroidery and figured work, which
formerly was painted of different colours, traces of
which are still visible. The one seems to have been
painted of a red colour [Fire], and the other either
retains the original colour of the stone, or was painted
gray [Air or Water], That one certainly represents a
female from the beauty and smoothness of her features
and the swelling of her breasts; the head being so much
elevated is secure from insult below, and is also protected
from the weather by the projection above. The statue
of their supposed son is nearly half a mile distant, and
about twenty feet high. *	*	* In this place they
show to this day the Samach in which the famous Vyasa
composed the Vedas, and others where divers holy men
gave themselves up to meditation and the contemplation
of the Supreme Being, vi. 464. This latter passage
shows that Bamiyan was probably the site of one of the
primeval colleges, contemporary with the days of the
Seven Churches.
77. These Hindu statues were the same as those whichENOCH.
315
the primeval Arabs venerated under the names of Al-
Latt, God, and Al-Uza, Issa; though their descendants
have now eradicated ail mention of the latter, the Holy
Spirit, out of their creed. The following is the account
of them in Hyde, to which Wilford refers. These
immense Images, he says, were called by the Persians the
Red God and Gray God, symbols of Fire and Water. They
are two remarkably great Statues carved out of the rocks
into the height and magnitude of towers, hollow inside, so
that any one entering by the sole of the foot might pass
through the entire inside even to the ends of the feet and
hands. This indicated to the symbolists that out of these
Two proceeded all things; even as all things might be
absorbed into them. These images, says a learned writer,'
are thought by some to be those which the Arabs called
Y aguth andYaukinthe age of Noah. Note, that Y aug i s
translated by Colonel Wilford DomwMM jfwuM, our Lord
the Moon ; that is, the Male-Female. As. Res. vi. 187. By
others these deities are called Manat [Mah-Naut, the
Great God], and Latt [the Holy Spirit, the Latona, the
Concealed]. And not far from these is said to be another
Idol somewhat smaller called Nesres, or Nesr, or Nesar,
which seems to be a Statue placed in a grove, because
Nesr, in Persian, signifies a shade formed by leafy
branches, a recess in the mountains which the sun's rays
cannot penetrate ; for such places being protected from
his beams, seemed to be most suited for the religious.
Hyde then goes on to say that the first people of Arabia
worshipped Wodd, or God, in the likeness of a Man, and
Sowa in the form of a Woman	234), and that
Yaguth was figured as a Lion, Yauk as a Mare, or Ceres
Hippa, and Nesr as a Vulture. The Hawk and Vulture,
P 231G
THE BOOK OF GOD.
as we know, were Egyptian types of the Menu and of
the All-protecting Spirit of God. The natives, says
Colonel Wilford, look upon Batniyan [Balkh], and the
adjacent countries us	o/ a&o<Ze o/* t/ae jwogwMtors
o/* mmwHwrZ. By Bamiyan and the adjacent countries
they understand all the country from Siston to Samarcand
reaching towards the east as tar as the Ganges. This, as
may be seen,	section 28, 211, is the region of
Enoch. And this tradition is of great antiquity, for it
is countenanced equally by Persian authors and by the
sacred books of the Hindus. The first heroes of Per-
sian history lived and performed there innumerable
achievements. Their sacred history places also in that
country their holy instructors, and the first temples
that ever were erected. The climate is the same as in
Greece.
78. The city of Bamiyan, says the same learned
writer [Wilford], being represented as the fountain of
purity and holiness, it was called with propriety Para-
Bam-iyan, or Bamiyan, the pure and holy; for the
same reason the district of Bam yan might be called
Para-desa, the pure and holy country. This district is
now barren and without a single tree. The sacred
books of the Hindus, and of the Buddists, do, however,
declare most positively that it was otherwise formerly.
Tradition informs us also that the number of inhabi-
tants was at one period so prodigious that the trees,
underwood, grass, and plants, were destroyed. The
vegetable soil being no longer protected, was, in the
course of ages, washed away by the rains; certain it
is that the soil in the valleys is most fertile, and the
whole district, such as it now is, is still most enchant-ENOCH.
317
ing and delightful. The country to the eastward of Bami-
yan, as far as the Indus, M tAg	cown&u/ q/ VMW,
M7ttZ o/ aA/to.s^ uM ^Ae /rMt( ^*ees we Auve Aurope: /Ae/'g
^Aey yrow spo/tfaMgoMs/y, and to a great degree of per-
fection. When the natives And a vine, an apple tree, &c., in
the forests, they clear all the wood about it, dig the
ground, and by these means the fruit comes to perfect
maturity, via. 2?es. vi. 494.
79. After the Seven Pagodas had received and acknow-
ledged the Apocalypse as a Divine Revelation, they
adopted the custom of sending sevens out of each reli-
gious community, with copies of the work into foreign
lands, and those missionaries, chosen from among the
most learned, pious, and energetic, of this Sacred Col-
lege, were the preachers of the true Chadamic faith
whithersoever they went. Nor was there any danger of
disunion among them; for all coming from the same
venerable repository of religious truth and knowledge,
and each one being specially chosen for some distinguish-
ing qualification, they acted as guides to, and checks upon,
each other. The old mythos of Seven Sages, Seven Doctors,
Seven Champions, Seven Wise Men, &c., &c., is founded
upon a recollection of this custom. There is still pre-
served near Shirauz, in Persia, a memorial of this ancient
ordinance. It is called by the people Heft Tun, or the
Seven Bodies, on account, says Francklin, of Seven
Dervishes, or religious men, who coming from a great
distance to reside in this country, took up their abode on
the spot where the above building is erected, and there
remained until they all died, each burying the other suc-
cessively until the only survivor, who was interred by
the neighbours upon this spot, and in memory of which318
THE BOOK OF GOD.
event Kerim Khan has erected a beautiful hail with
adjoining apartments ; this hall is 27 feet by 18, and
40 feet high; one-third of the height of the hall is
lined with white marble from Tauris, and the rest and
the ceiling are ornamented with blue and gold enamel; it
is built on the same plan as those of Hafiz and the Dewan
Khana, and is really a noble building.	95. This
modern structure covers the site of a very ancient one
which had fallen into ruin; it has been disfigured,
however, by some paintings of fabulous scenes and
legends; as most indeed of the Hindu ancient caves
and temples have been, by symbols and statues of a time
far more recent than that of their original builders and
designers.
80. I have already intimated that Uranus (which in
Celtic is Uur, En ; that is, Ur, the Fire, En, of Heaven)
was one of the names of Enoch. Part III, 434. By
him, or by some of his priests, was founded the republic
of Pancheea, a synonym of Maya-Pan, or the Holy Island,
and perhaps All the Earth, of which Diodorus Siculus
has given a description, v., chap. 3. In this island, he
writes, there is a famous city called Pan-Ara, not inferior
to any for wealth or grandeur. The citizens are called
the suppliants of Threefold Zeus, and are governed by a
democracy without a monarch. They choose every year
the Presidents that have all matters under their cogni-
zance, but what concerns life and death, and to most
weighty affairs they return to the College of their priests.
The Temple of Zeus Tryphilius [the Triadic] is about 60
furlongs from the city in a champagne plain; it is held in
great veneration because of its antiquity, and the stateli-
ness of the structure and the fertility of the soil. TheENOCH.
319
Reids round about the Temple are planted with all sorts of
trees, not only for fruit, but for pleasure and delight; for
they abound with tall cypresses, plane trees, laurels, and
myrtles, the place abounding with fountains of running
water; for near the Temple there is such a mighty spring
of sweet water, rushing out of the earth, that it becomes
a navigable river; thence it divides itself into several cur-
rents and streams, and waters all the Reids thereabouts, and
produces thick groves of tall and shady trees, amongst
which in summer abundance of people spend their time,
and a multitude of birds of all sorts build their nests,
which create great delight both by affecting the eye with
the variety of their colours, and taking the ear with the
sweetness of their notes. Here are many gardens, sweet
and pleasant meadows, decked with all sorts of herbs and
Rowers, and so glorious is the prospect that it seems to be
a Paradise worthy of the habitation of the gods themselves.
The Temple was built of white marble most artiRcially
joined and cemented, two hundred yards in length, and
as many in breadth (that is, a perfect square like the
city seen in the Apocalypse), supported with great and
thick pillars curiously adorned with carved work. In this
Temple are placed huge statues of the gods, of admirable
workmanship, and amazing grandeur. Round the
Temple are built apartments for the priests that attend
divine service, by whom every thing in that sacred place
is performed. All along from the Temple is an even
course of ground, four furlongs in length, and a hundred
yards in breadth, on either side of which are erected vast
brazen statues (Sphinxes) with four square pedestals. At
the end of the course breaks forth the river from theTHE BOOK OF GOD.
fountains before mentioned, from whence Hows most clear
and sweet water, the drinking of which conduces much
to the health of the body. This river is called the Water of
the Sun. The whole fountain is lined on both sides, and
flagged at the bottom with stone at a vast expense, and
runs out on both sides for the space of four furlongs.
Beyond is a high Mountain dedicated to the gods, which
they call the Throne of Celus (Keylas) and Three fold
Zeus (Keylas and God), ybr fAgy report fActf t/ruKws
(Enoch), wAc% Ac y oversea! /As ear/A ewpZoygtZ AA?Mg(/ w
tAts p/ace, aw/ _/rom /Ag fop o/ fAg	fAg
mofmu o/ fAg 7/guveM <S7ar.s (10). The priests every
year solemnize a sacred festival on this mountain with
great devotion. These priests for delicacy, state, and
purity of life far exceed all the rest of the inhabitants ;
their robes are of white linen, and sometimes of pure
soft wool. They wear likewise mitres embroidered with
gold. They attend chiefly upon the services of the gods,
singing melodious songs of praise; the altar of the god
is six cubits long and four broad ; in the middle is placed
a great Golden Pillar, whereon are letters inscribed,
called by the Egyptians	WHfa'wy, expressing the
famous actions of Uranus. So far Diodorus. There are
many things in this account of a fabulous or legendary
nature, which can hardly be wondered at, as he wrote
only from hearsay, or probably from the written narrative
of others; but I think no resonable doubt can exist that
the mountain from which Uranus, or Enoch, made his
observations, was an analogue of Cadr Idris in Wales,
Kedar Nau th in India, and Chadams peak in Ceylon, and
generally of those high places in various countries whichENOCH.
321
are associated with the Messianic name, and from, whose
peaks they so often saw their marvellous visions (11).
See Part I, 259.
81. Nimrod, not knowing that the Enos, or Enoch,
who is said untruly to have belonged to the line of Kain,
was in reality Enoch, the Prophet-Messenger, thus speaks
of his kingdom, which, by a wonderful guess at truth, he
identifies with Atlantis. The Egyptians, he says, com-
memorated the magnificence of Enochia in their legend
of Atlantis. That settlement was founded before the
great deluge by Euanor (the man of Hou or God), and
his wife Leucippa (the luminous Mare), iv. 302. Enoch
was afterwards called Neptune by the ignorant, because
he was not only the Prophet of the Flood, but was super-
stitiously regarded as the author of it. He was the
Ganymede whom God took to heaven, and who after his
translation became the flood-star Aquarius, by whose
influences the submersion of Atlantis was supposed to
have been occasioned, and who causes the inundations of
the Nile by the motion of his gigantic feet. (Pindar
fragments.) He was Og, the Giant, who waded through
the waters of the flood, and closed the windows of the
firmament with his hand, and the doors of the great deep
with his foot. The last syllable of Enoch's name is Og,
or Ochus, and is the same as the first syllable of wxtetros,
and owycros, meaning Water, as ogha does in Shanscrit.
The temple of the chief city was fabled to have been
built of gold and silver; the walls of the outermost
circumference were cased in brass, the next to them with
tin, and the next again with fiery-coloured orichalchum.
Such are some of the great mytliologic fantasies connected
p 3322
THE BOOK OF GOD.
with the name of Enoch ;* they are of the name nature
as these related of Chadam, the First Messenger, and of
which the reader has seen glimpses in the preceding
parts ; Indian in their conception ; certainly Oriental. I
know not whether the engraving, which I subjoin (taken
from Bryant by Dr. Inman), has reference to Enoch, as
the Olive Branch, conveyed by the Dove on the waters;
but the Holy Spirit is undoubtedly signified; 1. as the
Crescent floating above the Ocean : 2. by the Rainbow
with which the Sacred Crescent is crowned ; 3. by the
Dove which bears the mystical Branch, or Messenger, as
* The allusions to Waters connect him with the Fish Avatar,
mentioned anfe, section 46; with the Fish, which is emaned
from AO, and with the Saphari, or Saviour Fish, mentioned
Part III, 61, though the latter may allude as well to Fo-hi,
the Third Messenger.ENOCH.
323
if for the purpose of depositing it in the immaculate
bosom of the Virgin Mother, the floating Ark. Upon
this symbolism was founded the mythos of Moses floating
in the Ark on the Nile, which was sometimes synonymous
with the Oceanic Waters. Mount Meru is shown on the
right of the engraving. Nimrod attributes the deluge of
Atlantis to the vices of its people. TZwwMWt wisdom. was
<zrrwM(Z at :7s 7wty7:Z. 77w yreaZesZ Z:M.y<A?M ^w7:qyg ever
seew carZ7: was y7'O?/t	Zo ^7w oZ7:.cr
Z7w 7::y7:e.sZ cZcyrcc; Z/te ??wsZ rccowcZiZc ZocZye.s cowZ^ woZ
ezcoyfZaZc awyZZtMzy /arZ7:er, a?wZ Z7tcy cowZzZ woZ ?'g?/w(Zy
wAuZ Z7wy AazZ aZreatZy (/owe, awzZ Z7zc ewZ o/ aZ/ /ZesZt
came. The citizens of Atlantis, as we read, lost sight of
everything which was divine in their nature and origin;
mortal affections, and laws of human contrivance, pre-
vailed among them, and their glory was changed into
turpitude, which so offended the eyes of the God of gods,
that He summoned all the deities to attend a Council at
his palace in the Centre of the World. The proceedings
of that Council were unhappily lost with the conclud-
ing portion of the Critias of Plato. But we read the
result of it in the Timseus— viz., that a sudden earthquake
and deluge swallowed up the warriors of Atlantis, and
buried that kingdom under the sea. iv. 305*
82. But this sublime civilization did not belong to
Atlantis only, or its capital city. In the kingdom of
Babylon, says Nimrod, ii. 531, the arts and sciences
* Nimrod makes a most remarkable observation on this, with
which compare Part III, 468. The earthquake and cataclysm, he
says, did not kill the Atlantidae, but sent them under the ground:
e3v Kara y^5. PZaZ. Ti'nKru.!.324
THE BOOK OF GOD.
made no small progress ; a progress far greater than the
wandering fugitives whom it sent forth were for long
ages able to re-attain ; even allowing to the advocates of
the moderns the questionable superiority they assert. The
antiquity of human wisdom, such as it is, was illustrated
by M. Dutens, in his Ormwte
awa J/m/emes. Babylon is the limbo of lost origins, and
wherever a science or fine art is found to walk the earth,
but hide its head in the clouds, you may with some safety
refer it to the ambitious ages of the Nephilim and Re-
phaim; all literature, metrical and prosaic, the wonderful
game of chess, the secrets of magnetism and of gun-
powder, and the embalming of the dead. The moderns
may have slender reason to assert a superiority in
Mechanics, Hydraulics, or Metallurgy. Daedalus was the
inventor of certain statues to which he could impart
vision, locomotion, and most of the attributes of living
creatures. Vulcan made for Zeus a Dog of brass called
Lailaps, animated and charmed with such a spell that the
prey which it pursued could never escape. When Thetis
visited his brazen starry palace, she found there twenty
tripods upon golden wheels, which came and went by
their own living motion, and divers golden statues which
followed the lame god and ministered to him. These
things are not to be taken literally, but they point to a
high state of mechanical art in the earliest ages of the
earth. Part III., 650.
83. There are two other primeval names, Cham and
Dardanus, which have by many been connected and iden-
fied with the Second Messenger. I believe, however
that Cham was an Adamic, or Chadamic, title, and thatENOCH.
325
the books which passed under his name were the Apoca-
lypse. In the Ethiopic, Kadam	like the Shans-
crit Adim, means the First—that is, Gaudama, or Adam.
Part I, 264. Cham was a form of this, and was a
Messianic name, and Cadmus, says Nimrod, ii. 476, is an
Hermetic title of Cham (the Sun), and perhaps a cor-
ruption of that very wame. Adama, Chedem, Dip; or
Cliadam, or Cliaudama, like the Sanscrit Adim, means
the East as well as the First. See Part I, 264. -st) ]
Adam. And I think, if we look back to Part III, 430,
and consider what is there narrated of a certain Cloth,
and remember also that the Apocalypse was called the
Cloak of Stars, and if we bear in mind the tesselated
throne on which Osiris is always represented sitting, we
shall trace in the legend that follows, a covert allusion
to both, and will have no difficulty in saying that One
and the same mythos is at the bottom of all the three
mystical allusions. One of those Rabbins, says Nimrod,
iv. 401, who call themselves Jews, and are not, but are
the synagogue of Satan, relates that the Old Serpent shed
his skin presently after the fall of man, and God made a
of it for Adam. That garment was preserved
in the Ark, and worn by Cham, who afterwards gave
it to Nimrod, and whenever Nimrod put it on all the
beasts and birds worshipped him. His magic art was
transmitted to him from Adam, to whom God had
given it, and it had power over all the spirits of the
earth and the heavens, and even those who are above
the heavens. Horus, the Egyptian symbol-name of the
Messenger, appears in the ancient frescoes and carvings
of that mysterious land enveloped in the serpent skin326
THE BOOK OF GOD.
of the Cobra, which is an allusion to this mythos, and
the destructive Cobra is an analogue of Cabir. In this
gem we see Venus Cabira, the Spirit of Beauty, wearing
armour, feeding the Cabir Serpent, who is her War-
Messenger. See Part II, 571, 579. The figure of the
Holy Spirit mystically represents A, and round her body
is O- Under the like symbolism the spots on the skin
of the Crocodile indicated the starry heavens ; his want of
tongue signified that the Creator has no need of that
organ to make known His will. Hence he was a symbol
of God. See Part III. Let the reader now consider in
what mystery the Apocalypse was wrapped, and what a
secret of mighty power also was contained within its
pages, and I think he will see the origin of this weird,
wild story. The mythos of the many-coloured serpent
skin was a wizard and satanical perversion of the clothing
with the Rainbow, which from the beginning was a Mes-
sianic allusion (Part II, 204, 213, 353, 438, 439), and
of the Stellar Serpent in the Heavens, which typified theENOCH.
327
Supreme. The Messenger was clothed with the Holy
Spirit, the Splendid One of Rainbow light; hence the
Initiated were called Scarabaeei and Salmons, and Panthers
with the particoloured star-like covering. But the
magicians and witches of the olden time not knowing
the real secret of the allusion, but having got a hint
of it, changed it into the serpent-skin of Satanas, which
also was said to be many-coloured, and thus the heavenly
clothing of the heaven-descended Spirit became in their
detested orgies the symbol of the child and representa-
tive of darkness. But though Cham was not an
Enochian name, I am quite certain that Dardanus was.
We are told by Pliny that Dard-Anus wrote books
of magic that were deposited in his sepulchre, and it was
therefore called the Dardanian art; the same was also
the Inventor of the Mysteries. He was honoured as the
first founder of the mysterious 11-Yon; God and the
Holy Spirit, or God the Sun. 2Eneas, like Anch-Isa, one
of the priests of Enoch, was called Dardanus. The same
day of the week that we signalise as Thor's day, and the
Romans as Dies Jo vis, is called by the Irish Dia Dardain,
or the day of Dardanus. These Anachim, or Enochian,
priests, Beni-Anak, or Sons of the Giant Atlas, are
called in the old Phoenician-Irish, Feineag, which some of
the best antiquaries of Eire think is the same as Beni-
Anak.
84. I have collected all these legends, fables, myths, tra-
ditions—whatever the reader chooses to call them—in
order to dispel the biblical idea that Enoch was a mere
local Jew, and to demonstrate that, like all the other
Messengers of God in those early ages, he was a universal
man; that is, a man who by his teachings made traces328
THE BOOK OF GOD.
on the people, which they diffused by colonization and
missionary enterprise from East to West, from North to
South. There is hardly a place in which remnants of
the Chadamic and Enochian creeds are not to be found.
I have already proved this in the case of the former
sacred revelation; the scattered fragments of Enoch
which I have above collected from many regions will go
far to demonstrate that the same observations apply to
writings as well as to the Apocalypse. The author of
the CamArtrfye Aey hit upon exact truth when he proved
that Enoch was the second Buddha; and, though the
object which he had in view was far different from mine,
yet it is well to accept truth and fact from any quarter ;
and this certainly is truth and fact. Whether a copy of
the true Enochian volume in the primeval language may
yet be found I know not; or if found, it could be decy-
phered by any, it is of course impossible to say. But, if
it should ever be discovered, it will be seen that it does
not, and indeed cannot, materially differ from that which
follows. In the vast and unexplored libraries which
exist in Central Asia, I entertain a belief that the Apo-
calypse, in the exact form in which I have printed it, and
in the most early perfect language known to man, still
exists, and that with it, notwithstanding the devastating
waves of time, and war, and revolution, the writings of
Enoch, as they are here given, also survive. Like all the
true Revelations of God, the real originals have ever
been concealed, and only forged or mutilated copies, like
that which Dr. Laurence edited, have been diffused
among the multitude. These, if they thiirk fit, have
only to exercise reason and to compare; if they should,
they will be able to discern, with but little toil, the TrueENOCH.
329
from that which is False and Fabulous, and to recognize
in every page of the Apocalypse and Enoch, as I have
published them, the shining imprint of inspiration.
81. No inconsiderable proofs, says Dr. Wait, of the
eastern origin of both Druids and Goths, may be adduced
from a consideration of their languages. The more we
inspect the remains of Druidical faith, the more shall we
be induced to believe that they adopted some private
mode of transmitting their tenets to posterity, and it is
probable that, like Buddhists and Brahmins, they chose
for that private way a sacerdotal language. Mr. Davies,
in his Celtic Researches, admirably exhibits the structure
of the Bardic letters, and from his researches into the
subject, confirms the conjecture; in fact, the Bardic
alphabet seems to have the same philosophical arrange-
ment as the Devanagari. Sir W. Jones in like manner
remarks, many of the Runic letters appear to have been
formed of similar elements, and it has been observed that
the writing at Persepolis, bears a strong resemblance to
that which the Irish call Ogham; the word, Agam, in
Sanskrit, means mysterious knowledge, but I dare not
afHrm that the two words had a common origin, and only
mean to suggest that, if the characters be really alphabe-
tical, they were probably secret and sacerdotal, or a mere
cypher of which the priests only had the key. Davies has
found in the Asiatic Researches words evidently Celtic ;
hence it is inferrible that the ancestors of both Druids
and Indians resided in a country where one parent lan-
guage was in use. Sir W. Jones pronounces that %Ae
race of Persians and Indians, to whom we may add
the Romans and Greeks, the Goths and old Egyptians, or
Ethiops, w'iytwaMy syoAe fAe same Atwyaaye awe/ prq/esse<%330
THE BOOK OF GOD.
fAe same popwAtr /ctt^A. Both Diogenes Laertius and
Aristotle were correct in classing the Druids with the
Babylonish Chaldeeans, the Persian magi, and the Indians ;
in which they are followed by other writers. Meyrick
supposes that Hugadarn brought the religion of Britain
from Asia, and Maurice conceives the Druids to be de-
scendants of a tribe of Brahmins situated in a high
northern latitude bordering on the vast range of Cau-
casus, which, when the Indian empire was most extended,
mingled with the Celto-Scytliian tribes which were in the
deserts of Grand Tartary, with whom they were gra-
dually incorporated though not confounded, introducing
the Brahminical rites, but occasionally adopting those of
the Scythian.	xi. 3. Mr. Faber says,
' The close resemblance of the whole Levitical ceremo-
nial to the ceremonial in use among the Gentiles has
often been observed, and has differently been accounted
for. This resemblance is so close and so perfect that it
is alike absurd to deny its existence, and to ascribe it to
mere accident. The thing itself is an incontrovertible
matter of fact, and it is a fact which might at first seem
to be of so extraordinary a nature that we are imperiously
called on to account for it. Again, he says, Spencer has
shown at full length that there is scarcely a single outward
ordinance of the Mosiacal law which does not minutely
correspond with a parallel outward ordinance of Gen-
tilism. If persons will only reflect a little they will
perceive that, if every ordinance of the Jews is the same
as the ordinances of the Gentiles, the Mythoses must
necessarily be the same—that is, that the religions 'in
their chief part must be the same. Mr. Maurice says,
After all we must own, with Calmet, that the temple ofENOCH.
331
the great Jehovah had many decorations similar to those
in the hallowed temples of Asia. He was served there,
says the last cited author, with all the pomp and splen-
dour of an Eastern monarch. He had his table, his
perfumes, his throne, his bed chamber, his ofliees, his
singing men, and his singing women. Mr. Faber states
three ways of accounting for these facts. The Rrst is, that
the Gentiles copied from the Jews. This he easily refutes.
The second is, that the Jews copied from the Gentiles.
Of this, he says, The second theory, which is precisely
the reverse of the Rrst, and which supposes the Levitical
Ark to be a copy of the ark of Osiris, is wholly unin-
cumbered, indeed, with chronological diRiculties ; but it
is attended by others which perhaps are scarcely less
formidable. Its original author was, I believe, the Jew
Maimonides; the learned Spencer has drawn it out at
full length; he has discussed it with wonderful ingenuity,
and the mighty Warburton, without descending to parti-
culars, has given it the honourable sanction of his entire
approbation. P<%. AM., iii. 628. He then satisfactorily
shews that neither of these schemes is defensible, and
undertakes to prove that all the ceremonial and ritual in
principle originated from oM pa/rt'arcAa/ reZtyww.
And in this I quite concur with him; though I cannot
allow that religion to have consisted in an adoration of
Noah, his ark, and his family ; the idea of which is to
me altogether ridiculous ; too ridiculous to deserve a
serious refutation.	i. 275. This patriarchal
religion was that which the Twenty-Four Ancients, or
Pre-adamite Pontiffs, preached, and which was renewed
and reformed by the First and Second Messengers.
85. I conclude with a few remarks on a subject which332
THE BOOK OF GOD.
is deeply connected with the successive Epiphanies, or
Appearances, of the several Messengers, and which cannot
be too often impressed on the generality. The following,
observations, says Higgins, of the very celebrated astrono-
mer Cassini, made more than a hundred years ago, and ex-
tracted from Loubere's History of Siam, will.enable me
to elicit several conclusions respecting the famous Naros
of the greatest importance. As an astronomer, M.
Cassini is in the hrst rank. No one will deny that his
calculations, upon acknowledged or admitted facts, are
entitled to the highest respect. I think they will enable
me to point out the origin of many of the difficulties
respecting Buddha and Christna, and to explain them.
They will also enable me to show the mode which was
adopted by the early Popes and other priests in fixing
the times of several of the most important Christian
epochas, as well as to exhibit the mode in which the
gods Buddha and Cristna have been regenerated. These
circumstances have either been unobserved or they have
been concealed from Europeans. After a long discussion
on the formation of the Siamese astronomical and civil
epochas, in which, with profound learning, Cassini ex-
plains the process by which they have been formed, he
says : The first lunisolar period composed of all ages
is that of 600 years, which is also composed of 31
periods of 9, and one of 11 years. Though the chrono-
logists speak not of this period, yet it is one of the
most ancient that have been invented. Josephus, speaking
of the patriarchs that lived before the deluge, says,
that ' God prolonged their life as well by reason of
their virtue as to afford them the means to perfect the
sciences of geometry and astronomy which they hadENOCH.
333
invented; which they could not possibly do if they hud
lived less than 600 years, because that it is not till after
the revolution of 6 ages that the great year is accom-
plished. This great year, which is accomplished after 6
ages, whereof not any other author makes mention, can
only be a period of lunisolar years like to that which the
Jews always used, and to that which the Indians do still
make use of. Wherefore we have thought necessary to
examine what this great year must be according to the
Indian rules. By the rules of the tirst section it is found
then that in 600 years there are 7,200 solar months,
7,421 lunar months, and Jgg. Here this little fraction
must be neglected, because that the lunisolar years do end
with the lunar months, being composed of entire lunar
months. It is found by the rules of section 2, that 7,421
lunar months do comprehend 210,146 days, 11 hours, 51
minutes, 52 seconds; if, therefore, we compose this period
of whole days it must consist of 219,146 days. 600
Gregorian years are alternatively of 219,145 days and
219,146 days, they agree then to half a day with a soli-
lunar period of 600 years calculated according to the
Indian rules. The second lunisolar period composed of
ages is that of 2,300 years, which, being joined to one of
600, makes a more exact period of 2,900 years, and two
periods of 2,300 years, joined to a period of 600 years,
do make a lunisolar period of 5,200 years, which is the
interval of the time which is reckoned according to
Eusebius's chronology from the creation of the world
to the vulgar Epocha of the years of Jesus Christ.
These lunisolar periods, and the two epochas of the
Indians which we have examined, do point unto us, as
with the finger, the admirable epocha of the years of334
THE BOOK OF GOD.
Jesus Christ, which is removed from the first of these
two Indian Epochas, a period of 600 years, wanting a
period of 19 years, and which precedes the second by a
period of 600 years and two of 19 years. Thus the year
of Jesus Christ (which is that of his incarnation and birth
according to the tradition of the church, and as Father
Grandamy j ustifies it in his Christian chronology, and Father
Ricciolus in his reformed astronomy)is also an astronomical
Epocha, in which, according to the modern tables, the
middle conjunction of the moon with the sun happened
the 24th of March according to the Julian form, re-
established a little after by Augustus at one o'clock
and a half in the morning at the meridian of Jerusalem,
the very day of the middle Equinox, a Wednesday, which
is the day of the creation of these two planets. The day
following, March 25th, according to the ancient tradition
of the church, reported by St. Augustine, was the day of
our Lord's incarnation, was likewise the day of the first
phasis of the moon ; consequently it was the first day of the
month according to the usage of the Hebrews, and the first
day of the Sacred Year, which by the divine institution
must begin with the first month of the Spring, and the first
day of a great year, the natural epocha of which is the
concourse of the middle equinox, and of the middle
conjunction of the Moon with the Sun. This concourse
terminates, therefore, the lunisolar periods of the pre-
ceding age, and was an epocha from whence began a new
order of ages according to the oracle of the Sibyl, related
by Virgil in these words (Eclog, iv) :—
Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo;
Jam nova progenies ccelo dimititur alto.
This oracle seems to answer the prophecy of Isaiah,ENOCH.
335
Parvulus natus est nobis (ch. ix., 6 and 7); where this
new born is called God and father of future ages, Dews
ywfer /wfwW seecwM. The interpreters do remark
on this prophecy, as a thing mysterious, the extraordinary
situation of a Mem final (which is the numerical cha-
racter of 600) in this word	signifying
(the increase), where this Mem final
is in the second place, f/tere &ewty of/ter ea:a?wp/e
/7ie wAo/e text of the Holy Scripture wherever a final
letter is placed only at the ends of the words. This
numerical character of 600 in this situation might
allude to the periods of 600 years of the Patriarchs,
which were to terminate at the accomplishment of the
prophecy, which is the epoch from whence we do at
present compute the years of Jesus Christ. Loubere
Hist. Siam, Tome, II. ss. xxii. xxiii., cited in Higgins's
.dwacaZg/psM, i. 166. After citing in the same place
Virgil's 4th Eclogue, verses 3—52, Higgins adds :
Many of our divines have been much astonished at the
coincidence between the prophecy of the heathen Sibyl
and that of Isaiah; the difficulty I Hatter myself I
shall now be able to remove by showing that it related
fo sy.s/em. o/ cycles which Cassini detected in the
Siamese manuscript. A few pages farther, he con-
tinues, The case of the Mem Hnal in the Hebrew
word	the sign of 600 noticed by Cassini,
leaves little room to doubt of the allusion. Secrets of
this kind constitute sacred mysteries, cabala. I am by
no means certain that there is not a secret religion in
St. Peter's not known perhaps to any persons but the
Pope and the Cardinals. I believe I am at this moment
letting out their secrets (12). I beg leave to ask them if336
THE BOOK OF GOD.
they have not in some of the Adyta of St. Peter's
Church a column, or lithos, of very peculiar shape [a
lingam] on which are inscribed the words Zeus Soter
[the Saviour God], or some words of nearly similar
meaning. I have not seen it, but I have it on authority
which I cannot doubt. [The Duke of Sussex, Grand
Master of the Freemasons.] This Mem was understood
by Picus, of Mirandula, who maintained that the closed
D, Mem, in Isaiah, taught us the reasons of the Para-
clete coming after the Messiah. He evidently under-
stood that there was a secret cowcwM under this word
of Isaiah. He was a man much celebrated for his
learning in the antiquities of the Jews, and thus it
appears that my idea taken from Cassini, is no modem
thought, but that a similar opinion respecting this word
was held 400 years ago by a man who, of all others in
modern times, was the most likely to understand it.
i. 172. Niebhur notices the tradition of the
Alban and Latin states being formed of 600 families, and
also that some of the very heavy and oMgst coins called
ctses without inscriptions have the head of a young man
on one side wearing a P/tri/yMtw	and on the reverse
a w/tee/ with six spokes, which indicated the Naros.ENOCH.
337
These secrets are indicated in the Mystic Cross, which I
take from Rubenius and Beger. It consists of Olive
Leaves and Lotus-Rays of Light blended ; six of each
to indicate the Haros; Twelve to signify the Messianic
appearances. The Circle, with a point in the centre,
indicates Sol-Ipse, God, the Universe, or Yoni verse, and
the Holy Spirit. One of the ecclesiastical ornaments of
the Papal Church represents many of the mystic secrets of
the Apocalypse and of the Higher Mysteries. It is in the
Q338	THE BOOK OF GOD.
shape of the shield of David, or double triangle, the emblem
of God the Creator, and the Holy Spirit, or Passive Power.
It is a Star of six points which we know symbolized the
Naros. It contains Rimmon, or the Pomegranate, a
type of the fruitful Womb of Nature ; this occupies the
centre ; within it is the Starry Universe, still further illus-
trated by the two crescents or New Moons, in which the
old peoples adored the Spirit of God. There are ten fleur-
de-lys heads to signify the Ten Indian Incarnations (13).NOTES TO BOOK III.
Note 1 (page 181).—But the apocryphal books were not those
only on which destructicn fell. Those also were made away with
which diminished the power or the profits of the priests and
Levites. This object began to shew itself first in the burning of
* books at Antioch as described in the Acts of the Apostles, and
was continued by a succession of councils, till the last canon of
the Council of Trent against heathen learning. Anacaiypsis, i.
565. The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel (see Part I., 409), says
Nimrod, are no longer extant, having been for some reason or
other omitted from the Canon by the restorers of the Temple,
iii. 362. Josephus, in his ^fniiyud., lib. 8, writes, That Solomon
composed Books of Songs, 1005; of Parables and Similitudes,
3000 books; and that he disputed of every kind of plant, as in
like manner of beasts, fishes, and all other living creatures, &c.,
for he was not ignorant of, neither did he leave unexamined any
being or nature, but philosophized of all things, eminently ex-
pounding their nature and properties, &c. And Eusebius writes,
that these Books of Solomon's proverbs and songs wherein he
discoursed of the nature of plants and of all kinds of animals, as
also of medicine or the curing of diseases, Mere removed out o/ Me
tray Ay J/exe&iaA, because the people did thence seek the curing
of their diseases miMoui recourse to Cod (that is, to the priests)
ybr Me same :—so that it was a matter of almost equal indifference
to a Hebrew whether he forged or destroyed one of the Books
called sacred. It is a matter of wonder, however, that they left
so much in the Old Testament as proves that it cannot be an
inspired work, and that its writers generally had only the lowest
notions of the Supreme. Take, for instance, that miserable account
of the entertainment of the Trinity by Abraham given in Gen.
xviii. 8, on which the Bishop of Ely, in the <%?ea&er's CbmmenMry,
is obliged thus to write : That spiritual visitants, though in human
form, should eat, has been a puzzle to many commentators.
Josephus and Philo say, d Mas in appearance oniy. If the Angels
Aad assumed Auman (todies though but for a time, there would
Q
2340
THE BOOK OF GOD.
have been nothing strange in their eating. In any case the food
may have been consumed miraculously or not : and the eating of
it was a proof that the visit of the angels to Abraham was no
mere vision, but a true manifestation of heavenly beings ! ! The
reverend Bishop does not tell us where the Angels, or the Trinity
rather, found these bodies which they assumed, or what they did
with them when their mission was completed ; nor does he say
wAy they assumed three hungry bodies at all. He does not seem
to be in the least aware that to connect ideas of eating and drink-
ing and digestion with the Celestial, is ignorance if not blasphemy;
and he asks us to swallow down the whole fable of abomination
as if it were really true. Part I., 103, 443. Let us now hear
what is said by the reverend Dr. Chalmers as to the majesty of
the Universe whereof this mighty Spirit is Lord and Maker.
After expatiating on the heights and depths explored, and the
wonders unfolded by the telescope and microscope, he observes
that the splendour and variety of the Universe would suffer as
little Ay /Ae anmAi/afum o/ at world KAe ours, and all that inherit
it, as the verdure ftnd sublime magnitude of the forest would
suffer by /Ac de^rucdou o/ a siwy/e /eq/, and the myriads which
inhabit its surface. And he continues : Now, on the grand scale
of the Universe, we the occupiers of this ball, which performs its
little round among the suns and systems whieh astronomy has
unfolded, may feel the same littleness and the same insecurity
as the meanest of those insects. We differ from the leaf only in
this circumstance, that we require the operation of greater elements
to destroy us—and these elements exist. And yet it is for this
contemptible atom in Infinite Space that the God who made this
almost boundless Universe, with its millions of spheres, filled
with countless myriads of living and glorious Spirits, is supposed
to have assumed human shape, to have digested veal with Abra-
ham, and broiled fish with Peter, to have spent many years
mending chairs and tables for the Jew furniture brokers of
Jerusalem, and finally to have died a death of shame and agony
on the cross, between a couple of thieves ! Those who believe
with Darwin, that they are really but apes and monkeys, may
have this degraded view of God—no others can. Upon this man,
I insert the following observations, taken from the Commrnfary,
and which are about the only valuable ones which it contains: On
the question of man's direct creation, it says, in distinction to
the hypothesis of development, and on his original position as a
civilized being, not as a wild barbarian, we may remark, firstly,
it is admitted, even by the theorists themselves, that in the pre-NOTES TO BOOK III.
341
sent state of the evidence the records beneath the earth's surface
give no support to the hypothesis, that every species grew out of
some species less perfect before it. TAere is not an anbroAen clmin
o/* continuity. At times, new and strange forms suddenly appear
upon the stage of life, with no previous intimation of their
coming. Secondly; In those creatures, in which instinct seems
most fully developed, it is impossible that it should have grown
by cultivation and successive inheritance. In no animal is it
more observable than iu the bee ; but the working bee only has
the remarkable instinct of building and honey-making so peculiar
to its race ; it does not inherit that instinct from its parents, for
neither the drone nor the queen-bee builds or works ; it does not
hand it dow n to its posterity, for itself is sterile and childless.
Mr. Darwin has not succeeded in replying to this argument.
Thirdly. CivMtzcdion, as /ar as all eajperieHce goes, Aas always
been learned /rom wilAoul. No extremely barbarous nation has
ever yet been found capable of initiating civilization. Retrogres-
sion is rapid, but progress unknown, until the first steps have
been taught. (See Abp. Whately, ' Origin of Civilization,' the
argument of which has not been refuted by Sir John Lubbock,
' Prehistoric Man.') Moreover, almost all barbarous races, / no!
wltoliy without tradition, believe tAemselves la Aave been once in a
more civilized state, io Aave come /com a more /avowed land, to
have descended from ancestors more enlightened and powerful
than themselves. Fourthly. Though it has been asserted without
any proof that man, when greatly degenerate, reverts to the type
of the monkey, just as domesticated animals revert to the wild
type ; yet the analogy is imperfect and untrue. Man undoubtedly,
apart from ennobling influences, degenerates, and losing more and
more of the image of his Maker, becomes more closely assimilated
to the brute creation, the earthly nature overpowering the spiri-
tual. But that this is not natural to him is shewn by the fact,
that under such conditions of degeneracy, tAe race gradually be-
comes en/eeAled, and al lengtA dies out ; whereas the domesticated
animal, which reverts to the type of the wild animal, instead of
fading away, becomes only the more powerful and the more pro-
lific. TAe wild state is natural to tAe brutes, Aat tAe civilized is
natara? to man. Even if the other parts of the Darwinian hypo-
thesis were demonstrable, tAere is not a vestige o/ evidence tAat
tltere ever existed any Aeast intermediate between a^es and men.
Apes too are by no means the nearest to us in intelligence or
moral sense, or in their food or other habits. It also deserves to
be borne in mind, that even if it could be made probable that342
THE BOOK OF GOD.
man is only an improved ape, no physiological reason can touch
the question, whether God did not, when the improvement reached
its right point, breathe into him " a living soul," a spirit which
goeth upward, when bodily life ceases. This at least would have
constituted Adam a new creature, and the fountain-head of a new
race. Vol. I., 4.3. "TheSpeaker'sCommentary"hasbeenreviewed
in a recent number of the Go//. GeA Anzeiyen, by Professor Ewald.
I subjoin some extracts from his article:—"We have in these
volumes general introductions to the Pentateuch, and in particular
to Genesis, then to Exodus, and Leviticus, and so on. But there
is no /race o/* any ezacZ AnowMye of /Ae ea/en/ and wdne of /Ae fn-
vea/iya/ion-s and reauZZs o/ our nmdern science on /A At di^cul/ yround-
Nay, what is worse, the plan and character, as here exhibited,
of the inquiry into so complicated a subject, are destitute of all
scientific impulse and elevation. Thus, the question whether
Moses is the author of the Pentateuch or not plants itself before
the authors at the very threshold of the investigation, like a
monster which guards the door with furious gestures, and
threatens to swallow up any one who will move a foot over the
entrance with the view of penetrating into the house. Our
science has long recognized that, in an historical point of view,
nothing can be more groundless, and, at the same time, nothing
in the matter itself more prejudicial to our certain knowledge of
things, than to propound, in so coarse and rough a fashion, and
so stifHy to set up, this question whether Moses composed the
Pentateuch as it stands during his lifetime, and then to make the
credit of this book, and, by consequence, of the Bible also,
dependent on the answer to this question. .	.	. It is also in
pursuance of such an unscientific science that the entire disserta-
tion on the Pentateuch is in this work reduced to three heads—
(1) an attempt on the author's part to shew that Moses couAI
have written the Pentateuch (but what couM not Moses have
done, and what can not every one do even now, according to the
unfounded presuppositions which have been entertained of him ?);
and then a collection of (2) external and (3) internal testimonies
to prove that he ac/uoMy composed it, which is adduced without
any serious reflection that not one of these desiderated testimo-
nies actually establishes what it is brought to prove." After-
wards the critic proceeds:—"We can, in conclusion, only
sincerely lament that the great majority of the clergymen of the
English Episcopal Church in our day are so little disposed to
comprehend what is their fairest task and their best duty"—i.e.,
to understand the Bible more correctly, and apply it as theNOTES TO BOOK III.
343
Reformers did. Many excellent clergymen, he says, understood
this. "But until the great majority of the clergy rise to a better
spirit, all must proceed in these dark and unfruitful paths, with-
out any security that sooner or later a sudden and all-destroying
storm shall not Aurst ybrtA, and overtake AotA /Ae spiritual headers
and tAose wAom tAey guide on tAese desolate pat/n, and Aqpelessty
ot'erwAe/m tAent."
Note 2 (page 182).—The beauty and clearness with which the
celestial polity is laid open in both the APOCALYPSE and the Book
of Enoch, are beyond all praise ; by these qualities no less than
by their especial grandeur, their divine origin is established. If
God, says Lardner, make a Revelation, intended for the general
benefit of mankind, one would expect it should be clear. Letter
io Aord jBarrington. Who can doubt that this is true ? Yet who
would venture to assert that the common Apocalypse or the
fictitious Book of Enoch, with their thrice-inyolved perplexities,
and still more wild explanations of those perplexities, could ever
be made clear to any 1 The first has received at least a thousand
explications, each one different from all the rest; the second bids
fair to have a hundred. This necessarily followed from the
jumble into which they had got. But in their true and perfect
form they are not susceptible of any other explication but that
which I have given. This alone and of itself would demonstrate
their truth. The APOCALYPSE, says De Wette, is the only pro-
pAetieal AooA which is executed on the plan of a progressive and
continually expanding whole. How true this is when applied to
my republication of it ; but how inapplicable if addressed to the
vulgar edition. How true also is it if this Book of Enoch be
compared with that of Dr. Laurence.
Note 3 (page 205).—There is a note in Nimrod iv. 458, which
shews how we should interpret these arcane allusions. The
earliest magic (says lamblichus of Babylon) was top ptutop,
that of the Mice, and so the Mysteries are called from the Mice.
Some people are fabled to have been hunted down, or devoured by
rats or mice ; such as Popel II., King of Poland, with his whole
family ; Herburtus de Fulstin ; Hatto, the second archbishop of
Mentz ; Wilderolf, Bishop of Strasburg, arcano Dei eonsdio ac
p/dicio a muriAus dewatus; a certain nobleman whose name I
have not met with belonging to the Court of Emperor Henry II.,
and divers others. A understand these people to have been con-
demned to death in the assassin tribunals, and pursued to
destruction by the ^ues or mice of the Mysteries. The same344
THE BOOK OF GOD.
system of disguise is said to be pursued by the Mormons of
Utah, who call their assassins Destroying Angels.
Note 4 (page 216).—In the Epistle of Saint Clement to the
Corinthians, he thus alludes to the Phoenix. Let us consider,
beloved, how the Lord does continually shew us, that there shall
be a future resurrection, of which he has made our Lord Jesus
Christ the First-fruits, raising him from the dead. Let us con-
template, beloved, the resurrection that is continually made
before our eyes. Day and night manifest a resurrection to us.
The night lies down, and the day arises ; again the day departs,
and the night comes on. Let us behold the fruits of the earth.
Everyone sees how the seed is sown. The sower goes forth and
casts it upon the earth ; and the seed which when it was sown
fell upon the earth dry and naked, in time dissolves; and from
the dissolution, the great power of the providence of the Lord
raises it again, and of one seed many arise, and bring forth fruit.
Let us consider that wonderful type of the resurrection which is
seen in the Eastern Countries, that is to say, in Arabia. There is
a certain bird called a Phoenix ; of this there is never but one at
a time, and that lives six hundred years. And when the time of
its dissolution draws near, that it must die, it makes itself a nest
of Frankincense and Myrrh, and other spices, and which, when
its time is fulfilled, it enters and dies. But its flesh putrifying,
breeds a certain worm, which being nourished with the Juice of
the dead bird, brings forth feathers ; and when it is grown to a
perfect state, it takes up the nest in which the bones of its parent
lie, and carries it from Arabia into Egypt, to a city called Helio-
polis, and flying in open day in the sight of all men, lays it upon
the altar of the sun, and so returns from whence it came. The
priests then search into the records of the time, and find that it
returns precisely at the end of six hundred years. And shall we
then think it to be any very great and strange thing for the Lord
of all to raise up those that religiously serve Him in the assurance
of a good faith, when even by a bird he shews us the greatness of
his power to fulfil his promise? For he says in a certain place,
Thou shalt raise me up, and I will confess unto thee. And again,
I laid me down and slept and awaked, because thou art with me.
And again Job says, Thou shalt raise up this Resh of mine, that
has suffered all these things. See Part III., General Index, s. v.
Phoenix. Note that the Paulite institution of the Feast of Palms
and Palm Sunday is founded on the Apocalypse and Enoch-
Numa instituted the festival of the Invincible Sun, Au/ah'a <S'o/is
JavicM, which was celebrated on the 25th of December, whence
our Christmas Day.NOTES TO BOOK III.
345
Note 5 (page 221).—Ogham, which is a secret character, like
that which Enoch learned, is pronounced Oum, and is the Hindu
Om, and Aum, or Ineffable Name. Higgins says : It a person
will think deeply, he will have no difficulty in forming an idea
how, when the art of writing was secret, a written ?ror</ wouM Ae
mapicaA A few lines scrawled in the presence of a person on a
bit of leaf or bark, might be given to him, and he might be told
whoever is a magician or initiated, on seeing that scrawl, will
know your name or any other desired fact. A person must think
deeply on this, or he will not see the force of the argument,
which arises from the dupe having no idea of the nature or power
of conveying knowledge by symbols. As the Chaldaean priests
were the only people who understood the secret of writing, it
followed that they were all magi or magicians; and, when the
secret did begin to creep out, all letters were magical or superna-
tural. This and some other secrets—the telescope, astronomy,
the loadstone, made the Chaldaeans masters of the world, and
they became Moguls. Mogul is but Al Mog, TAe Jfcye. On this
account all the princes of India desire to be invested with the
petdium by the old Mogul of Delhi, successor of Gengis Khan of
Tartary, the last Incarnation of Divine Wisdom. The mythos at
last always reverts to its birth place, Indian Tartary—the Mount
Soluria, the snow capped Meru, where the Gods sit on the sides
of the North. How the Mogul comes to be Lord paramount of
the world I shall explain in a future book. Anacatypsis, ii. 175.
He afterwards adds : It is a fact not hitherto explained that the
native Hindoo princes formerly solicited (and even yet, if the
British did not prevent it, would solicit) investiture in their
dominions by the hand of the Mogul at Delhi, though he is a
Mohammedan and they are followers of Christna or of the Brah-
mins. The reason is found in his being supposed to be a descen-
dant of Gengis Khan, who was believed to be an Avatar a
Vicrama ditya ; and, as such, entitled to universal dominion—a
right to which dominion is believed still to exist in his lineal
descendant. The fact of the Hindoo princes soliciting investiture
by the hand of the Mahomedan Mogul may be accounted for by
the theory which I advocate, that Mohamed also is considered by
them to have been an Avatar, as he was'certainly considered by
the Afghans. * *	* On this rests their claim or title of Son
of the Sun and Moon, which at first appears to us so monstrously
ridiculous. The Empire of Gengis Khan was called the Wise
Government, or TAe Government o/* Wisdom, and his name was
Zin. Respecting this prince see in the Ency. Brit. art. Mogul,
Q 3346
THE BOOK OF GOD.
299, &c., the pedigree from Japhet, the romantic account of his
ancestors for 400 years, his inauguration by a prophet, the change
of his name from Temujin, and the belief of his subjects that he
was entitled to possess the whole world. This inauguration of
Gengis took place in the 13th century, when in Europe the Mil-
lenium was expected, when all men were looking out for some one
fo come. Gengis Khan marched into China in A. D. 1211, ii.
352 3.
Note 6 (page 228).—The Hebrew year was shorter than the solar
year by eleven days—after three years they insert a thirteenth
month, which they call Ve-Adar, or a second Adar. How far the
Jewish computation by lunar years, their ignorance of astronomy,
and want of exact tables, may have increased their difficulties we
need not say. Butthese, and many more reasons, which we willingly
omit, have induced a great number of learned chronologers,
ancient and modern, such as St. Jerom, Scaliger, Vossius, Gere-
brand, and others, to think it next to impossible to adjust the
Jewish chronology by those few books of theirs that are extant.
t7hit,er#a% 7/isfory, ii. 226. We have seen that the year
in Adam's time consisted, or was thought to consist, of 360 days
only. The sudden alteration in the Earth's course around the
Sun, which produced the Deluge of Atlantis, doubtless was the
cause of its being lengthened to its present number of days. But
this change was known only to the most scientific of the pontiffs
of the true Church, and many centuries passed before it was
known even to the learned. It is said by Syncellus that the year
of 365 days was established by Asis, or Aseth, who began to
reign over Egypt about 1772 years before Christ, and who sat
about fifty years on the throne. From this statement we might
infer that the year of 360 days had been in use before the time of
Asis ; but from the accounts of Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus, it
would appear that the five days had been intercalated even pre-
viously to the birth of Osiris and Isis—that is, in ages which we now
call prehistoric. I therefore conclude that A ata had only reformed
the calendar, or had changed the f/tofA, or commencement of the
year. Asis, as we know, was a Messianic name ; it is Azez, and
Hesus, and Jesus. The Asis here alluded to was probably Brigoo,
or Zaratusht. When Diodorus mentions a thing as done in the
days of Osiris and Iris, he means in days of primeval antiquity ;
unless, indeed, the word "earthly" is prefixed to Osiris, it always
signifies either God or the Sun : when so prefixed it means one of
the Heavenly Messengers. See Part III, vii. The profoundly
learned Higgins says: That the work called the Apocalypse of St.NOTES TO BOOK III.
347
John is of tery yrectt antiquity is clearly proved, by the fact that
it makes the year only 360 days long; the same length that it is
made in the third book of Genesis, as Bailli has proved, and Dr.
Hales admitted. It assigns 1260 days to three years and a half
(cap. ix. 2, 3 ; xii. 6, 14 ; kiii. 5, and Calmet in voce, year). The
pions get over these matters by saying that this was the pro-
phetic year. It is impossible to help smiling at the credulity of
these good people. No reason can be too absurd to be received
by them, ^nocaiypsis, i. 577.
Note 7 (page 261).—About the year 1780 great excitement was
produced in the south of France by the extraordinary power of
discovering, or divining, subterranean springs and waters, mani-
fested by a poor herdsman of Bouvantes in the province of Dau-
phiny, named Antoine Bleton. These marvellous talents were soon
put into requisition, and Bleton speedily acquired great fame by
his numerous discoveries of water, by which the many who em-
ployed him w ere enriched. He shortly attracted the notice of a
well-known sarcnf, M. Thouvenel, who devoted a pamphlet to a
relation and investigation of the facts which had come beneath
his notice. Three years later M. Thouvenel, whose adherence to
Hietomswc had drawn upon him a host of antagonists, published
a second pamphlet replete with interesting and important matter,
among which will be found a summary of the discussion, the
affidavits by which the alleged discoveries of Bleton were authen-
ticated, and a most curious narrative of the excursions made by
M. Thouvenel, with Bleton and another person similarly endowed,
as his assistants, in pursuance of a commission from the king, to
analyse the mineral and medicinal waters of France. About the
year 1690, a power was attributed to the divining rod, which till
then it had not been held to possess. A poor mason of Saint
Vecan, also in Dauphiny, asserted that with a w and he could not
only discover water and metals, but also the misdeeds of robbers
and assassins. The fullest narrative of his proceedings will
be found in a pamphlet by a M. de Vagny, procureur du roi, at
Grenoble. This is entitled (the title being translated) " Marvellous
History of a Mason, who, guided by the divining rod, followed a
murderer during forty-five hours upon land, and more than thirty
hours upon water !" Billingsley, in his "Agricultural Survey of
the County of Somerset," (Bath, 8vo, .1797), speaks of the faith
held in that county by the Mendip miners in the efficacy of the
divining rod:—" The general method of discovering the situation
and direction of these seams of ore (which lie at various depths,
from five to twenty fathoms, in a chasm betw een two benches of348
THE BOOK OF GOD.
solid rock) is by the help of the divining rod, vulgarly called
josing; and a variety of strong testimonies are adduced in sup-
porting this doctrine. Most rational people, however, give but
little credit to it, and consider the whole as a trick. Should
the fact be allowed, it is difficult to account for it; and the
influence of the mines on the hazel rod seems to partake so much
of the marvellous, as almost entirely to exclude the operation of
known and natural agents. So confident, however, are the com-
mon miners of the efficacy, that they scarcely ever sink a shaft but
by its direction ; and those who are dexterous in the use of it
will mark on the surface the course and breadth of the vein ; and
after that, with the assistance of the rod, will follow the same
course twenty times following, blindfolded." M. Thouvenel
arrived at the conviction that the phenomena of the divining rod
were attributable to magnetism or electricity ; a similar opinion
is also formed by M. Formey, secretary of the Academy of Berlin,
in his article on the subject in the Z)icfio^?Mtire AJncycfppedhyMt.
It appears that Bleton became aware of the presence of water,
&c., by an internal " commotion," as he termed it, and was in no
way dependent for the discovery upon the hazel rod, which from
the time of Moses and the Chaldaean soothsayers, to that of
Sidrophel, cuts so important a figure in the operation. So also
the	of Spain, to whom is ascribed the same faculty of
discovering hidden water without the agency of the rod; together
with a keenness of precipiency not possessed by others. Upon
this the QuuWerfy	remarks:—"Rejecting, however, the
supernatural powers of vision which have been ascribed to them,
and in which children bom on Good Friday are also believed to
share, it is not unlikely that by long experience, and attending to
indications which escape the less experienced eye, they may be
able to give a tolerable guess at the existence of subterranean
waters. Something similar is told of the Arabs of the Desert by
a modem traveller, who says that they have an uncommon facility
in discovering different wells by atmospherical or other signs,
which do not affect the senses of an European." It would seem,
on the other hand, that the rod itself has been held to possess in-
dependent powers, and to be able to make the discovery with-
out the intervention of the human operator.
Note 8 (page 286).—A female Pantheic figure in silver, with
the borders of the drapery plated with gold, and the whole
finished in a manner surpassing almost anything extant, was
among the things found at Macon on Saone in 1764, and published
by Count Caylus. (7'om. vii., y?. lxxi.) It represents theUniversalNOTES TO BOOK III.
349
Mother, with the mural crown on her head, and the wings of
pervasion growing from her shoulders, mixing the productive
elements of heat and moisture, by making a libation upon the
Hames of an altar from a golden patera, with the usual knob in
the centre of it, representing probably the lingam. On each side
of her head is one of the Dioscuri, and upon a crescent, supported
by the tips of her wings, are the first Seven Messengers, signified
each by a bust resting on a globe. In her left hand she holds two
cornucopias, with busts of Apollo and Diana ; the Sun and Moon,
signifying the conjunction in the Naronic Cycle. The reader will
see the Dioscuri, or two Lions of Jid, that is, the Eighth and
Ninth Messengers, in one of the prints in the folding plate.
Note that the Disa or Isa of the North was represented by a
conic figure in a net. This goddess is the Isis whom the ancient
Suevi, according to Tacitus, worshipped ; for the initial letter of
the first name appears to be an article or prefix joined to it ; and
the Egyptian Isis was occasionally represented, as in the Isiac
Table, and in Olaus Rudbeck (Aff. ii. 209), enveloped in a net,
exactly as the Scandinavian goddess was at Upsal. This goddess
is delineated on the sacred drums of the Laplanders accompanied
by a Child, or a Messiah, similar to Egyptian Orus in the lap of
Isis; anfe 176.
Note 9 (page 296).—Hesiod, says Nimrod, ii. 529, was regarded
as one of the mystically regenerated, or twice-born; and Pindar
wrote an inscription for him :
Farewell, thou wisest teacher of mankind,
Hesiod, twice born and twice to death consigned.
J/y oriyincd country, says Taliesin, a mystic name for the Messenger
with the Cymric Druids, (Ac region o/* CAeruAim. Gunn's Nen-
nius, p. 41. And he boasts of having associated with Enoch and
Elias. Even Herod the Tetrarch believed in this metempsychosis,
for he said of Jesus, TAis is JoAm tAc	u'Ao is rise?}_/rt?na iAe
dead. Matt. xvi. 14. Origen affirmed that the soul of Saint John
was sent from heaven, paradise, or some other place to assume the
body, and that his soul was more ancient than his body, and pre-
viously subsisting, and he insinuated that his body contained the
soul of Elijah. In Evang. Johan, ii., p. 180. Hesiod's age and
history are altogether mythical, and his obscure poem, which has
come down to us with several interpolations, is one of the oldest
works in existence. I have shewn in Part II., 472, that Hesiod
had the APOCALYPSE. He was probably an Enochian priest. His
name is an analogue, as Nimrod says, of Hesus. The Talmudists
maintain that the soul of Esau revolved into Hesus or Jesus of350
THE BOOK OF GOD.
Nazareth.	iv. 596. So the soul of Cain passed in three
divisions into three cotemporary men, Korah the Israelite, Jethro
the Midianite, and the Egyptian whom Moses slew ; <?u<s onrnes
Ires fanren sunf /tomo unus omnino, as Rabbi Jizschak writes.
Note 10 (page 320).—The Mythologists gave out that Atlas
supported heaven: one reason for this notion was that upon
Mount Atlas stood a Temple to Coelus [Cali or Koila, the Holy
Spirit]. It is mentioned by Maximus Tyrius in one of his disser-
tations, and is here, as in many other instances, changed to xotXo:,
hollow. The temple, says Bryant, was undoubtedly a cavern
[like Elora or Elephanta] ; but the name is to be understood in
its original acceptation as Coel, the house of God, to which the
natives paid their adoration. This mode of worship among the
Atlanteans betrays a great antiquity, as the temple seems to have
been merely a vast hollow in the side of the mountain, and to
have had in it neither image, nor pillar, nor stone, nor any mate-
rnal object of adoration. This Atlas (of which I have been speak-
ing) is a mountain, and of a tolerable height, which the natives
esteem both as a Temple and a Deity ; and it is the great object
by which they swear, and to which they pay their devotions.
The cave in the mountain was certainly named Coel, the house of
God, equivalent to Coelus of the Romans. To this the people
made their offerings; and this was the heaven which Atlas was
supposed to support. It seems to have been no uncommon term
among the Africans. There was a city in Libya named Coel,
which the Romans rendered Coelu. There are plenty of people
who, taking it literally, laugh at the notion of Atlas supporting
the heavens, and who pity the Gentiles for their belief. But it is
not more incredible than some of the things which we read in a
book circulated by millions, as if to diffuse a knowledge of our
credulity over all the earth. It would be difficult, says Drummond
in his (ZMiptM Juduicus, to imagine a more singular history than
that which relates to the construction of the Tabernacle and of
the Temple, contained in the Old Testament. The Deity is repre-
sented as giving the pattern of both, as ordering the whole fur-
niture, and as descending to the most minute details concerning
the arrangement. Nothing is left unnoticed by the Divine Archi-
tect, who condescends to speak with amazing precision and
familiarity, both of the ornaments and of the utensils: of lintels,
curtains, fringes, rings, tongs, tables, dishes, bowls, spoons, and
candlesticks. This, however, is not all. The Tabernacle and
the Temple were inhabited by the Deity. The God of Nature
and of the Universe, the Creator and Preserver of all things, theNOTES TO BOOK III.
351
Ineffable and Primordial Being who called into existence all those
Suns and Planets which roll through the boundless regions of
Space—the sole God, fixed his residence in a box made of shittim
wood, and overlaid and lined with gold. Upon this box too the
Deity was carried about by a barbarous horde of robbers. The
whole of this history, if literally taken, is surely very strange and
astonishing. There can be no doubt, however, that it obtains
implicit credit among the generality of Christians, who, without
enquiring into the spirit and character of the ancient Oriental
writings, are firmly persuaded that facts only are recorded in the
book of the Old Testament. ... I confess myself to be one
of those who find it impossible to reconcile the histories related
in the Old Testament, if literally taken, to my notions either of
the goodness or greatness of God. Who indeed that has any just
notions of the Supreme Being can believe that the Deity did in
fact either sit down to breakfast with Abraham, or talk to Moses
about pans and shovels, and fleshhooks and firepans ? Who can
believe that the Eternal and Unchangeable God did that in anger
one day for which He was sorry the next. If these things be
taken literally, there can be nothing more inconsistent with true
theology ; and most surely w should be the first to laugh if an
Indian were to tell us that 7tM God was so wry apt to c/tanye /o's
mind. This extract from Drummond's learned work may be sup-
plemented by a theses on a cardinal point of petro-paulite belief,
viz., the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
I propose to state, says my author, a few problems that have
arisen in my mind, in investigating for myself the Biblical his-
tory of the resurrection of Christ. I assume that the gospels of
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were written by &nou?n persons,
whose names they bear, and that they were all eye-witnesses of
facts recorded by each ; that their written testimony has come
down to us with absolute eertainty of being in their own words,
without interpolation, or alteration, or suppression. I assume a
great deal. It might be difficult to substantiate all these points,
which yet are absolutely necessary to prow the fact of Christ's
resurrection.
I propose to look at the recorded facts, so as to view the resur-
rection, not as a simple article of belief, but as a number of par-
ticulars. I wish to make my creed on this subject more
minute :—
1st. Who came first to the sepulchre 1
Matthew Bays, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. Mark
says, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James (the other352
THE BOOK OF GOD.
Mary of Matthew), and Salome. Luke says, Mary Magdalene
and Mary the mother of James, and Joanna and other women.
John says, Mary Magdalene.
Here I discover that none but John wrote from personal know-
ledge. He, who personally investigated this wonderful and central
fact, says Mary Magdalene came, and told him and Peter.
Well, who was first at the sepulchre ?
I can't tell, I am sure. They all agree that Mary Magdalene
was there, but differ as to the others. I do not think my first
question can be positively answered.
How would Mary Magdalene compare with certain persons who
testify to modern miracles, as to moral character, sanity, general
credibility !
She had once seven devils cast out of her; so once she must
have been a very poor witness before a court of Jewish saints, the
Pharisees—or if the actual devils were denied, she must have
been quite deranged ; in either case, she is a poor witness in such
a momentous case, when compared with the moral and mental
character of thousands who testify to certain strange facts they
declare they have witnessed now a days, and who yet are utterly
disbelieved, and charitably pronounced insane.
2nd. At what precise time did these women visit the sepul-
chre ?
Matthew says, 'As it began to dawn.' Mark says, ' Very early
in the morning, at the rising of the sun in the Greek, Anafeil
cams /ou AeKou the sun having arisen. Luke says,' Very early
in the morning.' John says, 'Early, when it was yet dark.'
Well, at what precise time did these women visit the sepul-
chre ?
Why, it was clearly very early in the morning, while it was yet
dark, q/?er gunrise /
I am afraid these witnesses, testifying to such a very wonderful
and strange thing, if cross questioned by our modem scribes and
lawyers in our Sanhedrim, would not yrecMe&/ agree here. I fear
the creeds would not be uniform. Sunrise and dark are not pre-
cisely the same to the eyes of sceptics of the nineteenth century,
who are decidedly of opinion that Swedenborg was a lunatic-
3rd. What did these women, or this woman see, when they
came so early to the sepulchre, while it was yet dark, the sun
being up ?
Matthew says they saw an angel, whose raiment was white as
snow, and whose countenance was like lightning, sitting upon the
stone which he, the angel, had rolled away from the mouth of theNOTES TO BOOK III.
353
sepulchre. Mark says, they saw, within the sepulchre, a ' young
man, sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment.'
He mentions that the stone was ' very great.' Luke says, they
found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre, and they entered
in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. ' And it came to
pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men
stood beside them in shining garments.'
John says :—' Mary Magdalene came early, when it was yet
dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from
the sepulchre. Then she runneth and cometh to Simon Peter,
and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them,
They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know
not where they have laid him. Peter therefore went forth, and
that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. So they both ran
together ; and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first
to the sepulchre. And he, stooping down, and looking in, saw
the linen clothes lying ; yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon
Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre and seeth the
linen clothes lie ; and the napkin that was about his head not
lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by
itself. Then went in also that other disciple which came first to
the sepulchre, and he saw and believed. For as yet they knew
not the Scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. Then
the disciples went away again unto their own home. But Mary
stood without at the sepulchre, weeping; and, as she wept, she
stooped down and looked into the sepulchre, and seeth two angels
in white, sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet,
where the body of Jesus had lain.'
Here we have the testimonies of the four witnesses. Let us
imagine it occurred last week in New York City, and now, for
the first time, spread before the learned and pious world. Let us
try and imagine the rigid cross-examination they would be sub-
jected to by the Church and Mechanic Institutes ! What harmony
would they demand ! How microscopic the eyes which w ould
scrutinise every item of the story !
The stone was ' very large.' It is quite probable, then, these
modern good men would argue, that it was not rolled into the
sepulchre, but was quite conspicuous outside of it. Matthew
asserts that the woman saw an angel sitting on this stone with a
shining face and garments. Here a modem	would ask if
angels (ethereal, mental abstractions and breaths) could roll heavy
rocks that were real and no shadows, when he would sneer at the
idea of angels having a part of the body necessary for sitting354<
THE BOOK OF GOD.
down : in a word, that they have no------basis for the rest of the
body, and implying so many other corresponding human organs.
For a given basis for a body and a face, you would not suppose it
was all skin and surface, but would include lungs, and hearts, and
stomachs, and livers, and bowels, and kidneys, and what not. A
pretty story this of an angel sitting on a big rock ! I dare not
say how foolish and insane these poor women would be thought
to-day by our Churches and Academies of Science !
Matthew seems, then, to assert one angel sitting on this very
large rock out of the tomb.
Mark says, they saw a young man sitting in the tomb on the
right side, in a long white garment.
A young man sitting inside! Not exactly the same as Matthew,
I fear our modern sceptics would decidedly hint. Who was this
young man in such a peculiar garment ? Was it a man at all!
Do you suppose it was the same person Matthew called an angel !
And are angels men ? Men are human bodies, and angels are
shining, empty abstractions ! Here is a pretty story for these
women to bring us Rabbis of the people.
Luke says, two men stood there, inside, with shining gar-
ments.
Here our modern critics would remind us of Falstaff's ' men in
buckram.' First, an angel sitting outside on the rock; next, a
young man sitting inside the tomb ; now, two men, standing inside,
with shining garments ! How would a pious Mattison ; learned
and yet unsophisticated doctors of medicine at Buffalo ; high
priests, too, and rulers in our synagogues ; how would they curl
their knowing lips at these trivialities, upon which was based the
most stupendous fact the earth has witnessed! A modern critical
savant even now whispers in my ear, what kind of stuff I sup-
pose their garments were made of ; and who cut and made them
up ?	' Clothes don't grow, you know, in any climes we know of.
Clothes imply matter, tailors, washerwomen, and soap ; clothes'-
lines, clothes'-presses, bureaus, and drawers, and needles, and
other things that our synagogue and our institute know nothing
about.'
An angel sitting upon the rock. A young man sitting inside, in
white clothes. Two men standing inside, in white also.
John, who was an eye-witness, says Mary saw nobody and no
body: that she ran and told Peter and John ; that they ran;
they saw the stone rolled away (did not see the angel sitting on
it with his lightning-like face); went into the tomb one after the
other ; did not see the young man sitting there, nor the two menNOTES TO BOOK III.
355
standing there, both in conspicuous white dresses; they went
homf : and after they were gone, Mary, stooping down, and looking
in, saw two angels sitting inside, one at the head, and the other
at the feet, where the body had lain, and clothed in white.
Not one angel sitting upon the rock ; not one young man sitting
inside; not two men standing inside ; but Mary saw nobody at
first ; neither did Peter nor John ; but afterwards she saw two
angels sitting inside.
Our learned critic says he is willing to let this go to a jury
without a word. He says, ' If one out of the twelve can believe
the physical resurrection of a dead man upon such testimony as
this, the other eleven would petition the court for a writ de /una-
ft'co inyuirendo, and they would take care of the poor fellow in
Doctor Bell's Asylum.'
4th. What did the men or angels say ?
Matthew says, the angels told them not to fear, that Jesus was
risen and not there ; that he would go before, and show himself
unto his disciples in Galilee.
Mark says the same thing.
Luke says, the two men told them he was not there ; that he
had risen, as he had before told them, while in Galilee, it would
happen to him.
John says, that the two angels asked Mary why she wept ?
The same ingenious as well a3 ingenuous critic asks me here
again about this angel; this glittering phantasm ; this intangible,
shining abstraction, sitting on the rock, so large and so solid, with
his white garments made nowhere, out of moonshine, by nobody:
' How could he speak, and make these womeu hear the words ?
You don't suppose he has a real, substantial body, do you, with
tongue, and teeth, and palate, and glottis, and epiglottis, and
chorda vocalis, and trachea, and lungs, and midriff, and muscles
over his ribs ? Do you suppose any of his teeth were decayed,
and that said abstraction ever had the toothache ! Was this his
regular, every-day body, or only his Sunday one, assumed for the
occasion ? And if so, where did he drop it, and what became of
it when he disappeared ? Did anybody find one? Our museums
are empty of any such curiosities, and I have never seen in any
orthodox anatomy the dissection of any such corpus dire/icf.' An-
other friend, a shrewd lawyer, points out that, according to the
first two witnesses, the disciples were commanded to go to Galilee,
and that there Jesus promised to show himself unto them ; while
Luke says they were commanded to ' tarry in Jerusalem,' and
that there alone, and in its close vicinity, he appeared to them ;356
THE BOOK OF GOD.
and that the fourth witness says the angels said nothing about
this ; ' I am afraid your four witnesses will not command much
credit with our modern authorities, who do not like to give full
credence to persons who directly contradict each other.'
' Go into Galilee: there shall ye see him.'
'Tarry at Jerusalem,' there alone they saw him.'
5th. When, where, and by whom was Jesus seen ? Matthew
says, as the two Marys were going to tell the disciples what they
had seen and heard from the angel on the rock. ' Behold, Jesus
met them, saying, All hail! And they came and held him by the
feet, and worshipped him. Then said Jesus unto them, Be not
afraid ; go, tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there
they shall see me. Then the eleven disciples went away into
Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And
when they saw him, they worshipped him ; but some doubted.'
Mark says, ' Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene, out of
whom he had cast seven devils. She went and told them that she
had been with him, as they mourned and wept.' But they did
not believe her. Afterwards, he appeared in another form unto
two of them as they walked, and went into the country. And
they went and told it unto the residue; neither believed they
them.
' Afterward, he appeared unto the eleven, as they sat at meat,
and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart,
because they believed not them which had seen him after he was
risen. And he said unto them, ' Go ye into all the world, and
preach the Gospel to every creature. He that beiievetli, and is
baptised, shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be
damned. And these signs shall follow them that beiieve : in
my name they shall cast out devils; they shall speak with new
tongues ; they shall take up serpents ; and if they drink any
deadly thing, it shall not hurt them ; they shall lay their hands
on the sick, and they shall recover. So, then, after the Lord had
spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the
right hand of God.'
Luke has a different account. He says, the women ' returned
from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven,
and to all the rest.' They had only seen and heard the two
men, ' and their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they
believed them not;' that Peter then saw and looked into the
sepulchre, and saw nobody, and nothing but the grave clothes ;
that Jesus appeared and walked with two of the disciples that
same day, on the road to a little village about three scoreNOTES TO BOOK II.
357
furlongs from Jerusalem ; that he talked with them about these
events, thatand they did not recognise him: that—it being late, and
near evening—they pressed him to tarry with them.
' And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took
bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their
eyes were opened, and they knew him ; and he vanished out of
their sight.' That these two rose up the same hour of that
Sunday, and ' returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven
gathered together, and them that were with them, saying, The
Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. And they
told what things were done in the way, and how he was known
of them in the breaking of bread. And as they thus spake,
Jesus stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be
unto you. But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed
that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto them, Why are ye
troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts ? Behold my
hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see ; for a
1 spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he
had thus spoken, he showed them his hands and his feet. And
while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto
them, Have ye here any meat ? And they gave him a piece of
broiled fish, and of a honeycomb. And he took it and did eat before
them.' That hethen proceeded to expound the Scriptures to them
as to their mission. ' But tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until
ye be endued with power from on high. And he led them out as
far as Bethany; and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them.
And it came to pass while he blessed them, he was parted from
them, and carried up to heaven.' That they then returned to
Jerusalem.
John says, Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene at the tomb
itself ; that she at first did not recognise him; but afterwards did,
when he addressed her, bidding her not to touch him, but to go
and tell his disciples that he would ascend to his Father and their
Father—to his God and their God : that Mary Magdalene came
and told his disciples these things : that when they were assem-
bled that same evening, and the door was shut, 'Jesus came and
stood in their midst, and said to them, Peace be unto you;' that
he showed them his wounds, and that they were glad when they
saw him ; that Thomas doubted all these things; and that,
being again together with closed doors, eight days after, he
came again and stood in their midst, and convinced Thomas of
his real existence; that he again appeared to his disciples at358
THE BOOK OF GOD.
the seA of Tiberias, and conversed with them, and gave them
bread and fish ; and that this was the third time he appeared to
his disciples after his resurrection from the dead.
Luke, or the unknown author of the Acts, states that Jesus did
not ascend into heaven till after forty days from his resurrection ;
and that he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem
till they had received the Holy Ghost. According to Mat-
thew, Jesus met the two Marys as they were going to tell his
disciples.
Mark says he appeared to Mary Magdalene first. Luke says he
first appeared to Simon and another disciple, as they were walking
to Emmaus. John says he first appeared to Mary Magdalene.
Matthew, Mark, and John, nearly agree. Luke differs from them
all.
Now, as to time, and the circumstances when he met those
who first saw him.
Matthew says it was when the two Marys were running to tell
his disciples.
Mark says nothing of the circumstances, but that he afterwards
appeared to two of his disciples as they walked , and after that
to the eleven, when he was received up into heaven.
Luke says the women came and told of seeing the tomb empty
and the angels, but not that they saw Jesus : that he appeared
that day first to the two disciples walking to Emmaus ; next, that
evening, to the eleven in Jerusalem, and that was all: for the
same night he was received up into heaven. (See chap. 24, v. 13,
36—50.)
John says it was by the tomb in the garden ; next, that even-
ing, to the disciples in Jerusalem ; next, about eight days after, to
the same with Thomas ; and fourthly, to them all by the sea of
Tiberias.
Luke, or the author of the Acts, says he was seen of his disci-
ples for forty days before he was received up into heaven.
Paul, lastly, in 1st Cor. 15; 5, 6, 7, 8, says he was first seen of
Peter or Cephas; next of the twelve (as Judas was gone, there were
only the eleven); next of five hundred at once (of which won-
derful thing there is nothing said by any one else) ; next of James
(mentioned in the last ' Gospel of the Hebrews') ; and finally of
all the apostles ; in all five times ; and not having said of the
appearance to the woman or Mary, which, added, makes six
in all.
Matthew says, to the women as they were going to tell the dis-
ciples, and again to the eleven in Galilee.NOTES TO BOOK III.
359
Mark says, to Mary Magdalene, to the two, and finaliy to the
eleven at meat.
Luke says, to the two, then to the eleven ; and that, finally, he
ascended to heaven the same night; while he says in Acts he
continued to be seen for forty days.
John says, to Mary Magdalene; then, to the eleven in the city ;
eight days after, to the same with Thomas; and fourthly and
finally, to them all by the sea of Tiberias. Paul differs from them
all, as to where he was seen by the disciples. Matthew makes it
alone in the mountain in Galilee. Mark and Luke and J ohn say
that it was alone in Jerusalem and its immediate vicinity ; except
that John says that the third time he was seen by his disciples,
was by the sea of Tiberias.
Again as to what he did:
According to Matthew, he went at once to Galilee, where he
commanded his disciples to follow him. There he was seen by
them, 'though some'even of them 'doubted.' Nothing is said
of aught else, or of his ascension.
Here my scientific scribe, a worthy person in high repute in his
synagogue, asks,' Why or how any that knew him should or could
doubt, if it was simply his inanimate body raised to life again,
and capable of eating and digesting real, materia], and broiled fish
and honey-comb ? Had he changed so much that his intimate
friends did not know him 1 If so, how do we know they were
not, after ali, mistaken ? Did he travel there from the city with-
out clothes, as he had left them in the tomb 1 If not, where did
he get them 1 I shall refer the excellent scribe to our professors
of matter-of-fact science, to satisfy the reasonable questions of
my material friend. I am not aware of any material philosophy
that solves the peculiar difficulty.
Mark says, read what he says, about his appearing in another
form to the two ; and then how he upbraided the eleven, because
they did not believe Mary Magdalene, ' out of whom he had cast
seven devils,' nor the two who had seen him in another form.
My learned and truly respectable friend, the scribe, cannot
comprehend why they deserved this severe rebuke. What!
Believe that a dead man was alive, and walking about, and even
talking, in the face of all our science, founded on the universal
experience of all sensible men for ages ! And on what scientific
testimony and proof ? Why, merely on the report of this poor
woman, who was notoriously mad, or much worse; or on the
witness, beside, of two men, one of whom was Peter, whose cha-360
THE BOOK OF GOD.
racter for truth was not, at that particular time, the most
desirable for scientific accuracy with those who wished good
testimony to the facts they were called upon to believe ! I tell
you it is imbecile to believe on the testimony of ten thousand
men, no matter what their character for intelligence, virtue, and
sanity, facts that contradict all our solid science. I tell you ail
things are sheer humbugs or silly crazings, that our material
philosophy does not explain and make plain as the ' multiplication
table.' I have not a word in justification of the ' upbraiding'
bestowed by Jesus upon his unbelieving disciples.
Luke mentions his walking some distance, and conversing with
his two disciples, though they did not know him ; that he
vanished out of their sight just as their eyes were opened ; that
he suddenly came into their midst, and frightened them, as they
supposed they saw a spirit or ghost; that he corrected their mis-
take by making them feel his flesh and bones; and by eating
real, substantial, not spiritual, broiled fish and honey-comb, and
that the same night he ascended into heaven.
I cannot venture to depict the withering contempt with which
my learned and worthy friend asked if I ' had no more proper
and philosophical conception of heaven, than a belief of this story
would indicate ? Heaven, which has no relation to space or the
predicates of gross matter, which is nowhere in space.' That
' flesh and bones ' should ascend there, by rising up through the
atmosphere, carrying within it that broiled fish and honey-comb !
' My dear sir, the testimony of the world could not convince me
of such an absurdity. These witnesses ought to be charitably put
under my friend Dr. Bell's care.
I really do not see what the current philosophy can do with
these facts. I, too, respectfully refer them to the Doctor's con-
sideration.
John says, he came into the midst of his disciples when the
door were shut; spoke to them audibly; showed them his
wounds ; appeared again, eight days after, to them, with Thomas,
through the closed doors, and convinced them of his personal
identity by the most tangible and sensuous proof ; that he after-
wards, at the sea of Tiberias, was seen on the shore by his dis-
ciples ; spoke to them ; gave them fish and bread; and finally,
conversed for some time with Peter.
I commend these statements, with those made by Luke of a
still more inexplicable character, to our scientific associations and
the learned, scrutinising, and sceptical Professors therein. TheyNOTES TO BOOK II.
361
can accept this on the single authority of John, and base thereon
the hope of immortality; and yet deny, and refuse to witness
for themselves, similar phenomena, testified to by thousands of
well-known, sane, virtuous, and intelligent men, their neighbours;
and complacently pity their silly nonsense and their evidently
disordered brains. ProA Putfor / What a jewel is consistency !
6th. How long was he seen after his resurrection 1
Matthew does not say; neither does Mark. Luke says he
ascended to heaven on Sunday night. (See chap. 14, verses 13,
36, 49, 50, and 51.) John does not say, but it was after eight
days had passed. The author of Acts says, for forty days. My
friend does not think they entirely agree. I am sorry, for I really
cannot reconcile these facts, which yet must be all true.
7th. Where did the ascension into heaven finally take place ?
Matthew declares, in Galilee. Mark seems to point out Jerusa-
lem. Luke declares it was at Bethany. John says nothing about
it. The author of Acts says, from Mount Olivet. (Chap. 1, verses
4, 9, and 12.)
In my attempt thus to be more precise in my creed as to the
resurrection of Jesus, I cannot say that these parts that make up
the great whole are very harmonious and satisfactory. He
ascended in Galilee ; he ascended at Jerusalem; he ascended at
Bethany; he ascended at Mount Olivet. All these points are
well established, and equally to be accommodated in the Credo.
There is yet another witness to the fact that Jesus was alive
and seen upon earth, and that his voice was heard for some years
after this. In Acts 9, 13—16, is a very remarkable account of
the sudden conversion of Paul. The same strong facts are related
by Paul himself in chapters 22 and 26. I commend them to the
careful consideration of our modern learned, pious sceptics ; also
chap. 23, ver. 11. I call their particular attention to the remark-
able coincidence of testimony in two of these chapters, chap. 9, v.
7 : ' And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless,
hearing the voice but seeing no one.' Chap. 22, v. 9, ' And they
that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid ; but
they heard not the voice of him that spoke unto me.'
That, my learned and candid friend, the professor, is pleased to
call a remarkably happy coincidence of testimony. Eoth of those
statements are infallibly true, and to be cordially believed ; but
such coincidence in testimony as to any fact that did not happen
eighteen centuries ago, but last week, would dissolve the facts so
authenticated into the most incredible folly. Let us be consistent.
Thus have I critically gone over the testimony, upon the
validity of which are based all the hopes of a life after death to
R362
THE BOOK OF GOD.
so large a portion of the civilised world. I have compared Mat-
thew with Luke, and Mark with John. I have not distorted or
misrepresented ; but, wishing in truth to believe something more
particular as to the fact of Christ's resurrection, behold the result!
Granting that every word in our common Bibles is to be received
as the eternal truth of God, as it appears in the natural sense of the
letter, I have, I think, firmly established the following additional
articles, to be received into the church creed with implicit faith:
I believe that the two Marys came first to the tomb. I believe
that the two Marys, Joanna and other women were the first. I
believe that the two Marys and Salome were the first. I believe
that Mary Magdalene came there first and alone. I believe it was
early in the morning. 1 believe it was yet dark. I believe that
the sun had risen. I believe there was one angel sitting upon the
rock outside of the tomb. I believe there was a young man sit-
ting inside. I believe there were two young men standing inside.
I believe there were two angels sitting inside. I believe the
angel told the disciples to go into Galilee to meet the risen Jesus.
I believe the angels commanded them to tarry in Jerusalem to
meet him. I believe he ascended into heaven from Galilee. I
believe he ascended from Jerusalem. I believe he ascended from
Bethany. I believe he ascended from Mount Olivet. I believe
he ascended within twenty-four hours after his resurrection. I
believe he did not ascend till forty days after his resurrection. I
believe he ascended with the same physical body he had on earth,
and he took up with him into heaven his flesh and bones, as well
as the broiled fish and honey-comb he had just eaten. I believe
he had a body that could pass without obstruction through closed
doors, and instantly vanish. I believe he was seen once only by
his disciples, and once by the women. I believe he was seen once
by Mary Magdalene, and twice afterwards by his disciples. I
believe he was seen by his disciples, and by no one else. I believe
he was seen once by Mary Magdalene, and three times afterwards
by his disciples. I believe he was seen five times by his disciples,
and several times by Paul, several years afterwards. I believe
that, when he first appeared to Paul, the men who were travelling
with him heard his voice, but did not see him. I believe that these
men did not hear his voice, but that they saw him.
This is the revised creed as to the minutiae of that central
event in the world's history, which I earnestly commend to those
who are dissatisfied with the loose and vague generalities of the
common articles of belief.
I have omitted many things equally true. Space, which I haveNOTES TO BOOK III.
363
already so trespassed upon, is wanting to point them out particu-
larly.
If it is good to read the Bible, then the more carefully and
minutely it is read and studied, the better. Protestants know all
this truth.
What is proved, then, to the candid mind by the four Gospel
histories as to the resurrection of Christ ?
For a further elucidation of these and similar difhculties, I refer
my reader to the Ai/e e/* Jesm, written by Dr. Scott of Ramsgate,
a work which ought to be in the hand of every person who really
cares to investigate the career of the Ninth Messenger, and to
examine also into the reasons for the prevalent petro-paulite
creed. And I advise him to supplement his studies by a careful
perusal of 77;e FropAef o/ WbtarefA, an enquiring Volume of
immense power, reasoning, and research, the work of Mr.
Meredith, than whom Wales has never produced a man of whom
it may be more truly proud. The .Border Adrer/iser, of May
31, 1872, in an able review of Mr. Scott's volume, thus speaks
of it:—We have Strauss engaging the highest rank of scholars ;
Renan, in less robust but more popular strain, singing to the
popular ear ; and we have this book before us which discusses the
Life of Jesus in a simpler form still—as it is presented to us in
the English Testament, and as it may be studied without more
thau English scholarship and a clear, firm, logical, and candid
mind. The book does not question the truth of Christianity nor
the reasonableness or unreasonableness of any form of religious
belief, but it inquires whether the New Testament be a genuine
history, and to what extent it is mixed with the fictitious. The
examination is very free, and in following the writer the idea
grows on the reader that Mr. Scott has a good deal of candour and
a quick eye for contradictions and discrepancies. Whether his
reasoning and argument be always sound will be a matter of
opinion, but the book is crammed with argument from beginning
to end, and goes into greater detail than any work of the kind we
have ever seen. Its style is hard and concise, and its spirit is
direct and outspoken—just such a style as best fits criticism and
the practical genius of his countrymen. Though there is no ela-
borate learning paraded on the pages the conclusion of scholars—
Alford and others—are as narrowly examined as the text itself,
and undoubtedly shown to be untenable. It is evident enough
that Mr. Scott has no doubt whatever that much of the Testa-
ment is the very opposite of historical—nay, purely fictitious and
" fabricated," and the effect of his argument, if left unanswered,
B 2364
THE BOOK OF GOD.
will be to confirm thousands in such views. The method mainly
ollowed is to bring together all that is said in the Testament on
one particular subject, and since, according to his Ending, one
sacred writer contradicts another he concludes one or other* of the
statements are untrue, and therefore that the book is not a history.
The laborious patience shown in making those collations is some-
thing wonderful, and the ingenuity displayed in setting one writer
against another, and in extracting the inference, will no doubt by
some readers be at once ascribed to diabolic influence—foreven
in many of our pulpits it is still believed that Satan helps such
writers. There is a strong air of honesty on the pages, and they
state much more than enough to prove that many of our tradi-
tional beliefs and doctrinal inferences deduced from them rest upon
very frail foundations. Perhaps we should state what particular
topics the book deals with, but that would require much space,
and it would be easier to name what portions of the New Testa-
ment are left out. But we may say that it begins with the birth
and early years of Jesus, the genealogies, the narratives of concep-
tion, birth, infancy. From these it passes to the missions of
Jesus and John the Baptist, and discusses pretty fully all that is
written on the relations of the two missions and on the commu-
nications between John and Jesus. The temptation in the wil-
derness, duration of Christ's ministry, the calling of the Disciples,
the discourses of Jesus as referred to in the four respective gos-
pels, the miracles, transfiguration, death, resurrection, appearances
after the resurrection, and hundreds of other topics are brought for-
ward and treated as we have said above. It is a book that is certain
to be widely read by persons and classes not familiar with Strauss
and Renan, and reading it will likely dissipate a great many
notions held upon many of the subjects it handles.
Note 11 (page 321).—To do good on the earth, as contradistin-
guished from laRiwy about it, is the sum and substance of all
true faith in God. This is admirably shewn in one of Sweden
borg's marvellous Visions. I hope I shall not be set down as a
Dreamer for citing the Nomnia of this Enlightened Sage; but I
am quite satisfied that in many cases Swedenborg saw Visions
from Heaven, through the medium of Angelic Powers, or of a
rapt and elevated soul; and that in many others he saw only the
spectacles of his own imagination which painted follies and falla-
cies in the colours of truth. The following is found in the
-dywcalypse /fevealed, vol. ii. 485. Waking, he says, one morning
from sleep, / saw fwo Angels descending oui of heaven, one of* litem
from Me souMern guarler of /tearen, and Me oMer .from Me easternNOTES TO BOOK II.
365
qnar/er o/* Aeaven, Ao/Zt of /item Im cZMtrioZ^ draw;/ Ay wAi/e Z/orses ,*
/Ae cAario/ in wAicZ; /Ae Anye/ y*rom /Ae son/Z; of Aeaven was con-
veyed, eZtone ZiAe siZver, and /Ae cZ/ario/ in wZdcZ; /Ac AnyeZ _/iom /Z/e
eas/ o/* Aeaven was conveyed, sAone ZiAe yoZd ; amZ ZAe reins wAicZ/
/Aey AeZd in ZAeir AaneZs, were re/nZyen/ as /Ae yZandny ZiyZd q/ ZAe
nzo/miny,' /Ans did /Z/ese /wo AnyeZs appear /o ;ne a/ a dis/ance, An/
w/ten /Aey came nearer /Z/ey did ;zo/ appear in cAario's Aw/ in /Z/eir
own anyeZic ybrm, wAicZ/ is Auman ; Ae ?r/a) came y*rom /Z/e eas/ o/*
Aeaven in a s/; i/i i/?y pnrpZe yarmen/, and Ae wAo came y*rom /Ae
sou/A q/ Aeaven in a sA/'niny yarmen/ of Ayacin/Ztas soon as they
were below the heavens in the inferior regions, they ran to meet
each other, as though they strove which should be first, and
mutually embraced and kissed each other. I was informed that
these two Angels, during their life in the world, had been united
in an interior friendship, but that now one was in the eastern
heaven, and the other in the southern ; they are in the eastern
heaven who are under the influence of Zove from the Lord, but
they are in the southern heaven who are under the influence of
wisdom from the Lord. When they had conversed awhile about
the magnificence of their respective heavens, their discourse took
a turn upon this point, whether heaven in its essence is love, or
whether it is wisdom; they immediately agreed that these two
were mutually each other's, but which of them was the origin of
the other, was the subject of debate. The Angel who came from
the heaven of wisdom, asked the other what is love ? to which he
replied, that love originating in the Lord as a sun, is the heat of
life (or vital heat) in angels and men; consequently it is their
life. * * * The angels discoursed on these things spiritually,
and .sp/rduaZ speecZ/ compreAoids /Aousands o/ /Ainys wAicA na/uraZ
speecZ/ canno/ express, and what is wonderful, which cannot be
formed into ideas of natural thought. Remember this, I beseech
you, and when you come out of natural light into spiritual light
as is the case after death, enquire then what faith is and what
charity is, and you will see clearly that yiti/A. is cAari/y in form,
and /Aerefore /Aa/ cAari/y is /Ac aZZ of /ad A, conseyuen/Zy /Zta/ i/ is
/Ae souZ, Zi/e, and essence qf /ai/A, just as affection is of thought,
and as sound is of speech ; and if you desire it, you will see the
formation of faith from charity, like the formation of speech from
sound, because they correspond. After /Ae AnyeZs Aad /tad /Ais
eonve!'sa/ion /Aey depar/ed, and as /Aey re/umed eacZ/ Zo Ais Aeaven,
/Acre appeared s/ars a/ton/ /Z/eir Z/eads; and wZ/en /Ztey were a/
some dis/ancefrom me, /Z/ey seemed ayain /o Ae ineAario/s, asAe/bre.
When these two Angels were out of sight, I saw a Garden on the
right side, where there were olive trees, vines, fig-trees, laurels,366
THE BOOK OF GOD.
and palm-trees, placed in order according to correspondence; I
looked into it, and saw among the trees Angels and Spirits walk-
ing and discoursing; and then a certain Angelic Spirit looked at
me (they are called Angelic Spirits who in the World of Spirits
are prepared for heaven, and afterwards become Angels) ; that
Spirit came out of the Garden to me, and said, Wilt thou go
with me into our Paradise, and thou wilt hear and see wonderful
things ; and I went with him, and then he said to me. These
whom you see, for there are many, are in the affection of truth,
and thence in the light of wisdom ; moreover, there is here a
building, which we call the Temple of Wisdom ; but no one seeth
it who thinks he is very wise, much less does any one see it who
thinks he is wise enough, and still less he who thinks he is wise
from himself ; the reason is, because such are not in the reception
of the light of heaven from the affection of genuine wisdom ;
genuine wisdom consists in a man seeing from the light of heaven
that the things which he knows, understands, and is wise in, are
as little in comparison with that which he does not know, nor
understand, and which he is not wise in, as a drop is when com-
pared to the ocean ; consequently, that what he knows is scarce
anything ; every one who is in this Paradisiacal Garden, and per-
ceives and acknowledges in himself that his own wisdom is so
small comparatively, sees that Temple of Wisdom, for interior
light causetli it to be seen, but not exterior light without it; and
inasmuch as I had often thought this myself, and had from
science, and then from perception, and lastly in consequence of
seeing it from interior light, acknowledged that man has so little
wisdom, lo, it was given men to see that Temple ; the form of it
was wonderful, it was elevated above the ground, of a quadran-
gular shape, the walls were of crystal, the roof of transparent
jaspers elegantly arched, and the foundation consisted of precious,
stones of various kinds ; there were steps to go up to it of
polished alabaster ; at the sides of the steps there was the appear-
ance of lions with their whelps, and then I inquired whether I
might go in, and I was told that I might; wherefore I ascended
the steps, and when I went in, I saw, as it were, Cherubs flying
under the roof but presently vanishing; the floor under our feet
was of cedar, and the whole Temple, from the transparency of its
roof and walls, seemed to be the form of light. The Angelic Spirit
went in with me, to whom I related what I had heard from the
two Angels concerning love and wisdom, as also concerning cha-
rity and faith, and he said, did they not also mention a third ?
and I said what third? He replied, CTse. Love and wisdom,NOTES TO BOOK III.
3G7
without use, are not anything, they are only ideal entities, nor do
they become real until they are in use ; for love, wisdom, and use,
are three things which cannot be separated; if they are separated
neither of them is anything ; love is not anything without wisdom,
but in wisdom it is formed into something, this something into
which it is formed is use, wherefore when love through wisdom
is in use, then it is something; yea, then, first doth it exist; they
are exactly like end, cause, and effect; the end is not anything
but through its cause, in its effect; if you destroy any one of
these three, you destroy all and it comes to nothing. It is the
same with charity, faith, and works; charity without faith is not
anything, nor faith without charity, nor charity and faith without
works, but in works they become something, and a something of
such a nature and quality, as is the use of the w orks. It is the
same with affection, thought, and operation; and the same
with will, understanding, and action. That this is the case
may be seen clearly in this Temple, because the light in which
we are here, is a light illustrating the interiors of the mind.
Moreover, the science of geometry teaches that nothing can
be complete and perfect except it be for a trine, or a compound
of three, for a line is nothing without an area, and an area is
nothing without being formed into a solid, for which reason
one must be drawn into the other, that they may exist and co-exist
in the third. As it is in this, so is it likewise in all and singular
the things created, which end in their third. Hence it is, that
tAree in the Word, understood spiritually, signifies what is com-
plete and entire. This being the case, I could not help wondering
that some profess faith only, some charity only, and some works
only, when, nevertheless, one of them without the others, and one
and the other without the third is not anything. But then I
asked, may not a man have charity and faith, and yet not have
works ? May not a man be in the affection and thought of a
thing, and yet not in the operation of it ? The Angelic Spirit
answered no ; he can be only so ideally, but not in reality, for he
must needs be in the endeavour and will to operate, and will or
endeavour in itself is action, because it is a continued striving to
act, which becometh exterior action when opportunity occurs to
determine it; wherefore endeavour and will, as being interior
action, is accepted by every wise man, because it is accepted by
God, altogether as though it were exterior action, provided it fail
not to operate when opportunity offers.
Note 12 (page 335).—Everything in those days was symbolic.
Worship of the Goat, or the common Jewish religion, was origi-3G8
THE BOOK OF GOD.
nally worship of God, under the Pan (or All) symbol: the images
were made with long beards : men bowed before and touched them:
hence they did the same to Sages and Kings. Note, that Cupid
on ancient medals wearing the mask of Pan, signifies the Messiah
of hove, representing the features of Him who is All. Pan
holding a beautiful Vase, from which a blazing light was emitted,
was one of the forms of lamp used in the Mysteries. So a human
head (the Messenger) emitting flame from the mouth, symbolized
the Tongue of Fire, or the Mouth of God, mentioned ante, section
59. Note that the Piscis Anstra/M, which was an astral allusion
to the Messenger Oannes, Aos a Ari&'an/ star in its ?nontA, that is,
a Tongue of Light or Fire. This shows how beautiful are all the
allusions which the Ancients made to the occult secrets of theo-
logy. I should add here an expression of my acknowledgments
to Dr. Inman, who has kindly favoured me with the loan of some
of the most interesting plates in his great work, A neient Ad/As, and
has permitted me to have stereotypes of others which -vere in
hand for his new edition. I am glad to hear that a large demand
for it has sprung up among our cousins at the other side of the
Atlantic.
Note 13 (page 338).—According to Hippolytus (Hasres. v. 7
97), says Bunsen, the Chaldaaans called the man who was born of
the earth, but who afterwards became a living soul, Adam. But
if it be asked whether this was the name of the first man in their
traditions, we must venture to doubt it. Would Berosus not have
stated so! Eusebius undoubtedly would not have passed over
without notice so marked a resemblance to the Bible narrative.
The whole story in Hippolytus is connected with the Gnostic
god, Adamas, which, although interpreted as a Greek word, may
be suspected of being derived from a Jewish, or post-Christian
source. A/y^t's J'/ace, iv. 373. He then contends that Adam and
Enos are the same person! 385, and finally says : Enos and Adam,
the names of the first men, must necessarily &e considered os idea/:
Havvah the life-giving mother of all living, as betokening woman,
and Hebei, the Vanishing, Aetony to tAe same cateyory. 388. I cite
this, not that I need it, but to show how scholars generally are
now inclined to treat the nonsense creeds of the populace and their
parsons. Bunsen resolves the hero and heroine of the Genesis
tracts into pure ideals ; how much wiser would he have written if
he had known that Adama was Indian Cliadama and Gaudama,
as I have shown already.
END OF VOL I.
4