ply) Lo, I see four men walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God." Again, chap. ix., the angel Gabriel spoke to Daniel, and told him plainly when the Messiah, Jesus Christ, should come into the world-see verses 24, 25, 26, 27, -and that it would be seventy weeks till that time, which was four hundred and ninety years. It cannot therefore, with any show of probability, be supposed that the Jews learned these things of the Persian Magi, as it is clear that Daniel, his fellows, and the Jewish Scriptures taught them to the Persians; from whom there is not a doubt but Zoroaster received his opinions, so far as are found to agree with the Scriptures of both the Old and the New Testaments, and as now taught by the orthodox sects. Hence the opinion-which obtained among the Persian Magi-of a Mediatorial God, who was finally to overcome Ahriman, the evil being, or Satan, was derived. From the same source, the Jews, and their Scriptures, the Persians, Zoroaster, and all, learned all the peculiar doctrines as now taught by the orthodox sects, notwithstanding the taunt of the Universalists to the contrary, namely, that the orthodox learned them of the Persians. The notice these early eastern writers give us of Solomon, the son of David, who built the famous temple at Jerusalem, answers and refutes a certain statement made in a pamphlet by the Atheist Club, a few years since, in the city of New-York; who in the plenitude of vast information, and insolence unbounded, defied the whole Christian world to show that the Jewish people had any existence, on the page of history, farther back from the time of Christ than five hundred years: which, if it were true, would sweep out of existence the history of the creation, the fall of man, the flood, the account of Abraham, the giving the law by Moses, and all the acts of the Israelitish people, down to the time of their release from a state of captivity among the Chaldeans, at Babylon, and prove the entire ruin of the whole Old Testament veracity. But the statement is false, and was made in ignorance, as well as in malice; for Solomon lived a thousand years before the Christian era, which is shown from Josephus, as well as from the Bible chronology; the writings of the Egyptians, as quoted by Josephus, in his refutation of certain slanders these writers propagated about the Jews or Israelites, while in Egypt in servitude; and also by the traditions of the Arabs to this day, claiming to be the descendants of Abraham, by way of his son Ishmael; as also by the above noticed eastern historians, in the Chinese language, written six or eight hundred years before the Christian era. But to return to the subject. "Exorcisms, or the adjuration of evil spirits were frequent," says Dr. Clarke, "in the primitive church; the name of Jesus was that alone which was used. The primitive fathers speak strong and decisive concerning the power of this name, and how demons were expelled by it, not only from individuals, but from the temples of the heathen, which were turned into Christian churches in the Roman empire, the very places where from old, they, the devils, had been worshipped and sacrificed unto. Ephesus, at the time Christianity was planted there by St. Paul, abounded with characters professing necromancy; even ADRIAN the Emperor of Rome, was exceedingly addicted to the use of necromantic arts, and practised divination and magic, according to Dio, a historian of the first century, such practises prevailed in all the nations of the earth," as was a result of the devil worship of those ages. "The books which they burnt at Ephesus, were of that kind which instructed the people in the use of amulets, stones on which were cut the strange characters, whose influence, they believed, was exerted over the various orders of evil spirits. Among these, the Ephesian characters ranked very high, as being exceedingly powerful in this way, both in expelling devils and evoking their aid when desired. On this subject, SUIDAS, who flourished in the tenth century, says the ancients used certain obscure incantations, and gives the following as a proof : When Milesius and Ephisus wrestled at the Olympic games, Milesius could not prevail, though vastly stronger than his fellow: but while he continued to struggle with his weaker opponent, it was discovered that the small man had bound on the bottom of his feet the famous Ephesian letters, or characters, which were taken away, when Milesius threw the other thirty times. HESCHIUS, who flourished in the third century, speaks also of the same thing, but is more particular and curious. He says the Ephesian letters were formerly six in number; but that certain deceivers, who did not understand their use added others; but the true letters were these: ASKION, KATASKION, LIX, TETRAX, DAMNAMENEUS, and AISION. The meaning of which, says Dr. Clarke, in English, is as follows: Askion, or darkness; Kataskion, or light; Lix, or the earth; Tetrax, the year; Damnameneus, the sun; and Aision, or truth; all of which are sacred and important things. These words, no doubt, served as the key to different spells and incantations, and were used in order to the attainment of a great variety of ends. The Abraxas of the Bassillidans, a sect of Egyptian Gnostics, of the second century, were formed on the basis of the Ephesian letters." - Clarke. We here give a fac simile specimen of some of the figures and characters, cut in the amulets and charmed stones of those ages of Gnosticism, which were worn about their persons, ready for use when they wished to operate supernaturally, and were thus used by the Gnostics, a set of spurious Christians, whose extravagant opinions spread over all the east at a very early period, vestiges of which are yet remaining, and are often found beneath the soil, in many parts of Asia and Africa. (See the Plate.) Simon Magus, is, by many writers, considered as the father of all the Gnostic heresies. He had been a wizard by profession; and so persuaded were the people of Samaria that he was some extraordinary person, that they affirmed him to be the great power of God. Acts, viii. 9, 10. But being converted by Phillip's preaching, he believed and was baptized; but relapsing soon after into his old ways, we see him offering money to Peter and John, to be endued like them with the power of working miracles. The terrible rebuke this impious proposal met with, brought him for a season, to a penitent frame of mind: here, however, the Apostolic narrative leaves him, and to complete his history we must refer to other sources of information. We learn from Origen, of the second century, one of the fathers of Ecclesiastical history, that Simon Magus was at Rome during the persecutions under Nero, and taught his followers that they might conform to the rites of paganisın without sin; and that, by this latitudinarian doctrine he saved them from martyrdom. This wretched man went so far as to announce himself to be the Saviour of the world. Nor was this enough: he united in his own nature all the persons of the Trinity; in Samaria, his native country, he was the Father, in Judea, the Son, amongst the Gentiles, the Holy Ghost. All the enormities of this odious magician need not be related; one, however, is too singular to be omitted: he carried about with him a lady named Helena, and announced her as the identical person whose fatal beauty had occasioned the Trojan war, (a thousand years before.) She had passed, by a hundred transmigrations, into her present form; she was the first conception, he said, of his own eternal mind; by her he had begotten angels and archangels, and by these had the world been created. This heresy was not much ahead of that of the Shakers of the present day, who believe that Ann Lee, the wife of a blacksmith in England, and the mother of many children, was the bride of the Lamb, or the Lamb's wife; and that she was the woman of the Revelations, who was clothed with the sun, and had the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars; and that by her, not only the door of complete and finished salvation was opened to this world, but the world to come; and that she suffered in like manner for ship. The animal they succeeded to tame, by enticing it from its retreat with such food as pleased its appetite. This done, they would place the elements of the eucharist, so that the tongue of the serpent might be extended to them, after which they partook of them as from the hand of the Redeemer. On this gem is shown a serpent, with the head of a lion encompassed with rays, and is supposed to signify Christ, the lion of the tribe of Judah. The right line traversed by three curved ones, on the other face of this gem, remains unexplained. The upper inscription is the mystic term ABRAXAS, or God. The lower characters have been generally taken as a Greek corruption of the awful tetragrammaton of the Jews, or Jehovah of the Gnostics; one of their most remarkable tenets was that malevolent spirits ruled the world, presided over all nature, and caused all the diseases and sufferings of the human race. But by knowledge, which is the meaning of the word Gnostic, they believed these spirits could be controlled, their power suspended, and even made subservient to the use and benefit of man. this science they boasted of being masters; which consisted chiefly in the efficacy of numbers, and certain mysterious hieroglyphics, and emblematic characters, adopted chiefly from the Egyptians. Hence they made systems of what they called monads, tryads, and decads; and formed figures of the dog Anubis, the serpent Serapis, and other idols, combined in a thousand varieties, with the forms of serpents and other animals of mythological renown. These compositions of mystic numbers and figures, they sculptured on gems and stones of different kinds, and maintained that whoever bore one of them upon his person, was secured by it from the particular evil it was constructed to guard against. Of Amulets against diseases were formed of materials having an imaginary connection with the distemper; as read against all morbid affections of an inflamatory character; chrystal, glass, or some pale colored stone, against those that were watery or dropsical; and so of all others. No. 5 is a gem with a charm engraved upon it, to guard against the ague, constructed by an eminent follower of Bassillides, the Egyptian leader of the Gnostics. On one side is a human figure, with a head of a cock, the legs are serpents, and between them is the mystic word IAw. On the opposite are the elements of an ABRACADABRA, showing the process of the deity through the corporeal world, formed in this manner: AEHIΟΥ ΙΟΥ ! |