curious they were in their disquisitions, the greater was the number of these substitutes. Many of them at first were designed for mere titles; others as I before mentioned, were derivatives and emanations, all of which in time were esteemed distinct beings, and gave rise to a most inconsistent system of Polytheism. The Grecians, who received their religion from Egypt and the East, misconstrued every thing which was imported, and added to these absurdities largely. They adopted deities, to whose pretended attributes they were totally strangers, whose names they could not articulate, or spell. This blindness in regard to their own theology, and to that of the countries whence they borrowed, led them to misapply the terms which they had received, and to make a god out of every title. But however they may have separated, and distinguished them under different personages, they are all plainly resolvable into one deity, the sun. The same is to be observed in the gods of the Romans, as may in a great measure be proved from their own writers. There are few characters, which at first sight appear more distinct than those of Apollo and Bacchus. Yet the department which is generally appropriated to Apollo, as the sun, I mean the conduct of the year, is by Virgil given to Bacchus, or Liber. He joins him with Ceres, and calls them both the bright luminaries of the world. Vos, O, Clarissima Mundi Lumina, labentem Cœlo qui ducitis Annum, Quidam ipsum Solem, ipsum Apollinem, ipsum Dionysium eundem esse Volunt." Hence, we find that Bacchus is the sun, or Apollo. In reality, they are all three the same; each of them the sun. In short, all the gods were one, as we learn from the Orphic poetry: some changed with the seasons. It was, therefore, idle in the ancients to make a disquisition about the identity of any god, as compared with another, and to adjudge him to Jupiter rather than to Mars, to Venus rather than to Diana. "Some," says Diodorus, "think that Osiris is Serapis ; others that he is Dionusus; others still that he is Pluto; many take him for Zeus, or Jupiter; and not a few for Pan." This was an unnecessary embarrassment, for they were all titles of the same god, there being originally by no means that diversity which is imagined, as Sir John Marsham has very justly observed. It is said above, that Osiris was by some thought to be Jupiter, and by others to be Pluto. But Pluto among the best theologists was esteemed the same as Jupiter; and, indeed, the same as Proserpine, Ceres, Hermes, Apollo, and every other deity. There were, to be sure, a number of strange attributes, which by some of the poets were delegated to different personages; but there were other writers who went deeper in their researches, and made them all centre in one. They sometimes represented this sovereign deity as Dionusus, who, according to Ausonius, was worshipped in various parts, under different titles, and comprehended all the gods under one character. Sometimes the supremacy was given to Pan, who was esteemed lord of all the elements, but more generally it was conferred on Jupiter. It may appear strange that Hercules and Jupiter, or whomever we put for the chief deity, should be of all ages. This must have been the case if they were the same as the boy of love, and Bacchus ever young, and were also the representatives of Chronus and Saturn. But the ancients went further, and described the same deity under the same name in various stages of life. But the most extraordinary circumstance was, that they represented the same deity of different sexes. In Cyprus there was a bearded Venus under the name of Aphroditus. She was considered as prior to Zeus, and to most of the Gods. Clausus speaks of her as masculine, and Valerius Soranus, among other titles, calls Jupiter the mother of the gods. Porphyry acknowledged, that Vesta, Rhea, Ceres, Themis, Priapus, Proserpina, Bacchus, Attis, Adonis, Silenus, and the Satyrs, were all one and the same." Mr. Bryant has supported all this by many apposite quotations, which, as his work is in the hands of almost every one, I have omitted for the sake of brevity. Taking this as a ground work, I think it will not be difficult to show that the signs of the zodiac are merely so many personified attributes of the sun, and that each constituted a proper and understood symbol of that luminary. Aries. This was a representation of Ammon, the Egyptian and Lybian Jupiter, whose temple stood in the midst of the deserts of Barca. The idol was adorned with ram's horns, and Lucan calls it Corniger. On some ancient medals he appears of a human shape, having two ram's horns growing from beneath his ears. He is the same as Osiris, the sun, and the reason why the ram was adopted as his symbol is explained by Herodotus in Euterpe 42. Taurus. This is evidently the Apis of Egypt, in which the soul of Osiris was supposed to reside. It was considered a sort of incarnation of the deity, in a particular animal, revealed to them at his birth, by certain external marks, which announced his conception by a ray from heaven. All the learned agree that the oxen Apis and Mnevis, (local names for the same animal) consecrated to Osiris after his apotheosis, were symbols of the sun. The Bull was considered the guardian of the solar year of 365 days, and the genius who presided over the overflowing of the Nile. As among the Egyptians, so among the Scythians, Persians, and aborigines of Hindostan, the bull was the emblem of plenty; and the inhabitants of the latter country from the earliest periods of their history, have given to the cavern whence the Ganges issues, the name of the Cow's Mouth. The practice was common in antiquity, of figuring the ocean, impetuous rivers, torrents, &c. by this emblem. The bull of Iswarra is celebrated in India, and worshipped by the people on the Caveri, and the Jungum Sect profess to owe their first institution to an appearance of the sacred bull on earth. In the same country, it is also a sym I Analysis, Vol. I. p. 302, to the end of the Volume. bol of divine justice, and Siva is figured riding upon him, performing the office of a judge. In Phoenicia, Adonis was worshipped under the figure of a bull, and the Greeks esteemed it sacred to Epaphus.-The Theophania were festivals in honor of Apis. Gemini. Some of the Greeks represent these as Castor and Pollux, others as Apollo and Hercules; but this distinction is a matter of indifference, both being equally symbols of the sun. The whole history, (says Mr. Bryant,) of Castor and Pollux, the two Dioscuri, is very inconsistent. Sometimes they are described as two mortals of Lacedæmon, who were guilty of violence and rapine, for which they were slain. At other times they are represented as two principal deities, and styled Dii Magni, &c. The deity alluded to under. the name of Castor was the sun. His rites were first introduced from Canaan. The title of Anac was conferred upon him and his brother Pollux, which was a Canaanitish term of honor. Castor and Pollux are two names for the same personage, and the deity originally referred to by this title was the sun. "The Spartans," says Plutarch, "call the ancient statues of the Dioscuri, dokana, beams; they are two pieces of wood joined together by two cross pieces." Dr. Long thought that this was a description of the abbreviated character п, for the twins on our sphere.' Before sculpture was adopted, the ancient idolaters made use of rough-hewn logs of wood, or stone, for images of their gods; by degrees they gave them human shape, but still with their legs joined together. Dædalus first formed them with their legs asunder, and was therefore said to make walking statues. Mr. Hamilton observes, "one of the Gemini has been painted black, the other brown." From this fact, some may suppose them intended for a representation of Hermes, who, on account of symbolising both hemispheres, was often painted with one side of his face black, the other white. Still, however, it would be equally an emblem of the sun, because Zeus and Hermes were originally the same. The Chaldeans and Egyptians esteemed Hermes as the chief deity, the same as Zeus, Bel, and Adonis. Ham was the Hermes of the Egyptians, and his oracle was styled Omphi; and when particularly spoken of as the oracle, it was expressed P'Omphi, and P'Ompi, the Pompe of the Greeks. Hence, Hermes had the name of Pompaios, which was misinterpreted the messenger, and conductor; and the deity, in consequence of it, was made the servant of the gods, and attendant upon the dead. But Pompaios related properly to divine influence; and Pompe was an oracle.2 'Long's Astron. vol. i. p. 212. 2 Analysis of Ancient Mythology. VOL. XXVIII. NO. LV. CI. JI. E As fire was supposed to be the medium through which the soul passed from one state to another, Mercury the conductor was nearly allied to Vulcan, the general personification of that element. The Egyptians called him his son, and the Greeks, in some instances, represented him not only with the same cap, but also with the same features. He has also for the same reason a near affinity with Hercules, considered as a personification of the diurnal sun; wherefore, they are not only worshipped together in the same temple, but blended into the same figure, called a Hermheracles, from its having the characteristic forms or symbols of both mixed.' The two asterisks, and the two human heads, one going upwards, and the other downwards, by which Castor and Pollux are sometimes represented, allude to the alternate appearance of the sun in the upper and lower hemispheres. Scarabæus. This insect appears engraved on the Zodiacs of Dendera and Esné. The black beetle which frequents the shores of the Mediterranean sea is said to have been an emblem of the sun, from its being observed that it rolled up its eggs in little round pellets of dirt, which it turned towards the West, while it continued creeping on towards the East. But this opinion is both puerile and inconsistent with the historical evidence of their skill in astronomy; nor is the following, exhibited by an ingenious writer, more satisfactory. The Egyptians are said to have represented the pervading spirit or ruling providence of the Deity by the black beetle, because it lays its eggs in a ball of dung or other fermentable matter which it had previously collected, and rolled backwards and forwards upon the sand of the sea, until it had acquired the proper form and consistency, after which it buries it in the sand, where the joint operation of heat and moisture matures and vivifies the germs into new insects.3 The following is perhaps a more probable reason why this insect was placed in the Zodiac. Among the Egyptians, Psuche, the soul, was originally symbolised by the aurelia or butterfly, but in after times was represented by a lovely female child, with the beautiful wings of that insect. The aurelia, after its first stage as an eruca, lies for a season in a manner dead, enclosed in a sort of coffin. In this state of darkness it remains all winter, but in spring it emerges with new life, and in the most beautiful attire. The Egyptians thought this a proper emblem of the soul of man, but applied it particularly to Osiris, whom they imagined to have been in a state of darkness or death, and again restored to life. All this, however, will be found more strik ingly illustrated in the case of the beetle; for, although there are some of these, which, like the aurelia, go through all the stages of their existence in a single season, yet there are others which are two or three years in the pupa state :—a state, as the term implies, resembling a child in swaddling clothes. The ancients, therefore, who were well acquainted with the metamorphoses of insects, might with propriety consider this as a fit emblem of the second birth of Orus, or Bacchus. This last birth of Orus or Dionusus, was from Hippa, at which time nature herself was renewed. That the beetle was really esteemed an emblem of the chief deity, is still farther confirmed, and put almost beyond a doubt, by finding its place supplied in the Zodiac of the porch, by the royal emblems of a sceptre and hawk, the invariable types of the sun; and by the flying beetle being represented on the portico of the temple of Phila with hands; and in several other places with the ball or circle within its claws. Leo. In Egypt and in India, a lion and the sun are denominated by the same title, Arez. In the Baccha of Euripides the chorus invoke their inspiring god to appear under the form of a bull, a many-headed serpent, or a flaming lion. The lion is commonly the emblem of Hercules or Apollo; it being the natural representative of the destroying attribute. Hence, it is found upon the sepulchral monuments of almost all nations both in Europe and Asia; even in the coldest regions, at a vast distance from the countries in which the animal is capable of existing in its wild state. Not only the tombs, but likewise the other sacred edifices and utensils of the Greeks, Romans, Chinese, and Tartars, are adorned with it; aud in Thibet there is no religious structure without a lion's head at every angle, having bells pendant from the lower jaw, though there is no contiguous country that can supply the living model.' It would be superfluous to add more in support of the truth of this personification. Virgo. At first sight, it may appear surprising that the chief deity should be represented under the female form; but it must be recollected, the principle with which we set out was, the convertibility of the sexes of the deities themselves, from which the convertibility of the sexes of their several personifications is a legitimate inference. This singular doctrine, however, is upheld by many facts. Diana was originally and properly the moon, by means of which the sun was supposed to impregnate the air, and scatter the principles of generation, both active and passive, over the earth; whence, like Bacchus, Diphues, and Apollo Didumnaios, she was both male and female, both heat and humidity.2 'Payne Knight's Inquiry, Class. Journ. No. 49. 2 Ibid. No. 50. |