Volume I [867 pages]
Volume II [525 pages]

… There never has been a religion invented de novo. In fact, before I finish I shall prove that, in the civilized world, there never was but one religion. What we have called different religions, because we did not understand them, were but modifications of one religion. All these considerations we must bear in mind, in our future speculations.

… En passant, I may observe, that if there be a secret religion, all the objections of Mons. Voltaire and other philosophers to such passages as that relating to the side of Adam, which never have been removed, are at once answered, and the religion relieved from a mighty mass of obloquy. For though it may be very wrong to have a secret and a public religion, this does not make it foolish or absurd.

I am firmly persuaded that in the following books of this work the foundation at least, indeed the principal part, of the esoteric doctrines of the Christians, Jews, and Gentiles, will be unfolded, and at last justice will be done to the Pythagorasses, Platos, Philos, Clemenses, and Ammoniuses of antiquity; and, however false my philosophical or religious reader may think their doctrines, he will no longer think them base or contemptible.

In the affairs of religion, the world has always been in one respect the same as it is now. From the most remote period there has been the esoteric religion, of which I have just spoken, the existence of which the vulgar rabble of low priests have denied, but which has always been well known and admitted by a select number, who wore the mitre. This was anciently observed by a few philosophers, who occasionally shewed some knowledge of it, and endeavoured to explain its nature to the people. For this endeavour they were persecuted. They would never have been persecuted merely for discovering the secret; they were in reality persecuted for making their discovery known. In like manner in modern times, a Romish bishop will not refuse absolution even to an Atheist, but then he must keep his opinion secret. He is punished for telling—not for knowing, believing, or disbelieving. This knowledge applies chiefly to the Romish and Greek priests; the Protestant bigots, the Luthers, Calvins, and Knoxes, never knew any thing of the philosophy of Christianity; there were in reality insane with fanaticism.

I think my reader will have begun to form a pretty correct idea of the nature of the Christian esoteric religion. I think he must see that Jesus, at the least the Romish Jesus, was believed to be no other than a renewed incarnation of divine wisdom, of the Logos, called, in India, Buddha, or Saca, a revival or rather a continuation of an old system. In this book I shall discuss several detached points which will clear up this matter, if there be any remaining doubt, and proceed further to unveil the esoteric doctrine of Isis, and of ETERNAL Rome.

In my fifth Book I traced the history of the Avatars and Cycles in India and Judæa up to the ninth, the time of the birth of Jesus. … If my theory be right, I ought to find traces of the ninth Avatar in a late day; and as, in all the other earlier Avatars, we have seen a certain similarity take place in the mythoses of the East and West, so ought we to find the same in the ninth. … In fact, the theory of the system was, that every thing should be renewed at the end of certain periods, and that a new incarnation should take place. .. In the ninth Avatar, we shall find this proved still more clearly, and in a very remarkable manner.

After we have discussed the ninth Avatar in the East and in the West, the next object of this book will be the tenth and last and perhaps the most important of all.

If my reader have attended closely to the argument, he will have perceived that there were always two classes of Avatars running at the same time : and yet, though two they were but one. This was because the Avatars were identical with the cycles, and the two cycles united formed a third. These were the ten presiding Geniuses of the Neroses, and the ten presiding Geniuses of the signs of the Zodiac—and the Neroses and signs, ended at the same moment, after a period of 21,600 years; or, if larger cycles be taken, 43,200 years, or 432,000 years. I suspect that the Vulgar were taught to expect a new divine person every six hundred years, and a millenium every 6000; but that the higher classes were taught to look to the year of Brahm 432,000 years, or, perhaps, to 4, 320,000 years.

One more observation I must make on the renewed incarnations, which took place previous to the Christian æra before I proceed.

A singular admission is made by the learned Nimrod* in the following words : "The legend of the birth of that bloody Cyrus, (he of the Gorgon's head,) concerning whom the Babylonians informed Herodotus, is, though a strange and complicated one, precisely the same as that of Romulus, and they are but one man." In another place** he says, speaking of a certain Habides, "In other particulars the reader will perceive the adventures of Perseus, Cyrus, Quirinus, Hercules, Buzyges, and Triptolemus." Here we see the renewal of the incarnation just spoken of, in the fact of identity in the history of most of the ancient hero Gods, which have been fully demonstrated by Creuzer in his second book. The case was, that all the hero Gods were incarnations—Genii of cycles, either several of the same cycle in different countries at the same time, or successive cycles—for the same series of adventures was supposed to recur again and again. This accounts for the striking similitudes in all their histories.

The ancients of the West had not only the renewed cycle of 600 years, but they had also that of 6000,—at the end of which, ignorant devotees, who did not understand it, supposed that what was called the millenium, for 1000 years previous to the renewal of the world, would come. This proves the truth of the foregoing calculations. It completes the Hindoo system. In India, two systems may be perceived; one of the philosophers—merely the renewal of cycles; the other of divines, at the end of the 6000 years, expecting a day of judgment and a millenium. The latter is a branch grafted on the former, by weakness and credulity.

If my theory be well-founded, two kinds of Avatars ought to be exhibited about the time of Christ. We have found an Avatar in the form of the celestial Taurus, and also one in the form of the celestial Agnus or Aries, and we ought to find, in course, a third in the form of the succeeding Zodiacal sign, the celestial Pisces, the FISHES. This will be the next principal object of this book. … In the course of this book I shall very often return to the secret religion which in the early ages of Christianity was held in the Roman conclave, and is probably yet held there.

… In fact, we shall see that the modern Roman religion was only a reformed ancient Roman religion. This is not said with the least wish to insult the followers of the Romish Church, though no doubt it will offend, because it is unveiling what the church wishes to conceal. …

It is very certain that the earliest Christians, of whom we have any account, depending on the reported words of Jesus, that the final end and millenium should come before the people present at his speech should die, continued to entertain the expectation of it as long as possible; and, in the same way, I have no doubt that the Popes entertained the hope, at the end of 600 years, as long as possible, supposing when the end did not come that their calculations were wrong a few months or years, or that they had calculated by a wrong year; and at the last, when their hopes were quite extinguished, they concluded that another period was to pass away before its arrival.*

Among the ancients there seems to have been a very general idea, that the arrival of the great person who was expected to come would be announced by a star. The births of Abraham, Moses, Cæsar, &c., &c., were all foretold by a star.* Calmet says, "I wish we could ascertain the ideas annexed to the rising of the star said to occur at the birth of Abraham."

Of the learned ancients of the West, Pythagoras was assuredly the greatest; and as he was some ages in advance of his ignorant countrymen, he was laughed at and persecuted. Some persons without any good reason have doubted his existence. The superiority of his doctrines to those of his contemporaries, affords to me a convincing proof that he actually lived. The beauty of his morals, the novelty but truth of his astronomy and geometry, all which he professed to bring from the East, are of so superior a nature to those of his Western contemporaries, that it is really not credible that they should have created an imaginary being, to whom they could attribute these obnoxious, unheard-of doctrines : for instance, the 47^th proposition of Euclid, the elliptic orbits of the comets. These considerations prove his existence, and the state of Eastern learning in his day, for it was only among the Brahmins of India that he could have learnt them. …

In Herodotus there is an account of a certain Zalmoxis, a Scythian. Mr. Upham, in his History, has observed,* that the story of this person evidently shews, that Buddhism was the religion of the inhabitants of the banks of the Ister previous to the time of Herodotus, and thence he infers that Buddhism was the religion of the Celtic tribes. Now it is a very remarkable thing that Pythagoras was called Zalmoxis. In all this there is evidently some mystery concealed. Assuredly the particulars told of Zalmoxis have every appearance of being oriental.

We have seen in a former book, that Virgil in his poem alluded to certain prophecies of females called Sibyls. I think it necessary now to make my reader a little more acquainted with those persons. By the expression the Sibyls was generally meant a collection of books, written partly in very early and partly in later times by female prophetesses bearing that name. In the earliest time of Christianity they were considered by the fathers of the church as of the very first importance, in fact, of such very great importance, that the Christian religion might be considered to be almost founded upon them, and by most of the early fathers their genuineness was not only never disputed, but it was expressly admitted. They are now despised. The reason for this it will not be difficult to discover. I shall make a careful inquiry into the genuineness of these books, in the course of which we shall see various proofs as to who was the ninth Avatar in the West; after which I shall proceed to point him out in the East.

Among all nations of the Western parts of the world, the prophetesses called Sibyls were anciently known. There were eight of them who were celebrated in a very peculiar manner, and a work is extant in eight books,* which purport to contain their prophecies. … The Protestant churches deny them altogether, as Romish forgeries. These Sibyls were held in the highest esteem by the ancient Gentiles. And it appears from the unquestionable text of Virgil, that they did certainly foretell a future Saviour, or something very like it. We find, on examination of the present copy of them, that they actually foretell in an acrostic the person called Jesus Christ by name. The most early fathers of the Greek and Roman churches plead them as genuine, authentic, and unanswerable proofs of the truth of their religion, against the Gentile philosophers, who, in reply, say, that they have been interpolated by the Christians. …

The location of these Sibyls around the Casa Santa at Loretto clearly proves, that the Roman church privately maintained the mythological character of the Virgin Mary, and her close connexion with these celebrated ladies. It is absurd to suppose that they were placed in this very remarkable place by accident, or in ignorance. Then why should they be connected with the Virgin ?

The Apostolic Constitutions quote the Sibylline oracles, and say, "When all things shall be reduced to dust and ashes, and the immortal God, who kindled the fire, shall have quenched it, God shall form those bones and ashes into man again, and shall place mortal men as they were before : and then shall be the judgment, wherein God shall do justice." Here is, I think, in this very early work (for early it certainly was) an admission of the doctrine of a renewal of worlds.

Josephus quotes the Sibylline oracles concerning the tower at Babylon.

The earliest undisputed Christian writer, of whom any entire work remains, is Justin, and he pointedly says, that the Cumæan Sibyl prophesied the advent of Christ in express words.* Justin's first Apology was published not later than about A.D. 160. If the Sibyls were then forged, they shew how early the Christians began these practices. Justin tells the Greeks that they may find the true religion in the ancient Babylonian Sibyl, who came to Cuma and there gave her oracles, which Plato admired as divine. Clemens Romanus also quotes the Sibyls in his Epistle to the Corinthians.** They are also quoted by Theophilus Antiochenus, Athenagoras, Firmianus, Lactantius, Eusebius, St. Augustine, &c.

… Clemens Alexandrinus also quotes Heraclitus as an authority that the Sibyls were inspired by God. St. Austin says the Sibyls, Orpheus, and Homer, all spoke truly of God and of his Son.*

There are several works extant, purporting to be the writings of Peter, Paul, and other early Christians, in which the Sibylline oracles are quoted as authorities in support of the Christian religion. These writings, for instance the preaching of Peter, are quoted as the works of the persons whose names they bear, by Clemens Alexandrinus, and, in fact, are as well supported in point of genuineness as the orthodox gospel histories themselves, though rejected by modern Christians.* Jeremiah Jones has laid down some rules of criticism by which he pretends to try the genuineness of ancient works. These rules or canons are false, to a ridiculous degree.

It seems that by the word age or generation different things were meant by different persons, from which confusion has arisen. But the Sibyls all agree that there were to be what are called ten generations or ages of the world in all; but the Erythræan Sibyl is the only one who correctly states them to begin with Adam. Erythra was the name of a town in Ionia and also of the oriental ocean, as least as far as Ceylon or Taprobana. In a former book I have shewn, how the Jews and other nations expected the six millenaries : here is a clear admission of the ten periods which could be nothing but the Neroses, or periods of 600 years, as in 6000 there are ten six hundreds.

… The Sibyls differ in their accounts in many respects from our present Bible, though evidently alluding to the same facts. This is a proof that they were not copied from it. …

There is unquestionably great difficulty respecting the name of Christ and the Christians. At first they certainly went by a great variety of names, and among others, by a very extraordinary one, namely Pisciculi or little fishes. … The name Christ may be fairly derived from the word Cristna, and the traits of similarity in the lives of Cristna and Jesus, which have been pointed out, will probably compel the reader to believe, that the black God of Italy was called in some way or other from the black God of India, or both from some common source, and not from the anointing of a man who never was anointed. We will now try to find how this arose.

The first unquestionably genuine heathen evidence we have respecting the name of Jesus Christ and the Christians, is found in Suetonius.* Here he is cited by the name Chrestus, not Christus. Suetonius, if he speak of the Christians, and that he does so speak I conceive no impartial person can doubt, must be allowed to be, in this case, a perfectly competent and unimpeachable witness, according to every principle of fair reasoning. The following are his words :

Judæos, impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit.

Tacitus speaks of these same persons, but calls them Christians, and their master Christus. This, on first view of it, seems probably a corruption, because one of the two must be a corruption, and who in later times could ever think of corrupting Suetonius into the Chrestus from Christus ?

Lactantius ascribes the name of Chrestus to the ignorance of the Greeks,* … Here is a most clear admission of an unimpeachable witness in this case, that the Greeks were accustomed, solent, to call Christ by the name of Chrestus, and not Christus.

Lucian, in a book called Philopatris, makes a person called Triephon answer the question, whether the affairs of the Christians were recorded in heaven; "All nations are there recorded, since Chrestus exists even among the Gentiles :" … Thus it is perfectly clear that they were called Chrestians by the Gentiles, as well as by Justin Martyr, the first of the Christians in his day.

The Latin name of Christiani* was first given to the followers of Jesus at Antioch, probably as a term of reproach; which is the reason, though they were perhaps not often insulted with it, why the Christian fathers in the earliest time never use it. And I believe it was not adopted till the doctrine of Paul was grafted into the gospel of Jesus, by the Roman or Popish Christians; and then, for the first time, along with the Christ crucified of Paul, came the Latin word Christus.

No doubt I shall be asked the reason why this discovery which I have made of the ancient name of Christ has never been made before. To which I reply, Look to the decrees of Emperors, Popes, and Councils, almost innumerable, for the destruction of the writings of those persons who were likely to state or name the fact in ancient times, and you will see the reason. Had we the large and learned work of Porphyry or the works of Ammonius Saccas, no doubt we should have this and many other points cleared up.* … For the cause of truth it is a most fortunate circumstance that the priests in transcribing the works of Justin Martyr have overlooked the passage which the reader has seen. …

I will now retrun to the consideration of the Acrostic of the Sibyls.

But I shall now produce in this case, I think, an unimpeachable witness, that the present acrostic was that in the Sibyl in the time of Cicero; for Eusebius affirms, that Cicero quoted these very verses which contain the acrostic, and which he says was in the Erythræan Sibyl. If the father of ecclesiastical history may be credited, the fact of the existence of our present acrostic in the time of Cicero cannot be doubted.*

Justin says, "that the Sibyl not only expressly and clearly foretells the future coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ, but also all things that should be done by him."* This was in the early part of the second century, and it exactly answers to our present Sibyls. It is very evident that, supposing the name of Jesus Christ to have been unknown as a man's name, which it might be in the time of Cicero, the poem might pass generally without the meaning of the acrostic being discovered, or without its being perceived that the letters formed and acrostic, except by the initiated.

The acrostic suited both the Heathens and the Christians. … That the Christians should have corrupted the oracles is very likely, and even in some degree the verses which formed the acrostic—but still keeping the acrostic. Indeed, after the observation in Justin, that all the things that had happened to Jesus were in the Sibyl, was noticed, I have no doubt that if there were any thing in the Gospels which was not in the Sibyl, the Christians would put it there. There is undoubted evidence that our Gospel histories underwent repeated revisions. Those who would revise the Gospels, would not scruple to revise the Sibyls.

How the Sibyls originally came to Rome it is difficult to say, for, to the story of their purchase, by Tarquin, I suppose no one now attends : but after they were burnt, in the time of Sylla, others were procured from Erythræa by ambassadors sent for the purpose, a fact which shews that they were well known to exist. … It is very certain that, though known to exist, they were not thrown open to the public, and I think it seems probable, that they were not published till the Christians got possession of them, and for, their purposes, published them, though they were quoted to support the tyranny of Augustus, and the attempted tyranny of others before him.

It is very certain that Scipio and Sylla both founded their claims to power upon the prophecy in the Sibyls—that an illustrious person or a saviour would come on the opening of some unknown, but speedily-expected, new age. This is confirmed by Virgil, and he is allowed to be named in an acrostic by Cicero. … Almost every particular in the life of Christ as detailed in our Gospels, is to be found in the Sibyls, so that it can scarcely be doubted that the Sibyls were copied from the Gospel histories, or the Gospel histories from them. It is also very certain that there was an Erythræan Sibyl before the time of Christ, whatever it might contain. Where this Erythræa was, we shall presently try to discover.

The following passage of Dupuis shews that the Erythræan Sibyl might easily write the acrostic …

"But the Virgin of the constellations, Isis, the mother of Orus, is really this famous Virgin mother of the God of light, as we have shewn in another part of this work, to which we refer the reader. We content ourselves here with saying, that the celestial virgin, of which the heaven offers us the picture at the equinox of the spring, with the celestial ark and the serpent, was effectually represented in all the ancient spheres with all the characters of that of the Apocalypse, that is to say, as a female newly laid in, and holding in her arms a young infant, which she suckles, and which has all the characters of Christ. …" "The Arabian Alboazar or Abulmazar goes farther. This is, according to him, he whom some persons call Jesus and others Christ, as we have seen in our chapter on the Christian religion, where we have reported this passage."*

One finds here, as in the Apocalypse, an infant newly born, placed on an elevated throne, and in the arms of a female lately delivered, who nurses him. And this infant is the Jesus, the Christ, the God who ought, as the child of the Apocalypse, to reign over the world. Can more marks or similarity be expected ? This is the young infant, the image of the sun born at the winter solstice, at midnight, the 24^th of December, of which the Persians celebrated the birth, as may be seen in the ancient calendars, which fix it to the same day—Natalis Solis invicti—and of which the effigy was placed by them in the first degrees of the sign which, by its ascension at midnight on the 24^th of December, fixed the epoch of this birth. This was as the horoscope of the God Light, who commenced his career with the year, and who ought, in the spring, under the sign of the Lamb, to make the day triumph over the night, and to repair the mischief done to nature by the winter.*

… Good God ! if all the authorities which I have produced, not only of learned moderns but of learned ancients, the chief persons of the religions, joined to the clear words of Jesus in the Gospels, will not prove that a mystery was concealed, what can be expected to do it ? And surely, if there were such mystery, I have a right to endeavour to find it out : and I am certain that in great part, at least, I have found it out.

In the time of Origen the manuscript of the oracles must have been in the temple under the statue of the God, and in the keeping of the Pagan high-priest, where it was totally impossible for the Christians to get access to it. And yet it seems, according to Justin, that this manuscript contained every thing which had been done by Jesus Christ. If we admit that the present copy is all corrupt, yet we must allow that the real Sibyl contained the same in substance as the one we have, at least if we can believe Justin.

The Bishop (Horsley) repeatedly observes, that the style of the prophecy is exactly that of the Jewish prophets.* This justifies me in what I have said about Isaiah. He says, "The sum of the character is the same in both : in its nature unequivocal, and such as even in the general outline could not possibly belong to different persons in the same age." …

I now conclude what I have to say of the Sibyls, but it has naturally brought me to the consideration of Cæsar, who, I shall shew, was a ninth Avatar. But before I proceed to the proof, I shall, in the next chapter, discuss many preparatory matters.

In Dr. Clarke's map, Delphi, or a place close to it, is called Crissa; and an ancient scholiast upon Pindar affirms, that under the name of Crissa, the city of Delphi was designated. This is a most important fact, but it is nothing but what other circumstances would lead us to expect.* …

The earth is called the nursing mother of all creatures, the Ceres. This was because the earth, like all other things, was an emanation from the Creator—was but a link in the chain of emanations proceeding from the highest to the lowest, or vice versa. Thus the mysticism of Plato, noticed in B. I. Ch. II., may be reconciled. Thus the earth, in the sacred metaphorical language, was a Ceres; and all rivers were Adonises of Dons, or Sirs or Surs—rivers of the sun. They were, in fact, Cereses, for they were the nurses of the creatures living on the land fertilized by them, and which, without them, would be arid wastes. I have a strong suspicion that every place had a mystical name for the priests', and a common name for the people's use.

The Druids of Ireland carried in their hands the Crux ansata, called a key, or in their language kire or cire.* This we must recollect was carried by the Gods or priests of Egypt, and is also found in a very remarkable manner in the hands of many of the bearded Druidical-looking figures, given by Mr. Hammer, either as figures of the Templars, or as emblematical figures used by them. I cannot help suspecting that this cire was closely connected with the Cris and Ceres. … This key was what unlocked or opened the door of eternal and of human life. It was a polis or pole and a tri-pole. …

… There can be no doubt that many Assyrians might be Chaldeans, and vice versa. But the Chaldeans, most assuredly, were a sect or order of some kind, totally independent of the Assyrian or Babyloninan empire. … Ancient history shews traces of them in many places besides Babylon. Zoroaster was said to be their founder : but who was Zoroaster ? I shall discuss this question at present, but content myself with saying, I suspect that he was merely the supposed genius of a cycle. Seven Zoroasters are recorded by different historians.

In the Colida or Colchida of Arrian, noticed by Mr. Bryant, I think we have the origin of the Culdees of Chaldees. They are in the district of Ur-li or Ur-iana, where Abraham or the Brahmin came from. He came from Ur of the Cullidei, or Chaldees, or Culdees, or from Colida. This completes the proof of my system.

The country of Calida or Colida in North India, between the Burrampooter and the Indus, is the country of the holy Cali—Cali-di, i.e. dis or divus and Cali.

… Every one knows that Abram was said to be a great astrologer, and no person at all conversant with the history of the Roman Emperors can be ignorant that the Chaldeans from India were their great astrologers or tellers of fortunes.

… Hermippus, in the Life of Pythagoras, observes, "Pythagoras performed and said these things in imitation of the Jews and Thracians."* The identity of the doctrine of the Trinitarian and Thracian Orpheus with the Trinity of India and of Genesis, again proves the Thracians and Jews both to have been colonies from India. …

In Thrace we have, in the doctrines of Orpheus, the triune God of India and of the Jews. In the names of towns, rivers, &c., a repetition of similar places in India : …

… I think I may now safely consider that every thing which I have formerly said of Ammon being the OM of India is satisfactorily PROVED. The tomb of Orpheus was shewn in Thrace, and a perusal of what Mr. Bryant has said respecting him, I think must convince any person that there never was a man of this name, but that the Orpheans were a sect or tribe having the religion of the Trimurti, and were the Iudi who came from the East, and who were also called Iberi, or foreigners, or Hebrews.

In the history of Julius Cæsar, and, indeed, in that of his whole race, there is something peculiarly curious and mystical. He was born of the family of the Julii, who were descended from Venus, by her son Æneas, the son of the Trojan Anchises. From Æneas and Creusa descended Ascanius, also named Julius, who lived in the mystic Alba, till that city was ruined by Tullus Hostilius, who, it is said, instead of destroying the family of his enemy as usual, removed it to Rome, where it flourished for many generations, until it achieved the sovereignty not only of Rome, but almost of the world, to which, in a very particular manner, it may be said to have brought peace. The greatest of the Cæsars was Caius Julius, who was born about half a century before Jesus Christ. The word Julius is the same as the ancient Yule, who was Saturn. The Quintile month, the month in which the great Julius is said to have been born, was sacred to Yule. See Nimrod,* who has shewn how the Saturnalia became our Christmas gambols. We must not forget, that the Mons Capitolina, the Roman capitol, where Julius established his empire, was first called Saturnia.

It is notorious that Nero was thought by the Romans to be a particular sacred person, or to have opened some sacred period. On this account he was, in more than an usual manner, hated by the Christians, who took him to be Antichrist, that is, another or opposition Christ. The name of Nero, which he bore, looks very much like the name of the Neros, a coincidence which would never have occurred to me had it not been for the other circumstances. We often hear of the wickedness of Nero, but we seldom hear of the wickedness of Constantine the Great, who murdered his son, his brother-in-law, his wife, his nephew under age, and amused himself by making the kings taken prisoners in war fight wild beasts in the circus. Notwithstanding all this, the Rev. Dr. Lardner tells us this GREAT man "was not a bad man," and his general conduct is marked with the approbation of the Christian world, by his equestrian statue being placed, at this very day, June 1832, in the porch of St. Peter's Church at Rome ! ! !

Cæsar had all the honours paid to him as to a divine person, and that particular divine person of whom we have been treating. He was called Father of his country, that is, …, Pater futuri sæculi. At the end of five years, a festival was instituted to his honour, as to a person of divine extraction. A day was dedicated to him, and he had the title also of Julian Jove : and a temple was erected to him.* His temple bore the appellation of Heroum Iuleum, and contained images of Venus. Julius was followed by his nephew Octavius, who was also called Cæsar, to which was added the mystic title of Augustus,** which meant sanctity and deification upon earth.*** … And to make the mythological circumstances complete, we have the astrological number of 12 applied to the first 12 Roman Emperors, called Cæsars, by the historians of those times. …

The observation made respecting the twelve Cæsars only applies to a part of an universal mythos. There were twelve tribes of Israel, who all assembled to worship at one temple. There were twelve tribes of Ionians, who all assembled in like manner at one temple. There were twelve tribes of Etruscans, who all assembled at one temple; and who, by colonies, founded twelve tribes in Campania, and twelve more in the Apennine mountains. There were twelve Cæsars, and twelve Imaums of Persia, followers of Ali, all believed to be foretold by Esdras, 2, ch. xii. 11-15. When Moses built a Druidical temple near to Sinai, he set up twelve stones; at Gil-Gal again twelve unhewn stones, and on Gerizim, again, twelve stones in circles. I need not point out the circles of twelves so often found in the remaining Druidical temples—all Pythagorean and Masonic—still intelligible in many of our chapter-houses, for the builders of these were the oldest monks (probably Carmelites) and masons. …

… I believe originally the word Cæsar was As-sar, or in the Hebrew style of reading, Ras-sa, closely connected with the Ras-sees of India. Upon these the word Cæsar or Tzar was formed.

It appears from a passage in Suetonius, that the death of Julius Cæsar was in a peculiar manner deplored by the Jews—prœcipuèque Judæi. I think from this and many other circumstances that the two Cæsars were not only held up by a few contemptible retainers, (hangers-on for bread, as they have been represented,) as the Cyrus or the Great One of the age, foretold by the ancient prophecies, but by a great and learned body of mankind, who were believers in them. The Cæsars were supposed by their followers, when they were alive, to be renewed incarnations, like the Lamas of Tibet. The Popes say that Constantine gave up Italy on his death-bed. At the same time he probably surrendered all claim to the pallium and the other privileges of Pontifex Maximus. From that time I think the emperors ruled by the sword only, the Pontifex Maximus by the book. Cæsar ruled by both. Whenever a king is crowned, he is always made to swear that he will support the rights of the church. This is really nothing less than fealty disguised.

When Cæsar was murdered there was a darkness over the earth. … Soon after Cæsar's death, when Augustus obtained the power, he was believed to be the person, and the Æneid was written to celebrate him. The Death of Cæsar, so like to that of Romulus, rather tended to prove him a sacred character like Romulus. The darkness was easily invented afterward to complete the picture.

It is Cæsar that Virgil celebrates in all his verses. The mythos taught that there were to be twelve Cæsars, and Julius's praise will suit all or any of them. If the generation in this case were taken at thirty years, it brings us to the mythos of Constantine, who founded Nova Roma on the seven hills, 360 years after the first of the Cæsars. I have no doubt that the mythos was, that the Julian family should last for twelve generations—in all 360 years—till a new period arose. …

… Julius declared himself high-priest, Pontifex Maximus, and probably, though perhaps secretly, pretended to the office by hereditary or divine right. He certainly pretended to be the great one of the ninth age, who was to come, and was believed to be so, both by the Jews and Romans. And though this is scarcely perceptible, yet it may be perceived in the fourth eclogue of Virgil, and in the regret of the Jews. His aphanasia and six hours' darkness at his death liken him to Romulus and to Jesus Christ. The suffering of a violent death seems a necessary part of the mythos; and I suspect that the deaths of Calanus, of Cyrus, of Crœsus, of Hercules, of Romulus, &c., &c., &c., all had a connexion with it. The following two verses are of themselves enough to shew that the fourth eclogue refers to the mythos of which I have written so much.

Whether an angel appeared to the mother of Cæsar to warn her not to have connexion with her husband during gestation I do not know, but this is precisely what happened to Aristo the father of Plato, according to Apuleis, Plutarch, and Hesychius. So that there can be no doubt that it was a part of the mythos.* A star was said to foretell the birth of Cæsar. This seems to have been a necessary part of the mythos; … Col. Tod says,** "The Chinese account of the birth of Yu (Ayu) their first monarch,*** (Mercury or Fo,) a star struck his mother while travelling. She conceived and gave to the world Yu, the founder of the first dynasty which reigned in China." Here we have the same mythos of the immaculate conception in China, and of the same God if I mistake not—%* ie.

The ancient spirit of mysticism is well exemplified in the names of Rome. Among others we are told, that it was called Erwj or Love, because its name, of Roma, spelt anagramatically, made Amor. In the same way, probably, its legislator, Numa, was called from Menu or Amun.* It is very extraordinary, that when it must be known to the learned, that all the writers on mystical subjects concealed them as much as possible by anagrams, and acrostics, and ænigmas, of every kind, they should be so unwise as to cast these things away, and pay no attention to them. The Jews and Gentiles were equally addicted to these practices. …

In I Pet. v. 13, Rome is alluded to under the name of Babylon. This is very much perplexed the Luthers and Calvins, who were not initiated in the Roman religion. But this was the mystic name of Rome, as is proved from a passage in the Sibylline Oracle, Lib. iii., where Rome is most clearly designated by the word Babylon. Very truly has Nimrod said,* that the Sibylline Oracles as Gnostic performances.

Infinite in number are the places in the writings of the ancients, and in their ceremonies, where the sacred Argha or Ark is noticed or alluded to. Every mythos of antiquity is represented or disguised in the form of a history. We have the Trojan war, the adventures of Bacchus, Hercules, Theseus, Osiris, Cristna. The early history of Rome is like all the others; and of the same character is the history of Noah—an allegory concealed under the garb of history—Buddha, Jain, or Menu, floating on the ocean in a boat; that is, the principle of generation or the generative power reduced to its simplest elements : the Linga, in the form of Menu floating in the Yoni, in the form of a boat. In Genesis it is Noah and his three sons. These great incarnations always affected a similitude to those which had preceded, the nature of which may be seen in all the Indian Avatars, particularly in those of Buddha and Cristna. They are visible also in the accounts which we have seen of the repetitions of the ten years' sieges, of towns, &c., &c., of Western nations. All these histories were probably repetitions of mythoses, on the same principle as the Indian Avatars. Precisely like all others was the Mosaic history. There are Adam and his three sons, from whom all mankind descended in the first yug, age, or world. These are succeeded by Noah and his three sons, at the second yug, age, world. Though they be not the same any more than the histories of Buddha and Cristna, they do not differ from one another more than the two latter differ. The theory was, that a renewal of every thing should take place in every mundane revolution—new Argonauts, new sieges of Troy, &c. This nature prevented, but the priests carried the practice as near to the theory as they were able. Similar adventures were attributed to every new incarnation. this is not a theory, it is a fact; and if my method of accounting for it be not satisfactory, I beg that one more probable may be proposed. My theory has this peculiar recommendation, that it requires no miracles or admissions of incredible facts, but only what is probable and consistent with the course of nature, which we learn from experience.

As I have just now said, it was at the end of a MUNDANE revolution that a renewal of nature was to take place; but we may reasonably ask, what was meant by the word mundane ? In our dictionaries we are told, that Mundus means world; but it also means a Cycle, which implies the same as the Greek word Kosmoj. It should always be recollected that I am describing a system which would, by being constantly at variance with nature and circumstances, oblige the priest to have recourse to such expedients as chance afforded him, whether entirely satisfactory or not.

Plutarch says, that it was Pythagoras who first named all the parts of the universe Kosmoj, on account of its order. …

Cristna is called Can-ya. This, when all other circumstances are considered, is evidently the epithet of the Apollo of Athens, Cun-ni-us,* and Ya the IE on the Delphic temple. Each of the nine wives of Can-ya is called Radha, and answers to one of the nine Muses of Apollo; and Radha is the Latin Radius or English Ray. Each Radha or Muse or %:. mse or (:. msh or female Saviour or Messiah, was an emanation from the Solar Deity, incarnate in the presiding genius of each age or cycle. Each was a Ray, and thus each king-priest was a Ray-jah or Ra-ya or Ra-ja, and the Rajah was an emanation, or the Ray Jah** emanating from the solar power in the form of air or fire. It was, I suspect, an incarnation of wisdom, of the Raj or Ras. This Ras generally, when visible, appeared in the form of Air or Fire.*** Thus came the Ray of light, the Ras, and the Rajah or Jah the Wise. All kings or Rajahs were priests, thus all inspired, all incarnations of the Ray-Jah. From these came the Rex, Regis, the Roi of France, and the females of these were the Reine of France, and the Rana of North India.

I suppose the Shepherd Kings who conquered Egypt were Rajpouts or Buddhists, of the country of the Rajahi Bedoueens, from Rajah-stan. The Israelites as well as the Royal shepherds, were both, in fact, Arab tribes—tribes also from Arab-ia on the Indus. From Rajah, and Pout or Buddha, came the name of the country of the Raja Pouts, or the Royal Buddhists, for Pout was a name of Buddha. The inhabitants of that country were Palli or Shepherds. They were Royal Shepherds or Raja-Pout Shepherds. They came from a country called Arabia; and as they crossed the Western Arabia in their route to the Abyssinian Ethiopia, when forced forwards by succeeding tribes, they left behind them, to the peninsula, the name of Arabia, which it still possesses. … From the belief that persons were incarnations of the solar ethereal fire, came the glories, as they are called, (or, as the learned priest Taylor has called them, clarys,) round the heads, and sometimes round the body, of incarnated persons. We are so used to see this solar glory in pictures, that we think it of no consequence; but a careful examination of the meaning of the word Glory will shew that it is correctly what I have described. The sycophants of Augustus Cæsar said, that his glory dazzled them when they looked upon him. I suspect the Raj %!9 rae has not only an intimate connexion with the (9 rh, spirit, but with the :!9 ras, wisdom.* Generally, when Divine Wisdom or the Logos made itself visible to man, it was in the form of fire or a ray of light.

In India there were eight Vasus. These were Jesuses or incarnations of the Holy Spirit, one for each cycle. In the early part of the Jewish Gospel they fade away, and are not visible : but Osee, the son of Nun, was one, preceded by Moses, or M-Oseh, as Cristna was by Ram. Elisha was one, preceded by Elijah. The Vasus, the Muses, and the Jesuses, were all, or had all, so far the same signification as to mean one of the persons of the Trinity,—Triune God—three in one, and one in three; and they all meant Saviour.

The title Pharaoh is probably a compound of the word Phre, and roh—Raj, Roi, Rex.* In Hebrew %39 roe means shepherd. The shepherds of Egypt, I have shewn, were Rajahpoutans. They also bore the name of Palli and %39 roe. From a union of all these circumstances they became Royal Shepherds.

In Isaiah Cyrus is called !-5 pla, in our book translated wonderful. This is the holy Pala, or Palladium, of the Greeks, which the Romans got from Troy or Ter-ia. It is Pallas or Minerva; it was an idol which descended from heaven; it was, I believe, a black stone, a Cornu Ammonis, like that in Westminster Abbey, on which our kings are crowned. It was the emblem of Minerva or Wisdom. It was the King's-bench on which he sat. It was the origin of the Polis or gate, in which the judge or king sat to administer justice. Mordecai sat in the king's gate. From this came the seat of the king, or his residence, to be called Pala-ce. It was the same as with the Sopha or the Divan of the Eastern nations. Divan is Div-ania place of the Divus. Sopha is EoF-ia, place of Wisdom. Divan is also divustania, Divus-stau-ia, place of the holy stone, softened, like Casmillus into Camillus, Pelasgus into Pelagus, &c., &c. … But soph also means wool, and from this double meaning came the sopha of wool. The Pallas of the Greeks is the !-5 pla of Isaiah ix. 6, mistranslated, as already noticed, wonderful, to conceal the Gnosticism; for it is evident from the Greek Pallas, that it ought to be wisdom. … As !-5 ple, it means intercessor between God and man. The Palla-dium shews that the sigma is only the Greek termination.

I suppose I need scarcely remind my reader that Jupiter was Iao, &%* ieu. But Hesychius says, the Hellenes were named after Jupiter, who was Hellen.* He afterward says, that his countrymen were Hellenes, in respect of certain Wisdom, … We all know how Constantine was connected with Helena. He understood the secret doctrine of WISDOM or Hellenism : for this reason, as I have intimated, he probably called his metropolitan church St. Sophia. And from this we see that Hellenism was the doctrine of Wisdom. Eusebius has formerly told us, that Hellenism came in with Serug, which shews its great antiquity. Constantine was a Hellenist and a Gnostic, or follower of Wisdom, and also of Crhj. Cæsar, the descendant of Venus, was the same, with his liber or book, the emblem of Wisdom, in his hand. I have no doubt that the use of letters was for many generations secret, sacred, and cabalistic, and used only in the mythos and the temple.

Gengis Khan was considered a prophet; the Turkish emperors called Khans, are also considered to be prophets. This is the Tibetian superstition; hence the Khans or Tartary.* Guichart derives Khan from 0%, ken, in Greek cohj.** From this he derives Diaconus.

In a former part of this book I observed, that if my theory were right, the Avatar of the incarnation of Aries—of the Lamb—ought in course to be succeeded by an incarnation of Pisces or the Fishes. I shall now shew that it did succeed, and that it was foretold in the Sibylline Oracles.

I now request my reader to recollect that we have had Avatars of Taurus and of Aries, and if my theory be correct, at the time of Christ, we ought to have had an Avatar of Pisces. The Crhjoj was adored under the form of Taurus, and of Aries; and if the acrostic of the Sibyl foretold the Crhjoj of the Zodiac in its proper course, it ought to have foretold the Pisces or Fishes to succeed the Lamb, as an object of adoration; and so in fact it did—though it has been kept out of the sight of the vulgar as much as possible. The worshipers of the Bull or Calf of gold, we have seen, in ancient times did not like to yield to the Ram or Lamb. In the same manner the followers of the Lamb did not like to yield to the Fishes. Besides, the adoration of two Fishes, absurd as man is in these subjects, does appear to have been rather too absurd to overcome the old prejudices of the people of the Lamb.* The fishes were indeed very unseemly Gods, so that the attempt to introduce them, except as a secret system, failed. But nevertheless the attempt was made, as I will now prove. The acrostic of the Sibyl, which was a mode of concealing the secret meaning of the Cfhj—of the Lamb—had also another secret meaning. …

The Acrostic itself forms an Acrostic, as the learned Beausobre has shewn.* The first letters of the five words of the Acrostic mean ICQTS, a Fish which was a name given to Jesus Christ. This identification of the fish with the IHS CRHSTOS and Jesus Christ, and its succession, or, I should rather say, its attempted succession, must surely appear very extraordinary and at first incredible. But I ask, what has Jesus Christ to do with a FISH ? Why was the Saviour IHS, which is the monogram of the Saviour Bacchus, called ICQTS ? Here are the Saviour, the Cycle, and the Fish all identified. The answer is, because they were all emblems of the sun, or of that higher power spoken of by Martianus Capella, of which the sun is himself the emblem; or, as Mr. Parkhurst would say, they were types of the Saviour. From this it was, that the Christians called themselves, in their sacred mysteries, by the name IICQTS meaning I the ICQTS, and Pisciculi. The I was prefixed for a mysterious reason, which I shall explain hereafter.

Jesus is called a fish by Augustin, who says he found the purity of Jesus Christ in the word fish : "for he is a fish that lives in the midst of waters." This was Augustin's mode of concealing the mystery.

The adoration of the fishes may be found, as we might expect, in ancient Italy. Janus married his sister Camisé, and had a son and daughter called Camasenes, a word which in Greek means the fishes, les poissons. Cam-isé is Cama the Saviour, or Isis of India, Efwj or divine love incarnate in the fishes. Brahma seated on the Lotus swimming on the waters was called Camasenes.* One of the Muses, or the person called (:. msh or the Saviour, was called by this name, a little corrupted.** …

It is chiefly on account of the acrostic, that the Sibyls have been determined by the moderns to be spurious. But again, I ask, what Christians had to do with fishes, and why they were called little fishes ? In these fishes we have the Syrian Dagon, which was an attempt by devotees, who, in their secret lodges, understood the real doctrine, to introduce the Avatar of the fishes, but failed. Although the sign of the Zodiac is called Pisces, it is remarkable that the two are joined into one by a ligature, which justifies the Chrestus, or Cfhjoj, or benignant incarnation of that Avatar being called ICQTS in the singular number : it probably alluded to the male and female, or androgynous, Deity. As we might expect from what we have already seen, the origin of this will be found in India. In the entrance of most Romish churches, is a vase full of water. This is called Piscina. It is true that the word may merely mean a vessel for water. But few persons will doubt that it has here a more mystical meaning. This Piscina was the Bowli found in the ruins of Mundore, by Col. Tod.

The Syrian God is called Dag-on. Now the fish in which Jonah was preserved, was called in the Hebrew, sometimes in the masculine 19 dg, sometimes in the feminine, according to the Rabbies, %19 dge. Calmet has observed that this word Dag means preserver, which I suppose the same as Saviour, a word which Calmet or his translator did not like to use. Here is Jonas buried three days in the ocean, and cast up again by this preserver—raised again to-day. Jonas means Dove, the emblem of one of the persons of the Trinity, and the same as Oannes and as John. Dagon has been likened to the ship of Noah, by Mr. Taylor, the editor of Calmet's Fragments. …

He also shews that this Dagon was the Buddha Nar’ayana, or Buddha dwelling in the waters of the Hindoos.* Nara means waters. In Hebrew 9%1 ner means river.* Ay-ana is the Hebrew %* ie or God, with the termination ana making Nara-ayana—God floating on the waters. …

In the Vishnu of India, my reader will perceive that, as usual, the renewed incarnate person or Avatar is treading on the head of the serpent. Here also we see him with his four emblems : the book and the sword, to shew that, like Cæsar, he ruled both in right of the sword and of the book; the circle, emblem of eternal renewal, and the shell with its eight convolutions, to shew the place in the number of the cycles which he occupied. His Triple Crown or Mitre, or three Tufts, shew him to be an emblem of the triple God. The shell, also, is peculiarly appropriate to the fish God. His foot on the Serpent's head connects him with the Jewish seed of the woman, in a manner which cannot be disputed.

What is said in the play of Æschylus respecting the crucifixion of Prometheus, on Mount Caucasus, finds a parallel in the Alcestis of Euripides, which is proved by a gentleman of the name of H. S. Byod, in the Classical Journal,* like the Prometheus bound, to be a sacred drama : these doctrines came from India, and are founded on Genesis. The Trinity, the Atonement, the Crucifixion, are all from the same quarter, where they were the foundations of the universal, secret religion, long before Jesus of Nazareth was born.

The Baptist, and the author of the Apocalypse were called John, or Joannes or Iwannhj. Bryant says,* "This name, which we render John, I have shewn to be no other than Iona. It signifies a dove; but means likewise an oracular person : by whom the voice of the Most High is made known and his will explained." That is, a resoul or prophet. This was the Ionas sent to the Ninevites as noticed before.

Anna, or the year, was the mother of Maria, or Mæra or Maia, all of whom (as I have shewn or shall shew hereafter) were the same, and Maia was the first month of the year, on which, in very ancient times, began both the year and the Cycle of IHS-oj, or 608. There was also a certain Anna who was supernaturally pregnant (like the wife of Abraham, who was sometimes called Maria* and Isha, but commonly Sarah or Sarai or Sara-iswati) in her old age; and she was delivered of a son whose name was John, Joanes, or Johna, or Jana, or Oanes. He was born at the Midsummer solstice, exactly six months before the son of Maria. Thus he might be said, astrologically, as Matthew makes him say, to be decreasing when the son of Maria was increasing. He prepared the way for the son of Maria,—as the prophet said, he was the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Was he a previous Avatar, as the learned divine Parkhurst would say, sent as a type or symbol ?

The apostles of Jesus, I believe, were most of them fisherman. There are many stories of miraculous draughts of fish, and other matters connected with fishes, in the Gospel histories; and Peter, the son of John, Ioannes or Oannes, the great fisherman, inherited the power of ruling the church from the Lamb of God. The fisherman succeeded the shepherd. The Pope calls himself the great Fisherman, and boasts of the contents of his Poitrine.

On the Janus I have some very curious observations from Mackenzie Beverly, Esq., LL. D. : "Many reasons have been proposed for the position of Janus at the gates of cities, but the true meaning is to be found only in the Ling-yoni doctrine—than which none is more ancient. The arch of gate of Janus was a symbol of the mysterious gate through which all men and animals enter into the world, and over which the two or four-faced Janus presided, representing the sun rising in the East and setting in the West, of the power of the Sun in the four quarters. The Sun, Lord of procreation, was in his most ancient human figure the quadrifront Janus or Brahma. The quadrifront Brahma is to be seen occasionally sitting before the Lingham-Yoni, presiding over the great mystery; and the key of Janus is but another form of the crux ansata of Egypt, the key that opens the ARCH through which we all pass. The crux ansata is the ligam, and is the monogram of the planet Venus, the key that opens the great door of mystery over which the veil of Isis was drawn. This key is in the hand of Janus-Sol, because it opens the gate of the mysterious arch. But as the sun was always triplified in his power, and as the TRIANGLE is another form of the great gate of mystery, they were fond of erecting triple gates in the East, as in the triple portal or Tripolia of the Rajas of India,* from which root also comes the word Tripoli. From the Sanscrit Pola, we have the Greek pulh a gate; and, as I suspect, the pole and phallus always inseparably connected with the mysterious gate. Pylos signifies also a pass, and in Sanscrit these natural barriers are called Palas, which I consider a near approach to the Greek Phallus.

"Ganesa, the Indian Janus, was expressly formed by Oomia (the Indian Juno, and the Goddess OUM) to guard the entrance of her caverned retreat in Caucacus. Ganesa is four armed and carries a dirk, a club, a lotus, and a shell : the two last are emblems of the female mystery. One of the gates of every Hindu city is called Ganesa-pol; clearly pointing to Janus or Ganes, Lord of the Pole, May-Pole, or Phallus, and therefore most appropriately made to guard the GREAT ARCH of mystery,** through which all must enter." In the cross we here see the emblem of generation, and as the instument of death of destruction—of destruction and reproduction, regeneration,—of the cycle of the Sun and Moon, of 600.

Jesus Christ was an incarnation of divine Wisdom. He taught that he was the door, or that through him was the entrance to the kingdom of heaven. He that entereth not by the door is a thief and a robber. Again, I am the door of the sheep. Again, I am the door; by me if any man enter in he shall be saved.* This door or gate is the pulh—the --5 pll, the intercessor. This is also !--5 pl-a, wisdom, Pallas. This is the Ganesa Pol** of India, the Gate of Wisdom. From this, Pol comes to mean head. Here we have ænigma within ænigma, parable upon parable. When Jesus declares himself the door of life, surely no one will deny the allegory or figure of speech, and it is in perfect keeping with the declaration that he taught in parables—that the uninitiated might hear and not understand.

… But still a polis always meant a city; for instance, the Decapolis of Syria. This was an imitation of the Decan of India, which lay beyond the river Buddha, as the Decapolis of Syria lay beyond the sacred Jordan. But there is another Pole which the Colonel (Tod) has forgotten to notice—the Pole of the globe. Why does the axis of the earth bear this name, but because it is the mundane emblem of the generative power—the sacred Meru—with the beautiful diamond at the end of it—the Pole-star, called by the Arabians the star of Iudè or Juda ?

We are now in the centre of the land of mysticism. Every thing is a parable, an ænigma, a mystery. What can be more mystical that Matthew's expression, that Jesus should increase and John decrease ? What can be more mystical that what we have seen respecting the Joannes, and Butta, and Deus ? What can be more mystical than the expression, that John should stop till Jesus came again in his glory ? What more mystical that that the Baptist was Elias, that is, in plain Greek, the sun—`Hlioj ?

Jonas the amphibious, was swallowed, and returned again in three days from the fish. He was the same person as Hercules or as Heri-clo, the saviour 608, swallowed at the same time and place with Jonas, who (vide Bk. V. Ch. VI. Sect. 6) prophesied the destruction of Nineveh about the year 600 B.C. This was the time of the famous central eclipse of Thales,* or conjunction of the Sun and Moon, the time when the oriental messiah, Cyrus, was born, he having the solar title,** and who having established the Persian monarchy at Babylon, restored the Jews and abolished idolatry. He is still worshiped, under the name of Jonas, on Mount Libanus,*** by the Curds or Culdees formerly named. He has the same appellation, according to Mr. Bryant, (vide Bk. VII. Ch. V., Bk. VIII Ch. II.,) as the half-man, half-fish, or amphibious being called Oannes, who appeared for the instruction of mankind, &c., according to Sanchoniathon; the same as Dagon, which was the name of the fish which harboured Jonas, or SAVED him, and the meaning of which is saviour. This Oannes or Ioannes we find again after about 600 years, born of an aged woman, called Anna, the name of the mother of the Italian Janus, miraculously foretold by the prophet Zacharias, to whom his birth was announced by an angel. He was the forerunner of Jesus Christ, and called, as above-mentioned, by the celebrated Julian, Crhjoj Iwannej. He was by profession a saviour of men by means of baptism or immersion, like Jonas in the water. Jonas was immersed three days in the ocean for the salvation of the Ninevites, as Jesus afterward was buried three days for the salvation of the Jews of mankind. After this we find another person called Ioannes, a fisherman, beloved by Jesus, of whom Jesus declared from the cross that he should not die till his return. And after this, another Iaonnes, who had revelations from God; and, at last, we have the Iaonnes ordered by Jesus to remain till his return, as Ioannes, Butta, and Deus, or the fish, or Oannes God Buddha. It is impossible to conceive any thing altogether more mystical than the character of I-oannes, whom, it will be recollected, Mr. Bryant declared to be the same as Oannes. Now John the Baptist or the Prophet, Regenerator by means of water, who was also a revived Elias, was the immediate forerunner of Jesus—in almost every aspect an exact copy of Bala-rama, the forerunner of Cristna. And John the Baptist, or Saviour of men by means of water, was the Oannes or Avatar of Pisces, as Buddha was of Taurus, and Cristna of Aries; or, according to Mr. Parkhurst's doctrine, Oannes was the type of the Baptist, if ever he appeared; and, if he did not, then, according to Mr. Parkhurst, the history must have been a figurative representation of an avatar, foretelling the Baptist.

Lightfoot* observes of the births of John and Jesus, 'So the conceptions and births of the Baptist and our Saviour, ennobled the four famous Tekuppas (Revolutions) of the year : one being conceived at the summer solstice, the other at the winter : one born at the vernal equinox, the other at the autumnal."

This is a sect named by St. Epiphanius, and said by him to have been in existence before the time of Christ, and not to have known the Saviour. These people have a book called the book of Adam, in which, Mons. Matter says, is the mythos of Noë and most of Genesis, but he says they equally detest the Jews and Christians, and put their founder, the Hemero-baptist John, in the place of the Saviour : that is, in other words, that their founder was a Saviour or incarnate person. This is very important—these people having, as Epiphanius informs us, existed as a sect before the time of Christ. They have in their mythos a person, the Principe de Vie, Abatour, 9&(!"! abatur, pater taurus, which answers to the Kaiomorts of the Zendavesta, translated Taurus. This Abatour had a son, the creator, called Feta-Hill or El-Phtha (noticed by matter, Vol. II. p.203); but El-Phtha is the God Phtha, or … 600, before named.

M. Matter has given the meaning of Manda, the origin of Mandaism in the word Gnosis.* This suits very well with my belief, that all Gnosticism came originally from India, and perhaps from Mundore. Mundus in Latin, cosmoj in Greek, we know means cycle or circle.

I quite agree with M. Matter, that their numerous sacred books deserve a much more careful examination than they have hitherto received, and I think the sect comes from Mundore in India.

Whatever offence I may give these assertions, it is impossible to deny that what the Rev. Robert Taylor has said, respecting the epithets of Christ being applicable to the sun, is true. They meet us at every step we take in forms innumerable, and would be seen by every one if not prevented by early prejudice. …

I take Jasius or Iasion son of Abas (father) and Jupiter, to be the same as Jasus, son of Triopas : see Lempriere in voce. Iasius had a daughter called I|sis. This was Isis. Nimrod* shews that this Iasius was the Babylonian Jove; …

I shall now assume that the Sibylline Oracles are genuine, and that they foretell the Chrestos or the ninth Avatar, in whom also is blended the fish Avatar. This is exactly what took place with Cristna. In his person he was mingled both with Taurus or Buddha and with Bala Rama. And here we have mingled together, Buddha, Dagon, Pisces, Jonah, and Jesus or the Lamb, and we have Cristna and Arjoon, (Ar-John,) Jesus and Iohn, I-Oannes. In every case I suspect Buddha will be found to be a name of the Zodiacal incarnation—perhaps of every incarnation. No doubt all this will surprise my reader very much, but it will not surprise him more that it has done me. But the facts cannot be denied.

Some time after the history of Cristna had found its way into Europe, the learned Orientalists were surprised with what appeared to be another version of the same story, from the Southern part of the Peninsula of India. In the Asiatic Researches,* there is an account of a person called Salivahana, near Cape Comorin. He was a divine child, born of a virgin, and was the son of Taishaca,** a carpenter. He was attempted to be destroyed in infancy by a tyrant who was afterward killed by him : most of the other circumstances, with slight variations, are the same as those told of Cristna. Mr. Maurice*** says, "The manuscripts from which the above is taken have been carefully examined and ascertained to be genuine." Again, "Sir W. Jones has examined the age of these manuscripts, and he undertakes to prove their date COEVAL with the birth Christ."

… I think my reader will now understand the nature of this mythos, which has hitherto puzzled our orientalists. I beg him to recollect, that it was held by Ammonius Saccas one of the most early and respectable of the Christian fathers, that the religion of Jesus and that of the Gentiles, were the same, if cleared of the corruptions of priests : and the Brahmins constantly tell our missionaries that our religion is only corrupted Brahmanism. I must now suspend my history of Salivahana, to introduce to my reader a very celebrated person—St. Thomas of India.

It cannot be doubted, I think, that the Tamuz of the Bible or Adonis was Buddha under a different name, that is, under the name of the Zodiacal twins or one of them, or was in some way closely connected with them. And it is worthy of observation, that this is the account which the native Vishnuvites of Malabar give to their Thomas —calling the Christians Baudhenmar or sons of Baudhen.* And the Christians of the present day always call their bishops by the name of Mar-Thome, that is, son of Thome, Thomé-mar. Manes, whose existence I much doubt, is said to have had for his ancestors or predecessors a Budwas and a Thomas, and he may have come from Malabar, or from the Matura of Upper India or Syrasta, from the Bituma, where there is the same mythos. Bithuma is evidently %/3;-;*" bit-tomé, house of Tomé. This Bithoma is not far fom the promontory of Tamus and the island of Chryse.

The Portuguese state, that the St. Thome Christians had all their sacred books in the old Chaldee tongue, but what they contained we can never know, as Menezes and the Portuguese inquisition, after having held a Synod at Odiamper, sought them out with the greatest care and destroyed them all, substituting in their place books of their own, but yet in the Chaldee language. … It seems that the Roman Catholics in this instance broke the rule of their church, to have the service in Latin, in order to indulge these Indians with the Chaldee. … Therefore it is pretty clear that Chaldee must have been the vernacular language of these people. … Now I think the natural inference from this is, that one at least of the broken dialects of India, as they are called, must have been the Chaldee or Hebrew. It must be observed that I am speaking both of the Chaldee letter and language.

… Is there not great room for suspicion, that this Thomas was the Tamus for whom the women of Judea wept, and that his followers were not Christians, but Crhj-tians, followers of him of whom the Erythræan Sibyl prophesied ? It is a very important fact, that the city of Adoni should not be far from the place where Thomas was put to death, and that a large TEMPLE should be placed on the highest mount of the country called SALEM, of course ƒroj-Salem.*

Salivahana, Sali-vahan, Saliban, or Salban, is formed of the word Salib or Salb, which has the meaning of the Greek stauroj, furca, or cross, and vahana, carried, from the Sanscrit verb vah, Latin veho, to carry.* Then Salivahana will have the meaning of cross-borne. Thus there were nine cross-borne Avatars, let them be who they may, and live where they may. …

Sally—the name of the wife of Abraham, Sarah, Saraiswati, called %7T ise or Iscah or Eve or Isis.

Solym—the Hebrew .-: slm, Salem, peace or salvation.

It is allowed that Rama preceded Cristna, and yet they are both said to be the same. In Hebrew .!9 ram means Bull; but it is easy to see from Parkhurst, (in voce,) that it also means Ram or male Lamb. Thus as Rama is the same as Cristna, and Cristna is the same as the sun in Aries, Rama is also the same as Adonis, which was the sun in Aries. Adonis is the same as Tamuz, killed and bewailed in Western Syria. Tamuz is found to have died, or to have been killed and bewailed, on the coast of Coromandel. Kr-ioj and 9, kr mean a Lamb Ram.* Mandalam means a circle or cycle :** then, coast of Cr-mandal will mean coast of cycle of the Ram Lamb. In the language of the West, this is the meaning of Coromandel. The language of the West being found in an Eastern country, will radically still retain its Western meaning. The locality makes no difference.*** The Rama, Adonis, Tamuz, was the Egyptian Am-on or Indian Om, worshiped in the form of a Lamb or Saviour at Sais and Thebes.****

I now request my reader to recollect what I have said before, in different parts of this work, of Roma, or Rama, or Ram. In the Indian accounts of the Salivahanas or Vicramadityas frequent mention is made of a place whence they came, called by our authors, Roum, or Rom, or Ram. That the Salivahana of India, in the time of Christ, should have copied from the Papal church, not established till three hundred years afterward, seemed impossible, but how to account for this I could not tell. At last I accidentally learnt, from an Indian scholar, that the celebrated Lanca, Serindive, Palisimunda, Ceylon, called also Taprobane, was the sacred island of Ram, which I doubt not was corrupted to Rom or Roum : this removes all the difficulties. …

The Astrologers and the Chaldeans were prophets, or rather the prophets were astrologers. Daniel was at the head of them at Babylon, as is most clearly proved by the Bible. Isaiah foretold the Messiah Cyrus—Om-nual, Om-our-God. Daniel foretold Jesus, Ham-Messiah, or Om—the Saviour, and Jesus was believed, as I shall presently shew, by the Gnostics and Templars, to have foretold Mo-hamed or Om-ahmed, Om the desire of all nations. Hence it was, as I shall shew, that these two sects or orders of persons were both of the Christian and Mohamedan religions. I have often wondered why the word Mo was prefixed to the Ahmed, but here we have the reason. The reason is the same as that which causes the mysterious, inexplicable M—600—to be prefixed to so many mystic words, such as M-Omptha, M-uin, &c., &c.

We now come to the famous Crusades, the real origin or cause of which, in modern times, has never been understood. They will found to occupy a prominent place in the complete development of my system, and particularly of the tenth Avatar, and will lead to a variety of matters which will greatly surprise my reader.

Then what was the fact ? Jesus Christ was believed, by the followers of Mohamed, to be a divine incarnation, or a person divinely inspired, and to have foretold the next and the last Avatar, Mohamed, to complete the ten periods, and the six millenaries, previous to the grand Millenium, or the reign of the Crhjoj, or Christ, on earth, for the last and seventh period, of one thousand years. Irenæus and the first Christian fathers said, that, during this period, the lion was to lie down with the lamb, and the grapes were to cry out to the faithful to come and eat them !

Vicentius Belovacensis notices the custom of two Indian nations making Carns in honour of their Gods, at the equinoxes.* This is still continued in Tibet, and what is remarkable, he says the custom passed from the Indians to the Arabians, and was ordered to be continued by Mohamed. This seems to support what I have said of the Arabians' first coming from India, and to have been connected with the Mohamedans' protection of the Buddhist images in India.** Buddha was spared, because he was the male generative principle, as the Lingas were spared by Cambyses. Late travellers have found, as we might expect, Carns in Western Syria.

In the dark and mystical learning of the middle ages we meet with many very odd circumstances which have never yet been accounted for, but which have in vain attracted the curiosity of the philosophers; until at last the inquiry seems to have been given up as hopeless. The circumstances to which I allude seem to connect the learning called Gnosticism with the Christian and Mohamedan systems : but though a connexion evidently existed, yet it was in an obscure, mystical and incomprehensible way, of which no one could make any sense. All this learning was closely connected with judicial astrology—with a famous prophetic magical demagorgon or brazen head, and various idolatrous and Gnostic emblems—with the well-known mysterious man of the mountain or Syrian Assassins, and with the person called Johannes, Butta, and Deus, of whom we have lately treated. On charges intimately related to secrets of this kind the famous Knights Templars were destroyed. The accusations brought against them, as well as their defences, were involved in mystery. This was closely connected with the Millenium, and the Crusades in the eleventh and the twelfth centuries were the effects of that doctrine. The foundation of this was laid in the Virgilian doctrine of the renewed cycles—the expected commencement of the Millenium at the end of 1200 years, or at most in the thirteenth century, and the belief that Mohamed was either the tenth Avatar or Beast of Revelation, or Antichrist, or the person foretold by Jesus, by Daniel and the prophets, and referred to by the Magician Virgil.* And thus came to be united the doctrines of Magic, Heathenism, Christianity, and Mohamedism, an union at first sight totally incomprehensible, of things to all appearance absolutely in diametrical opposition. The expectation of the Millenium was clearly entertained by the Papal See, which, on this account, encouraged the Crusades, and though the Cardinals of course could not believe that Mohamed was the hero of the tenth age or cycle, yet they believed that the seventh millenary of the Millenium was about to come, till the thirteenth century had considerably advanced, probably till after the year 1260, and till its non-arrival had proved to them, as well as to others, their mistake. Then this dogma, from its evident falsity, was despised, and by degrees almost forgotten. … I have no doubt whatever, that the Romish secret religion was essentially magical or astrological, till about the end of the thirteenth century, when the prophecies of the Millenium failed, and proved its falsity.** Perhaps it might exist in a doubtful kind of way, till after the year 1260 had passed over; then, if not before, astrology became heresy.

In the persecutions of the Knights Templars, which are known to every body, a certain mystification and secrecy may be observed, as if the whole of the charges against them were not brought publicly out. This arose from various causes. The persecuted were really very religious, and were bound by the most solemn Masonic oaths (and Masonry was intimately connected with these matters) not to divulge the secrets of the order. This caused them to recant at the stake, when all hope had fled, what they confessed when on the wheel; and by this means they endeavoured to make amends for the secrets betrayed, and the oaths involuntarily broken on the rack. But yet it is charged upon them that although at the last they declared themselves innocent of the charges brought against them, yet they acknowledged themselves guilty and deserving of punishment; but the wickedness which they are said to have confessed is concealed from us. I have no doubt it consisted in part, at least, in having, when under torture, accused, and thereby having brought on the ruin of, the order. The Papal See having first come at the secrets by means of confession, of persons who had gone over to the Heretics, and afterward repented and confessed, proceeded with the greatest certainty; but at the same time in a way which appeared very cruel, and also very mysterious : for it knew the truth, but it would not divulge the mode by which it obtained it, namely, that it acquired it by confession.

The doctrines to which I have alluded above, are visible every where in the curious mystical figures always seen upon the monuments of the Templars, in the fishes bound together by the tails, on the tombs of Italy—in the astrological emblems on many churches, such as the Zodiacs on the floor of the church of St. Irenæus at Lyons, and on a church at York, and Notre Dame at Paris, and Bacchus or the God IHS filling the wine-cask, formerly on the floor of the church of St. Denis. Again, in the round churches of the Templars, in imitation of the round church at Jerusalem, probably built by them in the Circlar or Cyclar or Gilgal form in allusion to various recondite subjects which I flatter myself I need not now point out to my reader, and in the monograms IHS and CH in thousands of places. In these mysteries, not only the Cardinals, but the heads and chapters of all the orders of knighthood, and of all the old orders of Monks, were more or less implicated; and from that part of them more intimately connected with the ancient doctrines of Ionism, arose a profound devotion of all orders of knighthood to the fair sex and the mother of God. That the Gnostic doctrines named above, that is, that Christianity was only a species, or an uncorrupted or reformed kind, of Paganism, were secretly held by the Cardinals in the Vatican, I can scarcely doubt, and I think I shall prove it by and by; and their refusal to believe Mohamed to be the Paraclete is easily accounted for.

When the wicked French got possession of Rome, they did not fail to examine this celebrated relic and lo ! in addition to the labours of Hercules, they discovered engraved upon it, in Arabic letters, the Mohamedan confession of faith.* In these two facts there is a beautiful exemplification of the doctrine held by me and Ammonius Saccas, that all the varieties of religions are at the bottom the same—but including, in the collection known to Ammonius, the modern Mohamedan religion, which will be accounted for presently. I can scarcely conceive a more marked proof of the nature of the secret doctrine of the Conclave. The story goes, that this chair was brought from Constantinople by a Pilgrim, who, of course, could neither see the Zodiac, nor read, nor know, when he saw Arabic letters, that they were the letters of the country where he had been travelling. And it is also clear that the Pope and all the Cardinals who adopted this chair were equally blind, and could not see the Zodiacal signs, and equally ignorant of the Arabic letters. Besides, it is also manifest, if they did see them, that there was not at the time a carpenter in the Roman dominions by whom these offensive emblems might have been removed from the chair, or who might have simplified the matter by substituting a new one, if one must be had, and if the emblems proved the falsity of the story of its being St. Peter's.

The Everlasting Gospel was also called the Gospel of the Holy Ghost. It had the same name of Evangelium Eternum from the fourteenth chapter and sixth verse of the Revelation of Ioannes or John, of which it was the completion and in which, as the tenth Avatar, or CYCLE, or AGE, which would come or be completed about the end of the twelfth century, it was of course found; for the Apocalypse is a very ancient astrological work on the Zodiacal Lamb, and the doctrines of the ten Cycles and the Millenium. Its other name, given above, of the Holy Ghost, or the Peri-clyte, or Para-clete, is evidently in accordance with the Mohamedan doctrine. The Roman See supported the Evangelium Eternum by all the means in its power. This gospel announces that there have been two imperfect ages, the one of the Father, the age of the Old Testament, and one of the New Testament, under the administration of the Son, and that the third or the perfect one, of the Holy Ghost, which was to be preached to all nations, was at hand. Here, most clearly, we have a doctrine which assimilates again to Mohamedism, and to the expectation of the Millenium.

About the same time, at least in the same Cycle, when St. Francis was set up by the Cordeliers for the last manifestation of God on earth, previous to the Millenium, these Assassins were first noticed in the Western world with their chief Hakem* Bemrillah or Hakem-biamr-allah, who was held up in Syria for the same person. He was said BY HIS FOLLOWERS to be THE TENTH AVATAR, or, as I suppose, incarnation, and, as I have said, the founder of what his enemies called the Assassins. His ideas of God were very refined. The first of the creatures of God, the only production immediate of his power, was the intelligence universelle, which shewed itself at each of the manifestations of the Divinity on earth; that by means of this minister all creatures were made, and he was the Mediator between God and man. They called themselves Unitarians. This intelligence universelle is evidently the Logos, Rasit, or Arch or Buddha or Mhtij of which we have seen so much. In the doctrine of the ten incarnations, and that Hakem was the tenth, and in the intelligence universelle, we have the complete proof of the reality of the system which I have been developing and tracing through the six thousand years from the first of them. It completes my proofs if any were wanted. It was not discovered by me till more than half this volume was printed.

It is a very extraordinary thing that the Christian Templars should call themselves Templars in honour of the Temple, the destruction of which all Christians boasted of as a miraculous example of Divine wrath in their favour, as Christians. This goes to prove the Templars much older than the Crusades, and that the pretended origin of these people is totally false. I can entertain little doubt that their origin is to be sought in the College of Cashi, and the Temple of Solomon in Cashmere, or the lake or mere of Cashi. I do not think the Calidei has their name from the Chasdim, but the Chasi-dim were Calidei. The Gymnosophists, the Kasideans, the Essenes, the Therapeutæ, the Dionesians, the Eleusinians, the Pythagoreans, the Chaldeans, were in reality all an order of religionists, including among them, and consisting in great part of, an order of Monks, who were, in fact, the heads of the society.

The Templars had no where possession of a city as a sovereign power, though they had armies. If they had obtained Tyre, they would then have been a sovereign power, with an army of devotees, and fanatical traitors, and immense wealth, in every country of Europe, which the governments dared not touch. It is quite clear to me that if they had gone on till they got one of their order elected Pope, they would instantly have been sovereigns of Europe, and all the kings their vassals. The Templars posses-sed 9000 manors in Europe, the Knights of St. John 19,000.*

Of the different dreams which have terrified the imagination of the weaker class of mankind, there is, perhaps, no one which has played a greater game than that of the fear of Antichrist, a person whom I believe to have been pretty generally misunderstood. The word Anticrhjoj I believe does not mean a person opposed to Christ, but a substitute for Christ—another Christ, a Christ in succession. In our sacred books the disciples are constantly warned against false Christs, but no where is it said that there shall not be another Christ. This is all in unison with the prophecy in John, that Jesus would send a person to them in some capacity or other. Mohamed was believed to be this Antichrist, and so was both Hakim Bemrillah and St. Francis. …

The Templars were accused of worshiping a being called Bahumid, and Bafomet, or Kharuf. Mr. Hammer* says that this word written in Arabic has the meaning of Calf, and is what Kircher calls Anima Mundi. It is difficult not to believe that this Kharuf is our Calf. Bahumid must be Pi the Egyptian emphatic article, and 9*.! amid the desire of all nations, that is Mohamed.

The revenues of the Templars in the twelfth century are said to have amounted to six million pounds sterling a year. Notwithstanding this immense wealth, it is very certain that their chiefs were repeatedly guilty of betraying the Christian cause to the Assassins, … I believe they took their oaths to the cause of the Crhjoj, the Chreestian cause, and that if a small body of Knights separated from the Hospitallers to form the order of Templars of the Temple, of the ancient circular or cyclar temples, not of the church, (their churches differing from all other churches in the world in being of the circular form,) they had become proselytes to or were of an opinion in its nature Manichæan, that Hakem Bemrillah was, as he was claimed by his followers to be, the tenth avatar—they were believers in some sense in the Evangelium Eternum, and thus they continued to be still the passing years proved the falsity of their system, as well as that of the Franciscans. Then, though they probably abandoned the Millenium, they retained part of their Manichæan or Gnostic doctrines; and, though friends to the Mohamedan Ishamelites, they were still Christians, but it was the Gnostic Christianity, which was in fact the oriental Buddhism of the ancient Gymnosophistæ or Samaneans, of which we shall presently see more.

Free Mason is PH-RE—PH the Coptic emphatic article and re the sun, Mason of the sun. Re is roi, rex, rai, ray, whence Ph-aroah. Cleland observes* that the Druids taught the doctrines of an overruling providence, and the immortality of the soul : that they had also their Lent, their Purgatory, their Paradise, their Hell, their Sanctuaries, and the similitude of the May Pole IN FORM TO THE CROSS, &c., &c.

Speaking of the initiation of Moses by the Egyptian priests, Schiller says,

It is certainly worthy of observation that in the Hindostannee, the language of the country in which I believe masonry had its rise, a mason is called a raz, and has the meaning of mystery. This word has the same meaning as the :!9 ras of Genesis, the Arch of St. John. The persons called Royal-Arch Masons were the Archi-tect-onici, before the invention of key-stoned or radiated Arches, the Cyclopæan builders of the only stone edifices, at that time, in the world, which were temples. … The Architectonici, the Chaldæi, the Gnostici, the Mathematici, the Dionisiaci, constituted a MYSTERY, and erected Gothis buildings, the ruins of which now remain in India, thousands of years before they existed in Europe.* …

It is well known that almost immediately on the death of Mohamed his followers divided into two sects, that of Abubeker, and that of Ali, the latter of whom had the twelve Imaums—hi successors—the same in number as the apostles of Christ and as the twelve Cæsars. The faith of the latter of these sects became and still continues the religion of Persia. This I have no doubt was the original or rather, perhaps, contained the original esoteric religion of Mohamed, which is yet to be found in the sect of the Sofees as they are called by Sir John Malcolm, in his History of Persia. These are followers of the ancient SoFoi, one of whom was Mo-amed, that is, Mo or Om, the illustrious or desire of all nations. The Sophoi or Sofees are allowed by the vulgar or present orthodox Persian writers* to have descended from the ancient Sabæans and to have been contemporaneous with the prophet, that is to say, they find them and their doctrines to have co-existed with him from his first appearance or from the beginning of his empire, but they know not how or why. Sir John judiciously observes, that "their rapturous zeal, perhaps, aided, in no slight degree, its first establishment."** I have no doubt that it did. But this acknowledgement conveys along with it the admission of the fact, that Mohamed was a Sofee, and his secret religion Sopheism. Sir John then adds, that they have been since considered as its most dangerous enemies. … Sopheism, the secret doctrine, might have become too common; it was necessary to put it down—to keep the people in ignorance. This is what the Popes did with Gnosticism—prohibit it publicly, hold it secret. …

The word Soph, in Persian, has the meaning of wool, and therefore some persons have thought the doctrines of Sopheism were named from it—overlooking what I should have thought could not be missed, the word SoFia wisdom, from which no doubt it took its name. We are also told by Sir John Malcolm that these people had a very remarkable name, that of Philosaufs, that is, philosophers.

The sovereigns of Persia have the titles of Sophi and Shah. The first explains itself; the second means, protector, preserver, saviour, from the Hebrew word 3:* iso, to save. …

The Sofees are divided at this day into many sects, and, in their four stages, they have a species of Masonic or Eleusinian initiation from lower to higher degrees. …

… I think when, in the latter part of this book, my reader shall have seen the whole development of the ancient doctrine of Wisdom, he will no longer be at a loss for a reason why Mohamedism prevailed in the seventh century over the base Christianism which was then taught to the vulgar by its priests.

He is said to have lived in the time of Heber, of David, and of Solomon : and to have been a Jew, that is, of the tribe of Ioudi or Judah. He is claimed by the Greeks, the Jews, the Arabians, the Persians, the Ethiopians, and the Indians. Much has been written about him. I believe the fables of Æsop are the fables of the SoFia and of Lockman, of L'hkm, .,(- lhkm, the wise. His residence, if he ever lived, probably was in Oudia. The nations are all right, because they are the fables of Wisdom, and they all had the doctrine of Wisdom. In Arabia there was a tribe of Lochmians whose general name was Mondar.* They were descended from Lakhm, the son of Am-ru, the son of Saba. Their kingdom lasted 600 years. The words Lochman, Mondar, Lakhm, Am-ru, Saba, and their 600-year kingdom, can want no explanation for any person who has read this book. They evidently bespeak the universal mythos.

We will now return to the tribe of Afghans, of whom we noticed many circumstances in the 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th chapters of the Eighth Book. And in which pretty good proof was given that they were the ancestors of the Jews. The author of the Cambridge Key, whose authority cannot be disputed for such a fact as this, says expressly, that the Vedas, in the Sanscrit, are now believed both by Persians and Hindoos, to have been originally written in a CELESTIAL language, long since extinct.* By this celestial language the Pali is not meant, for reasons which it is unnecessary to explain, and also because it is not extinct or lost. Then what language was it so likely to be, as the old Hebrew language of the tribe of Ioudi or Yud, or Western Oude, whose Samaritan nail-headed characters Dr. Hagar traced from India, and from which the Sanscrit letters descended ? …

… According to Dr. Babington and the late Mr. Ellis, it is a language not derived from the Sanscrit, but of independent origin. Wilson says, "It is not derived from any language at present in existence, and is itself either the parent of the Teluga, MALAYA-lam, and Canarese languages, or what is more probable, has its origin in common with these in some ancient tongue, which is now lost or only partially preserved in its offspring." Again, in another place, he makes an observation of the very first importance to all my theories, as follows : "The higher dialect of the Tamul, on the contrary, is almost entirely free from Sanscrit words and idioms, and the language retains an alphabet which tradition affirms to have heretofore consisted of but sixteen letters, and which so far from resembling the very perfect alphabet of the Sanscrit, wants nearly half its characters, and has several letters of peculiar power." … But I say it is not at all extraordinary, if the Tamul be either the sixteen-letter Hebrew or its first descendant, one of which I have no doubt that it is.

We find at three of the temples of Solomon—that in Upper India, that which I suppose to have been Salem, in the Carnatic, and that in Western Syria, the same mythos of a Moses or Saviour (for the word Moses means Saviour). From this I think it probable that it was the same or nearly the same in the secret writings in every one of the fourteen temples of Solumi of which we have read, for fragments of this mythos are to be found every where.

I cannot have a doubt that a real Hierarchy, like that in Rome and in Tibet, at one time extended over the whole world. … But at all events the :!9 Ras or Wisdom and the Trimurti were the foundations of it. Every new cycle, a renewed incarnation of divine wisdom took place,—one of the Trimurti became incarnate, was born sans souillure, after ten months,—was attempted to be killed, but miraculously escaped,—spent a life doing good to mankind,—was ultimately put to death, and the third day rose again to life and immortality : of all which, I shall say much more by and by.

I will now point out a circumstance not a little curious. I need not repeat, but I beg my reader to recollect, what has lately been stated respecting the Manichæans having come from India, their connexion with the Christians of St. Thomas on the coast of Malabar, who are found every where about Goa, and also respecting the Crhjianoi and Chryson, &c., in that country : and then, if he will look into my CELTIC DRUIDS, in Chap. III. Sect. V., he will find that the Manichæans were connected, by means of their name of Pattarini, with the people of Baieux or Baiocassæ, in Gaul, and the worship of Bel or Bal.

On the coast of Malabar, about Goa, there exists a race of people called by the natives Bhoees. They are Hindoos and refuse to eat the flesh of the Beeve, &c., &c.; but still they are called Christians. I learnt from a medical gentleman, who dwelt long on the coast of Malabar, that they are divided into two classes by the natives; one class, consisting of modern Portuguese converts, are called Christians; the other, those who resided there before the Portuguese came, are called Crestons or Cræstons. … The distinction made by the natives clearly marks and distinguishes the old Christianity from the new, in spite of all the unceasing, though not ill-intentioned, attempts of the missionaries, both Portuguese and English to confound them. The Crestons were the Christians of the three sacraments, the Culdees or Chaldees of Scotland and Ireland in fact, as distinguished from the Christians of the seven, introduced by the Portuguese. Here we have really the ancient Brahmin (flesh-refusing) followers of the cfhj—of the secret, unwritten religion of all nations; …

We have seen that Adonis was the Sun. We have seen that he was Thamus, or Tamus, or Tamas. This is the Hebrew .!( tam, which means to connect, to cohere, to embrace, as twins in the womb : as a noun .*&!9 taumin, twins—and sometimes .*/&( tumin without the letter ! a, which makes it tumin. Parkhurst* says, "Hence the proper name Thomas which was interpreted Didumoj, or the twin, by St. John, ch. xi. 16, et al." …

Plato tells us,* that Thammuz was king of Egypt, before Thoth, who taught him letters. Here are the twins preceding Buddha or Mercury** or the Bull. And the inhabitants of Egypt are said to have descended from Thammuz. Eutychius says, that the first city was built by Noah, who called it Thamanim.*** This is most important; I shall return to it hereafter. Indeed, in every part of the world, the remains of the worship of Tam may be found.

I many Roman temples in Italy there were figures of two young men seated, armed with pikes, said to be Penates and Dioscuri; but, in fact, they were totally unknown : they were probably Dii Obscuri, Tamuses.* They were said to have come from Troy, whence every thing unknown was said to have come. I think they must have been either Gemini or Pisces.

I now beg to recall to my reader's recollection, that we found Culdees both in Ireland and Scotland, and, as appears in the fifth Chapter of the CELTIC DRUIDS, a great number of the Gods of India. These are so marked, that they leave no room for doubt as to the identity of the two. Now, when this is considered, it will not be thought surprising that the doctrines of the inhabitants or the Culdees, of the Colida of Comorin, should be identical with those of the Culdees of Scotland, the fact is, the three sacraments, of what are called the Christians of St. Thomas, and of the Scottish Culdees, and of the Jews, viz. Orders, Baptism, and the Eucharist, are identical. When Christianity first came to Britain is not pretended to be known; it is only admitted that it was found here by the Romish missionaries. I suspect the Christianity of the Culdees of Ireland and of Scotland was the Crhsen of Malabar; in the same way the Hindoo Gods were brought to Ireland, where they are now found—a fact which cannot be disputed.

I shall not trouble my reader at present with any more observations respecting St. Thomas. I think I have shewn pretty clearly how his history arose. It furnishes a beautiful example of the way in which religions are raised by an union of weakness and roguery.

However far back I search into history I always find traces of the Chaldei, and this, not in one country, but all over the old world. I cannot help suspecting that they were correctly Freemasons form India. What I have said in my CELTIC DRUIDS, respecting them, that they were not a people but an order of priests, is confirmed by Diodorus Siculus,* who say, that the Chaldeans held the same rank in Babylon, that the Egyptian priests did in Egypt; that they transmitted their learning from father to son; that they were exempt from all public offices and burdens; that by their constant study of the stars, the learnt to foretell future events; and that they called the planets counselling Gods or Interpreters. Here we come back to my explanation of the first verse of Genesis, of the .*/: smim, or the disposers or placers in order of Parkhurst.

In another place Diodorus speaks, as a matter of course, of the Chaldeans as a college : "What the Chaldeans (literally the college of Chaldeans) say concerning the multitude of years, which they employed in the contemplation of the universe, no one will believe."* I have little doubt that they were the inventors of figures and letters, and, of course, of astrology; and that this, in many cases at least, conducted them to the possession of sovereign power.

… The truth is, that the religion of the Ras, of Buddha, of Metis, of Sophia, of the Crhjoj, of Bafomet, of Acamoth or the Intelligence Universelle, extended over the whole world, and was the universal esoteric, ancient and modern religion; —the religion of Tibet, of Sion or Siam, of the Monks of the lake of Paremboli, (Embolima of India,) of Dodona or Bodona, of Eleusis, of Ephesus, of Delphi, of Virgil, of the Gnostics, of the Manichæans, and of the Pope—for which reason he very properly calls himself a CATHOLIC, and his religion Catholic or Pantheistic, and his followers Catholics or Pandees, or Saints of Pan-ism or Catholicism.

I beg to repeat to such of my readers as are Royal-Arch Masons, that Solomon was a Ras or wise man, and that a Mason in Rajapoutana is called a Raz, which also means mystery; and now I take the liberty of observing to my brethren, that they are called ROYAL-ARCH MASONS, not because they have anything to do with kings, but because they are Raja-pout-an Masons, as the persons who conquered Egypt were Royal Shepherds or Shepherd Kings, or Raja-pout-an Shepherds, from Pallitana. Pout is Buddha, who is Arch, who is Ras.

… I apprehend that the temple was a type of the universe, and that all the temples were the same; all parts of the one universal mythos which extended, as is evident, from the same sacred names of places being found every where, to the farthest points of the globe.

… I have PROVED in my Celtic Druids, that at the time when the colonies came from the Indus, they each had sixteen letters only, and the same sixteen. In this alphabet the names of the Indian Gods are found, and the names of places and Gods in Greece and Italy,—Saturnia, Pallatini, &c., &c., and, in the names of the Indian Gods, the names of the God of the Hebrews, and of Syria—Jah, Adoni, Taurus, &c.

When the Chaldean tribe of Yuda, or tribe of Crestons, with its Kan-ya, or Crhsen, or IE, or Cristna, came, under its Brahmin, from Uri-ana of Colida or Chaldea to Creston and Sindus or Thrace, (bringing its custom of sacrificing widows,) and Creston or Corton of Italy, and mount Meru, or Sion, or Solyma of Syria, and the other Solymas, about 2500 or 3000 years before Christ, it brought the sixteen letters of Cadmus or the East with it; perhaps the sixteen letters of the Tamul. Its mythos of Meru, and its Arga, and its cycles of returning Saviours, Buddhas, or Cristnas, put to death and raised from the dead, &c., &c., were renewed and located under every distinct, independently-formed government. Thus we find traces of these things with the cyclar temples of Stonehenge, &c., &c., every where. Every nation had its Meru, Moriah, &c., &c. and the tribe of the Jews, where it differs from the others, differs in consequence of having had a great iconoclastic leader to legislate for it, in a particular manner, different from the others.

Every one has heard of the famous Septuagint, usually written LXX; but the story is, that the translation was made by seventy-two men, six of each tribe, though it is called the Seventy; that to these men seventy-two questions were put, and they finished their work in seventy-two days.

The reputed books of Solomon, such as Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, are full of allusions to the doctrines of wisdom. A person who has read the preceding part of this work will perceive, in a moment, that they use the word wisdom as referring to an unexplained or mystical doctrine in almost every page. This was, to the doctrine of the Cabala, to the doctrine of the Emanation, of the Sephiroth, which the present Jews call the ten emanations, which are evidently, on the slightest inspection, nonsense—NONSENSE designed originally to mislead; but, perhaps, latterly believed by the ignorant. Sephiroth is ;&95. sprut, and may mean ten attributes or qualities, but it also means the doctrine of the ten sacred numbers or cycles of India, or of Virgil. 95. spr is to cipher, or count, or calculate; and ;&95. Sprut is the feminine plural of 95. spr, and means the calculations or calculated periods. It also means a symbolical or hieroglyphical or emblematical writing.* This actually conveys the meaning of the ten mythic or emblematical names. … The text of Isaiah, if correctly translated, means, that above the throne stood winged serpents; for seraph, translated, is serpent. It is only written, in our translation, in the Hebrew word seraph to disguise the word serpent, which our priests did not like. I need only remind my reader that the serpent is an emblem of a cycle or circle. Serpents are constantly seen on the Egyptian monuments, as described by Isaiah; but with wings, and, In India, overshadowing the icons of Cristna or Buddha, in number three, four, five, six, seven, eight, or nine, according to the number of cycles, of which the being he was protecting, was the genius.

The word Cherub originally meant, and yet sometimes means, serpent, but this is only because its general meaning is emblem or emblematical figure. It is a compound word, formed of 9, kr, circle, and "&! aub, serpent : in short, a circled or circular serpent or serpent with its tail in its mouth—"&9, krub. It was probably the first sacred emblem ever used, whence all such emblematical figures came to be called Cherubs; and this accounts for learned men having made them out to be of many different figures.

The ten Jewish Sephiroth were the ten cycles, and, in honour of the Trinity, the first was called 9;, ktr Corona, the second %/,( hkme Sapientia, and the third %1*" bine Intelligentia—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The first three were also the Trinitarian Sol—the Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer—and the other seven might be the earth, moon, planets, the host of Heaven, forming altogether the Ever-happy Octoade of the Gnostics : the whole forming the Pan, or system of the Pan-deva, holy Pan; not the to Pan, the Pan of the universe,—but the Pan of our system only. …

I must now make an observation of importance respecting the word !9" bra, of the first verse of Genesis. We have hitherto adopted the common reading created or formed; but I apprehend the word !9" bra or 9" br has the meaning exclusively neither of creating from nothing, nor of the first forming, or giving the first or the then new form to matter, but a renewal of form; that it means renovare,* regenerare. This is exactly what it ought to be, if I be right, that the first book of Genesis is a Buddhist work. It will then mean, By Wisdom Aleim renovated, regenerated, or renewed the planetary bodies, and the earth. And the earth was ungerminated—not impregnated, unprolific—and without any beautiful (animal or vegetable) form. That is, it was the Iluj or Mud of Sanchoniathon.

Wisdom was one of the persons of the first triple Æon, and the translation of the word ;*:!9 rasit, by the phrase wisdom, was universally recognized by the early Christians, not, as my expression would induce a person to believe, by a few only; but it was, with one trifling exception, the undisputed meaning attached to it, both by Jews and Christians, in the early times of Christianity, and, indeed, until a change, which I shall hereafter treat of, took place in the Romish Church, when it fell into the Paulite heresy. We have seen that by the Logos God formed the world. But the Logos was Christ, and Christ was the Crhjoj. And this Crhjoj was the first Emanation, the benignant Genius or Spirit—THE Crhjoj, cat' exochn.

… As the Crhj was the Logos, and the Logos was Wisdom, it follows that the Crhj must be Wisdom. Here, in either case, we arrive at Rasit again, and thus Jesus, or the Logos, is the Creator. Here we have a key to much of the recondite and misunderstood doctrines of the Gnostic, that is, the initiated Christians—the initiated Christians, or Gnostici, against whom St. Paul preached, of which I shall say much more hereafter. … The links of the chain are not only there, but they are connected. Need I repeat any thing of Abraham or the Brahmin, from the land of Maturea or the land of the solar fire or aur—the land of Urii or Uriana—Ur of Colchis or Colida—or of the Cal or Culdees, going to Maturea, or Heliopolis, in Egypt—of the promontory of Tamus and St. Thomas, of Bituma, of Malabar, Coromandel, &c., &c., &c. No ! I need say no more : if my reader be blind, I have not the power of working miracles; I cannot restore his sight.

A learned Jew, who will shortly publish an English and Hebrew Lexicon, informs me, that the word .!9 ras has the meaning of wisdom in the Talmud.

My reader, I imagine, will not have forgotten that a place supposed to be Cortona, in Italy, was called Creston. This was the place where Pythagoras, who was the son of an Apolloniacal Spectre, Holy Ghost, had what was called his school of WISDOM—that Pythagoras who sacrificed at the shrine of the bloodless Apollo at Delos. No doubt the school of this great philosopher from the East—India, Carmel, Egypt, Delphi, Delos, was closely connected with the schools of the Samaneans, Essenians, Carmelites, Gnostic Christians, or Crhjianoi, or CRESTON-ians. The Pythagoreans were Essenians, and the Rev. R. Taylor, A. M., the Deist, now in gaol, infamously persecuted by the Whigs for his religious opinions, in his learned defence of Deism, called the Diegesis, has clearly proved all the hierarchical institutions of the Christians to be a close copy of those of the Essenians of Egypt.

Along with the God Kan-ia, or Iao, or Jah, came the oriental system of masonry or mystery; and through all ages, I have little doubt, the Gnostic doctrine has prevailed with its Masons, or Mesqraneon, or Maceonry, as it is called in the York documents, or Monachism. The Monks of Tibet, at Eleusis, in Egypt, at Jerusalem or Carmel, in our circular chapters, were the preservers of the secret Pythagorean doctrines of numbers, of the Ras, or Mystery, or Masonry, or perhaps more properly, the doctrines of the IE, the Jah,—the mesos or meson-ry, or the Saviour, or the cross-borne—renewed in every cycle, as described by Virgil. I need scarcely remind my Masonic reader that all the secrets of Masonry are concealed in the Hebrew or Chaldee language; that is, in the language of the Brahmin of Ur and Colida, where Mr. Ellis was poisoned for being known to possess them. Solomon, the Hakem or wise, who built the temple, succeeded the Brahmin Abraham, who came from Ur of Colida.

One of the Targums says, that !*&( huia¸ a serpent, tempted Adam or the first man, and not %&( hue, Eve his wife. Parkhurst renders this, not a serpent, but a beast, an animal. No person will doubt what this animal was, except he who will not see. It was the serpent, and here we have it, in the drawing, speaking to Adam, not lying dead at the feet of Hercules. Here we have Eva tempting Adam, and we see what Eva was, viz. the female !*&( huia, serpent. Here we have the object of adoration of the Ophites—the female generative power—the destroying, regenerating power. As the secret doctrine of the Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer, began to be known in the middle and Western parts of Asia, at the same time it began to be corrupted, and the absurd idea of a fallen angel to creep in, at first among the ignorant vulgar only, but at last among a higher class, like what we have in Europe; we ought to be ashamed of harbouring nonsense so unworthy of the Supreme Being. …

Among the Ophites, and indeed the Gnostics generally, the serpent was called the Megalistor or Great Builder of the Universe. Here we have, under another name, Ophites, the Cyclopes or the builders of the circular temples at Stonehenge and every where else. With its tail in its mouth, Serpents were the emblem of the eternal creator or renovator of the universe. Shrouding the Linga and the Yoni it was the emblem of the preserver and destroying regenerator. He was the Megalistor or Dhmiqrgoj, because he was the emblem of the Logos, the creator or renewer of cycles, or worlds in cyclic periods.

RASIT, Arch—ARGONAUTS—NAMA AMIBA BUTH—GNOSTICS—GNOSTICS CONTINUED— GNOSTICS CONTINUED—VALENTINIANS—ST. JOHN. ST. THOMAS—YES-DAN—MYTHOS IN ASIA MINOR—SAMARITAN GENESIS—ADAM CADMON. WISDOM IN GREECE AND EGYPT—TIME—To On— To On CONTINUED—CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES

I must now request my reader to reflect deeply upon several parts of what he has read in the preceding books. The ;*:!9 rasit is the first word to which I would wish to recall his attention. It cannot be doubted that in the word rasit, the meaning of which has been so studiously concealed, we have in uninterrupted succession the Logos by which the world was created. It is the Buddha of India. It is the Logos of the Orpheans, and of Zoroaster, and of Plato. It is the Minerva of the Etruscans and Greeks, issuing and emanating from the head of Jove; and Jove himself is IEUE. It is the Mhtij or divine wisdom, and the Sophia of the Cabalists. It is, as Mhtij or divine wisdom, the object of the mystic adoration of the Gnostics of the middle ages; and one of the very few things which we know of these sectaries for a certainty is, that this was, in a peculiar manner, the name under which they represented the Creator : for we know very little else of them, the orthodox having left us nothing of all their works which we can be certain has come to us unadulterated. But all the circumstances which we know relating to them give us reason to believe that they were a race of persons superior to the Papiases, Irenæuses, and Justins, the founders of the modern Roman religion. … It is most surprising to me that such men as Lardner and Beausobre should receive, as credible, the histories of the fathers : very certain I am that no judge in England, France, Germany, or America, would convict an accused person of the lowest crime on such evidence.

It is admitted by the orthodox, that these philosophers were men in the highest grade of society. From this and a careful consideration of all the circumstances, I think we may conclude that they held the doctrines of the orientals respecting the renewal of cycles and incarnations, and that the millenium would take place. I think the fact of their designating the Saviour by the term Crhjoj pretty well proves this. They held him to be the first of the emanations, the logos, the mind. …

… The prophecy of another person to come connects the whole with the system of the cycles of India, of Virgil, and of Juvenal; it completes the system, and shews that the millenary cycles were an integral part of Gnosticism, and that Gnosticism uncorrupted was Christianity.

If we consider the word Afch, it is in every respect the same as ;*:!9 rasit. It is the chief, the head; therefore, if we commence at the top and proceed downwards, it is the first. Here we see the reason why the highest place of every town was called the Acra of the city. It was the head, the peculiar seat of wisdom, whence Minerva sprung. As Arga, the generative power or organ, whence all things descended, it was also the first, and I think the word Arga is porbably the origin of Arca. … Col. Tod says, "The expedition of the Argonauts in search of the Golden fleece is a version of the Arkite worship of Osiris, the Dolayatra of the Hindoos : and Sanscrit etymology, applied to the vessel of the Argonauts, will give the Sun (argha) god's (nat'ha) entrance into the sign of the Ram. The Tauric and Hydra foes, with which Jason had to contend before he obtained the fleece of Aries, are the symbols of the sun-god, both of the Ganges and of the Nile; and this fable, which has occupied almost every pen of antiquity, is clearly astronomical, as the names alone of the Argha-nat'h, sons of Apollo, Mars, Mercury, Sol, Arcus or Argus,* Jupiter, Bacchus, &c., sufficiently testify, whose voyage is entirely celestial."**

I have not succeeded to my mind, in unravelling the allegory of the Argonautic expedition. I think it probable that we must look for a translation of some Eastern words into Greek : such, for example, as Salivahan into Staurobates, or Meru into the thigh of Jupiter. Now, the ship Argo is clearly the Arga of India, or Omphalos, in which voyages of salvation were made. Jas-on the Captain is IHS-on or the Saviour, Sun, Bacchus—and Hercules one of its passengers, (who took the command after the death of IHS-on or Bacchus,) is Heri-clo. Minerva or Divine Wisdom invented the ship, the Argo, or Afch, or Arca, and supplied its pole, or mast, or Linga. The Nautæ or sailors went to the Golden or Holy Chersonesus, to seek a golden or holy apple, or golden fleece of a Ram, or, perhaps, fleece of a Golden Ram; for the Greek equally means apple and fleece. I can have no doubt that the allegory relates to the lamb, the knowledge of which was necessary to salvation, or to the apples of Genesis, which were desirable to make one wise unto salvation. … It is the remains of a history of sacred character, like the Iliad and Gesta Romanorum or Æneid. "All the religious institutes of the highest antiquity, of which we have any account, were delivered in poetry, and under the shape of history, real or fictitious."* IHS-on or Bacchus, the Sun in Taurus, was killed by the Linga falling upon him; but Heri-clo, or the Sun in Aries, survived the voyage and obtained the fleece. In all this there are evidently the links of a chain—but, to complete it, some are still wanting. I have no doubt whatever that the first books of Genesis, the Maha-bharat, the Argonautic expedition, the Iliad, the plays of Æschylus, and the Æneid, are all different ways of telling the same story. —Substantially the same mythos was at the bottom of all, and of that mythos the constantly-revolving cycles are a most important part. …

In Japan, Buddha is adored with the words NAMU AMIDA BUTH, which means Adoration to Amida Buddha, the word Namu is a corruption of Nama, meaning adoration, in the Japan and Sanscrit languages.* This Indian word, I think, will exhibit to us a very remarkable proof of the identity of the Indian and Italian religions. … The explanation of this word confirms what I have said in my CELTIC DRUIDS respecting the Sanscrit language in Italy. It probably came along with the God Ganesa or Janus, and the Saturn-ja and the Pallistini, or Palæstrina, or Sacrum Preneste, and the name of Itala or Bull. Great numbers of VERY ancient pictures of the Bambino are to be seen in Italy with the inscription Deo Soli invicto, and also numbers of inscriptions with the words Nama Mitræ invicto.

Many of the Gnostics maintained that Christ only appeared to be crucified : in this they also varied from most, but not from all, of the Romists. …

The Gnostics held that, "To deliver a soul, a captive in darkness, the Principle of Light, the Genius of the Sun, charged with the redemption (lutfwsij) of the intellectual world, of which the Sun is the type, manifested itself among men; that the light appeared in the darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not; that, in fact, light could not unite with darkness; it put on only the appearance of the human body : that at the crucifixion Jesus Christ only appeared to suffer. His person having disappeared, the by-standers saw in his place a cross of light, over which a celestial voice proclaimed these words : 'The cross of Light is called Logos, Christos, the Gate, the Joy.'" I consider that the book of John contains clear and abundant proofs, that the original doctrine, though perhaps the secret doctrine of the Romish Church, was uncorrupted Gnosticism,—the Pandæan religion of the Golden age, when no icons were used, and when the Gods had no names. …

The Cabalistic doctrine of the later Jews is exactly consentaneous to the construction which I have put upon Genesis. It accounts for the origin of things, by making them emanations from a First Cause, and, therefore, pre-existent. They suppose all things to be at last withdrawn into the First Being, by a revolution or restitution to their first state; as if they believed their 4&. 0*3 oin sup, En Soph,* Fountain of Wisdom, or First Being, to contain all things. This En Soph may also be the same as the Greek On and SoFia, Wisdom of the generative power On. From this Being all things are supposed to proceed by effluxes or emanations, like rays, and when the rays are redrawn the external world perishes, and all things again become absorbed in God. He hideth his face; and they are troubled; he taketh away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. He sendeth forth his spirit, and they are created; and he reneweth the face of the earth.** All this harmonizes perfectly with my translation of the first verse of Genesis.

In the Christian religion, as in all others, the tangible or worldly sign of the Holy Spirit or Ghost, was supposed to be wind, or air in motion; the Dove its emblem. Thus it is said in John xx. 22, When BREATHING ON THEM, he said to them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. As air in motion was the tangible or sensible sign of the third person, so the solar, ethereal or spiritual fire was the sign of the second person of the Trinity—Wisdom, Buddha, Protogonos. By Wisdom Aleim formed the planetary system. By Ruh, (&9 :*98 qdis ruh, the Holy Ghost brooding on the waters, he communicated the generative and prolific faculty, which, without moisture, can in no case exist. And, in all cases, by the Holy Ghost or Spirit, or air in motion, regeneration was supposed to take place.

In a former section I have said, that the doctrine of the Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer, arose from the creating, preserving, and destroying powers of the solar ray. This was, I believe, the origin of the doctrine : but when the mind of man improved, and he discovered that the sun was a creature, not a creator, he was, by a very natural process, carried up to another being, from whom all blessings flowed, the Creator of the Sun itself, and of whom he could form no idea; and he called him, perhaps not improperly, ILLUSION; for the moment he began to form an idea of the Creator, like a phantom, like the baseless fabric of a vision, it vanished away. It was Maia, illusion.* But to this unknown Being man gave the attributes, which, in the first instance, he had given to the solar ray, and he gave them with every appearance of truth and justice—for we all know that our Creator is our Preserver, and that destruction is creation throughout this our world, in every case to which our knowledge extends. From this sublime doctrine came first the Father; secondly, the first-begotten Son, the Logos, Divine Wisdom, the Saviour; and thirdly, the Erwj, the Divine Love, the Spirit of God, under the emblem of the mild and affectionate Dove, the type of the most interesting of all passions. The passion itself is closely allied and assimilates to the character of the Creator—the spirit of God though destroying, yet destroying only to regenerate and restore to existence.

With most of the ancient philosophers an opinion prevailed, that the soul of man was a portion of the universal mind; that from it the mind of man emanated, and that to it, ultimately, it would return. From this very refined doctrine arose all the incarnations, however degrading. A portion of the universal mind, of divine wisdom, of the protogonos, became instilled into a human being. Thus it is evident that every human being endowed with more than usual wisdom, talent, or excellence, might not inappropriately be said to exhibit an example of an incarnation of the Divine Mind, or of a portion of the Divine Mind. Thus he was of two natures—the divine and human; as the first, as Divine Wisdom, he was prwtogonoj, the first-born Son of the Father, into whom, at his death, he would return. In these refined doctrines, held by such men as Plato, I think we may discover a Trinity, neither inconsistent with reason, nor incomprehensible, like that stated by Athanasius and others.

Although we have found in Egypt the Goddess Neith, or their Minerva, the Nat of North India; yet we have not found the Ras or Wisdom so marked as in most other countries : but, nevertheless, it was really there, as we might expect. Plutarch says, that Isis means Wisdom;¹ that her temple is called Iseion : alluding to that knowledge of the Eternal and Self-existent Being which may be there obtained. … She is also called Athena,² which we have formerly seen was the name of Helena, and meant Wisdom;—in fact, Athena is only the reverse way of reading the word Neithe a little transposed. … Again³ he observes, that Isis is frequently called by the Egyptians Athena, signifying, in their language, I proceeded from myself. In the same section he says, that Typho is called Seth. In section 9 he says, that Isis is called Minerva.⁴ … There can be no doubt that the names Isis of Egypt and Isi of India, were derived from the word of the ancient language 3:* iso, to save, and meant Saviour, and consequently Logos as the Saviour : yet, as the Logos, according to my system, it ought to mean Wisdom, as we have every where seen the Logos to mean Wisdom, and this it did, as I have just shewn.

The Brahmins maintain that time does not exist with God.* Then what we call time must be created, or called, or produced into a new existence. And as it is certainly a thing, an existence, or ens, of the very first importance, why have we not heard of it before ? … I ask, is it not hidden under the (&9 ruh, the third person of the Trinity,—the destroyer,—with its emblem, the Cobra, having its tail in its mouth ? Every thing which can be predicated of the destroyer, both as destroyer and regenerator, can be predicated of time, past and future. … Seva, of India, the destroyer, was clearly Saturn or Time. In the early periods of the world, man was believed to have been in a state of innocence and simplicity, and consequently of happiness. This was the reason why those times were called Saturnian, as Saturn meant time past as well as time future : and as we have found the same mythos in Guzerat, Syrastrene, and Pallitani, as we have found in Italy, we find in each the same Satrun-ja or Saturn-ia.

… I believe that Time and Space were considered but as properties or qualities of the first emanation,—that with it they existed, and, with their absorption into the To On, they would cease to exist. This doctrine is of all others the most refined. From the narrow limits of our faculties we can form no idea of the non-existence of time and space. I believe we can form no idea of the state of the Supreme Being except it be in a state of actual rest, or of moving to form and reform. In like manner, in our present weakness of understanding, we can have no idea of happiness, except as compared with its correlative, misery. …

We will now try to penetrate into the Sanctum Sanctorum of the ancient philosophers of India, Egypt, Syria, and Greece; the highest and most important part of whose philosophy was a knowledge of the Pathr agnwstoj, called by Plato To On, WHOM NO PERSON HAS SEEN EXCEPT THE SON*—the wan into which at last all nature was to be resolved. The knowledge of this Being, (so clearly marked in the words of Jesus,) which I now proceed to exhibit to my reader, is named or mystically alluded to in almost every page of the Gospel histories; which might, not improperly, be called histories of the parables of Jesus Christ.

The first and most profound secret of the Cabala or Gnosis was the knowledge of the real Cosmogony of the universe, as held by these philosophers. At the head of all beings and their works, the ancient Gnostics or Sophees placed a certain person called Mia Arch; also called Pathr Òlwn, Pathr agnwjoj, Acatonomajoj. This name, mia arche, Mons. Matter* justly says, "Nous rencontrons dans tous les systêmes Gnostiques, et en général dans toutes les doctrines de l'ancien monde, dans l'Inde comme en Perse. Tout est amené de cet être, tout doit rentrer un jour dans son sein."

When the ancient philosopher reflected deeply upon what he saw constantly going on around him in the great laboratory of nature, he could not help perceiving, that by one process or other every substance was capable of being resolve, and was in fact constantly resolving, into an invisible, impalpable fluid. As this fluid was too refined to be subject to any of his senses, of course he could form no idea of it; but yet, reasoning from analogy, he was induced to believe in its existence. The fluid here spoken of was called an ethereal or a spiritual fire,* and I suppose more nearly answers to the Galvanic, or Electric, or Magnetic fluid than to any thing with which I am acquainted. When matter was reduced back again by igneous purification, or, in other words, when matter was resolved into this invisible fire as it had originally flowed or emanated from the first To On it approximated to, perhaps arrived at, a state to be ready for re-absorption into the first To On again. Thus when re-absorbed, all nature was God, and God had been all nature previous to emanation. And what was the To On ? A Point, the centre of a circle whose circumference in no where, and its centre every where; Illusion of which our sense cannot lay hold.

We have here the Pantheism, the grossness of which, more or less represented, serves to horrify those priests who teach literally what the words literally express, that the To On walked in the garden, or strove to kill Moses at an inn, but failed. This is the Indian doctrine, which its professors call illusion—an expression which appears to me to be beautifully characteristic : for when, step by step, we arrive at last at this point, every thing appears to slip from under us, or to pass away into nothing—because the subject is beyond the reach of our senses. And now we may see what these ancient philosophers meant by their doctrine of the eternity of matter; for when it was re-absorbed into the To On, how could it be anything but eternal ? By being absorbed, it was not supposed to be destroyed. I need not point out how admirably this elucidates the doctrines of Ammonius, that all the sects of philosophy, including the Christian, were at the bottom the same, and originated from one and the same source.

… As the To On cannot but exist, matter cannot but exist; for it will always exist, either as an emanation, or in the To On.

As every being was an emanation, and would ultimately be re-absorbed into the To On, so every being was a part of the To On; and on this principle the adoration of animals was attempted to be excused. On this principle, also, we find the inferior emanations, the Trinity, or its Persons, receiving epithets, in strictness applicable only to the To On. For instance, I am Alpha and Omega. … This was an effect which must necessarily have followed the concealment of the First Cause from inquiring but uninitiated philosophers, if the secret of initiation were to be preserved.

The Jewish Cabala, that is, the Cabala of the tribe of Ioudi—the Cabala of the numerous temples of Solomon which have been mentioned, was divided into two parts—the one consisting of the natural philosophy, called Mercavah; the other of the moral, called Barasith. We will first explain the natural philosophy of the system; and first, the creation. There were various creations. The first creation was effected by way of emanation; and this was the idea or plan of the universe, not the little globe only which we inhabit. From this proceeded the second, which was the Trimurti or Trinity which formed the .*/: smim, our world and system, (but not herein including the stars)* by the agency of one of its persons, who was the Logoj, or Sophia, or Metis, or Buddha. The doctrine of the divine idea is distinctly expressed in the laws of Menu.** It was also clearly the doctrine of Plato and Philo, i.e. of the Cabala. But of course it was not expressed in the book of Genesis, which professed to be only a book or description of the generations or cosmogony of our globe and of the planetary system with which it is connected—viz. the regeneration of the planetary system and the earth. It would clearly have been inconsistent with the object of Moses to have revealed to the vulgar Jews the sublime knowledge of the Mia Arch or the cosmogony of the universe,*** the knowledge of the Pathr agnwjoj, the Brahme-Maia, or, as the Hindoo philosopher called it, Illusion.

I cannot conceive how it is possible to read the Gospel histories with attention, and not to see that a secret doctrine is taught. There is scarcely a chapter without a parable. "In parables spake he unto them, that while seeing they might not perceive, and hearing they might not understand."* What can be clearer than the following passages ? "He answered and said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God : but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables : that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing, they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time thy should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them." Mark iv. 11, 12; Matt. xiii. 13-15.

The transfiguration or metamorphosis, as the Greek word means, of Jesus Christ has puzzled all modern divines, as might well be expected. I will now shew what it means. Surely our divines will not see ! Do none of them read the early fathers ?

When Jesus was transfigured, an operation sufficiently mystical and esoteric I should think, he had with him only three of his disciples—James, John, and Peter. At the time of this transfiguration the secret gnwsij, which was, at least in part, the knowledge of the mia arch, and wathr agnwstoj, WAS BELIEVED to have been conferred on the three. And this we have again on the indisputable authority of Clemens Alexandrinus.* From these three I have little or no doubt, that the Popes yet believe that they have the above-described secret doctrine or Gnosis, handed down in the conclave. Peter was the first Pope or Principal of the sacred chapter of twelve, and of the lodge or conclave of seventy-two or Sanhedrim.

We will now explain the second part of the Cabala called Barasit; but it is very difficult entirely to separate the two parts. The second is what Clemens Alexandrinus,* as head of the sacred college or catechetical school of Alexandria, professed to have had delivered to him, by his predecessors; the secret doctrines which he declares were delivered by Jesus Christ himself to James, John, and Peter.

The doctrine that the Christian religion contained a secret or allegorical meaning is so clearly acknowledged, laid down, and treated on as an admitted fact, by Justin, Clemens Alexandrinus, Origen, and indeed by all the very early fathers, that to attempt to give quotations from their works would be wilfully to weaken the evidence of the fact, unless I were to fill fifty pages with them : indeed, I must copy their works. I shall, therefore, say no ore on the subject, for it is a point which cannot be disputed; and so the Christian religion continued till the time of Origen, when the doctrines of Paul prevailed, and Origen was declared by the Paulites a heretic for professing it.

I now beg my reader to recall to his recollection what I have said about the Crhjoj, and I think he will have no difficulty in agreeing with me that originally the religion of Jesus was Cfhj-ianity, and that it was not, in fact, until the Paulites got possession of the Papal chair, by a compromise, that Paul's pernicious doctrines* were admitted into it,—by which its whole character was changed, and it became Christianity, such as it was for a thousand years,—quarrelling, persecuting, and devil-driving : and very different indeed from the Chrestianity of the first fathers, and from the secret doctrines of the temples of Eleusis and Jerusalem, of the Gentiles, and of Jesus of Nazareth, all of which were the same.

The whole, I repeat, formed a sublime and beautiful system. At the head of it was the Pathr Agnwjoj, from whom emanated the first created being or hypostasis, the idea or plan of the universe.

The second emanation was the Triune God, the Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer, three persons in ONE God, the whole proceeding from the Pathr agnwjoj—Brahme-Maia or Illusion.

Thus we have a double Trinity—first, the Mia Arch, the Divine Idea, and the Trimurti; and secondly, the Trimurti, consisting of Brahma, Vishnu, and Seva—the Creator, the Preserver, and the Destroyer—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. We have the Mia Arch, with its two additional hypostases, one of which was the Trimurti; and the Trimurti with its two additional hypostases; the last of the first constituting the first of the last; thus forming a chain, and in this manner all nature was a microcosmic chain.

I think it seems evident that the current of Gnosticism has flowed from India at various times, and in various distinct streams. We have at first, I think, in the Cyclopean builders of our Druidical temples, or in the Hellenians or Ionians. We have it again in the Exod, apoicia, of Abraham and his tribe or Yudi.* We have it again in the Samaneans, Essenians, or Gnostics, about the time of Jesus Christ. We have it again in the Manichæans. We have it again in the Sophees of the Mohamedans; and, lastly, we have it in the Chaldæi, Ishmaelians, the As-chas-din, the Assassins, of the eleventh century. The last were our Chaldæi or Freemasons and Templars.

Gentle reader, as you have gone with me thus far, do you not think that you can travel with me one stage more ? Come, try one stage more; and on this part of my subject I have done. You have seen the planetary cycles of the sages of India extending to millions of years. What think you of THE BEING, the Pathr agnwjoj, placed in the centre of countless millions of stars, suns, and worlds, circulating around it with inconceivable rapidity in boundless space and in cycles of incomprehensible duration ? Now, at last, you come to the Illusion of the sages of India, to their Illusion, but it is a true Illusion. If you doubt, raise your eyes to the stars, and think upon the Wisdom of your Creator ! I have done.

Link to Volume II - Preface.