33

AN INQUIRY

into the Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and

Mythology.

BY R. P. KNIGHT.

PART III.-[Continued from No. XLVI. p. 240.]

54. As men improved in the practice of the imitative arts, they gradually changed the animal for the human form; preserving still the characteristic features, which marked its symbolical meaning. Of this, the most ancient specimens now extant are the heads of Venus or Isis, (for they were in many respects the same personification,)' upon the capitals of one of the temples of Philæ, an island in the Nile between Ægypt and Æthiopia: and in these we find the horns and ears of the cow joined to the beautiful features of a woman in the prime of life. In the same manner the Greek sculptors of the finest ages of the art represented Io;3 who was the same goddess confounded with an historical or poetical personage by the licentious imaginations of the Greek mythologists; as we shall further show in the sequel. Her name seems to have come from the north; there being no obvious etymology for it in the Greek tongue: but, in the ancient Gothic and Scandinavian, Io and Gio signified the earth; as Isi and Isa signified ice, or water in its primordial state; and both were equally titles of the goddess, that represented the productive and nutritive power of the earth; and, therefore, may afford a more probable etymology for the name Isis, than any that has hitherto been given.4 The

: Ἡ γαρ Ίσις εστι μεν το της φύσεως θηλυ, και δεκτικόν άπασας γενέσεως, καθα τιθηνη και πανδεχης ὑπο Πλατωνος, ὑπο δε των πολλων μυριωνυμος κεκληται, δια το πασας ύπο του λόγου τρεπομενη μορφας δέχεσθαι και ιδέας. Plutarch. de Is. & Osir. p. 372.

Isis juncta religione celebratur, quæ est vel terra, vel natura rerum Soli subjacens. Macrob. Sat. 1. c. xx.

2 Norden's Ægypt.

3 Το γαρ της Ισιος αγαλμα, τον γυναικηιον βουκερων εστι, καταπερ Έλληνες την Ιουν γράφουσι. Herodot. lib. ii.

+ Ol. Rudbeck. Atlant. p. 1. c. xviii. & xx. p. 854. p. 11. c. v. p. 208-214,

340, & 451. Edda Snorron. Myth. iv.

Vol. XXIV.

god or goddess of Nature is however called Isa in the Sanscrit;" and many of the Ægyptian symbols appear to be Indian; but, on the contrary, it seems equally probable that much of the Hindoo mythology, and, as we suspect, all their knowledge of alphabetic writing, as well as the use of money, came from the Greeks through the Bactrian and Parthian empires; the sovereigns of both which appear to have employed the Grecian letters and language in all their public acts.

55. The Ægyptians, in their hymns to Osiris, invoked that god, as the being, who dwelt concealed in the embraces of the Sun; 3 and several of the ancient Greek writers speak of the great luminary itself as the generator and nourisher of all things, the ruler of the world, the first of the deities, and the supreme Lord of all mutable or perishable being. Not that they, any more than the Ægyptians, deified the Sun considered merely as a mass of luminous or fervid matter; but as the centre or body, from which the pervading Spirit, the original producer of order, fertility, and, organisation, amidst the inert confusion of space and matter,: still continued to emanate through the system, to preserve the mighty structure which it had formed.5 This primitive pervading Spirit is said to have made the Sun to guard and govern all things; 6 it being thought the instrumental cause, through which the powers of reproduction, implanted in matter, conητες tinued to exist: for, without a continued emanation from the active principle of generation, the passive, which was derived from it, would of itself become exhausted.

Sacontala. There were two goddesses of the name of Isis worshipped in Greece, the one Pelasgian and the other Ægyptian, before the Pantheic Isis of the latter ages.

Εστιν Ισιδος τεμενη ὧν την μεν Πελασγιαν, την δε Αιγυπτιαν αυτων επονομα ζουσι' και δυο Σεραπίδος, εν Κανωβῳ καλουμενου το έτερον. Pausan. in Cor. c. iv. s. 7. 2 Οἱ δε ες την Ινδικην εσπλεοντες φορτίων φασιν Ἑλληνικων τους Ινδους αγωγιμα αλλα ανταλλασσεσθαι, νομισμα δε ουκ επιστασθαι, και ταυτα χρυσου τε αφθονου και χαλκου παροντος σφισι. Pausan. in Lacon. c. xii. s. 3.

3 Εν δε τοις ἱεροις ύμνοις του Οσίριδος ανακαλουνται τον εν ταις αγκάλαις κρυπτομενον του ήλιου. Plutarch. de Is. et Osir.

4 Ήλιος παγγενετωρ. Orph.

- την γουν παντα βοσκουσαν φλογα

αιδείσθ' ανακτος ήλιου. Sophocl. Ed. Tyr. v. 1424,

ου, τον παντων θεων

θεον προμον ἁλιον. Sophocl. Ed. Tyr. v. 660.

- τον κύριον και ἡγεμονα της ρευστης ουσιας ἁπασης. Plutarch. Quæst. Rom. 5 See Plutarch. Qu. Rom. p. 138. & Fragm. Orphic.

6. Και φυλακ ̓ αυτον έτευξε, κελευσε δε πασιν ανασσειν. Fragm. Orphic. No. xxv.

ed. Gesn.

:

56. This continued emanation the Greeks personified into two distinct personages; the one representing celestial love, or attraction; and the other, animal love, or desire: to which the Ægyptians added a third, by personifying separately the great fountain of attraction, from which both were derived. All the three were, however, but one; the distinctions arising merely out of the metaphysical subtilty of the theologists, and the licentious allegories of the poets; which have a nearer resemblance to each other, than is generally imagined.

I

57. This productive etherial spirit being expanded through the whole universe, every part was in some degree impregnated with it; and therefore every part, was, in some measure, the seat of the Deity; whence local gods and goddesses were every where worshipped, and consequently multiplied without end. "Thousands of the immortal progeny of Jupiter," says Hesiod, "inhabit the fertile earth, as guardians to mortal men." An adequate knowledge, either of the number or attributes of these, the Greeks never presumed to think attainable; but modestly contented themselves with revering and invoking them whenever, they felt or wanted their assistance. If a shipwrecked mariner, were cast upon an unknown shore, he immediately offered up, his prayers to the gods of the country, whoever they were; 3 and joined the inhabitants in whatever modes of worship they. employed to propitiate them; 4 concluding that all expressions of gratitude and submission must be pleasing to the Deity; and as for other expressions, he was not acquainted with them; cursing, or invoking the divine wrath to avenge the quarrels of men, being unknown to the public worship of the ancients. The Athenians, indeed, in the fury of their resentment for the insult offered to the mysteries, commanded the priestess to curse Alcibiades: but she had the spirit to refuse; saying, that she was the priestess of prayers, and not of curses.5

۱

58. The same liberal and humane spirit still prevails among those nations whose religion is founded in the same principles. "The Siamese,” says a traveller of the seventeenth century, "shun disputes, and believe that almost all religions are good." When the ambassador of Lewis XIV. asked their king, in his master's name, to embrace Christianity, he replied, "that it was strange that the king of France should interest himself so much in an affair which concerned only God; whilst He, whom it did concern, seemed to leave it wholly to our discretion. Had it been agreeable to the Creator that all nations should have had the same form of worship, would it not have been as easy to his Omnipotence to have created all men with the same sentiments and dispositions; and to have inspired them with the same notions of the true Religion, as to endow them with such different tempers and inclinations? Ought they not rather to believe that the true God has as much pleasure in being honored by a variety of forms and ceremonies, as in being praised and glorified by a number of different creatures? Or why should that beauty and variety, so admirable in the natural order of things, be less admirable, or less worthy of the wisdom of God, in the supernatural? "2

59. The Hindoos profess exactly the same opinion. "They would readily admit the truth of the Gospel," says a very learned writer, long resident among them, "but they contend that it is perfectly consistent with their Sastras. The Deity, they say, has appeared innumerable times in many parts of this world, and of all worlds, for the salvation of his creatures: and though we adore him in one appearance, and they in others; yet we adore, they say, the same God; to whom our several worships, though different in form, are equally acceptable, if they be sincere in substance." 3

60. The Chinese sacrifice to the spirits of the air, the mountains, and the rivers; while the emperor himself sacrifices to the sovereign Lord of Heaven; to whom these spirits are subordinate, and from whom they are derived. The sectaries of Foe have, indeed, surcharged this primitive elementary worship with some of the allegorical fables of their neighbours; but still as their creed, like that of the Greeks and Romans, remains undefined, it admits of no dogmatical theology, and, of course,

1

Journal du Voyage du Siam.

Hite mac of no persecution for opinion. Obscene and sanguinary rites have, indeed, been wisely proscribed on many occasions; but still as actions, and not as opinions. Atheism is said to have been punished with death at Athens: but, nevertheless, it may be reasonably doubted, whether the atheism, against which the citizens of that republic expressed such fury, consisted in a denial of the existence of the gods: for Diagoras, who was obliged to fly for this crime, was accused of revealing and calumniating the doctrines taught in the mysteries; and, from the opinions ascribed to Socrates, there is reason to believe that his offence was of the same kind, though he had not been initiated.

61. These two were the only martyrs to religion among the ancient Greeks, except such as were punished for actively violating or insulting the mysteries; the only part of their worship which seems to have possessed any energy: for, as to the popular deities, they were publicly ridiculed and censured with impunity, by those who dared not utter a word against the very populace that worshipped them; and, as to forms and ceremonies of devotion, they were held to be no otherwise important, than as they constituted a part of the civil government of the state; the Pythian priestess having pronounced from the tripod, that whoever performed the rites of his religion according to the laws of his country, performed them in a manner pleasing to the Deity. Hence the Romans made no alterations in the religious institutions of any of the conquered countries; but allowed the inhabitants to be as absurd and extravagant as they pleased; and even to enforce their absurdities and extravagancies, wherever they had any pre-existing laws in their favor. An Ægyptian magistrate would put one of his fellow-subjects to death for killing a cat or a monkey;5 and though the religious fanaticism of the Jews was too sanguinary and violent to be left entirely free from restraint, a chief of the synagogue could order any one of his congregation to be whipped for neglecting or violating any part of the Mosaic Ritual.6

2

See the proceedings against the Bacchanalians at Rome. Liv. His. xxxix. 9. Διαγορας Αθηναιος ην, αλλα τουτον εξορχησαμενον τα παρ' Αθηναίοις μυστηρια,