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cians and Egyptians. That in process of time they paid almost divine honours to the inventors of useful arts and sciences, as to the benefactors of mankind, and erected images, statues, and temples to their memories. But, in the beginning, they worshipped only as immortal gods, the sun and moon, the fixed stars, and planets; calling the former mortal, the latter immortal gods. The Irish antiquaries report, that Tighermas was the first who introduced idolatry, and erected pagan altars in the island, and began to establish his religion about 100 years after the Milesians arrived in the country; and that he was struck dead by lightning, as he was worshipping his idol Crum Cruadh, the same god that Zoroaster adored in the east; whence the field, in which this awful visitation of God took place, was ever after called Magh Sleaghta, or the Field of Worship. Now Zoroaster expresses, in the sacred book, in which he collected the affairs of Persia, what this God was, in a manner singularly coinciding with the doctrine taught by the Irish druids, amongst whom, though idolatry prevailed, yet we trace no symptom of the idols of Apollo, Jupiter, Ceres, or any other of the more recent Grecian deities. "God has the head of a hawk; he is the first of the incorruptible, eternal, unbegotten, indivisible, like only to himself; the source of all good works, expecting no reward; the best, the most prudent, the father of right, justice, untaught, all perfect, wise, and the inventor of the divine nature ‡."

"The Phoni

* Keat. p. 64.

† Apud Eus. ib. c. vii.

Euseb. ib.

cians, by Sanchoniatho's account, kept up a perpetual fire in their temples, as the most like unto the heavenly fire." The like was preserved in Ireland down to the times of christianity; as appears from the fire kept up by the nuns of St. Bridget in Kildare, till it was ordered to be extinguished in 1220, to remove all occasion of superstition.

The correspondence of the Irish ethnic worship with the Phoenician cult described by Sanchoniatho is further corroborated by their adoring the sun under the name of Bel, and the moon under that of Samhain, usually joining with them the stars of the firma

ment.

The common oath taken on all solemn occasions by the pagan Irish, was by the sun, moon, and stars*. Mr. O'Halloran, a modern author well acquainted with the native tongue and usages of his own country, informs us, that to this very day the heartiest wish of happiness to a friend amongst the natives, is, The blessings of Samen and Bel be with you t. According to Eusebius's account of the old Phoenician theo

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Eus. 1. 1. c. vii.' The Latin interpreter's note to this passage of Eusebius is," Baalschamain, among the Hebrews, signifies the Lord of heaven. It appears, therefore, how nearly related to each other are the Hebrew and Phoenician tongues."-It is singular, that in the few Punic lines, introduced by Plautus in his Paulus, this familiar invocation upon the great Deity of the Phoenicians, Belsamen, twice occurs.

It is here obvious to remark, that the earlier the deviation from the pure worship cf the true Cod was, the less corrupt, obscene, and degrading to human nature, was the idolatry which immediately replaced it. It is consequently a powerful argument in support of the antiquity of Irish history, that no author ever at

logy, they with uplifted hands worshipped the sun as their god, calling out, Beelsamen! that is, the Lord of heaven.

tempted to impute to their pagan worship any of those obscenities, fooleries, and horrors, which pervaded the theological system of the Greeks and their corrupt imitators. This observation is no less appropriate to the pagan Irish, than that which Eusebius applied to their ancestors, in his interesting chapter concerning the most ancient idolatry. "Wherefore no one can doubt, but that these gods were the fabrications and inventive fables of human imagination; nay, even that they were the artifices of the most impious and wicked men, with the direct view of fomenting and gratifying their lusts, as our sacred text has it, (Wisd. xiv. 12.) The devising of idols was the beginning of fornication." So far Eusebius, in the fourth age of the church, is an authority for the book of Wisdom being canonical or inspired scripture, though the church of England reckon it apocryphal. Considering it, however, as generally attributed to Solomon, or at least containing his sentiments, and supposed to have been written in or soon after his days, it will be allowed historically correct; and it is to be observed, that it refers to a period of 1000 years before Christ; which nearly corresponds with that of the Phoenician colony settling in Ireland; and is the precise period of Grecian history, to which Petavius refers, as having been so disguised by the lies of the poets, as scarcely to be now judged of. Hoc intervallum vetustissima Grecia origines illas amplectitur, quarum qualemcunque veritatem sic poeta mendaciis suis obruerunt, ut ea dijudicari modó nequeat. Rat. Temp. p. 1. 1, c. vii. The text goes on, " and the inventors of them the corruption of life; for nei ther were they from the beginning, neither shall they be for ever." And in the same chapter, the sacred writer also reprobates the idolatrous (as if a new) practice of adoring the wooden god (probably Neptune), which the seafaring people, (who then chiefly were the Phoenicians and Egyptians) worshipped and confided in. The desire of gain, before this time, had devised shipping,

Coinci

dence of Irish an

nals, and

tho's Pho

nician his

tory of dridical institutions.

It would be an undertaking of little difficulty, though of considerable length to prove, that the druidical inSanchonia- stitutions, which are acknowledged by all parties to have existed in Ireland, as well as in Britain, were of very ancient and Asiatic origin. Consequently, that their introduction into that country was anterior to the base corruptions of Grecian mythology. The valuable and scientific researches of Mr. Davies * have most satisfactorily demonstrated, that though the name of druid were local, the religion had a very deep root: that the druids were Celta of the patriarchal, or equestrian, or noblest families of their nations: that the Celta were the same people with the Cimmerii; that by the very earliest Grecian paganism, Dis or Pluto, † was substituted in their mythology for Japhet, the father of Europe, or the western world; that the fabulous accounts of Orpheus agree with the most authentic reports of druidism; and that they were founded upon traditions of the first mythological and heroic ages; traditions, which existed amongst the fabulous and corrupt Greeks, long before they could boast of a single historian, and

and the workman built it by his skill; v. 2. This is alluded to as one amongst other arguments for removing the objections. raised against Ireland's having been otherwise colonized than from Britain. May it not be suggested, that the introduction of christianity into Ireland without violence and bloodshed, was owing to the Irish never having given into the obscenity, cruelties, and horror of the general idolatry, that disgraced other nations.

*Celt. Res. 139 to 199.

+ Galli se omnes ab Dite patre prognatos predicant: idque ab Druidibus proditum dicunt Cas. Com.

which uniformly intimate, that a mystical doctrine, similar to that, which the druids of the historical ages are known to have taught, had prevailed amongst the Celtæ or Cimmerii from the remotest periods. The very nature of the druidical institutions and traditions demonstrate, that the original druids themselves were Celta, and that their progenitors formed a part of that nation from its first establishment in the western world, or lower region, in which the sun set, and which therefore in the mythological language was called the land of shades and of night,

From the most intense and unbiassed observations Antiquity

upon druidical * mystery, it appears undeniable, that

* Although I have generally disclaimed any intention of arguing from etymology, I cannot here forbear to remark the futi lity of those, who derive the word druid from the Greek word Spur, an oak; when their institution preexisted the very formation of the Greek tongue. With how much more reason does the learned curate of Olveston etymologize the word from the Celtic language, in which dar means superior, and gwydd a priest, hence derwydd or druid. Several modern elucubrations of the learned have established beyond controversy, that the original doctrines of the eastern bramins and western druids were the same, and that intercourse had long existed between these eastern and western sages. This is strongly countenanced by Mr. Wilford, in his ingenious and learned dissertation upon Egypt, and the Nile (As. Re. v. 3.) He informs us, that the whole Indians were acquainted with our British isles, which their books describe, as the sacred islands in the west, calling one of them Bretashan, or the seat and place of religious duty. That one of those islands from the earliest periods was regarded as the abode of the Pitris, who were the fathers of the human race, and that in these islands were two places, in which those Pitris could be seen. That the old Hindus visited them accordingly for this purpose, and that even a

of druidism.

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