authentic and a very interesting dccument*. In chap. 4, our author treats of the polyonomy of the sun, which was, in fact, only a particular edition of the pantheistic creed, and probably the edition most current under the Roman emperors. This was a refinement on the old star-worship. It is remarkable, that towards the decline of the empire, Sabianism, which is usually regarded as the religion of savages, became somewhat fashionable among philosophers. This distinction it probably acquired from its close connexion with the study of Chaldean magic, to which many of those philosophers were + secretly devoted. We do not recollect any author before these times, who maintains the opinion, that the fabulous deities, all or most of them, were originally mere personifications of the sun. Scatter ed hints of such an opinion are to be traced in Adrian's letter above-cited, in the works of the Philostrati and other Platonists; it is powerfully defended by the learning of Macrobius, who builds it on that confusion of the ancient fables we have already noticed; but its most eloquent, most zealous, and (Macrobius excepted) most copious advocate is the emperor Juliant. It seems, at all events, probable that this opinion, whether new or old, became, about this time, more general than before; for certain it is that Sabianism, presuming on the sanction it had received from Plato and Pythagoras, was sensibly gaining ground, and had infected even the Platonising Christians§. The identity of the ancient mysteries, our author attempts to prove in chap. 10. This is an important subject; for the mystic caverns of the ancients were the most faithful repositories of their primeval mythology. The ritual part of a religious establishment is generally the part least liable "Hunc (Serapin) Christiani, hunc Judæi, hunc omnes venerantur et gentes." Adr. epist. apud Vopisc. in Sat. c. viii. Origen rejects with horror this doctrine. Contr. Celsum, lib. v. We say secretly; that they were not fond of avowing it appears from Apul. Apolog. and Philostrat. Vit. Soph. 22. et alibi passim. Vid. Jul. orat. 4 and 5, especially the hymn to the sun. § Vid. Clem. Alex. Proph. Ecl. circa Яnem. to capricious fluctuations; because it takes a strong hold of the senses, and is guarded by the stated observance of forms. Hence it is that men often change the objects without changing the modes of their worship. But this is doubly true of the mysteries which were instituted to preserve certain profound secrets under the cover of symbolical ceremonies; and in which, if the symbol had been corrupted, the secret would have been in danger of perishing. Mr. Faber strongly contends that the various mystic characters, Cabiri, Curetes, and a host besides, were the same beings under different names, and appeals to a cloud of authorities in support of his opinion. These authorities (we observe as before) do not necessarily prove more than an incidental confusion, partly of deities with their respective priests, partly of deities with each other. So the learned Abbé Banier (among others) has decided, with most of these authorities before his eyes, and in a case where the spirit of system could bias him either way. The Abbé contends that the Cabiri were properly the gods, though too often confounded with the Corybantes or priests. Vossius seems to have entertained nearly the same idea, although Banier has too hastily attributed to that great man the contrary opinion. But whatever becomes of the mystagogues, we acknowledge the principal mysteries themselves to have been essentially the same. In other words, they had common rites (which Mr. Faber very well enumerates) of so singular a cast that no credulity can suppose the coincidence casual. They are, indeed, distinguished from each other by superficial differences; but their interior recesses exhibit the same terrific machinery. We have now mentioned the general qualifications with which we accede to our author's opinion of the identity of the Pagan religions. Our limits will not allow of our stating minuter and less important exceptions. Mr. Faber's conjectures frequently proceed to very bold lengths. We would cite as an instance, his Banier Myth. liv. vii. ch. viii. As to Vossius, compare Idolol. lib. ii. c. ii. with lib. ii. c. lvii. See also here that noted passage in Varr. de Ling. Lat. lib. iv. "Neque, ut vulgus putat, hi Samothraces Dii, qui Castor et Pollux, &c." suspicion that the brave knights of Arthur's round table were no other than the Cabiri. II. We are now to consider the proposition, that the religion of the ancients was almost universally pure Sabianism grafted on rites commemorative of the deluge. This proposition is, perhaps, too generally expressed; but if properly qualified, it will not of itself appear improbable to those who confide in the authority of the Mosaic writings. Departed worthies were often deified in ancient times, and were as often supposed to animate some of the heavenly bodies. What we know, therefore, to be true of many less distinguished personages, will not seem incredible when related of the Noachidæ. But to an infidel Mr. Faber's hypothesis will not seem equally plausible; because its concurrence with the Mosaic history will no longer operate as presumptive evidence in its favour. Still less then can it be hoped, though it may not be impossible, that by such an hypothesis the infidel will be in any degree convinced of the truth of the Mosaic history. This hint we throw out, because we believe and regret that many excellent men have attached too much weight to mythological speculations, as supplying proofs of the authenticity of the Jewish scriptures. Few sceptics will believe in the Bible, because it furnishes the best key to ancient mythology. He who has rejected the Pentateuch, notwithstanding the positive evidence of its divine origin, will seldom receive it because it best explains that which, after all, is too incoherent to admit of a complete explanation. If we can look upon the sun without believing him to exist, we shall hardly be convinced of his existence by beholding his broken image in the stream. In examining our author's interpretations of ancient fables, we must confine ourselves to a few leading points, premising that, in one or two instances, Mr. Faber pays too much respect to books, which he acknowledges to be spurious. We do not here allude to Orpheus, Horapollo, Homer's hymns, or the various oracular verses, all of which have now become valuable from their antiquity, We allude to the Pseudo-Cato and Pseudo-Berosus of Annius, and to the Etruscan fragments of Inghiranius. These gross forgeries were unworthy of being cited, and even of being mentioned. 1. The enquiry into the true history of the Cabiri involves another question too interesting to be overloked. Cudworth and many other eminent men have imagined, that in the various triads of Pagan mythology (as for example the Cabiric triad) a remote allusion may be discovered to the doctrine of a Tri-une God. Mr. Bryant contends, that the allusion is merely to the three sons of Noah. These two opinions are not inconsistent with each other. It is conceivable, that when an apostate world began to worship "the crea ture more than the creator," the three postdiluvian fathers of mankind might, by a shocking refinement of impiety, be confounded with the adorable trinity. Mr. Faber, however, while he embraces Mr. Bryant's opinion, strongly opposes that of Cudworth. His principal objections seem to be, that" the number of the Cabiri is by no means uniform;" and that Brahma, Vishnou, and Seeva, relate to the trinity, it will not be easy to assign a reason why they should be represented as springing from a fourth yet superior God." Vol. I. p. 6 and 316. " if These objections do not appear very conclusive. How, on this principle, will Mr. Faber reconcile with his own hypothesis the assertion of the scholiast on Apollonius*, that the Idæi Dactyli (i. e. according to Mr. Faber, the Cabiri) were in number eleven? Nor is it difficult to conceive that the Indian triad, although a triad of derivative and dependant deities, should relate to the great but corrupted doctrine of the trinity. If this doctrine be corrupted, nothing is more likely than that it should be corrupted in this particular manner. Precisely in this manner did Jamblichus and Proclust corrupt the Platonic doctrine of the trinity, by feigning a fourth hypostasis, who was the Tns DEOTNTOS, and by consequence superior to the rest. Still these remarks (we acknowledge) do not decide the difficult ques tion, whether the explanation of the ancient triads, which our author adopts, or that which he opposes, be best supported by facts. That we may Argonaut. lib. i. ver. 1129. + Cudw. Int. Syst. book i, ch. iv. approximate to such a decision, we shall just observe, that two things have in our judgment been indisputably proved. First, it seems indispu-, table, that Noah and his family were deified; for we recognize them in Saturn and his three sons: on the other side, it seems to us almost as little disputable, that the Platonic tenet of a trinity was founded, not on the history of the Noetic triad, but on some depraved tradition of the real Tri-une God. Of this proposition an indirect proof may be conveyed in the form of a question. Is it conceivable, that by any refinement on the Noetic triad, Plato should so nearly approach the true doctrine of the trinity, as not only to designate, in a confused manner, the three persons by their scriptural attributes, but generally to place them in their proper and scriptural order? It is true, Mr. Bryant insists much on the resemblance between the words vous and Noah. We were also, for a moment, staggered by finding in Phurnutus this singular passage, Απο των παλαίων 'IάTTETOS 'WHOμachnoyos, which Mr. Bryant might,, perhaps, translate, "Japhet was by the ancients named the Logos." The presumptions, however, that can be raised on such grounds as these are extremely slight. But since Plato held (in a corrupted state indeed) the doctrine of the trinity, and since he confessedly derived his religious dogmas from traditional information, does it not follow that the doctrine of the trinity was known to the elder Pagans, who must have transmitted that information? This would be a fair inference, were it not possible that Plato may have drawn some of his doctrines from Jewish rather than Pagan sources. On this point the argument seems to hinge, and on this we have not been able to form a decisive judgment. But in the meanwhile we lean to the opinion, that the elder Pagans, while they deified the three sons of Noah, had yet really some imperfect knowledge of the Divine Trinity, and that, possibly, on this abused doctrine they impiously grafted the worship of the Noetic triad. We cannot help adding, that the *Phurn. de Nat. Deor. 17. +See this ably maintained by the learned Theophilus Gale. Court of Gentiles, Part I. lib. iii. subject we have been considering should be handled with caution. Some authors have, with the best intentions, laboured to prove the doctrine of the trinity from universal consent. Such attempts are extremely unsafe; though the reception of a similar doctrine by Plato and other philosophers may be judiciously urged to repel objections a priori founded on its incomprehensibility. Others, with far different motives, have contended, that the christian trinity was borrowed from Plato; but the doctrine is, at least, as clearly implied in the Old Testament as in Plato. Indeed to distinguish in this case the original from the copy, it is only necessary to contemplate the manner in which this great doctrine is set forth in the sacred writings. Here only is it addressed to the heart rather than to the fancy, and stated with a grave simplicity worthy of the subject. Here only is it kept equally free, on the one hand, from metaphysical subtleties, and from a tendency to tritheism on the other. We now come to the question, Who were the Cabiri? a question which has perplexed the greatest antiquarians for more than two thousand years, and on which, consequently, it is much easier to quote hard Greek and Latin than to arrive at any definite conclusion. Mr. Faber, in his second chapter, analizes the genealogy of these mysterious beings given in Sanchoniatho's history; but without intimating that the genuineness of this history has been warmly disputed. We do not much blame this omission; for whoever was the original compiler of these Phenician legends, and wherever the editor Philo found them, surely his own candid confession, that they had been in the course of time much adulterated§, and the antique complexion of the legends themselves, should protect him from the charge of having forged them. The learned Bishop Cumberland was the first who endeavoured systematically to adapt the whole of the Phenician narrative to the narrative of Moses. Mr. Faber, with the same purpose, has adopted a system very different from that of Cumber This has been often shewn; no where, perhaps, better than in Maurice's Ind. Antiq. Vol. IV. But some parts are too fanciful. § Euseb. Præp. Ev. lib. i. c. ix. land; and ends with conjecturing the Cabiri to be the family of Noah. We can truly say, that our author's account of the Cabiri has, at least, the merit of being very plausible, where nothing is certain. But it is impossible fully to repose on the authority of Sanchoniatho, after he has been convicted of confounding the families of Cain and Seth, multiplying Noah into ten different persons, and substituting for plain narrative a confused mass of fact, fiction, and allegory. In the course of this enquiry, Mr. Faber is led to develope his ideas on the Pagan deities in general. According to him, the gods are for the most part mixed personifications of the sun and Noah; and the goddesses of the moon and the ark. But Juno is properly Noah's dove; and Minerva represents the divine wisdom preserving the ark during the deluge. Although we cannot believe that the names of the ancient gods in general were originally mere titles of Noah, we admit that frequent allusions to that patriarch are discoverable in the fables related of those gods, and particularly of Saturn. We know, indeed, that the history of the world has been often called a series of repetitions; and thatwhere but a few facts are recorded, a resemblance between any two characters may easily be fancied. Our conviction, however, that Saturn was Noah, is not founded on a slight resemblance, nor, indeed, exclusively on any resemblance at all; but it is founded, first, on the very high previous probability that Noah should be discovered somewhere among the deitied mortals of antiquity; and then, on the certainty that the tales related of Saturn are precisely such as would probably be related of Noah by a dark and idolatrous world. On the supposed identity of the Pagan gods with the sun, we have only to repeat that it was perhaps a confusion rather than an identity. Some, indeed, of these gods have been so long and so completely adapted (if we may so speak) to the heavenly bodies, that not to question, but even to prove, their identity would be thought absurd. Who would now give a long and formal demonstration that Apollo was the sun? Yet this was thought necessary, not only by the Vossii and the Gales, but also by an ancient author, Hera clides Ponticus*, and at a still earlier period by that prince of fabulists Apollodorus. Still, however, we think it probable, that Noah was sometimes worshipped in conjunction with the sun. Bacchus, perhaps, affords one instance of this union. The limitations already laid down must be extended to the supposed identity of the goddesses with the moon. Whether or not they also represented the ark, shall be afterwards considered. The conjecture that Noah's dove was deified under the name of Juno (though in itself plausible) rests on a single prop, the derivation of Juno from a dove. We cannot recollect one fable in which Juno has any connection with doves; and if it be asked whether the dove was sacred to Juno, it will be found that this honour was refused to the dove and granted to the crow. In the same manner we must remark, that Minerva may possibly represent the divine wisdom guarding the ark; but that the proofs here are scanty. In Vol. I. p. 167. five Minervas are mentioned; but it is intimated that they were, in fact, the same mythological character. But to infer an identity of persons from an identity of names would prove a very fallacious rule in other cases; apply it, for example, to classical authors, taking the first that offer themselves, the two writers mentioned a few lines above. Of the name of Heraclides, the celebrated editor Thomas Gale reckons thirteen authors; but Fabricius (in his Bibliotheca Græca) has enumerated more than twenty. Of Apollodori there were certainly not fewer than thirty-two. To give a still more apposite instance, do we not know that Rome deified nearly forty persons with the title of Cæsar? 2. We are disposed to believe with Mr. Faber, that the principal mysteries were partly commemorative of the deluge. But we cannot, therefore, see why, on his own principles, he resists Mr. Maurice's idea that they abounded with astronomical allusions: from the union of these two opinions a very fair hypothesis might be formed. Of all others this hypothesis would best explain what is known of the ancient cavern-worship. Nothing, * Vide Heracl. Pont. Allegor. prope initium. indeed, is more probable than that the deluge should have been solemnly commemorated; and that, if commemorated at all, it should have been commemorated universally. We do not feel entirely convinced, that the nagna mater of the mysteries represented the ark. The Hindoo fable, given in Vol. I. p. 87, and the passage quoted from Simplicius in p. 142, are obviously capable of a very different interpretation. not be as easy to fancy that the ark Would it was personified in the god or hero of the mysteries himself? We might truly urge, that some of the oldest names of ships were masculine, and, besides many presumptions drawn from fables, might insist much on the very ancient metaphysical idea expressed in the Orphic verse: -Διος δ' εκ παντα τέτυκται It seems evident to us, that the horrid rites discussed in Vol. I. p. 364, were primarily founded on the incident recorded in Genesis ch. ix. v. 22, although by a subsequent refinement they might be considered as allusive to the ark, and finally to the creative powers of nature. Our author's discussion on this disagreeable theme is one of the most ingenious parts of his work. Of Mr. Knight's book he speaks with proper abhor rence. 3. Chap. 7. That the word hippus should signify both a horse and a ship, proves, perhaps, nothing but the poverty of language. We are not satisfied that horses were regarded as symbols of Noah and the ark: it would not be much more difficult to prove this proposition of any other animal. Let us instance, in a very unpromising one, the μus, a rat or mouse; as there was a fish ios, so there was a fish μυς. worshipped a mouse, whose origin The Egyptians was by a mysterious tradition attributed to the union of a mouse and a fish. But the mystery vanishes, when we learn that this species was called by the two names Mus Araneus and My-gale, both signifying the mouseark. Similar appellations are aproμus and sorex (s'orech). On this hypothesis we can explain two other words, hitherto thought inexplicable: long ships (such as the Argo or were called μυοπάρων, my-op-aron, the ophi-murine-ark; and the famous dilivian cup of Bacchus (see Mr. Fa 675 ber's, Vol. II. p. 56,) was named vocabor, myo-bar-bon, the bovi-murine-boat. Again, the us was called wov MartixaTaToy, and was sacred to Apollo. As Neptune was sirnamed hippius, so Apollo the Titan or dilurally the rat, and μuoxтovos, i. e. myvian was sirnamed Smintheus, liteocto-Nus, in allusion to the famous Ogdoad. Indeed all the Titans or diluvians were called mice; and acElian* declares, that the Titan war cordingly a most curious passage in was an insurrection of mice. But we are told that the Titans, whom the flood destroyed, are confounded with those whom it spared. Hence, while the diluvian magna mater was called μ-a, or the mouse, yet she is fabled during the insurrection of the Titan mice to have assumed the shape of a cat; doubtless for the purpose of alarming those fraterculi gigantum. Neptune, a maritime deity, should After all it is certainly strange that have been invested with equestrian insignia. But is this difficulty removed by the intervention of the ark? The question is, why should a horse be the symbol of a boat? more satisfactory. That the old faThe latter part of this chapter is ble of Hercules sailing in a cup referred to the deluge, seems to us very probable; and that the names of the of the ancient boats, Mr. Faber ancient cups were analogous to those clearly. To the derivation of these proves various names from a common source long ship, originally and essentially some may object that the N, or differed in shapet from the gauli, cymba, and other vessels, whether cups or boats, which were broad or round. This objection does not touch precise form of which (as Bentley the fabulous as of Hercules, the laris) was never ascertained by the proves in his Dissertation on Phaancients. neral reasonings, which appear excep4. In the eighth chapter are some getionable. Our author, treating the story of the Argonautic expedition as jan war, as related by the Greeks, a mere fiction, concludes that the Tromust be equally fictitious, because all the heroes employed in that war were the sons of the Argonauts or of their ) *El. hist. lib. xii. c. v. Sacr. lib. ii. c. xi. Gyrald. de Navig, 18, Bochart Geog. |