Forlong - Rivers of Life

64
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
Life." We have also here symbols of the Yoni and Isis, as well as of the
fleur de Lis and spotted goat or faun, regarding which much interesting matter
will be found at pages 356-7 and 532-3 of Dr Inman’s first volume of Ancient
Faiths. He tells us here also of the usual confusing sexual facts, that “the palm tree
Sarah is (also) an emblem of the celestial goddess,” and that the male Tamaz
becomes Tamar the palm—See Vol. II., p., p. 449. I show in figure 4 of a most
interesting plate, No. IV., the Palm tree associated with the Phallus, around wbich is
coiled the serpent, and on the other side of which stands the upright konch veneris;
all the coins here seen are borrowcd by me from Dr Inman, and by him from various
sources; I shall have often to refer to the plate in this work. Of course religious
iconography is a very difficult and somewhat confusing subject; vines, pines, cones,
heads of Indian corn, branches of dates, and even cocoanuts, all come tumbling across
our path in a most bewildering manner, still the general result which the races strove
to depict admits of no doubt whatever in the eyes of any one wbo has studied eastern
religions amogst, and in a free and kindly way, with its priests. We may hesitate to
say with Barlow that Apollo drawn by Griffins is “properly the symbol of Christ” (p.
76), tbough very much to strengthen this will appear by-and-by; but we need not
hesitate in declaring that the Crux Ansata followed the pine cone and the Palm, and
led to the Christian cross, and all these quaint guises in which we find Christ, even to
that of the Argha-Nat or Lord of the Vase, which we often see him placed in! It
would seem indeed as if from Bacchus’ thyrsus and vine, men took to calling Christ
their vine and themselves the branches (Bar. 77). The true cross they said was “a
slip cut from ‘the tree of Life,’ which by the favour of the angel who guarded it, Seth
was privileged to take and plant in the world” (M. Didron); this Seth was a far more
important person than even Genesis makes him out, as we shall see in sketching
Egyptian and Jewish Faiths. Of course ho planted all the world in Hebrew estima-
tion, for he was their Adam, and Moses is often called his prototype. Let us now
speak of the Oaks of the Druids, and Oracle of Dodoma, which sent forth its decrees on
its leaves.
Fig. 19—TREE IDEA, SKANDINAVIAN
THE OAK.
The Oak was Israel’s ancient “tree of the Covenant;”
the word acually means this, but at present I
wish to draw attention to the Skandinavian idea of
the tree which we see, in this illustration. It was in
this form that the Druids cut their cross out of the live
tree, and called it their Thao, or Tau, Tor or Thor,
the Thunderer, or Fashioner, in fact Jupiter Tonans,
though with these northems, Odin and Balder
more became them than Mars or Apollo. I do