Forlong - Rivers of Life

Tree Worship.
se furent formés les quatorze mondes, avec l’axe qui le traverse et au-dessous le mont
Calaya, alors parut sur le sommet de ce dernier le triangle, Yoni, et dans l’Yoni la
Lingam, ou Siva Lingam. Ce Lingam (arbre de vie) avait trois écorses: la première
et la plus exterieure était Bramhma, elle du milieu Vishnou, la troisième et la plus
tendre Siva; et, quand les trois dieux se fuerent détachés, il ne resta plus dans le
triangle que la tige nue, desormais sous la garde de Siva.”
“Wisdom,” says the Jewish Proverb, “is a tree of life to them that lay hold on
her,” and the serpent is often this symbol of wisdom, as Sophia is in the Greek Church.
The Kelt had his Tri-Sool, or the three-thorned One, or Trimoorti, or Bel in his
Tharamis, which the Skandinavian denoted by Odin, Balder, and Tor. Theramis was
Tor or Jove or Indra. Esus was Mars, the irrestible torrent, which some say is
derived from the Roman Eas; or Es. Belenus, Balder, or Bel is the good and the
beneficent, who shines on all alike; but Odin is the Jewish “God of Battles,”—a Tor,
who, as Jeremiah says, was “a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces” (xxiii. 29);
he is “the mighty One,” the “bruiser,” the very Oak himself; “the Covenant God”—
Pillar or Terebinth-stem, before whom (Gen. xvii. 1-3; xviii I) this God swore and
the Patriarch agreed; thus in connection with an Oak (Gen. xii. 6, 7) Jews and Christians
received their glad promise from Jhavh-Elohim, and on Mahādeva the two
patriarchs executed their most solemn oaths (Gen. xxiv. 2, 3; xlvii. 29), and beside him
the pious Josiah had to stand still making his new covenant (2 Kings xxiii. 1-3). His
very name is an oath and “a strong one” (hla) 1 and a “testimony” as that for which
the Ark was built, viz., an Eduth (Ex. xxv. 16, 21), which I shall have occasion hereafter
to dwell upon. No place is so holy, no shrine or grove so sacred as Deru’s
sanctum, said Sklavonians and Kelts, and so also thought Jacob, Joshua, and great
Jhavh himself. 2 (See Gen. xxxv. 4; Joshua xxiv. 26; and Judges vi. 11-21.)
“In Palestine,” says Barlow, to whom I am indebted for reminding me of some
of the above, “the Oak is the semblance of a. divine covenant, and its shadow indicated
the religious appropriation of any stone monument erected beneath it; it was
symbolical of the Divine presence.” 3 Many a decree or covenant besides those of the
Jewish Patriarchs have been ratified and sealed throughout Europe “sub Quercibus,”
or “sub annousa Quercus.” Not only was the Quercus, and so the Quercetum or grove
of Oaks, the “Sancta Quercus,” but the “Holy Oak” of pre-Christian times became
the gospel tree of Christian days, as I hope to make clear in the course of this work.
It was the Drusus or Oak that sheltered Zeus on Mount Lyæus, and there, in consequence,
was erected its univeral female accompaniment—a holy well or a fountain,
and afterwards a temple. The oak was the patron, nay teacher of hospitality, for
its shade was as sacred. as the medieval church navis, which indeed rook its place.
The wisest men, no less than the ignorant masses, saw in it a god; Jews, Pagans,
and Christians, nay the enlightened Sokrates, all swore their most solemn oaths under
1 Heb. Alah; Arabic Alat = Phallus. 2 The Vulgate prefers to read here “God.” 3 “Symbolism,” p. 36
67