Forlong - Rivers of Life

70
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
the gods, 1 here. meaning merely the Parental source, or the Peliadian idea of the
cause of generation, see volume cited, under numerous articles, as to Zeuth. The
worship here, that is, at Dodonn, was evidently IOnish or Dove-ish 2 —a name the
Greeks appear to have punned much upon. saying however that it came from Theba
or Thebes, the Ark. Thebais of Egypt was founded by Koothites, variously styled
El-o-pians, Pier-ians, and Kad-mians, regarding whom we shall speak a good deal
etymologically and otherwise further on. The worship at Dodona appears to me, from
my experience in the study of Eastern Sivaik shrines, to have gone through such changes
as: first, a sacred tree, no doubt an oak; then a Lingam under the oak; then a sacred
grove whose leaves rustlcd and whose priests interpreted; then a fountain whose
murmuring improved on these; then tinkling cymbals on the oak; then the Lingam
pillars on which the brazen kettles hung and the boys played; then Fire and statuary
gods, ending in Jove. The grove was undoubtedly man’s first temple, and became a
sanctuary, asylum, or place of refuge, and as time passed on, taemples came to be
built in the sacred groves. There is no doubt but that where the holy Al-Ka-aba 3 of
Meka stood was but a grove and a well, and round all the “holy circles” of England,
and Klachans or Kirks (circles) of Scotland, stood, say my best authorities, “sacred
woods,” and the same holds good wherever I have been able to investigate the origin
of a shrine. Let me repeat, for the matter is most important,—First and prominently
comes the tree; then the grove and well; then the little column or Phallus; then the
altar of unhewn stone, and an Ark or adytum, then poles, gongs, or bells, streamers
or serpents, &c. The early gods liked not walls, said Pliny very truly, and that the
Jews well knew this we see in Gen. xii. 6, 7; xiii. 18, and elsewhere, though our
translators too free1y use the word “altar” or jbzm, instead of tree.
We have in the story of the origin of the great temple of Ephesus another case
like that of Dodona, but showing the worship of the elm or beach, or both as the
substitute for the Sancta Quercus. Callimachua, in his beautiful hymn to Diana, is
thought to ascribe the origin of the shrine of Ephesus to the Beech tree, whilst
Dionysius thinks that the first holy tree there, was the Elm. Both these trees were
much revered by the. Amazon who fervently worshipped Diana, to whom. they were
sacred. Callimachus wrote,—
“ Beneath a Beech the war affecting race
Of Amazons to Thee a statue raised,
Where Ephesus’ proud towers o’erlook the main
And it appears that the beginning of this celebrated oracle was the placing here of a
little statue of the goddess in the niche of an Elm; some say it was a figure in ebony
made by one Kanitia, but others more orthodox declare that it fell down from Jove—
and why not? All good and great things, nay all earth’s great ones came direct
from heaven, and so also do all the Bibles of the human race.
1 Holwell’s Myth. Dic., Jupiter.
2 The priestesses of Dodona were called by Greeks Peliades, and by Latins Columba.
3 At Kabi, “the Front,” “Place of Plenty,” the “Pudendum viri vel fœminæ.”