Forlong - Rivers of Life

166
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
is more likely that the stones were first put there for their own sakes, just as the obelisk
was in Egypt, as representing a distinct Phallic phase—viz.. the wornhip of virile
power such as we still see in India when the devotee of Siva’s shrine reverently
touches the testes of the Nanda or Bull, the god’s representative, which the “testimony”
was in the Jewish shrine) as he enters upon his worship. As the Jews advanced in
knowledge, and we may add modesty, they apparently took advantage of the presence
of the stones, as did the Egyptian of his obelisk, to write thereon their laws and
learning, social and other; and told their children that this was the original purpose of
the stones. Mayhap the: tale about the destroying of the first two stones, which would
be round, as we see these usually are, and not adapted for writing on, was related to
after generations as a blind. It was quite natural, as I have shewn, that the ark
should be the abode of a virile emblem of some. sort; and therefore, had the two stones
not been mentioned after we had heard of an Eduth which represented Jahveh or
Elohim, we might with great reason have concluded that “the Eduth” of Exod. xvi. 34,
was the Testis, because the old translators, considered “testimony” a fit word by which to
lead us to understand what an Eduth meant; but the after-mention, and so far on as the
end of the 31st chapter, precludes this idea I think, although I speak with great diffidence,
for it is a noticeable fact, that the first two stones were the gift of Elohim—a
regular Palla-dium obtained direct from Jove—and not made nor graved by man (see
Verse 16), and therefore precisely what a Phallic worshipper requires in the case of a
Sri-Linga. The throwing away of these god-made stones, and breaking them in pieces,
seems to mark a change of faith from the Lingaite to the Yonite; and so also the
violent grinding to pieces of the calf, or rather golden cone or bull. Great importance was
attached by all Shemites to stones as emblems of virility; even to the present time, as
with the Jewish patriarchs, oaths have been exacted on them, and henee no doubt arose
the Latin term testis, meaning a witness. So in India, no more solemn oath could be
exacted from a Sivaite, or probably any Hindoo, than by making him swear with hand
on the testis of the temple Nanda; nor could son or servant in the eyes of all Easterns,
give a more enduring oath or pledge, than by acting as those of Abram’s and Jacob’s
did. As the leader of the tribe was furnished by the god of the tribe with two stones,
so does the Pope present to the bishops of the church two very symbolic loaves of
bread, one gilt with gold (Anu?), and the other silvered (Hea?) with the arms of
the officiating prelate and the bishop engraved on them, and two tapers. Picart at ii.
132, gives us a drawing, shewing the kneeling recipient carrying a too emblematic
flambeau, and the attendant with the two citron-shaped loaves. The oath which the new
bishop takes is to be faitbful to Petrus, alias the Tsur or Rock when he is then married
to the church with a ring, and kisses his new love; on which, day, like a bridegroom,
he takes precedence of all others. The bishop’s paatoral staff is bleaaed by the Petrus
and anointed with oil; it corrresponds with Moses’ rod, the Lituus. of the Augurs, and
the Kaduceus of Mercury, but it is more Phallic in form than most of these.