Forlong - Rivers of Life

170
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
or other upright thing, and is now applied to the covering over a bed. The cetacean.
or whale order in zoology is called testicond, from condĕre to hide; so the botanical
order of some tubers and orchids is called testiculate from the prominence of ovate
members; such as I show in page 51 in speaking of Rachel’s mandrakes. Testudo was
also the name given by the Roman to the shield which protected their warriors, so that
even here it seems to convey the idea of virility and manliness, qualities which can alone
save a people from extinction, aud these are held to he gifts from Jove, which none can
produce or a.cq nire by their own aid. As Jhavh gave the eduth or testimony, so did
he give the sacred palladium or first stones; and everywhere we see him busying himself
with the social and domestic matters of his children; “the increase of their families
and flocks, circumcision, and such-like sexual matters. He was specially a God of
oaths and covenants, and very remarkable ones—of which a. few words.
Abraham rold his most faithful servant to “swear by the Lord, the God of
heaven and earth, by putting his hand “in sectione circumcisionis meæ,” according
to the received orthodox translation of Gen. xxiv. 2; see the margin of Bagster’s Comprehensive
Bible. The same reverend writers tell us that the Israelites as soon as
they got quit of Gideon the Ephod-ite, or Yonite, went back to this great “Lord
of the covenant,” called in Judg. viii, 33 Baal Berith; the margin of this same
Bible tells us to here read “Jupitur fœderis, or Mercury”—fœdus being “a treaty”
or “agreement,” which is the orthodox “testimony;” and also something “ugly” and
“disgusting.” 1 Jupiter fœderis was the Roman deity who presided over all treaties or
compacts, and of course was a Lingam-god, just as Hermes and Brahma were. The
Jewish covenanter bled in and for his “covenant-God,”—the God of the “Testimony,”
and so the Christian is said to be sealed by the sanguis novi testamenti, for it was the
testamentun circumcisionis which sealed the Jew to his Eduth-deity of Exod. xvi. 34.
The testament, says the severely orthodox Calmetr “is commonly taken in Scripture
for covenant.” Yes, very commonly, for the later writers who have given to us
our present Bible speak of it as “the law of God,” by which we may understand that
as the race got a literature, they drove out their eduth and put in the liber, though
this I think was so slow a process with all people, that these
words, Liber and Libra, the waterpoise, the scales and plummet,
the zodiac or solar dwelling-place, and the licentious
Bacchus, have all got inexplicably mixed up, though in every
phase very distinctly partaking of an aphrodisiacal character. I
give here Libra, and his two zodiacal signs as we find him com-
Fig. 62.—LIBRA OR THE SCALES
monly represented, by merely copying from the new Supplement
of our popular Webster’s English Dictionary. We should notice
that the signs of Ares or Mars correspond with Libra, and are not, I think, in character
much different. In the root of the word librarium we have the meaning Themis, justice,
the upright one, or right-doer, and Hermes; and also, as I before said, all the roots
1 [fœdus –a –um (1/2 decl. adj.) is “foul, filthy, &c”; fœdus –eris (3 decl. neut. noun) “agreement, treaty,
compact.” The former probably relates rather to fœtor –oris, a foul smell. — T.S.]