Forlong - Rivers of Life

174
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
Covenant or Pillar-God. See the ratification of the Covenant as related in 2 Kings
xxiii. 3, where even the righteous. reformer Josiah, who, it is said, removed all Phallic,
Sun, and Serpent images from the temple, stands by the pillar to swear to “the
Jhavh,” who was therefore a Pillar-God or Jupiter-Lapis.
Thus “the Testimony” is simply a sign or symbol, and so then was the Eduth.
Moreover, it was the same symbol as that which dominated all over these Shemitic
lands. Pheniciams also called their god Elohim; and the Bow with them was also his
sign, as being a heavenly arc, and connected with water.
If Abraham made the sign of his God in circumcision, so did Jacob and Laban,
in raising to him “a head of witness,” or a stone in a karn or heap. This God, as the
pious Father Calmet points out (Fragmemnts, cxxix.), is he who “makes all naked and
open,” or gumn¦ tetrachlosm…na, “like to Agamemnon’s sword.” “Words which,” adds
the orthodox old writer, “are sacrificial ones!” Need we say more to prove the kind
of deity the Jews honoured and symbolized in their Eduth, and his pot of
manna, and in Jahveh-Nissi? Further on in their history we find this deity delighting
in savage butchery; in hecatomhs of cattle which bled before him, and whose blood
and fat he was supposed to “lick up” daily, nay, hourly. His altars were mere
shambles, and he himself was constantly anointed with unguents so holy, that none
save Aaron and his sons were to presume to use them; nay, not even the ingredients
of these ointments under penalty of death. (Ex. xxx. 32, to end), and this also in the
case of his perfumes or incense, which Moses and others ever offered before him in a
manner which is disgustingly familiar to all of us who have so constantly wit-
nessed the operations in the shrines of India. The priests, the king, and the deity are all
thus anointed in many lands, and indeed with such words as Israelites and cognate tribes
used, viz. “God anoint thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.” Moore, in his
Oriental Fragments (page 133 et seq.), gives us some amusing notes on the coronation
of our last King William and Queen Adelaide, quoting the facts from the London
Times. It appears that both their majesties were anointed from “la Sainte Ampoule,”
which vessel was in the form. of an eagle with outspread wings (Jove), through whose
mouth (Pi or Phy) the oleo santo flowed into a spoon—(query, Argba), “curiously
ornamented.” Three swords and three wedges of gold were carried before their
majesties, so that truly, as Moore says, “Lingams were offered by the king “to the
gods, priests, or people; and rings with ruby stones wete selected and bestowed, and
the king kissed the priests, and then his nobles—regarding all of which The Times
indignantly says: “Why this fuss with palls and ingots, spurs and swords, and oil for
anointing (greasing) their sacred majesties, and whipping on and off of mantles?”
The reply is simple. The old faith is in the old rites and rulers require to be careful in
standing upon old rules, faiths, and ceremonies, else old laws might declare the
whole illegal, and it might be difficult to get new laws passed, authorising kinds and
coronations. On this occasion the prayers, it is said, were those used at Queen