Forlong - Rivers of Life

Serpent and Phallic Worship.
dec; and that he buried the body at Salem, which might very well be the middle of
the habitable world.” (Gregorie, p. 121). Further, Bagster’s Comprehensive Bible
tells us, in the note to Gen. xiv. 18, that noble Jews and Samaritans held Melchisedec
to be Shem, which Calmet elaborately supports, whilst our annotator informs us
that “Salem was most probably Jerusalem”! Gregorie, quoting Hebrew tradition.
says “this body of Adam was embalmed and transmitted from father to son by a
reverend and religious way of conveyance, till, at last it was delivered by Lamech into
the hands of Noah, who, being well advised of that fashion of the old world, which
was to worship God toward a certain place, and considering with himself that this
could not be toward the right, which was the east, under the inconstancy and inconvenience
of a ship, pointed out the middle of the Ark for the place of prayer.” Here,
quoting the ancient Caten. Arab., c. 25, fols. 56 b.—he says, “So soon as ever the
day began to break, Noah stood up towards the body of Adam (lingam-pillar), and
before the Lord—he and his sons, Sem, Ham, and Japheth, and Noah prayed;”—so that
here we have one of the most perfect pictures possible of a Phallic church—the men all
bowing down in the centre of the.Argha before the lingam-god—the Argha-Nat—great
Siva—the mast of the Ark-boat. Need we ask what the two stones of later days
were, or how arranged, or what this Tebah, and its type the }wra Aron, or Ark meant? 1
Was it not the abiding-place of the God, the “bread-giver,” El, Elohe, IO, or he, the
great Egyptian forefather Yoosef, who reposed, “being personified,” like this Adam in
an ark—Aran, see Heb. of Gen. l. 26. The subject of fig. 28, p. 80. is this Ark idea, and
still floats on Indian rivers. The keeping of the Adamite lingam, till it could be fixed
deep into “the centre-navel of the earth,” is a thoroughly Eastern and Sivaik idea.
The Ceylonese—Hindoos and Boodhists (see what is said under the head Meroo)
say tbat their Nebo or Peor, the holy mount Adām, also sinks right into the centre of
the earth, and. so say all those who make continual pilgrimages to, and bow before
this great high central mountain. Ignorant pilgrims fancy it is called after the first
Moslem or Jewish Parent—nay Jewish god, and for the most part worship it purely as
a lingam and call it Siva, of which more in its place. The Delphi triple-serpent
column, was also buried “in the centre of the earth,” and the Maha-Deva of Central
India is said to be situated “in the centre of the earth,” and so on. The meaning of
Gē and her centre is, in all the stories, very poorly veiled. As connected with the
Jewish love of Stone or Rock-worship, and confirmatory of what I have advanced as
to their having early taken to holy stones, and got their first two from heaven, I may
mention that we have numerous traditions, as well as historic evidence of both Stone
and Rock-reverence, if not worship, by them, down to even this century. Gregorie, at
p. 118, commenting upon Deut. xxii. 3, tells us of a very holy stone, which could not be
the rock or tomb ovor which the “Mosk of Omar” now stands. He speaks on the
authority of the Talmud—the Gemara in Baba Metzia, saying, “In Hierusalem there
1 Tebah is the word used for Noah’s Ark, and Aron for the Ark-box. 2 Note in Bagster’s Com. Bible.
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