Forlong - Rivers of Life

Serpent and Phallic Worship.
Bishop of Natal, and “Physician on the Pentateuch,” one of Mr Scott’s series. A
study of the names Hinom (Hemon in Sanskrit is Mercury, the Sun, or Sun-pillar)
Hevites, Hittites, Perizites, Jebusites, and such aborigines, would no doubt elicit much.
Bryant (ii. 199) told us more than seventy years ago that Eva is Eph, Epha, and
Opha, in Greek ”Ofij, Ophis; and that Evoe, Saboe, Hues, and Attes, Attes-Hues
were all titles of Dionysus, who was peculiarly called “Uhj and his priests Hyades and
Hyantes. Abadir—the name of the stone which Saturn’s wife, Ops, substituted in lieu
of one of the sons whom Saturn wished to devour—was called Abader, which is simply
“Ob-Adur, or the Serpent-God Orus;” and here (I. 418) Bryant gives us that graphic
coin of a tree encircled by a serpent between two conical stones which Python is kissing,
whilst below is a dog pointing at a Concha Veneris. The principle picture in the plate
is a nude man with a feather springing from his middle, a cone in his hand, and cobra
on his forehead, kneeling before an upright serpent on a mass or rock, whilst underneath
is the title “Ophis Thermuthis sive Ob-Basiliscus Ægyptiacus cum sacerdote
supplicante,” showing us clearly that this Basileus had to be worshipped nudely, and
also giving the meaning of feathers and cones. These are all seen in my Plate XIII.
The word Pe-or signifies to open, and knowing that Pi, P or B or Fi all signify
the mouth, wedge, or Serpent, We see in Pi-or, the Sun, Darter or Goad, or that which
opens; and hence Peor is usually now translated as “the opener of the hymen or womb,”
but occasionally signifies the act of opening. The female principle of P, whether Phallus,
Sun, or Serpent, seems in Egyptian and Phenician dialects to have been softened in
sound by the letters V, E, and N, as in Eve, Ev-a, Eph-a, Nep, Cneph, and Kan-
Oph-is, or Lord-Serpent, Lord of Fertility; and hence Water, which we call Kanopus.
Pi-tan, Pe-ten, Pi-ton, or Python, are all one word which, like its Sanskrit equivalents,
signifies “speech,” because a mouth-piece of the oracle, or “God the Speaker.” Hence
probably we have Phar-aoh from Pi-ora, Pi-Ra, or Pi-Ar, the mouth-piece of the Sun;
for the “voice of a king is the voice of a god,”—and kings and people generally call
themselves after their gods and faiths. It is possible that we do not yet know enough
of Egyptian vowels and the construction of words to determine this name, for as the
people were great Fire as well as Sun-Worshippers, the word Pharaoh, which is reducible
to Par-AO, may signify a follower of, or leader of those following Pur, or Firecults.
It may be from Pur and Rā, Fire and Sun, which are also doubtless the roots
of Parthia, a country great in Fire-worship, and which had four monarchs, called
Phra-Ortes, in the third century B.C. 1 Media had a king Phra-Ortes in 656 B.C. The
founder of the ancient city of Pharae, Pharaiātes, or Pharātes in Messenia, mentioned
by Homer, was Pharis or Paris, the son of Hermes, that is Priapus, whom the
Orphics identified with Dionysus Helios, &c.—the Attics with Konisalus, Orthanes, and
Tykon, and the Italians with Mutunus, or the personification of fructifying energy. 2
No great stress or importance in this study of old faiths need, in general, be attached
1 Phra-bat is the name of the impression of Boodha’s foot, and Phra here means Creator or Former.
2 Priapus, Smith’s Clas. Dic.
295