Forlong - Rivers of Life

Serpent and Phallic Worship.
Petra; and the Jewish Jehovah rested on various Petras from Sinai to Zion. “In
short,” says the orthodox Bryant, “there is in the history of every Oracular temple some
legend about a stone, some reference to the word Petra,” and is it not so still? Does
not Petros still rule from the seven hills, sitting the acknowledged head of a very phallic
and feminine form of worship, and kissed and bent down to by the most civilized people
of even our day? The Scholiast on Pindar identifies the Sun with Petra; because, says
he, the Petra fell from the Sun as did the Lingams, or Petræ, which were shown at
Ægospotamos, and at Abydus; and hence the legends about Tantulus, sitting
under the fear of the Stone (Sun-Stone) falling on him, up to his chin in water and
surrounded with. fruits, yet perishing of hunger and thirst (B. 1. 366). The cause
of identity of Sun and Petra is, of course, the fact of the Lingam being the organ of
the Sun as regards his means of causing fertility; so Mithras, as the Sun, is called
“the deity of the rock whose temple was a cavern; even the cavern is called at
times Petra. At Milan an ancient inscription tells us of “a dedication” termed Hercules
in Petra, and we know that Christians were forbidden “ad Petras vota reddere.”
The tree-stem, being a Lingam, was a Petra, as also the Sun; and therefore Zeu’s tree,
the oak, was called Sar-On, or Sun-On. Neptune was called Poseidon Petraios; Jove,
Zeus, Patro-us; Vesta was Patroa; and “gods were generally termed qeoˆ p£trioj and
p£trwoi,” which in later days came to be called Dii Patrii, and erroneously thought to be
only “the gods of one’s own country.” As Petra was the Sun, so was it, whether as a stone
or deity, called occasionally by the name of El-Aphas, or Sol Deus ignis; and by the
Amonians El-Apha-Ba-al, in which we see no doubt the origin of the name of the
celebrated shrine of Elephanta near Bombay—a cave which has seen in it all the
worships of man down to and including Christianity, report says; but where the
Petra or Lingam has again, and long since resumed its sway. The Elephant form of
the hill is untrue and absurd.
A town was usually called after its greatest god, as were the offerings after him to
whom offered; hence offerings to Petra were named Patrica, which was natural; for
offerings in Bouns or cakes of flour, oil and honey, &c., were formed into symbols of the
god-idea, which we see were therefore always phallic or umbilical, this being the form
Egyptians, Asyrians and Jews delighted in; see Jeremiah xl. 18-19, li. 19. 1 as well as
Baruch v. 43, and Herodotus. Notice also that this worship and offerings are closely
connected with prostitution, as we should term it; but which, by the principal body of
devotees, was merely considered a sacrificial offering of their bodies to the deity represented
by the sacred cakes, or as the Greeks said, Pituria. These offerings were made
alike to Mithras as to Osiris, and to all gods from Meros to the mountain-wilds of
Armenia; aye, to furthest Himalaya and over all the plains of earth.
I must again remind my readers that P and B, Phi and Bhi are interchangeable,
and that Pi in general has the signification of an oracle, or mouth, and B of a
house or temple; that tine is “a place,” and in very ancient terms, “a holy place”
or altar; and that teus, seus, or theus, are generally holy affixes, as for god, or godlike
men; in regard to H, we may usually omit, or only aspirate the P, T, B, &c. so
1 [There is no Jer. xl. 18, and li. 19 hardly seems relevant. Perhaps xliv. 19 was meant. — T.S.]
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