Forlong - Rivers of Life

352
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
by names compounded of Ain, An or En—commonly spelt with diphthongs, and considered
these to be feminine. John the Baptist used to baptize at such a place, 1 En-On or
the “Fount of the Sun,” which was also the Fount of “Divine Wisdom,” from which
may arise Ath-en-a, as representative woman, the Aith-Ain, “burning” or “heart-fount.” 2
At times we see these termed reversed, and a goddess constituted, called An-Ait, “whose
temples occur in many places where the rites of fire were particularly observed.” Joshua,
in xix. 38, mentions such a temple as Beth-Anath. Ain-El-Sham, and Ain-Ades, are
fountains of the Sun, which became in Greek Nai-ades. Founts of fire were Ain-apathas,
Ain-eius and Ain-esius (hence Eneas) and are derivations from Hanes the Egyptian God.
Ain-omphe, or Fontes Oraculi, were prophetic fountain-gods, contracted, as already stated,
into Nymphæ, or nymphs presiding over water. The Rev. Mr. Holwell on Bryant gives
us the following among many names connected with fire and font-worship:—Egina was
Oen-opia, and we. have Ain-eus in Thrace. Ham, as the Sun, was Ait, and his land
was therefore called by the Greeks Aet-ia, or Ait-iopia. The Nile as the source of Life,
that is, of heat, was Aet-os. The heart was called HQ (Eth) Ionice, which the
Dorians with more propriety would have called Ath., 2 —our word Heat, which in
sacred matters is connected with the Spirit, Breath, or “Holy Spirit.” It is commonly
asserted that, because the Vulture was part of the ensignia of Egypt, that land was
often called Ai-gypt—the latter part of the word signifying Vulture or Eagle. Doubtless
the Vulture is a bird whicb courts and can endure heat more than any other, but I
am inclined to translate Ai-goopt generally as the “Vale or place of heat.” The
Vulture or Eagle being common in Egypt, we may further understand that when
Plutarch says “Eagles” settled at Delphi, Egyptians are meant, and Gupt or Goopt
might well mean a “Voracious Maw,” or Vulture. Egypt was symbolized by a
heart over burning coals, which shows the Christian “sacred heart” idea to be several
thousand years old; indeed the Catholic heart, with the arrow through it, is the
Phallic amulet of Apis, see Plate, No. XlII.-9. It represents the seat of passion in male
and female, and is not an object to be laughed at, as so many Protestants do. Ap-is,
or OB and IS, are at least six thousand years old, showing how tenacious the idea is.
I have said that Mountain-Worship accompanied that of Wells, for the latter are
generally the spirits of the former, or places of the spirits. and the source of all
fertility. The well is “the abyss” that living or life-giving water which all faiths
have preached so much about. In the cleft of the spring lives the Mountain-God,
though he manifests himself also in the grand upreared form of the mountain, and is
then Siva or Parvati, the protector and sustainer of mankind. This will appear in
various places throughout this work. The great mountain of Pergamos (which I
have visited and studied the stories concerning), on which rested the capital of the
Mysian kingdom, occurs to me as an instance of the cult of high, conical, weird-looking
mountains. It is not very dissimilar, as this sketch will show, to the upper part of
1 John iii. 23.
2 Bryant and Rev. W. Holwell.
3 Bryant, I. 18—Holwell’s Dic., p. 14.