Forlong - Rivers of Life

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Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
grams of their respective gods. Thus the worshippers of the Sun arranged their Baituli
in a circle to reprsent the Sun’s disk . . . and the votaries of THE SERPENT formed their
into a Serpentine figure.” The italics and capitals are the Reverend gentleman’s, and he
adduces the case of “the ophite temple described by Ovid as passed by Medea in her
flight from Atika to Kolkis—FACTAQUE DE SAXO LONGI SIMULACRA DRACONIS.” 1
Let us here look for a little at the sun under his vernal form of Apollo, at Latona
his mother, his sister Diana, and that “Isle of the Blessed,” Delos, which Pliny called
Pur-polis, when Fire was first ignited by great Jove’s unlawful amours. Kallimakus
thus addresses the great “God of day” in a prayerful and pious spirit, about the time
Jews were composing and singing some of their Psalms:—
“ Hail, Saturn’s son, dread sovereign of the skies,
Supreme disposer of all earthly joys;
What man his numbers to thy gifts could raise—
What man has sung or ere shall sing thy
praise ?
The bard is yet, and still shall be unborn,
Who can a Jove with worthy strains adorn;
Hail, father—though above all praises here—
Grant wealth and virtue to thy servant’s prayers;
Wealth without virtue but enhances shame,
And virtue without wealth becomes a name;
Send wealth, send virtue, then; for joined they
prove,
The bliss of mortals, and the gift of Jove.” 2
Apollo is usually represented as a handsome youth with flowing golden locks,
very little hair on the face, and perhaps rather effeminate. All Solar and Light-Gods
have golden hair and golden shrines. Apollo has often a bow and arrows in one hand,
and the Graces in the other. In highest heaven he is Sol, on earth sometimes Pater,
and in Hades—to which like Christ he descended—he was known as Apollo. He is
the soul of music and harmony, therefore carries a harp and shield the latter representing
the earth, on which he plays with his darting rays; under his feet are grasshoppers,
which by his warmth first ripen into life, and he himself is the snow-white
Swan of spotless purity, symbolic of him who has dissipated earth’s snowy mantle; and
yet also the Crow, and the Raven, the bro, orb, or Evening of , the Hebrew, because indications
of Sol’s coming and going. He was fire “from everlasting to everlasting,”
and must “fill all the earth,” or woe to mankind! The undying fire on the Jewish
Ark and every Greek and Roman household, typified him; as the Greek poet sang:—
“ To thee eternal fires incessant rise,
And on thy shrine the living coal ne’er dies.”
The Cock, as his harbinger, is usually seen sitting beside him; and horns, or karns as
the Greeks call them, radiate from his forehead, symbolising fertile force whether as the
Karnean God himself, or the horned IO of the the darting diadem.
“ Like Maya’s (Mary’s) Son he stood;
On his soft cheeks no tender down hath sprung,
A God, for ever fair, for ever young.
. . . . . .
Though to thy merits various names belong,
Yet none light bright Karnean glads my song.”
1
“And likeness of a long dragon made of stone.” Serp. Worship, p. 364. Kolkis Culaia, from its
2
Cuthite or Ath-i-op aborigines. Hol. p. 137. Dodd’s Kallim.