Forlong - Rivers of Life

Sun Worship.
fearing the emperor’s wrath, “were two grammarians. Helladis and Ammonius (both
good Solo-phallic names), whose pupil I was in my youth at Constantinople. The
former was said to be a priest of Jupiter, the latter of Simius.” 1 After this, the emperor
ordered the temples to be “razed to the ground, and the images of the gods molten into
pots and other convenient utensils for the use of the Alexandrian church . . . and relief to
the poor. All the images were accordingly broken to pieces, except one statue of the god
before mentioned (Priapus or Siva), which Theophilus preserved and set up in a public
place,” just as Greek Christians and Mahomedans did with the serpent on the Bosphorus.
Now, from what we know of the universal fear, not to say honour, in which the
Lingam, Cross, or other sexual emblem, has been held in all ages and nations, we may
safely aver that these so recent Phallo-Solarites (the Bishop’s lineage included) could not,
Christians though they now were, eradicate the great Lingam of Sar-Apis any more
than Mahomed II. when he rode up to the Serpent-phallus of Constantinople in the
fifteenth century; 2 or the greater Mahmood of Ghazni, when he destroyed and plundered
Siva’s rich shrine of Somnāt. Various reasons of course for sparing the Serapian
Priapus are alleged by the Christians, “as that the heathen might see and not deny the
gods they had worshipped,” &c. So, also, when they kept the numerous “hieroglyphs,
having the forms of crosses,” 3 which were found in and about the temple of Serapis, the
Christians said they must keep and reverence the cross as “signifying the Life to come.”
Pagans and Christians were agreed that the cross “symbolised one thing to Christians,
and another to Heathens,” and therefore both agreed to keep it as their symbol, but
poor Socrates naively remarks: “I cannot imagine the Egyptian priests foreknew the
things concerning Christ when they engraved the figure of a cross;” for did not Paul
declare all such hid, 4 but perhaps, he suggests, the devil enlightened them.
Besides Phalli and crosses, the destruction of Serapis exhibited the fact, that her
priests and votaries also knew of that phallic euphemism—the Sacred Feet or Foot,
and the Gnostics and cognate sects followed Serapis, and represented the winged foot
of Mercrny among their sacred gems, as “treading” the grasshopper or butterfly—
emblem of Spring. Like Priapus, also, the Foot was occasionally called an “evil
thing” and “an attribute of the infernal gods,” but amidst the treasures of Serapis it
was the resting.place or foundation of the great god himself; for on the top of a richly
sandaled foot he sat enthroned with Cerebus 5 and great Sesha—the serpent on which
Vishnoo reposed when creating, and surrounded by his attendants. I have elsewhere
dwelt on the Foot feature of all faiths, but may here mention that the name given to
Boodha’s foot—Phra-Bat, signifies “The foot, the Former, or Creator;” Ph’ra, or Bra,
arb signifying “the Creator” or that which “cuts” or “creates,” “to be strong,” “full,”
“lusty,” &c., as Bra-Ihe, the Creator; 6 this agrees with the Siamese signification
1
Helladus boasted of sacrificing nine Christians to the insulted deities.
2
See p. 266.
3
Soc. Eccl. His., p. 279.
4
1 Cor. ii. 7, 8; Eph. iii. 5, 6.
5
King’s Gnostics, p. 159.
6
Fürst and 1 Chron. viii. 21.
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