Forlong - Rivers of Life

504
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
of Phrabat, 1 and with the Koptic Phre, which may be the root of Pharaoh. Inasmuch
as the phallic cross of Seraphis became the sacred mark of ecclesiastical dignitaries,
and the phallic plowshare, the sign-manual of Indian princes, so the Prā-bat became one
of the sacred signs or impressions of Boodhism, and is so used in Ceylon with the sacred
Bo-tree leaf—this last because of its long heart-like shape and constant quivering
motion, even in the stillest day; it hangs from a longish slender stalk, has a heavy
body, and long attenuated points, like the oldest form of the Greek f. 2 Phrabat, say
Higgins and other writers, seems to have freely entered into our own language, and to
have retained its eastern sacred or solemn character in the case of Probat, which was
a deed marked with the sacred impression of the bishop’s seal. A bishop grants a
probate when satisfied of the truth of a deed. From Bat we have Pad, foot—as in the
old saying “he pads it,” or walks it; and from such old roots comes the Latin Probo, and
English Approve. In this search for the origin of faiths in words I do not, as already
stated, rest content with ordinary Latin, or even Greek roots. We must go beyond the
Pros and Cons of school dictionaries, and try to see how Pro and Con, nay, P, Ph, or C
and K arose, and became so prominent in words connected with Gods, Faiths, and rites.
All Christian sects of the first twelve centuries, as well as Gnostics, whether
in Spain or Persia, adored Foot-prints. Those supposed to have been made by
Christ on a slab of basalt—a paving stone of the Via Appia at Rome, “have
been worshipped from time immemorial in the church of Domine quo vadis,
built over the consecrated spot,” 3 so that the same ideograph was here as on
the rock of Mount Moriah, and in the Christian shrine in the Basque Provinces, given
as Fig. 11 in my Plate XV. The Roman footprints of Christ are also connected
with Peter, the old Father Stone; for the Church teaches that he left the impress on
the occasion of his going there to tell Peter that he would be crucified afresh at Rome.
In the same manner St. Augustine has left to Englishmen his “holy footprint” on the
Isle of Thanet; and even Wesleyans, determined not to be behind, show us the impress
of the saintly John Wesley on the marble slab over the grave of his father, where they
aver he stood aud preached when denied access to his old parish church of Epworth.
Moses, along with some other mythic and historical characters, have left us the impress
of feet and hands, nay, in one case of his whole back, on the rock and caves of Arabia’s
Mounts, for Christian priests aver that Jahveh pressed Moses into the cleft as he passed
by. Mahomedans, as if to parody the whole idea, show us near Sinai the impress on
a rock of Mahomed’s camel, from the spot where he ascended to heaven under the
escort of Gabriel—the eagle of the churches.
Serapis has also funrished to Christianity the ideas and portraits of its Christs,
and especially of that earliest of the Christian world, the fine emerald intaglio in the
Cathedral of Moscow—the priceless gem of the Russian Imperial collection. It is
said by the churchs to have been a present from Pilate to the Emperor Tiberius; but
1
Jour. As. Soc., III. 57; Higgin’s Anacalypsis, I. 829.
2
Compare the sacred signs as follows: 1st, on third line of Fig. 29, p. 84; reversed as in Fig. 99,
iv. 3, p. 228; and Fig. iv. 2, p. 233.
3 King’s Gnostics, p. 159.