Forlong - Rivers of Life

522
Fig. 191.—VENUS WITH APPLE. Fig. 192.—ASYRIAN MARY
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
an apple in her hand and rests upon an “upright stem, round which a dolphin (delf…j,
connected with delfÚj “womb”) is entwined, from whose mouth comes a stream of life.” 1
It was natural that wandering tribes who carried about a Kiun and Eduth in an
Ark would halt in passing, and worship the conical mounts Sinai, Horeb, Hor and
Nebo, Peor or Phegor around which they saw the
grandest phenomena. of nature; for the fierce
storms of thunder and lightning which sweep tempestuously
over the sandy plains, are arrested by,
and play more than ever fiercely around these lofty
mountain summits; and here, accordingly, the
desert tribes have ever related tales of wonderful
seances with their gods. At Peor we hear a good
deal regarding “eating or doing the sacrifices of
the Dead” or Muthim, \ytm, which a writer in the
Psalms tells us is the meaning of “joining unto Ba-
al-Peor. 2 The Hindoo has “sacrifices to the dead,”
called Shrāda, by which he considers his relatives
can pass safely through various intermediate stages of existence. There were no dead
relatives however on Ba-al-Peor; but there were Kala or Kali, Siva or Parvati—
those Generators who also destroy—“the grave or Hell,” and to them such sacri-
fices were due. “They made a covenant” 3 to Muth, twm, and Shal, lac, “Death and
Hell,” the word Muth or Mut being the same as Mutim. All who have looked into
Indian Mythology will remember the very common form in which Siva is worshipped
whilst in the act of creating as well as destroying. The figure is too gross to be given,
but he is shown stamping out creation in the fierceness of creative desire.
As regards the Rephain or Rephaim, we are told they are classed with “the chief
ones of the earth,” the translators of lsaiah xiv. 9 erroneously rendering Rephain as
“dead.” The passage really means that “Sheol” (‘Hell’) is to be stirred up as the
oppressors of Jahveh’s children enter,” and that the Rephain will then criticise the new
arrivals in Hell, for this writer in Isaiah evidently believed that these Rephain and
“all the kings of the nations” here “lie in glory, every one in his own house,” and
that the new comer on this occasion is to be “cast out of his grave,” and “go down
to the stones of the pit.” 4 The Rephaim, \yapr says Job, are “formed under the
waters with the inhabitants thereof,” who, it is supposed, are the giants or Nephelim.
Similarly, the writer in Proverbs says these Rephaim are in secret waters, and in connection
with Hell or Sheol. Generally we gather that they are not good, and Isaiah
says that they will again come forth at the resurrection like a dead body.
1 Inman’s Symoblism, p. 55. [Edn. 1874.]
2 Read Ps. cvi. 25 in connection with Numbers
xxv. 3.
3 Isaiah xxviii. 15.
4 Read on this, Isidore Heath’s Phœnician Inscriptions;
Job xxvi. 5, 6, Prov. ix. 18. and Is. xiv.
verses 9 to 20, and xxvi. 19. [The passage in Isaiah
is a polemic against the neo-Babylonian kingdom, as is
clear when it is read in context. — T.S.]