Forlong - Rivers of Life

530
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
of “Ilda-Baoth the Creator; he who spoke through the prophets, and gave the law in
the wilderness;” 1 of whom a good deal will appear elsewhere, for this was a secondary
God whom Jews covenanted with, and served at Sinai and Hebron.
The most orthodox of Christian historians tells us, that just as the Romans had
their solemn processions with horses and chariots in honour of the Sun, so “had
Israelites in honour of Moloch, 2 who, we have shown, is Saturn or the Sun. He is
also that Pillar or Sun-stone to which the pious Josiah, who always “did that which
waa right in the sight of the Jahveh,” 3 went up and “stood before” to make his
covenant in his solar shrine—a true child of David and like to his ancestor Adonijah,
who, with Joab “and all the priests and mighty men,” went up and sacrificed “by
the stone of Zoheleth, which is by the Well of Rogel.” 4 A pillar by a well was “the
Lord of the covenant,” or Baal Berith with the Shechemites, 5 aud Jupiter Fœderis
with the Latins. The male of a star, or Ar, was Ares, Mars or Herakles—a name and
God held in the highest honour in Syria; which Herakles, says Godwyn, was called
in Egyptian Chou, 6 which I conclude is the masculine form of Chiun. Some Etymologists
derive Hercules from Hier-kal, lkryah 7 and I will hereafter show that the names of
the “city of David.” (Hier-o-polis or Siva the pillar) is connected with this God-man.
“The Greek etymology (of Hierkal) corresponds with the Hebrew, both signifying that
universal light which floweth from the Sun as water from a fountain. . . . It is apparent
that the name was well known in the time of the Maccabees (150 B.C.), for Jason the
high priest sent three hundred drachms of silver to the sacrifice of Hercules.” The god
was the Kooth or Keltic Ier and the popular Greek derivation from Hieros is a delusion;
every place connected with IER was holy, but this name was current a thousand
years before the Greek language.
The Jews called Tamuz and Adon indifferently “The Lord and Bread-giver;” and
the declension of Tamuz from his June power to Cancer they called Tek-upha-Tamuz,
or the revolution of Tamuz. None better than the dwellers in Syria understood the
full significance of Abram’s sacrifice on a hill-top. Sol or Siva has always demanded
blood, if one’s own so much the better; so also did the Queen. of heaven, Bellona or
Doorga, and we remember the violence with which the priests of Baal are said to
have cut themselves in the probably exaggerated account in Kings, 8 Not even yet is the
Christian church purged of its thirst for blood, though in civilised Europe and America,
she only speaks of “a bloody sacrifice;” Flagellantes of the St. Francis type are by
no means dead yet in Asia, and some dark spots elsewhere; St Francis was a leading
and practical scourger, but the Italian Flagellants of the thirteenth century improved
upon his severities; and Moore shews us many instances of poor foolish Christians not
only cutting themselves to pieces, but thirsting to lick up their own blood; and
this in Europe as well as in Asia. 9
We have yet a good deal to learn as to the strong solar faith of early Christians.
1 King’s Gnostics and their Remains, p. 109.
4 1 Kings i. 9. En-Rogel.
7 Godwyn, p. 151—2 Macc. iv. 19.
2
Godwyn, p. 150.
5
Jud. ix. 4.
8
1 Kings xviii. 28.
3
2 Kings xxii-xxiii.
6
Op. cit., p. 150.
9
See Moore’s Oriental Fragments.