Forlong - Rivers of Life

Ancestor Worship.
a Persian who had died in their country during the expedition of Xerxes.
Hippolytus was revered as a god at Trazene, and Achilles’ son was a god at Delphi,
simply because he died and was buried there. . . . . . Mantines spoke with pride of
the bones of Areas, Thebes of those of Geryon, and Messena of those of Aristomenas.
. . . . . The bones of Orestes were treacherously stolen by Spartans, and the firt
care of Athens, as soon as she had it in her power, was to take away the remains of
Theseus from Skyros, in 476 B.C., and erect a temple over them” at Athens. 1 Jews
had good reason for reverencing bones, as we see that a dead man, who was dropped
by chance into the sepulchre of Elisha, came to life again as soon as he touched his
bones, 2 which, if this wondrous myth had been properly elaborated, and not thus parenthetically
stated by some miracle-loving Elisha-ite, as it clearly has been, would lead us
to conclude that the spirit or life neither went to Sheol nor Heaven, but died or remained
in the dead body; for we are here assured, that although the man was quite dead, the
spirit merely revived, i.e., as a dying plant does, by the aid of heat and moisture. In
Ezekiel xxxvii.—metaphor though it be—we are assured by the answer of the prophet
to “Elohim-Jehovah,” that he was not quite sure if bones would live again. Yet all
Jews manifested respect for dead bones, as Moses taught them when he took away
those of Joseph. 3 Even the bones of the Paskal lamb might not be broken, and
nothing was more offensive to every feeling of the living, than to touch the ashes of the
dead, as that pious iconoclast Josiah knew when he cruelly disinterred the bones of those
who had not worshipped Jahveh-Elohim according to his ideas. 4 Bone relics have
been universally esteemed most precious, as we see in the world-wide reverence or
worship of them from Mexico to Japan.
Rome worshipped her dreaded Lemures and Larvæ when the summer sun of early
May began to assure her of a good harvest, lest they should he irritated and spoil kind
nature’s handiwork; and Christians continued this service, going about at this time reciting
Ave Marias, and exhibiting crosses and making “the charmed elipse” (a yoni)
with fingers and thumb. The black bean—that phallic legume—had then to be put into
the mouth, the hands washed with fresh spring water, and a violent clanging of brass
vessels kept up, when there was every prospect that the evil Larvæ would take themselves
off.
Ancestor-worship is a development and sequence of that idiosyncrasy of man
which has led him to worship and deify even the living; that which, according to the
teaching of Euemerus, accounts for all the mythological tales of the gods and godlike
men of Greece. 5 This is, I am aware, opposed to much that is taught by some
learned writers on mythology, as to ancient men personifying the great powers of
nature; an idea, however, which does not at all accord with my own experience as to the
1
Aryan Civil., 92.
3
Exod. xiii. 10. The bones had lain 400 years in Egypt!
5
Grote’s His. of Greece, xvi.
2
2 Kings xiii. 21.
4
2 Kings xxiii. 16.
545