# Anacalypsis/Volume 1/Book 2/Chapter 3

CHAPTER III.
ESDRAS AND THE ANCIENT JEWISH CABALA.—EMANATIONS, WHAT.—MEANING OF THE WORD BERASIT.—SEPHIROTHS AND EMANATIONS CONTINUED.—ORIGIN OF TIME.—PLANETS OR SAMIM. —OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRECEDING SECTIONS.
1. As all the ancient Heathen nations had their mysteries or secret doctrines, which the priests carefully kept from the knowledge of the vulgar, and which they only communicated to a select number of persons whom they thought they could safely trust; and as the Jewish religion was anciently the same as the Persian, it will not be thought extraordinary, that, like the Persian, it should have its secret doctrines. So we find it had its Cabala, which, though guarded like all ancient mysteries, with the most anxious care, and the most solemn oaths, and what is still worse, almost lost amidst the confusion of civil brawls, cannot be entirely hidden from the prying curiosity of the Moderns. In defiance of all its concealment and mischances, enough escapes to prove that it was fundamentally the same as that of the Persian Magi; and thus adds one more proof of the identity of the religions of Abraham and of Zoroaster.
The doctrine here alluded to was a secret one—more perfect, the Jews maintain, than that delivered in the Pentateuch; and they also maintain, that it was given by God, on Mount Sinai, to Moses verbally and not written, and that this is the doctrine described in the fourth book of Esdras, ch xiv. 6, 26, and 45, thus:
These words shalt thou declare, and these shalt thou hide.
And when thou hast done, some things shalt thou publish, and some things shalt thou shew secretly to the wise.
. . . . the Highest spake, saying, The first that thou hast written publish openly, that the worthy and the unworthy may read it: but keep the seventy last, that thou mayest deliver them only to such as be wise among the people. For in them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom.
Now, though the book of Esdras be no authority in argument with a Protestant Christian for any point of doctrine, it may be considered authority in such a case as this. If the Jews had had no secret doctrine, the writer never would have stated such a fact, in the face of all his countrymen, who must have known its truth or falsity. No doubt, whatever might be pretended, the real reason of the Cabala being unwritten, was concealment. But the Jews assert that, from the promulgation of the law on Mount Sinai, it was handed down, pure as at first delivered. In the same way they maintain, that their written law has come to us unadulterated, without a single error. One assertion may be judged of by the other. For, of the tradition delivered by memory, one question need only be asked: What became of it, when priests, kings, and people, were all such idolaters, viz. before and during the early part of the reign of the good King Josiah, that the law was completely forgotten—not even known to exist in the world? To obviate this difficulty, in part, the fourth book of Esdras was probably written.
2. The following passage may serve, at present, as an outline of what was the general nature of the Cabala:
“The similarity, or rather the coincidence, of the Cabalistic, Alexandrian, and Oriental philosophy, will be sufficiently evinced by briefly stating the common tenets in which these different systems agreed; they are as follow: All things are derived by emanation from one principle: and this principle is God. From him a substantial power immediately proceeds, which is the ​image of God, and the source of all subsequent emanations. This second principle sends forth, by the energy of emanation, other natures, which are more or less perfect, according to their different degrees of distance, in the scale of emanation, from the First Source of existence, and which constitute different worlds, or orders of being, all united to the eternal power from which they proceed. Matter is nothing more than the most remote effect of the emanative energy of the Deity. The material world receives its form from the immediate agency of powers far beneath the First Source of being. Evil is the necessary effect of the imperfection of matter. Human souls are distant emanations from Deity, and after they are liberated from their material vehicles, will return, through various stages of purification, to the fountain whence they first proceeded.”
From this extract the reader will see the nature of the oriental doctrine of emanations, which, as here given in most, though not in all, respects, coincides with the oriental philosophy: and the honest translation given by the Septuagint of Deut. xxxiii. 2—he shined forth from Paran with thousands of saints, and having his angels on his right hand, proves that the Cabala was as old or older than Moses.
The ancient Persians believed, that the Supreme Being was surrounded with angels, or what they called Æons or Emanations, from the divine substance. This was also the opinion of the Manicheans, and of almost all the Gnostic sects of Christians. As might be expected, in the particulars of this complicated system, among the different professors of it a great variety of opinions arose; but all, at the bottom, evidently of the same nature. These oriental sects were very much in the habit of using figurative language, under which they concealed their metaphysical doctrines from the eyes of the vulgar. This gave their enemies the opportunity, by construing them literally, of representing them as wonderfully absurd. All these doctrines were also closely connected with judicial astrology. To the further consideration of the above-cited text I shall return by and by.
3. Perhaps in the languages of the world no two words have been of greater importance than the first two in the book of Genesis, ב ראשית b-rasit; (for they are properly two not one word;) and great difference of opinion has arisen, among learned men, respecting the meaning of them. Grotius renders them, when first; Simeon, before; Tertullian, in power; Rabbi Bechai and Castalio, in order before all; Onkelos, the Septuagint, Jonathan ben Uzziel, and the modern translators, in the beginning.
But the official or accredited and admitted authority of the Jewish religion, the Jerusalem Targum, renders them by Wisdom.
It may be observed that the Targum of Jerusalem is, or was formerly, the received orthodox authority of the Jews: the other Targums are only the opinions of individuals, and in this rendering, the Jewish Cabala and the doctrine of the ancient Gnostics are evident; and, it is, as I shall now shew, to conceal this that Christians have suppressed its true meaning. To the celebrated and learned Beausobre I am indebted for the most important discovery of the secret doctrine contained in this word. He says, “The Jews, instead of translating Berasit by the words in the beginning, translate it by the Principle (par le Principe) active and immediate of all things, God made, &c., that is to say, according to the Targum of Jerusalem, by Wisdom, (par la sagesse,) God made, &c."
​Beausobre also informs us, Maimonides maintains, that this is the only literal and true meaning of the word. And Maimonides is generally allowed to have been one of the most learned of modern Jews. (He lived in the twelfth century.) Beausobre further says, that Chalcidius, Methodius, Origen, and Clemens Alexandrinus, a most formidable phalanx of authorities, give it this sense. The latter quotes a sentence as authority from the work of St. Peter’s now lost. Beausobre gives us as the expression of Clemens, “This is what St. Peter says, who has very well understood this word: ‘God has made the heaven and the earth by the Principle. (Dieu a fait le Ciel et la Terre dans le Principe.) This principle is that which is called Wisdom by all the prophets.’” Here is evidently the doctrine of the Magi or of Emanations.
Of this quotation from Peter, by Clemens, the Christian divine will perhaps say, It is spurious. I deny his right to say any such thing. He has no right to assume that Peter never wrote any letters but the two in our canon; or that Clemens is either mistaken or guilty of fraud in this instance, without some proof.
The following passage of Beausobre’s shews that St. Augustine coincided in opinion with the other fathers whom I have cited on the meaning of the word ראשית Rasit: “Car si par Reschit on entend le Principe actif de la création, et non pas le commencement, alors Moïse n’a plus dit que le Ciel et la Terre furent let premières des œuvres de Dieu. Il a dit seulement, que Dieu créa le ciel et la terre par le Principe, qui est son Fils. Ce n’est pas l’époque, c’est l’auteur immédiat de la création qu’il enseigne. Je tiens encore cette pensée de St. Augustin. Les anges, dit il, ont été faits avant le Firmament, et même avant ce qu’est rapporté par Moïse, Dieu fit le ciel et la terre par le Principe; car ce mot de Principe ne veut pas dire, que le ciel et la terre furent faits avant toutes choses, puisque Dieu avoit déjà fait les anges auparavant; il veut dire, que Dieu a fait toutes choses par sagesse, qui est son Verbe, et que l’Écriture a nommée le Principe.”
By Wisdom, I have no doubt, was the secret, if not the avowed, meaning of the words; and I also feel little doubt that, in the course of this work, I shall prove that the word Αρχη used by the Seventy and by Philo had the same meaning. But the fact that the LXX. give Αρχη as the rendering of Berasit, which is shewn to have the meaning of wisdom by the authorities cited above, is of itself quite enough to justify the assertion that one of the meanings of the word Αρχη was Wisdom, and in any common case it would be so received by all Lexicographers.
Wisdom is one of the three first of the Eight Emanations which formed the eternal and ever-happy Octoade of the oriental philosophers, and of the ten Sephiroth of the Jewish Cabala. See Parkhurst’s Hebrew Lexicon, p. 668, and also his Greek one in voce Αρχη, where the reader will find that, with all his care, he cannot disguise the fact that ראש ras means wisdom. See also Beausobre, where, at large, may be found the opinions of the greatest part of the most learned of the Fathers and Rabbis on the first verse of Genesis.
The Jerusalem Targum, as already stated, is the orthodox explanation of the Jews: it used to be read in their synagogues, and the following is its rendering of this celebrated text, which com​pletely justifies that which I have given of it: בחכמה ברא אלוה יתשמיא וית ארצא In sapientia creavit Deus cœlum et terram.
It is said in Proverbs viii. 22, “Jehovah possessed me,” wisdom, ראשית rasit; but not בראשית b-rasit, which it ought to be, to justify our vulgar translation, which is, “The Lord possessed me in the beginning.” The particle ב b, the sign of the ablative case, is wanting; but it is interpolated in our translation, to justify the rendering, because it would be nonsense to say the Lord possessed me, the beginning.
The Targum of Jerusalem says that God made man by his Word, or Λογος, Gen. i. 26, So says Jonathan, Es. xlv. 12; and in Gen. i. 27, he says, that the Λογος created man after his image. See Allix’s Judgment of the Jewish Church, p. 131. From this I think Dr. Allix’s assertion is correct, that the Targum considered the ראשית rasit, and the Λογος to be identical.
And it seems to me to be impossible to form an excuse for Parkhurst, as his slight observation in his Greek Lexicon shews that he was not ignorant. Surely supposing that he thought those authorities given above to be mistaken, he ought, in common honesty, to have noticed them, according to his practice with other words, in similar cases.
4. According to the Jewish Cabala a number of Sephiroths, being Emanations, issued or flowed from God—of which the chief was Wisdom. In Genesis it is said, by Wisdom God created or formed, &c. Picus, of Mirandula, confirms my rendering; and says, “This Wisdom is the Son.” Whether the Son or not, this is evidently the first emanation, Minerva—the Goddess of Wisdom emanating or issuing from the head of Jove, (or Iao or Jehovah,) as described on an Etruscan brass plate in the Cabinet of Antiquities at Bologna. This is known to be Etruscan, from the names being on the arms of the Gods in Etruscan letters, which proves it older than the Romans, or probably than the Grecians of Homer.
M. Basnage says, “Moses Nachmanides advanced three Sephiroths above all the rest; they have never been seen by any one; there is not any defect in them nor any disunion. If any one should add another to them, he would deserve death. There is, therefore, nothing but a dispute about words: you call three lights what Christians call Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That first eternal number is the Father: the Wisdom by which God created the heavens is the Son: and Prudence or Understanding, which makes the third number of the Cabalists, is the Christian Holy Ghost.”
5. The word Rasit, as we might expect, is found in the Arabic language, and means, as our Lexicographers, who are the same class of persons that made our Hebrew Lexicons, tell us, head, chief—and is used as a term of honour applied to great persons: for instance, Aaron-al-raschid. Al is the emphatic article. Abd-al-raschid, i. e. Abdallah-al-raschid, &c.
For a long time I flattered myself that I might set down Parkhurst as one of the very few Polemics, with whose works I was acquainted, against whom I could not bring a charge of pious fraud, but the way in which he has treated the first word of Genesis puts it out of my power. It seems to me impossible to believe that this learned man could be ignorant of the construction which had been given to the word ראשית rasit.
Again, I repeat, it is impossible to acquit Parkhurst of disingenuousness in suppressing, in his Hebrew Lexicon, the opinions held respecting the meaning of this word by Clemens Alexandrinus, Chalcidius, Methodius, Origen, St. Augustine, Maimonides, and by the authors of ​the Targum of Jerusalem, the accredited exposition of the Jewish church, and in the slight and casual way in which he has expressed a disapprobation of the rendering of the Targum, in his Greek Lexicon. It is really not to be believed that he and the other modern Lexicographers—Bates, Taylor, Calassio, &c., should have been ignorant, for I believe they all suppress the rendering. It ought to serve as a warning to all inquirers that they never can be too much on their guard. How true is the dictum of Bacon, that every thing connected with religion is to be viewed with suspicion!
Wisdom was the first emanation from the Divine power, the protogonos, the beginning of all things, the Rasit of Genesis, the Buddha of India, the Logos of Plato and St. John, as I shall prove. Wisdom was the beginning of creation. Wisdom was the primary, and beginning the secondary, meaning of the word. Of its rendering in the LXX., by the word Αρχη, I shall treat presently at great length. The fact was, Parkhurst saw that if the word had the meaning of Wisdom it would instantly establish the doctrine of Emanations; and if he had given, as he ought to have done, the authority of the Jerusalem Targum and of Maimonides, no person would have hesitated for a moment to prefer it to his sophistry. But as the doctrine of emanations must, at all events, be kept out of sight, he suppressed the authorities.
The meaning of wisdom, which the word Ras bore, I can scarcely doubt was, in fact, secret, sacred, and mystical; and in the course of the following work my reader will perceive, that wherever a certain mythos, which will be explained, was concerned, two clear and distinct meanings of the words will be found: one for the initiated, and one for the people. This is of the first importance to be remembered. If the ancients really had a secret system it was a practice which could not well be dispensed with, and innumerable proofs of it will be given; but among them there will not be found one more important, nor more striking, than that of the word ראש ras or כראשית b-rasit. To the reconsideration of the meaning of this word I shall many times have occasion to revert. I shall now return to the text of Deuteronomy, from which I have digressed.
That the angels are in fact emanations from the Divine substance, according to the Mosaic system, is proved from Deut. xxxiii. 2. Moses says, according to the Septuagint, The Lord is come from Sinai: he has appeared to us from Seir; he shined forth from Paran with thousands of saints, and having his angels on his right hand. But M. Beausobre has shewn, (and which Parkhurst, p. 149, in voce, דת dt, confirms,) that the Hebrew word אשדת asdt, which the Septuagint translates angels, means effusions, that is, emanations, from the Divine substance. According to Moses and the Seventy translators, therefore, the Angels were Emanations from the Divine substance. Thus we see here that the doctrines of the Persians and that of the Jews, and we shall see afterward, of the Gnostic and Manichean Christians, were in reality the same.
The fact has been established that the Septuagint copy which we now possess is really a copy of that spoken of by Philo and the Evangelists, though in many places corrupted, so that no more need be said about it. But if any one be disposed to dispute this passage of the LXX., it may be observed to him, that the probability is strongly in favour of its being genuine.
It is not a disputed text. It is found in these words in the ancient Italic version, which was made from the Septuagint, which shews that it was there in a very early period, and it did not flatter the prejudice or support the interest either of the modern Jews or the ruling power of the Christians to corrupt it, but the contrary. As M. Beausobre properly observes, if the question ​be decided by authority, the authority of the Septuagint is vastly preferable to that of the Masorets, who lived many ages after the makers of the Septuagint. And, as he says, if reason be admitted to decide it, a person inclined to favour the system of emanations, would urge, in the first place, that אשדת asdt is a Hebrew word, one entire word, which cannot be divided; and that it is evident from the Septuagint, that the ancient Hebrews did not divide it. Secondly, he would say, that Dat, which signifies law, commandment, is not a Hebrew but a Median word, which the Hebrews took from the Medes, and is not to be found in any of their books, but such as were written after the captivity; so that there is no reason to suppose it had been used by Moses in Deuteronomy. Thirdly, he would say, that the fire of the law, or the law of fire, as our English has it, is unnatural; and that although it is said the law was given from the middle of the fire, there is nothing to shew that it was from the right hand of God. In fine, he would urge that the explanation of the LXX. is much more natural. God comes with thousands of saints, and the angels, the principal angels, those who are named Emanations were at his right hand. These proofs would have been invincible in the first ages of Christianity, where the version of the Septuagint was considered to be inspired, and had much greater authority given to it than to the Hebrew.
In many of Dr. Kennicot’s Hebrew codices, the word אשדת adst, is written in one word, but not in all: it is likewise the same in three of the Samaritan; and in two of the latter it is written אשדות asdut. The following are the words of the Septuagint:
Κυριος eκ Εινα ἡκει, και επεφανεν εκ Εηειρ ἡμῖν, και κατεσπευσεν εξ ορους Φαραν, συν μυριασι Καδης· εκ δεξιῶν αυτου Αγγελοι μετ᾽ αυτου.
Nothing can be more absurd than the vulgar translation, which is made from a copy in which the words have been divided by the Masorets. But it was necessary to risk any absurdity, rather than let the fact be discovered that the word meant angels or emanations, which would so strongly tend to confirm the doctrine of the Gnostics, and also prove that the religions of Moses and the Persians were the same. M. Beausobre has satisfactorily explained the contrivance of the Masorets to disguise the truth by dividing the word Asdt אשדת, or, as he calls it, Eschdot, into two, Esch-Dot. And his observations respecting the authority of the Italic versions and the Septuagint, written so many centuries before the time of the Masorets, when the language was a living one, is conclusive on the subject. The very fact of adopting the use of the points, is a proof either that the language was lost or nearly so, or that some contrivance, after the time of Jerom, was thought necessary by the Jews, to give to the unpointed text such meaning as they thought proper.
6. But to return to the word Berasit, or more properly the word ראשית Rasit, the particle ב beth being separated from it. A curious question has arisen among Christian philosophers, whether Time was in existence before the creation here spoken of, or the beginning, if it be so translated.
The word cannot mean the beginning of creation, according to the Mosaic account, because the context proves that there were created beings before the creation of our world—for instance, the angels or cherubim who guarded the gate of paradise after the fall.
In common language, the words, In the beginning, mean some little time after a thing has begun; but this idea cannot be applied to the creation, The expression cannot be applied to any period of time after the universe began to exist, and it cannot be applied to any period before it began to exist. If the words at first be used, they are only different words for precisely the same ​idea. The translators of the Septuagint and Onkelos are undoubtedly entitled to high respect. In this case, however, they advocate an untenable opinion, if they both do advocate the meaning of beginning, because our system was not the first of created things; and they make the divine penman say what was not true—in fact, to contradict himself in what follows. But if we adopt the explanation of the Jerusalem Targum and of the other learned Jews, and of the earliest of the fathers of the church, there is nothing in it inconsistent with the context; but, on the contrary, it is strictly in accordance with it, and with the general system of oriental philosophy, on which the whole Mosaic system was founded.
I think the author of Genesis had more philosophy than to write about the beginning of the world. I cannot see any reason why so much anxiety should be shewn, by some modern translators, to construe this word as meaning beginning. I see clearly enough why others of them should do so, and why the ancient translators did it. They had a preconceived dogma to support, their partiality to which blinded their judgment, and of philosophy they did not possess much. However, it cannot be denied that, either in a primary or secondary sense, the word means wisdom as well as beginning, and, therefore, its sense here must be gathered from the context.
I will now return to the word Samim, as I promised in the early part of this book.
7. The two words called in the first chapter of Genesis השמים e-samim, the heavens, ought to be translated the planets. In that work the sun, and moon, and the earth, are said to be formed, and also separately from them the samim or planets; and afterward the stars also. Dr. Parkhurst has very properly explained the word to mean disposers. They are described in the Chaldean Oracles as a septenary of living beings. By the ancients they were thought to have, under their special care, the affairs of men. Philo was of this opinion, and even Maimonides declares, that they are endued with life, knowledge, and understanding; that they acknowledge and praise their Creator. On this opinion of the nature of the planets, all judicial astrology, magic, was founded—a science, I believe, almost as generally held by the ancients, as the being of a God is by the moderns.
Phornutus, Περι Ουρανου, says, “For the ancients took those for Gods whom they found to move in a certain regular manner, thinking them to be the causers of the changes of the air and the conservation of the universe. These, then, are Gods (θεοι) which are the disposers (θετηρες) and formers of all things.”
The word יתשמיא itsmia is used by the Targum of Jerusalem for the word את שמים at smim of Genesis, and I think fully justifies my rendering of that word by planets instead of the word heavens. It comes from the root שם sm, which signifies to fix, to enact, pono, sancior—and means placers, fixers, enactors.
With respect to the שמים smim, Parkhurst is driven to a ridiculous shift, similar to the case of the first word ראשית rasit. It was necessary to conceal the truth from his Christian reader, but this was very difficult without laying himself open to a charge of pious fraud. In this instance he will be supported by the Jews, because at this day neither Jews nor Christians will like to admit that the very foundation of their religions is laid in judicial astrology. But such I affirm is the fact, as any one may at once see, by impartially considering what Parkhurst has unwillingly been obliged to allow in his Lexicon. He does not admit that the singular of the word means a disposer or placer, or the disposer or placer, but he takes the plural and calls them the disposers or placers. And, shutting his eyes to the planetary bodies and to the word רקיע rqio, which means the space, air, or firmament, and which can have no other meaning, he calls the שמים smim, the firmanent, and says it is the disposers. It is absurd to speak of the air, or space, or firmament, in the plural; and that Parkhurst must have known. In some author (I yet believe somewhere in ​Parkhurst) I found the שמים smim, called the disposers of the affairs of men, and by mistake, if it were a mistake, I quoted it as from Parkhurst in my Celtic Druids. It is of little consequence where I got the quotation, as the fact itself is true. The planets in ancient times were always taken to be the superintendants and regulators of the affairs of mankind, and this is the meaning of Genesis. This idea, too, was the foundation of all judicial astrology: which is as visible as the noonday sun in every part of the Old and New Testament. The word רקיע rqio means the firmament or ethereal space; the word ככב ccb means a star: and though the word שמים smim sometimes means stars, as we call the planets stars, yet its primary meaning is the disposers or planets. Originally the fixed stars were not regarded as disposers.
For proof that the word שמים smim means placers or disposers, see Hutchinson, “Of the Trinity of the Gentiles,” and Moses’s Principia. They shew that the essential meaning of the word שמים smim is disposers or placers of other things. If they were not to dispose or place the affairs or conduct of men, pray what were they to place? Were they to dispose of the affairs of beasts, or of themselves? They were the צבא Zba, or Heavenly Host, and I have no doubt the original word was confined to the wandering stars, whatever it might be afterward. Parkhurst and Hutchinson shew great unwillingness to allow that they mean disposers, but they are both obliged to confess it, and in this confession, admit, in fact, the foundation of judicial astrology.
It is very certain that the ancient philosophers knew the difference between the stars and planets, as well as the moderns. This is the only place where the formation of the planets is named; the formation of the sun, moon, and stars, is described in the 14th verse. As I have just said, השמים esmim does not mean the vast expanse, because this is afterward described in the 6th verse by the word רקיע rqio.
In the eighth verse the word rqio is used. In our translation it is said, he called the expanse heavens. But before the word רקיע rqio the particle ל l, the sign of the dative case is written, which shews that a word is understood to make sense. Thus, And he called the שמים smim, in the rqio or expanse, planets. This merely means, and he gave to the smim the name which they now bear, of smim. This explanation of mine is justified by the Jerusalem Targum, in its use of the word יתשמיא itsmia, placers.
Persons are apt to regard with contempt the opinion, that the planetary bodies are animated or rational beings. But let it not be forgotten that the really great Kepler believed our globe to be endowed with living faculties; that it possessed instinct and volition—an hypothesis which Mons. Patrin has supported with great ingenuity. Among those who believed that the planets were intelligent beings, were Philo, Origen, and Maimonides.
The first verse of Genesis betrays the Persian or Oriental philosophy in almost every word. The first word rasit ראשית or wisdom refers to one, or probably to the chief, of the emanations from the Deity. This is allowed by most of the early fathers, who see in it the second person of the Trinity. The word בארא bara in the singular number, followed by אלהים Aleim in the plural, or a noun of multitude, refers to the Trinity, three Persons and one God; and does not mean that the Aleim created, but that it formed, εποιησεν, fecit, as the Septuagint says, out of matter previously existing. On the question of the eternity of matter it is perfectly neutral: it gives no opinion. The word השמים esmim in the Hebrew, and השמין esmin in the Chaldee, do not mean the heavens or heavenly bodies generally, but the planets only, the disposers, as Dr. Parkhurst, after the Magi, calls them.
This is all perfectly consistent, and in good keeping, with what we know of the Jewish Cabala. ​And it is surely only reasonable to expect, that there should be something like consistency between this verse and the Cabala, which we know was founded, in some degree, perhaps entirely, upon it.
The conduct of Christian expositors, with respect to the words שמים smim and ראשית rasit, has been as unfair as possible. They have misrepresented the meaning of them in order to prevent the true astrological character of the book from being seen. But, that the first does mean disposers, the word heavens making nonsense, and the words relating to the stars, in the 16th verse, shewing that they cannot be meant, put it beyond a question. My reader may, therefore, form a pretty good judgment how much Parkhurst can be depended upon for the meaning of the second, from the striking fact that, though he has filled several columns with observations relating to the opinions of different expositors, he could not find room for the words, the opinion of the Synagogue is, that the word means wisdom, or the Jerusalem Targum says it means wisdom. But it was necessary to conceal from the English reader, as already stated, the countenance it gives to judicial astrology and the doctrine of emanations.
Indeed, I think the doctrine of Emanations in the Jewish system cannot be denied. This Mr. Maurice unequivocally admits: “The Father is the great fountain of the divinity; the Son and the Holy Spirit are Emanations from that fountain.” Again, “The Christian Trinity is a Trinity of subsistences, or persons joined by an indissoluble union.” The reader will please to recollect that hypostasis means subsistence, which is a Greek word—ὑποςασις, from ὑπο sub, and ιςημι, sto, existo.
In the formation of an opinion respecting the real meaning of such texts as these, the prudent inquirer will consider the general character of the context; and, in order that he may be the better enabled to do this, I request him to suspend his judgment till he sees the observations which will be made in the remainder of this work.
Whatever trifling differences or incongruities may be discovered between them, the following conclusions are inevitable, viz. that the religion of Abraham and that of the Magi, were in reality the same; that they both contained the doctrine of the Trinity; and that the oriental historians who state this fact, state only what is true.
Dr. Shuckford gives other reasons to shew that the religions of Abraham and of the Persians were the same. He states, that Dr. Hyde was of his opinion, and thus concludes: “The first religion, therefore, of the Persians, was the worship of the true God, and they continued in it for some time after Abraham was expelled Chaldæa, having the same faith and worship as Abraham had, except only in those points concerning which he received instruction after his going into Haran and into Canaan.”
8. I must now beg my reader to review what has been said respecting the celebrated name of God, Al, Ale, Aleim; and to observe that this was in all the Western Asiatic nations the name both of God and of the Sun. This is confirmed by Sir W. Drummond and Mr. Parkhurst, as the reader has seen, and by the names given by the Greeks to places which they conquered. Thus: בית אל Bit Al, House of the Sun, became Heliopolis. I beg my reader also to recollect that when the Aleim appeared it was generally in the form of fire, thus he appeared to Moses in the bush. Fire was, in a particular manner, held sacred by the Jews and Persians; a sacred fire was always burning in the temple of Jerusalem. From all this, and much more which the reader will find presently, he will see that though most undoubtedly the Sun was not the object of the adoration of Moses, it is very evident that it had been closely allied to it. In the time of Moses, not the sun, but the higher principle thought to reside in the sun, perhaps the Creator of the sun himself, had ​become the object of adoration, by the Gentiles if not by Moses (but of the latter it may be matter of doubt); and it is probable that it had arisen as I have supposed and described in my last book.
Thus if a person was to say, that the God of Moses resolved himself at last into the Sun, he would not be correct; but he would be very near it. The object of this observation will be seen hereafter.
I must also beg my reader’s attention to the observation at the end of Chapter II. Sect. 4, of this book relating to the word el, as used by Sir W. Drummond. In the Asiatic language, the first letter of the word is the first letter of the alphabet and not the fifth, as here written by Sir William, and this shews the importance of my system of reducing the alphabets to their originals: for here, most assuredly, this name of the Sun is the same as the Hebrew name of God. But by the mistake of Sir William this most important fact is concealed. No doubt dialectic variations in language will take place between neighbouring countries, which occasion difficulties, and for which allowance must be made: but, by not attending to my rule, we increase them, and create them, where they are not otherwise to be found.
But we do not merely increase difficulties, we disguise and conceal absolute facts. Thus it is a fact that the Sun and the God of Moses had the same names; that is, that the God of Moses was called by the same word which meant Sun, in the Asiatic language: but by miscalling one of them El instead of Al, the fact is concealed, and it is an important fact, and will lead to important results.
We must also recollect, that when I translate the first word of Genesis by the word Wisdom, I am giving no new theory of my own, but only the orthodox exposition of the Jewish religion, as witnessed in the Jerusalem Targum, read in their synagogues, supported by the authorities of the most eminent of the Jewish Rabbis, Maimonides, &c., and the most learned of the Christian fathers, Clemens, Origen, &c. All this is of importance to be remembered, because a great consequence will be deduced from this word Wisdom. It was, as it were, the foundation on which a mighty structure was erected.
It was by what may be called a peculiar Hypostasis, denominated Wisdom, that the higher principle operated when it formed the world. This is surely quite sufficient to shew its great importance—an importance which we shall see demonstrated hereafter, when I treat of the celebrated Buddha of India.
* ↑ Dr Rees’ Encyclopedia, art. Cabala.
* ↑ See Hist. Phil Enfield, Vol. II. Ch. iii.; Phil. Trans. No. CCI. p. 800; Burner’s Archæol. Lib. i. Cap. vii.
* ↑ See Beausobre, Liv. ix.
* ↑ “Il y a encore une réflexion à faire sur cette matière. Elle roule sur l’explication du mot Rasit, qui à la tête de la Genèse, et qui, si l’on en croit d’anciens Interprètes Juifs, ne signifie pas le commencement, mais le Principe actif et immediat de toutes choses. Ainsi au lieu de traduire, Au commencement Dieu fit le Ciel et la Terre, ils traduisoient, Dieu fit le Ciel et la Terre Par le Principe, c’est à-dire, selon l’explication du Targum de Jerusalem, Par la Sagesse: Maimonide soutient, que cette explication est la seule littérale et veritable. Elle passa d’abord chez les Chrétiens. On la trouve non seulement dans Chalcidius, qui marque qu’elle venoit des Hébreux, mais dans Méthodius, dans Origène, et dans Clement d’Alexandrie, plus ancien que l’un et l’autre.” Beausobre, Hist. Manich. Liv. vi. Ch. i. p. 290.
* ↑ Beausobre, Hist. Manich. Liv. vi. Ch. i. p. 290.
* ↑ Hist. Manich. Liv. vi. Ch. i. p. 291.
* ↑ Hist. Manich. Liv. v. Ch. iii. and Liv. vi. Ch. i.
* ↑ Kircher, Œd. Ægypt. Syntag. II. Cap. vii.
* ↑ Vide Parkhurst, p. 668.
* ↑ Kircher, Œd. Egypt. Syntag. II. Cap. vii.
* ↑ A copy of the plate may be seen in Montfaucon.
* ↑ Book iv. Ch. v. Sect. vii.
* ↑ Hist. Manich. Liv. ix. Ch. ii.
* ↑ Qui avoit été fait sur les LXX. Beausobre, Hist. Manich. Liv. ix. Ch. ii. p. 621; and Sim. Hist. Crit. du V. Test. Liv. ii. Ch. xi.
* ↑ He says he owes this remark to Mons. de la Croze, à qui je serois bien fàché de la dérober.
* ↑ Deut. xxxiii. 2, LXX. juxt. Exemp. Vatic.; Beausobre, Hist. Manich. Liv. ix. Ch. ii. p. 621.
* ↑ See St. Agustine above, in section 3 and Job xxviii. 7.
* ↑ See Faber, Vol. II. p. 226.
* ↑ Ap. Parkhurst, in voce שם sm, p. 745.
* ↑ In voce, p. 20.
* ↑ Part II. p. 56.
* ↑ Vide Jameson’s Cuvier, p. 45, and Nouveau Dict. d’Histoire Naturelle.
* ↑ Faber, Pag. Idol. Vol. I. p. 32.
* ↑ Maurice, Ind. Ant. Vol. IV. p. 49.
* ↑ Shuckford, Book v. p. 308, Ed. 3.
* ↑ With the Syrians the A changed into the O.