XXIII. From the conspicuous manner in which the Persian Cupid is CHAP. v. exhibited on the very front of a Mithratic grotto, where he occupies the principal place and appears in the act of receiving the adoration of a suppliant votary, I think we may reasonably infer, that he is no other than the gód Mithras himself. In this case we must conclude, that Mithras is the same as Buddha: and the conclusion will be confirmed by the circumstance, already noticed, of the worship of Buddha having been once established in Persia. I take him to be the ancient Mahabad or great Buddha, the primeval Aboudad who reappeared at the time of the deluge in the character of Taschter, and the Cala or Time in whose days the sacred books of the Behdins assert that an universal flood took place.' 1. The symbol of Mithras was a bull, or rather, as we may collect from the Zend-Avesta, a man-bull: and the horns of the animal, like those of the heifer Isis or Astartè, were thought to have a reference to the lunar crescent, which was the astronomical type of the Ark. He was symbolized however by a serpent, no less than by a bull; agreeably to the old chaunt in the Mysteries which speaks of these two sacred animals as being mutually parents of each other. Sometimes also he was represented by a lion, which was very frequently used as an hieroglyphic of the solar great father and sometimes, like the Egyptian Thoth or Buddha, he was exhibited in close connection with the famous symbol of the globe, serpent, and wings. 2. His Mysteries appear to have been of the very same nature as those of Isis, Ceres, and the Cabiri; chiefly founded on a mixture of diluvian traditions and astronomical reveries. They were celebrated in deep caverns or grottos, sometimes natural and sometimes artificial; the earliest of which is said by Porphyry to have been consecrated to the god in the mountains of Persia. He tells us, that the Mithratic grotto was a symbol of the World, and that it was dedicated to 4 + Horapoll. Hieroz. lib. i. sect. 71. Macrob. Saturn. lib. i. c. 21. Montfauc. in Banier. Mythol. vol. ii. p. 110. BOOK IV. Mithras as the great universal father who made the World. In this I believe him to be accurate, provided his assertion be rightly understood. The Ark, as I have frequently observed, was esteemed a Microcosm or epitomè of the World. Hence the same symbols and the same personifications are common to them both. Consequently the grotto represented at once the Ark and the World just as Ila the wife of Buddha is both the great circle of the Universe and the diluvian ship Argha; while the Argha itself, though it sails on the waters of the flood, is yet considered as being that larger ship the World, which was supposed to have once floated on the bosom of the mighty chaotic deep. This seems necessarily to follow from the fabled birth of Mithras. Porphyry says, that the cave was consecrated to him, because it was a type of the World which he created: yet he was also supposed to have been born from a rock, that is to say, from a cavern hewn out of a rock. Now, if the greater world were alone intended by the Persic cavern, and if by Mithras we are properly to understand the divine Creator of all things; how could he himself be born out of that very cavern in the rock, which represented the World as created by him? It is a contradiction in terms to say, that Mithras first created the World, and was afterwards himself produced from it. But this contradiction will vanish, if by the cavern we mystically understand the smaller World or the Ark. Of that World the diluvian god was indeed the creator: yet was he himself, in the language of the Mysteries, born out of it, as from the womb of a great universal mother. The birth of Mithras in short from the rocky cavern is the very same as the birth of Protogonus, of Eros, of Brahma, and of the Orphic Jupiter, from the egg. The cavern and the egg each symbolized the World: but the World, from which those kindred deities were born, was the Microcosm that once floated on the waters. 3. As Mithras is the same as Buddha or Menu, and consequently the same as the transmigrating Noah, an opinion prevailed, that he triplicated himself or multiplied his essence into three deities: whence he was called the triplasian Mithras. A similar notion prevailed All these triads are but so many arbitrary multiplications of one circumstance, which was believed to occur at the beginning of every new world: and they are severally the same both as the Buddhic triad and the Brahmenical triad, and indeed as each and all of the various triads of the Gentiles. The great father's triple multiplication of himself means no more in plain language, than that he begot three sons after his own likeness. Oromasdes does indeed appear in the Zend-Avesta in the character of the Supreme Being, and Ahriman in that of Satan: but this is only the necessary consequence of elevating men to the rank of deity, while some recollection of the primeval tempter was at the same time preserved. When the supposed transmigrating patriarch was profanely made to usurp the place of the godhead, though he retained in pagan mythology the whole of his real and original character, yet he was thence also inevitably compelled to personate the Divinity and to claim his attributes. : XXIV. One of the most common titles of Buddha is Codom or Cadam or Gautam, as the same radical letters are pronounced with a slightly varied intonation and, since Buddha is undoubtedly Hermes or Mercury or Taut, we thence find, that that deity was sometimes called Cadmilus or CadamIlus. Now Tzetzes tells us, that Cadmus and Cadmilus are the same title: and he adds, that Cadmus was the name of Hermes among the Beotians, whose capital city Thebes was feigned to have been built by the person that bore it. Since Hermes then was certainly the same as Buddha, and since Cadmus is declared to be the same as Hermes; Cadmius must also be the same as Buddha and, since we know that Buddha is even yet denominated Cadam or Codom; there can be little doubt, that the name of the fabulous hero was taken from this Buddhic title. It seems to have been written by the Egyptians and Phenicians Cadmon or Cadam-On, which denotes Cadam 'Cudworth's Intell. Syst. b. i. c. 4. CHAP. 2 Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 219. BOOK IV. the Sun' and from the title thus compounded his worshippers the Cadmonites of Palestine, who were probably a branch of the Scythian Palli or Philistim or Shepherds, derived their appellation; in the same manner as the Sacas called themselves so froin their god Buddha-Saca. Cadmon appears to have been likewise denominated Baal-Hermon: whence another kindred tribe of his worshippers took the name of Hermonites. Hermon is the Hermes of the Greeks, and the Hermaya of the Hindoos: but Hermon, Hermes, and Hermaya, are mere variations of one and the same Buddhic title. From this appellation the Greeks formed their Harmonia ; and made the person, who bore it, the wife of Cadmus or Hermon. As a female, she was the same as Maya or Heri-Maya, the mother of Buddha: for the Ark was indifferently esteemed the parent, the wife, and the daughter, of the great father. Hence we find her celebrated, as the universal mother and as the Luminary of the World or the lunar Crescent: hence also she is spoken of as being one with the sea-nymph Naïs, the Anaïs of the old Armenian Saca and the Neith of the Egyptians and hence the famous holy books of Hermes are likewise said to be the books of Harmonia.2 These, like the Indian Vedas which the Brahmens assert to have been carried into Egypt by Thoth or Hermes, were four in number and it may be added, that, as they are indifferently ascribed to Hermes and to Harmonia, so letters themselves, the reputed invention of Hermes, are reported to have been brought by Cadmus into Greece either from Egypt or Phenicia. Cadmon then or Baal-Hermon being the deity of the Ark, mount Hermon was undoubtedly his high place; in other words, it was a transcript of the Paradisiacal Ararat. There seem to have been two hills of this name. One of them was a peak of Lebanon, the Phenician mountain of the Moon, where Venus and Adonis were worshipped, and which 'Steph. Byzant. de urb. p. 415. The editor has indeed corrected Cadmon to Cadmus : but he acknowledges, that it is contrary to the reading of every copy both printed and manuscript. 2 Nonni Dionys. lib. xli. p. 1068, 1070. lib. xii. p. 328. Lactant. Instit. lib. i. c. 7. p. 40. Schol. in Apoll. Argon. lib. ii. ver. 992. 3 Hyg. Fab. 277. Herod. Hist. lib. v. c. 58. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. vii. c. 56. Diod. Bibl. lib. iii. p. 200. abounded with the Mercurial columns denominated Baitylia: the other was in the neighbourhood of Tabor, itself also (as the word imports) a Ta-Baris or a holy place of the ship Baris.' 1. Bochart, like myself, supposes an immediate connection between the names Cadmus and Harmonia, and the Cadmonites and Hermonites of Palestine but he seems to me to have erred in his hypothesis respecting the mode of that connection. Instead of viewing Cadmus and Harmonia, as the gods of the Cadmonites and Hermonites, and as having conferred their own divine appellations on those neighbouring tribes; he conceives them to be two literal mortals, who fled into Greece when Palestine was invaded by Joshua. The one was by birth a Cadmonite; whence he was styled Cadmus or Cadmon: the other was by birth a Hermonite; whence she was similarly denominated Harmonia. Tradition, accordingly, brings them out of the land of Canaan: for Cadmus is represented, as being an emigrant from Phenicia.* 2. The theory of Bochart would have been sufficiently plausible, if tradition had uniformly and exclusively described Cadmus and Harmonia as Tyrians, who left their own country and settled in Greece: but the very reverse of this, which is so necessary to the system of that eminent writer, will prove to be the case. Cadmus was indeed a Phenician, or rather a Phenician god but he was likewise venerated in Egypt; and popular fable brought him into Greece no less from that country than from Palestine. Thus Diodorus tells us, that he was of Thebes in Egypt: Tzetzes gives the same account of his origin: and Nonnus represents his father Agenor, who is usually made a king of Phenicia, as residing in that city. It is remarkable, that Conon blends the two accounts together. He says, that the Phenicians once possessed the empire of Asia; that they made Egyptian Thebes their capital; and that Cadmus migrating thence into Europe, built Beotian Thebes, and called it after the name of his native town. ' Well's Geog. of O. Test. vol. i. p. 327, 328. 2 Bochart. Canaan. lib. i. c. 18, 19. There 3 Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 20. Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 1206. Nonni Dion. lib. iv. p. 126. ✦ Conon. Narrat. xxxvii. p. 279. Eusebius and Syncellus similarly connect the two coun CHAP. Y. Pag. Idol. VOL. I. 3 G |