In popular customs, and even in religious institutions, these things are as plainly to be perceived to-day as when Adonis and Astarté were the gods of the former world. The sanctities, the powers, the symbols, and even the utensils of the ancient Faith, have been assumed, if not usurped or legitimately inherited, by its successors. Thetwo holies of the Gnostics and Neo-Platonists, Sophia and Eirené, wisdom and peace, were adopted as saints into the calendar of Constantinople. Dionysus, the god of the Mysteries, reappears as St. Denys in France, St. Liberius, St. Eleutherius, and St. Bacchus; there is also a St. Mithra; and even Satan, prince of shadows, is revered as St. Satur and St. Swithin. Their relics are in keeping. The Holy Virgin Astræa or Astarté, whose return was announced by Virgil in the days of Augustus, as introducing a new Golden Age, now under her old designation of Blessed Virgin and Queen of Heaven, receives homage as "the one whose sole divinity the whole orb of the earth venerates." The Mother and Child, the latter adorned with the nimbus or aureole of the ancient sun-gods, are now the object of veneration as much as were Ceres and Bacchus, or Isis and Horus in the Mysteries. Nuns abound alike in Christian and in Buddhist countries, as they did formerly in Isis-worshipping Egypt; and if their maidenhood is not sacrificed at the shrine of Baal-Peor, or any of his cognate divinities, yet it is done in a figure : they are all "brides of the Saviour." Galli sing in the churches, and consecrated women are as numerous as of old. The priestly vestments are like those formerly used in the worship of Saturn and Cybelé; the Phrygian cap, the pallium, the stole, and the alb. The whole pantheon has been exhausted from the Indus, Euphrates, and the Nile, to supply symbolic adornment for the apostles' successors. Hercules holds the distaff of Omphalé. The Lily has superseded the Lotus, and celibacy is exalted above the first recorded mandate of God to mankind. In ancient times the Carians and other votaries used to wound themselves and offer their blood to Bacchus in commemoration of his dismemberment by the Titans. The former worshippers in Yucatan and Central America had an analogous custom. The prophets of Baal in Syria and Phoenicia also inflicted wounds on themselves. * The Jews were prohibited from this by their law,† but at the period of mourning for the dead one, Adonis, slain by the boar, they flogged themselves and wept. This animal, which was sacred to Mars or Ares, the god of destruction, became their abomination. The Egyptians had a like. custom. At the assemblies of Isis, composed of many thousands of pilgrims, those who participated in the solemnities scourged themselves in memory of the slaughtered Oseiris. Sailors were whipped around the altar of Apollo at Delos, and children at the temple of Diana. in Sparta. In Rome, at the Lupercalia, about the 14th of February, young men used to lay aside their garments, and taking whips, run through the streets, flogging everybody whom they met. § Even now, during Holy Week in Rome, many devotees lash themselves till the blood gushes in streams; and the same practice exists in other places. The Flagellants of the Middle Ages appear to have been actuated by a similar enthusiasm. The pretension to universal supremacy by leading Bishops of the earlier centuries is familiar to all who are conversant with church history. The Grand Lama of the Buddhists, and the Zeus or Archiereus of old Hellas, furnished antetypes which were speedily imitated at the * 1 Kings xviii, 28. Leviticus xix. 28 and xxi. 5. Herodotus, ii. 61. § There seems to be a voluptuous sense excited in this way. Women, especially those who were married, eagerly placed themselves in the way of these flagellators, partly on account of the exquisite delight received from the infliction, and partly because of the idea that it promoted the aptitude to conceive. The late Henry Buckle, author of the History of Civilization, printed privately a series of curious tracts on this subject, illustrating how a practice beginning in religious zeal can be made a source of sensuous delight.— Rare Tracts on Flagellation. Reprinted from the original editions collected by the late Henry Thomas Buckle. 7 vols. post 8vo. London. Printed by G. Peacock, 1777. focal points of the Empire. The Bishop of Rome, however, was the most successful. In his person the Pontifex Maximus exists as in the days of the Republic and the Cæsars. Asia and Italy alike minister to his elevation. He has "the power of the keys," the key of Janus of archaic Rome, and the key of Cybelé, the Virgin-Mother of Asia. The former was patulcius and clusius, the opener and shutter; and with the authority of Cybelé he was empowered also, as the vesica piscis indicates, to superintend the gateway of physical existence. But let there be no sneer at this. In the Catacombs of Rome, where the early Christians used to congregate, are numerous pictures and carvings indicating close resemblances to the pagan usages. Enough exists to show that the pontiff does not take all by assumption. The utensils and other furniture of the Mysteries appear to have been there; and one drawing shows a woman standing before an altar offering bunns to the Serpent-divinity. It is true, doubtless, that there is not a fast or festival, procession or sacrament, social custom or religious symbol, that did not come "bodily" from the previous paganism. But the Pope did not import them on his own account; they had already been transferred into the ecclesiastical structure, and he only accepted and perhaps took advantage of the fact. Many of those who protest because of these "corruptions," are prone to imitate them, more or less, displaying an engrafting from the same stock. Much dispute has been had in regard to the presence of St. Peter at Rome. The statue of the apostle, it has been asserted with great plausibility, was originally the bust of the Jupiter of the Capitol. We presume that the "apostle of the circumcision," as Paul, his great rival, styles him, was never at the Imperial City, nor had a successor there, not even in the Ghetto. The "Chair of Peter,' "* therefore, There appear to have been two chairs of the titular apostle. In the year 1662 the workmen engaged in cleaning one of them for exhibition to the people, on the 18th of January, "the Twelve Labors of Hercules unluckily appeared is sacred rather than apostolical. Its sanctity proceeded, however, from the esoteric religion of the former times of Rome. The hierophant of the Mysteries probably occupied it on the day of initiations, when exhibiting to the candidates the petroma.* "In the Church of St. The end crowned the work. Peter's at Rome," Godfrey Higgins asserts, "is kept in secret a large stone emblem of the creative power, of a very peculiar shape, on which are the words, Zeus Zwτnp, Zeus Soter (or Jove the Saviour); only persons who have great interest can get a sight of it." Thus the cycle seems to return upon itself. Archaic Rome seems to live again in the Rome Mediæval, old Egypt and Babylonia to be resuscitated in our modern Europe. Yet this is not altogether true. Let us take heed how we hear. Those capable of understanding, will recognize in this symbolism the revelation of the first creation and the re engraved on it." (Bower's History of the Popes, vol. ii., p. 7.) This chair was removed and another substituted. In 1795 the French under Bonaparte occupied Rome, and again the chair was investigated. This time there was found the Mohammedan Confession of Faith, in Arabic letters: "There is no deity but Allah, and Mohammed is his Apostle." Zodiacs, or Labors of Hercules, evidently of an astrological character, have been found in the churches of York and Lyons, and a wine-cask at the shrine of St. Denys. On the hypothesis of having been heir-looms from the pagan religion, these facts are duly accounted for, except the French discovery. It may have been that Islam and the Papacy once contemplated an alliance, or some crusader brought the chair from the East. *If this supposition is correct, the ecclesiastical legends of Peter's sojourn at Rome are easily comprehended. The petroma, or stone tablet, contained or constituted the last revelation made by the hierophant to the candidate for initiation. What it was might never be divulged on pain of death. All the work of the Creator was now unfolded, and the profane might not know the solemn secret. As the Mysteries came to Rome from the East, it is easy to perceive that the hierophant or revelator would have an oriental title. Peter, from the Phoenician word n, peter, is applied in the Book of Genesis (xl. 8) to an expounder of dreams, and was probably the designation of the interpreter of the petroma. The Roman Bishop succeeding to his chair, would be, it is apparent, pontiff over the whole world. + Celtic Druids, pp. 195-196. |