rate and to vivify. For what I am going to add, I hope that I shall not incur the censure of my profession; but if, upon so trivial an occasion, the greatest of apostles and wisest of philosophers might without impiety be quoted, St. Paul, to whom the Oriental philosophy of the Gnostics was well known, speaks a language exactly consonant to this; for, finely retaliating upon them for their disbelief of the resurrection, he exclaims to the sceptical Corinthian, Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die! It is deserving notice, that, in the Indian mythology, Cali, or Time, is considered as the wife of Seeva, in his destroying capacity, by which the Indians mean only to express the close union of DEATH and TIME. Seeva therefore is not only the Tempus edax rerum, but he is also the Tempus renovator rerum. When the Egyptians borrowed, as it is probable they did, this doctrine from the Hindoos, it appears to me that they confounded the persons and symbols. of the deities they adopted. Typhon, instead of Osiris, should have had the PHALLUS; or do they not mean that the symbol in question belongs to Typhon, when they say, that Typhon stole the genitals of Osiris, which, after a long search, Isis recovered? that is to say, the earth was deluged, and, its produce being destroyed, appeared to be robbed of its fecundity, which Isis, the Egyptian Ceres, the mother of fruits and grain, restored. She is said to have discovered the objects of her research as she traversed the lake Philaë, whither they had floated with the inundating stream. This history may be clearly traced on the Hindoo zodiac, upon which Virgo is represented holding a lamp in one hand, an ear of rice-corn in the other, and standing on a boat in water. It is, however, our philosopher observes, from this perpetual opposition, or rather this fortunate mixture of these two principles of good and evil, whatever partial and transient evils may in particular instances spring, that there results a general order and harmony throughout the universe, in the same manner, as melody arises from the lyre, which is made up of discords. Thus Hermes, when he invented his testudo, or harp, formed the strings of it of the sinews of Typhon, teaching, as Mentor observes, that out of the most discordant subject harmony may be produced.* The total sum and result of this comparative parallel of the physical theology of India and Egypt are, that Osiris and Isis, as well as * Plutarch de Iside et Osiride, p. 95. Brahma, Veeshnu, and Seeva, being only representatives of the powers creative or created; or, in other words, God and nature personified, assume alternately every form of being, and are successively venerated under every appearance, whether of a celestial or terrestrial kind. We have therefore not only Isis omnia, but, Brahma, Veeshnu, and Seeva omnia; they are the supreme generative source oF ALL THAT IS, of All that ever WAS; they pervade all space, they animate all being; and, as has been before observed in the language of the Bhagavat, these beings are EVERY WHERE ALWAYS. END OF VOL. III. Printed by W. Bulmer and Co. |