BOOK V. This circumstance gave rise to the appointment of an officer, who certainly bore a conspicuous part in the British Orgies, and who probably was not unknown in the Mysteries of other countries. He was styled the doorkeeper of the partial covering: and, since he was considered as the mystic husband of Ceridwen, he was certainly the representative of the great father Hu or Noë'. Hence he must have sustained the same character as Janus, when viewed as Thyrèus or the god of the door; while Ceridwen similarly corresponds with Venus or Ceres in her capacity of Prothyrèa or the goddess of the door. This personage was stationed before what Taliesin, in exact accordance with the prevailing ideas of the Mysteries, denominates the gate of hell: and he was armed with a bright gleaming sword, whence he had the additional title of the sword-bearer. His office was at once to exclude the profane, who might sacrilegiously attempt to gain admittance; and to punish even with death such of the initiated, as should impiously reveal the awful secrets committed to them. The same penalty, and (I apprehend) from the hand of a similar officer, awaited those, who should too curiously pry into or divulge to the profane the wonders of the Eleusian Mysteries. Yet, notwithstanding every care that could be taken, we repeatedly find an adventurous epopt, who was content to run all risques rather than lose the pleasure of communicating a secret. Probably the Cretans, who ridiculed the reserve of their more cautious brethren and who declared without scruple all that they knew about the matter, night effect the first opening. Be that however as it may, we certainly from more than one loquacious epopt have learned enough to form a tolerable idea of the nature of the ancient Mysteries. 10. Whether the curiosity of the profane may be gratified at some future period by a similar disclosure of the portentous secret of free-masonry, remains yet to be seen. I have frequently been inclined to suspect, that this whimsical institution, which some have deduced from the Mithriac or Buddhic Manichèans through the medium of the knights-templar, is nothing more than a fragment of those Orgies which have prevailed in every part of the world: and the peculiar rites of the British Ceres, as their nature ' Davies's Mythol. p. 198-202. 2 Davies's Mythol. p. 518, 519. may be collected from the poems of the bards, have served to strengthen CHAP. VI. my suspicion. Not being one of the initiated myself, I can speak only from report: but the Masonic sword-bearer, who is said to be the guardian of the door during the celebration of those wonderful Mysteries, seems nearly allied to the similar character in the Orgies of Ceridwen; while the astronomical representations of the heavenly bodies, which are reported to decorate the cell of our modern epopts, bear a close analogy to the parallel decorations of the ancient cell or grotto or adytum. The very title which they bear, when we throw aside the jargon respecting king Hiram and the temple of Solomon, affords no obscure intimation of their origin. As professed masons or artizans, they connect themselves with the old Cabiric Telchines as described by Diodorus', with the metallurgical Pheryllt of the Druidical Mysteries, with the architectural Cabiri of Phenicia, with the demiurgic Phtha of Egypt, and with the great artizan Twashta of Hindostan. All the most remarkable ancient buildings of Greece, Egypt, and Asia Minor, were ascribed to the Cabirèan or Cyclopian masons: and, in the present day, the free-masons with all their formalities are wont to assist at the commencement of every public edifice. Finally, their affectation of mysterious concealment closely resembles the system of the epoptæ in all ages and countries, particularly that of the bards when their religion no longer reigned paramount. These last are probably the real founders of English free-masonry; though we should arrive at much the same conclusion respecting its nature, if we deduce it from the Manichèan votaries of Mithras. Whether the canine phantoms and other terrific apparitions of the ancient Orgies are ever exhibited for the edification of our British freemasons, I presume not to determine: but, if we may credit the accounts which Barruel has given us of the foreign Mysteries of the illuminated, something of the kind actually constitutes the terrific machinery. As some corroboration of this author's narrative I may be allowed to mention, that I have myself been informed by a foreigner, who ventured not beyond initiation into the lesser German Mysteries, that he once witnessed the egress of a person who had been admitted into the greater. • Diod. Bibl. lib. v. p. 326. • Davies's Mythol. p. 215, 216. BOOK V. This epopt, it seems, was a field-officer of acknowledged bravery, who in battle had often faced death without shrinking: yet, when he returned from the chamber of final initiation, like his brethren of old as described by Themistius and Aristides and the ancient writer in Stobèus, he exhibited the most undissembled marks of extreme terror. A cold sweat bedewed his forehead; a livid paleness overspread his countenance; and his whole frame shook with excess of agitation. What he had seen or heard, my informant knew not: this alone was a clear case, that the man had been heartily frightened; and his terror apparently resembled that, which is ordinarily produced by unrestrained superstition. : But I tread on forbidden ground: and it behoves one of the profane to recollect with becoming reverence the old formula of the Orphic poet, the alleged father of the Greek and Thracian Mysteries; To those alone I speak, whom nameless rites Our secret Orgies'. · φθεγξομαι δις θεμις εστι θύρας δ' επίθεσθε βέβηλοις Пlaow us. Orph. Frag. apud Justin. Martyr. in Orph. Oper. p. 35% CHAPTER VII. Concerning the Places used by the Pagans for Religious Worship. A VERY general idea has prevailed throughout the gentile world, that the compound transmigrating personage, venerated as the great universal father, was the first who built temples and instituted sacrifices to the gods. Such accordingly is a prominent feature in the character both of Deucalion, Janus, Phoroneus, Prometheus, Osiris, Cronus, Brahma, Thoth, Dionusus, Mango-Copac, Buddha, and other cognate divinities; who are all severally, on the established principles of heathen theology, the patriarch Adam reappearing at the commencement of the new world in the form of the patriarch Noah. To this traditional opinion it has been gravely objected by Cluverius, that Holy Writ simply represents Noah as building an altar and as sacrificing to the Lord, and that it is altogether silent respecting the erection of any such temple as Lucian ascribes to his Scythic Deucalion'. Hence some have rather inclined to place the building of the first temple in the age of Jupiter-Belus; and, by supposing it to be the Babylonic tower, to identify that Jupiter with the scriptural Nimrod. 'Cluver. Germ. Ant. lib. i. c. 34. Polyd. Virg. de invent. lib. i. c. 5. Hospinian. de orig. temp. c. 5. Pag. Idol. BOOK V. Though the latter supposition be literally true: yet the old traditional opinion ought not to be too hastily rejected, on the presumption that the argument of Cluverius is irrefragably conclusive. The opinion may not indeed be perfectly accurate: yet, would we understand the sense in which the first temples are ascribed to the great father, we must inquire what were the primeval temples of the gentile world; for, since the most ancient temples are ascribed to him, it is evident, that those primeval temples of whatever nature could alone have been intended by the framers of the tradition. Now I suspect, that, when this matter is duly weighed, we shall find the legend in question not very far removed from the truth. I. To whatever part of the world we direct our attention, we shall almost invariably find, that the first places used for religious worship were thick groves of trees, lofty mountains, rocky caverns, and small islands washed either by the waves of the ocean or by the waters of some consecrated lake. Such being the case, it is sufficiently obvious, that, when the Gentiles represented the great father as the builder of the most ancient temples, these, and no other, were the temples which they meant: and, although in absolute propriety of language he cannot be said to have really constructed them; yet, if he were the first that used them, since all more recent temples were necessarily built by some one, and since these works of nature were viewed in the light of temples, he would be reputed not unnaturally to have been their founder. But these were the identical places employed as oratories by that compound character, the supposed transmigrating great father. The sacred grove of Paradise, in the lofty mountainous region of Armenia, was the temple of Adam: while the summit of mount Ararat in the same country, which at the time of the egress from the Ark was surrounded like an island by the waters of the retiring deluge, was the temple of Noah where he offered up the first postdiluvian sacrifice to Jehovah. Whether these patriarchs used a literal cave, does not appear from the scriptural history: I am inclined to think that they did, both from the circumstance of Lot's retiring to a rocky grotto when in the tenth generation from Noah the waters of the dead sea inundated the cities of the plain, and from the high veneration in which mountain-caverns were universally held by the ancient |