pagans, But, however this may be, it is of no material consequence to CHAF. VII. our present inquiry. The Ark, as it manifestly appears from the varied modes of initiation into the Mysteries, was symbolized by the gloomy grotto either natural or artificial. Hence, as the Ark was a temple of Noah, the great father would be considered by his descendants as having first used a cavern for the purposes of devotion.

Thus the mere following of the old gentile tradition to the point where it avowedly leads us, namely the great universal father whose character has already been most abundantly ascertained, serves at once to disclose to us both the origin and the nature of the various holy places of the heathens: of such use and importance it is to trace things to their first principles, and thence by simplification to attain a right understanding of their import. The conclusion, almost forced as it were upon us in the present instance, is this that every consecrated grove was a copy of Paradise; that every sanctified mountain or high place was a local transcript of Ararat, itself geographically coincident with the garden of Eden; that every islet doubly shadowed out the insular Ark and the once sea-girt top of the Armenian peak; and that every gloomy cavern represented the dark interior of the Noëtic Ship wedged fast amidst the cliffs and rocks of the hill of debarkation. It is almost superfluous to observe, how exactly such a conclusion tallies with the general drift of old idolatry. We' in fact do nothing more than find the most ancient places of gentile worship to be precisely, what, from the nature of that worship, might have been independently anticipated. If the great father of pagan superstition be a transmigrating compound of Adam and Noah, respecting which there can scarcely be a reasonable doubt then, as the Orgies wholly relate to the history of this complicated being; so all his places of worship will naturally have been constructed with the very same reference, or selected studiously with the same allusion. Of the propriety of this hypothesis every particular, as the subject gradually opens upon us, will furnish an additional demonstration: and thus the general concinnity and laboured harmony of that singular system of theology, which at one period overspread the whole world save one narrow district, will be fully and finally established.

With respect to the peculiar mode of local worship ascribed to the early

BOOK V. pagans, a mode however which ceased not to prevail even in more modern ages, it may seem almost superfluous to bring forward proofs of a matter which is so universally well known: yet it will not be improper to select a few, by way of an apposite introduction to the main subject.

Holy Scripture is full of references to such a mode of devotion, as having obtained firm footing throughout Palestine even before the exodus, and as never being completely eradicated until perhaps after the return from the Babylonian captivity.

When Balak wished Balaam to curse Israel, he took him up to the summits of various lofty hills, which are all generally described as being high places of Baal. One of them is simply mentioned under that common appellation; another was the top of Pisgah; where the heavenly bodies were worshipped in conjunction with the hero-gods under the name of Zophim or divine overlookers, no doubt the Zophe-Samen or celestial overLookers of the Phenician theology: and a third was the top of Peor, infamous for the impure sepulchral Orgies of Baal-Peor or Osiris or Adonis. On each of these, in reference to the seven astronomical mariners of the great mundane Ship who were reckoned so many forms or emanations of the solar pilot, were erected seven altars; and every altar was stained with the blood of a ram and a bullock'. Here Balak worshipped after the manner of his country, ascribing, as was usual among the Gentiles, the attributes of Jehovah to the deified great father. Of a similar nature was mount Tabor or Tabaris, a local copy of the Armenian Tebriz or Tebaris: mount Hermon: mount Nebo: mount Lebanon: and the lofty promontory of BaalZephon or Baal of the north; that is to say, the lord of the northern Armenian mount of assembly".

Into such idolatrous hill-worship as well as grove-worship we find the Israelites perpetually seduced. Thus we are told, that king Ahaz made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel; and that he sacrificed and burned incense in the high places, and on the hills,

• Numb. xxii. 41. xxiii. 3, 13, 14, 27, 28.

2 See Isaiah xiv. 13.

and under every green tree'. Thus likewise we read of the high places CHAP. VII. not being taken away, and of the people still madly sacrificing upon them*. Thus, when Israel served Baal and the host of heaven, they failed not to plant a consecrated grove'. Thus also they set up images and groves in every high hill and under every green tree; and there they burned incense in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the Lord carried away before them. Thus Maachah made an idol in a grove; and thus a similar grove was equally planted by Ahab and Manasseh'.

Such is positively declared, we see, to have been the mode of worship usual among the Canaanites previous to their ejection: and accordingly it is referred to as such, in the very earliest parts of the history of Israel. The heaven-conducted invaders are strictly charged to destroy their altars, to break their images, and to cut down their groves: and they are themselves forbidden to plant a grove near an altar. The reason plainly was, because the altar of Baal was built upon a craggy rock or a lofty hill, and was surrounded by a holy grove. Hence we read of Saul abiding under a grove in a high place?: and hence the Magian or Druidical prophets of Baal are called prophets of the groves

In the account which is given of Josiah's reformation, we find a very ample statement of the several particulars of the old Canaanitish idolatry. The king, we are told, put down the priests; who burned incense, on the various high places throughout Judah, to Baal the Sun and to the Moon and to the planets and to all the host of heaven. He likewise brought out and burned the grove, for which the women wove hangings or consecrated veils. He polluted Tophet: he took away the horses and chariot of the Sun: he defiled the three principal high places, which crowned the three peaks of the mount of Olives: and he broke in pieces the images, cut down the contiguous groves, and filled their places with the bones of men".

We meet with similar references to the old superstition in the book of Isaiah. When the prophet foretells the utter abolition of idolatry in the

BOOK V. great day of the Lord, he describes the vain worshippers of the hero-gods, as entering into the rocks and as going into the craggy caverns of the earth; while the indignation of the Deity rests upon all the groves of Bashan and of Lebanon, and terribly shakes every high mountain and every lofty hill. But the clefts of the rocks and the tops of the ragged rocks, or the sacred foramina through which the aspirants were wont to pass and the high places on the summits of craggy precipices, are alike unable to protect them and their useless idols; when the Earth itself, or the universal great mother, trembles before the Most High and acknowledges a present God'. In another place, when he reproaches the degenerate Israelites with their spiritual adultery, he exhibits them, as inflaming themselves with idols under every green tree, and as sacrificing children in the valleys under the clefts of the rocks; as venerating the smooth stones of the consecrated river with a drink-offering and a meat-offering, and as going up to the top of a lofty mountain in order to offer sacrifice. He then proceeds to specify with much exactness the precise nature of such devotion; teaching us in fact, that it was immediately connected with the celebration of the old funereal Mysteries. These apostate worshippers in groves, in caverns, on the banks of rivers, and on the summits of hills, visit Molech with perfumed ointment; and send out wandering imitative messengers, after the manner of the frantic Bacchanals and Menades. They descend into hell, or the mimic infernal regions; they weary themselves with the length of those erratic progresses, which are copies of the mystic wanderings of the great father and the great mother. Yet, in the midst of their doleful Orgies, they do not give themselves up to despair, as if their divinity was lost never to be recovered on the contrary, in due season, they find the life of him who is accounted their sovereign power; and, thus receiving him from the dead, they are no longer grieved, but their temporary sorrow is changedinto the most tumultuous joy *.

Isaiah ii. 10-21.

2 Isaiah Ivii. 3—10. Neither Bp. Lowth nor Bp. Stock seem to me to have understood the true meaning of this very curious passage; though they both rightly observe, that it relates to the multiplied idolatrous imitations of the Israelites. The latter part of it ought, I apprehend, to be translated as follows. Also thou didst visit Molech with ointment, and

This early mode of worship was by no means confined to the land of chap. VII. Canaan. According to Strabo and Herodotus, the Persians always offered up their sacrifices on the top of some lofty mountain: and, according to Eubulus in Porphyry, Zoroaster first taught them to venerate the sacred grotto by dedicating to Mithras a natural cave in the lofty neighbouring region of Bokhara'. Thus also the Scythians or Goths had their holy mountain and their mysterious cavern, where the Archimage was accustomed to retire, ere he claimed, like the present Lama of Thibet, to be an incarnation of the deity whom they worshipped: and thus the Phrygians venerated the great mother in the consecrated recesses of mount Ida; while the Cretans dedicated to the great father a cave and a hill, which was distinguished by the same appellation. In a similar manner, we read, that the Thracian Orpheus went annually with his disciples to offer up, on the summit of a lofty mountain, a sacrifice to the Sun; in gratitude for his escape to that hill, while an infant, from the fury of a huge dragon3: and in Sicily we find mount Eryx, with its attached grove and sepulchral tumulus, dedicated to the rites of the navicular Venus. The same worship prevailed in Pontus and Cappadocia: for, when Mithridates made war upon the Romans, he chose one of the highest hills in his dominions; and, erecting upon it an immense pile, he there sacrificed to the god of

didst multiply thy perfumes: and thou sentest out thy messengers to a distance, and thou didst bring thyself down into Hades. With the multitude of thy progresses thou didst weary thyself; yet thou saidst not, The matter is desperate. Thou hast found the life of thy supreme power; therefore thou art no longer grieved. I have supposed the sending messengers to a distance, and the multitude of the progresses, to relate to the mad erratic excursions of those who celebrated the Orgies of the great father: yet it is not impossible, that those expressions may allude to the laborious pilgrimages to the shrine of a favourite deity, which still prevail so notoriously throughout Hindostan. The ridiculous pilgrimages of the Romanists and the Mohammedans have both originated from the same pagan source.

'Strab. Geog. lib. xv. p. 732. Herod. Hist. lib. i. c. 131. Porph. de ant. nymph. p. 253, 254.

2 Strab. Geog. lib. vii. p. 297, 298.

3 Demet. Mosch. Præf. in Orph. Lithic. p. 290, 292. By the dragon we are to understand Python or Typhon; and the infancy of Orpheus relates to his imitative regeneration. * Virg. Æneid. lib. v. ver. 760.