Chapter XVIII

When I cast back my eye upon this narrative, through the long perspective of ages which it involves, I confess I feel incommoded by some misgivings of self-distrust. When I consider the _mighty_ individuals, of _transcendent_ powers and almost _inexhaustible_ resources, who, having reconnoitred its coast, either _perished_ in the impotency of effecting a landing, or, more wisely, _receded_ from it as impregnable, I am _thrown back_, as it were, upon myself, and impeded by the comparison of my own littleness.

But if “God has often chosen the small things of the earth to confound the great”; and if success in past undertakings be any guarantee against the illusiveness of inward promise; if the roads be all chalked, the posts lighted, and the sentinels faithful, why, _then_, allow the influence of petty fears to mar, at all events, the _project_ of an ennobling enterprise?

In that cherished volume, whence our first lessons upon religion have been deduced, and which, as embodying the principles of our _happiness_ here, and our _hopes_ hereafter, has been honoured with the _pre-eminent_ and distinctive appellation of the _Bible_, or _Book_, there occur numerous phrases of _mysterious_ import, but _pregnant_ significancy, which pious men, unable to solve, have contented themselves with classifying as under the head of “above reason”--“contrary,” and “according to,” being the two other constituents of their predicamental line.

Those _conventional_ terms which _expediency_ alone has invented are, to say the least, arbitrary; and as all men have an equal right to form a _specification_ of their subject-matter, I shall, without disconcerting the _order_ of the above _division_, endeavour only to rescue the points to which I refer from immersion in the _first_ class;[258] or--if allowed the latitude of _parliamentary_ elocution--to take them out from the condemnation of _Schedule A_.

To begin, then, with the following text, viz. “_The sons of God_ saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose.”[259]

What do you understand by the expression “sons of God”?

His peculiar people, you reply; such, for instance, as _called upon His name_;[260] or, perhaps, Seth’s descendants in opposition to those of Cain, the unrighteous.

Turn, sir, to the beginning of the first and second chapters of _Job_, and read what you are there informed of.

“Now there was a day when the _sons of God_ came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.” And, “Again, there was a day, when the _sons of God_ came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord.”

Well, what is your answer now? or will it not be different from what it was before? Can you seriously imagine that it was _any_ race of _ordinary_ human beings that was thus denominated? _And_ are you not compelled to associate the idea with some one of the other _superior_ productions of omnipotent agency?

I will make you, sir, if you have candour in your constitution, acknowledge the fact. Listen--“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare if thou hast understanding: when the morning stars sang together, and all the _sons of God_ shouted for joy.”[261]

Here allusion is made to a period antecedent to the existence of either _Cain_ or _Seth_. The _myriads_ of revolving ages suggested by the interrogatory set even _fancy_ at defiance; nor are their limits demarked by the _vague_ and _indefinite exordium_ of even the talented and otherwise highly-favoured legislator, Moses himself.[262] And yet, in this incomprehensible _inane_ of time, do we see the _sons of God shouting for joy_, before the species of man--at least in his degenerate sinfulness--had appeared upon this surface!

It is manifest, therefore, that some _emanation_ of the Godhead, distinct from _mere_ humanity, is couched under the phrase of “the sons of God”; and accordingly we perceive that, when they “went in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them,” it is _emphatically_ noticed, as an occurrence of _unusual_ impress, that “the same became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown.”[263]

At the commencement of the verse, whence the last extract has been taken, you will find the name of _giant_ mentioned; and instantly after, as if in _juxtaposition_, nay, as if _synonymous_ with it in meaning, is repeated “the sons of God”: thereby identifying both in nature and in character, and proving their sameness by their convertibility.

The Hebrew word from which _giant_ has been translated, signifies _to fall_: and what, do you suppose, constituted this _apostasy_? In sooth, nothing else than that _carnal intercourse_, which they could not resist indulging with the “daughters of men,” _when their senses told them they were lovely_.[264] Thus do both names corroborate my truth; while both reciprocally illustrate each other.

“It may seem strange,” says Wilford, “that the posterity of Cain should be so much noticed in the Puranas, whilst that of the pious and benevolent Ruchi is in a great measure neglected. But little is said of the posterity of Seth, whilst the inspired penman takes particular notice of the ingenuity of the descendants of Cain, and to what a high degree of perfection they carried the arts of civil life. _The charms and accomplishments of the women are particularly mentioned._ ‘The same became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown.’”

And again,--“We have been taught to consider the descendants of Cain as a most profligate and abominable race. This opinion, however, is not countenanced, either by sacred or profane history. That they were not entrusted with the sacred deposit of religious truths, to transmit to future ages, is sufficiently certain. They might, in consequence of this, have deviated gradually from the original belief, and at last fallen into a superstitious system of religion, which seems, also, a natural consequence of the fearful disposition of Cain, and the horrors he must have felt, when he recollected the atrocious murder of his brother Abel.”

This, so far as it goes, is satisfactory enough; but it is _groping in the dark_, and _without a pilot_. A few pages, in the distance, will, however, bring us to the right understanding of these points also; meanwhile, I return to the Mosaical record, for the insight therein afforded into the history of Cain.

We are told then that he “knew his wife, and she conceived and bare _Enoch_”: and as this name signifies _initiation in sacred rites_, as well as it does an _assembly of congregated multitudes_,--in which latter sense it was accurately applied to the “city” which he had “builded,”--it shows that the new religion bade fair for perpetuity.

_Irad_, the name of Enoch’s son, proves the crowning finish of the matured ceremonial, for intimating, as it does, _consecrated to God_, we are naturally led to connect its bearer with the profession of that worship which his name represented.

As _Irad_ signifies _consecrated to God_, so _Iran_ does _the land of those so consecrated_; and accordingly we may be assured that it was in _that precise region_ that the Budhists had first established the _insignia_ of their empire.[265]

Let us now inquire what light will the _Dabistan_ afford to our labours. It is known that Sir John Malcolm was no ready convert to its merits; his abridgment of it, therefore, cannot be suspected of any colouring; and, as I like the testimony of reluctant witnesses, I shall even make _him_ the interpreter of its recondite contents.

“In almost all the _modern_ accounts of Persia,” says he, “which have been translated from Mahomedan authors, _Kaiomurs_ is considered the _first king of that country_; but the Dabistan, a book professedly compiled from works of the ancient Guebrs, or worshippers of fire, presents us with a chapter on a succession of monarchs and prophets who preceded Kaiomurs. According to its author the Persians, previous to the reign of Kaiomurs, and consequently _long before the mission of Zoroaster_, venerated a prophet called _Mah-abad_, or the Great (rather the _Good_) Abad, whom they considered as the father of men. We are told in the Dabistan that _the ancient Persians deemed it impossible to ascertain who were the first parents of the human race_. The knowledge of man, they alleged, was quite incompetent to such a discovery; but they believed, on the authority of their books, that Mah-abad was the person left at the _end of the last great cycle_, and consequently the father of the present world. The only particulars they relate of him are, that he and his wife, having survived the former cycle, were blessed with a numerous progeny, who inhabited caves and clefts of rocks, and were uninformed of both the comforts and luxuries of life; that they were at first strangers to order and government, but that Mah-abad, inspired and aided by Divine Power, resolved to alter their condition; and, to effect that object, _planted gardens_, _invented ornaments_, and _forged weapons_. He also taught men to take the fleece from the sheep, and to make clothing; he built cities, constructed palaces, fortified towns, and introduced among his descendants all the benefits of art and commerce.

“Mah-abad had thirteen successors of his own family; all of whom are styled _Abad_, and deemed prophets. They were at once the monarchs and the high priests of the country; and during their reigns, the world, we are informed, enjoyed a golden age, which was, however, disturbed by an act of Azer-abad, the last prince of the Mahabadean dynasty, who abdicated the throne, and retired to a life of solitary devotion.

“By the absence of Azer-abad his subjects were left to the free indulgence of their passions, and every species of excess was the consequence. _The empire became a scene of rapine and of murder._ To use the extravagant expression of our author (the Dabistan), _the mills, from which men were fed, were turned by the torrents of blood that flowed from the veins of their brothers; every art and science fell into oblivion; the human race became as beasts of prey, and returned to their former rude habitations in caverns and mountains_.

“Some sages, who viewed the state of the empire with compassion, intreated Iy-Affram, a saint-like, retired man, to assume the government. This holy man, who had received the title of Iy (pure), from his pre-eminent virtues, refused to attend to their request, till a divine command, through the angel _Gabriel_, led him to consent to be the instrument of restoring order, and of reviving the neglected laws and institutions of Mah-abad. Iy-Affram founded a new dynasty, which was called the Iy-abad; who, after a long and prosperous reign, suddenly disappeared, and the empire fell again into confusion. Order was restored by his son, Shah Kisleer, who was with difficulty prevailed upon to quit his religious retirement to assume the reigns of government. His successors were prosperous till the elevation of the last prince of the dynasty, whose name was Mahabool. This monarch, we are told, was compelled by the increasing depravity of his subjects to resign his crown.

“He was succeeded by his eldest son, Yessan, who, acting under divine influence, supported himself in that condition which his father had abandoned. This prince founded a new dynasty, which terminated in his descendant, Yessan-Agrin. At the end of his reign the general wickedness of mankind exceeded all bounds, and _God made their mutual hostility the means of the Divine vengeance, till the human race was nearly extinct_. The few that remained had fled to woods and mountains, _when the all-merciful Creator called Kaiomurs, or Gilshah, to the throne_.”

We only now want a key to unlock the portals of this _Magh-abadean_ household; and I flatter myself that _this_, which I am about to tender, will consummate to an accuracy that very desirable purpose.

Cain’s immediate progeny are they which are included under the above denomination. Their faith and worship are exactly symbolised under its derivative dress. _Magh_, as before explained, is _good_; and _Abad_, a _unit_; that is, when combined, the _Good One_, or _Unit_, the author of fruitfulness and productiveness--in which light alone, as all-bountiful and all-generous, was he recognised by this family.

_This unity_ of the Godhead was what was _religiously_ comprehended under the _Phallic_ configuration of the Round Tower erections; and this, furthermore, elucidates that heretofore enigmatical declaration of the Budhists themselves, viz. that the pyramids, in which the sacred relics are deposited, “_be their shape what it will, are an imitation of the worldly temple of the Supreme Being_.”[266]

But if _Magh-abadean_ was the name adopted by them with this _spiritual_ tendency, _Tuath-de-danaan_ was that which pictured them a sacerdotal institution. The last member of this compound I have already expounded. It remains that I develop what the two first parts conceal.

_Tuath_, then, is neither more nor less than a dialectal modification for _Budh_, which, according to the licence of languages, transformed itself, otherwise and indifferently, into _Butt_, Butta, Fiod, Fioth, _Thot_, _Tuath_, _Duath_, _Suath_, Pood, Woad; and in the two last forms--of which one is Gothic, and the other Tamulic--admitted a final syllable,--which was but an insignificant termination,--namely, _en_, making _Pooden_ and _Woad-en_; or _Poden_ and _Woden_.

In these several variations, and the innumerable others which branch therefrom, while the _sensible_ idea is preserved underneath, there is superinduced another of a more refined complexion. Thus, _Budh_, while it primarily represents the _sun_, its type, the _penis_; and again, _its_ sign, a _tree_, expresses also the attributes of _magic_, _science_, _divination_, and _wisdom_.

These were the consequences of that _mysterious_ garb in which the priests invested the _true_ elements of their religion. Being themselves the sole possessors of its inward secrets, and all literature and erudition going hand in hand also therewith, it was so dexterously managed, that a sort of reverential feeling attached, not only to those _qualities_ in the abstract, but to the consecrated _personages_ who were their depositories. Hence, while _Budh_ came to signify _divination_ and _wisdom_, _Budha_, its professor, did a _divine_ and _wise man_; and _Tuath_, being only a modification of the former epithet, _Tuatha_ is the corresponding transmutation of the latter.

_Tuatha_, therefore, signifies _magicians_;[267] and so we have the _first_ component of _Tuath-de-danaans_ elucidated. The _second_ requires no _Œdipus_ to solve it, _De_ being but the vernacular term whereby was expressed the _Deity_; and as I have previously established the import of _Danaans_ to have been _Almoners_, it follows that the aggregate tenour of this religious-compound-denomination is _the Magician-god-almoners_, or the Almoner-magicians of the Deity.

As from _Budh_ was formed _Fiodh_, so from Fiodh arose Fidhius; and as I have before shown that _Hercules_ and _Deus_ were synonymous terms, and both personifications of the _Sun_, so, accordingly, we find that this _symbolical_ adjunct was reciprocally appropriated to one as to the other.

I dwell upon those terms with the more impressive force, because that _the spirit of no one of them_ has ever before been developed. _Me Deus Fidhius_, and _Me Hercules Fidhius_, we where taught at school to consider as appeals to the _God of Truth_, and the _Hercules of Honour_. Most assuredly those virtues are comprehended under the _radix_ of the great _mysterious_ Original; but the dictionaries and lexicons that gave us those significations knew no more of what that _Original_ was than they did of the connection between soul and body.

Deus _Fidhius_, then, means God the _Budha_, and as such the _All-wise_, the _All-sacred_, the _All-amiable_, and the _All-hospitable_; and _Hercules_ Fidhius, that is, _Hercules_ the Budha, is, in sense and meaning, exactly the same.

The Latin word _Fides_, and the English _Faith_, are but direct emanations from the same communion. A thousand other analogies must suggest themselves now in consequence. In a word, if you go through the circle of natural _religion_ and artificial _science_,--if you analyse the vocabulary of conventional _taste_ and of modish etiquette, you will find the _constituent particles_ of all the leading outlines resolve themselves into the _physical_ symbolisation of the radical Budh.

What inference, I ask my reader, would he draw from the above facts? Unquestionably that at the outset of social life, mankind at large had used but one lingual conversation; and as the _Irish_ is the only language in which are traced the germs of all the diverging _radii_,--nay, as it is the _focus_ in which all amicably meet,--it follows inevitably that it must have been the universal language of the first human cultivators--the nursery of letters, and the cradle of revelation.

“How charming is divine Philosophy!
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo’s lute,
And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets
Where no crude surfeit reigns.”