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he figuratively represented: the animal was believed to have the same influence as the Romanist maintains that his patron saint has with God. Rendering such worship to the animal, the idolater in fact made it his god, at first figuratively, and soon in reality, for when the prayer is addressed to the mediator without any reference to an ulterior person, the reverence paid places the mediator on the throne of god, and makes him god. By process such as this the idolater converted the animal into a god, and in consequence it obtained place in the temple held to be the place of the divine abode : it was lodged in the secos, the sacred recess, the holy of holies, and lived the object of awe and adoration. The records of profane history now extant do not serve to shew that all nations entered thus far into the mazes of error. That the Egyptians did is well known, and the grossness of the practice called forth all the energies of the first advocates of the Gospel for its suppression.

Clement of Alexandria, a christian advocate of the third century, writes of these animal gods and the temples of Egypt in the following terms.d "The walls shine with gold, silver, and amber, they sparkle with the various gems of India and Ethiopia: the recesses are made secret by splendid curtains, but if you enter the penetralia and enquire for the image of the god for whose sake the fane was built, one of the Pastophori or attendants that officiate at the temple, assuming an aspect of reverence, and chanting a hymn in the Egyptian language, drawing the veiling curtain a little aside as if to shew a real god, exhibits a ridiculous display of the deity; instead of a god, to see whom we had taken so much trouble, there is nothing but a cat, a crocodile, or a snake of the country, or some other beast utterly unworthy of a temple, but fitter for a cave, a dungeon, or common sewer. The god of the Egyptians is a beast wallowing on a carpet and under a purple cover."

d Clem. Alexand. Pædag. lib. iii. c. 2.

Origen in his third book against Celsus,e writes, that his adversary affirmed in opposition to the Christians, that the Egyptians signify by their figurative exhibitions the eternal principles of truth; and do not, as many persons suppose, render honour to perishable creatures, as dogs, and goats, and other like animals. It is very certain that all the objects of the heathen worship had a reference to truths chiefly relating to the laws of nature and the attributes of the Deity; a fact which afforded some colour to the practice; but their figurative objects, whether inanimate or animate, led, as St. Paul justly observes, to the worship of the creature more than the Creator, and that by rites which rendered religion subservient to every kind of vice, as the Alexandrian advocate justly observes in a passage immediately following that cited above, of which the Bayaderes of the Hindù temples of the present times, as also do the acts of cruelty frequent in that country, amounting often to murder, sometimes voluntary, sometimes involuntary, clearly shew.

The notices of the symbolical uses of animals already taken might sufficiently serve the purposes of the present treatise, by shewing why the forms of brute animals were taken to represent and exhibit things divine, were it not that the parts of different animals were often compounded into a single idol, forming what has often been called abominable monsters, but exhibiting, as the heathen advocate Celsus speaks, eternal principles. A few observations on the symbolical import of what were called sacred animals will shew the extent to which the use or rather abuse of symbols may be carried, and how it led to the ultimatum of monstrosity, the exhibition of God in the form of man.

Of all symbolical animals, the bull Apis, the personification of the Egyptian god Osiris, is the most known and celebrated. Strabo describes the animal and the manner in which he was entertained, as follows.f "At Memphis is a temple where he e Origen contra Cels. lib. iii. p. 121. 'Strab. lib. xvii. p. 806. B.

is maintained within an enclosure, and where he is regarded as a god. His forehead and some other small parts of the body are white, the remainder black; signs by which, when one dies, they judge of a proper successor. In front of the enclosure is a hall, and another in which the dam is maintained. Into this hall Apis is sometimes let out, especially when shewn to strangers; at other times he is seen through a window, as they rather desire that he should be seen from without. After a short recreation they drive him back into his proper abode." Again: "the Momemphites worship Venus, and maintain a cow in the same manner as is Apis at Memphis and the bull Mnevis at Heliopolis, for these are held to be gods in those districts. Such as are maintained in other places, for many oxen both male and female are kept both within the Delta and beyond it, are not regarded as gods, but only as sacred animals."g

It is well known that Osiris was a personification of the male or generative power of Nature; and therefore the bull was either a personification of the god, in which case he was a god, or if not a personification, he was only a sacred symbol. In the one or the other of these characters the animal was regarded by many nations. He was the symbol of Mithra the great god of the Persians. Under the name

of Baswi or Nanda he was the vahana or vehicle of the great god Siva of the Hindus; that is, he was the symbol of the active power of the god. In Greece, the bull of Marathon was once of great celebrity. In Italy and the west he was held in the highest reverence. To that country it may be affirmed that he gave the name; a question which, being connected with the extent of the worship of the bull, may deserve some attention.

Virgil, and some Greek authorities of an earlier age, affirm, that Italy obtained its name from Italus a king of

Strab. lib. xvii. p. 803. C.

h Hygin. Fab. xxxviii. i Eneis, lib. i. 537, et Serv. not.

Sicily or rather a chief of the Sicani, a Sicilian tribe settled in the southern part of the Peninsula nearest the island from whence they came. Other authorities of later ages than the Mantuan poet, state that the name was taken from the Greek word Taλos, italus, which in the ancient language of that country signified a bull, whence the Latin word vitulus, a calf.k These latter authorities say that the country was so called because of the fertility of the pastures, on which large herds of oxen were fed. Of these different statements it may be observed that the first deserves little credit, neither does Virgil regard it as such; he says that his statement is founded merely on fama, common report, seemingly admitting that he did not believe the report to rest on any good authority. Others affirm that the name Italia was given because the rich pasturage of the country gave it a claim to the name. This reason however is not of much weight: for Italy, especially Southern Italy, is not by any means eminent for the fertility of its pastures. Another and better reason for the name may be found in the religion of the ancient inhabitants of the country, who held the bull in highest reverence, and, like many other nations, made the animal an object of their idolatrous worship.

That the early inhabitants of Italy were a Celtic race has been shewn by a variety of authorities, and especially by the evidences adduced by Sir W. Betham, who proves that the Etruscans spoke the language of the Irish, nearly the same as the Welch. It is evident from Welch archæology that the Welch regarded the bull as a sacred animal; and the same may be inferred of the Etruscans and Irish also. Evidences to the same effect may be gathered from Italy itself. The Cacus of the eighth Æneis was a Celt, and his bold theft of stealing four of the oxen driven away from the fields of Geryon by the victorious Hercules is significant not only

k Varr. Fragm. p. 212. Aul. Gell. lib. xxxi. c. 1. Hesych. ad voc. Ιταλος.

of his desire to possess such animals, but from a spirit of retaliation which urged the giant to recover some of the spoil which the Tyrian had insultingly taken from a god of the same system or pantheon as that which Cacus and the Cyclopes received.

The name italos, given to the bull by the Ausonian Celt, shews the high reverence in which the animal was held. After the proofs given in the Etruria Celtica that the Erse of Ireland was the language of Tuscany, it may be safely averred that the word italos is a Celtic compound. It, in the Welch, is the pronoun demonstrative, and tal is an adjective signifying towering or eminent, whence italos is a name that denotes the great one, a title likely to have been given to an animal the symbol of the great generative principle in Nature. If the a in tal be pronounced broad, it becomes tol, and with the addition of the Latin termination, tolus, the name of the person whose bleeding head is said to have been discovered when Tarquin laid the foundation of the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline hill. That a head should have been found is an event in full accordance with the usages of ancient idolatry: the Buddhists of the present day always cover within their sacred mounds some symbol of the god to which they are dedicated, and therefore some such was most probably found in the barrow raised on the Capitoline hill. it was a bleeding head requires no refutation; it may justly be classed with those unauthentic traditions which supplied the materials of the history of the first centuries after the foundation of Rome: that it was a human head is equally improbable. The head of an italus or bull was in such accordance with the known practice of idolatry as to leave little room for doubt that the head of Tolus was the head of a bull. There is no record shewing that a man or a god bearing the name of Tolus ever lived; the existence of any such person must be admitted to be altogether

1 Dionys. Halic. Antiq. Rom. lib. iv. p. 257.

That

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