proved well founded, and that they will be discovered at the bottom to be derived from the same root as the sixteen-letter system of the Phœnicians, Hebrews, &c., &c., and their Gods the same.
The circumstance of Ballaji treading on the head of the serpent shews that he is, as the Brahmins say, an Avatar of Cristna. I shall be accused of illiberality in what I am going to say, but I must and will speak the truth. Belief is not (at least with me) a matter of choice, it is a matter of necessity, and suspicion is the same—and I must say, if I speak honestly, that after the circumstances of concealment for so many years stated above, I shall not believe that there is not something more in the Avatar of Wittoba if his temples be not searched by persons well known to be of a sceptical disposition. And even then, who knows that the most important matters may not have already been removed? It is lamentable to think that the lies and frauds of the unprincipled part of the priesthood, and generally the ruling part, have rendered certainty upon these subjects almost unattainable: however, it comes to this, that it is perfectly absurd to look for certainty, or to blame any one for an opinion. The fact of the God treading on the head of the serpent is a decisive proof, both in his case and in that of Cristna, that this cannot have been taken from the Romish or Greek writings, or the spurious Gospel histories; because the sects whose writings they are, all make the woman, not the seed of the woman, bruise the serpent’s head. The modern Protestant churches translate the Hebrew in Genesis by the word ipse; the ancient Romish church, by the word ipsa; the latter, to support the adoration of the Virgin, the Maia; the former, to support their oriental doctrine of the Atonement, which never was held by the latter. I believe the seed of the woman bruising the serpent’s head was never heard of in Europe till modern times, notwithstanding some various readings may be quoted. The Brahmins surely must have been deeply read in the modern scholastic divinity, to have understood and to have made the distinction between the Romish and Protestant schools! They must, indeed, have had a Magee on the Atonement. The mode in which all the different particulars relating to the serpent, Osiris, &c., are involved with one another, seems to render it impossible to suppose that the history relating to Cristna can have been copied from the gospel histories. The seed of the woman crushing the serpent’s head is intimately connected with the voyage of the God from Muttra to the temple of Jaggernaut,—evidently the same mythos as the voyage of Osiris to Byblos. Of the seed of the woman crushing the serpent’s head, or of the descent into hell, similar to that of Cristna, there is not a word in the orthodox gospel histories.
4. I shall presently make some observations on the celebrated Hercules, and I shall shew that he is the same as Cristna, a supposed incarnation of the Sun in Aries. On this God the very celebrated and learned divine Parkhurst makes the following observation:[1] “But the labours of Hercules seem to have had a still higher view, and to have been originally designed as emblematic memorials of what the real Son of God, and Saviour of the world, was to do and suffer for our sakes,
bringing a cure for all our ills, as the Orphic hymn speaks of Hercules.”
Here Mr. Parkhurst proceeds as a Christian priest, who is honest and a believer in his religion, ought to do. This is very different from denying a fact or concealing it. The design, of the labours of Hercules here supposed, having nothing to do with the antiquity of nations, does not in any way interfere with my inquiry. For my own part I feel that whether I approve the reason assigned or not, Mr. Parkhurst and other Christians of his school have as much right to their opinion as I have to mine; and, for entertaining such opinion, ought not to be censured by me or any one. My object is facts—and, if I could avoid it, I would never touch a dogma at all.
- ↑ In voce עז oz, III. p. 520.
