easily regulate the births or deaths of individuals, entered most carefully in public registers,—facts which must have been remembered by families,—but events, such as the arrival of the ark at Shiloh, would be easily swelled into importance, and regulated also as to its date, to make it suit. In the course of a very few years the actual date of such an event would be forgotten, and might be advanced or retarded a few years to suit the occasion. It is evident also, that it is only some events of this kind which could be regulated. For example the going out of Abraham must be difficult to reconcile, if it were wished, which it probably was not. This going out I shall by and by explain, and shew its truth. All this is perfectly consistent if there were such persons as Isaac, &c., the supposed incarnations, as I shall shew there were—persons who had those peculiar names given to them, because they were supposed to be incarnations. The meaning of the ages of man in the Jewish books, and the lengths of time which events took in passing, I do not understand; but I have no doubt they had a mythological or figurative meaning, or concealed some doctrines. To suppose that a system of chronology was really meant, is to suppose the writers of the books incapable of adding and subtracting, which any one must be convinced of in a moment by looking into Volney’s Researches into Ancient History, where their arithmetical inconsistency with one another is shewn.
It was the belief that some great personage would appear in every cycle, as the Sibylline verses prove; but it was evidently impossible to make the birth of great men coincide with the birth of the cycle. But when it was desirable to found power upon the belief that a living person was the hero of the cycle, it is natural to expect that the attempt should have been made, as was the case with the verses of Virgil and others, as I shall hereafter shew. This great person is, according to Mr. Parkhurst, the type of a future saviour.
The fifth Jewish cycle might end when the Samaritans say the prophecy of Jacob was verified, that is, when Osee, expressly called the Messiah or Saviour—Joshua or Jesus—brought the ark to Shiloh. The versions vary more than 200 years respecting the time of Abraham’s stay in Canaan and the residence of the Israelites in Egypt; so that the chronology furnishes no objection. The language of the prophecy of Jacob to Judah, that a Lawgiver should not pass from beneath his feet till Shiloh should come, has been a subject of much dispute. Dr. Geddes and others maintain, that it is no prophecy, but Christians in general consider it to be one. The Samaritans insist that it is a prophecy, and that it was fulfilled in the son of Nun, Osee, called properly Jesus or the Saviour, and improperly Joshua, on his bringing the ark to Shiloh, as remarked above. Sir William Drummond has shewn, in a most ingenious and convincing manner, in his Œdipus Judaicus, how this prophecy is depicted on the sphere.
The sixth incarnation I will not attempt to name. The Jews, like the Hindoos, had many saviours or incarnations, or persons who at different times were thought to be inspired, or to be persons in whom a portion of divine wisdom was incarnate. This makes it difficult to fix upon the right person. Might not Samson be one of them? He was an incarnation, as we shall soon see.
The next cycle must be, I think, that of Elias, (Ἡλιος) or Elijah, אל יהו al-ieu, or God the Lord, according to Calmet and Cruden, but I should say, God the self-existent; that is, it means to say, an incarnation or inspiration of Ἡλιος or the God, יהו ieu, the Iao of the Greeks, or the solar power.[1] He left his prophetic power to Elisha, which Cruden and Calmet say means the Lamb of God.
It seems from the Hebrew words, when they come to be translated into English, that these
- ↑ It is curious to observe numbers of churches in Greece dedicated to St. Elias, which have formerly been temples the sun.
