books must have been esoteric, i. e. secret writings, known only to the chief priests, probably first exposed to the public eye by Ptolemy Philadelphus, 246 years before Christ, when he caused the Pentateuch to be translated. The explanation made by Ezra of such parts of the book as he thought proper at the gate of the temple, or the reading of it to the good king Josias, militates nothing against this hypothesis. I feel little doubt that the publication of the Jewish writings was forced, as the Jews say, by Ptolemy, and to that publication, I think, we are indebted for them; for, after they were once translated and published, there would be no longer any use in keeping them locked up in the temple, and copies of the original would be multiplied. At the Babylonish captivity they were not destroyed, because the desolation of Palestine happened at two different periods; so that one part of the people preserved the sacred book in their temple, when all was burnt in the temple of the other. When Cambyses sacked Egypt, all was destroyed in a moment, except the obeliscal pillars, which were left, and some of which are standing yet, particularly the finest of them all at Heliopolis.
Of the Hero of the eighth age it is said in our version, Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, his Messiah, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden to subdue nations.[1] Here I beg it may be observed that if persons doubt the existence of Joshua or Abraham, they cannot well doubt the existence of Cyrus. This observation will be found of importance hereafter. The eighth period began about the Babylonish captivity, about 600 years before Christ. The ninth began, as the Siamese say, with Jesus Christ, making in all eight cycles before Christ.
I do not claim to be the first who has observed the renewal of incarnations among the Jews, nor can I deserve the whole of the ridicule which will be lavished by the priests upon the doctrine, because they cannot refute it. I learn from the Classical Journal,[2] that the Rev. Mr. Faber believed Melchizedek to be an incarnation of the Son of God. Mr. Faber says, “It was contended that every extraordinary personage, whose office was to reclaim or to punish mankind, was an avatar or descent of the Godhead.” Again, “Adam, and Enoch, and Noah, might in outward appearance be different men, but they were really the selfsame divine person who had been promised as the seed of the woman, successively animating various human bodies.”[3] From the black Cristna bruising the head of the serpent, and the circumstances of the two mythoses being so evidently the same, there seems nothing inconsistent in this. The renewed solar incarnation, every 600 years, seems pretty clear. The fact of a renewed incarnation could not escape Mr. Faber; his mode of accounting for it is a different matter; but I beg leave to add, that I must not be accused by the priests of being fanciful in this instance, since their great oracle, the very learned Mr. Faber, had stated it previously. Although the author of Nimrod does not appear to have the least idea of what I conceive to be the true system, yet the idea of a cycle in the history of Noah forcibly occurred to him. He says the fourth in order from Noah, with whom this present cycle, or system, of the world commenced.[4]
Col. Franklin, in his treatise on the Jeynes and Buddhists, says, “First Bood’h, the self-existing, Swayam Bhuva, whose outar or period of time commenced 4002 years before Christ, or, according to the fictitious calculations of the Hindoos, 3,891,102: he ended his mortal career when the three first ages were complete, or, agreeable to the Hindoo computation, during the commencement of the fourth age.”[5] Here is evidently a proof of the truth of my theory, though concealed under a mythos. Here is the first equinoctial Avatar Buddha, ending when the sun enters Aries, after three Neroses or ages, according to the Brahmins, when Cristna begins.
2 D
