IV.

THE Sun was a majestic Deity, revered among many peoples. Volumes would be required to give the history of the Sun God and his worshipers. We here advert to him and speak of a act or two in order to show he has not been neglected, also to indicate his good standing among the other Gods in general, as well as among inhabitants of earth.

It is a moot-point whether the worship of sexual appointments as Sovereign Creator and the foundation of the great thought of creation had priority, or whether solar worship had precedence. Looking at the fact that physical development moves in a free advance of the rational and philosophical, that impulse outstrips inquiring thoughtfulness, that phallic religion is purely one of feeling and passion, while solar faith involves more of the mental structure--a slower and later outgrowth of man--would, in the nature of things indicate sex worship to be long anterior to that of the sun. The one is practical and matter-of-fact. The other is inferential and imaginary. Youth would swell the eager votaries in one; maturity and age would cultivate the other: for there are infancy, youth, and maturity, in nations, and society, as well at; in individuals.

Without deciding which may be the older, we find them mixed. The phallic or linga-yoni worship and that of the sun were not merely cotemporaneous with each other: they were tenets which mingled together under

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the same faith. All had the same or similar significance; both embody sex divinity. The sun was male and the moon and earth were females; the moon, an attendant emblem of the feminine Deities, and the earth, with the aid of concurring deities, gave birth to man. Fig. 24 represents certain articles of

Fig. 24.

this complex faith, sculptured on agate, which is copied by Lajara from the original. in Calvert's Museum at Avignon. It proves the existence of solar and phallic worship at an early period of the world. It is worthy of study. We see the sun and moon in proximity, and the priest in female habiliments--like those of the Catholic and Episcopalian priests of to-day--adoring the male trinity in the form of the triangle near the hand of the hierarch; while on the right side of the sacred chair, or "throne," is the mystic palm-tree of male significance, and on the left and front of the devotee is the never-to-be-forgotten lozenge, unit, or yoni. Altogether they form the great four, the male and female Creators, Preservers, and Regenerators of the world. This is really one of the most comprehensive revelations of ancient faiths, in a small compass, yet brought to light. It deserves more than a passing notice. The male and female counterparts of the human form are viewed as palpable Creators and Regenerators in the most immediate as well as the most continuous sense. The idea that the imperial Sun is the only other all-powerful, omnipresent Creator known to man agrees with modern science. The scientific high priests of to-day, like Mayers and Tyndall, inform us that all

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forces manifest to man on this planet, except those of earthquakes, tides and gravitation, proceed from the sun. Every plant and every animal is each a product of the sun. Every steam engine moves by means of force derived from the sun: force shot in beams of heat and light from his beneficent breast millions of years ago; here condensed in teeming vegetation, and re-condensed in silent, sleeping beds of coal in the womb of mother earth. The shrill whistle of every steam engine in the startled air may be interpreted as an appropriate pean sounded in honor of the everlasting God Sol. Though he has reared a majestic living world like ours, and maintains the continuity of life upon it from year to year, and from age to age, yet only a small portion of his rays are spent upon the theater of our grand old globe. Grand to us, but a speck in the universe of worlds.

As we quoted Bible names in proof of the faith of the ancient fathers who gave to their children certain good names of phallic import, so we refer to a few in illustration of the faith in the sun men cherished, the proud ruler of, earth and heaven. In the Vedas, the sacred books of the Hindus, the sun has twenty different names, not pure equivalents, but appelatives descriptive of it, such as Brilliant, Beneficent, Beautiful, Creator, Master, Preserver. The Sanskrit Deva, "Splendor," is one of them.

Aaron, "the Heavenly On," "the God of Air."

Abigal, "the Father of the Circle," i. e., "the Sun."

Abram, "the Father is high."

Ahasbai, "Jah is shining," "God is blooming."

Ammiel, "the Maternal Sun."

Amalek, "Mother King," or "Mother Sun."

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Elijah. This innocent is weighted with the names of two Gods at once, the El of the Chaldees, and Jah of the Hebrews, which signifies "El is Jah."

El and Ilos were Babylonian names of the "Sun God."

Esthon, "the Uxorious On."

Ether, "fullness," A God in the Assyrian triad, his colleagues being the Sun and Moon. His name may be read Eva, Iva, Air, Aer, Aur, Er, Ar, also Vul.

Hai, "female power of the Sun."

Helon, "God Sun," "El is On."

Jahmai, "Jah is hot."

Malcham, "the Queen of Heaven," wife of Asher.

Mishael, "El is firmness," or, "El is powerful," or, "El is Mish," the Sun.

Naashon, "Shining On."

Potiphar (Coptic), "belonging to the Sun."

Punon, "the Setting On."

Samson or Shimshon, "Shemesh is On," or "On is the Sun."

Like many others, the Sun was it crucified God. "It is certainly proved as completely as it is possible in the nature of things for a fact of this kind to be proved that the Romans had a crucified object of adoration of the God Sol (Sun)--represented in some way to have been crucified. The cross was ail emblem of the sun, though rarely. met with in Assyrian and Babylonian sculptures. Besides the crux ansata, the most remarkable which I have heard of is a votive offering found near Numidia in 1833, on which was a man surrounded with a wreath of beams, with both arms stretched out and holding a branch in each

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hand, thus representing a perfect cross. Below him was this surprising inscription, which reads as translated by Gesenius, 'To the Lord Baal, the Solar King eternal, who has heard prayers.' Kindred to this it must be noticed that, in many ancient pictures of our Saviour in Italy, the words Deo Soli are inscribed, which signify, alike, 'to the only God,' and 'to the God Sol.' Solomon built temples to the Sun God Chemosh (II. Kings xxiii, 13)," ("Inman's Ancient Faiths").