Lett.10. had the brightest of the Immortals, Apollo and Diana; and by the blooming DIONE, the ب youngest Homer makes Vulcan himself tell how he was toffed from Heaven by his angry Father, άπο Βηλᾶ θεσπεσίοιο, which the Commentators explain τὴν περίοδον τῷ αιθέρων καὶ τῶν ἀσρῶν, The Circumference of the Heaven and Stars. All this I take to be Traces of the Affyrian Doctrine concerning the oldest of the Gods, which we have from Eupolemus, in these remarkable Words, Βαβυλωνίας λέγειν πρῶτον γενέθαι ΒΗΛΟΝ, ὃν είναι Κρόνον. ἐκ τότε δὲ γενέθαι ΒΗΛΟΝ κ Χανααν (ι). Here are two Gods, Father and Son, both BAALS, (LORDS) the eldest Saturn and the Sun, and the youngeft his Offspring Fire (2.) BAL-KIUN therefore, or BUL-KAN, is the LORD FIRE, the Child of the Sun; juft as he is in Greek, or rather Syriac, HOAIETOE, NOUN 8, Father-Fire. The Ancients fuppofed he was tranfmitted to Earth in a Shot-Star, which fhould have kindled the Vulcano's in Lemnos, upon which they built the Fable put in his Mouth by Homer. The Orphic Initiations appointing a God, or the Attribute of a God to every Sphere, give Pericyonius to the Sphere of Saturn, which the learned Bochart derives from KIUN, his Eaftern Name: The real wandering Jew, BENJAMIN, one of the greatest Travellers of the Eaft, has this curious Defcription of the Solar Worship in his Itinerary. There is a People, fays he, of the Pofterity of Chus, addicted to the Contemplation of the Stars; they worship the Sun as a God, and the whole Country for half a Mile round their Town, is filled with great Altars dedicated to him. By the ⚫ Dawn of Morn they get up, and run out of Town to wait the rifing Sun, to whom on every Altar there is a confecrated Image, not in Likenefs of a Man, but of the Solar Orb, framed by magic Art. Thefe Orbs, as foon as the Sun rifes, take fire, and refound with a great Noife, while every body • there, Men and Women, hold Cenfers in their Hands, and all • burn Incense to the Sun.' One would fufpect these Orbs to have been filled with fome nitrous Compofition, and kindled by a Collection of the Rays. It nicely explains, not the Shrine of Molech, which is easily understood to be a portable Tabernacle, fuch as was used by the Egyptians; but the Image of KIUN, the STAR (1) Apud Eufeb. Præparat. Evang. Lib. IX. (2) Hyperionem alii Patrem Solis, alii ipsum, quòd eat fuper Terras ita appellatum putabant. FESTUS, youngest of the Titan-Sifters, was laft of all Lett.10. made Father of Venus, the Goddefs of Beauty, STAR of your Gods, which you have made to your felves. (1) This Piece of Idolatry committed by the Jews in the Wilderness, foon after they had come out of Egypt, and on the Borders of the Sun's Votaries, the Pofterity of Chus, is not, as I remember, recorded in the Pentateuch. The common Opinion derives Latona very justly from AHOH, Oblivion or Night: the obfolete Greek Verb w, the Latin lateo, have the fame Original ? Laat, Latuit, whence, as Dido is formed from dilectus, being the Feminine of David, fo AHTN Lato, (Obfcurity) the Greek Name of Latona, is formed of 17. DIONE is a formal Participle of the Syriac T denah, ortus eft, eluxit, iλaus. Thence illuflris, and Doniale DIONE. And hence, I judge, not from Lappropinquavit, (with which it has no Connexion) the Arabs, who speak a Dialect of the fame Language, and have borrowed the Syrian Characters, call the World itfelf G Dunia, Mundus. < ونيا VENUS: befides the numberlefs local Divinities of this Name, and befides the celeftial and vulgar Venus, denominated from human Paffions, there were two original Powers acknowledged by the firft Mythologists; the eldeft the Child of CELUS, or laft Production of the Heaven, when caftrated by TIME, and therefore of the Titan-Race, who bore her Part in the Production of the Univerfe; the youngest the Daughter of Jupiter and Dione; the Power arifing from the vivifying ethereal Spirit, acting upon the Plenitude of Matter. The former brought forth the World, and all it contains according to Orpheus. "All "Things, fays he, are of Thee: Thou cemented'ft the Uni"verfe: Thou fway'ft the threefold Fates: Thou generates "whatever is in the Heaven above, on the teeming Earth below, or in the Depths of th' unfathomed Sea." This is the whom Epimenides, the Cretan Sage, makes the Daughter of Saturn and Eunomia (2), that is of TIME and Goop-ORDER. The latter, arifing (1) Amos V. . 26. On which fee the most learned and literal of the Jewish Commentators, R. Selemo Ben Melech, in his מכלל יופי (2) Γήματα δΕΥΝΟΜΙΗΝ θαλερών ΚΡΟΝΟΣ ἀγε Ἐκ το καλλίκομΘ γένετο χρυση ΑΦΡΟΔΙΤΗ. Lett.10. Beauty, the Perfection of the Creation, the ge, nial Power prefiding over the Propagation of every Species of Being. And now, every Power being confined to its proper Province, Harmony henceforth enfued in Heaven, and good Order prevailed upon Earth, while all-mighty Jove holds the Reins of the Universe in his unerring Hand, Parent of Gods and Ruler of Men . SUCH was the portentous Tale told by the primitive Sages for the Inftruction and Restraint of ignorant barbarous Mortals; rude like them in arifing immediately from faline Fermentation, is wafted to Shore by the Zephyrs; nourished by the PAI or Seafons; lands at Cyprus, the most benign, delicious Spot on the Globe; and courted by all the Gods, is married to the Lord of FIRE. As for her latin Name, I can scarce conceive it should come à veniendo, quia Venus omnibus venit (1), or from the Siccoth Benoth, the Tents of the Women about the Temple of Mylitta at Babylon (2). But it is probably one of the Names of the Gods carried over to Italy by the firft Grecian Colonies: The Baotians called a Woman BANNA. So fays Hefychius the Lexicographer. βάνια, γυνὴ ὑπὸ Βοιωτῶν. VENUS therefore will fignify the Deity of Woman, or FEMALE NATURE: which indeed may very well have been formed from the Phenician Benoth Daughters Since it is certain that many of the Roman Names of the Gods, whether brought over by the Lydians, or by the early Grecian Colonies, are of Phrygian or Phenician Extraction, not in the least refembling their Grecian Appellations. Saturn, Ceres, Vulcan, Neptune, Diana, Venus, are all evident Proofs of this; and even the Greek Name of the last-mentioned Goddess, APPOAITH, tho' purely, one should think, of Western Compofition, yet one of the greatest Men Europe ever produced, takes it to be the Syriac Feminine of PEOR, UN APHEORETHA (3). e * ΗΣΙΟΔ. ΘΕΟΓΟΝΙΑ. Απολλοδος. βιβλιοθ. βιβ, κα (3) HUG. GROTIUS ad Deuteron. in its Structure, and uncouth and cruel in its Lett.10. Circumftances. How well it was otherwise fitted to ferve that noble End of civilizing Nations, and bringing them to a Belief and Reverence of an invifible Power or Powers above them, who protect the pious and the juft, and irremiffibly punish the oppreffive and impious, I will not even enquire: nor will I take upon me to give you my particular Senfe of its Meaning. Perfons of warm Fancies are apt to meafure others by themselves, and to suspect that an Attachment to any one Subject will tempt its Admirer to affift its natural Imperfections, and enable him to call up a fairy kind of Creation out of the most unmeaning Materials. To obviate any fuch Surmife, I beg leave to tranfscribe the Opinions of two great Men, not so much to be regarded in the present cafe for their Learning and Genius, tho' eminent in both, as that each of them having ftruck out a new Track in Philofophy, their Attempts to eftablish their favourite Notions, at the fame time illuftrate the Doctrine of the Ancients without Partiality, and one of them indeed without Defign. They will fhew you that I am neither fingular nor fanciful in fuppofing, That the old Sages impofed no particular Perfon or • Character upon their primary Gods, nor inC terwove those Characters in a Tale, without a ' MEANING.' THE Lett.10. THE first of these eminent Men, after hav ing given an ingenious Account of the Creation of the World, (whether ftrictly true, or intermixed with Illufions, is not to our purpose) feems upon a Review of his own Theory to have difcovered its Affinity with the mysterious mythological Traditions of the Poets. In re trieving, fays he, the Notion of the primeval Earth, and the Doctrine depending upon it, we have, methinks, unexpectedly caft a Light upon all Antiquity.' To begin with their ancient CHAOS:-"They tell us of moral Principles in the confufed Mafs, inftead of "natural ones; of Strife, and Difcord, and Divifion, on the one hand; and Love, Friendship, and Venus, on the other; and after a long Struggle, LOVE got the better of Dif 66 દ cord, and united the difagreeing Principles. "Then they proceeded to explain the Forma"tion of the World in a kind of Genealogy or Pedigree. CHAOS was the common Parent " of all; and from Chaos fprung first Night "and Tartarus, or Oceanus: NIGHT was a "teeming Mother, and of her were born "Ether and the Earth; the Earth conceived by the Influences of the Ether, and brought "forth MAN, and all Animals." THO' this feem to be a poetical Fiction ‹ rather than Philosophy; yet, when set in a 'true Light, and compared with our Theory of the Chaos, it appears to be a pretty regular · Account, |