Ouranus and the countenances of the gods Cronus and Dagon, and the sacred characters of the elements. But Berosus says

of Belus, that he was named Jupiter, and separated the heavens from the earth, and reduced the universe to order; that before his time the universe was full of monstrous animals, which assumed each other's shape and countenance, of which delineations were preserved in the temple of Belus at Babylon; that over these monsters a woman called Omoroca―in Greek Thalassa, or the sea-presided, whom Belus cut asunder to form the heavens and the earth, and at the same time destroyed the monsters: all which, Berosus says, was an allegorical description of nature, which Belus rendered intelligible, and gave their places to the sun and moon and planets. To understand and reconcile both accounts, we need merely refer to another passage in Sanchoniatho, where he declares that Taautus in the way of allegory explained the order of creation and succession from the beginning, and, blending known occurrences therewith, delivered it to the priests; who again increased the obscurity by fresh additions ; till the time of Osiris, who, inventing the three kinds of writing which at present exist on the Egyptian monuments, fixed the meaning of the hieroglyphics, and prevented any further mystification.

What the invention of writing did for Egypt, the adoption of rectilinear symbols, instead of hieroglyphics, did for Chaldea ; it prevented future changes, and fixed the astronomical records of Babylon in one uniform character, down to the time of its overthrow. Whether this took place in the time of the first or second Belus, Berosus does not inform us; but we think it to have been under the second, from the internal evidence of the inscriptions; and that the first and second Belus, like the first and second Thoth, and first and second Hermes, were often confounded together, though the first lived about 2240 B.C., the second about 1500 B.C., nearly contemporary with Moses.

Neither the symbols of Chaldea nor the hieroglyphics of Egypt were alphabetic in their nature or in their primary application, though there are instances of the occasional employment of both to express proper names as they would be written by an alphabet. Alphabetic writing was introduced into Egypt by Isiris, who probably learned it from the second Hermes, called the Phoenician by Sanchoniatho, called the Secretary of Cronus by Berosus; and to whom the unanimous voice of all antiquity ascribes the invention of letters. The Phoenician letters are manifest corruptions of the Hebrew; and if an alphabet properly Chaldean should ever be discovered, we expect it will be some such deviation from Hebrew as the Phoenician character-or perhaps one which deviates still less, as the long residence of Eber and Abram in Chaldea may warrant us in supposing.

Should such an alphabet be discovered, or the arrow-headed inscriptions be deciphered, they would, we doubt not, prove that all the truths remaining among the heathen are derived from Divine Revelation, as it was afterwards embodied in the Book of Genesis; and that all their idolatries are to be traced to the one fountain of error at Babel, the mother of all abominations during the preceding dispensations, as its antitype of Rome is become during the Christian dispensation.

Of the early cosmogonies we have but fragments remaining, and these not the original writings, but transcripts of translations, preserved chiefly by Eusebius and Syncellus. Yet, imperfect and mutilated as they are, these fragments suffice to shew an intermediate state of idolatry, or stage in its progress, between the planet worship of the Chaldeans and the gross idolatry of India, Greece, and Egypt; and also an intermediate system of allegory, by which the otherwise senseless fables of the Bramins, the Romans, and the Greeks, may be traced up to a perversion of the Mosaic history. But these fragments do us a yet further service, in enabling us to form an estimate of the depth of the truths couched under the early mysteries-truths which could not by possibility be invented, but must have been originally revealed-truths concerning the Divine being and attributes, and concerning the order of creation, which God alone could disclose, and which the heathen must have learned either from the books of Moses or from patriarchal tradition. To one who has not studied the early mythologists in this connection, the religion of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle can scarcely be made to square both with honesty and common sense: we are obliged to set one aside to reconcile their belief with the other: to suppose that they either suppressed and dissembled their real opinions for fear of the populace, or that they were infatuated and stultified by the superstitions with which they were surrounded. But these fragments, though they explain, do not excuse or justify the ancients they shew how minds of such extent could, from the degradation into which their countrymen had fallen, descry the far distant pinnacle of truth; yet they could neither reclaim their fellow-men, nor themselves re-ascend the downward path of error, because that, "when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened: professing themselves to be wise, they became fools; and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." And it is only to the earlier of the mythologists that we can give even the ambiguous credit of being corrupted transcripts of Revelation. For each succeeding record of the heathen became more and more mixed up with local superstitions, national

appellations, and vulgar errors, which soon hid all traces of the original from those who could not obtain access to channels nearer the source: the stream became more and more turbid, and issued in a sea of death. But, ascending to the age of Zoroaster and the Orphic fragments, we may easily trace both the upward and the downward course, and find materials for most profitable meditation; may, by honest self-examination and observation of what we see around, detect in the present day tendencies towards, idolatry as antichristian as the gross and absurd idolatry of the poor benighted heathen whom we pity and despise.

The absurdity really lies in worshiping any being or thing besides the God of the Bible. Whether the worship be of the knee, or the lip, or the homage of the understanding, matters not; whether instead of, or in conjunction with, the true God, makes little difference; the act of another worship is the absurdity, all else is the accident: "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Whether the idol be a black stone, or a marble statue, or a golden image, or a silver shrine, or an unknown God, or a wafer, or a man, or intellect, or science, or learning, or books, or preachers, or societies, is of little importance: these various forms of idolatry are but the accidents of time, and place, and circumstance, while the sin, and the folly, and the shame lie in putting any thing else in competition with, or in the place of, the one living and true God, the only object deserving of supreme love, reverence, and worship.

As Babylon, founded by Nimrod, was the first city built by the descendants of Noah, so in it was preserved the longest series of astronomical observations; and therein we find the earliest traces of idolatry. The observations found there by Alexander, and by him transmitted to Aristotle, ascended to the life-time of Noah, 2233 B. C. And there is great reason for thinking that the tower of Babel, though built while the Flood was yet fresh in the memory of man, was intended for idolatrous worship, and stood where the temple of Belus was afterwards erected, if this last were not rather the completion of that very tower. For the record of the astronomical observations of Babylon ascending to within fourteen years of the confusion of tongues at the building of Babel, 2247 B. C., and being universally ascribed to the first Belus, he must have been the contemporary of Nimrod; and we think it probable that the same individual was called Nimrod, in the Hebrew language, which was retained in the line of Heber, at Ur of the Chaldees, who was called Belus in the dialect spoken at Babylon, after the confusion of tongues, and perhaps Thoth in the Egyptian dialect. And as before the Flood the knowledge of God was preserved in the line of Seth to Noah, while the line of Cain became so exceedingly sinful as to corrupt the rest of mankind, and cause the destruction

of all but the family of Noah; so after the Flood the knowledge of God was preserved in the line of Shem, Eber, and Abram, when the rest of mankind fell into the idolatry of Nimrod, Belus, or Thoth.

Idolatry has three principal forms, according to the pursuits of the people who abandon themselves to it, the forms of astronomy, heroism, and intellect; and the last is in fact the most absurd of the three, for it becomes self-idolatry, which is atheism. Idolatry of the heavenly bodies was the earliest form, and grew out of astronomy; a science forced upon man by the necessity of predicting harvest time, that he might sow the seed in its season, and calculate the store of one year so as to afford subsistence till the next. The foreknowledge of times and of seasons, being only attainable by consideration, by discovering and combining the movements of all the heavenly bodies, each of which moves in an orbit of its own, and at a rate peculiar to itself, was an art beyond the reach and comprehension of the people. But the astronomers, having attained this knowledge by careful and long continued observation, were in the first place supposed to be in communication with the heavenly bodies, and to receive their information from the stars; and in the next place were advanced to the rank of constellations themselves, and in this capacity supposed to communicate the knowledge they had attained to their successors.

and

Many circumstances combined to induce the astronomers to encourage this tendency to idolatry in the people. It was convenient to put the results of their observations into such an order as would be easily remembered, and readily communicated, to embody in the same arrangement all that they knew of the past course of things, while they provided for the record of the future. On the calendar therefore, which was the primary and proper business of the astronomers, they engrafted the zodaical signs, the cycles of the heavenly bodies, and their corrupted traditions both of the Creation and of the Deluge: and these astronomical and historical facts being impersonated, speedily became as much the objects of idolatry as the sun, moon, and stars. Some of the nations of the east, as the Persian sunworshippers, seem never to have passed into the second form of idolatry, of hero or man-worship; and the worship of the heavenly bodies seems to have prevailed unmixed for a considerable period of time. To it Job alludes (xxxi. 26), saying, "If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand." This, too, was the form of idolatry practised by the fathers of the Israelites, "who dwelt on the other side the flood in old time" (Josh. xxiv. 2-20). And to it they themselves were continually prone, even after they had renounced the

worship of the calf, and after they had been scourged by the kings of Babylon. Yea, "they took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of the god Remphan, figures which they had made to worship: and they burnt incense to the queen of heaven, they, their fathers, their kings, and their princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem." (Acts vii. 43; Jer. xliv. 17.)

To render the knowledge attained by the astronomers useful to the people, fixed times were appointed, at which the people were called together, generally by the blowing of horns, to learn from the astronomers the ensuing seasons. The practice of then calling the people together is commemorated in the word calendar (Kaλew), the record of those times and seasons. The year of all mankind at first began from the autumnal equinox, when the harvest being ended, and the fruits of the earth gathered, the sowing and planting for the next year was about to commence. At this time, the general assembly of the whole nation took place, and the times for the whole year were fixed; and being seasons of joy and festivity as the time of ingathering, and the astronomers also being the priests of the nation, these meetings were made religious festivals, and the days dedicated to the gods they worshipped.

But there were monthly assemblies in the several districts to fix the minor subdivisions of time, at which the monthly calendar was announced by the local priest, who being in correspondence with the hierophant and chief astronomer in the metropolis, uniformity was secured to all. The greater number of the bricks with characters impressed, now found at Babylon, were monthly calendars, as we hope to shew: and these monthly assemblies were held also by the people of Israel, with blowing of trumpets; and the practice of announcing the set times, till the next meeting, is retained in the Christian church, the memorable days of the week being published from the pulpit on the Lord's day. These meetings from a distance became festival days, and being called after the planet whose rising was declared, or the sign of the current month, they worshipped the planet and the sign; forgetting the Lord of the seasons from whose appointment those orderly returns proceeded on which they were dependent for the necessaries of life.

In the fragments of Sanchoniatho and Berosus, as preserved by Eusebius (Præp. Ev. 1. Iv.); it is said that the first Thoth devised characters for representing the primary elements; and also pourtrayed the countenances of Ouranus, Cronus, and the heavenly bodies. And of Belus it is stated, that he divided between the heavens and the earth, and, instead of monstrous forms which had previously filled the universe, placed intelligent beings in the heaven and the earth. But Thoth and Belus were not deified till long after, probably not before the time of the