[26] This mountain was called Kô-Kajôn, according to d’Anville. This learned geographer has clearly seen that this name was the same as that of Caucasus, a generic name given to all the sacred mountains. It is known that Caucasus was for the Persians, what Mount Merou had been for the Indians and what Mount Parnassus became afterwards for the Greeks, the central place of their cult. The Tibetans have also their sacred mountain distinct from that of the Indians, upon which still resides the God-Priest, or immortal Man, similar to that of the Getæ. (Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscript., t. xxv., p. 45.)
[27] Bailly, Essai sur les Fables, ch. 14. Conférez avec Hérodote, l. iv.; et Pausanias, l. ix., p. 302, l. x., p. 320.
[28] Dionysus, in Greek Διονύσος, comes from the word Διός, irregular genitive of Ζεύς, the living God, and of Νόος, mind or understanding. The Phœnician roots of these words are אש, יש, or איש (ash, ish, or aïsh), Unique Being, and נו (nô) the motive principle, the movement. These two roots, contracted, form the word Nôos, which signifies literally the principle of being, and figuratively, the understanding.
Demeter, in Greek Δημήτερ, comes from the ancient Greek Δημ, the earth, united to the word μήτερ, mother. The Phœnician roots are דמ (dam) and מט (môt), the former expressing all that which is formed by aggregation of similar parts; and the latter, all that which varies the form and gives it generative movement.
[29] Bailly, Essai sur les Fables, ch. 15. Court de Gébelin expressly says, that the sacred mountain of Thrace was consecrated to Bacchus. (Monde prim.), t. ix., p. 49. Now, it is generally known that Parnassus of the Greeks was consecrated to Apollo.
[30] Theog., v. 500.
[31] The Greek word Θρᾴκη, Thrace, in passing into the Ionian dialect Θρῄξ, has furnished the following expressions: θρῆσκος, a devotee, θρησκεία, devotion, θρησκηύω, I adore with devotion. These words, diverted from their real sense and used ironically after the cult of Thrace had yielded to that of Delphi, were applied to ideas of superstition and even of fanaticism. The point of considering the Thracians as schismatics was even reached, and the word ἐθελοθρησκεία composed to express a heresy, a cult particular to those who practised it, and separated from orthodoxy.
[32] Œtolinos is composed, by contraction, of two words which appear to belong to one of the Thracian dialects. Œto-Kyros signifies the ruling sun, among the Scythians, according to Herodotus (l. iv., 59). Helena signified the moon, among the Dorians. It is from this last word, deprived of its article he, that the Latins have made Luna.
[33] Court de Gébelin, Monde primit., t. viii., p. 190. Pausanias, l. x. Conférez avec Æschyl. In Choephori, v. 1036; Eurip., In Orest., v. 1330; Plat., De Rep., l. iv., etc.
[34] Plut., De Music. Tzetzes, Chiliads, vii.; Hist., 108.