[A] These hieroglyphics were symbolical of the four elements. Prescott adds—“It is not easy to see the connection between the terms ‘rabbit’ and ‘air,’ which lead the respective series.” Possibly he may not have been aware of the tradition of the Algonquins as above.
[125] Is not “Num” cognate to “Numen?” and their worship of trees and worn stones worship of memorials of the Deluge? Compare Boulanger, infra, [ch. xi.], and on the regard for boulders in India (vide Gainet, vol. i.) Bryant (“Mythology,” iii. 532) says, speaking of the Egyptians—“I have mentioned that they showed a reverential regard to fragments of rock which were particularly uncouth and horrid; and this practice seems to have prevailed in many other countries.” Probably for the same reason the Lapps worshipped their lakes and rivers, as is known from the names annexed to them—“Ailekes Jauvre,” that is, sacred lake, &c. Vide Pinkerton, i. 468. (Leems.)
[126] This chapter was written before the publication of Mr Cox’s “Mythology of the Aryan Nations.” It will be seen, however, that I indulge the hope that much that is seductive, and much even that is systematic, in Mr Cox’s view, will be found to be compatible with the line I have indicated.
[127] Philo. apud Eusebius, who has transmitted the Phœnician tradition (vide Bunsen’s “Egypt,” iv. 281), seems to me to indicate the mode in which it came about in the following words—“Now Chronos, whose Phœnician epithet was El, a ruler of the land, and subsequently after his death, deified in the constellation of Kronos (Saturn),” &c. As to Saturn, vide [ch. x].
In the cosmical theory there is analogy as to the process of deification—“In the Phœnician cosmogonies, the connection between the highest God and a subordinate male and female demiurgic principle is of frequent occurrence” (Bunsen, iv. 447). It would seemingly be more in fitness with a cosmical theory to find direct adoration of the principle, without evidence of any previous or concurrent process of deification.
Mr W. Palmer (“Egyptian Chronicles,” i. 37) says—“But when we find the rulers of the first two periods in the Chronicle, its xiii. gods and viii. demigods, answering closely to the two generations of the antediluvian and post-diluvian patriarchs in number, and therefore also in the average length of the reigns and generations; and when we know, besides, as we do, that the Pantheon of the Egyptians and other nations, which they said had all borrowed from them, was peopled, in part at least, with deified ancestors—for even the heavenly luminaries, and the elements, and powers of nature, and notions of the true God still remaining, or of angels and demons, so far as they were invested with humanity and sex, were identified with human ancestors; we cannot doubt that Kronos,” &c.
[128] “Venator contra Dominum,” St Augustine; “Cité de Dieu,” xvi. ch. iv.; Pastoret, “Hist. de la Legislation.”
[129] Gen. v. 24, says only—“And he walked with God, and was seen no more: because God took him.” (Vide also John iii. 13.) There might still have been the belief and tradition (according to appearances) that he was so raised. (Compare 4 Kings ii. 11, and Ecclesiasticus, xliv. 16.)
[130] I believe, however, that the apostasy in the Hamitic race generally was much more direct; and I entirely agree with Bryant that it must have resulted at an early period in a systematic scheme of mixed solar and ancestral worship. Therefore, in any Hamitic tradition, we shall not be startled at finding (even in the commemorative ceremonies of the Deluge) evidence of solar mythology inextricably blended with ancestral traditions. We, however, are only concerned with the ancestral traditions, and in so far as we can discriminate them, Mr Cox’s evidence of solar mythology will form no barrier to our inquiry.
In the preceding page I have quoted a passage from Sanchoniathon, which seems to indicate the mode in which the mixed system arose; but there “Cronos” (Noah) is deified in the planet Saturn. As a rule, however, we find him deified in the sun (Bryant, ii. 60, 200, 220). Ham, however, is sometimes also deified in the sun; and in cases where Ham is so deified, it is not unlikely that we shall find the patriarch relegated to Saturn.