Section XXVI. The Idols and the Teraphim.
The meaning of the “fairy-tale” told by the Chaldæan Qû-tâmy is easily understood. His modus operandi with the “idol of the moon” was that of all the Semites, before Terah, Abraham's father, made images—the Teraphim, called after him—or the “chosen people” of Israel ceased divining by them. These teraphim were just as much “idols” as is any pagan image or statue.[436] The injunction “Thou shalt not bow to a graven image,” or teraphim, must have either come at a later date, or have been disregarded, since the bowing-down to and the divining by the teraphim seem to have been so orthodox and general that the “Lord” actually threatens the Israelites, through Hosea, to deprive them of their teraphim.
For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, ... without a sacrifice, and without an image.
Matzebah, or statue, or pillar, is explained in the Bible to mean “without an ephod and without teraphim.”[437]
Father Kircher supports very strongly the idea that the statue of the Egyptian Serapis was identical in every way with those of the seraphim, or teraphim, in the temple of Solomon. Says Louis de Dieu:
They were, perhaps, images of angels, or statues dedicated to the angels, the presence of one of these spirits being thus attracted into a teraphim and answering the inquirers [consultans]; and even in this hypothesis the word “teraphim” would [pg 235]become the equivalent of “seraphim” by changing the “t” into “s” in the manner of Syrians.[438]
What says the Septuagint? The teraphim are translated successively by ἐίδωλα—forms in someone's likeness; eidolon, an “astral body;” γλυπτὰ—the sculptured; κενοτάφια—sculptures in the sense of containing something hidden, or receptacles; θὴλους—manifestations; ἀλήθειας—truths or realities; μορφώματα or φωτισμοὺς—luminous, shining likenesses. The latter expression shows plainly what the teraphim were. The Vulgate translates the term by “annuntientes,” the “messengers who announce,” and it thus becomes certain that the teraphim were the oracles. They were the animated statues, the Gods who revealed themselves to the masses through the Initiated Priests and Adepts in the Egyptian, Chaldæan, Greek, and other temples.
As to the way of divining, or learning one's fate, and of being instructed by the teraphim,[439] it is explained quite plainly by Maimonides and Seldenus. The former says: