You will, furthermore, observe how that they all wear the philibeg, like our crucified effigy at p. 296, and our war-god, Phearagh, at p. 138. Each of them, also, is adorned with the cross, as the passport of their redemption: while the three divinities, delineated in the Irish scenes, have these as their counterparts in the temple of Nubia.
Abbe Pluché states, that “the figures of those gods brought from Egypt into Phœnicia, wore on their heads leaves and branches, wings and globes, which,” he adds, “appeared ridiculous to those who did not comprehend the signification of these symbols, as happened to Cambyses, King of Persia, but these represented Isis, Osiris, and Horus.”
“In the Gentleman’s Magazine for November, 1742, is an account,” says Vallancey, “of two silver images, found under the ruins of an old tower, which had raised various conjectures and speculations amongst the antiquaries; they were about three inches in height, representing men in armour, with very high helmets on their heads, ruffs round their necks, and standing on a pedestal of silver, holding a small golden spear in their hands. The account is taken from the Dublin papers. The writer refers to Merrick’s translation of Tryphiodorus, an Egyptian, that composed a Greek poem on the destruction of Troy, a sequel to Homer’s Iliad, to show that it was customary with the ancients, at the foundation of a fort or city, to consecrate such images to some titular guardians, and deposit them in a secret part of the building; where he also inserts a judicious exposition of a difficult text of Scripture on that subject.”
The above extract was indited long before the publication of those Nubian antiquities; and, consequently, when neither the contributor to the magazine, nor the quoter from its columns, had any knowledge of their existence. Its production, therefore, must be valuable here, as showing not only the connection of the idols with the Round Tower ceremonial, but also that the helmets of the Nubian gods had been adopted in the effigies of some of those amongst us.
I terminate my proofs of the primeval crucifixion, by the united testimonies of the Budhists and the Free-Masons.
“Though the punishment of the cross,” says the Asiatic Researches, “be unknown to the Hindus, yet the followers of Buddha have some knowledge of it, when they represent Deva Thot (that is, the god Thot) crucified upon an instrument resembling a cross, according to the accounts of some travellers to Siam.”
“Christianity,” says Oliver, “or the system of salvation through the atonement of a crucified Mediator, was the main pillar of Freemasonry ever since the fall.”
Let me point your notice now to some consequences of that mysterious fact. I begin by asking—