Then be it known, that in the sacred, i.e. Irish language, the word Sabh,[597] has three significations—firstly, voluptuousness, or the yoni; secondly, a snake, or sinuosity; and, thirdly, death or life! And in accordance with this triple import, if you roll back the leaves as far as p. 229, you will find in the plate inserted there, and which has been transcribed from the sculptures of the ancient Palencian city before alluded to, those three symbols, viz. the yoni, the serpent, and death, all united in design, and illustrating my development of that mysterious scene wherein—
“Eve tempting Adam by a serpent was stung.”[598]
The sculpture itself is intended to pourtray the situation of those progenitors of the human species in the Garden of Eden. And yet, striking as it is, would its tendency remain ever a secret, were it not for the instrumentality of the Irish language!
“That the society of free and accepted Masons possess a grand secret among themselves is an undoubted fact. What this grand secret is, or of what unknown materials it consists, mankind in general, not dignified with the order, have made the most ridiculous suppositions. The ignorant form incoherencies, such as conferring with the devil, and many other contemptible surmises, too tedious to mention, and too dull to laugh at. While the better sort, and more polished part of mankind, puzzle themselves with reflections more refined, though equally absurd. To dispel the opinionative mist from the eye of general error is the author’s intention; and however rash the step may be thought, that he, a mere atom in the grand system, should attempt so difficult, so nice a task, yet he flatters himself that he shall not only get clear over it, but meet with the united plaudits both of the public and of his brethren. And he must beg leave to whisper to the ignorant, as well as the judicious, who thus unwarrantably give their judgment, that the truth of this grand secret is as delicately nice as the element of air; though the phenomenon continually surrounds us, yet human sensation can never feelingly touch it till constituted to the impression by the masonic art. The principal, similar to the orb of light, universally warms and enlightens the principles, the first of which, virtue, like the moon, is heavenly chaste, attended by ten thousand star-bright qualifications. The masonic system is perfectly the emblem of the astronomic; it springs from the same God, partakes of the same originality, still flourishes in immortal youth, and but with nature will expire.”[599]
The contortions of the snake were easily transferred to the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. “When the ancients,” says Boulanger, “found out the true cycle of the sun, they coined names by a jeu de mots, or words, signifying its heat, or its course, that made up the number 365, as they had done before to make up 360. The name Sabasins, that has so much perplexed antiquaries and etymologists, is no more than a numerical name, which was given to Jupiter and to Bacchus as periodical deities. When the suppliant was initiated into the mysteries of Sabasins, a serpent, the symbol of revolution, was thrown upon his breast. Το ΣΑΒΟΕ, which the Greeks repeated so often in the feasts of Bacchus without understanding the meaning of the words, meant no more than the cycle of the year, from the Chaldean Sabb circuire vertere, etc. The ancient religion, which applied entirely to the motions of the heavens and periodical return of the stars, was for that reason named Sabianism, all derived from the Chaldee Seba, a revolution”; and this, though Boulanger knew it not, from the Irish Sabh, serpent, or pith.
Sabaism, therefore, and Ophiolatreia were all one with Gadelianism; and while, apparently, purporting to be the worship of the serpent and the stars, were in reality the worship of the Sabh or Yoni—so that the dialogue in Genesis between Eve and the serpent, was, in truth, a parley between Eve and the Yoni: and the materials for the allegory were afforded by the fact of serpent and yoni being both expressed in the sacred, i.e. Irish language, by one and the same name, just as the Lingam and the Tree of Knowledge have been before identified.
The mystery, then, of our ancient escutcheon, viz. a serpent twisted round a rod, resolves itself into the Yoni embracing the Lingam.
Hence, too, it was that the portals of all the Egyptian temples were decorated with the impress of the circle and the serpent. You see also, why the seasons, at the equinoxes and solstices, should have been marked upon the circle at p. 225; and you further see the mysterious tendency of the Prophet’s injunction to his children, when he said, “Remember that ye are Sabians,” to have been equivalent with—Keep constantly in view that you are the offspring of concupiscence, and, by the suggestion of the serpent, begotten in sin, the penalty of which, as a breach of the Creator’s commandments, is inevitable death, from which you are only extricated through the promised Redeemer, emanating from the same source which was before instrumental in entailing your sorrow!
Every syllable of this is hieroglyphically expressed upon the plate inserted at p. 223, where you observe the cockatrice, or snake-god, placed at the bottom; over him the crescent, or mysterious boot, i.e. yoni, the object seduced; and, finally, the cross in triumph over both, intimating emancipation by the vicarious passion of God’s own Son.
This, then, is my answer to V. W.’s question at p. 225, where he asks, “What relation had this with the Nehustan, or brazen serpent, to which the Israelites paid divine honours in the time of Hezekiah?”