Pagan Origin of Partialist Doctrines

by John Claudius Pitrat

The Syrians had consecrated in their temples the images of Pisces, (fishes,) one of the signs. The constellations Nesra, or Eagle, Aiyuk, or Goat, Yagutho, or Pleiades, and Suwaha, or Alhouwoa, and the Serpentarius were objects of idolatry among the ancient Sabians. These names are found even now in Hyde's commentary on Ulug-Beigh. Lucian writes that the whole religious system of the Egyptians was taken from the heaven. The most of the cities were founded and built under the inspection and protection of one of the signs of the Zodiac. Their horoscope was drawn; hence the images of stars on their medals. The medals of Antioch represent the Ram, (Aries) with the crescent of the moon; those of the Mamertines the image of the Bull, (Taurus); those of the kings of Comargene, the image of the Scorpion; and those of Zeugma and of Anazarba, the image of the Goat, (Capricornus). Nearly all the signs are found on the medals of the Antonines. The star Hesperus was on the national seal of the Locrians, of the Ozoles, and of the Opuntians.

Likewise we shall remark that the ancient feasts, or celebrations, were connected with the principal epochs of nature, and with the heavenly system. Everywhere the solsticial and equinoxial celebrations are found; even in our days the Catholics celebrate the beginning of each season of the year by fasting and abstaining from meat. Fohi, one of the most ancient emperors of China, ordered sacrifices to be offered to the gods at the commencement of each season. Four pavilions were erected to the moons of the four seasons. The ancient Chinese, Confucius says, established a sacrifice in honor of Chang-Ty, at the winter solstice, and one in the spring. The emperor alone has the privilege to preside at these two ceremonies, as being the son of heaven. The Greeks and the Romans did the same for like reasons.

The Persians have their Neurouz, or feast of the sun, when this king of the day passes under the Ram, or under the sign of the equinox of the spring. It is even now one of the greatest festivities in Persia. At the winter's solstice the ancient Egyptians led the sacred cow seven times around the temple; and at the equinox of the spring they solemnly celebrated the coming of the sun to once more vivify nature. The celebration of the triumph of fire and light took place in the city of the sun, in Assyria, and was called the celebration of wood-piles. The Catholic Church has borrowed this celebration from the heathen, and has fixed it on the Saturday before Easter.

The feasts celebrated by the Sabians to honor the planets, were fixed under the sign of their exaltation; sometimes under that of their mansion; so the feast of Saturn was celebrated by the Romans in December, under the Capricornus (Goat), mansion of this planet. All the celebrations of the old calendar of the Pontiffs were connected with the rise or setting of some constellation or star, as can be ascertained by reading the Fastes of Ovide. The religious genius of the Romans, and the relations of their celebrations with nature, are more especially seen in the games of the circus. The sun, the moon, the planets, the elements, the universe and its principal parts, were represented with emblems analagous to their nature. In the Hippodrome the sun was seen with steeds which imitated its course in the heavens.

The fields of Olympia were represented by a vast arena consecrated to the sun. In the middle there was a temple of this god, crowned with his image. The limits of the course of the sun, the Orient and the Occident, were traced, and marked by limits placed at the extremities of the circus. The races took place from the east to the west seven times, because of the seven planets. The sun, the moon, Jupiter and Venus, had each one a chariot. The Aurigæ or drivers, wore garments representing the colors of the elements. The chariot of the sun was drawn by four steeds, and that of the moon by two. The Zodiac was represented in the circus by twelve gates; and also the revolution of the major and minor Ursas. The sea, or Neptune, the earth, or Ceres, and the other elements, were personified in actors who contended for the prize.

The phases of the moon were also celebrated, and particularly the neomeny or new-moon; for temples images and mysteries had been dedicated to the god Month, or Mensis. All the ceremonial of the procession of Isis, described in Apuleo, refers to nature and its parts. The sacred hymns of the ancients had the same object, if we may judge of them by those of Orpheus. Chun, one of the most ancient emperors of China, ordered many hymns to be composed to honor the sun, the moon, the stars, etc. All the prayers contained in the books Zends had the same objects. The poetical chants of ancient authors, who have transmitted to us the theogonies of Orpheus, of Linus, of Hesiod, etc., relate to nature and its agents. Hesiod thus addresses the Muses: "Sing the gods immortal, sons of the earth and of the starry sky; gods born from the bosom of night, and nursed by the Ocean; the bright stars, the immense vault of the firmament, and the gods sprung from them; the sea, the rivers, etc."

The songs of Iopas, in the banquet offered by Dido to the Trojans, contain the lessons of the learned Atlas about the course of the sun and of the moon; about the origin of men, of animals, etc. In the Pastorals of Virgil, the old Silene sings the chaos and the organization of the world. Orpheus does the same in the Argonautics of Apollonius. The cosmogony of Sanchoniaton, or of the Phœnicians, conceals under the veil of allegories the great secrets of nature which were taught to those initiated. The philosophers who succeeded to the poets called all the parts of the universe divine. In the opinion of Pythagoras the celestial bodies were immortal and divine. The sun, the moon, and all the stars superabundantly contained heat, or principle of life. He placed the substance of the deity in the ethereal fire, of which the sun, he said, was the main focus.

Parmenides imagined a halo around the world, and called it the substance of the deity; the stars partook of the nature thereof. Alimeon of Crotona taught that the sun, the moon, and the stars were the gods. Antisthenes acknowledged but one deity, nature. Plato attributed divinity to the world, to the sky, to the stars, and to the earth. Xenocrates and Heraclides admitted eight great gods, the seven planets and the heaven of the fixed stars. Theophrastes called the stars and the celestial signs first causes. Zenon said that the ether, the stars, time and its parts were gods. Cleanthes admitted the dogma of the divinity of the universe, and more especially of the ethereal fire that envelops the spheres, and penetrates them. Diogene, the Babylonian, related the whole mythology to nature. Chrysippus held that the world was God. He placed the divine substance in the ethereal fire, in the sun, in the moon, in the stars, in one word, in nature and its principal parts. Anaximandre, Anaximenes and Zenon had the same belief.

From this exposition of the religious and political monuments of ancient peoples, of their celebrations, and of the opinions of their philosophers; and also of the historical facts brought forth before, we draw these two logical and vital conclusions:—

1st. Therefore the adoration of the vast body of nature, together with the great soul which was supposed to animate it; and of its principal parts and members, together with the multifarious emanations of the great soul which was supposed to animate them, was the former and universal religion of mankind (excepting the Hebrews) before the coming of Jesus Christ.