"Maia, supreme of gods, Immortal Night, tell me, &c." The next invocation is to the double-natured Protogonus—the bull coming from the egg, the renowned light, the ineffable strength, Priapus the king, &c.—"Metis (wisdom) bearing the seed of the gods, whom the blessed inhabitants of Olympus call Phanes Protogonus." "Metis the first father and all-delightful Eros." Again, in allusion to Phanes,—
"Therefore the first god bears with himself the heads of animals—many and single—of a bull, of a serpent, and of a fierce lion, and they sprung from the primeval egg in which the animal is seminally contained." "The theologist places around him the heads of a ram, a bull, a lion, and a dragon, and assigns him first both the male and female sex." "Female and Father is the mighty god Ericapeus; to him also the wings are first given."
The Japanese account of the creation is of sufficient interest to be noticed here. I quote it from a translation of the Annals of the Emperors of Japan, by Mons. Titsingh, assisted by interpreters of the Dutch Factory at Nagasaki, and rendered into French, after being duly compared with the original by M. J. Klapworth—(printed for the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland; London, 1834). In the account of the seven generations of the heavenly bodies, we are told that "anciently the heaven and the earth were not distinct, nor was the female principle then separated from the male. The chaos, having the form of an egg, moved about like the waves of an agitated sea. The germs of everything were there, and these ultimately divided, the pure and transparent ones going upward to form heaven, whilst the dull and opaque ones coagulated and formed the earth. Between the two a divine being sprang up; he was followed by two others in succession." All these were pure males, and engendered without consorts. After them came a male and a female deity, but they had no intercourse with each other. These and three other divine couples, who followed them, reproduced their like by mutual contemplation. The last couple directed the "celestial spear made of a red precious stone"—said by Japanese commentators to be the phallus—into the world below, and stirred it up to the bottom. On withdrawing the lance some drops fell from it and produced an island, upon which the celestial couple descended. Each one then began to walk in opposite directions around the isle, and when they met the feminine spirit sang joyously—"I am delighted to find so handsome a young man." But this vexed the male spirit, who, being a man, asserted that he ought to have been allowed to speak the first. So they parted once more on their solitary walk; and when they met the second time, the woman waited to be spoken to. Then followed a conversation somewhat too coarse for repetition, which was followed by corporeal union. From the intercourse of these divine beings all creation sprang. But, after a time, the partners reflected that there was still wanting a governor for the world which they had engendered. So they again accoupled, and produced a daughter so lovely, that her parents thought her too good for earth; gave her the name of "the precious wisdom of the heavenly sun," and sent her to heaven, there to assume the universal government of all things. The parents once again united, and produced the moon, who was sent to heaven to assist her sister. A terrible fellow was then born from them, who represents the Devil, or those tempests which seem to oppose the beneficent action of the sun upon the soil. The parents returned to heaven, and there are constant contentions between the brother and sister. The former is described as being furious under attempts at control; generally, he was quiet, and always had tears in his eyes (dew and rain), but sometimes, when provoked, he broke every thing, uprooted trees, and set the mountain forests on fire. We need not pursue the story further than to say that the celestial beings created a terrestrial couple, whose children bear considerable resemblance to the Greek Jupiter, Apollo, Neptune, and others, and from them came the first Emperors of Japan. In the matter of evidence upon such a point as the conception of a man without a woman, or a woman without a man, it is clear that unsupported assertion is wholly valueless.
For example, I may for a time absent myself from general society, and return to it again after a certain interval, having with me a child, whom I assert to be my very own, produced by my own inherent power, just as a tree produces a leaf which grows, matures, and falls. I may frame a romantic account of a dream, in which I was told that if I planted myself in the central bed of a certain garden, and contrived an apparatus for daily watering my buried legs, that a child would sprout from my right side, who should be to me as a daughter. Yet, however ingenious my tale, there is not any one possessing sound sense and knowledge who would believe me. In like manner, if a woman should tell a story analogous, though not identical, she is certain to be discredited; even the assertion of the existence of a divine father would not, if the woman were unmated, save her character from a stain.
We may next refer to the legend of Prometheus, inasmuch as in many points it resembles the Hebrew mythos so greatly, that we must imagine they both have a common origin, or that the one is a copy—though an indifferent one, of the other. Prometheus, or forethought, was represented to be the first who made an ordinary man—he formed him of clay, and then animated him with fire from heaven. The Jewish tale asserts that it was Jehovah who made the first man. That man was first formed like a statue out of clay or dust, and had no life until breath was infused into his nostrils. In both stories man alone is formed first. In the Grecian fable Prometheus does not make a consort for his man; nay, he refuses to receive one for himself when the gods send to him Pandora—a paragon of loveliness. Instead of this he gives the damsel to Epimetheus—or after-thought—who takes her carelessly, and finds that even a charming woman is not a guarantee against cares and woes. Some accounts, however, say that Prometheus made both man and woman out of clay.
The discrepancy does not signify much, for we see the same in Genesis, wherein we are told in one place that man and woman were made together, whilst in another the story runs that Adam preceded Eve, and that, instead of being formed of dust or clay, the latter was formed of bone.
We may now refer to the story of Apollonius Tyaneus, whose history has interest for us, inasmuch as it illustrates three important points, upon which much stress has been, and may still be, laid by inquiring minds. The most conspicuous is the propensity of historians, or, to speak more correctly, of a biographer, to record wonderful things about an extraordinary man; next the ridicule cast upon the tale by those who have circulated stories equally improbable, and the indication that travel to Hindostan was apparently common, prior to and during his time. In sketching the life of the philosopher, I quote something from Le Dictionnaire Infernal, and the rest from Smith's Biographical Dictionary. The philosopher in question was born about 4 years B.C. His history was written by Philostratus, about 100 years after the hero's death, and is ostensibly founded upon memoirs left by his secretary, Damis, an Assyrian, who accompanied Apollonius during his travels, and recorded his discourses and prophecies, and acted much as Luke did with Paul.
Amongst the proofs which Damis gives of his veracity, he tells us that when he and his master traversed the Caucasus, they saw the chains which bound Prometheus, still fixed to the rocks. This bit of verification is now derided, but in my school-days I recollect having an account put into my hands, written by some author, stating that the remains of the ark were still to be seen upon Mount Ararat.*
* On the day before this was written there appeared in The
Telegraph a paragraph, to the effect that an Assyrian slab
had been translated by Mr. Smith of the British Museum. The
record is said to give an account of "the deluge," and it
tallies nearly with that given by Berosus, recorded in my
second volume. It adds, however, that the ark was at that
period in existence, and its wood and bitumen used as
amulets. Singularly enough, the tale is supposed to confirm
the bible legend, the writer of the paragraph never dreaming
that it more certainly confirms the Babylonian or Assyrian
origin of the book of Genesis. The other parts of this slab,
which were wanting, have more recently been found. But there
is no necessity for me to change the wording of the note.
There was also current a "Joe Miller" about some old woman, who would not believe in flying-fish, which her sailor-boy had seen, but who readily believed his tale of hooking up a chariot wheel on an anchor fluke from the bottom of the Red Sea!