The Long Barrow S. of Silbury Hill.
An Archdruids barrow.
No wonder then, from such reasons as these, and others as obvious, the ancients concluded this to be the most divine of all animals, and thought it the aptest symbol of the Νους ἑτερος, the other, or second mind of Plato, whom they affirmed to be the creator of the world. I know not whether this notion of theirs did not farther contribute to it; they thought these animals brought forth by the mouth. They have too no limbs, or members for action, but exert their mighty power by the mouth only; whence Horus Apollo says, “a serpent is the symbol of the mouth.” This well represents the omnific WORD, which Suidas speaks of from Trismegistus, all perfect, fruitful, the workman, creator of the world.
CHAP. XII.
The second sort of temples called Dracontia, like that of Abury, have been built frequently in old times. The traces of them pursued. Part of the history of Phut, third son of Cham. A genealogy of the most ancient sacred and heathen families. Phut had a fleet of ships upon the Mediterranean. The Typhon, Typhis, Python of antiquity, called Apollo Pythius after death. He was a builder of these serpentine temples. Like the emperor Augustus in countenance. He erected the first patriarchal temple at Delphos, a Dracontium. Parnassus originally Larnassus, which is no other than our Hakpen of Abury. The sabbath observed there originally. Ææas, a son of Phut’s, built the Dracontium at Colchis. Perseus, another son of his, bore the sacred hierogram, the circle, snake, and wings, in his shield; whence the Medusa’s head.
ZOroaster Magus, in Euseb. p. e. II. 7. Plato, Porphyry, and others of the old philosophers, define God to be every where and no where, who fills all space, and is contain’d in none; “from whom came all things that are, and which are not yet; eternal, immutable, omnipresent, incomprehensible, immaterial, without parts, beginning or end.” If we put this definition into a geometrical figure, in order to form a symbol, we cannot possibly do it better than by describing the circle. A circle then in hieroglyphics means, divine; but particularly, as it is the most perfect and comprehensive of all geometrical figures, they design’d it for the symbol of the first and supreme being; whose resemblance we cannot find, whose center is every where, and circumference no where. It well pictur’d out, as Abenephi the Arabian and others assert, the divine nature of God.
Therefore this figure of the serpent and circle in their doctrine, aptly means the divine creator, or the creator descended from the supreme. For tho’ the deity was author of all things, yet more immediately this SON or WORD of the supreme was the architect of the universe.
And this we find exactly consonant to the scripture doctrine. So that it seems very evident to me, the most important of divine truths admitted in the christian church, were imparted to the first race of mankind, the patriarchal church, which two are in reality but the same.