This very extraordinary work, which I could not sufficiently admire, has very often entertain’d my thoughts. We see an uniformity in human nature throughout all ages. We build our churches, especially cathedrals, in a cross, the symbol or cognizance of Christianity; the first builders of churches did it in the symbol of the deity, which was pictur’d out with great judgment, and that (most likely) from the beginning of the world.
The circle and wings was the picture of the deity, which the old Egyptian hierophants call’d CNEPH. As there were three varieties in this figure, so they had more names than one for it, I mean the whole figure, the circle, serpent, and wings. And sometimes they used one word, sometimes another, and sometimes conjoin’d them. Eusebius in pr. ev. III. 3. writes, “that the Egyptians painted God, whom they call’d Kneph, like a man in a blue garment, holding a circle and serpent (not scepter, for no such figure ever appears) and on his head, feathers or wings.” Now this very figure is seen on the portals of the Persian temple of Chilminar. Authors are not sufficiently accurate in these matters, for want of a more perfect knowledge of them. Cneph is properly the alate circle; yet sometimes they call the whole figure by that name. So a feather or two, or wings, are often plac’d on the heads of the Egyptian deities; but the picture above-mention’d at Chilminar has the wings, as more commonly, annexed to the circle.
Phtha was another name of one of these figures, which they sometimes join’d to the preceding, and made the word Cnephtha. Kircher erroneously calls it Hemptha; for before him Iamblichus err’d in calling Cneph, Emeph. Strabo calls Cneph, Cnuphis, and says his temple was at Syene, XVII. Undoubtedly a temple some way of this form. Athenagoras in Eroticis VI. calls him Κνεφαιος, Cnepheus; and says, “he can’t be seen by our eyes, nor comprehended by our mind.” Hesychius, and the etymologist Suidas, voce κνεφυς, interpret the word, obscure, hidden, not to be seen or understood. Iamblichus and Proclus the like, who make Amûn and Phtha the same, Prov. viii. 30. The truth is, the word Cneph comes from the hebrew ענף ganaph volare, to fly, קנף a wing, Psal. xviii. 11. He rode upon the cherubim, and did fly.
Phtha, in Suidas called φθάς, is deriv’d, on the authority of Kircher and Huetius, from the hebrew פתה the same as the greek word πειθω, to persuade, suada in latin. It regards more particularly the serpent, the emblem of eloquence, and the divine WORD. In Arabic it signifies the son. So that Cnephtha means the entire figure, the circle, snake and wings. The supreme had no name. They held him ineffable, as well as invisible. Whence they call’d the Jehovah of the jews an uncertain or unknown deity, or the deity without a name. Herodotus in Euterpe writes, “he heard from the priests of Dodona, that the ancient Pelasgians made their prayers and sacrifices to the deity without any name or sirname, for at that time they knew none.” Iamblichus’s interpretation of Phtha is very little different. He says, “It signifies him that performs all things in truth, and without lying.” The Egyptians called this Phtha Vulcan, and say, he was the son of the supreme God; whom Cicero makes the guardian god of Egypt, who was the author of all the philosophy of the Egyptians, according to Diogenes Laertius in proem. And this is that most ancient deity of the Egyptians who was particularly design’d by the serpent. And hence the fables of the greeks make Vulcan the only son of Juno, without the help of her husband. Again, they make Pallas produc’d out of Jupiter’s brain, who wore the Ægis or snaky breast-plate, which originally was no other than our great prophylactic hierogramma, the circle and snake, us’d by the most ancient warriors as a sacred preservative. Medusa’s head is the very same, a circle, wings, and snakes. But the delicate greeks new drest it, and made the circle into a beautiful face, more agreeable to their taste of things. And its turning men into stones means, at the bottom, nothing but the making our serpentine temples in that form by the first heroes, who bore this cognizance in their shields.
But to return to CNEPH, the deity to whom these winged temples are dedicate. It became the chief and more famous name. Whence Porphyry in Eusebius’s pr. ev. III. 11. calls this Cneph the creator, Plutarch, de Is. & Os. testifies, “the inhabitants in Thebais, or the remotest part of Egypt, worshipped only the eternal God Cneph, and paid nothing toward the charge of idolatrous worship in the other parts of that kingdom.” Thus we see, those countries farthest separated from the busy part of the world, such as Thebais and Britain, retain’d the pure and ancient religion: which bishop Cumberland too asserts, Sanchon. p. 15. of Thebais, before Abraham’s time. Strabo says, “there was a temple of Cnuphis (as he writes it) at Syene, the farther part of Thebais:” which must be understood of one of our winged temples originally, tho’ probably afterwards built upon, cover’d, and become idolatrous. “Hence the Ethiopians, neighbours to those of Thebais, living still in the upper regions of Egypt,” says Strabo, “worship two gods, the one the immortal creator, the other mortal, who has no name, nor is easily to be apprehended.” Here we find they have a notion of the supreme and his son. Their opposite neighbours across the red sea, worshipped only two gods, τον Διον καὶ τον Διονυσον, Jovem & Jovem Nysæum, God, and the God of Nysa. This is what is meant by the two principles of Pythagoras, mention’d by Plutarch de plac. philos. unity and indefinite duality, the sacred Dyas of Plato. Whence Diodorus in his I. writes, “that the Egyptians declar’d there were two first eternal Gods.” These they express’d by the names of unity and duality. I do not believe that they found this out by their own understanding and reasoning, but had it from patriarchal tradition. And then their own reasoning would confirm it. For it is altogether agreeable to reason, arguing from the fecundity of the first cause. The Greeks turned Cneph into their Neptune, the sovereign of the waters, from what the hebrew legislator writes in the beginning of his cosmogony; “and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” The word Neptune comes from Cneph and דניא Dunia, orbis, circulus, the winged circle. And this probably will give us some light into the reason, why we find our winged temple of Barrow upon the banks of that noble æstuary, the Humber. I wonder’d indeed how it should come about, that the Druids should so studiously place this work under the verge of the high land, and upon the brink of the salt marsh; so that every high tide washes or overflows the skirts of it, whilst the freshwater brook runs close under it. At this time it must have presented them with the agreeable picture of the sacred hieroglyphic, hovering over both fresh and salt-water.
I observ’d a line, or little bank and ditch, cast up above our figure, which I judg’d to be done with an intent to keep off the inundation of the ocean at the times of sacrifice, which seems to have been perform’d within that inclos’d area, where I have set the figure of the compass in the engraven view. Likewise just without that line, eastward, I remarked three little square plots, which perhaps were habitations of the Druids who were keepers of the temple.
’Tis not from the purpose to take notice of one of the greatest fix’d stars of the heavens, at the bottom of the constellation call’d the ship, having the name of Canopus, which is no other than our word Cneph. This star had this name given it by the Egyptians, as appearing to them just above the edge of the southern horizon. And in their spheres, we may very well presume, they painted it as a winged circle, and because it always appear’d as hovering over the horizon or great ocean.
————O numen aquarum
Proxima cui cœlo cessit, Neptune, potestas. Ov. Met. IV.
So that originally the ancients understood the spirit or soul of the universe, or more properly the divine spirit, by this figure which they call’d KNEPH, which the European nations call’d Neptune, sovereign of the waters. So often by the poets call’d Ενοσιχθων, Ενοσιγαιων, the shaker of the earth; for the waters in Moses means the Hyle, or moist matter of chaos whence the universe was made.