Whether these abstract and metaphysical notions would occur to a mind wholly unacquainted with any doctrine of this sort, may be matter of doubt; but when propos’d to a serious and contemplative genius, they would be embraced and improved, as agreeable to reason; and as an advance towards the most sublime and most useful knowledge of all others, that of the nature of the deity.
2. The very learned Schedius, in his treatise de mor. germ. XXIV. speaking of the Druids, confirms exceedingly all that we have said on this head. He writes, “that they seek studiously for an oak-tree, large and handsome, growing up with two principal arms, in form of a cross, beside the main stem upright. If the two horizontal arms are not sufficiently adapted to the figure, they fasten a cross-beam to it. This tree they consecrate in this manner. Upon the right branch they cut in the bark, in fair characters, the word HESUS: upon the middle or upright stem, the word TARAMIS: upon the left branch BELENUS: over this, above the going off of the arms, they cut the name of God, THAU: under all the same repeated, THAU.”
We cannot possibly understand otherwise, than that by this they intended to show the unity in the divine nature; for every word signifies God emphatically, and in their general acceptation, Thau especially. The other three words have each particularly a more restrained sense, regarding the oeconomy of the deity or godhead. And this is Schedius his opinion.
This tree, so inscribed, they make their kebla in the grove, cathedral, or summer-church, toward which they direct their faces in the offices of religion, as to the ambre stone or the cove in the above described temples of Abury. Like as the Christians to any symbol or picture over the altar. And hence the writers got a notion of their worshipping trees; and of these names belonging to so many gods: which serves the poets to descant upon. But if we examine them to their origin, they are easily to be reduc’d to orthodoxy.
The word Hesus means the supreme God in the celtic language, as ESAR among the Hetruscans. Sueton. in Aug. It was pronounced Eisar, as the germans pronounce Cæsar, Keisar. It comes from the hebrew ה Ei, and סר Lord, שר Prince. ה is emphatically the name of the divinity, as השם το ονομα, the NAME Jehovah, Levit. xxiv. 11. 16. Hence ה or EI, inscribed over the door of the temple at Delphos, of which Plutarch has wrote. It was the way of the babylonish monarchs to assume divine names, as Esar-adon, signifying no less than God the Lord. Esi is God, says Hesychius. In the arabic it signifies the Creator, says Dickenson delph. phœnic. But these authors do not go to the bottom, for it comes from AS or AT, signifying God the father. Ἄτα or Ἄττα, with the Greeks is pater. The Armenians call it Αδς, the Egyptians Ὠτ, those of Sarmatia and Slavonia Ος: says the learned Baxter, v. Ascania, gloss. ant. Rom. where he has much of ancient learning upon it. This is the Atys of the Phrygians.
Belenus is the Baal in scripture, us’d originally to be spoken of the true God Jehovah, ’till adopted into idolatry. Belus of the Assyrians. If we examine the word to the bottom, it means God the son. Βηλ, in the babylonic language is the son, Βηλτις the daughter. He is the Apollo of the Latins.
Tharamis is the same as Tat, Thoth of the Egyptians, Thor of the northern nations, call’d more particularly the spirit: lord of the air, from the wings being symbolical of him; and hence made the thunderer, from the Phœnician and celtick Tarem. He was sometimes call’d Theutates, the Mercury of the Latins, who was particularly worshipped by the Germans, says Tacitus de mor. germ. Cæsar the same, VI. bell. gall. Hence the Greeks dress’d their Mercury with a winged cap, and winged heels, which was no other than the circulus alatus we have been speaking of. He bears a staff in his hand, with a globe on the end of it with wings and snakes. The Phœnicians call’d him Taautus. Sanchoniathon, Varro IV. de ling. lat.
So in the temple of Belus or the sun, at Edessa in Mesopotamia, in idolatrous times, by his statue was another of Ezizus, who is our Hesus, and another of Mercury, whom they call Monimus. Julian, in his hymn to the sun, mentions the same. And so generally the true theology communicated to mankind from the beginning, was perverted into polytheism and idolatry.
3. So by the tree came death, by the tree came life, which the Druids seem to have had some knowledge of. Ruffinus II. 29. affirms the cross among the Egyptians was an hieroglyphic importing the life that is to come. Sozomen the same, hist. eccl. VII. 15. and Suidas. Isidore tells, “it was the method of the muster-masters in the roman army, in giving in the lists of the soldiers, to mark with a cross the name of the man that was alive; with a Θ him that was dead.”
The ancient inhabitants of America honour’d the form of the cross. So the conjurers in Lapland use it. Which intimate this hieroglyphic to be most ancient, probably antediluvian.