’Tis next to our present purpose, to consider that famous oracle of Jupiter Ammon in Africa, to be referr’d to the most early times of idolatry: render’d illustrious by Alexander the Great taking a journey to it. Which gives us the opportunity of knowing somewhat of it.
Quamvis Æthiopum populis, Arabumq; beatis
Gentibus, ac Indis, unus sit Jupiter Ammon. Lucan.
All these nations, with Egypt and Africa, were peopled by the posterity chiefly of Ham. They were the first that fell into idolatry, and worshipped their common progenitor, call’d Amynus, in Sanchoniathon. Hecateus says, Amoûn, as the Egyptians write it, is the word of those that invoke god, and that they meant somewhat very mysterious by it. The history of its origin is this. Bacchus, the hero, or demigod, travelling through the sandy desarts of Africa, with a great army, was perishing with thirst; he pray’d to his father Jupiter for relief, who sent a ram that show’d him a spring, sav’d him and his host. Out of gratitude, the hero builds a temple there, to the deity who thus aided him under the form of a ram. There is no room to doubt, that this is in part copied from the transaction of the children of Israel, in the Arabian wilderness. They have added to it, a name and notion borrowed from patriarchal tradition, of a divine person, symboliz’d by a ram; horned, anointed, which is all one. We christians mean Messiah. Innumerable passages in old authors, which I might cite, innumerable monuments of antiquity in sculpture, shew, that Jupiter Ammon was figur’d as a ram, with a ram’s head, with rams horns. They applied the patriarchal notion of the Messiah, to their progenitor Ham, in an idolatrous way: and deified him under that character. There is a very remarkable passage in Herodotus, which, it is worth our while, to transcribe.
Stukeley d.
Prospect from the west end of the Cursus of Stonehenge.
A. the eastern meta. B. the eastern wing of the avenue. C. Stonehenge.
In Euterpe cap. 42. that author tells us, why the Theban Egyptians pay so great a regard to the sheep. “Hercules on his importunity to Jupiter, that he might have the honour personally to see him, at length prevail’d. And the god consented to exhibit himself to his view, under this device. viz. Jupiter cut off a ram’s head, put the skin over his own head, and thus appear’d to Hercules. Whence the Egyptians made the statue of Jupiter, with a ram’s head, and call Jupiter Ammôun. Whence they hold sheep for sacred animals, never kill them but once a year, upon the festival day of Jupiter, when only one ram is sacrificed, and his head put upon the statue of Jupiter; all that are there present, beat the ram, and at last he is buried in a sacred urn.”
It is impossible not to see, that this is derived from that history recorded, Exodus xxxiii. Moses desires of Jehovah repeatedly, that he might see him. He calls it seeing his glory. He is answer’d at length. “I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of Jehovah before thee. Thou canst not see my face, but I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and cover thee with my hand, whilst I pass by. Thou shalt see my back parts only.” Here he notoriously promises Moses, that he shall see him, in a symbolical form. In the next chapter, Jehovah descended in the luminous cloud, or Shechinah, and proclaimed the name of Jehovah; recites those attributes that relate to his dealings with mankind, in the strongest point of light; “his goodness and mercy, and long-suffering, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin: but adds, he will by no means clear the guilty, but visit the fathers iniquity upon the children.” Wherein our original and fatal transgression is sufficiently intimated, and that God’s justice is equal to his mercy; and the necessity of a divine redemption by sacrifice, which in scripture language is call’d, “the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”