Section 8 (Page xix)
EGYPT. xix have been the religious belief of Egypt in later times, at Primitive an earlier period of history its inhabitants held some points,
Egypt* at least, in common with the descendants of Abraham.
The wisdom of Egypt, in which Solomon was skilled, 1Kin*" indicates the notoriety of its intellectual proficiency.
At a subsequent period Herodotus speaks of Egypt's reli gious theory with veneration, and refers to this source the knowledge that his countrymen possessed of the 'soul's immortality :
Y\p5>roi TovSe top \6yov AiyvirTio'i eicri o't elirovres, cos dvQpwirov ^v^ri dOdvaTo? ecrri.
It a fair inference therefore that certain modified forms of reli gious truth were never wholly lost to the sages of Egypt.
The sacred torch was still sent on is
from hand to hand,
until the foundation was laid of the Alexandrian school of philosophy, which the more ancient and truer elements of the Egyptian theosophy helped to consolidate.
The origin of Egyptian as of every other form of polytheism may be traced to the custom, so widely preva lent in the ancient heathen systems, of expressing different functions and attributes of the Deity by different names; which were divided out again according to the varying phases of the divine energy.
This, which more or less is true of the Persian and Indian systems, pre-eminently is HEBOD.
113. And yet HlPPOLYSokci Si pot roiovrbv ti TreTroiTjKimi, lis
Tl'S makes his predecessor Heraclitus et rts rjj Myimi? iirtSrj/i-/i(ras, tvBa ol speak doubtfully of the soul's dissoluphi Aiyvirrluv <ro0ol, (card rd rrdrpia tioti, ov phvov Si tovtOj (/yaffil/, Troirjral ypdfifiara, jroMa tpiKoaoipoikri rrepl rwv ol Si \iyovtrw, dXY r)Si\ Kal aotptlrrwroi. rCiv Trap' avToh vevop.iapivoiv ffeluv, ol ol 'EKKrjvojv, iZv tori Kal 'HpdicXeiTos els, ISiunai p.66ovs rivas aKoOvavres, <3vrobs yap Odvaros, vSup ycvi- \oyous ovk iirlo-TavTai, p.6ya 4tt' avrdis \4ywVj $i>xys cl (ppovowiv, tpero irdvTa rd klyvm-lw cOai. HlPPOL. PkU.
16.
MILLER is clearly wrong in printing efr as part of iyvwKivaf rots ISubrais airrwv uadrp-eijthe quotation qualifying Odvaros.
By eras, Kal yuijSeW tCw Upiuv ovpfu^as, p.r)d' meant watery vapour; dirb twos avr&v rd AlyvirTlajv dirbp,pr}Ta Coup doubtless is cf. Eoseb. Pr. E. XV. 20, Tifywv ^"XV" ftaQ&y.
And the same observation ap- \tya ato-0Tio-a> ava6vp.lao-u>, KaSdrrep plies, as he proceeds to say, to the i) 'HpditXeiros.
Syrian, Persian, and Indian systems.
Obigen seems to say as much of c.
Cds.
12.
Several suggestive pas-
i. sages also are found in Isoob. £ik. Bits. the Egyptian sages, even in his day :
XX EGYPT.
Theosophy so of the main foundation of the Greek mythology, the 1 Here the idea of the Deity is broken up into physical.
Egyptian. a system that symbolises the beneficent operations of nature throughout the year ; while Isis, Osiris, and other objects of religious veneration, for ever reappear by a fanciful nomenclature, and become the symbols of varied attribute.
Plutarch refers the whole orderly work of Creation to the secondary Gods, Isis and Osiris : evl yap \6yw Koivti tovs 8eovi tovtovs irepl iraaav ayaQov noipav rjyovfieOa T€Ta-^Qai, Kal irav, oaov evetrri Tt\ (pvaei, koXov koi ayuvov eta tovtovs vwap-^eiv, too fxev oiooi'Ta ras apyas, Tt}v $e Seyofxeviji'
Kal Stave/movaav2.
Hence we may consider these 'congenital deities to re
present the Divine Ideal of the universe ; the ancient refer ence of Isis to etSw by a false etymon, may be ideally true, and the expression of its substantial investment in form ; and the perfect infiguration of the Divine plan of Crea tion in the Supreme Mind being involved in the notion of Divine Prescience, it is not difficult to conceive that Plato, who never hesitated to import from other philosophical or religious systems, ideas that he considered to be good and true, may have taken the first notion of his Divine Ideas from the Egyptian Isiacal theosophy, and that the gnos tic teachers of Alexandria may have found fundamental theories, that we refer to Plato, among the arcana of the Egyptian hierophants.
Of this we have some indication.
Isis and Osiris, in the Egyptian system, symbolised pre-existent form and 1 Von dieser charakteristischen Sitte den ferner besondere Namen beigelegt der orientalischen Religion, und auch zur Bezeichnung besondercr Verhiiltder^gyptischen, die Hauptiiusserungen nisso eines und desselben Wesens einesGrundwesensinbesonderePersonen Die bestandige Vergegenwiirtigung jezu zcrlegen, und dann wieder zu cinem ner Sitte kann allein vor vielen MissBegriffe zu verbinden, zeigen selbst die verstiindnissen in den alten Religionen .^gyptischen Gotternamen Spuren in bewahren.
Creuzer, St/mbolil; I. 295.
Composition, wie Semphucrates, Hernia- * ft. et Of. 64. pion, und unzahlige andere.
Daher wer- * See p. xxiii. n.
EGYPT.
XXI 1 airoTeXeo-fxa or embodyTheosophy ing of the Divine iSeai in s material substance.
3Plutarch phySfSi! matter, while Horus exhibited the says, that Isis was known by three other names closely descriptive of the subjectivity of matter.
But he also derives the name of the goddess from e'tSw, *scio, as leading her votaries to a true knowledge tov ''Oi/toj.
It would have been more conformable to the Egyptian reli gious system based as it was upon physical phenomena, if he had said that the name symbolised a knowledge of the Deity, as revealed in the sensible world, the ground work of all natural religion, as the Apostle has said
; AioVt Rom.Li9^o. to yvwGTov tov Qeov, (pavepov eaTiv ev au rots' o yap Geos
avTols e(pavepbiae' to. yelp aopaTa avTov airo KTiaews Koaixou to?$ Troijy/uao-! vooufieva KaOoparat, f\ ts atotos avTov 6v>>a/uis teal 06«ot>7?.
Plutarch, towards the close of the same trea tise, says, that the name conveys the notion of 'rational energy ; Osiris being the generative or plastic principle.
1 This term, as used by Philo, is to some such Egyptian myth.
Compare also the words of Damascius, oi Si lota, as matter is to mind ; on Gen. ii. c, lie asks, dpa ouk ipupavws t&s iauiiiAlyvimoi KaB'
■qpAs<pi\bao<poi yeyovbris, tovs Kal vorjras ISias Traplorrqaw, as rdv i^'fpieyKav avrwv r^jv dXtjBetav KeKpvp.piivrpi, cipbvTcs if Alyvm-lois 5i) rial Xbyois, alaOrjrwv diroTekttjpATUiv cippayLSas ffV/£~ f34prjK<=; De M, Op. 44.
Plotaeoh ap fiiv p.la tuv SXtov us eti) kot' airrobs T) ipxh ck6tos iyvaaroe.
Wolf, plies the term as though it involved the A need.
Gr. Tom. m. 260. combination of matter with ideal form ; Si "Ieris tariv the Kal MobB, Kal Kal rbv fibf "Ociptv ws dpxty, tt^v Si *Xffw
fi TrdXiv'ABvpi Kal T&eBiep Tpocayopeverai' ws inrob'oxhv, rbv Si*Qpov ws cbrorAeflyAa. ot]fialvov<Fi Si tQ p.iv TpwTW twv 6vop.d~ de Is. et Os.
56.
The reader may apply this in illustration of note 4, p. 352. twv pnrripa, Tip bi Sevripw oXkov "ftpov * Eudoxus, who was of the Pytha xbcfjuov, ws Kal HXdrtov, xwpav yevicews Kal Se^apUvrpf' rb Si Tplrov ffvy&eriw (otiv gorean school, antecedently to Plato, (k tc tov irXiipovs Kal tov oItIov.
Plut. shews, by an Egyptian myth of some antiquity, that the Divine wisdom, exist de Is. et Os.
56. ing eternally in Suvd/nei, by means of Isis, existed also h tvepyela, in esse, as well as in posse.
The application of the tov 5' lepov ToSvopLa Kal cantos iirayyeXXerai Kal yvwjw koI etSijirw tov * Svtos' oyofidi^erat yap 'Iireiov uis elffopAis, alvlTrcrat Si myth applied at p. xl. vwv rb bv, av ptera Xbyov Kal ballot els to.
Upa iraplXBwp.a> tt}s Beov. Plut.
Is.
Kal Sid, tovtwv p.iBos, Sri KaB' iavrbv et b tov Beov i>ovs Kal \&yos iv t$ Aopdru Os. c. «.
Sib rb fiiv *l<ru> KaXovat rapa rb
Kal dipavei /3e^))iciis, els yeveo-w inrb Kivi)aews irporjXBev.
Is. et Os. 62. The Gnos Uadai /xer' iiruT^piris koI ipipeaBai, kiVtjtic BvBos and were borrowed from aa> ovsav (p.^/vxo» Kal <ppivip.ov. c. 60.
xxii EGYPT. tian But in another point of view Isis represented the Divine J^e'ai themselves, for the goddess fully bears out Creuzer's assertion, that the Egyptian deities respectively symbolised several distinct functions or phases of the Divine energy ; so 'Isis is identified with Nr/lO the Egyptian Athene, the Divine Intellect or Nous, according to Plato's derivation in the Cratylus, Qeou voricris. If Plutarch is not mistaken, Isis was the same with the self-existent Divine Wisdom
; and the Greek myth, that Athene in full panoply sprung from the brain of Jove, was derived from the Saitic temple.
The goddess, however, not only represented the Divine Intellectual conception of the uuiverse, antecedently to the
union of the forms, so conceived, with gross matter, as Minerva, according to Varro, in the 2Samothracian theology represented the Platonic 3 irapaSelyna, or ideas of things create, but the Egyptian divinity symbolised the Divine 1 The Saitic temple of Isis, bearing tho ircurfryvpit as being in honour of Athene, II.
59 ; he infers also that archives were inscription mentioned at p. xviii. is re ferred to N?;W by Plato, as the Egyptian
Athene, where, in speaking of the inha bitants of Sais, Tim. 21 E, he says, oU rfjs there preserved, 28, and mentions the sepulchral cells of its kings, 169, 170; and a colossal recumbent figure in gra nite, 176; cf. also Paus.
11. 36.
Both TrbXeus $ebs apxvybi ffs forw, Al-yvirTtffTl the cities Athens and Sais are said by Pboclus, in Tim. to havo been under fiev rofoopia, NnW, 'EXXT^iori be, ws
iKeivuf XA70S, 'AOvva. Cicero also speaks of it as a Parthenon ; Minerva . . . . sethe same tutelary deity, plot tu>v Sl'o cunda orta Nilo, quam Jigyptii Saitai colunt, de Nat. De. ill. 23.
Plutarch, in this same treatise, c. 62, repeats the Trb\eitiv ttpopos, T7/5 re 2dew« Kal tQp 'ASnvwv.
Theopompub even states that Athens was colonised from Sais.
And Plato after the passage quoted above, assertion that Isis is Athene; rty fief yap *\aiv TroWdKts Tip rijs 'A6vvas 6v6- /iari koKovgi, tppd^otni tqiovtov \byov, "rj\8ov &t' ifiavriji,"
Sirep IctXv avroKisays, judXa be tfriXadnvatoi, Kal rtva rpbirw oUeiot rCivb* elvai 0a<r£e.
* Samothracum nobilia mysteria.
Auo. Civ. D. vii.
28. v-fjrov 0opa$ 5ij\wtlk6v, (giving apparently the Hebrew (rvptov, ^flNX, ipsam me protuli ;) and says that the Saitic temple
3 Dick cnim se ibi multis indiciis collegisse in simulacris, aliud significare was in honour of Athene.
'Ev Sdi yovv (v T(p TpoTvXcp toO UpoO rrfl *A8vvas -qv ctdum, aliud tcrram, aliud excmpla remm quas Plato appellat ideas; yeyXvptfievov f3pi<pot k.t.X. c. 32. Arnocaelum Jovcm, terrain Junonem, ideas Minerram mdt intelligi; ccelum a quo BIU8 also identifies the Saitic Isis with Athene. Adv.Gentes.1y.13y.
Herodotus, fiat aliquid, tcrram de qua fiat, exmakes Isis the Egyptian Demeter; (cf. Cl.
Ah Sir. I. 21,) but he speaks of the Saitic cmplum secundum quod fiat.
Civ. D.
VII.
28.
EGYPT. xxiii Wisdom in its operative as well as in its conceptive phase ; Gnostic hence Apuleius causes her to describe her functions in the analogie8' following terms ; ^Rerum natura parens, elementorum omnium clomina, seculorum progenies initialis; summa numinum, regina marium, prima ccelitum, deorum dearumque Jades uniformis ; qua; colli luminosa culmina, maris salubria Jlumina, inferorum deplorata silentia, nutibus meis dispenso.
Her functions then were co-extensive with the Divine 'iSeat of the philosopher.
Her offspring 8Arueris, called by Plutarch, Apollo, or the elder 3Horus, born of Isis while yet in the womb of her mother Rhea, allegorises the ancient difficulty of account
ing for the origin of matter, otherwise than by making it co-ordinate with the ideal forms that it should eventually take.
This part of the Egyptian myth must certainly have suggested the idea of the Valentinian Demiurge ; as Isis did of Sophia or Achamoth ; mutatis nominibus, the words of Plutarch very nearly express the Valentinian theory ; *tov ""Qpov, ov ij 'icrjy e'mova tov vorjTou kouixov alaOtjtov ovTa yevvai.
Then again the terms in which Plutarch speaks of the functions of Isis, are suggestive of the Va lentinian notion, where they are not Platonic.
No doubt they may have received from him a deeper Platonic colouring, but it is impossible not to believe that the fundamental ideas of the Valentinian theory were received from the theosophy of ancient Egypt, when he says, " For Isis is the female principle of nature, the recipient of every 1 Apdl. Metam. XL p.
143. lrripov vtt& <tk6ti)J yevioOai, Kal irpc<sfiirz-
8 CBSOZER,
Symbolik, I. 259. pov '{lpcn> naXoCviv oi yap rjv Kt>ap.os, 3 It. et Os.
54. t) fib yip, (ti t&v AW cl5oi\6v ti Kal koVjUou tpdnraa/ia 0ewv b yaarpl ttJs'P&ij 6rruv, i^laiSos p-eXKovros.
Parthey has translated <ca!'OaipiSot ycvop.br) ybcais 'AiriXXwthese last words, denn er war nicht die cos oIvIttctoi, rb irolv iKipavr) ytviaBai Well, for he teas not the world; it ought T0V0V rbv Klxrp.ov, Kal avvrtKecBfivai rifi to have been, denn es war keine Welt, \byif, 7TJX vKvv, <piau {\ey\opJvriv 4<p' for there was no world, but a certain aiiTTjs &Tc\rj, T7)» Trpurnv ybeaiv i^tveyideal image only of the future. kup.
Aid xal <paoi rhv 9tbv iKehov and4 Ibid.
xxiv EGYPT.
Gnostic natural product, as the nurse and comprehensive principle inaiogies. ^^^'^ m piat0.
But by the many she is called the million-named, for moulded (rpeTronevri f. 1. rvirov/xevrj) by reason she embraces all forms and ideas.
And con genital with her is Love of the first and mightiest of all, which is one and the same with the Good ; this she desires and follows after, but she avoids and repels all participation with Evil, being to both indeed as space and matter, but inclining always of her own accord to the better prin ciple, occasioning in it the procreative impulse of insemi nating her with emanations and types in which she rejoices and exults, as impregnated with produce.
For produce is
the material image of Substance, and the contingent is an imitation of that which IS1."
Further, the Egyptian mythology indicates the remote origin of the Valentinian classification of the Pleroma into three groupes.
For Herodotus speaks of a similar distribu tion of Egyptian deities2; 'Ev "'EWrjui /xev wv vewTaToi twv Oewv von'tfyvTai elvai 'HpaKXrjs Te Kai Aiovucros Kai Ylav' trap Tlav fiev ap^aio tot os, Kai twv oktw twv cSe A\yvirTtoi<xi irpwTwv Xeyofievwv Oewv'
Hpa/cX^s oe twv SevTepwv, twv twv Tplrwv, o't etc twv $e SvwSeKa Xeyofievwv elvat'
Atdvvoos SuwSeica Oewv eyevovro.
This third groupe of deities were five born of Rhea, marking the addition of possibly the
five days to the year of 360.
The dodecad emanated from the Ogdoad, 4e« twv oktw Oewv SvwSeKa 6eol o't eyevovTo, twv 'HpaicXea eva vo/iltovat.
But the ogdoad was the primary groupe, stoi)s okto) Oeovs toutovs TrpoTepovs twv SvwSeKa Oewv fpaai yeviaOai.
Now the Egyptian sacred $e philosophy presented a complex phasis exhibited in one it ; point of view a belief in one divine emanative principle, was a symbolical representation of the and in another it Os. S3.
Cf. Pliny's Herod, n.
145. description of the influences of the planet Plut. de It.
a a Seep. 341, note I.
* Herod, u. 43.
Venus, or ttdla Itidu, H. N. n.
Ibid. 46.
EGYPT.
XXV 'physical creation, of which Vkotos ayvwcrrov was the first Geometri-
principle;*it also theosophised the development of mathematical and arithmetical powers.
So in the case of these groupes of divinities, they exemplified the powers of the right-angled 'triangle, in emanative progression; the hypothenuse being as 5, the perpendicular as 4, the base as 3.
Thus, hypothenuse = 5 1 hypoth.
+ base = 8> = 25, or 5*. hypoth.
+ base + perpend.
= 12» And this analogy would scarcely seem to be fanci ful ; for the geometrical mysticism of Egypt suggested a
similar notion to Philo, who makes the base and perpendi cular of a right-angled triangle to represent the Sabbatical
1 Nicht Apotheose, nicht lebender Menschen Vergbtterung, ist Wurzel der 2 Compare the quotation from Damascius, p. xxii. end of n. 2, and p. xxiii.
-L^Sgyptischen Religion, sondern Naturn.
See Creuzeb, Symb. I. 518.
8 According to Plbtabch the Egyp tians symbolised, rrpi tov rravrbi <pvo~w, by a right-angled triangle ; fx" 8' iKetvo rb Tpbywvov rpiwv r^v vpbs bp&Lav, Kal leben und Naturanschauung. Creczeb, Symbolik, I.
303.
So the stoic Chieremon, who lived in the reign of Tiberius, and accompanied .lElius Gallus into Egypt, describee the Egyptian system, rerrdpoiv ttjx fiio-ui, Kal ireVre tt)« intoas a religion based upon purely physical notions, whose sole object was nature ; reivowrcur, iaov rats TrepLexoOffais bwa- \xbip>.
De Is. et Os.
56.
He then identifies the sides with Osiris, Isis, (cf.
Philo, de V.
Mos. in. 24;) while lamblichus, of the neo-Platonic school, could trace in it a clear reference through out to a higher Divine Intellect; his words are remarkable : *u<ruti Si oi \4and Horus, cf. xxi. n.
And this process may elucidate the meaning of the very obscure passage in Plctabch, where he says of the Persian system, 6 p.iv 'Qpofidjyis rpls iavrbv attfaas irdyovaw thai trdvra Alyfrirriotj dXXA Kal OTTjce rov ij\lov toqovtov baov 6 ijXios rijs yjjs a(pio~Ti]Ke, Kal rbv oipavbv tarpon iKbefnpa.
De Is. et Os. 47.
The refer •J-7JV TTfS foxy* ft>>V, Kal T7JK VtXp&V, &xb rrp <f>vacus OiaKplrovat, oCk M tov iravrbs pJbvov^ dXXA. Kal ttp' tjimwv' vovv re Kal ence being to the arithmetical mean, \6rfoy rpouT-riffd/ievoL ko.0' iavrobs 6vrat, ovroK b*ijfiiovpyeta8al tpaai rb. yiyvbfieva, indicated in the progression 3, 4, 5 J an^ then, the equation 3a+4a=Ss gives the TTpoir&Topd re rwv eV yeviaei ihjfuovpybv TpordrTOvai, Kal rty irpb tov ovpavov, Kal exact number expressed by himself, and the four and twenty divine emanations, that he then proceeded to put forth, tt\v tv tQ oipapif £wtiktw btivafuv yivtliffKOvai'
KaBapbv re vovv bwep rbv Kbapov and which, with the six already in ex rporiSiaai, Kal era diUpiarov iv Skip rep K&aiu#, Kal Siypr]pM>oii M wdaas rit istence, may have suggested the idea of the Valentinian Pleroma of thirty.
See aipaipas trepan.
Iambl. de Myst. JEg. vui. 4. p. 98, n.
1, 99, n. 1, and xxxi, n.
xxvi GREECE.
Egyptian Hebdomad, 1^vvecrTwo'a yap etc TpiaSov Kal Terpa^o<s to ev origin of , , , , , , , .
.\ 'ji / Greek MyTots ouatv aicAives teat opvov (pvaei irapeyeTai ov oe Tpoirov thology.
» > a '
< '
' otjAwTeov to opvoywviov Tpiywvov, oirep eariv apyt) ttoiott)twv, e% dpidfxwv avveartjKe too rpla Kal reaaapa Kal irevTe. la oe Tpia Kai reaaapa, airep eaTiv epoo/xacos ovata, Ttjv op9t)v ywvlav diroTe\e7.
The arithmetical deductions of the Marcosian theory may be traced back to some such origin as this.
Proceeding from the primary to the secondary deve lopment of the heathen religious idea, it may be observed that Egypt no doubt gave its first impulse to the idolatry of classical Greece2.
Its mythology, based upon the
physical phenomena of a southern sky, and a land teeming with the richest products, received a magnificent develop ment, when reproduced in the myths of the keen-witted and poetical Greek.
But the very brightness of the intellectual creations of this wonderful people, in the infant state of their political existence, dazzled them, and prevented them from tracing excellencies in the deeper truths preserved, here a little and there a little, among their barbarian prototypes.
They were bad observers of Egyptian antiquities, and missed much of the latent meaning that was veiled beneath the substance of the Egyptian mythology, while they seized upon the sesthetical features that presented themselves externally, and acclimated them among the hills and vales of Greece.
A few of the wisest and best of their race, rising above the 3 mythical traditions that served to engross the religious sense of the multitude, reverted to the sources of their intellectual and political history, and found in the ances tral fanes of Egypt some traces at least of the wisdom that they sought.
1 Philo de M. Op.
31. a Isoobates only mentions these s Diog.
Laertitjs, I.
Eoseb. legends of the poets to condemn them Prop.
Ev.
L 9.
Gbotk, B.
Or.
I. as unworthy.
Enc. Bus.
16, 17.
Cf.
595. also Pind.
01.
1. 45, 80.
GREECE. xxvii So the faith that .Cecrops, whether as an autochthon or Egyptian as a foreigner, imported from Egypt, before the birth of GrefkMyMoses, was belief in the unity of the Divine Principle, if thol°gyit was the faith of Sais the political origin of Athens ; °^.H0r' and it was fixed, no doubt, in those whose thirst for know ledge led them back to the banks of the Nile.
Still Egypt was the nursing mother of Polytheism, and no doubt Herodotus tells us truly, that the names of the gods in Greek mythology, "hourly conceived and hourly Miit. p. l. h. born," came across from Egypt ; ayeSov koi iravTa to.
Herod, it. i. ovo/MCiTa tod Oewv e£ AiyvirTov eXt)Xv9ei> e!s Ttjv EXXaSa.
These names however expressed, either different phases of
the creature world, or different attributes and manifestations of the one Eternal.
Thus Athene may have been and identified with Isis ; but this name merely signified the Divine Wisdom as manifested in creation.
Poseidon, or, as he was called in the Etruscan mythology, Neptune, may have been Nephthys of the Egyptian ; but the poetical appellation of ewoa'iyatos is more applicable perhaps to the Egyptian, than to the Pelasgic deity, as typifying the perishable ; and Nephthys was to the dark and motionless and dead, what Isis was to the world of light and energy and life.
So again Osiris was in one aspect Neilos or 'Helios, in another !Oceanus, but in power the Egyptian deity was the causative origin of all.
The very divergence that is observable in the varying powers and attributes of the prototypes of Greek mythology still indicates a centre of unity: the account of Herodotus may be true, and yet the ancient creed of Egypt need not have been polytheistic.
Whatever the priests of On and Memphis taught the loose rabble to believe, their own faith we may assume to have been of no low or debased type, when we find the best and wisest of the Greeks for 1 Plut. de It. et Os. 52.
Cbeuzeb, i. 291.
* Ibid.
34.
Cbeczer, 1. 291.
xxviii GREECE.
Sources of eyer reverting to Egypt, as the fountain-head of wisdom Pphy9° ant* knowledge.
Egypt still sent forth the vis vitce that gathered the first gems of thought around the genial matrix of Hellenic intellect ; and proud as the Greeks were of their intellectual pre-eminence, and jealous of an autochthonic descent, it is scarcely possible that their writers should have permanently established the belief, that Egypt was the nursing mother of their laws, their institutions, and their philosophy, if this had not really been the case.
The first rudiment of a political consti tution was given to Athens by Cecrops from an Egyptian model, and dated higher than Moses ; Lycurgus also laid
the foundation of the Spartan constitution upon Egyptian lines1, and the first traces of a "Opqatcela or religious system, were sketched out, in the time of Joshua and the Judges, by the Thracian 3Theologic poet Orpheus, the ex ponent to them of an Egyptian 4 theosophy.
But Egypt, although the principal, was not the sole quarter from whence Greece drew her first lessons of wisdom.
Palestine was visited ; and the Magian lore of Persia, including perhaps theories from the Indus, was learned on the banks of the Euphrates.
From these principal sources the earlier ethics and religion of the philosophical Greek were derived; and it is worthy of remark, in passing, that these are precisely the countries indicated as the marked centres of human wisdom in the iKingsiv.ao. inspired volume; for Solomon is said to have excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt.
Hence, too, the art of fixing the pro ducts of intellect and bequeathing them as a rich inherit - 1 Isoce.
Encom. Busir.
8. verses are neo-Platonie forgeries, there 8 A word, for this reason, derived is no doubt that some of them existed by Nonnus from 6pd(. in the sixth century B. c.
See Gbote, 8 The name given to Theogonic poets H.
Gr. I. 29.
Hebodotos classes togewas Tkcologua, Lobeck, Aglaoph. 1. 466. ther Orphic and Egyptian rites, n. 81.
Though the main body of the Orphic * DlOD.
SlO. rv.
15.
GREECE. xxix ance to posterity by means of writing, was originally imSources of ported into Greece by the Phenician Cadmus ; and when phy. philosophy began to take a definite form, it owed less to its Grote_ H. Gr. own esoteric action, than to the light that it gained from iiocr. Eno.
° ° Hel. 30. without ; and the principal sages of Greece were either of 'foreign extraction, or, if Hellenes, they were distrustful of their own indigenous resources, and betook themselves to the priests of Egypt and the Magi of the East, for a giodps ^ higher learning and deeper principles, than they could have learned at home.
VQ "ZoXwv, "ZdXwv, 'EXXrjves vfieh del g*BTimTraiSei ecrre" yepwv Se ''EXXr/v ovSeis' ov yap eyere fidOtjixa XP°v'p iroXtov, was the exclamation of Solon's Egyptian instructor !Sonchis, in allusion to this derivative character of the Greek wisdom.
The great similarity observable in the prototypal forms of Greek philosophy indicate a common origin; and, in tracing any particular view or theory of its schools back to its remote source, the inquirer can hardly fail to be struck with the analogies that arise before him, indicating indeed a common origin, but too variously marked to be the result of transcription.
The numbers, for instance, of Pythagoras, whose orderly progression first suggested to him the term kou/xos for the outward world of nature, Phot. b. p. 318. and the ideal system of Plato, seem very distinct from gg*- Br each other, but there are points of analogy with foreign pp. xiv, xxsystems that induce the suspicion, that neither the one nor the other expressed an original theory, but that they 1 'fis Si ol itXcictoi airdv p&pfiapot XaXSafw re Kal Mdyuv tois dplarois rb ytvos, Kal iraph fiapfldpois iraiSevBtvres, vwcyiyero tc.t. X.
Clem. Al. Str. I.
15. rl 8« Kal \4yew ; etye Tvp'pr}fos rj Ttfpios I am not aware, however, that there is i TIvBayopas iSelKvvro'
' kmiadivris Si any other authority for the length to $pi( rjv Kal 'Op(pefc, 'OSpia-qs rj Qpd£. which his love of knowledge is said to 0aX^s Si, $oivi!; wv t6 yevos, Kal have carried the philosopher. rots Alyvirrlw Tpotprrrais <rvp.pcf}\riKhai 3 Procll'S calls him Paleneith.
Plaelprrrai'
KaBdircp Kal 0 Ilv6ay6pas oiVois to's description of Egyptian lore, as ye rofrroiv Si ovs Kal Tepierifiero, ha rravovpyiav avrl (ro<pias, de Leg.
V. p.
8tj koI ei's rd HSvra KareXBuiv, tijc uvuti-
o, is not inconsistent with the noktjp irap' Myvirrlwv ixfidOoi <f>i\<xjo(plav. tion, that light was derived from Egypt.
XXX GREECE. both centre in some tertium quid.
The same is applicable to their common notion of the 1metensomatosis of souls.
And in fact they had drawn from the self-same sources.
2Pythagoras of Samos studied in Egypt for twenty-two 8 Sonchis ; he then removed to years, under the priest Babylon and Persia; and continued for some time in learned communion with the Magi; and more especially with the contemporary sage Zaratas, whom, from simi larity of name, Beausobre has not hesitated to identify with Zerdusht or 4Zoroaster: II est tres possible que le philosophe Grec et le philosophe Persan, ayent eu de frdquentes conversations ensemble sur la nature, et sur les
principes de toutes ehoses, et par consequent que le Zabratus de Porphyre et le Zaratas de Plutarque soient le meme que le Zardesch ou le Zerdusth des Persans5.
Others, with no great degree of improbability, have imagined that Pythagoras was indebted to 6Zoroaster for his mystical powers of the 7Monad, the perfect origin of all, and of the imperfect 8Dyad, the mother of the material creation ; 1 Pythagoras received his notion who also gives the same name to Solon's instructor. of the immortality, and also of the transmigration of souls from Egypt; 4 The Persian i^JStJjj is little rod owfiaros Kara<pQlvovTost fiXXo {Giov else than Zaratas with the final syllable del -fwby.aiov eV5(5frai.
Herod. Eut. But transposed.
In Zend it is Zeretoslttm, a theirs was rather the Indian notion, that nearer approach to the Greek pronun the soul's next body depends always ciation. upon its present behaviour, and that it 5 Beausobre, II. dc Manich.
1. 31.
6 Iambl. v. Pyth. iv.
19. is raised or degraded according to the deeds done in the body now ; that the 7 The Monad was the symbol of the Deity, because it is incapablo of division ; present life also, in its most favourable aspect, is a penal state, rendering all future punishment superfluous.
The the Dyad of matter, because it was thought infinitely susceptible of bisection.
Egyptian belief was simply, that the Cf.
106, n.
1, 297, n.
2, 298 n.
1. soul migrated from one animated body 8 So Hippolttub in the opening book of his Philosojihumcna, quotes Diodorus of Eretria and Aristoxenus, i fioxiaiKbi, as saying that Pythagoras to another, till every condition of exist ence had been fulfilled, when it was to return again to the human body in a cycle of 3000 years.
Cf. p. 377, n. J. s Iambl. de V. Pyth. ni.
13.
See received instruction from Zaratas the also Isocr. Encom.
But.
11.
Chaldaean, from whom he learned, Svo thai dvr' apxys rois ov<ru>afrio, xaWpa 8 Clem. Al.
Str.
15, and Plut.
GREECE. xxxi 1 Plutarch, that there Pythafor we need scarcely be reminded by goraa" was a hidden meaning concealed beneath his arithmetical riddles.
There is also a close similarity between his poetical notion, that seas are the 2tears of Kronos, and the Valentinian account of the origin of the watery element from the tears of Achamoth ; and the male and female idea, that he attached to the odd and even num bers respectively, correspond with the male and female jEons successively developed, pair by pair, in the Valen tinian system.
It has been said that India was visited by Pythagoras, and contributed to the formation of his "system.
According to the late authority of Iamblichus,
Vit. Pyth. ii. he came in contact also with Bias of Priene and Thales of Miletus ; to whom Porphyry and Apuleius v. rym.
1. add Anaximander, the physical philosopher.
Still he scarcely seems to have derived anything from them; al though it is tolerably certain that the entire sources of bis wisdom were Oriental, where they were not Egyptian.
But others drew from the same sources. koI iiTirtpa.Kal -raripa ftb <pS>s,p-riripa
Kopv<payfrij Kal TpiToybticw, each Si cKbror tov Si (porbt p.ipi) Otpphv, base being bisected by a perpendicular, ^vpbv, kovoSov, raxi' tov Si <tk6tovs yj/vlet down from the angle that it subtends, xpbv, vypiv, fiapb, fipaSt.
See 292 n.
4, &c. s,,e p. ,p^.
294, n.
2, 297, n.
The cosmic har- « roiavra Kal ol IIv0ay6pciot yyl<rmony also, adopted by Plato, and of aovro'
Ilepo-e^Tjs p.hv xwas, toi)s ?r\awhich VALENTINU8 haB a trace, p. 23, vrjras, Kp6i>ov Si 5di;pvoi>, tt)v 6a\aaaav was derived from the same source. iWriyopowTes.
Clem. Al. Strom, v. 8.
Elvot Si tov KoayMv <ji-r\a\v Kal pmoiKty 3 \Ve have no authentic knowledge appLOvlav, Sib Kal Tbv rfKiOV iroiuaOai rip of the system of Pythagoras ; his immeTreploSov (vap/pinov. lhid. cf. p. 294, n. 3. diate followers were enjoined to reserve 1 iTefu/i^aTo rb o-vpfioXiKbv avrCw that which they had learned in strict si- (tQv klyvirrluv sc.) Kal pMmjpiwSei, lence, for a certain period after the masava/dSas aivlypaoi to, Sbypara.
Is.etOs. ter's death; and we cannot be certain how 10.
Certainly his Dyad was intended great a proportion of the Pythagorean to convey a Divine meaning, equally theories may have originated with them, with that of Zoroaster, ol Si llvBaybptioi when they felt themselves at liberty to Kal apiOpovs Kal a\i)p.aTa, Oedv iKba^r)speak.
Pythagoras first observed tho can Tpanryoplais, ib.
76, for it was symidentity of Venus, as an evening and a bolical of antagonising powers, as in the morning star ; quam naturam ejus PylhaPersian system ; Iptv Si rty SvdSa Kal goras Samius primus deprchendit, OlymtSX/xoc, ib.
The Monad was Apollo, the piade circUer XLii, qui fuit urbis Homw, Triad was the equilateral triangle, 'kOif cxlii.
Puk. H. N. II. 8.
xxxii GREECE.
So also Plato, in this respect at least departing from the principles of his master Socrates, (who discouraged this practice of seeking wisdom from without,) visited 1Egypt and studied under Sechnuphis at Heliopolis ; after wards he went to Cyrene and Italy.
It was also a part of his plan, if Apuleius may be credited, to visit India, but the troubled state of the East deterred him.
Several others of the Grecian sages may be traced through the the same courses of instruction.
Thales of Miletus, founder of the Ionic school of philosophy, was, on his mother's side, of 2Phoenician extraction ; he is said to 0r have studied astronomy in Phoenicia, and to have derived
some considerable amount of his system from Assyria ; but it is more certain that he passed some time in Egypt, and received instruction from the hierophants of 3Memphis.
Without entering into the consideration of any other particular doctrine that he taught, we may merely observe, that, living in the days of the prophet Jeremiah, he taught very much the same doctrine with respect to spiritual essences, that was taught contemporaneously at Babylon, as we know from the fact that the Jews adopted the same notion in their captivity; so Aristotle tells us, Kai ev T<p oXio rives avTrjv (tjJv ^v^v SC.) /xeixlyfiat (paalv'
60ev icrtus (cat QaXrjs tpyOl wavTa TrXqpi] Qewv elvai.
We may trace in this the notion of the various angelic intelli gences of the Indo-Chaldaic Sephiroth on the one side, and on the other, though in a fainter degree, the fore shadowing of the Platonic iSeai.
His notion that water 1 'loropetrai Si IIv8ay6pas p\h 2uyfragment preserved by Eusebius, in his Prap. Evtmg. xiv.
12, says that Plato XvSi Tip Alyvirrlip dpx^po<p¥p-ri p.a8rjTcbAlybirrov fydaflr), Kai Trjt Tiv$ay6pov aai.
XlXdrwv Si "LexvovtpiSi T$'H\i07ro- \Itt).
Clem. Al. Strom. I.
15.
Again, '0 Si TW&twv Sfj\o>> ills aepnivuv dei robs rcpardiSovs <ro<ptas.
3 Dioo.
Laert.
17; Herod, i.
170.
OdXtoi ivSpbs MiKtiitIov . . . ri ivif)ap3dpovs eiplffKeraf pLepurqpAvoi abrov re xal Hv6ay6pov, tA n-Xeiora Kai yenvaibrara t&v Soyp-drtw iv papfidpots Ka&ev yfros £6vtos QoIvlkos.
3 Ibid. 12, 23, 14; Plut. de PI. Phil.
(ia06yruv.
Ibid.
Xenophon also, in the 1. 3 ; Iambl. de v. Pyth. I.
GREECE, i xxxiii was the first principle, and that all things were produced Thales. from a humid sementation, was derived from 'Egypt; I Simplicius says, hto Kat A'tyvirTioi Tijy Trjs irpwTtjs rjv t/Swp ovn(3o\iKWS enaXouv, vrrouTadfxrjv Tr/v vXr/v e/iaXovv, olov \ 'iXvv nva ovaav, (in Arist. Phys. p. 50).
Accordingly Osiris, the Egyptian Helios, as he is called (de Is. et Os. 52), or Oceanus (ibid.
34), was not represented in a chariot, but in a ship, as were the other Gods, (ibid, and Ckeuzer, Symbolik, i. 282, notes 249, 390).
The Phenician fish -god Dagon also symbolised the ancient belief of Egypt, from whence it was derived.
But all may be referred to the Mosaic record, that 2earth and water in their first condition
were intermingled as an aqueous slime.
Hence, too, the Ophites, or earliest Gnostics, venerated the 'serpent as the 1 Hence also the Lotus, as symbolis ing life springing from the waters, had biptum, or water jar, was borne, as a sacred emblem, in the festal processions in honour of Osiris, as Plutabch says, a deeply mystical meaning in the Egyp tian system ; according to Cbbuzbb, who ou pjtvov 5i rhv NeiXoc dXXd rav irypbv writes, however, without reference to avXus 'OclpiSos dTro/S/taj/p Ka\owrt, koX Gnostic notions, it represented the bi run* Upuw del irpoirop.ire6ei to bbpciov Cirl Tip.fj rov QeoO. de Is. et Os. 36.
Cbbdzer sexual principle, to afyevbdijkv, and the after-development of Isis and Osiris, while they were still in the germ, and seems to have had this passage in viuw when he says, In der Isis-procession der unborn as yet of Rhea.
His words are, In ihrem Kelche, mil dem Slaub/dden und dem Pistill, war das Mann-weibliche —der Joni-Lingam, Indisch zu reden, Prophet oder Oberpriester das heiligste Symbol, den Wasserbrug, die bbpla, in den Fatten seines weiien Kit ides verborgen tragi, ibid.
But see Diomrs.
1. p. 24.
* Philo's description of the first im Pflanzen-reiche.
In ihr steUte die JBrde, die vom Nil geschwangerte Erde crude state of the earth may be com seller, fiir die Volksanschauung ein Bild pared, irctSi) ri> aipjcav ttbup els iiraaav t^jv yijv aveKtxyro, Kal bta vivriav avrrfs jener mystischen Ehe der beiden Landesgottheiten auf.
So ward der Lolushelch in religidser Betrachtungsart sum MutfTretpoiT-tlKei rwv /jLepujv, ola vvoyyias ovairerwicvlas
UpASa, lis elvai rfKpa re &pa Kal jiaBvv vnXbv, ipjporipui' tSv (TTOtxeluiv terschoosse der Orossen Shea gesteigert, und Stuubfaden wnd Pistill eriimern in avabeSevp^vuv Kal avp.iretpvpfievGB' rpbrap ihrer Verbindung an die Vereinigung tpvpdpaTos els piav Mtid/cptTO* Kal b\pjop<pov ipiaw. De Mund.
Op. si. de* GStterpaares schon im Sckoosse der 3 See pp. 128, n.
1, 229, and 241.
But it may be observed, that the ser Mutter.
Symbolik, I. 283.
The Lotus was an emblem moreover of the resurrection, submerging its head pent in Egyptian hieroglyphics is the by night, but lifting it again to meet emblem of two antagonising ideas ; viz. of life, by reason of its vitality; and of death, because of its deadly qua lities.
Die Schlange iet durch ihre the rays of the rising Bun. v. Hammer, Mine* de VOrienl. v. 283.
To symbolise the aqueous origin of all things, the C
xxxiv GREECE. representative of the element of water ; and they always spoke of the light imparted to them from above, as a humid though spiritual sementation.
Democritus also studied in Egypt, and in Persia under the Magi, as well as in India with the Gymnosophs.
It was from the first of these sources perhaps that he derived that notion of omnipresent e'lSiuXa, that Plato also adopted and brought into harmony with belief in a God, but which Democritus only made atheistical, in combining it with his atomic theory.
'His astronomical views, in some re spect, harmonised with the teaching of modern science ; and he was a hearty believer in a plurality of worlds.
The doctrine of gravitation even may have had a shadowy
existence in his mind, where, in speaking of the heavenly bodies, he says, <p9elpeo6ai $e avToi>s vtt aWqXwv irpoairlirTovTai.
At a later date Apollonius of Tyansea, true to the philosophic instinct, considering that the first principles of knowledge could only be obtained from the priests of Hammon in Upper Egypt, from the Magi of Persia, and from the sages of India, is said to have visited each of these countries.
But waiving these minor lights, it is certain that the principal founders of Greek philosophy were indebted in a greater or less degree for the first seeds of their respective systems to the land that at a later period was the nursing mother of Gnosticism.
The deep mystery attaching to the principal elementary forms Lebens Kraft im ganzen Morgenlande 369), frequently binds the head dress, the das Symbol da Lebens, und dieselbe Wunel heisst im A rabischen, Schlange, und Leben.
Durch ihr todliches Gift ist tie aber auck das Symbol des Toda; und ihre Sieroglyphe ausdriickt same double idea as above being sym bolised.
TJnde et quoniam vita necisque potestatem habere videlur, merito sane dcorum capitibus inserilur. Hor. Ap. I. r.
1 dwelpovs Si elvai Kdfffiovi Kal txeyidei Sia<p(povras, tv run Si pvl) eTvat -IfXiov fivSi der AUebendige, und t," ^aaaII <re\fyriv, (v rial Si fielfa tSiv trap' ijfuv, Kal tv run ir\dto . . . dvai Si rty piiv <re\ijder A lUodtende. v. Hammer, Mints de vr\v Ki.ru>, (ireira rii> 17X101',efro toi>i iirTOrient. v. 275.
In representations of \aveti djjrtpat.
Tods Si irXiinp-ot oM' the different deities, an ophic circle, airrois fx"* tvo» ftyos.
Hipp. Ph.
18.
(i<f>iJ)Sea pXrpnv,
DlON. XII. J4,
XXXIH.