was intertwined with it] from the Chaldees. The identity of Nimrod with the constellation Orion
is not to be rejected." Ouvaroff, also, in his learned work on the Eleusinian mysteries, has come
to the same conclusion. After referring to the fact that the Egyptian priests claimed the honour of
having transmitted to the Greeks the first elements of Polytheism, he thus concludes: "These
positive facts would sufficiently prove, even without the conformity of ideas, that the Mysteries
transplanted into Greece, and there united with a certain number of local notions, never lost the
character of their origin derived from the cradle of the moral and religious ideas of the universe.
All these separate facts--all these scattered testimonies, recur to that fruitful principle which
places in the East the centre of science and civilisation." If thus we have evidence that Egypt and
Greece derived their religion from Babylon, we have equal evidence that the religious system of
the Phoenicians came from the same source. Macrobius shows that the distinguishing feature of
the Phoenician idolatry must have been imported from Assyria, which, in classic writers,
included Babylonia. "The worship of the Architic Venus," says he, "formerly flourished as much
among the Assyrians as it does now among the Phenicians."
Now to establish the identity between the systems of ancient Babylon and Papal Rome, we have
just to inquire in how far does the system of the Papacy agree with the system established in
these Babylonian Mysteries. In prosecuting such an inquiry there are considerable difficulties to
be overcome; for, as in geology, it is impossible at all points to reach the deep, underlying strata
of the earth's surface, so it is not to be expected that in any one country we should find a
complete and connected account of the system established in that country. But yet, even as the
geologist, by examining the contents of a fissure here, an upheaval there, and what "crops out" of
itself on the surface elsewhere, is enabled to determine, with wonderful certainty, the order and
general contents of the different strata over all the earth, so is it with the subject of the Chaldean
Mysteries. What is wanted in one country is supplemented in another; and what actually "crops
out" in different directions, to a large extent necessarily determines the character of much that
does not directly appear on the surface. Taking, then, the admitted unity and Babylonian
character of the ancient Mysteries of Egypt, Greece, Phoenicia, and Rome, as the clue to guide us
in our researches, let us go on from step to step in our comparison of the doctrine and practice of
the two Babylons--the Babylon of the Old Testament and the Babylon of the New.
And here I have to notice, first, the identity of the objects of worship in Babylon and Rome. The
ancient Babylonians, just as the modern Romans, recognised in words the unity of the Godhead;
and, while worshipping innumerable minor deities, as possessed of certain influence on human
affairs, they distinctly acknowledged that there was ONE infinite and almighty Creator, supreme
over all. Most other nations did the same. "In the early ages of mankind," says Wilkinson in his
"Ancient Egyptians," "The existence of a sole and omnipotent Deity, who created all things,
seems to have been the universal belief; and tradition taught men the same notions on this
subject, which, in later times, have been adopted by all civilised nations." "The Gothic religion,"
says Mallet, "taught the being of a supreme God, Master of the Universe, to whom all things
were submissive and obedient." (Tacti. de Morib. Germ.) The ancient Icelandic mythology calls
him "the Author of every thing that existeth, the eternal, the living, and awful Being; the searcher
into concealed things, the Being that never changeth. " It attributeth to this deity "an infinite
power, a boundless knowledge, and incorruptible justice." We have evidence of the same having
been the faith of ancient Hindostan. Though modern Hinduism recognises millions of gods, yet
the Indian sacred books show that originally it had been far otherwise. Major Moor, speaking of
Brahm, the supreme God of the Hindoos, says: "Of Him whose Glory is so great, there is no
image" (Veda). He "illumines all, delights all, whence all proceeded; that by which they live
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when born, and that to which all must return" (Veda). In the "Institutes of Menu," he is
characterised as "He whom the mind alone can perceive; whose essence eludes the external
organs, who has no visible parts, who exists from eternity...the soul of all beings, whom no being
can comprehend." In these passages, there is a trace of the existence of Pantheism; but the very
language employed bears testimony to the existence among the Hindoos at one period of a far
purer faith.
Nay, not merely had the ancient Hindoos exalted ideas of the natural perfections of God, but
there is evidence that they were well aware of the gracious character of God, as revealed in His
dealings with a lost and guilty world. This is manifest from the very name Brahm, appropriated
by them to the one infinite and eternal God. There has been a great deal of unsatisfactory
speculation in regard to the meaning of this name, but when the different statements in regard to
Brahm are carefully considered, it becomes evident that the name Brahm is just the Hebrew
Rahm, with the digamma prefixed, which is very frequent in Sanscrit words derived from
Hebrew or Chaldee. Rahm in Hebrew signifies "The merciful or compassionate one." But Rahm
also signifies the WOMB or the bowels; as the seat of compassion. Now we find such language
applied to Brahm, the one supreme God, as cannot be accounted for, except on the supposition
that Brahm had the very same meaning as the Hebrew Rahm. Thus, we find the God Crishna, in
one of the Hindoo sacred books, when asserting his high dignity as a divinity and his identity
with the Supreme, using the following words: "The great Brahm is my WOMB, and in it I place
my foetus, and from it is the procreation of all nature. The great Brahm is the WOMB of all the
various forms which are conceived in every natural womb." How could such language ever have
been applied to "The supreme Brahm, the most holy, the most high God, the Divine being,
before all other gods; without birth, the mighty Lord, God of gods, the universal Lord," but from
the connection between Rahm "the womb" and Rahm "the merciful one"? Here, then, we find
that Brahm is just the same as "Er-Rahman," "The all- merciful one,"--a title applied by the Turks
to the Most High, and that the Hindoos, notwithstanding their deep religious degradation now,
had once known that "the most holy, most high God," is also "The God of Mercy," in other
words, that he is "a just God and a Saviour." And proceeding on this interpretation of the name
Brahm, we see how exactly their religious knowledge as to the creation had coincided with the
account of the origin of all things, as given in Genesis. It is well known that the Brahmins, to
exalt themselves as a priestly, half-divine caste, to whom all others ought to bow down, have for
many ages taught that, while the other castes came from the arms, and body and feet of Brahma--
the visible representative and manifestation of the invisible Brahm, and identified with him--they
alone came from the mouth of the creative God. Now we find statements in their sacred books
which prove that once a very different doctrine must have been taught. Thus, in one of the
Vedas, speaking of Brahma, it is expressly stated that "ALL beings" "are created from his
MOUTH." In the passage in question an attempt is made to mystify the matter; but, taken in
connection with the meaning of the name Brahm, as already given, who can doubt what was the
real meaning of the statement, opposed though it be to the lofty and exclusive pretensions of the
Brahmins? It evidently meant that He who, ever since the fall, has been revealed to man as the
"Merciful and Gracious One" (Exo 34:6), was known at the same time as the Almighty One, who
in the beginning "spake and it was done," "commanded and all things stood fast," who made all
things by the "Word of His power." After what has now been said, any one who consults the
"Asiatic Researches," may see that it is in a great measure from a wicked perversion of this
Divine title of the One Living and True God, a title that ought to have been so dear to sinful men
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