Gerald Massey's Lectures

Originally published in a private edition c. 1900

In Reply to Professor A. H. Sayce

132

As an opponent of what may be termed the Aryan school of interpretation it has been my special work to show that mythology is not a farrago of foolish fables, nor the mere raving of words that have lost their senses. I have amply demonstrated the fact that the myths were no mere products of ancient ignorance, but are the deposited results of a primitive knowledge; that they were founded upon natural phenomena and remain the register of the earliest scientific observation. Those, however, who have not yet learned that mythology contains the gnosis of the earliest science, and is the great pre-historic record, are unable to teach us anything fundamental concerning it. They cannot read the record itself or verify it by continual reference to those natural phenomena on which it is based, and by which the truth of the interpretation has to be verified and tested. Without this foothold of fact being firmly established mythology resolves itself into a bog without a bottom.

It appears to me that Professor Sayce in his lectures on the Babylonian Religions, is frequently dealing with matters which can only be fathomed by the comparative process, and that it is misleading to compare the ancient mythologies with the Egyptian omitted, whereas he rigorously rejects any light from that source. No Mythological Religion can be explained by itself alone. The comparative method is as the bringing together of flint and steel to strike the first spark for the necessary light. Without question or inquiry; without collecting and comparing the data; without presenting his evidence for the assertion, he makes the following authoritative declaration. "Apart from the general analogies which we find in all early civilizations, the Script, the Theology and the Astronomy of Egypt and Babylonia show no vestiges of a common source." (Hib. Lect. p. 136.)

There may be a pitfall intended in these delusive words as the mythology and so-called cosmology are entirely omitted. But you cannot have the Astronomy apart from the Mythology by which it was represented! The Prof. says further there is one conclusive and fatal objection to the derivation from Egypt "inasmuch as there is no traceable connection between the hieroglyphics of Egypt and the primitive pictures out of which the cuneiform characters were developed." Professor Sayce is an expert and an authority passably orthodox, whose word will be taken for gospel by those who are not qualified to question it. I am not an acknowledged authority. I can only plead that my facts may have a hearing. Without knowing the facts we cannot attain the truth, and short of the fullest truth there is no final authority. The Egyptian hieroglyphics were developed out of the same primitive pictures and natural objects as the Akkadian. Both were direct transcripts from nature at first, and there is but one origin in nature for the earliest figures. Again he says: "If Lepsius were right (in maintaining the opposite view) the primitive hieroglyphics out of

which the cuneiform characters were evolved would offer resemblances to the hieroglyphics. But this is not the case. Even the idea of divinity is represented differently in them. In Chaldea it is expressed by an eight-rayed star; in Egypt, by a stone-headed axe" (p. 435).

That is true; and yet in the sole illustration adduced by him the Professor is wrong! The evidence of the first witness called is against the truth of his vaguely vast generalization. The star with the eight rays is likewise an Egyptian ideograph of divinity; it is a numerical figure for the Nunu or Associate Gods. (Burton E.H. 34.) This is the sign of the pleroma of the godhead, the divine ogdoad. It was continued as a symbol of Horus-Orion, the manifestor of the Eight, the mummy-constellation of the only one who rose again! The eight-rayed sign was also a symbol of Hathor and of Taht because, like the eight-rayed or eight-looped star, it was the numerical figure of the eight gods, hence it was the sign of the Abode as Hathor, and the manifestor as Taht-Smen; as it is of Ishtar and of Assur. The Egyptians not only used this octave of divinity, they also give us the reason for using it. This numerical sign of the primary group of eight gods was not continued as the symbol of abstract divinity, and it is rare, but still it exists to refute the Professor, who has to plumb far more profoundly before he touches bottom. The five-rayed star, Seb, is likewise the hieroglyphic symbol for a god or divinity, so that the Professor's suggested inference is false twice over. It will never do to presume too much on the common ignorance concerning the buried past of Egypt, the rootage out of range, and the long development of the original ideographs. For example, the Egyptian pictograph of a soul is a human-headed bird, and that type is continued when the Babylonian dead are described as being clad like birds in a garment of feathers. Notwithstanding Mr. Sayce's offhand dicta it will be seen in the future that Egypt was as truly the parent of hieroglyphics as she is of alphabets! But to show the Professor's determination to avoid Egypt: after pointing to the fact that the statues from Telloh bear a great likeness to the Egyptian in the time of the pyramid builders; and after admitting that the Egyptian art of sculpture was infinitely superior to the Babylonian at that time,--he quietly suppresses Egypt altogether on behalf of an entirely unknown "school of sculpture in the Sinaitic peninsula!" (P. 138.) Anything rather than look Egypt honestly in the face!

The Professor is so anxious to hustle unacceptable facts out of sight and get rid of their testimony, he asserts that the existence of a "Cushite race" in Chaldea solely depends on a misinterpretation and a probable corruption of the text in the Book of Genesis. But Cush is the black. The Cushites were the Black race; and the aborigines of Babylonia were the Black men of the monuments, the "black-heads" of the Akkadian Texts. Hence the god Kus, their deity of eclipse and darkness. The Professor is all hind-before with regard (or disregard) to the origins in the black land, the primeval birthplace. He is not yet out of the Ark of the Semitic or the shadow of the Aryan beginnings, which have so darkened and deluded us; and has to advance backwards a good deal further beyond the Altaic boundaries.

As I have already shown in the "Natural Genesis," the beginnings of mythology in Egypt and Akkad are definitely identical. The Old Dragon of Chaos and the Abyss is the same whether called Tiamat, Tavthe, or Typhon. By Typhon I mean the beast that imaged the first Great Mother, hippopotamus in front and crocodile behind, who therefore is the Dragon of Egypt. Her name of Tep, Teb, or Tept is the original of Typhon. Tiamat=Tavthe represents that abyss of the beginning which is the Egyptian Tepht. This Tepht is the abyss, the source, the void, the hole of the snake, the habitat of the dragon, the outrance or uterus of birth as place which preceded personification. Another name for the abyss is Abzu, the earlier form of which is the Egyptian Khepsh in the north--that is, the Pool of Khep, the hippopotamus or Typhon=Dragon. Tept and Tavthe are one, the water-horse and dragon-horse are one. In both forms they give birth to the well-known seven primal powers, elemental energies, or demons of physical force, first recognised as warring in

chaos, who were afterwards cast out and superseded, or moralised as the seven wicked spirits. When the primary powers become the seven evil spirits, it is said of them, "They are not known among the sentient gods." So in Egypt the same seven were denounced as the non-sentient "Children of inertness." And just as the Akkadian seven were continued and made the messengers and ministers of wrath to the supreme God, Anu, so did the Egyptian seven survive as the seven great spirits in the service of Ra; their station being in the region of the Great Bear, the constellation of their mother. (Rit., ch. 17.)

This mother-goddess first brought forth in space and next in time. If we take the star of evening and morning as the type of the earliest time, then the mother Tiamat passes into Ishtar, goddess of the evening and the morning star. The dragon Tiamat was called the Bis-Bis, identified by George Smith with the crocodile as the symbol of Egypt; and Ishtar=Venus, the "Lady of Dawn," was called Bis-bisi, which shows the survival of the same genetrix in her change of character out of space into time. Another proof of this continuity by transformation is furnished when Ishtar as Queen of Heaven (so rendered by Mr. Sayce) called herself the "Unique Monster" (p. 267.) Precisely in the same way do we see the Typhonian genetrix Ta-Urt in Egypt pass into Hes-ta-Urt (whence Hestaroth or Ashtaroth) and Hathor, when the domesticated cow succeeded the water-cow as the Zoötype of Hes, As (Isis), or of Hathor, the Lunar form of the Goddess of Love, in whose person the beast was transfigured into the beauty.

According to ancient tradition, the culture of Chaldea was brought to that country by a Fish-Man, who rose up in "the first year," from that part of the Red or "Erythræan Sea which borders upon Babylonia." The original of this type can be identified in Ea the fish-god, deity of the house of the deep and divinity of wisdom. Whence came Ea, then, by the Red Sea? Lepsius says from Egypt--so says Egypt herself.

Professor Sayce had previously denied our right to compare the myths of two different nations before their relationships have been established by language, and that by grammar (which is late), in preference to the vocabulary. Thus mythology is put out of court, and words are to be accounted of no weight. Still, it is well to remember that the Professor has before now taken his stand on a false bottom that was found to be crumbling under foot day by day! It is at least suggestive to find that the name and nature of Ea, the oldest Akkadian form of the One God, may be so fully explained by the Egyptian Uâ (later Ea) for the one, the one alone, isolated as the only one; also the Thinker and the Captain of the Boat. It should be premised that the Egyptian U preceded the letter or sound of E, hence Ua=Ea. The Egyptian Ua, which passed into Ea, also appears in the Akkadian Ua for the Supreme One, the sole Lord or Chief. In one form Ea is the fish-god, and the hieroglyphic sign for Ua=Ea is fishing-tackle! Ea was the deity of the deep, and Ua=Ea is Boat and Captain both. Of course the fish was the earlier image, but the Egyptians had gone far ahead in substituting the work of their own hands for the primitive natural types. Ea is the wise god, the thinker and instructor; and Uaua (Eg.) means to think, consider, meditate. Ea's prototype in the indefinitely earlier mythology of Egypt is Num=Kneph, whose twofold nature is indicated by the two ways of spelling one name. As Num he is Lord of the inundation; as Kneph he is the Breath of those who are in the firmament. Nef signifies breath, and is also the name of the sailor. Ea is god of the watercourse and the atmosphere. Ea was the Antelope of the deep; Num was the bearded He-goat; the Sea-goat of the Zodiac. One type of Num is the serpent; as it is of Ea. Ea is said to represent the House, which is â in Egyptian. In a case of this kind Professor Sayce can only perceive or will only admit a "general analogy."

Egyptian also offers the likeliest original for the name of Oan or Oannes, the Greek form of Ea, the fish, seeing that Ua=Oa, and that An is the fish in Egyptian; whilst An, to appear, to show, is determined by the fish in the water-precinct, where the fish is the revealer who emerged from the waters as Ea-an, or Oannes. (Denkmäler 3, 46 C.) If the original Fish-Man came

from Egypt, it would probably be as the Crocodile=Dragon, the Typhonian type of both the ancient mother and her son Sevekh. The crocodile is the fish that passes the day on dry land and the night in the waters. Its name of Sevekh is identical with that of the number seven; and Ea is connected with a typical fish of seven fins (?). The crocodile, as Plutarch tells us, was a supreme type of the one God, or, as the name shows, of the seven-fold powers in one image. Sevekh was the same good demon of one Cult in Egypt that Num-Ra was in the other, but indefinitely earlier.

To my apprehension, the Babylonian "House of the Seven bonds of heaven and earth," is identical with the "House of the Seven Halls and Seven stairways," assigned to Osiris; and the God Nebo as stellar, lunar, and planetary Deity; as prophet and proclaimer, is identical with Sut-Anup (later Nub and Anubis) in a dozen different aspects; whilst Nebo-Nusku = the double Anubis. Further, the same Great Mother who was Venus as Hathor became the mother-moon. Professor Sayce seems to think that where the moon is male it cannot also be female. If I am right, Ishtar must also have had a lunar character as the Mother-Goddess. But Professor Sayce makes the point-blank assertion that Ishtar was not a goddess of the moon. (P. 256.) "The moon was conceived of as a God, not as a Goddess." He assures us that Ishtar was the spirit of earth and the Goddess of Love, the dual divinity of the planet Venus. But there is no male moon without the female Goddess. It is not a question of "Conception," but of begettal. The observers were concerned with the lunar phases as natural facts, the mother or reproducing phase being first. The mother Goddess brought forth the Child of light, whether as Taht, Khunsu, Duzu, Tammuz, or Horus, and there is no lunar myth possible without the motherhood, which preceded the fatherhood. The child of the moon in one phase is her consort in the other. Thus when Ishtar makes up to Izdubar, the solar god who represents the later fatherhood, he twits her on the subject of her child-consort, the bridegroom of her youth, whom she had so long pursued, like Venus wooing Adonis. In the legend of Tammuz and Ishtar the Goddess, in descending to the underworld in search of her bridegroom, passes through seven gates. In each of these she is stripped of a part of her glory, represented as her ornaments. On her return she ascends through seven other gates, when her ornaments are restored to her, both being done according to ancient rules. These gates are the 14 lower lunar mansions in which the lunar Osiris was torn into 14 parts by Typhon, the Power of darkness, when Isis descended in search of her beloved. They likewise coincide with the 14 houses of judgment and the 14 trials in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which will explain the tests and punishments of the Goddess as the pre-solar type of the suffering and triumphing souls who had to win their crown of justification in these 14 trials. Besides which one of Ishtar's titles is that of Goddess Fifteen, because that is the day of mid-moon in a soli-lunar month of 30 days. Professor Sayce leaves this title unnoticed, and then denies that Ishtar was a goddess of the moon! Moreover, there is another test to be applied in natural phenomena. The Goddess in her Course is credited with various infidelities. Not only is she charged with having clung year after year to her child-consort Tammuz, as the Bridegroom, amongst her victims are the Eagle (Alala) the Lion, the Horse, Tabulu the shepherd, and Isullanu, the gardener. These, as I read the Mythos, refer to certain constellations, corner-keepers or others, to be found in the lunar course, which cannot apply to the planet Venus or to the Spirit of the earth. A sign of the lunar reckoning may be read in the statement that Ishtar rode the horse with whip and spur for seven leagues galloping, or during one quarter of the moon. Another lunar sign may be seen in the statement that Ishtar had also torn out the teeth of the Lion seven by seven, or for seven nights together, in her passage through the Lion-quarter of the moon; Eagle, Horse (Pegasus?), and Lion must probably stand for three of the four quarters of a lunar zodiac. Also the Errand of Ishtar corresponds to the descent of Isis into the underworld in search of Osiris, who was torn into 14 parts, and Isis was the lunar Goddess. Moreover, Ishtar robbed her lover, Isullanu, of his eye, and

in his blindness mocked him; just as Horus and Samson were each robbed of an eye. Lastly, the Bow was lunar and Ishtar was Goddess of the Bow. Here, as elsewhere, we are left utterly adrift if we cannot secure a firm anchorage in the various natural phenomena themselves, by which the types of divinity must be determined. Professor Sayce acknowledges his inability to account for the name of Ishtar. "Its true etymology was buried in the night of antiquity." "It is therefore quite useless to speculate on the subject." (P. 257.) And so, of course, there is an end of it, the last word being said. It is just possible, however, that Egypt, from which the Professor looks religiously away, has something final yet to say on these matters. Not perhaps by such interpretation as Mr. Renouf's. Professor Sayce admits that Ishtar appears as Esther in the Book of Esther. Here it is Hadassah who figures in the mythical character of Ishtar as the virgin dedicated or betrothed during twelve months. Whether the typical character is thus continued or not, it is the fact that the word "Shtar"* is the Egyptian name of the Betrothed female, and Shta denotes that which is most mystical, secret, and holy, the very mother of mystery. Ishtar was the betrothed of Tammuz; she was called the "Bridal Goddess," the goddess who was mystically betrothed to the child that grew up to become her own Consort. She remained the Mother of Mystery. Thus Ishtar=Venus, the goddess of love, was the Shtar or Betrothed, as the pre-monogamic consort or bride, i.e., the "bridal goddess," who is denounced in Revelation as the Great Harlot.

Again, it appears to me that much of what I have already said of Horus, of Taht, of Khunsu, Apollo, and other forms of the soli-lunar hero is applicable not only to Mithras but to Merodach, and to an Assyrian god called Adar (provisionally). I may claim to have discovered the origin of this particular mythical character through seeking the foundations in natural phenomena. Adar is a solar hero who is especially related to night and darkness, and yet is a deity of light. He is a warrior and champion of the gods. He is the voice or supreme oracle of the divinities. He is the son, the messenger, the revealer of the Solar god hidden in the deep of the underworld. In other features he is like Taht and Khunsu, each of whom is the visible representative, the revealer, of the sun-god by night. Adar was designated "Lord of the date," just as Taht was called "Lord of the date-palm." Adar was likewise "Lord of the Pig," just as Khunsu is the personified lord over the pig of Typhon in the disk of the moon at full (Zodiac of Denderah). This is the god who, as Adonis, was slain by the pig or boar at one season of the year, but who was victor over it in the first of the six upper signs, which is the sign of Pisces in the Zodiac of Denderah.† This same character is continued in Tammuz, the deity who was first brought forth by the mother alone, to become her consort, the only one of a twofold nature; and who was made the later revealer of a Father in heaven as the child of the solar god when reborn as such of the mother-moon. The month of Tammuz in the Aramaic calendar is (roughly) our month of June. This is the month of Duzu in the Assyrian calendar. In the Egyptian it was the month Mesore, as June in the sacred year, the month of the re-birth of the river and of the child Horus, who was re-born (Mes) of the river at the re-birth of the Inundation. In the pre-Osirian Mythos the child was the representative of Tum and to be the re-born (Mes) Tum or the child of Tum, as was Iu-em-hept, the Eternal Word, would be renderable as Tum-mus or Messu, just as Ra-messu means the child of the solar god, although I am not aware that Tum does appear under that form of name, and I am supposing that Tammuz was a development from the Egyptian Tum. For this reason! We are told in the texts‡ that Tum is the duplicate of Aten=Adon=Adonai; and Adon = Tammuz. Aten was the child-God; Tum was the father. This child of the sun-god was always born in the moon as the solar light of the world by night, the son of the Spirit of the deep who was the hidden sun in the under-world. He is pourtrayed in the disk of the full-moon both as Horus (or Tum-mes) and

* Champollion. Gram : 1292. † Macrobius, Saturn. 121. ‡ Records 4.95.

Khunsu (Planisphere and Zodiacs of Denderah). Now, when the actual deluge began with the sun in the sign of the Beetle (later Crab), and in the month of Tammuz or Mesore, the moon rose at full in the sign of the sea-goat, and the child was therefore reborn of the full moon in that sign, and so on through the three water signs, which are consequently solar on one side of the Zodiac and lunar on the other! Rightly read this absolutely proves the Egyptian origin of the signs set in heaven in relation to the Inundation, the lunar zodiac being first, and identifies the child of Tum as the original of the Akkadian Dumu-zi-Apzu, and of the Semite "Timmuz (or Dimmuz) of the Flood;"* not Noah's unfortunate deluge, but the inundation of the Nile, the deluge that began in the month Mes-Horus or Tum-Mes=Tammuz, and culminated at the autumn equinox as it always has done, and did this year. The Akkadian name of the month Tammuz is Su-Kul-na, "seizer of seed," and to explain that we must go back to the sign of the Beetle set above by the Egyptians, because the beetle Khepr began to roll up his seed at that time to preserve it from the coming flood. The Beetle is the sign of Cancer in the oblong Zodiac of Denderah.

Professor Sayce's account of Tammuz and Ishtar shows neither gauge nor grip of the real subject matter. He tells us that Adonis=Tammuz was "slain by the Boar's Tusk of Winter," and his "funeral-festival" was held in June because the "bright Sun of the springtide was then slain and withered by the hot blasts of summer" (pp. 227-9). But here is the true rendering as restored according to the Egyptian myth, which was extant in the pre-monumental times of the Shus-en-Har, who are claimed to have been the Rulers for 13,000 years before the time of Menes. The Solar God as Source of Life was re-born in natural phenomena, as his own child the Horus of Light in the Moon; the Child of the Lotus in the Water; the Seed as the Bread of Life in the Corn. In each phase he was opposed by Sut-Typhon in the form of Darkness, Drought, or Death. Previous to the Inundation he was pierced by Sut in the parching Drought. Then it was the errand of Isis as of Ishtar to fetch the Water of Life. This she did as the Lunar Mistress of the Water. At the birth of the River in Mesore-Tammuz, the Moon rose at full in the first Lunar Water-sign, whither she had gone for the Water of Life in the under-world--or, astronomically, entered the lowest signs. Here is one proof. Papsukal is the Regent of Capricorn, the first water-sign, and he is the messenger that hurries off to the Sun-God (who is certainly not the dead Tammuz!) with the news of Ishtar's arrival in search of the Fountain of Life.

Isis in her search was accompanied by Anup, her golden dog; and in the Hermean Zodiac Anup is stationed in the sign of the Sea-Goat, where he is shaking the Systrum of Isis to frighten away the Typhonian influences.--(Plutarch.) Here is additional evidence. When the Moon rose at full in these three signs they represented the Waters of Life to Egypt, in accordance with the then flowing Inundation of the Nile; but when the Sun itself entered the sign of Capricorn, in winter, the passage became the "Crossing of the Waters of Death," for the Solar God, or the Souls in the Eschatological phase. Hence the typical "Two Waters" of the Egyptian Mythos, called the Pools of the North and South. My contention is, that the imagery thus set in heaven to reflect the seasons on earth was Egyptian from the first, and that it can only be rightly read in the original version according to time and season in Egypt.

Professor Sayce makes the perplexing assertion that "the month of Tammuz was called in the Akkadian Calendar 'the month of the Errand of Ishtar.'" But the month Ki-Innanna (formerly read Ki-Gingir-na), the message of Nanna or Ishtar, is Ululu, two months later than Tammuz; and the message of Ishtar, as Virgo, in August, is not to be converted into the legend of her descent into Hades in June, when the Sun was in Cancer and the full Moon was in Capricorn.

Merodach represents the Sun in Scorpio, as the deity of that sign, but this

does not mean that he is the Sun itself! In the Egyptian mythos it was as the Sun in Scorpio that Osiris was betrayed to his death by Typhon. Then his son, Horus=Merodach, was reborn of the Moon in the Bull, the first of the six upper signs, to become the avenger of his victimised father! Thus as heir-apparent of the Solar God, the Hero comes to the aid of the Moon during an eclipse, and overcomes the Dragon of Darkness.

This revealer of the father-god in natural phenomena, under whatsoever name, is supremely important as the mythical character that supplied the type to current Christology. When the scientific fact was first discovered the doctrine of a divine trinity, consisting of father, mother, and child, was then established. The child was the light of the sun, his father being the hidden source in the underworld, his mother the moon, as reproducer of that light. This reflex image of the father's glory, his light of the world by night, the representative of his power in the six upper signs, whilst the sun was in the six lower signs, is the child as Horus, as the re-born Tum=Tum-mes, Tammuz, Apollo, Merodach, the hero, the warrior against the dragon, and the powers of darkness at night or during the lunar eclipse, the Masu, the anointed, the only begotten, furnished by the past as a factor in the theology of the present, which meets with no recognition whatsoever from Professor Sayce, or from any other writers on mythology who are known to me.

Except in the technique of his scholarship, one sees but little sign that the professor has thought out his far-reaching subject fundamentally. For example, Berossos repeats a Babylonian description of nature, which he distinctly affirms to have been allegorical. The professor admits (p. 392) that these "composite creatures were really the offspring of Totemism"; that is, they were symbolical Zoötypes. And yet he can say of them, "we may see (in these) a sort of anticipation of the Darwinian hypothesis"! But men with wings, two heads, and horses' feet, centaurs, mermaids, and sphinxes, belong to a mythical mode of representing ideas, not to "imperfect, first attempts of nature," in accordance with the doctrine of development. Such confusion of thought is likely to make the truth of the matter doubly indistinguishable. Again, he tells us that "the god was a beast before he became a man," whereas he means that the primary forces recognised in nature first were represented by Zoötypes before the superhuman powers were imaged in the human likeness. He does not define what he means by "worship" or "religion" when he imports these terms into the remoter past, and thus sets up a false standard of judgment. Worship of the heavenly bodies was nothing more than the looking up to them as the tellers of time, even though they may be called oracles! The Kronian gods were only types of time in a world without clocks and watches. He speaks of theological conceptions becoming mythical, whereas the mythical representation preceded the theological phase. He can "find no trace of ancestor-worship in the early literature of Chaldea" (p. 358). But I doubt whether a man who resolves the Dæmon of Socrates into an Intuition, can know how or where to look for the proof. He tells us the earliest Babylonian religion was purely Shamanistic, only the spirits it recognised were not spirits in "our sense of the word," whichever sense that may be! Now Shamanism is the most primitive kind of Spiritualism, but it includes human spirits as well as the elementals; and as human spirits include the spirits of ancestors, and as Mul-lil is the Lord of ghost-world, and Nergal is the god of apparitions, called the Khadhi (which agrees with the Egyptian Khati for the dead), then the Shamanism of Babylonia must have included a worship of ancestors! The non-evolutionist cannot truly interpret the past for us, even when reinforced by the non-spiritualist.

It matters little to me that Professor Sayce should ignore my work, but it does matter greatly to him that he should have to ignore all the facts which are fatal to his assumptions. He cannot get rid of the facts by thus ignoring them. He cannot establish a negation by closing his eyes to all that is positively

opposed to his conclusions. In trying to do so he has blindly shut out all that Egypt had to say and show and suggest. That simple policy was practised long ago by the ostrich, and the ruse is generally acknowledged to have proved a preposterous failure. As the superstructure of Assyriology is now reared and settling down securely upon fixed foundations, I am willing to discuss the matters here mooted in the press or debate with Professor Sayce upon the platform, where I will undertake to demonstrate the common origin of the mythological astronomy, and prove that the Egyptian is the primeval parent of the Babylonian. Meanwhile the foregoing pages and the following comparative list (not to say anything of the "Natural Genesis") contain a sufficient answer to his declaration that the two have nothing in common but general analogies:--

EGYPTIAN.	BABYLONIAN.
Tepht, the abyss	= Tavthe, the abyss.
Khepsh, pool of hippopotamus.	= Abzu, the deep.
Bau, the hole or void.	= Bahu, the void personified.
Tep, Typhon, the dragon.	= Tavthe = Tiamat, the dragon.
Matut, Storm-God.	= Matu, Storm-God.
Isis as the Scorpion.	= Ishtar as the Scorpion.
Triad of Isis, Nephtys, and Horus.	= Triad of Ishtar, Tillil, and Tammuz.
Ra, God of the Double House.	= Ea, God of the House.
Five Celestials born of Seb.	= Five Anúnas, or spirits of heaven.
Seven evil spirits.	= Seven evil spirits.
Seven servants of Ra.	= Seven servants of Anu.
The Nunu, 8 gods or spirits.	= The Anúnus, or 8 spirits of earth.
The Put Circle of 9 Spirits, or gods of	= The Igigi, 9 spirits of heaven.
heaven.
Num, god of the deep and inundation,	= Ea, god of the deep and the "good
and the "good wind."	wind."
Ua = Ea, the captain.	= Ea, god of the boat.
Hathor, the white heifer.	= Ishtar, the white heifer.
Shetar, the betrothed.	= Ishtar, the "bridal goddess."
Anup, the announcer.	= Nebo, the announcer.
Double Anubis.	= Nebo and Nusku.
Taht-Khunsu.	= Adar.
Horus (luni-solar hero).	= Merodach.
Tum as Aten or the Messu.	= Tammuz.
Kek, god of darkness.	= Kus, god of darkness.
Â, moon, lunar divinity.	= Â, lunar divinity.
Khekh, a spirit.	= Igigi, spirits.
Rupa, the prince.	= Rubu, the prince.
Nerau, the chief, the victor.	= Nerra, the victor.
Ser, chief, head.	= Sar, king.
Tabu, great bear or hippopotamus.	= Dabu, the great bear or hippopotamus.

GERALD MASSEY.

P.S.--By the by, is Professor Sayce equally certain that he is correct in his dates of precession? He gives the entrance of the vernal equinox into the signs of the Bull and Ram as being about the years, 4,700 and 2,500 B.C. I found that Cassini and other astronomers gave the figures 4,565 and 2,410 B.C. And from data kindly supplied to me by the present Astronomer Royal from independent calculations made at Greenwich, these were the dates, corroborated and confirmed.

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Greek Mythology and the God Apollo

Gerald Massey's Lectures

Originally published in a private edition c. 1900

189

If the author of Juventus Mundi could but turn to Egypt, and make a first-hand acquaintanceship with its Symbolism, I think it would enlighten him more than any amount of listening round to those deluding Aryanists, respecting the origin, derivation and meaning of the Greek Mythology.

For example, let us take the case of the god Apollo, who is related to the sun, and yet is not the sun itself. The Solarites can shed no light upon the darkness of Mr. Gladstone's difficulty. Writers who talk about mythology being a "disease of language," and know nothing of the gods as Celestial Intelligencers and time-keepers for men--chief of which was the sun, when the solar year had been made out; still earlier, the moon in its various phases--can lend us no aid in penetrating the secrets of this ancient science. "Solar-worship" is good enough for them, but it will not explain mythology to us, or to itself. The child of the sun, re-born as Lord of Light in the moon, has never come within the range of their vision. Yet it is the simple fact in natural phenomena, which was represented mythically as the mode of making it known, of teaching it by means of the Gnosis or science of knowledge, as one of the mysteries, so soon as the discovery had once been made; and this is one of the most important of all the factors in mythology.

I would suggest to Mr. Gladstone that the Greek Apollo is the same soli-lunar personification as is Thoth (Taht or Tehuti), and Khunsu (or the soli-lunar Horus), this is, the child of the supreme divinity in Egypt, the solar Ra, as his light by night--whilst he himself is the god who is hidden from sight in the under-world--his vice-dieu of the dark. Apollo is designated Lukgenes, or light-born. He is the image of the solar deity, the reflection of his glory in the lunar disk.

Every phase of character in which Apollo appears, especially as represented by Homer, can be identified as pertaining to the male moon-god in Egypt, and the common basis of all may be found in those natural phenomena which are indicated in previous pages. In these natural phenomena, there is a common source, or foundation, to which the functions and attributes of Apollo and Taht (or the lunar Horus) can be referred, and by which the characters may be satisfactorily explained. The relationships of Apollo to Zeus, are exactly like those of Taht to Osiris, the supreme being. It is Taht who gives the Ma-Kheru, or Word of Truth, to the sun-god himself. As representative of Ra, his lunar logos, his light in the darkness, he is the Word whose promise is fulfilled and made truth by the Supreme Being, the sun that vivifies and verifies for ever. By his Word, he drives the enemies from the solar horizon, the insurgent powers of darkness which are fighting eternally against Ra. This is the character of Apollo as the defender of heaven against every assault. These powers of darkness, continually in revolt, ever

warring with the sun, were called the giants which Taht-Khunsu, the giant-killer, slays by night, or during the lunar eclipse. Apollo also figures as the destroyer of the giants who were at war with heaven. It is said in the Egyptian texts that Ra created this god, Taht, as "a beautiful light to show the name of his evil enemy," i.e., Sut-Typhon, the eternal enemy of the sun. He held up the lamp by night that made the darkness visible; showed the name, the face, the personal presence, of his lurking foe. This also is a character of Apollo, as a representative and kind of deputy providence for Zeus.

Apollo is god of the bow! Taht carries the bow of the crescent moon upon his head! Now the hero in the folk-tales who is always successful in drawing the great bow in the trial where all his competitors fail, is this god of the new moon, who alone can bend the bow, or bring the orb to the full circle of light once more. He can be identified in the Hindu form of the Mythos as Krishna "with the Bow of Hari." The crescent on the head of Taht is the bow prepared and ready to be drawn to the full against the power of night, and every form of evil that dwells in the darkness. Thus the lunar representative of Ra, with the bow of the young moon on his head, who prepares it month after month, and draws it to the full circle night after night, may be called the preparer of bows; and in Egyptian the name Apuru signifies a preparer of bows; it also means the Guide and Herald. As the u in Egyptian stands for o, and r for l, we have Apuru=Apollo; the preparer of bows=the god of the bow as male divinity of the moon, who was the offspring of the sun and moon, the bowman of the solar god. Mr. Gladstone doubts whether the root of Apollo is Greek, and says he would not be surprised to find it Eastern. All the evidence tends to prove it Egyptian by nature and by name. Apollo is the god of knowledge, past, present, and to come; Taht is the deity of knowledge, past, present, and future--the founder of science, lord of the divine words, and secretary of the gods. Apollo is the god of poetry and music. So was Taht. He is the psalmist and singer; he is fabled to have torn out the sinews of Sut-Typhon to form the lyre--the lyre or harp with seven strings being an image of the new moon, like the bow.

Apollo was the god of healing. Taht is the supreme physician and healer; "He who is the good Saviour," as it is written on a statue in the Leyden Museum. Apollo was the bringer of death in a form that was serene and beautiful, as became the lunar Lord of light, and enlarger of the lunar light to the full,--the character and function being afterwards applied to the light of life that suffered the passing eclipse of death. One name of Taht is Tekh, which signifies to be full!

Of course the Greeks did not simply take over the Egyptian mythology intact, nor did they preserve the descent quite pure on any single line. In re-applying the legendary lore, derived from Egypt, to the same phenomena in nature, there would be considerable mixture, amalgamation, change of name, and consequent confusion. The blind Horus of Egypt reappears as the blind Orion in the Greek mythos. This is as certain as that the constellation of Orion, the star of Horus, was named Orion after Horus! His lunar relationship is shown by the recovery of his sight on exposing his eyeballs to the rays of the rising sun,--just as the eye of Horus was restored to him through the return of light at dawn. Horus in his lunar character is one with Taht and Khunsu in the other cults; that is, the lunar child may be Horus as son of Osiris, or Taht as the offspring of Ra, or Khunsu as the child of Amen; the myth being one in different religions. It follows that so far as Orion is identical with Horus he is also, or once was, identical in character with the lunar Apollo, and therefore like him of twin-birth with Artemis. Links of this lunar relationship remain. He lives and hunts along with Artemis when his sight has been recovered. He was beloved by Artemis and slain by her because he made an attempt upon her chastity--which is a common charge brought against the man in the moon mythology!

The bringing on of the lunar mythos upon two different lines of descent, Apollo being a continuation of Taht-Khunsu, and Orion of Horus, would account for the later mixture in the relationship of the various personations--the fact in nature being represented under different names for the same character in mythology, as it had been previously in Egypt.