BOOK V. lous hierophant Orpheus was a Thracian, and that the Orgies themselves were of Thracian origin'. Sometimes however they ascribed their invention to the old Pelasgi; who at one period, in the course of their wanderings, tenanted Samothrace. These two accounts are in substance the same, and I entertain no doubt of their accuracy. The Thracians and the Pelasgi were the ancestors of those Greeks, who did not emigrate from Egypt and Phenicia. They were equally children of one great family: for they were branches of the Indo-Scythic or Pallic or Gothic race, which sent out colonies in almost every direction, and which communicated their religious institutions to their descendants the elder Hellenes. Thus we need not wonder at the perfect identity of the Indo-Scythic and the Samothracian Mysteries: nor have we any occasion to reject as incredible the well-founded opinion, that the Orgies of the barbarous northern and northeastern nations were really the same, both in nature and purport, as those of the more civilized Greeks and Phenicians and Egyptians. On the contrary, it will serve to shew the justice of that remarkable classification, by which Clemens enumerates, as teaching much the same doctrines and as philosophizing in much the same manner, the priests of Egypt, the Chaldèans of Assyria, the Druids of the Gauls, the Samanèans of the Bactrians, the sages of the Celts, the Magi of the Persians, the Brahmens of the Indians, the philosophers of the Scythians, and the various wise men among the Odrysæ and the Geta and the Arabians and the Philistines and (to use his own sweeping expression) ten thousand other nations'. From these misnamed barbarians Pythagoras, as he truly observes, borrowed very largely and, of what nature as well as of what extent his obligations were, Jamblichus informs us very explicitly. He taught, it seems, certain rites of purification; he initiated his disciples into the Mysteries; and, uniting a divine philosophy with religious worship, he instructed them with the greatest accuracy in the knowledge of the hero-gods. What he communicated however, he had himself previously learned; for the speculations, which he delivered, were no mere novel inventions of his own.

He

had derived them, partly from the Orphic rites of the Thracians, partly from the Egyptian priesthood, partly from the Chaldeans and the Magi, partly from the Mysteries of Eleusis and Imbros and Samothrace and Delos, and in addition to all these partly from the Celts and the Iberians'. He taught then, we find, certain Mysteries blended with philosophy, which he had borrowed from various kindred sources. But Herodotus speaks of the Orphic and the Pythagorean Mysteries as being the very same. Now we know, that the Orphic Mysteries were no other than those of Samothrace, Egypt, and Phenicia: such likewise must therefore have been those used by Pythagoras. But he borrowed them from all the numerous sources specified by Jamblichus. Hence the identical Mysteries, which were celebrated in Thrace, Egypt, Phenicia, Samothrace, Eleusis, Imbros, and Delos, must also have been established among the Chaldeans, the Magi, the Celts, and the Iberians. In fact, not only Pythagoras, but the Greeks collectively, had nothing but what they received from those whom they styled barbarians3. Now what they received was the Mysteries. Consequently, the Mysteries of the barbarians must have been the very same as the Mysteries of the Greeks; which again were the same as those of the Egyptians, the Phrygians, and the Phenicians. Agreeably both to this conclusion and to what has already been observed on the subject, Porphyry views the cavern-worship of the Persian Mithras as immediately related to the similar cavern-worship of the Cretan Jupiter, the Arcadian Pan and Luna, and the Naxian Bacchus: and associates the initiation into his rockmysteries with the legends respecting the several consecrated grottos of Saturn, of the Nymphs, and of Ceres and Proserpine. In short, so generally acknowledged was the identity of the Mysteries in every part of the world, that Euripides describes the god Bacchus, in his tragedy of that name, as declaring, that the Orgies were equally celebrated by all foreign nations, and that he came to introduce them among the Greeks: while Zosimus informs us, that they prevailed so universally, as to comprehend the whole race of mankind.

CHAP. VI.

BOOK V.

II. The identity of the Mysteries being thus established, we may next inquire, whence they originated; for the very circumstance of their identity necessarily proves them all to have had some common origin.

1. Bp. Warburton, agreeably to his system of deducing every thing from Egypt, contends that they were first invented in that country: whence, in process of time, they were carried into Greece, Persia, Cyprus, Crete, Samothrace, Lemnos, Asia Minor, Britain, Hindostan, and all those barbarous nations wherever situated amongst which we find them established'.

This theory seems to me so utterly incredible, that I feel myself altoge ther unable to adopt it. Whatever was the origin of the Mysteries, such also must have been the origin of the whole fabric of pagan mythology: for the two are so intimately connected, that it is impossible to separate them from each other and to derive them from distinct sources. If then we subscribe to the hypothesis of Warburton, we must prepare ourselves to believe, that the whole frame of gentile idolatry with the sacred Mysteries attached to it was the exclusive contrivance of the Egyptian priesthood; and that the entire human race were but the servile copyists of one single nation. We must believe, not only that the neighbouring Greeks and Phenicians borrowed from Egypt; but that the most remote communities, the British Celts, the Pelasgic Scythians, the Magi of Persia, the Chaldeans of Babylon, and even the Brahmens of Hindostan, were all content to receive their theology from the same country. We must believe too, that this universal obligation to Egypt was incurred in the very earliest ages: for, not to enter into a discussion respecting the antiquity of Babylon or Persia or Hindostan, we find the Orgies of Adonis or BaalPeor and of Astartè or Sida completely established in Palestine prior to the time of the exodus; and we observe the Greeks acknowledging, that they had already received from the northern Pelasgi or Thracians those very Mysteries which were again imported by the southern settlers from Egypt. The whole of this appears to me perfectly incredible. Egypt no doubt was a civilized and well-regulated state at a very remote period: and its established idolatry was, I believe, coëval with its very existence

Div. Leg. book ii. sect. 4. p. 3, 4, 5,

!

as a nation. But, neither was it the only ancient. or civilized community; CHAP. VI.
nor, even if it were, would this satisfactorily account for the universal
adoption of its Mysteries, as well by its more immediate neighbours, as by
the far distant colonists of the extreme east and north and north-west. The
thing itself plainly exceeds all reasonable belief. No one exposes with
more pungent ridicule than this great writer the gross absurdity of Huet
and other speculatists of the same school, who discover in the single legis-
lator of the Israelites all the hero-gods of antiquity: for how should the
various remote pagan tribes know any thing of Moses; or, if they did,
where could be their inducement so universally to erect him into a deity'?
Yet he sees not, that the same inconsistency; though doubtless not quite
in so high a degree, because the celebrity of Egypt very far surpassed that
of Israel: still, that the same inconsistency in kind attaches to his theory
of alike deducing from the former country the manifestly kindred Myste-
ries, not only of Greece and Palestine, but of Britain and Scythia and
Persia and Babylonia and Hindostan. I do not however exclusively cen-
sure the hypothesis of this learned prelate: I think, that for the very same
reasons, those theories are equally devoid of solidity, which would similarly
deduce every thing from Scythia or from Hindostan or from any other
favourite community whatsoever. When the earth was once peopled by
the descendants of Noah, and when his children had once formed distinct
states in regions widely separated from each other: I can never bring my
self to believe, that any single nation could communicate its own peculiar
religious system to the whole world; I can never persuade myself, that all
mankind with one consent forsook the worship of their fathers merely that
they might adopt the fantastic inventions of Egypt.

2. How then are we to account for the general prevalence and identity
of the pagan Mysteries; and from what common origin are we to suppose
them to have sprung? For, as I have just observed, and as it was neces-
sarily felt and acknowledged by Bp. Warburton, the very circumstance
of their identity demonstrates them all to have had one and the same
origin.

BOOK V.

I undoubtedly account for the matter, precisely as I account for the identity of the various systems of pagan mythology. So remarkable and exact an accordance of sentiments and institutions, which may be distinctly traced in every part of the world, leads us inevitably to the belief, that, in the infancy of society when as yet mankind were but few in number, all the children of Noah were associated together in a single community; that, while thus they formed but one empire, a great apostasy from the worship of the true God took place; that at that period the original system of idolatrous mythology and the sacred Mysteries attached to it were first contrived; and that afterwards, when colonies were sent forth from the parent society and when new independent polities were gradually established, the same mysterious rites and the same peculiar mode of worship were carried by the emigrants to every part of the world. Such, even if the scriptural history had never been written, would be the only rational and satisfactory method of accounting for a fact as undoubted as it is curious. But it need scarcely be observed, how decidedly that history establishes the present conclusion: while, on the other hand, the conclusion, to which we are thus inevitably led by actually existing circumstances, affords an illustrious attestation to the truth of the sacred volume. We have an extraordinary fact, which nothing can adequately explain but the supposed occurrence of one particular event; the union of all mankind, at some remote period, in a single community: the Bible declares, that this identical event, which existing circumstances so imperiously require, really took place at Babel.

III. The inquiry, which now demands our attention, is the nature and purport of those ancient Mysteries; which, originating in the plains of Shinar, were thence carried by them of the dispersion into all parts of the globe.

1. Bp. Warburton endeavours to prove, that the Mysteries were a profound political invention of the Egyptian legislators; and that their sole object was, first to expose to the initiated the futility of the established vulgar polytheism, and afterwards to declare to them the existence of one Supreme Being the creator and moderator of the Universe. The method, which was adopted in conveying these important truths, he supposes to have been this. The solemnity commenced with reciting to the aspirants