Part 12

III. I also combat, although it is only by the way, or _en passant_, the system of Senior Branchini, who asserts, that all the fables were the offspring of profane history; or, to speak more properly, he endeavours to inculcate, that the first are mysterious or enigmatical representations of the last, which attempt, necessarily betrays him into some violent and absurd allusions; and perhaps into such as are more glaring, than those I have pointed out, by which, he derives all the fables from holy writ. For example; he pretends that all the Iliad is a true history, but converted into allegory, agreeable to the practice of the East. That Jupiter was the successor of the great conqueror Sesostris, whose dominion extended over a vast tract of country in the time of the Trojan war; that the inferior deities, represented either eminent men, or particular nations; and that a part of those deities, were tributary princes to the said Sesostris, or some one of his successors, whose dependence upon him, did not deprive them of the option, of taking part either with the Trojans or the Greeks, just as their passions or interests dictated to them. That the goddess Juno was Syria, called _Blanca_, and was characterized by the white arms of Juno, so much extolled by Homer. Minerva was the wise Egypt, Mars the union or combination of Armenia, Colquida, Thrace and Thessaly; and in this manner, he reasons upon the other fables. Into such strange paradoxes as these, are men drawn by their passion for systems of great extent.

IV. But although I don’t assent to the system of Senior Branchini, the whole of which it is impossible to adjust, without falling into great absurdities, I agree, after the example of many men eminent for their literature, that a large portion of the fables, is a compound of parcels of profane history, disguised and deformed; but still the alteration they have undergone, has not so thoroughly disfigured them, but that we may discern in the copies, sufficient marks of their origin and derivation; and I propose pointing out to you in this letter, the instances of this sort that occur to me.

V. It is highly probable, that some of the subaltern deities, were formed upon the idea that was entertained by the populace, of some particular persons, eminent either for their heroic virtues, or for having been the inventors of some arts, that were found to be exceedingly useful to the public. This is the account Pliny gives of the matter in chap. 1. of his twenty-fifth book. _At herculè, singula quosdam inventa deorum numero addidere._

VI. Saturn devouring his children, according to Mr. Rollin, is derived from a part of the Carthaginian history, which speaks of a king of Carthage, who buried his sons alive as a sacrifice to the gods; and this agrees in substance, with the account given of the thing by Mons. Bonamy, in his History of the Royal Academy of Inscriptions, _tom._ 7. p. 29. But, as we shall see in the sequel, it is much more probable, that the fabulous Saturn of paganism was derived from the true Abraham of scripture.

VII. The Cretans considered Jupiter as their countryman; and even in the time of Lucian, as appears by this author in his Dialogue of _Jupiter Tragicus_, shewed his tomb in that island; and although they allowed he was dead, it without doubt had been handed down to them by tradition, that he was some eminent man, and had peradventure been king of the country.

VIII. In the fiction of the Stygian Lake, and of the boatman Charon, is contained a mixture of natural and civil history. There is in Arcadia a lake, which not only was called Stygia at the time when the poets first began to make it famous by their inventions, but many ages after that æra, preserved this name; for even in the days of Pliny it retained it; and I don’t know whether it does not retain it with very little alteration, at this period. The deadly quality of its waters, gave occasion to the poets, to feign that it was of infernal derivation, and to place the source, both of the lake, and the river which runs into it, in the region of the dead. Pliny says, that the waters of it, by being drunk, kill in an instant; and adds upon the authority of Theophrastus, that there are little fish bred in it, which poison whoever eats them. Some antient authors, attribute a faculty to its waters so intensely corrosive, that it can’t be contained in any vessel, but one made of a wild ass’s hoof, as it gnaws and tears to pieces, those made of any other materials; and the disciples of Aristotle formerly pretended, that this secret was revealed by their master to Antipater, to instruct him how he might send some of this poisonous water to Babylon, for the destruction of Alexander.

IX. The learned Abbé Fourmont, who in the years 1729 and 30, by order of the most Christian king, made a voyage of critical enquiry to the Levant, where he scrutinized with the greatest exactness all Greece, and after passing the brook which supplied it with water, examined with much attention the Stygian Lake; which he gives the following horrible description of. He says, the water of the brook which runs into it, before it enters the lake, is clear, but after that, becomes thick and tainted; an alteration, which can only be imputed to the bad qualities and pernicious nature of its bottom. He says further, the surface presents to the view, a confused mixture of the most disgustful tints; and that a thick scum, of the colour of the rust of copper tinged with black, swims on its top, which being agitated by the wind, looks like the bubbles of boiling tar or bitumen. The obnoxious active quality of its waters, is not less pernicious than its aspect is displeasing; and the vapours which arise from them, blight all the plants that grow near the lake; and that it’s banks are avoided and fled from, by all sorts of beasts. The Abbé Fourmont mentions a circumstance, that contradicts what has been related by Theophrastus, which is, that its fish poison whoever eats them; for he asserts, that no fish can live in the waters of the lake; and saying they are deadly to the very fish, is certainly an aggravation of their pernicious qualities.

X. The lake then, being in so many respects horrible and affrighting, it is no wonder that from these circumstances, poetic fancy should place it in the region of horror, or at the entrance of it.

XI. The fable of the boatman Charon, who for an obolo, an Athenian piece of money worth a little more than our halfpenny, carried the souls of the dead over the lake, was derived from an Egyptian story, related by Diodorus Siculus. There was in Egypt a lake, over which dead bodies after they were embalmed, were carried to the opposite shore to be buried; and there were judges appointed to attend at the place of embarkation, to examine into the course of life which had been led by the dead persons; and after this inquiry, to pronounce whether they were or were not, worthy to be interred; which office was exercised with such severity, that this common honour has been denied to some of the royal family. To this story there is annexed a tradition, which the Abbé Fourmont says, subsists in that part of Egypt at this day. The tradition is as follows; that there was once a farmer of the revenues of one of the Pharaohs, who laid a tax upon this transportation of the dead, which brought in vast sums. Thus you see, that both in Greece and Egypt, there were found true materials, wherewith to fabricate the fable of the Stygian Lake, to build the boat which conveyed the dead bodies to the abyss, and to erect a monument, to eternize the avarice of the boatman Charon.

XII. The fable of the river Lethe, whose waters the dead are obliged to drink, to make them forget all they ever saw or knew in the region of the living, and also that of the boatman Charon, are both of African origin. This river rises near the great bog or quicksand, and after running under ground, and being hid for some miles, shews itself again near to the city of Berenica, now Bernick or Bernisho, greatly increased in size, by the addition made to it, by subterraneous waters; and this made it thought, that it was not the same river which they had before seen bury itself under ground, and was also the circumstance, that gave rise to its deriving its source from Hell.

XIII. The river likewise which was antiently called Lethe, but now goes by the name of Limia, and runs through my native country; and concerning which, there was once a prevailing opinion among the Romans, that it had the same properties which the poets attributed to the infernal river, causing forgetfulness, not only in those who drank of its waters, but also in those who waded through it, and it not being then certain whether this error or preoccupation with respect to the river Lethe, and the fiction of its source originating in Hell, took its rise from the river Lethe of my country; or whether the fable of the river Lethe coming from Hell, and the property of its waters being then established, might have occasioned the confounding the river Lethe of Galicia with the other.

XIV. I say, however this was, the opinion of the qualities of the river Lethe, was so rooted and fixed among the vulgar of the Romans, that when the consul Decimus Brutus, as Florus calls him, or Aulus Brutus, as he is called by Paterculus, was engaged in the conquest of Galicia, and who on account of his having conquered it, obtained the surname of Gallego; I say, when this consul came to the river Lethe, which is fordable, none of his soldiers, for fear of incurring that general forgetfulness, would venture to wade through it, till the consul who was not preoccupied with the vulgar error, passed thro’ it to the opposite shore; and when he was arrived there, turned about and called some of his countrymen by their names, by which he gave them to understand, that he had not incurred the forgetfulness they so much dreaded; and said further to them, as Florus informs us, _Formidatum Romanis fluvium oblivionis_.

XV. The story of Dedalus, and his being obliged to fly from the resentment of Minos, by means of the invention of wings, for having facilitated to Pasiphaë her abominable commerce with a bull, was meant to describe nothing more, than her having been enamoured with Taurus, who, according to Plutarch, was one of the principal generals in the army of Minos; and Dedalus’s having assisted, by exerting the ordinary means practised on such occasions, in bringing about the completion of the lovers wishes; after finishing the business he fled from the vengeance of Minos, in a vessel that had sails, which might properly enough be compared to wings, and which the imagination being put to the stretch to find out a way of escaping, they were then supposed to have been first invented: or if the idea had before been entertained, that was the first time of its being carried into practice.

XVI. The chimerical feats of Jason, and his stealing the golden fleece, are historically explained by the celebrated Samuel Bochart, who, by the help of his knowledge of the Phœnician language, discovered, that there were some words of equivocal meaning in that idiom, which gave occasion to the fabrication of this portentous fable. The Syriac word _Gaza_, in the Phœnician language, signifies both a treasure and a fleece; the word _Saur_ also, in the same language, signifies both a wall and a bull; and the word _Nachas_, is also indifferently used to express a dragon and iron. Thus, instead of saying that Jason, by breaking down or scaling a wall defended by armed men, had made himself master of the treasure of the king of Colquida; they represent him, as having tamed the bulls which breathed fire, and the tremendous dragon, which guarded the golden fleece, and by that means had made himself master of it. Neither in the love of Medea for Jason, or in her running away with him, was there any thing extraordinary, or that required the assistance of Minerva, for a natural passion, accompanied with resolution, could without any other aid, surmount all the difficulties in such an undertaking.

XVII. The Centaurs, half men and half horses, which make a great figure in the heathen mythology, were nothing more, according to the best authors, than types or representations of some of the inhabitants of Thessaly, who were the first people that were known to fight on horseback, and to train and break horses, for the use and business of war; and it was in that region, the poets placed the Centaurs, and it was from thence, that they say Hercules expelled them.

XVIII. The harpies (who could suppose it?) were no more than great swarms of locusts, which in the reign of king Phineus, desolated Paphlagonia. In the dictionary of Moreri (vid. the word Harpies) you may see the proofs of this, which I shall omit inserting here, as that dictionary is so well known.

XIX. In the same manner, from portions of profane history, may be explained many other parts of the heathen mythology; such as the fable of Perseus, that of Belerophonte, that of the Hesperides, that of the Gorgons, and many more. But this is not a matter of sufficient importance to dwell upon.

XX. I also confess, that there are some parts of profane mythological history, that may be opportunely explained by the sacred, as those who have embraced the general system of deducing the first from the last, have clearly proved; but their success in some of these particulars, has been the cause of their great error, as it has encouraged them in the absurd and incongruous attempt, of deducing from scripture, the whole Pagan mythology. I will here venture, notwithstanding this has been a path so much trodden, to point some especial marks of similitude and identity, between a deity of the gentiles, and a conspicuous person of holy writ. This is the example I before promised to give, and which relates to the resemblance between the father of the faithful with one of the most antient of the Pagan deities, that is, between Abraham and Saturn. But I must premise, that the reader is not indebted to me for this beautiful parallel, but to the Abbé Boissy, a member of the Academy Royal of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres at Paris, who is the person that advanced it in that famous assembly; and I shall translate it here in the sense of the language of the author, as I find it inserted, in the first volume of the History of that academy.

XXI. He says that Saturn, according to the relations of the poets and historians, was the person who first introduced the detestable custom of sacrificing human victims. The Saturn of the Pagans, is in the judgment of the best critics, the Abraham of scripture; and a fragment of Sanchionata, which is produced by Eusebius, does to appearance, put the thing out of all doubt. The fragment runs as follows; _Saturn, whom the Phœnicians call Israel, was after his death classed among the gods, under the name of a planet, which at this time is called Saturn. In the days of this prince’s reign in Phœnicia, he had by a nymph named_ Anobret, _an only son whom he called_ Jeud, _a word which even to this day, among the Phœnicians signifies_ only son. Finding that he had engaged his country in a dangerous war, he adorned his son with the vestments and insignia of royalty, and sacrificed him on an altar erected by himself. In another fragment of the same Sanchionata, we find, that this same Saturn circumcised himself, and obliged all his family to do the like. Nicholas Damascenus, Justin, and other authors, give to Abraham the rank and quality of a king; and even the scripture remarks, that he made alliances, and treated with other kings as with his equals; and besides this, the patriarchs were known to exercise royal authority in their own families. Berosus, as we are informed by Josephus, adds, that Abraham had great skill in astrology; and Eupolemus, as we are told by Eusebius, says, that he was the inventor of the science of the Chaldeans. There needs nothing more to persuade us, that the Phœnicians were disposed to place him among the gods and the planets. They called him Israel, either from their confounding the grandfather with the grandson, or because they gave that name to the people who were descended from him. The name of _Jeud_, his only son, has the same meaning as that of _Isaac_; and _Anobret_, as Bochart informs us, signifies _ex gratia concipiens_, which signification, is very applicable to the circumstances of _Sarah_. Finally, and as the last instance of conformity between them, Saturn circumcised himself, and obliged all his family to do the same; a remarkable particular this, and which can agree only with the circumstances of Abraham. Thus far the before cited author.

XXII. I say the same of the two systems, that derive all the fictions of Paganism, the one from sacred, the other from profane history, that I say of all the other systems; which is, that there is somewhat of truth in every one of them, but that they all in general are false. Father Kircher inclined to the sentiment, that all the fables derived their origin from the language, or hyerogliphical characters of the Egyptians; although it is necessary, in order to support this opinion, to suppose that they all originated in Egypt, which is very wide of the truth; but as that kingdom in the ages of antiquity, made a great figure in the world, and was in an especial manner venerated as the metropolis of the sciences, it is probable, that the language of it, and the mysterious expressions of some of its inhabitants, which were ill understood, or not understood at all by the vulgar, might have given rise to some of the mythological tales.

XXIII. Bochart pretends to demonstrate, that they were all derived from the equivocal meaning of words in the Phœnician language, and with respect to some of them, has succeeded very happily in illustrating this sentiment; as for example, in his explanation of the fable of the golden fleece. But the general system is absurd, even if you suppose there is no other thing to object against it, than the chimera, that Phœnicia is the country from whence the whole of the fables are descended; but in order to prove this, it will be necessary to shew, that no histories depraved with fictions, were communicated to other kingdoms, but in Phœnician manuscripts.

XXIV. The Platonists imagined, that nothing else was concealed under the veil of fables, but documents and maxims of natural philosophy. And there certainly is something of this sort implied in them; as for example, in the description which Homer gives of Aurora, as the daughter of the air, and the office which other poets assign to her, of the guardianship or custody of the gates of the east, which she is to open every morning with her dewy fingers, taking care to send the zephyrs before to dispel the dark shades. All which imagery at the bottom, means nothing more, than to describe the properties of the morning air, and to display the appearances of day-break in the east, before the sun rises above the horizon.

XXV. Others have imagined, that all the fables were meant to convey some moral or political lessons, and that the authors designed nothing more when they invented them, than to inculcate under a species of allegory, rational maxims, which might be useful in human life; and there are really some of them, that seem to have been written with no other view. The fable of Phaeton for example, appears to have been calculated, to represent the dangers to which people expose themselves, by attempting things greatly superior to their power or abilities; and that of Narcissus, to represent the extravagance and folly of self-love or admiration. But saying that all the fables were written with this design, would be a manifest chimera.

XXVI. Finally, the infatuated alchymists, or at least some of them, have dreamed, that the fables of which we have been speaking, contain enigmatically, the doctrine of the philosophers stone; that is, that they teach in a mysterious way, all the operations which are necessary to be gone thro’, for attaining the happy secret of transmuting all other metals into gold. Perhaps what occasioned this silly apprehension, was their finding in the idiom of their art, the names of the seven principal deities of the Pagans, which are the same as those of the seven planets, applied to the seven metals they make use of; but the application of those names to the metals, was posterior many ages, to their being given to the deities and the planets. The first alchymists who called the metals by those names, were excited to do it by the same motive, which has ever induced them to give to all the materials, operations, and effects of their art, strange and sounding names, which they do, either to conceal their pretended secrets, or by the mysterious magnificence of their stile, to attract the respect and admiration of the vulgar; and the resemblance of the splendor of the sun’s rays to the colour of gold, and the light of the moon, to that of silver, was favourable to their intention, and assisted them in making the application.

XXVII. This system, is not only in its complex or whole substance, but in each, and every one of its parts, destitute of all foundation, and is therefore not worthy to be controverted, but should be treated with that contempt, which both this, and all the other imaginary productions of the alchymists deserve.

XXVIII. If this letter shall afford you neither entertainment nor instruction, it will at least serve as an apology for my conduct, and incline you to retract the censure, which you have fulminated against me, and my discourse of the _Divorce of History from Fable_; and I hope that at all events, your resentment will be calmed, and your apprehensions quieted by the following reflection; that although in that discourse I have weakened the bond of matrimony between the two parties, I have in this letter, on one of the sides, established a degree of affinity between them.

ON BOOKS OF INSTRUCTION, WITH RESPECT TO POLITICS.

SECT. I.