CHAPTER IX.

THE PHALLI, AND THE OPHIOLOGICAL PRIAPIC MONUMENTS, TYPICAL OF “ THE FALL.”
THERE were piles of stones, or single stones, dis- tributed in former times all over the north, called by the Greeks ao#o1’EPMAIOI, little hills, or mounds of Mercury; of whom they were probably the original symbols. ‘They were placed by the sides, or in the points of intersection, of roads ; and every traveller that passed (“ Siste, viator,’’) threw a stone upon them in honour of Mercury, the guardian of all ways, or the general classic conductor. (Anthol., lib. iv., Epigr. 12; Phurnut. de Nat. Deor.) There can be no doubt that many of the ancient Crosses observable in such situations were erected upon these mounds, their pyramidal form affording a commodious base, and the substitution of a new object being the most obvious and usual remedy for such kinds of superstition.
The old Pelasgian Mercury of the Athenians consisted of a human head placed upon an inverted obelisk with a phallus; of which several are extant. We find also female draped figures terminating in the same square form. These seem to be of the Venus Architis, or Primitive Venus ; of whom there was a statue of wood at Delos, supposed to be the work of Deedalus ; and another in a temple upon Mount Libanus, of which the description of Macrobius exactly corresponds with the figures now extant. Her appearance was melancholic, her head covered, and her face sustained by her left hand, which was concealed under her garment. (Sat. i., chap, xxi.) Some of these
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figures have the mystic title asrazra upon them, signifying perhaps the welcome or gratulation to the returning spring: for they evidently represent nature in winter, still sustained by the inverted obelisk, the emanation of the sun pointed downwards but having all her powers enveloped in gloom and sadness. Some of these figures were probably, like the Paphian Venus, androgynous ; whence arose the Hermaphrodita, afterwards represented under more elegant forms; accounted for as usual by poetical fables. Occasionally the attribute seems to be signified by the cap and wings of Mercury.
The symbolical meaning of the olive, the fir, and the apple, the honorary rewards in the Olympic, Isthmian, and Pythian games, all bore reference to the myths, and the mysteries in religion, ‘The parsley, which formed the crown of the Roman victors, was equally a mystic plant; it being represented on coins in the same manner as the fig-leaf, and with the same signification (Hesych -), probably on account of a peculiar influence which it is still supposed to have upon the female constitution.
The confusion of personages and of characteristics among the gods and heroes, arising from a confusion of names and terms, was facilitated in its progress by the belief that the universal generative principle, or its sub- ordinate emanations, might act in such a manner that a female of the human species might be impregnated without the co-operation of a male. (Plutarch. Sym- posiac, lib. vili., probl. 1.) And as this notion was ex- tremely useful and convenient in concealing the frailties of women, quieting the jealousies of husbands, protecting the honour of families, and guarding with religious awe the power of bold usurpers, it was naturally cherished
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and promoted with much favour and industry. Men were supposed to be produced in this supernatural way. _ Even the double or ambiguous sex was attributed to deified heroes; Cecrops being fabled to have been both man and woman.*
Among the rites and customs of the temple at Hiero- polis, that of the priests castrating themselves, and assum- ing the manners and attire of women (as the women of the temple disguised themselves as men sometimes) is one of the most unaccountable. The same customs prevailed in Phrygia among the priests and priestesses of Cybelé and Attis. They, perhaps, arose from a notion of being made emblematic of the Deity by acquiring an androgynous appearance. It is possible, likewise, that the male devotees might have concluded that a depriva- tion of virility was the best incentive to that spiritual enthusiasm, to which women were observed to be more liable than men ; and to which all sensual indulgence, par- ticularly that of the sexes (although the opportunities therefor, from these circumstances, were most convenient), was held to be peculiarly adverse. ‘The ancient German prophetesses, who exercised such unlimited control over a people who would submit to no human authority, were virgins consecrated to the Deity, like the Roman Vestals. (See Tacit. de M. G.)
The similarity of the religious systems of India and of Egypt is so great, that it is impossible to doubt that they arose from the same source. One of the most remark- able parallels in the usages springing from theosophical ideas prevailing in Hindostan, and in the land of the
* Justin, lib. ii., c.6; Suidas., Euseb. et Hieron. in Chronic. ; Plutarch. de sera numin, vindicta. ; Eustath, in Dionys, ; Diodor,. Sic., \. i., c. 28.
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Pharaohs, is the hereditary division into castes, derived from metempsychosis. ‘This doctrine formed the rule, and was a fundamental article of faith in both India and Egypt, as also with the ancient Gauls, Britons, and many other nations. ‘The Hindoo castes rank according to the number of transmigrations which the soul is sup- posed to have undergone, and its consequent proximity to, or distance from, re-absorption into the divine essence, or intellectual abyss, from which it sprang. The sacred Brahmins, whose souls are approaching to a re-union with their source, are far above the wretched pariahs, who are lowest in the alphabet of castes. These last are without any rank in the hierarchy; and are therefore supposed to have all the long, humiliating, and painful transmigrations yet before them. As the respective distinctions are, in both, hereditary, the soul being sup- posed to descend into one class for punishment and ascend into the other for reward, the misery of degrada- tion is without hope even in posterity; the wretched parents having nothing to bequeath to their unfortunate offspring that is not tainted with everlasting infamy and humiliation. Loss of caste is therefore the most dreadful punishment that a Hindoo can suffer; as it affects both his body and his soul, extends beyond the grave, and reduces both him and his posterity for ever to a situation below that of a brute.
From the specimens that have appeared in European languages, the poetry of the Hindoos seems to be in the same style as their art; and to consist of gigantic, gloomy, and operose fictions, destitute of all those graces which distinguish the religious and poetical fables of the Greeks.
The incarnations which form the principal subjects of
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sculpture in all the temples of India, Tibet, Tartary, and China, are above all others calculated to call forth the ideal perfections of the art, by expanding and exalting the imagination of the artist, and exciting his ambition to surpass the simple imitation of ordinary forms, in order to produce a model of excellence worthy to be the cor- poreal habitation of the Deity: but this, no nation of the East, nor indeed of the Earth, except the Greeks and those who copied them, ever attempted. Let the precious wrecks and fragments, therefore, of the art and genius of that wonderful people be “collected with care and pre- served with reverence,” as examples of what man is capable of under peculiar circumstances ; which, as they have never occurred but once, may never occur again ! After the supreme Triad, the framers of the vast Oriental system supposed an immense host of inferior spirits to have been produced; part of whom afterwards rebelling under their chiefs Moisasoor and Rhaabon, the material world was prepared for their prison and place of purgation; in which they were to pass through “ eighty- nine transmigrations” prior to their restoration. During this time they are exposed to the machinations of their former leaders; who endeavour to make them violate the laws of the Omnipotent, and thus relapse into hopeless perdition, or lose their caste, and have all the tedious and painful transmigrations already passed to go through again ; to prevent. which, their more dutiful brethren, the Ema- nations that remained faithful to the Omnipotent, were allowed to comfort, cherish, and assist them in their pas- sage: and that all might have equal opportunities of redeeming themselves, the Divine Personages of the “Great Triad” (the same, in efficacy and purpose, as
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the Christian “ Trinity,”) had at different times become incarnate in different forms (the Christian system of “Mercy,” or of ‘ Mediation” or “ Redemption”), and in different countries, to the inhabitants of which they had given different laws and institutions suitable to their respective climates, natures, and circumstances. It would follow from this, that each religion may be good, and may be efficacious in the furtherance of the Divine ulti- mate intentions, of which, of course, Man must be entirely ignorant ; and in regard of which, he may make complete mistakes, from the insufficiency of that which he assumes to be reason ; while of absolute truth man knows nothing ; or why can he not foresee the future just as he recalls the past?
The head of Proserpine appears, in numberless in- stances, surrounded by dolphins. And upon the very ancient medals of Sidé in Pamphylia, the pomegranate, the fruit peculiarly consecrated to her, is borne upon the back of one. (Mus. Hunter., tab. xlix., fig. 3, &c.) By prevailing upon her to eat of pomegranate, Pluto is said to have procured her stay during half the year in the infernal regions; and a part of the Greek ceremony of marriage still consists, in many places, in the bride’s treading upon a pomegranate. The flower of it is also occasionally employed as an ornament upon the -diadems of both Hercules and Bacchus, and likewise forms the device of the Rhodian medals; on some of which we have seen distinctly repre- sented an ear of barley springing from one side of it, and the bulb of the lotus, or nelumbo, from the other. It therefore holds the place of the male, or active generative attribute; and accordingly we find it on a bronze frag- ment published by Caylus, as the result of the union of
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the bull and lion, exactly as the more distinct symbol of the phallus is in a similar fragment above cited. (Recueil d’ Antiquités, &c., vol. vii., pl. Ixiii., figs. 1, 2, and 3.) The pomegranate, therefore, in the hand of Proserpine or Juno, signifies the same as the circle and cross, before explained, in the hand of. Isis; which is the reason why Pausanias declines giving any explanation of it, lest it should lead him to divulge any of the mystic secrets of his religion. (Corinth., c. xvil., s. 4.) The cone of the pine, with which the thyrsus of Bacchus is always sur- mounted, and which is employed in various compositions, is probably a symbol of similar import.
Those caps resembling the Petasus of Mercury explain its purpose, and its significance, guarded, however, effec- tually in the injunctions of the mythological Harpocrates (the everlasting “protector of the mysteries”—the Great Sentinel, or Tiler of the Freemasons); who holds the guards of the “ Triple Lodge” of the Heavens above, the “Earth” in the midst, “ between the Waters and the Waters,” and the “ Under Regions.” *
These caps, the Petasi, Phrygian Caps of the mystic
* The mystic authority of this inexorable officer, or Grand Guard, stretching, in imagination, over the “Three Worlds,” and emblemed in his trenchant, bared glaive, which, in reality, is typical of the Sword of Saint Michael. We see this weapon figured in the arms of the Cor- poration of the City of London, in the upper chief quarter, or canton (as the Heralds call it), as the Sword of Saint Paul. In popular acceptation, this is the dagger wherewith Sir William Walworth despatched the rebel, Wat Tyler; Wat Tyler however was only struck down by the mace of the Lord Mayor, then, of course, in full panoply of his knight’s plate-mail ; and was despatched by the dagger, or misericorde, of one of the King’s own Knights in attendance; whose name is not
recorded, and who certainly never popularly obtained the honour of killing Richard the Second’s most formidable enemy.
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fiery purification, “the form of which is derived from the egg,” says Payne Knight,* “and which are worn by the Dioscuri” (Di-oscuri, the secret, dark, or unknown gods), “as before observed, surmounted with asterisks, signify the hemispheres of the earth. (Sext. Empiric., xi., 373; see also Achill. Tat. Isagog., p. 127 b. and 130 cc.) And it is possible that the asterisks may, in this case, mean the morning and evening stars.”
The cap is the Isiac, or Memphian, thrice-sacred head- cover, and is the origin of the united “king-priestly” mitre, the diadem of the Persian monarchs, as also of the mythic hood of the Doges of Venice, or the “coronet- encircled” crown, with the bulged salient cap—cloven, in the instance of the Emperors of the East and the West in Europe, those of Russia and of Germany.
Both “ destruction” and “ creation” were, according to the religious philosophy of the ancients, merely “ disso- lution” and “ renovation ;” to which all sublunary bodies, even that of the Earth itself, were supposed to be periodi- cally liable. “Fire” and “water were held to be the great efficient principles of both; and as the spirit or vital principle of thought and mental perception was alone supposed to be immortal and unchanged, the complete dissolution of the body, which it animated, was conceived to be the only means of its complete emancipation. Herein
* Payne Knight evidently did not know that this mythic cap, or cover for the head—called, in modern times, the ‘‘ Cap of Liberty’’— and which is always red, means the Sacrificial Rite of Circumcision, “‘ Whence this Cap,’’ he observes, ‘‘ became a distinction of rank, as it was among the Scythians (aAdodopixor, ‘ Scythians of rank,’ Lucian, Scyth.), or a symbol of freedom and emancipation,’ as it was among the Greeks and Romans, is not easily ascertained. (See 7ib. Hemsterbuis., Not. in Lucian. Dialog. Deor., xxi.)”
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the doctrines of the Budd/ists (or BAuddists, which latter is the more proper accentuation,) precisely agree with the ideas of the Greeks and Romans. The Egyp- tian monarchs erected for the final deposition of their own bodies those vast pyramidal monuments (the symbols of that “ Fire” of which they were commemorative), whose excessive strength and solidity were well calculated to secure them as long as the earth itself lasted.
The corporeal residence of this divine particle or emanation, the soul, as well as of the grosser principle of vital heat and animal motion, was supposed to be the blood. Hence the ever-reappearing ideas of the sacred character of the blood, prevailing in all the theologies which have learning for their base; and notably amongst the Orientals (the Hebrews, particularly), the Greeks, the Romans, and even the Christians, in the delicacy of their profounder philosophical learning, as indicated in their ideas of the ‘‘ mystic processes” of the Crucifixion, the Holy Eucharist, and the deep meanings of the order of the “Round Table,” and concentrating around the ideas of the “ Red Cross,” and the “ Roses.”
Purification by fire is still in use among the Hindoos, as it was among the earliest Romans, and also among the native Irish; men, women, and children, and even cattle, in Ireland, leaping over, or passing through the sacred fires annually kindled in honour of Baal; an ancient title of the Sun, or rather of the “ Celestial Fire”—the last thing to be penetrated to (in magic) of all created things.
To this idea of sacrifice, and to the expiatory sacrifice in blood, we owe the compositions, so frequent in the sculptures of the third and fourth centuries, of Mithras,
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the Persian Mediator, or his female personification, a winged Victory, sacrificing a bull. It seems probable that the sanctity anciently attributed to red or purple arose from its similitude to blood, for it had been customary, in early times, to paint not only the faces of the statues of the deities with vermilion (properly carmine), but also the bodies of the Roman Consuls and Dictators, during the sacred ceremony of the Triumph; from which ancient custom the imperial purple of later ages is derived.
From these ideas of the magic and the sacredness of colours, particularly in the augurial and heraldic sense, it is apparent that the ancient augurs were heralds. The modern heralds are, or ought to be, rightfully, augurs in certain illustrative respects, in regard to the due marshal- ling of arms in the mystic or meaning sense. Red is the © royal colour. Purple is the imperial colour, as meaning the union of royalties, or the Greater Kingship, or the title of “King of Kings.” ‘The richest blood has a purplish tinge, as is well known. From this reason, comes the very little understood word “ blue-blood” (sang-azur), as implying the true, pure aristocracy. ‘Therefore, in the mystic and mythological sacred inflection, whilst Jupiter becomes the King of the Gods and claims red, or instant, or simple blood-colour, as his distinguishing colour, the anarch, or earliest of the Gods, or father of Jupiter, or as he may be designated, in this connection, the Emperor of the Gods—Saturn, has assigned for arch-kingly, or imperial colour, the exquisitely-heightened blood- colour, in deepest dignity, or purple. The real Tyrian purple, as it is called, was not absolutely red, as by most mistaken historians it is assumed to have been, but a carmine, of imexpressible brilliancy and
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beauty. The tinge of this truly majestic colour, and its mysterious means of production, are, with the true com- position of the celebrated Greek Fire of the ancient times, and the mode of hammering glass as a metal, and using this brittle solidity as a means of constructing fabrics, registered among the lost arts. And these and similar are rejected inthe modern scientific self-satisfaction, and laughed at as being, in the contemporaneous estimate, impossible : as impossible as the ever-burning lamps, or other marvels dreamed about, written about, or talked about.
Bells and jingles are always part of the paraphernalia among the Follies, Fees, or Fays; Mimes or Tom-Fools flocking out to mischief and merriment in the Festivals, Carnivals, and Pantomimes sacred or secular. ‘These and such have figured, in all the historical ages, in all coun- tries, from the classic times until the present. They are equally to the front in our own day, as every one knows. But these fanciful ideas, involving the careering of both classes of priests and priestesses—real Bacchantes and Bacchanals—in grand parade, and with all the custo- mary celebration of Priapic usages, are much better under- stood, and infinitely more picturesquely and artistically celebrated and represented, with greatly more art, address, and taste, in Paris and Vienna, than in London.
Many Priapic figures of the old times (still extant) have bells attached to them (Bronzi d’ Ercolano, t. vi., tav. XCvill.), as the symbolical statues and temples of the Hin- doos have; and to wear them was a part of the worship of Bacchus among the Greeks (Megasthen. apud Strab., lib. XV., p. 712), whence we sometimes find them of extremely small size, evidently meant to be worn as amulets, with the phalli, lunula, &c. The chief priests of the Egyp-
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tians, and also the high priest of the Jews, hung these bells, as- sacred emblems, to their sacerdotal garments ; and the Brahmins still continue to ring a small bell at the intervals of their prayers, ablutions, and other acts of mystic devotion; which custom is still preserved in the Catholic Church at the elevation of the host. (Plutarch. Symposiac., lib. iv., qu. 5; Exod., c. xxviii.) The Lace- demonians beat upon a brass vessel or pan—a kettle- drum ; which idea was, perhaps, the origin of the “ kettle- drums” solely pertaining to the Household Cavalry of the Sovereign of England, and covered with the banners, or trophies, of the royal arms. The Lacedemonians, as a mystic observance, or ceremony in honour of their gods, beat upon these metallic discs, or drums, on the death of their kings. We still retain the custom of tolling a bell on such occasions. The Chinese raise a clash amidst their metals, at the time of an eclipse, in order, as they say, to scare away the “Great Dragon,” which has laid a plot to carry away the light—his great enemy, the “ Dragon Slayer,” Phoebus, the Sun.
The reason of these parallel ceremonies, among all the peoples, and the singular similarity of their superstitions, locally and generally, as if they, with one consent, were addressed to the same object, with only slightly varying manners ; and the use made, apparently, of the self-same machinery to work towards these ends, remain as generally unknown as ever, in spite of innumerable guesses. The raison d’étre of ancient ceremonies which still survive, and their obstinate adherence and tenacity in the usage, even in the affections of the people,—the inherent life of superstitions, surprises us, whilst they, in truth, bewilder.
“Tt is said,’ says the Golden Legend by Wynkyn
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de Worde, “the evil spirytes that ben in the regyon of th’ ayre doubte moche when they here the belles rongen : and this is the cause why the belles ben rongen when it thondreth, and when grete tempeste and outrages of wether happen, to the end that the feindes and wycked spirytes shold be abashed and flee, and cease of the movying of the tempeste.” This ringing of the bells of the Church, at the time of thunderstorms, is still practised in many parishes in England.
The God Pan is called in the Orphic Hymns, Jupiter the mover of all things, and is described as harmonising all things by the music of his pipe. (Hymn. X., ver. 12, Fragm. No, xxvili., ver. 13, ed. Gesn.) He is also called the pervader of the sky. (Orph. Hyman. V.)
Among the Greeks, all dancing was of the mimetic kind. Dancing was also a part of the ceremonial in all mystic rites, whence it was held amongst the Greeks and Romans in very high esteem. (Deipnos., lib. i., c. xvii.)
Pan is sometimes represented as ready to execute his characteristic office, and sometimes as exhibiting the result of it; in the former, al! the muscles of his face and bedy appear strained and contracted; and in the latter, fallen and dilated; while in both the phallus is of disproportionate magnitude, to signify that it represented the predominant attribute. These figures are frequent in collections of small bronzes. ‘The reader, intent on the investigation of these truly (im every view) most im- portant subjects, is confidently referred, for conviction, to the magnificent collection (the choicest and rarest in the world) of Phallic ancient remains from all parts, and gathered from all countries, now deposited in the British Museum,
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In one instance, amidst the ancient Phallic objects, Pan appears pouring water upon the instrument (Bronzi d’ Ercolano, tav. xciii.), but more commonly standing near water, and accompanied by aquatic fowls; in which cha- racter he is confounded with Priapus, to whom geese were particularly sacred (Petronii Satyric, cxxxvi.—vii.). Hence the Swan of Leda, and his Priapic doings with the heroine, and her enjoyment thereof. Swans frequently occur as emblems of the waters upon coins; and some- times with the head of Apollo on the reverse. See Coins of Clazomene in Pellerin, and Mus. Hunter., where may be found some allusion to the ancient notion of their singing ; a notion which may have arisen from the noises they make in the high latitudes of the North, prior to their departure, at the approach of winter.
Priapic Ilustrations. IO]