CHAPTER II.

The Trinity of EGYPT confidered represented by a GLOBE, a SERPENT, and a WING. The GLOBE, or CIRCLE, an ancient Emblem of Deity among the Egyptians, meaning HIM whofe Centre is EVERY WHERE, whofe Circumference is NO WHERE, to be found.-By the Globe, therefore, is defignated the Omnipotent FATHER. By the Serpent, the Symbol of Eternity and Wisdom, is typified the eternal Logos, the WISDOM of God. By the Wing, AIR or SPIRIT; and, more particularly, the SPIRIT with incumbent WINGS. -An extended Account of HERMES TRISMEGIST, the fuppofed Author of this fublime Allegory. A general View taken of the more fecret and mystical Theology of the Egyptians; the Subftance, of which their Hieroglyphics were the Shadow.- OSIRIS, CNEPH, and PHTHА, the nominal Triad of the Egyptians, but their Characters ultimately refolve them

felves into thofe of the three Chriftian Hy poftafes.

PREVIOUSLY to the examination of the

more mysterious parts of the Egyptian theology, I must be permitted to repeat a former remark, that it is a circumstance which at least must strike with altonifhment, if not with confufion, the determined oppofer of the doctrine for which I contend, that, in almost every region of Afia to which he may direct a more minute attention, this notion of a certain Triad of perfons in the Divine Effence has conftantly prevailed. Even where the exact number of THREE is not expreffly mentioned, the notion of a plurality in that effence, a notion groffly conceived and ill explained, still formed a prominent feature of the Pagan creed. In every age, and almost in every region of the Afiatic world, there seems uniformly to have flourished an immemorial tradition that one God had, from all eternity, begotten another God, the Angyos and Governor of the material world, whom they fometimes called the Spirit, Пveuμa; fometimes the Mind, Nus; and fometimes the Reason, or Aoyos. Though they entertained strange notions 'concerning the perfons who composed it, and

often

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often confounded the order of the hypoftafes, yet their sentiments upon this fubject, of a divine Triad the fupreme Governor of the world, feem to have been at once very ancient and very general. There were, indeed, in the system of the ancient Oriental theology, and especially that of Egypt, certain truths fo awfully fublime, that the facred guardians of that theology concealed them from public investigation under the veil of hieroglyphics, and wrapt them in the fhades of allegory. One of those truths was the fuppofed nature of God himself, and this threefold diftinction in that nature, a matter which, however obfcurely they themselves understood, they seem to have laboured, by every poffible means, to veil in additional obfcurity, and principally by a multitude of fymbols, of which only very doubtful explications have descended to posterity. There was ONE SYMBOL, however, fo prominent and fo univerfal, that its meaning can scarcely be mifconceived or wrongly interpreted. It was invented in conformity to ideas, accurately to unfold which we must penetrate to the very highest source of the Egyptian theology, and investigate what has come down to us relative to the character and

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history of its fuppofed author, the renowned HERMES.

In this comprehenfive retrospect towards the earliest dawn of fcience and fuperstition in Afia, it is not the least perplexing circumstance to me, that the perfons of all the primitive hierophants and legiflators are involved in equal obfcurity with the doctrines promulgated by them. If this affertion be true in regard to Zoroäfter, of the leading principles of whose theology and philofophy we have just taken an extensive review, fo is it in a degree no less remarkable than generally acknowledged of the Hermes of Egypt and the Thracian Or pheus. The task I have undertaken becomes more arduous every step that I advance; and the indulgent reader, it is humbly hoped, will extend to my labours a proportionate degree of candor.

As the name of Zoroäfter was ufurped by more than one celebrated character in antiquity, fo was that of Taut; but still our concern is principally with the most ancient of the name; and the united voice of antiquaries affigns to him a Phoenician origin. It was from the writings of this most ancient Taut, the first inventor of letters, that Sanchoniatho drew the materials for his Phænician history,

the

he valuable fragment of which is preferved y Eufebius, and has been commented upon t confiderable length by Bishop Cumberland. The age in which Taut flourished it were in ain to attempt to afcertain, fince even his copier Sanchoniatho lived before the Trojan war. Phoenicia, having been peopled by the race of Canaan, as Egypt was by that of Mizraim, the two fons of Ham, the grand post-diluvian idolater, may well be supposed to have its theology debased by a very confiderable alloy of grofs fuperftition. In fact, their systems of the cofmogony were generally confidered by Christian writers as completely atheistical, till the genius and industry of Cudworth, displayed in his Intellectual Syftem of the Universe, were exerted to vindicate the respective hypothefes adopted by each nation from the heinous charge. This he has effected in regard to the cofmogony of Phoenicia, by giving a more favourable conftruction to the words of Sanchoniatho than they have been allowed by preceding commentators: he confiders it as founded on the basis of the doctrine which maintains two predominant principles in nature, Matter or Darkness, and Spirit or Intelligence. By the former he would underftand the chaos, obfcure and turbid; by the

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