The Two Babylons
Alexander Hislop
Chapter II
Section I
Trinity in Unity
If there be this general coincidence
between the systems of Babylon and Rome, the question arises, Does the
coincidence stop here? To this the answer is, Far otherwise. We have only to
bring the ancient Babylonian Mysteries to bear on the whole system of Rome, and
then it will be seen how immensely the one has borrowed from the other. These
Mysteries were long shrouded in darkness, but now the thick darkness begins to
pass away. All who have paid the least attention to the literature of Greece,
Egypt, Phoenicia, or Rome are aware of the place which the "Mysteries" occupied
in these countries, and that, whatever circumstantial diversities there might
be, in all essential respects these "Mysteries" in the different
countries were the same. Now, as the language of Jeremiah, already quoted, would
indicate that Babylon was the primal source from which all these systems of
idolatry flowed, so the deductions of the most learned historians, on mere
historical grounds have led to the same conclusion. From Zonaras we find that
the concurrent testimony of the ancient authors he had consulted was to this
effect; for, speaking of arithmetic and astronomy, he says: "It is said that
these came from the Chaldees to the Egyptians, and thence to the Greeks." If the
Egyptians and Greeks derived their arithmetic and astronomy from Chaldea, seeing
these in Chaldea were sacred sciences, and monopolised by the priests, that is
sufficient evidence that they must have derived their religion from the same
quarter. Both Bunsen and Layard in their researches have come to substantially
the same result. The statement of Bunsen is to the effect that the religious
system of Egypt was derived from Asia, and "the primitive empire in Babel."
Layard, again, though taking a somewhat more favourable view of the system of
the Chaldean Magi, than, I am persuaded, the facts of history warrant,
nevertheless thus speaks of that system: "Of the great antiquity of this
primitive worship there is abundant evidence, and that it originated among the
inhabitants of the Assyrian plains, we have the united testimony of sacred and
profane history. It obtained the epithet of perfect, and was believed to
be the most ancient of religious systems, having preceded that of the
Egyptians." "The identity," he adds, "of many of the Assyrian doctrines with
those of Egypt is alluded to by Porphyry and Clemens"; and, in connection with
the same subject, he quotes the following from Birch on Babylonian cylinders and
monuments: "The zodiacal signs...show unequivocally that the Greeks derived
their notions and arrangements of the zodiac [and consequently their Mythology,
that was intertwined with it] from the Chaldees. The identity of Nimrod with the
constellation Orion is not to be rejected." Ouvaroff, also, in his learned work
on the Eleusinian mysteries, has come to the same conclusion. After referring to
the fact that the Egyptian priests claimed the honour of having transmitted to
the Greeks the first elements of Polytheism, he thus concludes: "These positive
facts would sufficiently prove, even without the conformity of ideas, that the
Mysteries transplanted into Greece, and there united with a certain number of
local notions, never lost the character of their origin derived from the cradle
of the moral and religious ideas of the universe. All these separate facts--all
these scattered testimonies, recur to that fruitful principle which places in
the East the centre of science and civilisation." If thus we have evidence that
Egypt and Greece derived their religion from Babylon, we have equal evidence
that the religious system of the Phoenicians came from the same source.
Macrobius shows that the distinguishing feature of the Phoenician idolatry must
have been imported from Assyria, which, in classic writers, included Babylonia.
"The worship of the Architic Venus," says he, "formerly flourished as much among
the Assyrians as it does now among the Phenicians."
Now to establish the identity between
the systems of ancient Babylon and Papal Rome, we have just to inquire in how
far does the system of the Papacy agree with the system established in these
Babylonian Mysteries. In prosecuting such an inquiry there are considerable
difficulties to be overcome; for, as in geology, it is impossible at all points
to reach the deep, underlying strata of the earth's surface, so it is not to be
expected that in any one country we should find a complete and connected account
of the system established in that country. But yet, even as the geologist, by
examining the contents of a fissure here, an upheaval there, and what "crops
out" of itself on the surface elsewhere, is enabled to determine, with wonderful
certainty, the order and general contents of the different strata over all the
earth, so is it with the subject of the Chaldean Mysteries. What is wanted in
one country is supplemented in another; and what actually "crops out" in
different directions, to a large extent necessarily determines the character of
much that does not directly appear on the surface. Taking, then, the admitted
unity and Babylonian character of the ancient Mysteries of Egypt, Greece,
Phoenicia, and Rome, as the clue to guide us in our researches, let us go on
from step to step in our comparison of the doctrine and practice of the two
Babylons--the Babylon of the Old Testament and the Babylon of the New.
And here I have to notice, first, the
identity of the objects of worship in Babylon and Rome. The ancient
Babylonians, just as the modern Romans, recognised in words the unity of
the Godhead; and, while worshipping innumerable minor deities, as possessed of
certain influence on human affairs, they distinctly acknowledged that there was
ONE infinite and almighty Creator, supreme over all. Most other nations did the
same. "In the early ages of mankind," says Wilkinson in his "Ancient Egyptians,"
"The existence of a sole and omnipotent Deity, who created all things, seems to
have been the universal belief; and tradition taught men the same notions
on this subject, which, in later times, have been adopted by all civilised
nations." "The Gothic religion," says Mallet, "taught the being of a supreme
God, Master of the Universe, to whom all things were submissive and obedient." (Tacti.
de Morib. Germ.) The ancient Icelandic mythology calls him "the Author of
every thing that existeth, the eternal, the living, and awful Being; the
searcher into concealed things, the Being that never changeth." It attributeth
to this deity "an infinite power, a boundless knowledge, and incorruptible
justice." We have evidence of the same having been the faith of ancient
Hindostan. Though modern Hinduism recognises millions of gods, yet the Indian
sacred books show that originally it had been far otherwise. Major Moor,
speaking of Brahm, the supreme God of the Hindoos, says: "Of Him whose Glory is
so great, there is no image" (Veda). He "illumines all, delights all, whence all
proceeded; that by which they live when born, and that to which all must return"
(Veda). In the "Institutes of Menu," he is characterised as "He whom the mind
alone can perceive; whose essence eludes the external organs, who has no visible
parts, who exists from eternity...the soul of all beings, whom no being can
comprehend." In these passages, there is a trace of the existence of Pantheism;
but the very language employed bears testimony to the existence among the
Hindoos at one period of a far purer faith.
Nay, not merely had the ancient Hindoos
exalted ideas of the natural perfections of God, but there is evidence
that they were well aware of the gracious character of God, as revealed
in His dealings with a lost and guilty world. This is manifest from the very
name Brahm, appropriated by them to the one infinite and eternal God. There has
been a great deal of unsatisfactory speculation in regard to the meaning of this
name, but when the different statements in regard to Brahm are carefully
considered, it becomes evident that the name Brahm is just the Hebrew Rahm, with
the digamma prefixed, which is very frequent in Sanscrit words derived from
Hebrew or Chaldee. Rahm in Hebrew signifies "The merciful or compassionate one."
But Rahm also signifies the WOMB or the bowels; as the seat of
compassion. Now we find such language applied to Brahm, the one supreme God, as
cannot be accounted for, except on the supposition that Brahm had the very same
meaning as the Hebrew Rahm. Thus, we find the God Crishna, in one of the Hindoo
sacred books, when asserting his high dignity as a divinity and his identity
with the Supreme, using the following words: "The great Brahm is my WOMB, and in
it I place my foetus, and from it is the procreation of all nature. The great
Brahm is the WOMB of all the various forms which are conceived in every natural
womb." How could such language ever have been applied to "The supreme Brahm, the
most holy, the most high God, the Divine being, before all other gods; without
birth, the mighty Lord, God of gods, the universal Lord," but from the
connection between Rahm "the womb" and Rahm "the merciful one"? Here, then, we
find that Brahm is just the same as "Er-Rahman," "The all-merciful one,"--a
title applied by the Turks to the Most High, and that the Hindoos,
notwithstanding their deep religious degradation now, had once
known that "the most holy, most high God," is also "The God of Mercy," in other
words, that he is "a just God and a Saviour." And proceeding on this
interpretation of the name Brahm, we see how exactly their religious knowledge
as to the creation had coincided with the account of the origin of all things,
as given in Genesis. It is well known that the Brahmins, to exalt themselves as
a priestly, half-divine caste, to whom all others ought to bow down, have for
many ages taught that, while the other castes came from the arms, and body and
feet of Brahma--the visible representative and manifestation of the invisible
Brahm, and identified with him--they alone came from the mouth of the
creative God. Now we find statements in their sacred books which prove that
once a very different doctrine must have been taught. Thus, in one of the
Vedas, speaking of Brahma, it is expressly stated that "ALL beings" "are created
from his MOUTH." In the passage in question an attempt is made to mystify the
matter; but, taken in connection with the meaning of the name Brahm, as already
given, who can doubt what was the real meaning of the statement, opposed though
it be to the lofty and exclusive pretensions of the Brahmins? It evidently meant
that He who, ever since the fall, has been revealed to man as the "Merciful and
Gracious One" (Exo 34:6), was known at the same time as the Almighty One, who in
the beginning "spake and it was done," "commanded and all things
stood fast," who made all things by the "Word of His power." After what
has now been said, any one who consults the "Asiatic Researches," may see that
it is in a great measure from a wicked perversion of this Divine title of the
One Living and True God, a title that ought to have been so dear to sinful men,
that all those moral abominations have come that make the symbols of the pagan
temples of India so offensive to the eye of purity. *
* While such is the meaning of Brahm,
the meaning of Deva, the generic name for "God" in India, is near akin to it.
That name is commonly derived from the Sanscrit, Div, "to shine,"--only
a different form of Shiv, which has the same meaning, which again comes
from the Chaldee Ziv, "brightness or splendour" (Dan 2:31); and, no
doubt, when sun-worship was engrafted on the Patriarchal faith, the visible
splendour of the deified luminary might be suggested by the name. But there is
reason to believe that "Deva" has a much more honourable origin, and that it
really came originally from the Chaldee, Thav, "good," which is also
legitimately pronounced Thev, and in the emphatic form is Theva
or Thevo, "The Good." The first letter, represented by Th, as
shown by Donaldson in his New Cratylus, is frequently pronounced Dh.
Hence, from Dheva or Theva, "The Good," naturally comes the
Sanscrit, Deva, or, without the digamma, as it frequently is, Deo,
"God," the Latin, Deus, and the Greek, Theos, the digamma in the
original Thevo-s being also dropped, as novus in Latin is
neos in Greek. This view of the matter gives an emphasis to the saying of
our Lord (Matt 19:17): "There is none good but One, that is (Theos)
God"--"The Good."
So utterly idolatrous was the
Babylonian recognition of the Divine unity, that Jehovah, the Living God,
severely condemned His own people for giving any countenance to it: "They that
sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens, after the rites of
the ONLY ONE, * eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall
be consumed together" (Isa 66:17).
* The words in our translation are,
"behind one tree," but there is no word in the original for "tree"; and it is
admitted by Lowth, and the best orientalists, that the rendering should be,
"after the rites of Achad," i.e. "The Only One." I am aware that
some object to making "Achad" signify, "The Only One," on the ground that it
wants the article. But how little weight is in this, may be seen from the fact
that it is this very term "Achad," and that without the article, that is used
in Deuteronomy, when the Unity of the Godhead is asserted in the most emphatic
manner, "Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah," i.e., "only
Jehovah." When it is intended to assert the Unity of the Godhead in the
strongest possible manner, the Babylonians used the term "Adad." Macrobii
Saturnalia.
In the unity of that one Only God of
the Babylonians, there were three persons, and to symbolise that doctrine of the
Trinity, they employed, as the discoveries of Layard prove, the equilateral
triangle, just as it is well known the Romish Church does at this day. *
* LAYARD's Babylon and Nineveh.
The Egyptians also used the triangle as a symbol of their "triform divinity."
In both cases such a comparison is most
degrading to the King Eternal, and is fitted utterly to pervert the minds of
those who contemplate it, as if there was or could be any similitude between
such a figure and Him who hath said, "To whom will ye liken God, and what
likeness will ye compare unto Him?"
The Papacy has in some of its churches,
as, for instance, in the monastery of the so-called Trinitarians of Madrid, an
image of the Triune God, with three heads on one body. * The Babylonians had
something of the same. Mr. Layard, in his last work, has given a specimen of
such a triune divinity, worshipped in ancient Assyria. (Fig.
3) ** The accompanying cut (Fig.
4) of such another divinity, worshipped among the Pagans of
Siberia, is taken from a medal in the Imperial Cabinet of St. Petersburg, and
given in Parson's "Japhet." *** The three heads are differently arranged in
Layard's specimen, but both alike are evidently intended to symbolise the same
great truth, although all such representation of the Trinity necessarily and
utterly debase the conceptions of those, among whom such images prevail, in
regard to that sublime mystery of our faith.
* PARKHURST'S Hebrew Lexicon,
"Cherubim." From the following extract from the Dublin Catholic Layman,
a very able Protestant paper, describing a Popish picture of the Trinity,
recently published in that city, it will be seen that something akin to this
mode of representing the Godhead is appearing nearer home: "At the top of the
picture is a representation of the Holy Trinity. We beg to speak of it with
due reverence. God the Father and God the Son are represented as a MAN with
two heads, one body, and two arms. One of the heads is like the ordinary
pictures of our Saviour. The other is the head of an old man, surmounted by a
triangle. Out of the middle of this figure is proceeding the Holy Ghost in the
form of a dove. We think it must be painful to any Christian mind, and
repugnant to Christian feeling, to look at this figure." (17th July, 1856)
** Babylon and Nineveh. Some
have said that the plural form of the name of God, in the Hebrew of
Genesis, affords no argument of the doctrine of plurality of persons in the
Godhead, because the same word in the plural is applied to heathen divinities.
But if the supreme divinity in almost all ancient heathen nations was triune,
the futility of this objection must be manifest.
*** Japhet, p. 184.
In India, the supreme divinity, in like
manner, in one of the most ancient cave-temples, is represented with three heads
on one body, under the name of "Eko Deva Trimurtti," "One God, three forms." *
* Col. KENNEDY'S Hindoo Mythology.
Col. Kennedy objects to the application of the name "Eko Deva" to the triform
image in the cave-temple at Elephanta, on the ground that that name belongs
only to the supreme Brahm. But in so doing he is entirely inconsistent, for he
admits that Brahma, the first person in that triform image, is identified
with the supreme Brahm; and further, that a curse is pronounced upon all who
distinguish between Brahma, Vishnu, and Seva, the three divinities represented
by that image.
In Japan, the Buddhists worship their
great divinity, Buddha, with three heads, in the very same form, under the name
of "San Pao Fuh." All these have existed from ancient times. While overlaid with
idolatry, the recognition of a Trinity was universal in all the ancient nations
of the world, proving how deep-rooted in the human race was the primeval
doctrine on this subject, which comes out so distinctly in Genesis. *
* The threefold invocation of the
sacred name in the blessing of Jacob bestowed on the sons of Joseph is very
striking: "And he blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers
Abraham and Isaac did walk the God which fed me all my life long unto this
day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads" (Gen
48:15,16). If the angel here referred to had not been God, Jacob could never
have invoked him as on an equality with God. In Hosea 12:3-5, "The Angel who
redeemed" Jacob is expressly called God: "He (Jacob) had power with God: yea,
he had power over the Angel, and prevailed; he wept and made supplication unto
him: he found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us; even the Lord God of
Hosts; The Lord is his memorial."
When we look at the symbols in the
triune figure of Layard, already referred to, and minutely examine them, they
are very instructive. Layard regards the circle in that figure as signifying
"Time without bounds." But the hieroglyphic meaning of the circle is evidently
different. A circle in Chaldea was zero; * and zero also signified "the seed."
* In our own language we have
evidence that Zero had signified a circle among the Chaldeans; for what is
Zero, the name of the cypher, but just a circle? And whence can we have
derived this term but from the Arabians, as they, without doubt, had
themselves derived it from the Chaldees, the grand original cultivators at
once of arithmetic, geometry, and idolatry? Zero, in this sense, had evidently
come from the Chaldee, zer, "to encompass," from which, also, no doubt,
was derived the Babylonian name for a great cycle of time, called a "saros."
(BUNSEN) As he, who by the Chaldeans was regarded as the great "Seed," was
looked upon as the sun incarnate, and as the emblem of the sun was a
circle (BUNSEN), the hieroglyphical relation between zero, "the circle,"
and zero, "the seed," was easily established.
Therefore, according to the genius of
the mystic system of Chaldea, which was to a large extent founded on double
meanings, that which, to the eyes of men in general, was only zero, "a circle,"
was understood by the initiated to signify zero, "the seed." Now, viewed in this
light, the triune emblem of the supreme Assyrian divinity shows clearly what had
been the original patriarchal faith. First, there is the head of the old man;
next, there is the zero, or circle, for "the seed"; and lastly, the wings and
tail of the bird or dove; * showing, though blasphemously, the unity of Father,
Seed, or Son, and Holy Ghost.
* From the statement in Genesis 1:2,
that "the Spirit of God fluttered on the face of the deep" (for that is
the expression in the original), it is evident that the dove had very
early been a Divine emblem for the Holy Spirit.
While this had been the original way in
which Pagan idolatry had represented the Triune God, and though this kind of
representation had survived to Sennacherib's time, yet there is evidence that,
at a very early period, an important change had taken place in the Babylonian
notions in regard to the divinity; and that the three persons had come to be,
the Eternal Father, the Spirit of God incarnate in a human mother, and a Divine
Son, the fruit of that incarnation.