BOOKS.
ANCIENT FAITHS.* "Tats volume is the result of an inquiry, ' How it comes to pass that John and Jack are synonymous ?"The question, once pro- pounded, led me onwards to such other names as Elizabeth, Isabella, Anna, Annabella, William and Bill, Mary and Miriam."
Out of this innocent question has grown a large and elaborate work in two volumes, of which the first is published. Its method is tolerably indicated in the title given at length below, and any moderately well informed reader will at once see that such a method may be fruitful of results. If the Greek mythology had been utterly lost, we might recover the names of many of the Gods by noticing how Apollo enters into human names, such as Apollonius, Apollodorus, Apollocrates, Apollophanes, and others similarly ; and indeed the German god Tio has been recovered from oblivion by Grimm, by traces no stronger than these
Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names; or, an Attempt to Trace the Religions Beliefs, Sacred Rites, and Holy Emblems of Certain Nations, by an Interpretation of the Names giren to Children by Priestly Authority or assumed by Prophets, Kings, and Hierarchs. By Thomas Inman, M.D. Vol. I. London: Triibner. 1868.
—his presence in the word Tue-silly being perhaps the strongest evidence. An example like the Ishbaal (Man of Baal), who was also called Ishbosheth (Man of Shame), tells us more ; for it not only presents Baal as a god worshipped by him, but also shows that there were those who so abominated that god that they would not utter his name, but called him " Shame."
But it is not enough that the method be promising, and even philosophical. The method alone does not yield the result ; know- ledge adequate to grasp the vast mass of matter that is only too easily collected, and judgment which can arrange it in its proper order of cause and effect, of primary and derivative, are required even more imperatively. Yet of these—knowledge and judgment —we are bound to say boldly we find none in Dr. Inman.
His main theme is Hebrew nomenclature, and his pages are full of Hebrew characters and references to Phoenician and cuneiform words; yet of Hebrew he seems to know not a word. Bathrabbint (Song of Solomon, vii. 4), he says, means, " The populous gate," apparently confounding Bath with Bayith, Beth, which, however, means house, not gate. Adam (how), he tells us, denotes the male; but this is expressed by ish (vir). The very first passage where Adam is used—Genesis i., 20-28—refutes his assertion, for there it is said of the creation of the human race, with especial reference to immediate propagation, and therefore of the two sexes together. The name of the Mesopotainian king, Chushan-rishathalin (Judges iii., 8), he says, "I take to signify, ' The bow of On, he shakes it opportunely.'" This extraordinary result is attained by dividing the word Clink +And-Malt+ Athaim, assuming the identity of koph and caph (letters which rarely, if ever, interchange), insert- ing an aleph in order to manufacture out of the single letter n the name of the Egyptian god On, inserting between r and sit the letter ayin (a remarkably firm letter, which is one of the rarest to drop out of a root to which it properly belongs), and somehow forcing AtItaim to drop its final m and to denote his time (whereas it could at best only denote my time), or opportunely ! And all this piling of one linguistic impossibility upon another is perpetrated for the sake of finding the name of the god On—represented here by the single letter a, and wanting even the initial breathing aleph, which is absolutely indispensable. But Dr. Inman is a very devoted adherent of this god, whose name he finds at the beginning, middle, or end of words—we might almost say wherever the letter n stands : Aaron, Gideon, Hebron, Naaman. Now on and an are the two commonest formative syllables in Hebrew ; it would only be consistent therefore to find the god's name in aharon, "subsequent;" rishon, " first;" zikkaron," remembrance." It would be a precisely similar procedure to find the goddess Jo in the Latin ditio, lectio, and all the words in io.
But if his knowledge of the languages he uses were as perfect as it is the contrary, Dr. Inman's lack of judgment would have left his book nearly as unreliable as it now is. The treatment of language, art, mythology, and all the higher functions of man has since the commencement of this century assumed a totally new aspect through the historical principle. If at the present day we desire to trace an English word to its origin, we do not simply look for a word of similar mean- ing and sound anywhere on the earth's surface, in China or Peru, and treat the coincidence as sufficient evidence. We know that the word has a certain length of ascertained history, and that this has first to be examined. We discover its earliest form in English, Anglo-Saxon, Norman, or Celtic ; and when we can trace it no further on English soil, we look out for the word of similar meaning and similar sound, not in the modern German, Danish, or French, but in the old forms of those languages. Thus alone can any reliable result be attained. Thus has comparative grammar become a science, whose laws can as little be ignored by the ety- mologist as those of physical science by the analyst. Thus the degrees of affinity and the want of affinity between languages have been ascertained. Between quite distinct stocks, such as the Aryan and Semitic are now known to be, it would indeed be highly imprudent to reject without examination all suggestions of affinity in the case of particular words, which may always be ex- changed, however dissimilar the Languages be ; but even this would be more sound than the wholesale breaking-down of all barriers, in which Dr. Inman indulges his fancy. Here, for example, he finds a Hebrew word gil, " exultation, rejoicing," which, he says, was also "one of the many names of the sun amongst the ancient races who used the Sheinitic language" (a very reckless assertion, by no means proved, yet essential to his argument) ; and lie then goes on to tell us that "in Scotland it is Gill, as iu Gillian ; in France it is Guilt, as in Guillaume," and he elsewhere connects with it not only Celtic names like Gilfillan, Gilmore, Gilpatrick, but even Giles, Gilbert, Gilfred, and even Julia! Did it never occur to him that Guillaume is the German Wil-helm, Gilfred similarly originally Wilfred? that Giles is only an English corruption of .Egidius, and that the Latin j of Julia was pronounced like y, which destroys even the faint semblance of likeness? Two more instances of utter dis-
regard of the historical formation of languages, and we have done. Barb, denoting a Barbary horse, Dr. Inman combines with a
Vedic (Sanskrit) verb, meaning to go! The Greek 7i,-toi [sic], "a woman" (which is a derivative from the prolific root yEv of 7/repos), he presumes is from the Hebrew gaei, "painted with colours"!
It will be thought that we have already wasted too much space on an utterly worthless book. But there is more behind—the • book is not merely worthless, it is bad. All the evidence which can be elicited from such reckless, jumbling of languages as we have just noticed, is made to support a theory which finds the origin of religion and religious ideas in the recognition of mere creative energy, conceived in a perfectly carnal way and expressed by the vilest symbols. If this were the logical result of careful scientific induction, we could not withhold respect from one who had the courage to show forth a truth repulsive probably to him- self. But the case before us is different. If the letter " n " may anywhere stand for the god On, and "1" (we presume) for El, and there is to be no method and no law in the mixing up of syllables and words from different ages and distant lands, why, language treated on this system may yield any result ; which is equivalent to saying it yields none. The Priapic system, there- fore, we are comforted to know, is not reached by argument, but adopted without argument, though no doubt Dr. Inman thinks he has argued.
But, turning away from this empirical microscopic treatment of words long since dead, let us confront the spirit of those ages which contain the germs of the earliest accessible religious ideas, as it still lives for us in their mythology, poetry and art — and what is it ? The earlier the stage, the less carnal is the conception of creation. The Vedic mythology knows nothing of Siva, Vishnu, and the Linga ; its deities are the bright powers of the light, the air, and the wind ; its gods operate by the external forces of light, fire, and rain. So in Greece, the Homeric mythology, so often identical in its persons with the Hindu, is always identical in this bright and pure spirit ; and so in Scandinavia we have the still more palpable solar myth of Baldur in various forms. It is reserved for later times, when civilization is hoary in its sins, to bring religion down from heaven to earth and deify the carnal passion in Priapus. The most certain result of recent investigation into comparative mythology is that Zeus, Jupiter, the Vedic Dyaus, and the gods associated with him in the early ages, owe their names and attributes to perfectly pure and exalted conceptions, such as that of the bright heaven at noonday.
We close with an extract which shows Dr. Inman under another light. If a large part of the life of Christ—or of the miraculous concomitants of what constitutes His real life—can be proved to be traditions from earlier ages and other lives, iu the name of God and truth let us know it ! But we protest indignantly against having the following dished up from Godfrey Higgins, who wrote in 1836, when hardly any Sanskrit litera- ture was published (and he could not have read it if it had been), took all his information from inferior second-hand sources, and rode his hobby quite as perseveringly as his present follower. And to call Krishna Christna is a further offence, the folly of which certainly exceeds its badness ; for let it be remembered that " Christ " was not the name, nor even the title, of Jesus ; but is only the Greek translation of the Hebrew title Messiah ; and that " Krishna " in Sanskrit simply denotes black. The legends here recorded are jumbled together without the least discrimination of date or authenticity, and are mostly late and apocryphal stories. Maya is a Sanskrit philosophical term de- noting illusion, so that if she were called his mother (which she is not in reliable works), the fancied likeness to Maria would turn out a maya, an illusion only. It scarcely needs to be observed that all the points which find no parallel in the life of Christ (which are nine-tenths of the whole) are omitted here. His flute- playing brings the animals under his sway ; he battles in single fight with serpents, men, and devils ; he strings the bow which no one else could ; he takes eight princesses to wife, &c. Surely herein he reminds us more of Anion or Orpheus, of Hercules or of Ulysses, than of Jesus of Nazareth.
"Christna or Chrisua, also Vishnu, is one of the most popular of all the Hindoo deities. An immense number of legends are told respecting him, which are not worth recording here ; but the following, condensed from the Anacalypsis of Godfrey Higgins, will well repay perusal. He is represented as the son of Brahma and Maia, and is usually called' the Saviour,' or the Preserver.' He, being a god, became incarnate in the flesh. As soon as he was born he was saluted by a chorus of devatara or angels. His birthplace was Mathurea. Ho was cradled amongst shepherds. Soon after his birth he was carried away by night to a remote place for fear of a tyrant, whose destroyer it was foretold he would become, and who ordered all male children to be slain (an episode marked in the sculptures at Elephants). By the male line he was of royal descent, though born in a dungeon, which, on his arrival, he illu- minated, whilst the faces of his parents shone. Christna spoke as soon as he was born, and coMforted his mother. He was preceded by his brother Ram, who helped him to purify tho world of monsters and demons. Christna descended into Hades, and returned to Vaiconta. One of his names is 'the Good Shepherd.' An Indian prophet, Nared- Saphos, or Wisdom [did the Brahmans speak Greek?] visited him, con- sulted the stars, and pronounced him a celestial being. Christna cured a leper ; a woman poured on his head a box of ointment, and ho cured her of disease. Ho was chosen King amongst his follow cowherds. He washed the feet of Brahmans, and when Brahma stole the sheep an cowboys of his father's farm (Nanda's), Christna made a now sot. Christna had a dreadful fight with the serpent Caluga. Ho was sent to a tutor, whom he astonished with his learning. Christna was crucified, went into hell, and afterwards into heaven."
Previous page
