In this temple, grand and solemn,
Heaven-lighted paintings stand,
Speaking of the high and lowly,
Of another clime and land;
Of the Now and the Hereafter,
And the meanings they contain;
Of the strength of the victorious,
Of the fight to be maintained.

And the temple holy standeth
Shadowing o'er the watery way,
And the tides of life sweep by it,
Raging round its stones for aye,
And the Present to me calleth,
Minding me to look and see
How this temple grand was given
As a heritage to me;

Speaking words of highest wisdom.
Of the building that should be,
Of this temple framed and fashioned
By the God of earth and sea.
Unto me the builder calling,
In the name of the Most High,
To be just and true, and ready
For the labors that are nigh;

Building by the plan once given
By the Lord of quick and dead,
The Cross of Christ the Master,
Of the earthly Church the Head;
Laying the foundations firmly
On the Rock of Ages strong,
Building up a temple surely
Fit for praise, and prayer, and song.

And I hear new voices rising
From sea and earth and sky,
And the Ages, my Life teachers,
Pass with noiseless footsteps by;
And the meaning of my present
Has clearer to me grown,
The "still, small voice " within me
Saying oft, in sweetest tone:

ART. V. THE ORIGIN OF ANCIENT NAMES OF COUNTRIES, CITIES, INDIVIDUALS, AND GODS.

We shall endeavor, in the following article, to show that the proper names of Greece, Italy, Asia Minor, Babylon, Egypt, Phoenicia, and Judæa, more especially the names of places and of the gods, are generally compound words containing within them the names of the sun-gods Ab, Ak, Am, Ar, As, At, El, and On.

In this inquiring age it is time that the composition of names which are associated with the legends or the history of the ancient world should receive proper attention. Before the mission of the Saviour, the more intelligent among the Romans had formed the opinion that the, various "great gods" of the nations had much in common, notwithstanding the different attributes ascribed to them and the difference of their names. Hercules, Osiris, Janus, Zeus, Jupiter, and many more, were regarded as the same deity, allowing for the difference of ideas which must be expected to exist among different nations on the same subject.

It has been said that Roman polytheism has but two "great gods," Heaven and Earth, Coelum and Terra. In the fourth century, Ausonius treats prominent gods of several nations as the same deity under different

names: —

The Rhodian oracle declares Atys or Attis to be Adon-is, Bacch-us, and Dionusos:

66

Magnum Atten placate Deum qui castus Adonis
Evius est, Largitor opum, pulcher Dionysus."

Not only is there a coincidence in the general idea which the ancients had of the deities, but often there is a very great verbal resemblance in their names. They are frequently exactly the same word.

The appellations of the gods are generally translated or explained by words of the same sound in the language of the country where the name belongs. For instance, the word Salii, the priests of Hercules, and of Mars in Italy, is usually derived from salio, "to leap" we prefer to derive it from Sol or Ausel, the sun, and compare it with the Selli mentioned in Homer, priests of Jupiter, who were also called 'Exλoí (Helloi), from El or Asel, the sun; eλn, eλn (Hele), alea or halea (aλea), and halo (in English), mean the same. We have the Etruscan Usil, and Ausel, names of the sun.

Aphrodite, the Grecian name of Venus, is supposed to be formed from appós, "the foam of the sea." We think it a compound of Abar, the sun, the shining Bar of the Assyrian inscriptions, and Adad (pronounced Atad or Adat), the sun; like Adittha, the name of an ancient city on the Euphrates, and Adit-ya, the Sanskrit name of the spirits of light.

As a younger race, the Greeks would naturally borrow many ideas from the more advanced nations of Asia Minor, Palestine, Phoenicia, Egypt, and Mesopotamia; just as we are indebted to Europe for the large

1856.]

of Countries, Cities, Gods, &c.

77

Were their deities

proportion of the books read by us. entirely the creation of the Hellenic mind? Was Adonis, the beloved of Venus, originally a Grecian deity, or is he of Assyrian origin? Movers, in his account of the Phoenicians, says that the first syllable of Sar-dan-apalus, the Assyrian king and deity-name, is the word Asar, Azar, or Asur, a name of the Assyrian Mars. The second syllable, " dan," is Adan, which is again found in Asar-adon, or Esar-haddon, a king's name, and is plain. ly 178 (Adan) without the A. It is 7, the Carthagin. ian Don; and is very common in Assyrian names, like Merodach-Baal-adan, Nabu-zar-adan, the captain of the guard, mentioned in the Bible.

To these words, instanced by Movers, we may add the names of Bel-Adon (im)-sha, ruler at Khorsabad, Nebuch-adon-ossar or Neb-uch-ad.n-ezzar, Abi-dan or Phaethon, San-dan, the Assyrian Mars, Tana-is or Athena (Minerva); Dan, Tina, Jupiter-Tinia, Dan-iel, -Oth.niel, -N-athan-iel, -N-athan, Jon-athan, Adonai, Adonibezek, Adoni-ram, Adoni-kam, Adoni-jah, -Dona-paris or -Dni-eper, Adwv, Ari-ad.ne, and Udine, a place in Italy.

Adon-(is) is the sun. He was said to pass six months with Venus and six months with Proserpine. " Adon-is or Adonai was an Oriental title of the sun." In the Bible, we have "the children of Eden which were in Thelasar," and the garden of Adan (Eden) in Genesis. Other forms of Adan (Adonis, the sun-god) are Hamadan, the capital of Media, Tina, the name of Jupiter in Italy, Tina, the name of a place in Arabia, Åtten (as Adon-is is called by the Rhodian oracle), and Posidon, the name of Nep-tune (Nep is the Assyrian Nebo, Mercury; -tune is Adan, the Mesopotamian sun-god). In the North of Europe, Adan is Odin, the Scandinavian king and god. We have the Bible-names Adin and Adino, the names of persons, M-idian, of a country, Diana, a goddess of Italy, M-ethone, an ancient city, called also M-odon. We have the river Don, in Russia, the Ther-m-odon, which empties into the Black Sea, not very far from Trebizond, and the Udon, which flows.

* Page 479.

† R. P. Knight. See Anthon's Class. Dict., Art. Adonis.

2 Kings xix. 12.

into the Caspian Sea. There is the river Jor-dan in Palestine, the Jar-dan, a river in Greece, another river of the same name in the island of Crete, and a hero, Jar-dan-es. Jar is the fire-god Ar, a part of the word Jer-usalem, the ancient Salem (compare the Bible-name Jehova-Shalom, also Ab-salom, and Salomi).

The Greek Hermes or Hermeias (Mercury) is said to be the Median word Sarameyas, "who leads the souls to Hades" (h being the softened form of s). It is evident that the Greeks took the names Adan (Adonis) and Hermeias (Mercury) wholly from "the East." But an attentive examination of the composition of proper names - Nebuchadonossar, Nebo (Mercury), Achad (the sun), Adan (Adon-is), Ossar (Oseir-is); Nabocolassar, Nabo (Mercury), Ac (the fire-sun), El (the sun), Asar (Mars), the sun-god; Nabopolassar, Nabo (Mercury), Apol (Apollo), Assar (Mars) suggests the idea that many of the names of the ancient world will be found to be made up of other names of one and two syllables. They may finally be reduced to eight names of sun-gods of one syllable each, which, variously compounded together, make up the names of gods, kings, rivers, countries, and cities. They are Ab, Ak, Am, Ar, As, At (Ad), El, and On (Ani).

Ab, Ap, or Op is an old name of the sun in Italy. In Egypt it is Api, Hapi, and Ap-is (Phi-os, an Egyptian king). In Babylon and Persia it is Ab or Av. We find Sal-ap-ia, a city of Ap-ul-ia in Italy (Sol-Ap), Zal-aph, a Bible-name, Sal-ap-eni, a people of Arabia, Ap-ia, Greece, the land of Ap, the sun; Iap-ygia, a name of Magna Græcia in Italy, "Auf," an Arab divinity, Joab, a Hebrew captain, and Job; also Jub-al and Jab-al, names of old Hebrew deities or patriarchs. Compare Abi-el, Ab-el (Ap-ollo), and 'Aπ-eλλ-wv, "the fighter."

Ani, a name of the sun in Assyria, is in Egypt and Syria On. In Greece it is Jan and Ion. In Italy it is Jan-us (Ean-us), whom Scaliger has shown to be the god of the sun.* In Etruria it is Jonn.

El, or Eli, the sun, is found in Greece, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, and Judæa. It is the name of the chief deity of the Semitic races. It is "Hos the sun; in Homer,

* Niebuhr's Rome, Am. ed., p. 62.