It was not so, according to the positive statement given us about it by Philo.

The ground on which we tread is not kosmogonic, but speculative. The former view is certainly not without historical warranty, but it is the result of a religious consciousness sunk in superstition. Reason and conscience tell men at all times that the only sacrifice is the sacrifice of self, that is, the sacrifice of the self-seeking will. The same monitors spoke also to Abraham, and he saved his race, and through them mankind, for he, at their warning voice, abandoned those cruel practices.

The explanation here given harmonizes with the doctrine of the most spiritual philosophy, that of Schelling and Hegel; but, more than this, it is the doctrine which Christ taught and which speaks eternally in the conscience and reason of mankind when brought under the influence of the Gospel.

Out of love, God gave Himself into being before all time, in order that all His creatures might rejoice in His glory.

This is what the Babylonian prophet expressed in the history of creation, when he taught that the Supreme God had cut off His own head that man might live upon the earth, born of the dust, but begotten of God.

Let no one, therefore, form a hasty judgment about these times, if he have not previously forsworn all the Molokh theories of the 17th century about the propitiatory sacrifice which God requires, and which God Himself has carried out by the offering up unto death of His own Son. But if the real meaning of the Scripture doctrine be rightly understood, there will be no difficulty in admitting that there is a deeper and purer signification involved in these symbolical accounts than the ordinary run of mythologues and theologians have discovered in them: not, however, a secret and mystical theology, by which modern schoolmen have corrupted all ancient tradition.

B.

EXTRACT FROM PHILO'S TREATISE UPON THE PHOENICIAN LETTERS.

(Chap. VII.)

UNFORTUNATELY, the extract which Eusebius has given us from this work is the very passage in which Philo (referring to a special article upon them and their signification in the history of religion) treats of the serpents. Philo's object there clearly is to make use of the fanciful views advanced in the name of Taaut, to prove the proposition which mixed up together serpents and letters. Now we learn from his previous remarks, that the earliest written characters were of a pictorial kind, that is, pictures of the Gods whom Taaut had seen. We do not know what part the serpents formed in this symbolical representation. But we know that the serpent so completely conveyed to a Phoenician mind the idea of TET-TAAUT, that to this day the serpent is the name and symbol of the Phoenician letter Tet (the Theta of the Greeks). He mentions this fact also when speaking of the Egyptians designating the Deity by a serpent curled up, with its head turned inwards (in a mystic sense as the eye of God in the world), and where he explains by it the form of the letter Theta.

There are only two other things to be learned from this fragment, which is rendered less instructive than it might have been, owing to the way it is epitomized by so many mystic writers.

First (§ 2.), that it is a peculiarity of serpents "to represent in their movements the archetypes of various forms," and that the Phoenicians called them, on account of their intellectual activity and peculiarity, the Good Spirit (Agathodæmon), a designation which they considered as having especial reference to the above account of them, coiled up with the head turned inwards.

After having quoted several Hermetic and Zoroastrian writers, he says at last (VII. § 8.):

"All these were the results of the doctrines of Taaut, and made up the philosopheme of nature as it is now before us. The letters are those formed by means of serpents afterwards, when they built temples, they assigned them a place in the adytum, instituted various ceremonies and solemnities in honour of them, and adored them as the supreme Gods, the rulers of the universe.

["So far as to the serpents."]

This is the substance of the text in the MSS. and printed copies of the work. The construction of the sentence is inaccurate, but the sense generally seems to be, that the forms and movements of serpents were employed in the invention of the oldest letters, which represented the Gods.

If we inquire in what manner this may have been done, and how many and which Gods were represented, it must always be borne in mind that every letter may have been designated by the God whose name began with it. This is the case with the names of all the letters, especially with the historical Phoenician names, as has been fully shown in my "Outlines." It was the case with the Egyptian phonetics throughout. Hence Movers' 88 notion that the twentytwo letters were then represented by twenty-two Gods, and in the precise order in which they are given by Philo, falls at once, to the ground. But, in the first place, instead of twenty-two we might as well say thirty-six, for he has omitted the names of at least twice seven children of Kronos. Secondly, the oldest alphabet could not possibly have contained twenty-two letters, inasmuch as the Phoenicians had but nineteen at

a much later period. And, lastly, the alphabet does not tally at all with the Phoenician names. Be the Phoenician name of Persephone what it may, it cannot have begun with H. How comes Vav to correspond to Athena (TENETH); Zain to Demarus; 'Hêth to Sadid; and even Têt, Thoth's own letter, to Astarte ('Hastoreth); and so on? But is it not remarkable that if we begin with El, and the three brothers who are mentioned with him in succession (IV. 2.), we have the first four letters of the ordinary Phoenician alphabet, omitting the G-sound, which was wanting also in the Egyptian alphabet?

The four Titans, sons of Uranos and Gê, are in that passage thus introduced: Elos, Baitylos, Dagon, Atlas. According to our restoration of the Phoenician names,-where we assume that here, at a time when the hard consonant 'Hayin (y) certainly did not exist, (as frequently happens, indeed, even at a later period after it had been added,) the name of Atlas was written with He, we obtain the following result:

Does not this justify us in following up the series still further?

The number of letters we should expect to find in the earliest Phoenician or Aramaic alphabets is fourteen or fifteen. Now it is quite clear that the fundamental number of the Gods in the oldest mythologies of Phonicia and all Asia, as well as Egypt, was seven. There were seven Kabiri, with the seven Titans; there are also seven Titanidæ mentioned in other genealogies of the race of Kronos: of the latter one dies a virgin and disappears. Must there not, therefore, have been fourteen

letters, the basis of the historical alphabet, in the same order, and in such a way, that the seven Great Gods E were mentioned first, and then "the Eighth ?"

We have here an unassailable position in the name of the divine inventor himself, Taaut-Tet. He is called, and is, the Eighth; and we are told that even his old symbol of the serpent was visible in the Phoenician Tet, as we still find it, indeed, in the Hebrew square characters, or the Babylonian written signs.

We know that this Thoth-letter is now the ninth in the alphabet; but if we omit the Gimel it is really the eighth. This seems such a coincidence, that we may confidently assume that not one of the intervening letters has been dropped. This will give us the following succession:

V. Vav-VAM (Oceanus), V
VI. Zain-ZERA'H (Serakh), Z-
VII. 'Hêth-HADAL (El as Saturn)
The seventh planet (the God
SBAT, Σαβάζιος).

VIII. Têt-TAAUT (Hermes), T

"The Eighth "-SEMUN.

We may probably get six letters out of at least the remaining thirteen. Of these "the three Aramaic letters" must at once be given up; and doubtless also the last three, Resh, Sin, Tau: because, in the first place, this is the natural meaning of the above expression; and secondly, because the Resh is represented by the old L, as it was in Egyptian, and the S is contained in the old Samekh, and has the same value. The sharp S certainly could not be left out of a Semitic alphabet; it is a sound in very common use in Egyptian, but there is no necessity for two. In like manner the Tau-sound may be represented by the well authenticated and very ancient Têt; the roots which contain it are the oldest, and it certainly does not correspond to TH.