remark, that no images were suffered to be consecrated, but merely three brazen altars, of which the Egyptians were said to have furnished two, and the Thebani, or Arkites, one. The temple itself was declared to be on the very bounds of the habitable world, and, according to Livy,* even "extra orbem terrarum." The wood of which it was built, was esteemed immortal and incorruptible. In the middle of it were two remarkable fountains, one of which ebbed and flowed with the tide, but the other just the reverse; and between these stood a golden olive tree, which bore emeralds for its fruit. This was called the Olive of Pygmalion, though placed in the temple of Hercules. Now the olive was the insigne of Minerva, the goddess of wisdom; and having always been considered as the emblem of knowledge, appears in the instance before us to have traditionally represented the tree of knowledge in the midst of Eden, whose fruit was "pleasant

2

*Hist. lib. xxviii. Gades, according to Strabo, is the εσχατη ιδρυμένη της γης. Solinus calls it, extremus noti orbis terminus. All these ideas arose from Gades being considered like Hades, a memorial of the paradise passed, and typical of that invisible world on which the soul was conceived to enter upon the dissolution of the body.

+ Silius Ital. lib. iii. Philost. ut supra. Photius auth. 241.

41

to the eyes," and of which circumstance the emeralds seem to exhibit the tradition which had been handed down from generation to generation after the fall. It was, moreover, called the Olive of Pygmalion; of whom there is an obscure story related, which is manifestly derived from traditions of the creation of woman and the institution of marriage.* From the sacred enclosure we are describing, all women were, however, driven away, as their sex (singular to relate) was looked upon to have been the primary cause of mischief and calamity.† And lastly, the whole temple was guarded by lions and a flaming fire, which turned every way to forbid the approach of the profane and unholy.

Within the sacred enclosure, moreover, was an altar dedicated to Old Age, and those who attended it are mentioned as the only persons who "sing pæans in honour of Death." Hard by this, there were three others, dedicated to

*Ovid. Metam. x. 243.

+ Macrob. lib. i. Saturn. cap. 8. Plut. Rom. Quæst. 60. Bochart. Canaan. lib. i. сар. 34. p. 677.

† Τον ΘΑΝΑΤΟΝ μονοι ανθρωπων παιανίζονται. Βωμοι εξω

δε εκει και πενιας και τεχνης, και Ηρακλεως Αιγυπτίου. Philos.

de Vit. Apoll. lib. v. 4. p. 190. John Cleric. Bib. Select. vol. xi. p. 109.

Poverty, Manual Labour, and Hercules. The three first of those four altars evidently intimate, that traditions existed among them of the original sentence pronounced upon the breach of the covenant of works, in paradise, by our first parents; "of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the

knowledge of good and evil, which is in the "midst of the garden, thou shalt not eat of it; "for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou "shalt surely die."-" By one man," however, "sin entered the world, and death by sin," together with the sorrows of old age, poverty, and manual labour following in their train. The altar to Hercules the Saviour, as he is wonderfully called, demonstrates that expectation of the great Deliverer, who was to overthrow the serpent, (mythologically called Geryon, Python, Typhon, and other names,) and of whose advent and victory, we shall presently find so many traditions to have existed. This sacred enclosure, as well as the temple near it, was guarded by hydras, lions, and other compound animals, representing, however obscurely, vestiges of the cherubic exhibition on the east of Eden. The flaming fire has already been also noticed, and from this last circumstance

the name Gadir,* according to the heathen accounts, was derived; and we discover almost invariably that all these traditionary representations of paradise have some reference to a defence of the same kind.

Not far from Gades there was another sacred enclosure of a similar nature, called by the Phoenicians wwn Tursis, which in after times became corrupted into Tartessus.† It was an

* Macrob. Saturnal. lib. i. cap. 20. See also Avienus, A Pliny, Solinus, Isidorus, and Hesychius, cited by Bochart. Canaan. p. 673. This learned man thinks, however, that though the term Gadir signifies "locum undique septum ;" yet that the defence alluded to was that of the ocean, looking only to the sacred island mentioned in the description. With great deference to this opinion, the elements of which the term is composed, and the same name being often conferred upon places inland, seem to declare the contrary; and putting all the circumstances together, the protection of the sacred fire or light, and the host of the Cherubim, appear to be pointed at in this remarkable title. Consult Parkhurst. Heb. Lex. under the words 72, #8, and 18. The name Gadir occurs several times in Scripture. Joshua xii. 13. and three in chap. xv. 2 Chron. xviii. 18. LXX. Gen. xxxv. 16. Sulpic. Sever. lib. i. cap. 16. and the notes on the place in the var. edit.

+ Pomp. Mela, lib. iii. cap. 1. Strabo, lib. iii. pp. 140148. Pausanias in Eliacis. Ptolem. Avien. Bochart, p. 669. Stephan. ex Mss.

Ur

island in the middle of a lake called Avernus,* formed by the widening of the river Botis. At no great distance from this last was another island, also bearing the same name, although also called Erythia, a corruption of Thur, or the tower of light or fire. The fables of Geryon, and other traditionary features of paradise, were likewise connected with it; while not far off was an ancient high-place, consecrated to the rites of the serpent, called Colobona; and all these paradisaical enclosures had the same appellations of Tursis, Gadir, and Kades indifferently conferred upon them.† We have also seen that one of them was in the centre of a lake Avernus, which decidedly connects it with the Hades or future world of antiquity; and which, I will now shew, was mainly founded upon memorials of the garden of Eden, although interspersed with diluvian and other traditions.

* Η δε Ταρτησος Ιβηρική πολις περι την Αορνον λίμνην Schol. Aristop. in Ran...

+ Tartessum Hispaniæ civitatem quam nunc Tyrii mutato nomine Gaddir habent. Sallust in Fragm. et Avienus in oris maritimis.

Hic Gaddir urbs est dicta Tartessus prius.

Boch. 673.