Part 64 (1/2)
And we learn that this designation of the Ineffable Name was, among the Hebrews, a symbol of Creation. The mysterious union _of G.o.d with His creatures_ was in the letter ?, which they considered to be the Agent of Almighty Power; and to enable the possessor of the Name to work miracles.
The Personal p.r.o.noun ??? [HuA], HE, is often used _by itself_, to express the Deity, Lee says that in such cases, IHUH, IH, or ALHIM, or some other name of G.o.d, is _understood_; but there is no necessity for that. It means in such cases the Male, Generative, or Creative Principle or Power.
It was a common practice with the Talmudists to conceal secret meanings and sounds of words by transposing the letters.
The reversal of the letters of words was, indeed, anciently common everywhere. Thus from _Neitha_, the name of an Egyptian G.o.ddess, the Greeks, writing backward, formed _Athene_, the name of Minerva. In Arabic we have _Nahid_, a name of the planet Venus, which, reversed, gives _Dihan_, Greek, in Persian, _Nihad_, Nature; which Sir William Jones writes also Nahid. Strabo informs us that the Armenian name of Venus was _Anaitis_.
_Tien_, Heaven, in Chinese, reversed, is _Neit_, or _Neith_, wors.h.i.+pped at _Sais_ in Egypt. Reverse Neitha, drop the _i_, and add an _e_, and we, as before said, _Athene. Mitra_ was the name of Venus among the ancient Persians. Herodotus, who tells us this, also informs us that her name, among the Scythians, was _Artim pasa. Artim_ is _Mitra_, reversed.
So, by reversing it, the Greeks formed Artemis, Diana.
One of the meanings of _Rama_, in Sanscrit, is _Kama_, the Deity of _Love_. Reverse this, and we have _Amar_, and by changing _a_ into _o, Amor_, the Latin word for _Love_. Probably, as the verb is _Amare_, the oldest reading was _Amar_ and not _Amor_. So _Dipaka_, in Sanscrit, one of the meanings whereof is _love_, is often written _Dipuc_. Reverse this, and we have, adding _o_, the Latin word _Cupido_.
In Arabic, the radical letters _rhm_, p.r.o.nounced _rahm_, signify the _trunk, compa.s.sion, mercy_; this reversed, we have _mhr_, in Persic, _love_ and the _Sun_. In Hebrew we have _Lab_, the _heart_; and in Chaldee, _Bal_, the _heart_; the radical letters of both being _b_ and _l_.
The Persic word for _head_ is _Sar_. Reversed, this becomes _Ras_ in Arabic and Hebrew, Raish in Chaldee, Rash in Samaritan, and Ryas in Ethiopic; all meaning _head, chief_, etc. In Arabic we have _Kid_, in the sense of _rule_, regulation, article of agreement, obligation; which, reversed, becomes, adding _e_, the Greek _dike_ justice. In Coptic we have _Chlom_, a crown. Reversed, we have in Hebrew, _Moloch_ or _Malec_, a King, or he who wears a crown.
In the Kou-onen, or oldest Chinese writing, by Hieroglyphics, [Glyph]
_Ge_ [_Hi_ or _Khi_, with the initial letter modified], was the Sun: in Persic. _Gaw:_ and in Turkish _Giun. Yue_, was the Moon; in Sanscrit _Uh_, and in Turkish _Ai_. It will be remembered that, in Egypt and elsewhere, the Sun was originally feminine, and the Moon masculine.
In Egypt, _Ioh_ was the moon; and in the feasts of Bacchus they cried incessantly, _Euo Sabvi! Euo Bakhe! Io Bakhe! lo Bakhe!_
Bunsen gives the following personal p.r.o.nouns for _he_ and _she_;
_He She_
Christian Aramtic Hu Hi
Jewish Aramaic Hu Hi
Hebrew Hu? Hi?
Arabic Huwa Hiya
Thus the Ineffable Name not only embodies the Great Philosophical Idea, that the Deity is the ENS, the TO ON, the Absolute Existence, that of which the Essence is To Exist, the only Substance of Spinoza, the BEING, that never could _not_ have existed, as contradistinguished from that which only _becomes_, not Nature or the Soul of Nature, but that which created Nature; but also the idea of the Male and Female Principles, in its highest and most profound sense; to wit, that G.o.d originally comprehended in Himself all that is: that matter was not co-existent with Him, or independent of Him; that He did not merely fas.h.i.+on and shape a pre-existing chaos into a Universe; but that His Thought manifested itself outwardly in that Universe, which so _became_, and before _was not_, except as comprehended in Him: that the Generative Power or Spirit, and Productive Matter, ever among the ancients deemed the Female, originally were in G.o.d; and that He Was and Is all that Was, that Is, and that Shall be: _in_ Whom all else lives, moves, and has its being.
This was the great Mystery of the Ineffable Name; and this true arrangement of its letters, and of course its true p.r.o.nunciation and its meaning, soon became lost to all except the select few to whom it was confided; it being concealed from the common people, because the Deity thus metaphysically named was not that personal and capricious, and as it were tangible G.o.d in whom they believed, and who alone was within the reach of their rude capacities.
Diodorus says that the name given by Moses to G.o.d was ??O. Theodoras says that the Samaritans termed G.o.d _IABE_, but the Jews ??O. Philo Byblius gives the form ???O; and Clemens of Alexandria ????. Macrobius says that it was an admitted axiom among the Heathen, that the triliteral ??O was the sacred name of the Supreme G.o.d. And the Clarian oracle said: ”Learn thou that ??O is the great G.o.d Supreme, that ruleth over all.” The letter ? signified Unity. ? and O are the first and last letters of the Greek Alphabet.
Hence the frequent expression: ”I am the First, and I am the Last; and besides Me there is no other G.o.d. I am A and O, the First and the Last.
I am A and O, the Beginning and the Ending, which Is, and Was, and Is to come: the Omnipotent.” For in this we see shadowed forth the same great truth; that G.o.d is all in all--the Cause and the Effect--the beginning, or Impulse, or Generative Power: and the Ending, or Result, or that which is produced: that He is in reality all that is, all that ever was, and all that ever will be; in this sense, that nothing besides Himself has existed eternally, and co-eternally with Him, independent of Him, and self-existent, or self-originated.
And thus the meaning of the expression, ALOHAYIM, a _plural_ noun, used, in the account of the Creation with which Genesis commences, with a singular verb, and of the name or t.i.tle IHUH-ALHIM, used for the first time in the 4th verse of the 2d chapter of the same book, becomes clear.
The ALHIM is the aggregate unity of the manifested Creative Forces or Powers of Deity, His Emanations; and IHUH-ALHIM is the ABSOLUTE Existence, or Essence of these Powers and Forces, of which they are Active Manifestations and Emanations.
This was the profound truth hidden in the ancient allegory and covered from the general view with a double veil. This was the esoteric meaning of the generation and production of the Indian, Chaldean, and Phnician cosmogonies; and the Active and Pa.s.sive Powers, of the Male and Female Principles; of Heaven and its Luminaries generating, and the Earth producing; all hiding from vulgar view, as above its comprehension, the doctrine that matter is not eternal, but that G.o.d was the only original Existence, the ABSOLUTE, from Whom everything has proceeded, and to Whom all returns: and that all moral law springs not from the relation of things, but from His Wisdom and Essential Justice, as the Omnipotent Legislator. And this TRUE WORD is with entire accuracy said to have been _lost_; because its _meaning_ was lost, even among the Hebrews, although we still find the name (its real meaning unsuspected), in the Hu of the Druids and the Fo-Hi of the Chinese.
When we conceive of the Absolute Truth, Beauty, or Good, we cannot stop short at the abstraction of either. We are forced to refer each to some living and substantial Being, in which they have their foundations, some being that is the first and last principle of each.
Moral Truth, like every other universal and necessary truth, cannot remain a mere abstraction. Abstractions are unrealities. In ourselves, moral truth is merely conceived of. There must be _somewhere_ a Being that not only _conceives_ of, but _const.i.tutes_ it. It has this characteristic; that it is not only, to the eyes of our intelligence, an universal and necessary truth, but one obligatory on our will. It is A LAW. _We_ do not establish that law _ourselves_. It is imposed on us _despite_ ourselves: its principle must be _without_ us. It supposes a legislator. He cannot be the being to whom the law applies; but must be one that possesses in the highest degree all the characteristics of moral truth. The moral law, universal and necessary, necessarily has as its author a necessary being--composed of justice and charity, its author must be a being possessing the plenitude of both.