The legend of the contest between Hor-ra and Set, or Set-nu-bi, the same as Bar or Bal, is older than that of the strife between Osiris and Typhon; as old, at least, as the nineteenth dynasty. It is called in the Book of the Dead, "The day of the battle between Horus and Set." The later myth connects itself with Phoenicia and Syria. The body of OSIRIS went ashore at Gebal or Byblos, sixty miles above Tsūr. You will not fail to notice that in the name of each murderer of Khūrūm, that of the Evil God Bal is found.
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Har-oeri was the god of TIME, as well as of Life. The Egyptian legend was that the King of Byblos cut down the tamarisk-tree containing the body of OSIRIS, and made of it a column for his palace. Isis, employed in the palace, obtained possession of the column, took the body out of it, and carried it away. Apuleius describes her as "a beautiful female, over whose divine neck her long thick hair hung in graceful ringlets;" and in the procession female attendants, with ivory combs, seemed to dress and ornament the royal hair of the goddess. The palm-tree, and the lamp in the shape of a boat, appeared in the procession. If the symbol we are speaking of is not a mere modern invention, it is to these things it alludes.
[Illustration: Hieroglyph]
The identity of the legends is also confirmed by this hieroglyphic picture, copied from an ancient Egyptian monument, which may also enlighten you as to the Lion's grip and the Master's gavel.
[Hebrew: אב], in the ancient Phoenician character, [Symbols], and in the Samaritan, [Symbols], A B, (the two letters representing the numbers 1, 2, or Unity and Duality, means Father, and is a primitive noun, common to all the Semitic languages.)
It also means an Ancestor, Originator, Inventor, Head, Chief or Ruler,
Manager, Overseer, Master, Priest, Prophet.
[Hebrew: אבי] simply Father, when it is in construction, that is, when it precedes another word, and in English the preposition "of" is interposed, as [Hebrew: אבי-אל], Abi-Al, the Father of Al.
Also, the final Yōd means "my"; so that [Hebrew: אבי] by itself means
"My father." [Hebrew: דויד אבי], David my father, 2 Chron. ii. 3.
[Hebrew: ו], (Vav) final is the possessive pronoun "his"; and [Hebrew: אביו], Abiu (which we read "Abif") means "of my father's." Its full meaning, as connected with the name of Khūrūm, no doubt is, "formerly one of my father's servants," or "slaves."
The name of the Phoenician artificer is, in Samuel and Kings, [Hebrew: הירם] and [Hebrew: הירום]—[2 Sam. v. 11; 1 Kings v. 15; 1 Kings vii. 40]. In Chronicles it is [Hebrew: הורם], with the addition of [Hebrew: אבי] [2 Chron. ii. 12]; and of [Hebrew: אביו]. [2 Chron. iv. 16].
It is merely absurd to add the word "Abif" or "Abiff," as part of the name of the artificer. And it is almost as absurd to add the word "Abi," which was a title and not part of the name. Joseph says [Gen. xlv. 8], "God has constituted me 'Ab l'Paraah, as Father to Paraah, i.e., Vizier or Prime Minister." So Haman was called the Second Father of Artaxerxes; and when King Khūrūm used the phrase "Khūrūm Abi," he meant that the artificer he sent Schlomoh was the principal or chief workman in his line at Tsūr.
A medal copied by Montfaucon exhibits a female nursing a child, with ears of wheat in her hand, and the legend (Iao). She is seated on clouds, a star at her head, and three ears of wheat rising from an altar before her.
HORUS was the mediator, who was buried three days, was regenerated, and triumphed over the evil principle.
The word HERI, in Sanscrit, means Shepherd, as well as Saviour. CRISHNA is called Heri, as JESUS called Himself the Good Shepherd.
[Hebrew: הור], Khūr, means an aperture of a window, a cave, or the eye. Also it means white. In Syriac, [Symbols].
[Hebrew: הר] also means an opening, and noble, free-born, high-born.
[Hebrew: הרם], KHURM means consecrated, devoted; in Æthiopic [Symbols]
It is the name of a city, [Josh. xix. 38]; and of a man, [Ezr. ii. 32, x. 31; Neh. iii. 11].
[Hebrew: היהה], Khirah, means nobility, a noble race.
Buddha is declared to comprehend in his own person the essence of the Hindu Trimurti; and hence the tri-literal monosyllable Om or Aum is applied to him as being essentially the same as Brahma-Vishnu-Siva. He is the same as Hermes, Thoth, Taut, and Teutates. One of his names is Heri-maya or Her-maya, which are evidently the same name as Hermes and Khirm or Khūrm. Heri, in Sanscrit, means Lord.
A learned Brother places over the two symbolic pillars, from right to left, the two words [Symbols] and [Symbols] [Hebrew: יהו] and [Hebrew: בעל], IHU and BAL: followed by the hieroglyphic equivalent, [Hieroglyphic: ] of the Sun-God, Amun-ra. Is it an accidental coincidence, that in the name of each murderer are the two names of the Good and Evil Deities of the Hebrews; for Yu-bel is but Yehu-Bal or Yeho-Bal? and that the three final syllables of the names, a, o, um, make A.U.M. the sacred word of the Hindoos, meaning the Triune-God, Life-giving, Life-preserving, Life-destroying: represented by the mystic character [Mystic Character: Y].
The genuine Acacia, also, is the thorny tamarisk, the same tree which grew up around the body of Osiris. It was a sacred tree among the Arabs, who made of it the idol Al-Uzza, which Mohammed destroyed. It is abundant as a bush in the Desert of Thur: and of it the "crown of thorns" was composed, which was set on the forehead of Jesus of Nazareth. It is a fit type of immortality on account of its tenacity of life; for it has been known, when planted as a door-post, to take root again and shoot out budding boughs over the threshold.
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Every commonwealth must have its periods of trial and transition, especially if it engages in war. It is certain at some time to be wholly governed by agitators appealing to all the baser elements of the popular nature; by moneyed corporations; by those enriched by the depreciation of government securities or paper; by small attorneys, schemers, money-jobbers, speculators and adventurers—an ignoble oligarchy, enriched by the distresses of the State, and fattened on the miseries of the people. Then all the deceitful visions of equality and the rights of man end; and the wronged and plundered State can regain a real liberty only by passing through "great varieties of untried being," purified in its transmigration by fire and blood.
In a Republic, it soon comes to pass that parties gather round the negative and positive poles of some opinion or notion, and that the intolerant spirit of a triumphant majority will allow no deviation from the standard of orthodoxy which it has set up for itself. Freedom of opinion will be professed and pretended to, but every one will exercise it at the peril of being banished from political communion with those who hold the reins and prescribe the policy to be pursued. Slavishness to party and obsequiousness to the popular whims go hand in hand. Political independence only occurs in a fossil state; and men's opinions grow out of the acts they have been constrained to do or sanction. Flattery, either of individual or people, corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings. A Cæsar, securely seated in power, cares less for it than a free democracy; nor will his appetite for it grow to exorbitance, as that of a people will, until it becomes insatiate. The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please; to a people, it is to a great extent the same. If accessible to flattery, as this is always interested, and resorted to on low and base motives, and for evil purposes, either individual or people is sure, in doing what it pleases, to do what in honor and conscience should have been left undone. One ought not even to risk congratulations, which may soon be turned into complaints; and as both individuals and peoples are prone to make a bad use of power, to flatter them, which is a sure way to mislead them, well deserves