Page 77 (part 2)

"Therefore," he adds, "the work must be an A POCRYPHA to be ranged with its contemporaries -- the fourth book of Esdras, that of Enoch, the Sibylline Oracles, and the Book of Hermes -- every one of these dating no further back than two or three centuries B . C . " Ewald came down still harder on Chwolsohn, and finally M. Renan. In the " Revue Germanique, " ** the ex-pupil pulls down the authority of his master, by asking him to show a reason why his Nabathean Agriculture should not be the fraudulent work of some Jew of the third or fourth century of our era? It can hardly be otherwise -- argues the romancer of the "Life of Jesus." Since, in this in-folio on astrology and Sorcery we recognise in the personages introduced by Qu-tamy, all the patriarchs of the Biblical legends, such as Adam-Adami, Anouka-Noah, and his Ibrahim-Abraham etc., etc." This is no reason, since Adam and others are generic names. Meanwhile it is humbly submitted that, all things considered, an apocrypha -- if even of the third century A . D ., instead of the thirteenth century B.C ., as suggested by Quatremere -- is old enough to appear genuine as a document, and so satisfy the demands of the most exacting archaeologist and critic. For, even admitting, for argument's sake, that this literary relic has been compiled by "some Jew of the third century of our era" -- what of that? Leaving the credibility of its doctrines for a moment aside, why should it be less entitled to a hearing, or less instructive as reflecting older opinions, than any other religious work, also a "compilation from old texts" or oral tradition -- of the same or even a later age? In such case we should have to reject and call "apocryphal" the Quran -- two centuries older, though we know it to have sprung, Minerva-like, direct from the brain of the Arabian prophet; and we should have to pooh-pooh all the information we can get from the Talmud, which, in its present form, was also compiled from older materials, and is not earlier than the IX . century of our era. The curious "Bible" of the Chaldean adept, and the various criticisms upon it (as in the Chwolsohn's translation), are noticed, because it has an important bearing upon a great portion of the present work. [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Annales de Philosophie, June 1860, p. 415. ** April 30, 1860. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 455 MANY VIEWS OF MANY MINDS. With the exception of M. Renan, an iconoclast by principle -- so pointedly called by Jules Lemaitre " le Paganini du Neant " -- the worst fault found with the work is, it would seem, that the "apocrypha" pretends to have been communicated as a revelation to an adept by, and from, the "idol of the moon," who received it from "Saturn." Hence, very naturally, it is "a fairy tale all round." To this there is but one answer: it is no more a fairy tale than the Bible, and if one falls, the other must follow it. Even the mode of divination through "the idol of the moon" is the same as practised by David, Saul, and the High Priests of the Jewish Tabernacle by means of the Teraphim. In Volume III ., Part II . of this present work, the practical methods of such ancient divination will be found. The "Nabathean Agriculture" is a compilation indeed; it is no apocrypha, but the repetition of the tenets of the Secret Doctrine under the exoteric Chaldean form of national symbols, for the purpose of "cloaking" the tenets, just as the Books of Hermes and the Puranas are Egyptian and Hindu attempts at the same. The work was as well known in antiquity as it was during the Middle Ages. Maimonides speaks of it, and refers more than once to this Chaldeo-Arabic MS ., calling the Nabatheans by their co-religionary name, i.e ., "star-worshippers," or Sabeans, but yet failing to see in this disfigured word "Nabatheans" the mystic name of the caste devoted to Nebo (god of secret wisdom), which shows on its face that the Nabatheans were an occult Brotherhood.* The Nabatheans who, according to the Persian Yezidi, originally came to Syria from Busrah, were the degenerate members of that fraternity; still their religion, even at that late day, was purely Kabalistic.** Nebo is the deity of the planet Mercury, and Mercury is the god of Wisdom or Hermes, and Budha, which the Jews called "the Lord on high, the aspiring," . . . and the Greeks Nabo, [[ Nabo ]], hence Nabatheans. Notwithstanding that Maimonides calls their doctrines "heathenish foolishness" and their archaic literature " Sabaeorum foetum, " he places their "agriculture," the Bible of Qu-tamy, in the first rank of Archaic literature; and Abarbinel [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * "I will mention to thee the writings . . . respecting the belief of the Sabeans, " he says. "The most famous is the Book 'The Agriculture of the Nabatheans, ' which has been translated by Ibn Wahohijah. This book is full of heathenish foolishness. . . . It speaks of preparations of T ALISMANS, the drawing down of the powers of the S PIRITS, M AGIC, D EMONS, and ghouls, which make their abode in the desert." (Maimonides, quoted by Dr. D. Chwolsohn, "Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus," II ., p. 458.) The Nabatheans of Mount Lebanon believed in the Seven Archangels, as their forefathers had believed in the Seven Great Stars, the abodes and bodies of these Archangels, believed in to this day by the Roman Catholics, as is shown elsewhere. ** See "Isis Unveiled," Vol. II ., p. 197. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 456 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. praises it in unmeasured terms. Spencer, quoting the latter, speaks of it as that "most excellent Oriental work," adding (vol. 1., p. 354) that by Nabatheans, the Sabeans, the Chaldeans, and the Egyptians, in short all those nations against whom the laws of Moses were most severely enacted, have to be understood.