many very learned and curious observations respecting the word Om and its connexion with various places. He shews that the meaning of the Ομφι was totally unknown to the Greeks.
From Parkhurst, (in voce שר sr, p. 771,) it is pretty clear that the omphalos had both the meaning of beeve and umbilicus, and that it had also the same meaning as שר sr.
Amon is the Om of India, and On or אנ an of the Hebrews. Strabo calls the temple of Jupiter Ammon, Ἱερον Ομανου. Bryant[1] says, המה eme is called Hom.[2] Gale says, “In the Persian language Hama means the sun.”[3] These are all evidently the Om of India, variously translated.
The word Am, Om, or Um, occurs in many languages, but it has generally a meaning some way connected with the idea of a circle or cycle, as ambire, ambages, or circum. This is particularly the case in all the Northern languages. I need not name again the Umbilicus, nor the way in which this seems to be connected with the idea conveyed by the Greek word Δελφυς. Nonnus says, that the Babylonian Bel and the Lybian Hammon were, εν Ἑλλαδι, ΔΕΛΦΟΕ Απολλος.
An attentive perusal of what Jamieson has said, in his Hermes Scythicus, (pp. 6, 7,) on the word Am, Om, Um, will satisfy the reader that there is a strong probability that the radical meaning of this word is cycle or circle. The importance of this will be seen hereafter.
It would be going too far to quote Dr. Daniel Clarke as an authority in support of my explanation of the word Ammon, but I will give a note of his in the seventh chapter of his Travels in Egypt, and leave the reader to judge for himself: “Plane ridiculum est, velle Ammonis nomen petere à Græcis: cùm Ægyptii ipsi Αμουν appellent, teste Herodoto.[4] The name of the Supreme Being among the Brahmins of India is the first syllable only of this word pronounced AM.” Again,[5] “Sol superus et clarus est Ammon.”[6] The ancients had a precious stone called Ombria. It was supposed to have descended from heaven.[7] The place of its nativity seems to connect it with the mysterious Om. The Roman nurses used the letter M, pronounced Mu, as a charm against witchcraft, and from the effects of the evil eye—from being fascinated by the God Fascinus, who had the figure of the membrum virile, and was worn about the necks of women and children, like the Agnus Deis worn by Romish Christians. The latter, I have no doubt, borrowed the custom from the Gentiles.[8]
4. Various derivations are given of the word On, but they are all unsatisfactory. It is written in the Old Testament in two ways, אונ aun and אנ an. It is usually rendered in English by the word On. This word is supposed to mean the sun, and the Greeks translated it by the word ἡλιος or sol. But I think it only stood for the sun as emblem of the procreative power of nature. Thus, in Genesis xlix. 3, Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength: principium roboris mei:[9] אוני auni, וראשית u-rasit. It meant the beginning or the first exercise of his pro-creative power. Again, in Deut. xxi. 17, the words ראשית אנו rasit anu, refer to the firstborn, and have the same meaning: For he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firsthorn is his. Again, in Psalm lxxviii. 51, we find it having the same meaning: And smote all the firstborn in Egypt: the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham: אונים aunim ראשית rasit: Primitias omnis laboris eorum, in tabernaculis Cham.[10] In the hundred and fifth Psalm and the thirty-sixth verse, it has the same meaning.
It was from Oenuphis, a priest of On, that Pythagoras is said to have learnt the system of the heavenly bodies moving round the sun in unceasing revolutions. The priests of this temple were esteemed the first in Egypt.[11]
- ↑ Heathen Myth. p. 3.֜
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Gale’s Court of the Gentiles, Vol. I. ch. xi. p. 72.
- ↑ Vossius de Orig. &c., Idolat. Tom. i. Lib. ii. Cap. ii. p. 362, Amst. 1642.
- ↑ Ibid. p. 282.
- ↑ Jablonski, Panth. Ægyp.
- ↑ Plin. Hist. Nat. Lib. xxxvii. Cap. x.
- ↑ Vide Ibid. Lib. xxviii. Cap. iv.
- ↑ Ar. Montanus.
- ↑ Vulg.
- ↑ See Plut. de Is. et Osir.
