I believe by almost all the ancients, both Jews and Gentiles, the Supreme Being was thought to be material, and to consist of a very refined igneous fluid; more like the galvanic or electric fire than any thing with which I am acquainted. This was also the opinion of most of the ancient Christian fathers. This was called the anima as feminine, or spiritus as masculine—and was the רוח ruh of the second verse of Genesis, which Parkhurst calls breath or air in motion, (Isaiah xi. 4,) an incorporeal substance, and the Holy Spirit. From this comes the expression to inspire, or holy inspiration. The word Ghost means spiritus or anima. This was often confounded with the igneous fluid of which God was supposed to consist; whence came the baptism by fire and the Holy Ghost. (Matt. iii. 11.) These were absurd refinements of religious metaphysicians, which necessarily arose from their attempts to define that of which they had not the means of forming an idea. I should be equally as absurd, if I were to attempt to reconcile their inconsistencies. In the above examples of the different names for the Holy Ghost, a singular mixture of genders is observable. We see the active principle, fire, the Creator and the Preserver, and also the Destroyer, identified with the Holy Ghost of the Christians, in the united form of the Dove and of Fire settling on the apostles. Here we have most clearly the Holy Ghost identified with the Destroyer, Fire.
The Dove is the admitted emblem of the female procreative power. It always accompanies Venus. Hence in Sanscrit the female organ of generation is called Yoni. The Hebrew name is יונה iune. Evidently the same. The wife of Jove, the Creator, very naturally bears the name of the female procreative power, Juno. It is unnecessary to point out the close relation of the passion of love to the procreative power. There can scarcely be a doubt that the Dove was called after the Yoni, or the Yoni after the Dove, probably from its salacious qualities. And as creation was destruction, and the creative the destructive power, it came to be the emblem of the destructive as well as of the creative power. As the רוח ruh or spiritus was the passive cause (brooding on the face of the waters) by which all things sprung into life, the Dove became the emblem of the ruh or Spirit or Holy Ghost, the third person, and consequently the Destroyer. In the foundation of the Grecian Oracles, the places peculiarly filled with the Holy Spirit or Ghost, or inspiration, the Dove was the principal agent. The intimate relation between all these things, and their dependance on one another, I think, cannot possibly be disputed. We have in the New Testament several notices of the Holy Ghost or the sanctus spiritus, קדיש qdis, רוח ruh, πνευμα ἁγιον, ψυχη κοσμου, or anima mundi, or alma Venus. It descended, as before remarked, upon Jesus at his baptism, in the form of a Dove, and according to Justin Martyr, a fire was lighted in the moment of its decent in the river Jordan. It is also said to have come with a sound as of a rushing mighty wind, but to have been visible as a tongue of fire, settling on each apostle, as described Acts ii. 2, 3. Here we have the רוח ruh or air in motion, according to Parkhurst’s explanation, which brooded on the face of the deep, an active agent in the creation; and we have fire the Destroyer—the baptism of water, wind, and fire—the baptism of the Etruscans.[1] John says, “I indeed baptize you with water, but one shall come, who shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” (Luke iii. 16.) All this is part of the Romish Esoteric religion of Jesus, which, like other religions, has been lost; a few fragments only now remaining; unless it be privately concealed in the recesses of the Vatican.
8. We may see very clearly from the nonsense of Lactantius that my idea is correct. He says, the Son of God is the sermo or ratio (the speech or reason) of God; also, that the other angels are the breath of God, spiritus Dei. But sermo (speech) is breath emitted, together with a voice expressive of something.[2] I shall, perhaps, be asked by a disciple of the philosophic Priestley
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