Ignatius Donnelly - Antediluvian world

Josephus, who gives us the primitive traditions of the Jews, tells us (chap. ii., p. 42) that “Cain travelled over many countries” before he came to the land of Nod. The Bible does not tell us that the race of Cain perished in the Deluge. “Cain went out from the presence of Jehovah;” he did not call on his name; the people that were destroyed were the “sons of Jehovah.” All this indicates that large colonies had been sent out by the mother-land before it sunk in the sea.

Across the ocean we find the people of Guatemala claiming their descent from a goddess called At-tit, or grandmother, who lived for four hundred years, and first taught the worship of the true God, which they afterward forgot. (Bancroft’s “Native Races,” vol. iii., p. 75.) While the famous Mexican calendar stone shows that the sun was commonly called tonatiuh but when it was referred to as the god of the Deluge it was then called Atl-tona-ti-uh, or At-onatiuh. (Valentini’s “Mexican Calendar Stone,” art. Maya Archaeology, p. 15.) We thus find the sons of Ad at the base of all the most ancient races of men, to wit, the Hebrews, the Arabians, the Chaldeans, the Hindoos, the Persians, the Egyptians, the Ethiopians, the Mexicans, and the Central Americans; testimony that all these races traced their beginning back to a dimly remembered Ad-lantis.

CHAPTER II

THE KINGS OF ATLANTIS BECOME THE GODS OF THE GREEKS.

Lord Bacon said:

“The mythology of the Greeks, which their oldest writers do not pretend to have invented, was no more than a light air, which had passed from a more ancient people into the flutes of the Greeks, which they modulated to such descants as best suited their fancies.”

This profoundly wise and great man, who has illuminated every subject which he has touched, guessed very close to the truth in this utterance.

The Hon. W. E. Gladstone has had quite a debate of late with Mr. Cox as to whether the Greek mythology was underlaid by a nature worship, or a planetary or solar worship.

Peru, worshipping the sun and moon and planets, probably represents very closely the simple and primitive religion of Atlantis, with its sacrifices of fruits and flowers. This passed directly to their colony in Egypt. We find the Egyptians in their early ages sun and planet worshippers. Ptah was the object of their highest adoration. He is the father of the god of the sun, the ruler of the region of light. Ra was the sun-god. He was the supreme divinity at On, or Heliopolis, near Memphis. His symbol was the solar disk, supported by two rings. He created all that exists below the heavens.

The Babylonian trinity was composed of Idea, Anu, and Bel. Bel represented the sun, and was the favorite god. Sin was the goddess of the moon.

The Phoenicians were also sun-worshippers. The sun was represented by Baal-Samin, the great god, the god of light and the heavens, the creator and rejuvenator.

“The attributes of both Baal and Moloch (the good and bad powers of the sun) were united in the Phoenician god Melkart, “king of the city,” whom the inhabitants of Tyre considered their special patron. The Greeks called him “Melicertes,” and identified him with Hercules. By his great strength and power he turned evil into good, brought life out of destruction, pulled back the sun to the earth at the time of the solstices, lessened excessive beat and cold, and rectified the evil signs of the zodiac. In Phoenician legends he conquers the savage races of distant coasts, founds the ancient settlements on the Mediterranean, and plants the rocks in the Straits of Gibraltar.” (“American Cyclopaedia,” art. Mythology.)

The Egyptians worshipped the sun under the name of Ra; the Hindoos worshipped the sun under the name of Rama; while the great festival of the sun, of the Peruvians, was called Ray-mi.

Sun-worship, as the ancient religion of Atlantis, underlies all the superstitions of the colonies of that country. The Samoyed woman says to the sun, “When thou, god, risest, I too rise from my bed.” Every morning even now the Brahmans stand on one foot, with their hands held out before them and their faces turned to the east, adoring the sun. “In Germany or France one may still see the peasant take off his hat to the rising sun.” (“Anthropology,” p. 361.) The Romans, even, in later times, worshipped the sun at Emesa, under the name of Elagabalus, “typified in the form of a black conical stone, which it was believed had fallen from heaven.” The conical stone was the emblem of Bel. Did it have relation to the mounds and pyramids?

Sun-worship was the primitive religion of the red men of America. It was found among all the tribes. (Dorman, “Origin of Primitive Superstitions, p. 338.) The Chichimecs called the sun their father. The Comanches have a similar belief.

But, compared with such ancient nations as the Egyptians and Babylonians, the Greeks were children. A priest of Sais said to Solon, “You Greeks are novices in knowledge of antiquity. You are ignorant of what passed either here or among yourselves in days of old. The history of eight thousand years is deposited in our sacred books; but I can ascend to a much higher antiquity, and tell you what our fathers have done for nine thousand years; I mean their institutions, their laws, and their most brilliant achievements.”

The Greeks, too young to have shared in the religion of Atlantis, but preserving some memory of that great country and its history, proceeded to convert its kings into gods, and to depict Atlantis itself as the heaven of the human race. Thus we find a great solar or nature worship in the elder nations, while Greece has nothing but an incongruous jumble of gods and goddesses, who are born and eat and drink and make love and ravish and steal and die; and who are worshipped as immortal in presence of the very monuments that testify to their death.

“These deities, to whom the affairs of the world were in trusted, were, it is believed, immortal, though not eternal in their existence. In Crete there was even a story of the death of Zeus, his tomb being pointed out.” (Murray’s “Mythology,” p. 2.) The history of Atlantis is the key of the Greek mythology. There can be no question that these gods of Greece were human beings. The tendency to attach divine attributes to great earthly rulers is one deeply implanted in human nature. The savages who killed Captain Cook firmly believed that he was immortal, that he was yet alive, and would return to punish them. The highly civilized Romans made gods out of their dead emperors.

Dr. Livingstone mentions that on one occasion, after talking to a Bushman for some time about the Deity, he found that the savage thought he was speaking of Sekomi, the principal chief of the district.

We find the barbarians of the coast of the Mediterranean regarding the civilized people of Atlantis with awe and wonder: “Their physical strength was extraordinary, the earth shaking sometimes under their tread. Whatever they did was done speedily. They moved through space almost without the loss of a moment of time.” This probably alluded to the rapid motion of their sailing-vessels. “They were wise, and communicated their wisdom to men.” That is to say, they civilized the people they came in contact with. ‘They had a strict sense of justice, and punished crime rigorously, and rewarded noble actions, though it is true they were less conspicuous for the latter.” (Murray’s “Mythology,”

4.) We should understand this to mean that where they colonized they established a government of law, as contradistinguished from the anarchy of barbarism.

“There were tales of personal visits and adventures of the gods among men, taking part in battles and appearing in dreams. They were conceived to possess the form of human beings, and to be, like men, subject to love and pain, but always characterized by the highest qualities and grandest forms that could be imagined.” (Ibid.) Another proof that the gods of the Greeks were but the deified kings of Atlantis is found in the fact that “the gods were not looked upon as having created the world.” They succeeded to the management of a world already in existence.