the babylon connection, part sixteen

We were learning that polytheism in all nations, arose from a single source, and the worship of a single false god of the ancients, which was the sun. Byrant in Ancient Mythology, in the final essay of volume one, reveals the connection in detail:

“I have mentioned that the nations of the east acknowledged originally but one deity, the sun: but when they came to give the titles of Orus [Light], Osiris [Nimrod], and Cham [Ham], to some of the heads of their family; they too in time were looked up to as gods, and severally worshiped as the sun. This was practiced by the Egyptians: but this nation being much addicted to refinement in their worship, made many subtle distinctions: and supposing that there were certain emanations of divinity, they affected to particularize each by some title; and to worship the deity by his attributes. This gave rise to a multiplicity of gods: for the more curious they were in their disquisitions, the greater was the number of these substitutes. Many of them at first were designed for mere titles: others as I before mentioned, were derivatives, and emanations: all which in time were esteemed distinct beings, and gave rise to a most inconsistent system of polytheism. The Grecians, who received their religion from Egypt and the east, misconstrued everything which was imported; and added to these absurdities largely. They adopted deities, to whose pretended attributes they were totally strangers; whose names they could not articulate, or spell. They did not know how to arrange the elements, of which the words were composed. …

“This blindness in regard to their [the Greeks’] own theology, and to that of the countries, whence they borrowed, led them to misapply the terms which they had received, and to make a god out of every title. But however they may have separated, and distinguished under different personages, they are all plainly resolvable into one deity, the sun.”

Jacob Bryant, Ancient Mythology, volume 1, pp. 382-384.

Bryant goes on to show, to the end of volume 1, from the words of the Greek writers themselves in excruciating exactness, how Apollo, Bacchus, Ceres, Dionysus, Pan, Zeus (Jupiter), Poseidon (Neptune), Hercules, Chronos (Saturn), Aphrodite (Venus), Vesta, Rhea, Themis, Priapus, Proserpina, Attis, Adonis, Silenus, and the Satyrs were all originally Osiris, and Amon, or Ham, the Egyptian sun god. Anyone who is interested in this topic can read Bryant’s fascinating investigation for themselves.

I trust I have shown beyond a shadow, through diverse authorities, that the original corruption of the true worship of the Creator, was turned to pagan nature worship centered in the sun; and that the corruption originated at Babel, and that the originators of it were the family of Ham, in Cush, and Nimrod; and that from Babel pagan worship spread throughout the ancient world.

tying together loose ends

babel / babylon index of studies