We need not wonder, therefore, at the view in which the Hades of Campania was considered by the ancients. The whole was in fact one vast sacred enclosure, embracing several miles of country in its extent, and including lakes, groves, gardens, rivers, all on the grandest scale imaginable, within its hallowed precincts. It was, moreover, looked upon with about as much reason as the Gades, or Cades of Spain, as the boundary of the ocean, the border of the habitable globe, and the abode of departed spirits.* There was "one tree in the midst," and around it, the usual curious compound figures, armed with flames,† manifestly memorializing the cherubic guard and fiery sword on the east of Eden. There were also traditionary vestiges of the river of paradise,‡ which "parted into four heads," and hence * Odyss. xi. 14. et al. + In medio ramos annosaque brachia pandit Ulmus opaca ingens-flammisque armata Chimæra Æneid vi. 283-288. This last mentioned tricorporate form was that of Geryon,' whose pretended tomb was also said to have been in the paradisaical Gades. - Ενθα μεν εις Αχεροντα, Πυριφλεγέθωντε ρεουσι Odyss. x. 513. arose the idea of those infernal streams, of which traces yet seem to remain in the several lakes which now exist, and whose banks were formerly lined with gloomy shades, and impenetrable forests. Probably they once communicated with each other, forming the Styx, Phlegethon, Acheron, and Cocytus of antiquity. Here also, as well as in the Hades of Egypt and other countries, were the "Elysian fields,' as they are called by the poets; and of which Homer, the father of them all, has given us a truly ravishing picture in the fourth Odyssey. Αλλα σ'ες Ηλύσιον πεδιον και πειρατα γαιης Ου νιφετος, στ' αρ χειμων πολυς, ετε ποτ' ομβρος Ωκεανος ανιησιν αναψυχειν ανθρωπους. Elysium shall be thine, the flowery plains * Odyss. A. 563. Virgil's description* is somewhat similar: Devenere locos lætos, et amæna vireta Throughout the whole of this happy region flows the river of paradise, which seems here to have preserved very nearly its original name;— Inter odoratum lauri nemus: unde superne The title of "Eridanus" is of Egyptian, or rather perhaps Canaanitish etymology, as is evident from the terms of which it is composed,-which are Ur-Adonis; the rites of the sacred light or fire being practised in former ages, upon its borders. The river simply, and out of composition, is Adon, or Eden, or Adonis; and it may be observed, that this is also the name of one of the most famous rivers in Canaan. It ran in the neighbourhood of the city Biblus, where the death of Thammuz, who was the same with Adonis, was every *Eneid vi. 638. year lamented, as our great poet has well described : Thammuz camé next behind, Whose annual wound in Lebanon allur'd There were, moreover, delicious gardens entitled Paradisi, and consecrated to the rites of Eden or Adonis, which the heathen looked upon as very sacred. It is possible that the Beth Eden, mentioned in Amos, was an enclosure of this kind. However, be that as it may, this remarkable stream introduced as flowing through the regions of happiness, in the Hades of the ancients, must have been a traditionary and commemorative adumbration of that blood expected to be shed by one far greater than Adonis, agreeably to the promise originally delivered in Eden, whereby alone, admission could be obtained into the everlasting paradise of God; of which Elysium presented a faint and feeble type. The mere tradition of such a truth as this, was inestimably important where no better light was to be had; and here we * Paradise Lost, i. 446. Bryant's Analys. vol. ii. p. 75. E may take notice that the name Adonis comes wonderfully near the Hebrew Adoni, which is a well known title of the Redeemer ; and there was a remarkable solemnity, according to Julius Firmicus, in honour of this Adonis, which seems to prove his connection by tradition, with the great promise of the Deliverer, first promulgated in the garden of Eden. During the celebration, in the temples, and sacred enclosures, of the rites of Adonis, on a particular night, an image was laid in a bed, over which the priests and others made bitter lamentations; but after some time, light was introduced, and the priest, anointing the mouths of his assistants, solemnly whispered to them in an oracular manner, that "salvation was come, and deliverance brought to pass;" or as Godwyn gives the words " Θαρρειτε τω Θεω εστι γαρ ημιν εκ πόνων ΣΩΤΗΡΙΑ trust ye in God, for "out of pains is salvation come unto us;" upon which, their sorrow was turned into the greatest joy, and the sacred image taken up, as it were, out of its sepulchre.* We may just further 66 66 *Spearman lxx. letter 2d. Moses and Aaron, p. 186. Both these authors have, however, cited the passage incorrectly. Julius Firmicus gives it as follows, de err. prof. relig. p. 45. Θαρρειτε μυσται το θεο σεσωσμένε Εσται γαρ ημιν εκ πόνων σωτηρια. |