194 
tity I purpose to establish, the objec-. 
tion will vanish on'‘a closer inspection. 
The’ proof of this cannot be’ gainsayed ; 
for ‘the language used by Jacob, as ap- 
plied'to Shiloh, as closely applies to 
Silenus.  Silenus was also mounted on 
an “ass,” and that ass was thought to 
have taught the pruning of vines, and 
therefore he may be said to be “ bound 
to the vine.” His eyes were also “red 
with wine;” his “garments washed in 
wine,” his “clothes in the blood of 
grapes.” His teeth may be also said to 
be “ white with milk ;” for new milk was 
one of his peculiar offerings. All this, 
as we have said, is merely metaphori- 
cal, and originates from the peculiar 
defect of the first language employed 
by men. The real innocence of the 
metaphor in question may be easily 
explained. Every Orientalist knows, 
that under the images of drunken and 
anacreontic songs, Hafiz, the poet, has 
attempted to adumbrate the spiritual 
mysteries of the Persian creed. Every 
one also knows that Solomon’s Song, 
one of the most charming pastorals in 
any language, can be taken in nothing 
but a spiritual sense. In a literal sense, 
it would be little better than a Hebrew 
Empsychidion, advocating incest, and 
clothing licentiousness in the soft co- 
lours of pastoral poetry. In short, 
inebriation of mind is even now em- 
ployed as a common figure to express 
rapture. But the origin of the typical 
use of the image of drunkenness is 
traceable to the following circum- 
stances. The same word means a 
bunch of grapes and prosperity, in He- 
brew. Hence the rabbinical proverb, 
of the wine of Adam being preserved 
in some secret repository till the final 
festival of all nations, the feast of “fat 
things and wine on the lees,’ at the 
Millenium. But wine among the 
Egyptians had another interpretation. 
It was a common opinion all over the 
East, that the tree of knowledge by 
which man fell was a vine; and, in- 
deed, the vulgar legend of its being an 
apple-tree, is totally without founda- 
tion. The Turks consider it in. the 
same light to this day; and thence, 
beyond a doubt, the Mahometan pro- 
hibition of wine. The Egyptians held 
it in equal abhorrence, and from the 
same cause; and they expressed their 
abhorrence in a metaphor (namely, that 
wine was the blood of the giants), 
which clearly points to antediluvial 
violence and crime as its source. Wine 
with them, therefore, had a second 
Siath Eclogue of Virgil. 
- 
(Oct. 1, 
meaning, implying blood. One of the 
titles of Osiris Bacchus was, “ Treader . 
ofthe Wine-press.’”’? The Messiah is 
represented, at his second coming, in 
the same character; and treading the 
wine-press, throughout the whole of the 
Jewish prophetic writings, has the Egyp- 
tian meaning, and means slaughter: } 
Take, for instance, that» most sub- 
lime and terrible eclogue of Isaiah. 
“« Who is this that cometh from Edom, 
with dyed garments from Bozrah ? 
* He that is glorious in his apparel, 
travelling in the greatness of his strength.” 
(The image here is derived from Osiris or 
the sun.) ale 
“ Wherefore art thou red in thine ap- 
parel, and thy garments like him that 
treadeth the wine-press?’’ (Like Osiris 
Lencecus, he that treadeth the wine-press. ) 
“I have trodden the wine-press alone, 
and of the people there was none with me ; 
I will trample them in my fury, and their 
blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments.”’ 
(This Was a fite in the mysteries of Osiris : 
the face of Silenus, in Virgil’s Sixth 
Eclogue, is stained ‘ Sanguineis Moris.’ ). 
“ For the day of vengeance is in my 
heart, and the year of my redeemed is 
come.” 
The same imagery runs through the 
judgments of the Apocalypse. For 
instance— 
‘The wine-press was trodden without 
the city, and blood came out of the wine- 
press even unto the horse bridles.” 
In the same manner, the woman 
who sitteth upon many waters, is said 
to have a wine-cup in her hand; and 
to be drunken with the blood of the 
saints. 
The woman here described is. evi- 
dently the Omorea of the Chaldeans, 
the material demon’ of the Platonists, 
and’ personification of evil. ‘She is the 
same person as the Medusa (who pros- 
tituted Minerva’s Temple), the severing 
of whose head, by Perseus, caused the 
deluge by the flow of blood, and from 
that blood arose Pegasus, the place of 
‘which, on the most ancient sphere, was 
certainly filled by the ass of Silemus. 
Thus, the decapitation of Medusa repre- 
sented the judgment on antediluvial ctime 
at the flood. On the zodiac of Denderah, 
is a decapitated animal figure, with hu- 
man hands and feet; in which form, Isis 
Omnia, or Nature, is frequently,repre- 
sented, embracing the zodiacs; and)the 
gorgon head, with its single eye near it, 
which is preserved, indeed, on the mo+ 
dern sphere, and grasped in. the ,hand 
of Perseus. It is-singular, that David 
represents 
