736 



IHEROMANCY HIGGINSON. 



principle of the immortality of the soul, and the 

 necessity of leading a virtuous life ; since every man 

 was called upon to give a strict account of his past 

 conduct, and, according to the sentence which Osiris 

 pronounced, was doomed to happiness or misery ; 

 for, generally speaking, it seems that the Egyptians 

 had assigned to their principal gods and goddesses, 

 most closely connected with their Demiurgos, two 

 different characters ; the one presiding over, or as- 

 sisting in, die creation of the universe ; the other 

 performing some duties, or exercising some act of 

 authority in the Amenti, as was the case with the 

 god Plitha, the goddess Sine, and others.' Spineto, 

 after describing the manner of embalming the dead, 

 as practised at Memphis, gives a brief account of a 

 cemetery near to that city, ' which was the largest 

 and most frequented of any in Egypt ;' and also 

 narrates the principal ceremonies performed on 

 occasion of a burial. It shows from whence an 

 important part of the Greek mythology was de- 

 rived. (See our articles Cemetery, and Cerberus.) 

 Representations exhibiting the punishment in the 

 *4menti, of souls whose bodies were denied burial 

 in this world, Spineto thinks must have been common 

 in ancient times, but only a few have yet been dis- 

 covered. Among these, says Spineto, ' is a monu- 

 ment in which the urn, containing the soul, or actions 

 of the deceased, could not balance the weight of the 

 image of Sme. In consequence of this deficiency, on 

 a flight of stairs which formed the communication 

 between the Amenti and the world, the deceased 

 was represented under the form of a dog, with his tail 

 between his legs, running away from the god Anubis, 

 who was pursuing and driving him back again into 

 the world. This representation confirms the opinion, 

 that the Egyptians admitted the doctrine of the 

 metempsychosis, and believed that the souls of men, 

 for particular crimes, were condemned to return to 

 life under the shape of some animal, to atone for their 

 past sins.' In comparing the Egyptian Amenti with 

 the Hades of the Greeks, and with the Tartarus of 

 the Latins, Spineto briefly adverts to some points of 

 assimilation, as follows : ' Upon the whole, the first 

 seems to have been the prototype and the origin of 

 the two last. Orpheus, who had been initiated into 

 all the secrets of the mysteries of Egypt, carried 

 into Greece these mysteries;* and the Greeks soon 

 so altered the whole, as to render them no longer 

 cognizable. Osiris became Pluto ; Sme, Persephone 

 [or rather Themis simply] ; Oms, Cerberus ; Thoth, 

 Mercurius Psychopompos ; Horus, Apis, and Anubis, 

 the three infernal judges, Minos, JSacus, and Rha- 

 damanthus. To conclude the whole, the symbolical 

 heads of the different animals under which the forty- 

 two judges (see Cemetery) were represented, being 

 deprived of their primitive and symbolical meaning, 

 were changed into real monsters, the Chimeras, the 

 Harpies, and the Gorgons, and other such unnatural 

 and horrible things, with which they peopled their 

 fantastic hell; and thus the Amenti of the Egyptians, 

 as indeed the greater part, if not the whole of their 

 religion, became, in the hands of the Greeks and 

 Romans, a compound of fables and absurdities.' " 



HIEROMANCY (from the Greek ; w v); 

 that species of divination which predicted future 

 events by the inspection of sacrifices. 



HIERONYMITES, OR JERONYMITES ; her- 

 mits of St Jerome (Hieronymus,) ; an order of reli- 

 gious, established in 1373, which wears a white 

 habit with a black scapulary. In the Netherlands 

 and in Spain, where it was devoted to a contempla- 



" Any one who will take the trouble to compare the mys- 

 teries of Isis and Osiris with those of Ceres and Proserpine, 

 with those of Venus and Adonis, and with those of Bacchus, 

 will discover many striking resemblances TR." 



live life, and possessed, among other convents, the 

 splendid one of St Lawrence, in the Escurial, the 

 sepulchre of the kings, this order became one of the 

 most opulent and considerable. In Sicily, the West 

 Indies, and Spanish America, this order (which has 

 never been politically important) possesses convents. 



HIERONYMUS, ST. See Jerome, St. 



HIEROPHANT was the first priest or director of 

 the Eleusinian mysteries, and could be chosen only 

 from among the descendants of Eumolpus, who was 

 regarded as the founder of these mysteries, and the 

 first hierophant. It was required that his exterior 

 appearance and dress should correspond to the ele 

 vated office with which he was invested. It wa 

 necessary for him to be somewhat advanced in mar 

 hood, to be without visible defect, and to possess i 

 remarkably pleasant voice. His forehead was adorned 

 with a diadem, and his hair fell naturally down his 

 neck and shoulders. His conduct was to be without 

 blemish, and he was to possess the reputation of 

 sanctity among the people. After his election, he 

 was not allowed to marry; and, with a view of sup- 

 pressing all sensual desires in their birth, he was 

 obliged, like the other priests of Ceres, to wash 

 himself in the juice of hemlock. Other accounts 

 say, that these priests even drank the juice. It is 

 also asserted that second marriage alone was inter- 

 dicted to them, and that their wives could partici- 

 pate in certain occupations, such as adorning the 

 statues, &c. It was the office of the hierophants, 

 and of the descendants of Eumolpus generally, to 

 preserve and interpret the unwritten laws, according 

 to which the slanderers of the divinity and the 

 defamers of her solemnities were punished. In the 

 inferior mysteries, it was his office to introduce the 

 novice into the Eleusinian temple, and to initiate 

 those who had undergone the final probation into 

 the last and great mysteries. In the mysteries them- 

 selves, he represented the Creator of the world : he 

 explained to the novice the various phenomena that 

 appeared to him, in a loud, penetrating voice. In 

 the great mysteries, he was the sole expounder of 

 the secrets of the interior of the sanctuary, namely, 

 of secret instruction, which was actually the object 

 of the whole institution. He was therefore termed 

 mystagogue or prophet, and no one was permitted to 

 pronounce his name in the presence of an uninitiated 

 person. In public solemnities, it was his office to 

 adorn the statues of the goddess, and even to carry 

 them. See Eleusis. 



HIGGINSON, FRANCIS, an eminent preacher, was 

 born in England, and received his degrees from 

 Emanuel college, Cambridge. He then embraced 

 the ecclesiastical profession, and settled at Lan- 

 caster, where he soon acquired a high reputation for 

 pulpit eloquence. But he subsequently left the 

 English church, and became a convert to the doc- 

 trines and manners of the Puritans. His eloquence 

 and fervour, however, procured him the offer of some 

 of the best livings in the country ; but he refused 

 them, on account of his opinions, and supported him- 

 self by keeping a school. When the company of 

 Massachusetts Bay began to form a plantation there 

 in 1628, they applied to Mr Higginson to go thither 

 and prosecute his ecclesiastical labours. He promptly 

 acceded to the request, and, in May, 1629, set sail 

 from the Isle of Wight, and, on the 29th of the ensu- 

 ing June, arrived in Salem harbour. It is related 

 that when the ship was receding from the coast of 

 England, he called up his children and the other 

 passengers, and said to them, " We will not say, as 

 the Separatists were wont to say at their leaving 

 of England, Farewell, Babylon ! farewell, Rome ! 

 but we will say, Farewell, dear England ! fare- 

 well, the church of God in England, and all Chris. 



