738 PRIMITIVE MEANING OF SOME 



sun ; and fire in the book of Ezekiel, as in many 

 other parts of the Old Testament. 



Bryant has also shewn that the Greek word 

 'EXtoc, or Helios, is radically identical with the 

 Phoenican word Elion, a compound of El or Eli, 

 and On ; both of which were primitive titles of 

 the sun, and signified Deus Sol. With Macro- 

 bius, he maintains that all the Grecian names of 

 Deities were originally titles of one God, and 

 related to the sun or solar fire : that from the 

 names of places, mountains, groves, fountains, 

 mounds, towers, temples, and obelisks, consecrated 

 to the sun, and called after him, the Greeks in- 

 vented ideal gods, heroes, and the histories of 

 what they had done, that the name of Persia 

 was taken from Parez or Perez, an eastern name 

 of the sun, that Syria was derived from Sur or 



word Arjp, and the Latin aura, signifying air, were derived from 

 the same Hebrew and Phoenician root; that the spirit termed nn, 

 described as moving on the face of the waters, and as breathed 

 into the nostrils of man, like the TTj/fujua, the ^v^/7, and Avt/zoc 

 of the Greeks, literally means breath, the air in motion, and ani- 

 mal life ; that there is not a single word in the Old or New 

 Testament, nor in any written language, to designate the human 

 soul, or any spiritual essence, which does not also signify air, 

 light, or fire. But from the time of Orpheus to that of Hip- 

 pocrates, and even down to the period of Cicero, the Greeks and 

 Romans confounded air, (because ignorant of its compound na- 

 ture, and of the limited extent of the atmosphere,) with the more 

 subtil and all-pervading aether, which they were fully aware ex- 

 tended throughout universal space. Hence the assertion of 

 Aristotle, that nature abhors a vacuum, which, he very truly ob- 

 serves, would destroy all motion. 



