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dawn of civilized society, Having close relationship with the 
Magi of the East, and like them great proficients in astronomy, 
in astrology, and other kindred studies. Pliny says* that in 
his time the Britons were so excessively devoted to all the 
mysteries of magic that they might seem to have taught even 
the Persians themselves that art. 
We have probably an indication of this in the survival of 
the name Gader Idris , or the [cadair] seat or chair of Idris. 
About this Idris we learn but thus much from the Welsh tra- 
ditions, that he was a great astronomer ; but it is otherwise 
in the East, where he is renowned as the same person as 
Hermes or the Biblical Enoch, and the Sabians, the old star- 
worshippers of Harran, looked to his son Sabi as their 
founder.f In the Coran also the Biblical Enoch is identified 
with Idris and with Hermes. This Sabian worship came down 
in full force at Harran till the time of Julian the Apostate, who 
fell in the Parthian war, a.d. 363. 
All that we know of the religion of the Druids seems to 
present strong affinity with these worshippers of the heavenly 
bodies, with whom the fathers of the Patriarchs symbolized. 
See Joshua xxiv. 2, and Smithes Did. of the Bible, sub voce 
“ Haran.” 
The Tenets of the Druids. 
Borlase, in his “ Antiquities of Cornwall,” examines very 
closely into the resemblances between the Druids and the 
Persian Magi. From these I would select some of the most 
striking, indicative of a common, or at least kindred origin, 
and throwing a strong, reflected light on Druidism. 
First . — The Druids had none but open temples, and these 
devoid of images ; so Cicero tells us that all the Grecian tem- 
ples met with in the expedition of Xerxes into Greece were 
burnt at the instigation of the Magi, <( because the Grecians 
were so impious as to enclose those gods within walls who 
ought to have all things round them open and free — their 
temple being the universal world.” 
The Persians, according to Herodotus, “ called the whole 
circle of heaven Jupiter.” In this the Druids would have 
* Natural History, lib. 1, cap. 1. 
t Chwolson Die Ssabur , vol. 1 , pp. 246, 787. 
