genetically
described by ethnologists under the term of animism, and which include
such developments as fetishism, setavism, or the worship of ancestors,
and phallicism, or the worship of the reproductive powers of nature.
Among the Caucasian races this low animist worship of the visible
world was gradually raised to the higher forms of nature worship, of
which the two principal are sabaism and polytheism: Sabaism, so termed
from the Hebrew tschaoth, " armies." applied particularly to
"the host" of heaven, astral and angelic, is the worship of the 7
planets, and 12 signs of the zodiac, and of the stellar bodies
generally, and originated in the study of chronometric astronomy among
the Chaldeans, who from the first incorporated with it the older
phallic worship of their country. Its chief stronghold now is in China;
but its influence is to be traced everywhere in the Old World, not only
in the ancient paganism still surviving in popular superstitions and
folklore, but in the abstrusest of modern ecclesiastical dogmas, for
the Hebrews were altogether Chaldean by culture, if not in race, and in
the sacred Scriptures handed down by them to their spiritual heirs in
Eastern and Central Asia and in Europe, show themselves to have been
inspired in every stage of their religious development by the
supernatural conceptions and poetic imagery of Mesopotamian sabaism,
which reaches its highest flights in the theologised astrology of the
Book of Daniel and the Revelation of St. John the Divine. At first the
Chaldeans would seem to have worshipped the 'stars generally and
indiscriminately, and only gradually to have singled out the more
remarkable " kenspeckle" constellations for special adoption, such as
the Great Bear, the seven asterisms of which first gave to that number
its immemorial holiness. Then, as they came more and more accurately to
mark the succession of the months, and, later on, of the years, by the
courses of the moon and sun, these ruling planets became successively
the predominant deties of Sabism. But the Chaldeans did not only regard
each separate constellation, and, indeed, each separate asterism, as a
distinct divinity, they also conceived of the entire expanse of the
starry firmament above, with the green earth lying outstretched beneath
as a corporate God, one and indivisible; the Macrocosm of Pythagoras,
which, as their ouranography became perfected on the basis of the
existing zodiacal and planetary system, they, under the existence of
the phallic ideas still prevailing universally in the East, figured as
an immaculate virgin mother; as a fruitful tree planted by the river of
eternal life; as a holy mountain, the mountain of the gods (i.e., the
celestial Mount Zion, Mount Meru, Mount Olympus, &c, having each
its terrestrial counterpart on earth); and as a heavenly city (Kronou tutsis, flammantia mania mundi, "the
Heavenly Jerusalem," &c). This imagery, which if not suggested
directly by mural paintings or mosaics, could have been conceived only
by one who was a born master of decorative design, has determined all
subsequent religious poetry and symbolism, and much ecclesiastical
doctrine in the West, and every traditional motive of the ornamental
arts of the East and West. It may be said, indeed, that there is
scarcely a coherent ornament in art which is not derived from the
Chaldean symbolism of the "Tree of Life," and of the 7 planetary and 12
zodiacal gods; and more than that, from their actual graphic
presentment by the Assyrians and Babylonians. The veneration attached
to certain numbers has its origin in the same source. The 7-fold
planets.
"
The lampads seven That watch the Throne of Heaven," let the Chaldeans
to esteem the unit 7 as the holiest of all numbers. Therefore they
established the week of 7 days, and built their temples in 7 stages.
Therefore also the city of Ecbatana was surrounded with 7 walls; and
the temples and places of Burma and China are 7-roofed. Therefore' 7
stars were given to the Pleiades; and 7 rivers had to be found for
Vedic India, and 7 hills for Rome, and 7 mouths for the Nile ; and the
world is said in the Bible to have been created in 7 days; the clean
beasts to have gone into the ark in 7's; and Balaam offered 7 rams and
7 bullocks on 7 altars; and the children
