Afanasy Kircher(German Athanasius Kircher, May 2, 1602, Gaisa (Rhön), near Fulda - November 27, 1680, Rome) - German encyclopedist scientist and inventor. One of the most learned people of his time, the author of many treatises on a wide variety of subjects (physics, natural Sciences, linguistics, antiquities, theology, mathematics), where along with accurate information, doubtful information from a modern point of view was reported. He is known for his works on Egyptology with an attempt to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs, as well as for archaeological research and the founding of an art museum in Rome that bore his name - the Kircherianum (1651-1773).
Compiled the “Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Chinese Empire” (1667). Many researchers are considered the inventor of a device for static projection - a magic lantern (lat. laterna magica).
Biography
At the age of sixteen he entered the Jesuit Order (1618). Later he taught philosophy and oriental languages in Würzburg. His student and friend was a fellow member of the order, Caspar Schott (1608-1666).
During the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) he was forced to move to Avignon. In 1636, Kircher traveled through Sicily in the retinue of Landgrave Frederick of Hesse and, by the way, visited Syracuse. During a trip to Sicily, Kircher drew attention to mirages (lat. Fata morgana), quite common in the Strait of Messina, and found a satisfactory, in his opinion, explanation for them.
From 1637 he settled in Rome, where he taught mathematics. In Rome, in the Collegio Romano, Kircher's collection of natural history objects, antiquities, physical and mathematical instruments, described by Buonnani (1709) and Lattara (1773) in the book "Museo Kircheriano", is still preserved.
Kircher's books were in the libraries of many enlightened Europeans of the 17th century, such as the writer Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682).
Editions
Chronological list
- 1631 - lat. "Ars Magnesia"
- 1634 - “Magnes sive de arte magnetica” (2nd ed. 1641)
- 1635 - "Primitiae gnomoniciae catroptricae"
- 1636 - "Prodromus Coptus sive gyptiacus"
- 1637 - “Specula Melitensis encyclica, hoc est syntagma novum instrumentorum physico-mathematicorum”
- 1643 - "Lingua gyptiaca restituta"
- 1645-1646 - “Ars Magna Lucis et umbrae in mundo”
- 1650 - "Obeliscus Pamphilius"
- 1650 - “Musurgia universalis, sive ars magna consoni et dissoni”
- 1652-1655 - "dipus gyptiacus"
- 1656 - “Itinerarium extaticum s. opificium coeleste"
- 1657 - “Iter extaticum secundum, mundi subterranei prodromus”
- 1658 - "Scrutinium Physico-Medicum Contagiosae Luis, quae dicitur Pestis"
- 1660 - “Pantometrum Kircherianum… explicatum a G. Schotto”
- 1660 - “Iter extaticum coeleste”
- 1661 - "Diatribe de prodigiosis crucibus"
- 1663 - “Polygraphia, seu artificium linguarium quo cum omnibus mundi populis poterit quis respondere”
- 1664-1678 - “Mundus subterraneus, quo universae denique naturae divitiae” / “Underworld”
- 1665 - “Historia Eustachio-Mariana”
- 1665 - “Arithmologia sive de abditis Numerorum mysteriis”
- 1666 - “Obelisci Aegyptiaci… interpretatio hieroglyphica”
- 1667 - “China monumentis... illustrata” (Full title “China monumentis: qua sacris qu profanis, nec non variis naturae et artis spectaculis, aliarumque rerum memorabilium argumentis illustrata”)
- 1667 - “Magneticum naturae regnum sive disceptatio physiologica”
- 1668 - "Organum mathematics"
- 1669 - “Principis Cristiani archetypon politicum”
- 1669 - "Latium"
- 1669 - "Ars magna sciendi sive combinatorica"
- 1671 - "Ars magna lucis et umbrae"
- 1673 - “Phonurgia nova, sive conjugium mechanico-physicum artis et natvrae paranympha phonosophia concinnatum”
- 1675 - "Arca Noae" / "Noah's Ark"
- 1676 - "Sphinx mystagoga"
- 1679 - “Musaeum Collegii Romani Societatis Jesu”
- 1679 - "Turris Babel, Sive Archontologia"
- 1679 - “Tariffa Kircheriana sive mensa Pathagorica expansa”
- 1680 - “Physiologia Kircheriana experimentalis”
Anyone familiar with the history of the Jesuit order and the scientific activities of some of its representatives will not be surprised by the fact that here, in the field of Egyptology, a place was found for one of the members of the order. Athanasius Kircher is a true son of his time, the 17th century, this era of sharp opposites, tireless searches and bold visions, the beginning of which saw Bacon, Kepler and Galileo, the middle - Descartes and Pascal, and the end illuminated by the names of Leibniz and Newton.
And not just anyone, but Leibniz himself confirms the right of Athanasius Kircher to be named next to them: “For the rest, I wish you, O you, who are worthy of immortality - to the extent that it falls to the lot of people, to which yours serves as a happy confirmation name, - immortality in an energetic old age full of youthful strength,” he wrote on May 16, 1670 to Kircher.
How did the son of Dr. Johann Kircher, adviser to the princely abbot Balthasar of Fulda and an official from the city of Haselstein, come to his studies in Egyptology, and what led him to this path?
Afanasy, as we have already noted, means “immortal.” But Athanasius was also the name of the great Patriarch of Alexandria, the saint by whose deeds Christian Egypt was glorified, and Egypt itself, in addition, was a country that at that very time aroused increased interest among the missionaries of the Society of Jesus.
The young student never lost sight of his ideal, embodied in the saint who gave him his name, and it just so happened that Christian Egypt gave him the first key to the knowledge of those secrets that in the future were finally revealed by the science of Egyptology.
Kircher's first and decisive meeting with Egypt took place in Speyer. This was in 1628. Athanasius has just been ordained and sent by his superiors to undergo a “probationary period” for one year in Speyer, where he must indulge in spiritual reflection in solitude. And then one day he is tasked with finding some book. The young scientist searched the entire library, but did not find what he needed. But among her treasures he discovered a luxuriously illustrated volume.
The beautiful drawings depicted Egyptian obelisks, which Pope Sixtus V, despite great costs, ordered to be sent to Rome. Kircher's attention was especially attracted by the strange figures covering the edges of these powerful columns from top to bottom. At first, he mistook these amazing signs for the free creativity of ancient stonemasons, for simple ornaments.
However, the text of the essay, which he immediately delved into, soon brought him out of this delusion. There it was written in black and white that the wisdom of the ancient Egyptians was set forth in mysterious hieroglyphic signs and that it was carved in stone for the instruction of the people. But the key to understanding the mysterious letter has long been lost, and not a single mortal has yet managed to open this book behind seven seals.
And then the soul of the future researcher was ignited with the desire to decipher the hieroglyphs, read the texts and translate them. Without having the initial hypotheses necessary, according to our current concepts, without that restraint, which is now the iron law of any scientific work, he dared to take on the texts and spoke publicly with his translations.
In the figure we show a sample from his "Sphinx mystagogica".
Kircher explained these hieroglyphs as follows: “The return to life of all things after the victory over Typhon, the moisture of nature, thanks to the vigilance of Anubis” (according to I. Friedrich). Any non-specialist can easily understand how Kircher came to this translation: he subtracted the “humidity of nature” from wavy line, which actually means “water,” and the “vigilance of Anubis” was associated in his mind with the image of an eye.
In another case, he translates in a whole sentence the Roman-Greek royal title “autokrator” (“autocrat”) written in Egyptian alphabetic characters; Moreover, this interpretation of it cannot be accepted even with the strongest desire: “Osiris is the creator of fertility and all vegetation, whose productive power is brought down from heaven into his kingdom by Saint Mofta.”
“Absurdities” - this is how the translations of hieroglyphs made by Kircher are quite rightly called. However, those who spoke with excessive harshness about his “unheard-of audacity” lost sight of how closely Kircher was forced to adhere to the “delusional ideas” of Horapollo, responding to the ideal of the scientist of his time and how fully his absurd fantasies corresponded not only to the mystical assessment of everything, as regards vanishing antiquity, but also the downright morbid addiction of the 16th and 17th centuries to artificial symbols and allegories.
Egyptian writing contains three completely different types of written characters, which at first seems very strange to a modern person; these are verbal signs, phonetic signs and determiners.
Verbal signs are signs that convey, through pictures, the concepts of specific creatures and objects without taking into account pronunciation. Following the example of cuneiform researchers, instead of the name “word sign,” the term ideogram (or logogram) was introduced. But along with sensually perceived objects and beings, there are also sensually perceived actions, that is, verbal concepts. For them, verbal signs can also be used without indicating the sound.
In addition, abstract concepts and actions (hence nouns and verbs) can be expressed ideographically using descriptive drawings, for example, “old age” - through a drawing of a bent man with a stick, “south” - through an image of a lily characteristic of Upper Egypt, “cool " - a vessel from which water flows, "find" - a heron, etc.
Sound signs, also called phonograms in contrast to ideograms, can be very heterogeneous in Egyptian. An entire word can replace another word based on its sound, as if in Russian we depicted a braid as a tool by drawing a woman’s braid, or the verb pech’ by drawing a heating stove, etc. Thus, the picture for the Egyptian word wr “swallow” is also used for the word wr “big”, hprr “beetle” also means hpr “to become”. In this case, vowels located between consonants are not taken into account at all (which will be discussed below). The pictures for shorter words can then be used to write parts of longer words. Thus, the word msdr “ear” can be composed as follows: ms “tail” + dr “basket” = msdr.
True, already in Clement of Alexandria one could read that hieroglyphs, along with word-signs, also contain simple letters. But it was precisely in the time of Kircher that they were less inclined than ever to believe this: hieroglyphs are simply symbols, and if the Greek translation of the inscription on the obelisk (there was one such translation) does not contain anything profound, then it is erroneous; Athanasius Kircher immediately declared him as such!
And yet, even in this area (his other scientific discoveries received recognition), Athanasius Kircher left something truly significant to his posterity. He was the first (in his work published in Rome in 1643) to definitely show that the Coptic language, then the increasingly forgotten language of Egyptian Christians, was the ancient Egyptian vernacular - a conclusion that in any case could not be taken for granted at that time and which was later disputed and even ridiculed by eminent scientists.
Kircher owed the main materials for research in the field of the Coptic language to his close connections with the Roman Congregation for Propaganda, the highest papal missionary office, where the threads of leadership converged for a wide network of missionaries scattered throughout the world.
Kircher published a Coptic dictionary and even a Coptic grammar and thereby greatly contributed to awakening interest in the study of this ancient vernacular. For more than two hundred years, his works served as the starting point for all research undertaken in the field of Coptic philology.
And this is the undeniable merit of Kircher. For Champollion, who later deciphered hieroglyphs and became a classic example of a decipherer, while still almost a child, proceeded from this discovery.
Undoubtedly, Athanasius Kircher is one of the most amazing phenomena of the 17th century. He was a scientist, thinker, collector, inventor, experimenter, illustrator and writer. He was distinguished by his extraordinary versatility and fruitfulness. Lichtenberg wrote: “When Athanasius Kircher put pen to paper, he produced a whole volume.” The list includes Elenchus librorum a P. Athanasio Kirchero e societate Jesu editorum, appended to his monumental work China illustrata (1667), lists 33 works of which he was the author and which were published at some time (mainly in quarto and folio). His common heritage is 44 volumes, letters are printed in 114 volumes. The titles of all his books are listed in Bibliothèque des écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus, T. I, p. 422-433 and T. IV, 1046-1077). There is also an autobiography (in facisulus epistolarum Ath. Kircheri, Augustae Vindelicorum 1684).
Kircher worked in Rome, the center of spiritual life in Italy and where the headquarters of the Jesuit Order was located. He could devote himself entirely to his scientific interests, taking advantage of the rich book treasures of the Order's library. The Jesuits brought reports to him from all over the world, and the Emperor assisted in the publication of his works in the form of luxurious volumes. He himself traveled.
Therefore, it is not surprising that none other than this native of Thuringia was the first to introduce the learned public of Europe to the Indian Devanagari script, which the Brahmans carefully hid from European newcomers, since they considered them “unclean.” Kircher revealed this secret in his aforementioned work, written in Latin, China Illustrata, a 237-page folio with numerous illustrations, maps and tables. This book is mainly about China, the Chinese and Chinese culture, but between pages 162 and 163 there are five tables illustrating Indian writing. One may wonder why a book about China also contains information about India. But it should be taken into account that in those days they did not make a sharp distinction between India and China from an ethnographic and geographical point of view. In addition, Kircher was simultaneously supplied with materials by two people, one of whom dealt with China and the other with India.
Kircher himself had never been to India. But he was lucky enough to be a friend of an expert on this country and its inhabitants. This friend introduced Kircher to Indian mythology, customs and "Brahmin letters". This was Father Heinrich Roth, a Jesuit missionary and one of the oldest Sanskrit scholars. He was from Bavaria. Born December 18, 1620 in Dillingen. Therefore, in Latin sources he is called Pater Henricus Roth (ius) Dilinganus. He was educated first in his hometown and then in Innsbruck. On October 25, 1639, he entered the Jesuit Order and was ordained a priest on May 29, 1649. In 1650, at his own request and with the blessing of the Jesuit General, he was sent to India, where he reached through Smyrna and Isfahan. Roth traveled all over India from south to north, from Goa to the Mughal kingdom on the Deccan, namely Bijapur, then crossed the Western Ghats and arrived at Golconda. From there, through Bengal and Delhi, he reached Agra.
Roth was firmly established in Agra from 1654. There he became rector of the Jesuit college, founded in this city in 1620.
Roth's name appears frequently in this book. Roth's own texts are also cited, for example, on pp. 156-162 the note De alia fabulosa doctrina Brachmanum, id est, de decem Incarnationibus Dei, quas Gentiles Indiani extra et intra Gangem credunt. Roth also owns a text on the “letters of the Brahmans” and five accompanying tables on pp. 162 et seq.
Heinrich Roth knew Persian, Hindustani and Sanskrit. He was not the first European to study Sanskrit. It is known that the Florentine merchant and traveler Filippo Sassetti, who lived in Goa in 1583-1588, paid attention to the sacred language of the Hindus and discovered peculiar genealogical connections between it and European languages (deva =dio, sapta =sette, sarpa =serpe, etc. .). The Italian missionary Roberto de Nobili, born in 1577, who went to India in 1606 and died in 1656 in Mylapore, had a thorough knowledge of Sanskrit and the Brahmin script.
However, Roth was the first European who studied this language on a scientific basis and mastered it to such an extent that he could debate with the Brahmans in it. Kircher writes that in six years Roth mastered Sanskrit to such an extent that he even compiled its grammar, which, unfortunately, was not published. It is likely that Roth had already thoroughly studied Sanskrit by 1664, since in that year Kircher received permission from the Jesuit General to print his book China Illustrata. Roth died in Agra on June 20, 1668.
Full title of Kircher's main book:
Athanasii Kircheri e Soc. Jesu China Monumentis qua Sacris qua Profanis, nec non variis Naturae & Artis Spectaculis, Aliarumque rerum memorabilium Argumentis Illustrata, Auspiciis Leopoldi Primi Roman. Imper. Semper Augusti Munificentissimi Mecaenatis. Apud Joannem Janssonium a Waesberge & Elizeum Weyerstraet, Anno MD. C. LXVII. Cum privileges.
The title scene is preceded by a painting of two people in oriental clothes. They hold a map of China and India. At the top is the sign of the Jesuit Order:
This is a Latinized transliteration of the Greek ΙΗΣΟΥΣ.
On the title page this monogram is repeated with the addition of an image of a heart (cult of the Heart of Jesus). Inscription:
A Solis Ortu usque ad Occasum laudabile Nomen Domini.
Kircher reports the following about Indian writing on p. 162f.:
Utuntur Brachmanes nonnullis literis, quas arcanas vocant, nullique tradere solent, nisi quos ex sua Secta indicant esse ad eas discendas aptiores: Verùm uti suprà dixi, cum P. Henricus Roth iis ad veram Salutis semitam deducendis totus intentus sine lingua & literatura eorum id velu tiἀ δύνατον videret, per quendam Brachmanem summâ benevolentiâ sibi devinctum, & jam ad Christi jidem suscipiendam inclinatum, totam & linguae & literaturae, philosophandique rationem literis hisce conditam, sex annorum impenso studio, consecutus est. Verùm nè quicquam curiosarum rerum omisisse videar, hîc elementa eorum, manu Patris Rothii eleganter descripta adnectam.The Brahmins use certain letters, which they call secret, and which they usually do not reveal to anyone except those of their sect whom they consider most capable of learning these letters. However, as I already mentioned above, when Father Heinrich Roth, having a decisive intention to turn them to the true path to Salvation, discovered that this was impossible without [knowledge of] language and literature, he managed to master the knowledge of language, literature and philosophy, hidden in these letters, after six years of persistent study, with the help of a certain Brahman, whom he managed to attract with his benevolence and who was already inclined to convert to the Christian faith. However, so that it does not seem that I have omitted any of these curious things, I will enclose here some of them, carefully copied by the hand of Father Roth.
Sunt hujusmodi Characteres in tanta apud dictos Brachmanes veneratione, ut eos non ab hominibus inventos, sed à Divinioris alicujus Numinis magisterio institutos dictatosque arbitrentur, tanto studio propagatos; ut quod sanè mirum est, vel ipsos Sinas ad Deorum suorum simulacra iis veluti mysticis, & nescio quid Divinum sub se continentibus notis, adornanda impulerint, uti in Sinensium Idolorum descriptione patuit: Egò verò eorundem anatomiâ factâ, nil sivè apicum rationem s, ive eorundem in unam literam contractionis strueturam spectes, quod aut ingenio polleat, aut mysticum quidpiam tibi promittat, nihil unquam indagare potui; Undè semper credidi, eos ab Hebraeis & Saracenis instructos (quos grandia sub eorum literis ex Cabala deductis mysteria effutire audierant) eadem deindè & suis characteribus ad altiores superstitionis radices in animis suae doctrinae Sectatorum fundandas attribuisse. Vix enim monumentum reperias, quod suis hisce fanaticis Characteribus non defoedent. Scripsit olim ad me P. Antonius Ceschius Tridentinus, eximius in Mogorica Christi vinea multorum annorum Operarius, in Bazaino Indiae urbe montem se reperisse, quem Pagodes Bazaini vocant, cujus rupes paenè tota hujusmodi Characteribus incisis exornabatur, quorum & copiam mihi sua manu decerptam ad ejus interpretationem eruendam transmisit; Verùm cum nec literarum inusitatos ductus, neque linguam nossem, eos in suochao relinquendosius consult duxi, quàm vano labore iis enodandis, magno temporis dispendio oleum operamque perdere. Atque haec de Indorum dogmatis dixisse sufficiat.
The Brahmins so reverence these kinds of letters that they believe that they were not invented by men, but at the behest of some Deity, dictated and established, and also so diligently disseminated that one must only ask oneself with surprise whether they, perhaps, have not encouraged the Chinese themselves decorating the idols of their Gods with these seemingly mystical signs containing something Divine, as can be seen from the description of Chinese idols. Having analyzed their structure, be it the principle of the arrangement of the tops, or the principle of combining letters into one ligature, I could never find anything that could either have any meaning of a witty invention, or promise you something mystical. Therefore I have always believed that they, having been taught by the Jews and Arabs (who, they heard, extracted the great secrets [hidden] under their letters, with the help of the Cabal), attributed the same to their letters, based on a more deeply rooted superstition in the nature of his sectarian teaching. For it is difficult to find a monument that these fanatics would not disfigure with their signs. Once Pater Anthony Tseskhius Tridentinus, who has been working in the Mogul vineyard of Christ for many years, wrote me a letter [Mogoricameans “Mughal”, i.e. related to the Mughal Empire ]. According to him, in the Indian city of Basin [ near Bombay, where it existed since 1549 CollegiumJesuit Societies ] there is a mountain called the Basin Pagodas, the spurs of which are almost entirely decorated with carved letters of this kind, a copy of which he sent me with his own hand for interpretation. However, since I knew neither the unusual letters nor the language, I decided that it would be better to leave them in their original chaos than to waste time in vain labor, wasting both oil [for the lamp] and effort. This is sufficient for the exposition of Indian dogmas.
Father Roth, of course, was not a calligrapher or engraver. He only carefully rewrote (describere = transfer to paper, rewrite) his materials, which the Dutch calligrapher and engraver W. vander Laegh transferred it to copper plates. At the bottom of each table there is his signature: W. vander Laegh scripsit et sculp (sit). But this signature is only in the first edition.
A detailed description of the tables is not my task. Those interested can refer to the original, scanned by Google.
It should only be noted that all erroneous spellings are entirely the responsibility of the engraver, who is not familiar with the subject. Father Roth himself did not have the opportunity to supervise the printing of the book, and Father Kircher was by no means an expert in Sanskrit and Devanagari. In addition, correcting engravings is much more expensive than correcting typed text. It is unlikely that printers would agree to re-engraving.
Conclusion
Umberto Eco writes in detail about Father Athanasius Kircher and his works in the book “In Search of a Perfect Language” on p. 161f.
One of the main scientific sensations of the 17th century was Athanasius Kircher’s deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphs. His arguments were convincing and were perceived as indisputable. Almost two centuries later, it turned out that Kircher was able to correctly guess the meaning of only one sign. If Kircher had lived to this time, he, of course, would have had to admit his mistake, and, nevertheless, he would hardly have abandoned his “Egyptian” research. The hidden meaning contained in them has not been fully revealed to this day.
When Kircher was still a small child, he was swimming near a mill and fell under the blades of a mill wheel. There was practically no chance of salvation. The millstones would inevitably grind him into powder. Miraculously, he survived and escaped with fright. A year later, during a horse race, a maddened crowd threw him right under the hooves of the racing horses. They flew over him without causing any harm. And subsequently, Kircher often found himself close to death, but each time salvation came at the last moment. He injured his legs, suppuration began, which left no hope of healing, at night he prayed and woke up completely healthy. An ice floe cracked under him while he was crossing the river, and he fell into the water, but emerged unharmed. The Protestant soldiers were ready to hang him, but they spared him, amazed at his self-control.
Athanasius Kircher was born at three o'clock in the morning on May 2, 1602 in Heise in the German Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt. His father, Doctor of Theology Johannes Kircher, was a very educated man, but poor, as he lost his position due to political unrest. Athanasius attended a Jesuit school (he joined the order as a boy) and studied Hebrew under the guidance of a rabbi.
His brilliant abilities showed up early. The Archbishop of Mainz, who had heard rumors about the unusual colorful fireworks arranged by Kircher, and about the amazing optical instruments he invented, invited him to his service. But Kircher felt that he, like his father, would not be able to improve his life in Germany, which was torn apart by strife between Catholics and Protestants.
One day he was awakened by a strange noise. He rushed to the window and saw marching soldiers in the yard. When his neighbor approached the window, the soldiers disappeared. Kircher often saw something that remained invisible to those around him, and this time he had no doubt that he was dealing with an omen. He left Würzburg, where he lived at that time, on the eve of the sudden invasion of the army of the Swedish Protestant king Gustav II Adolf. Kircher fled to Avignon, France, from where he moved to Aix-en-Provence, and never returned to his homeland.
It is no coincidence that Kircher's first published work was a dissertation on magnetism. Magnets have always attracted the attention of scientists. Kircher believed that all the mysteries of nature could be explained based on a few universal principles. The collision of balls, the flight of an arrow, the boiling of water, the freezing of ice - we observe many different physical and chemical processes, but they are based on only two forces: attraction and repulsion. The easiest way to study these forces is where they manifest themselves most clearly, on magnets. It should also be taken into account that in Kircher’s time magnets were considered precious stones and were used in some magical rituals.
Kircher took advantage of the doctrine of sympathy and antipathy, which was developed before him by the famous Italian occultist Giambattista della Porta (1535 - 1615). We are accustomed to the fact that magnets are called magnets because only they have magnetic properties. Two pieces of wood or two flowers do not seem to attract or repel each other. For della Porta and Kircher it was not like that. According to them, water and stones, plants and living beings have magnetic properties, and between any things on earth (and not only things, but even words) relationships of sympathy and antipathy can arise. As always, Kircher did not limit himself to presenting his theories, but provided drawings of many devices that work on the principles of attraction and repulsion. Although certain statements by Kircher raised suspicions of practicing forbidden arts, for the scientist his research had nothing to do with magic. Yes, it was occultism, but not magic.
There is reason to believe that Kircher’s extensive work on magnetism, which included a section on treatment with magnets, was read by Franz Anton Mesmer (1734 – 1815) during his years of study at the Jesuit High School in Dillingen, and it was this book that pushed him to study animals magnetism. Kircher was not only the first to seriously talk about the use of magnets in medicine, he wrote about electricity and experiments with it and used the concept of “electromagnetism.”
It is unlikely that in those days there was another person in Europe who spoke as many languages as Kircher knew. 2291 of his letters have survived. Most of them are written in Latin, but Kircher also wrote in Italian, German, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, Armenian, Persian, Coptic and other languages. By the way, Kircher also corresponded with the Swedish Queen Christina, who was fond of alchemy.
Just as magnets pointed the way to the study of various physical processes, so there must have been a clue to help explain the differences in languages that arose after the construction of the Tower of Babel. When Kircher first saw Egyptian hieroglyphs, he was overcome with an incomprehensible emotion. He felt that he had been shown the path to solving a great mystery, and began to decipher it. Things moved quickly.
In Aix-en-Provence, Kircher found a rich and influential patron. Senator Nicolas de Peresque was greatly impressed by Kircher's work on magnetism and deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs, but the French aristocrat seemed to have done his charge a disservice. Kircher had just received an invitation from Vienna to replace the deceased great astronomer and astrologer Johannes Kepler and become the court mathematician of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II. And de Peresque was afraid that in Vienna Kircher would plunge into astrology and alchemy or start solving some engineering problems and abandon Egyptology and magnets. He wrote to Pope Urban VIII about the amazing discoveries of the brilliant scientist, who must certainly be invited to the Vatican.
Meanwhile, Kircher could not simply reject the offer that promised him rich life and the opportunity to quietly engage in science. He could not go to Vienna through Germany. His path lay through Catholic Italy. But strange and unpredictable things always happened to Kircher. The ship he was sailing on was caught in a storm and was forced to stop near a small island. The captain put a group of Jesuits ashore to rest and wait out the bad weather. But when the sea calmed down, the ship was no longer there. A fishing boat passing by the island took the desperate travelers back to Marseille.
Kircher tried again to reach Vienna. However, he was not destined to see this city. A storm broke out at sea again, which forced the ship to change its route. Instead of Genoa, Kircher ended up in Rome. Here unexpected news awaited him. The Pope did not want to give up the opportunity to have in his service the scientist about whom de Peresque wrote to him with such delight, and appointed him professor of mathematics, physics and oriental languages at the main Jesuit institution of higher education, Collegiate Romano.
There was nothing to do. Kircher had to stay in Rome. But the Holy Roman Emperors supported Kircher until the last days of his life. He also received money from the popes. He dedicated each of his books and even individual chapters to someone from the powers that be. And they accepted the dedication with gratitude. Because after the appearance of a study on Egyptian hieroglyphs in 1652, there was no more authoritative scientist in Europe than Kircher. Even people far from science have heard about the sage who comprehended the secrets of the signs on which magical texts are written that have been kept unsolved for centuries. Publishers paid him huge sums. He was probably the first scientist who could live comfortably on his fees. Kircher left teaching and concentrated on scientific activities.
Restless, he continued to search for the root causes of the phenomena. At a time when an eruption could be expected, Kircher was not afraid to climb into the mouth of the Vesuvius volcano to understand the mechanism of the release of fiery lava. It seemed like nothing could scare him. In 1656, the plague raged in Rome. Kircher spent all his days caring for the sick and searching for a cure for the deadly disease. Using his microscope, he observed microorganisms and suggested that they became carriers of infection.
Kircher's range of interests was incredibly wide. He compiled a comprehensive musical encyclopedia, which seemed to contain everything related to music: history and myths, theory using mathematical methods, principles of creating musical instruments, the study of acoustics, research on birdsong and ways of using music in medicine. He saw music as a universal language and tried to grasp its principles. He himself was a composer and developed and described an automatic organ and a device that composed music for the organ - a kind of musical computer of the 17th century.
But no matter what Kircher was interested in, he regularly abandoned all his studies and returned to the study of Egyptian hieroglyphs. He knew that they suggested the path to the roots of not only languages, but also religions. The question arose: what does Egyptian hieroglyphs have to do with religious principles? Kircher wanted to restore the ancient history of mankind. Noah, like Adam, was not only a bearer of spiritual wisdom, but also knew science and art. He taught them to his sons for 350 years after the flood. All the troubles for people were brought by the rebellious son of Noah Ham and his offspring, who settled in Egypt. The descendants of Ham abandoned the true faith and, in order to alienate humanity from it, they came up with myths about the plurality of worlds, the domination of stars over man, and the transmigration of souls. First people began to worship the stars, then idols. Finally, they began to communicate with demons.
The Great Mirror, an extremely popular comprehensive medieval encyclopedia written by the librarian and educator of the children of the French king Louis, Saint Vincent of Beauvais (c. 1190 - 1264), stated that the son of Ham was the Persian magician Zoroaster, who taught astrology to the Greeks. Other prominent authors of the Christian Church did not doubt the family ties between Ham and Zoroaster.
They also believed that Egyptian teachings became the sources of the paganism of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Kircher went further. Kircher found common features not only in the beliefs of the Greeks and Romans, but also in the religions of the peoples of India, China, Japan, and in the cults of the American Indians.
At that time, Jesuit missionaries went to all corners of the world. They were well prepared. They knew languages and sent detailed reports about the government structure, flora and fauna, climate, nutrition, clothing, activities and customs of the local population. Kircher himself was preparing to become a missionary in China, but for some reason his trip fell through. However, he regularly read messages from his colleagues. And wherever they came from, everywhere he found the same pagan and magical principles.
Kircher examined in detail Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, the astrological signs of the planets, their magic squares and the properties of the talismans associated with them. According to him, he who knows the great chain connecting the upper world with the lower knows all the secrets of nature and can work miracles. Egyptian hieroglyphs help to find the connection between the higher and lower worlds, in which traces of ancient mysteries, Egyptian wisdom, Phoenician theology, Chaldean astrology, Pythagorean mathematics, and Persian magic are preserved. Kircher did not deny magic and its possibilities. He studied it from the side, avoiding any use. He said that Zoroaster and Hermes Trismegistus received their knowledge from the devil. Therefore, the ban on magic was a completely natural thing for Kircher. However, he lived at a time when the Inquisition executed Giordano Bruno for magical experiments and teachings, tortured Tommaso Campanella in prison and persecuted many other scientists. It is not surprising that for scientists like Descartes, Kircher was, first of all, a Jesuit, a member of the order of persecutors of science and enlightenment. People approached his works with prejudice and did not notice the brilliant ideas they contained.
Kircher made a mistake in deciphering specific signs, but his main assumption that the Coptic language originated from Egyptian turned out to be correct. The methods that he developed specifically for identifying the meaning of hieroglyphs anticipated the ideas of mathematical logic.
Kircher died on November 27, 1680, leaving about 40 extensive printed works and a huge number of manuscripts, notebooks, and sketches. He made many inventions and discoveries, but the main thing for him always remained “Egyptian” research.
Athanasius Kircher (1602 - 1680), "learned Jesuit", " last man, who knew everything", "Jorge Luis Borges of the 17th century", "a learned charlatan" and "a learned ignoramus" was one of the most famous intellectuals of his time; his beautifully illustrated books were read by all of Europe (not excluding pre-Petrine Russia), his fellow Catholics, Protestant opponents, followers and critics marveled at his erudition. Kircher's area of interest included topics that now belong to such diverse disciplines as theology, ancient history, archaeology, religious studies, Egyptology, Sinology, geology, hydraulics, optics, chemistry, physics, seismology, astrology, mathematics, Hebraic studies, Arabic studies, art history and architecture. The main mission of the entire life of the Jesuit encyclopedist was to compile a huge compendium of knowledge, ancient and modern, that would comprehensively describe the world and God, subordinating this description to orthodox Catholic dogma, as it had developed by his time, Kircher. Kircher saw the source of human knowledge in ancient Egypt, which was the passion of his whole life: Kircher’s most famous work to this day is the huge compilation “Oedipus of Egypt” (1652-1654), an interpretation of the “philosophy of the Egyptians” based on the author’s reading of hieroglyphs (which has nothing to do with their true meaning). During the Enlightenment, Kircher was thoroughly ridiculed by modern European scientists: almost none of his significant scientific conclusions were recognized as correct by subsequent generations. At the same time, Kircher had a huge influence on culture, being the first professional researcher-writer (he largely supplied himself through the sale of his works and their regular reprints) and, to a certain extent, embodying the ideal of a baroque multimedia “encyclopedia of everything”, in which the image played no less a role than the text.
In the history of Western esotericism, Kircher remained as the author of the “sum” of magic, Kabbalah, astrology and Hermeticism of the Renaissance. The names of Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Giambatista Porta, as well as references to the Hermetic Corpus, the Chaldean Oracles, the Orphic hymns, the Zohar and the Sefer Yetzirah, do not leave its pages. Since much of Kircher's legacy is devoted to the study of pagan antiquity and the explanation of ancient religions, he is also important for the (pre)history of modern paganism. The translated chapter is an exposition of Kircher's theory of pagan theology - which influenced such important scholars of religion as Jacob Bryant (1715 - 1804) and Charles-François Dupuis (1742 - 1809). Although it cannot be said that Kircher was original in his theory (he himself constantly refers to the authority of Macrobius and Porphyry with their “monistic” interpretation of pagan pantheons), his systematic approach to scattered (and often incomplete and incorrect) data on ancient cults greatly to a degree reminiscent of the classifications of new paganism - from George Gemistus Plitho to the present day. From a Wiccan point of view, the attempt to reduce the entire pantheon to the "unfolding" of the primary divine couple - the Sun and the Moon - is more than remarkable. All this, despite the complete inconsistency of Kircher’s own historical data and his Catholic-tendentious explanation of ancient religions, makes his text very interesting.
Literature: Athanasius Kircher: The Last Man Who Knew Everything / ed. P. Findlen. N.Y., L.: Routeledge, 2004.
AFANASIY KIRCHER
Obeliscus Pamphilius, that is, a new explanation, and not previously attempted, of the Hieroglyphic obelisk, which recently from the old hippodrome of Caesar Antoninus Caracalla, moved to the Forum Agonale, restoring it in its integrity and decorating with it the Eternal City, INNOCENT TENTH, Pontifex Maximus. On which obelisk, the theology of the ancients, embodied in hieroglyphic symbols, according to various testimonies of Egyptian, Chaldean, Jewish, Greek antiquity and learning, sacred and profane, is here brought to light.
(Kircher A. Obeliscus Pamphilius... Romae: Typis Ludovici Grignani, 1650).
Book III. Mystagogia Aegyptiaca.
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Chapter ΧΙΙΙ.
All gods are reduced to the Sun, and all goddesses are reduced to the Moon.
Human nature is structured in such a way that, rejecting everything that is hateful to the senses, it strives with all its might towards those objects that are desirable, useful and favorable. To many people it seemed extremely painful to know God only with the intellect, without resorting to the help of sight. Therefore, since they did not see anything more beautiful and useful than the Sun, they considered him God. Moreover, the Sun, although it does not occupy the entire space with its huge body, brings life and health to the earth and plants, and imparts light to other stars, and makes the very vault of heaven visible. Minucius Felix elegantly speaks about this in “Octavia”: “Pay attention again to the sun, established in the sky: it pours its rays over all countries: it is present everywhere, it makes itself felt by everything and its lordship never changes.” And even Pliny himself, who
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mocked the fables about the gods, said: “Will someone say that we need to look for another God besides the Sun?” There are those who say that [the Greek word] ἥλιος (Sun) comes from the Hebrew אל, which means “God.” First of all, Macrobius, with numerous arguments, seeks to convince us that all gods are reduced to the Sun, and that he alone is the Deity, which is worshiped under numerous names by all peoples. However, to understand this, we need to take a deeper look at our issue. In the first centuries after the Flood, when people struggled to comprehend the highest Lord of the entire universe, φῶς ὀικοῦιτα ἀπρόσιτον [dwelling in the inaccessible light], they noticed the influence of the celestial bodies on all those things that are necessary for life, as discussed above. Not distinguishing what is pure in nature and characteristic of the highest, these wicked people, depicting the Divinity as their shocked sense saw it, did not recognize any other God than the one who determines the alternation of light and darkness, movement and rest, nights, days and years , weather and bad weather, moved by the natural mind, and led astray, as we read in the Scriptures which we hold sacred. For this reason, the Chaldeans, already in the first times after the Flood, when the cult of the true God was abandoned, adopted such a philosophy as described in books 1 and 2. The above quotes from Rambam speak about this in detail. The Chaldeans considered the greatest of the gods to be the Sun (which Phoenician theologians also call μόνον ὀυρανοῦ Θεὸν, [the only God of the sky]). The planets and other celestial bodies, which seem to obey the commands of the Sun, were called by the first [sages] of the Egyptians δωδεκαμόρια, standard-bearers and Θεοὶ βουλαῖοι, advisory gods, and the planets ῥαβδοφόροι, that is, guardians, , always abiding in the consistory of the blazing Sun. I believe that this wicked error did not take possession of people immediately after the flood, but that the original generations absorbed it not so many centuries later: this is how I understand the words of Moses in the 4th chapter of the Book of Genesis: “then they began אז הוחל לקרא בשׁם יהוה
profane the name of Jehovah by calling upon him.” After all, the verb חלל means both “to begin” and “to profane”, “to defile” - in the latter sense it is used in the Book of Leviticus, ch. 19: לא חללת שם אלהיך . “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” In Hebrew these words have the same sound. “Then the name of Jehovah was profaned by invocation,” as Onkelos explains, and another Chaldean interpreter, the son of Uziel, hiding under the name of Jonathan, Rashi, Radak and others, who understood this passage of Moses to mean that it speaks of the introduction of new deities. To profane the name of Jehovah by invoking means, in other words, to apply this most holy name, which designates the Creator and Lord of the entire universe, impiously to created things. Josephus speaks wonderfully about this when he writes that the first 7 generations after the flood considered the One God the Best and Greatest δεσπότην εἰναι τῶν ὅλων [the ruler of All], and then they retreated ἐκ τῶν πατρίων ἐθισμῶν [from paternal customs], i.e. began to worship created things, or celestial bodies.
Hence comes the first principle applicable to the fictitious gods of the Egyptians: they are all reduced to the figures of Osiris and Isis, that is, the Sun and the Moon. These are their qualities mystically symbolized different kinds sacred animals, like the kite - the fiery power of the Sun or Moon, the goat - fertility,
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humidity - the crocodile, the ibis - the power to absorb everything harmful, bulls - the power of ripening fruits, and so on, as is discussed in more detail in various parts of this work. For the same reason, the main symbol of the Chaldeans was fire, among the Persians - Mithra, among the Babylonians - Bel, among the Jews - Tammuz, among the Phoenicians - Adonis, etc. The latter, the Phoenicians, who accepted the first kind of theology that we are talking about, considered ἀποῤῥὼξ, the viceroy or even the “banner” of the Sun, the king of the heavens. Since, due to the distance of the celestial bodies from earth, it was difficult for them to offer sacrifices directly, people decided that it was reasonable to dedicate symbols to them that would correspond to the nature of each of them. The Philistine dragon, whose figure is composed of parts of man and sea animals, is incorrectly considered as someone other than Neptune, Amphitrite, Salakia, Ocean or Thetis, or all of them together, that is, the sea itself (each of the gods could be characterized by both one or the other sex, as we will show in many other places), as a symbol characteristic of the early rude age of the great deity in the sacred assembly of the leaders of nature. After all, the mystery of the figure of Dagon does not allow us to assume that this is only a monument to the deceased; the same goes for the fish, which were said to be sacred to Dagon; they were worshiped as if they were symbols of the sea, in the same way as the heifers of the Egyptians, on account of the milk they gave, were first revered as symbols of the Earth, the nursing mother, then also of Isis or the Moon (for they recognized that all sustenance comes from from the beneficent forces of the Earth and the Moon), as well as symbols of the Sun, signified through the celestial sign of Taurus. All this was honored with the highest honors that befitted something divine. In the first centuries, only the beneficent forces of nature were revered in this way, then, when the cult of demons appeared, veneration spread to everything that was desired by superstition, and to demons who appeared under the names of dead people, and to the Sun and Moon, and all the rest, most celestial bodies that stood out with their brightness, on the sea and on the earth, and on all other active parts of nature. They all had rituals performed in front of the statues and columns dedicated to them, in such a way that, moving along the path of error, the wicked could no longer discern the difference either between dead people and demons, or between both and natural properties universal machine, not even between the names they gave to one, the other and the third. Therefore, the Moon, Venus, Earth - all merge in the figure of Astarte, the Moon, Venus and the Sea - in the image of Dagon, and all of them together - in Isis; Sun, Jupiter, Saturn - in Baal, Moloch and Osiris; all the idols, whether they portrayed a hero or a demon, were hopelessly mixed up with each other from frequent invocations of him, which gave rise to countless waking ravings. From here came the household gods and countless geniuses, which we will talk about below; hence the equally numerous Moons, Venuses, Suns, Jupiters, Saturns; hence the countless statues of all nations, erected to anciently invented gods, differing from each other only in different names, sounded in different languages. The rituals of the pagans were just as similar to each other. And so among the ancients, from the diverse cult of a single deity, πολυθεεία [polytheism], which is described below, arose. The Greeks, following the Egyptians, Jews, Chaldeans, Babylonians, Phoenicians, added countless genealogies of gods to their pantheons; which all have their roots in the Sun and Moon alone. Thus, according to Macrobius and other authors cited above, Saturn, Jupiter,
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Pluto, Apollo, Bacchus, Mercury, Hercules, Aesculapius, Neptune, Vulcan, Mars, Pan, Aeolus, were nothing more than various properties of the Sun.
Since the sun measures times and years by its movement, it is called Saturn. Since it is the lord of all celestial bodies and the whole world, it is called Jupiter. Since it penetrates everywhere with its rays and illuminates everything, it is Apollo. The sun is called Mercury because it produces meteors that trace their path across the sky. It is Neptune because it rules over the sea and rivers. It is Pluto because it rules the underground regions. It is Bacchus, since it rules over the wine substance and other liquids, without which nothing can ripen. Since the Sun has strengthening power, it is called Hercules. The sun received the name Vulcan from its fiery nature, and Mars from the heat that awakens in the living: hence come skin diseases, madness, wars, murders and similar deeds of Mars. The sun is called Aesculapius because of the health it gives to bodies and souls, and Pan because of the fertility it imparts to everything. The sun is Aeolus because, by drawing large quantities of air into one place, it causes winds and storms. When these different properties were found in other planets, which, under the influence of sunlight, caused similar effects, these divine names were also attributed to them. If the Sun, united in nature, diverse in properties, was called the active principle of all things, then the Moon, also united, but diverse in strength, was depicted as the passive principle of things and the wife of the Sun. She was called the great Mother of the Gods, so that each of the goddesses could be reduced to her. At first the Moon was called Rhea, since it is subject to the expiration of the Sun, like a wife to a husband, and is, as it were, the mother of the generation itself. She is called Ceres, because she rules over fruits, Lucina, because, dispelling the darkness of the night, she fertilizes the soil, this underbelly of the world, with beneficent light, Venus, because of the fertile seed life and the desire to generate things, and since this consists of a liquid, she herself is depicted born from sea foam. She is Juno, in Greek ἤρα, from the air (aer), over which she rules, being called, from the seeds of the earth and plants that she brings into being (proserpere facit), Proserpina, and from flowers (floribus) and buds - Flora. She is Diana, due to the moistening power of the Moon, which gives birth to many things in wooded and fertile areas. She was awarded the name Minerva because of the lunar warmth, which, as we said above, contributes to the development of talents. She is called the lower and underground Hecate because of the hundreds of kinds of things that she gives birth to. underground world, Thetis - as the ruler of the seas and streams, and Bellona - from the heat that excess bile produces in the bodies. Lest it appear that we are defending only our own assertions, I have thought it appropriate to confirm the above by the testimony of Eusebius alone. He's writing:
“Listen to this diligently: they call the power of fire Vulcan and erect statues of it in human form, with a blue cap on their head, symbolizing the vault of heaven, where the whole and pure fire is located. After all, the fire that fell from heaven to earth was weaker than the heavenly one and needs fuel, and therefore Vulcan is portrayed as lame. The same property found in the Sun,
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they call it Apollo, apparently from the movement of his rays, because in Greek πάλλειν means “to move.” Apollo, according to the singers, is surrounded by nine muses, that is, 7 planetary orbits, the eighth sphere, and the last one, which is the Moon. A laurel is dedicated to him, because this tree is fiery in nature, which is why it is hated by demons, and also because, when burned, it makes a loud crackling noise, which distinguishes it as a tree of divination. This same deity, since he heals the sick and drives away diseases, is called Hercules, ascribing to him twelve labors, for the sun passes through twelve signs of the Zodiac. Hercules is given the skin of a lion and a mace: the mace means the unequal movement of the Sun, the skin is the sign in which the Sun most of all shows its strength. The healing power of the Sun is symbolized by Aesculapius, whose staff is said to support the sick. This staff is entwined with snakes, a symbol of mental and physical health. After all, those knowledgeable in natural things say that, although other reptiles have the most coarse and earthly nature, the snake is distinguished by amazing properties: after all, it cures ill health of the body, and itself is reputed to be an expert in medicines. It was the snakes who discovered a plant that improves vision, and they even say that they know a certain herb that can rejuvenate. The fiery property of the Sun, thanks to which fruits ripen, is called Dionysus. At the completion of his annual cycle he is called Horus. Since the force that gives us fruit thereby increases wealth, it is called Pluto. Since corruption is hidden in this same property, Pluto is said to dwell with Serapis. Kerberus is depicted as having three heads because the Sun has three main positions in the upper heavens: sunrise, sunset and noon. The moon is called Diana, who, although she is a virgin, is nevertheless Lucina’s obstetrician, for the new moon contributes to childbirth in no small measure. What Apollo is to the Sun, Minerva, signifying prudence, is to the Moon. The Moon is further called Hecate due to the difference in the forms that this celestial body takes, depending on its distance from the Sun. Its properties are threefold. The properties of the new moon are depicted by the white and gold robes of the goddess and the torch she carries. The basket, which is depicted near the middle body of Hecate, means that as the light of the Moon increases, fruits ripen. The power of the full Moon is represented by the fruitful flower, for she is given a golden branch in her hand, since she herself is ignited by the Sun, and the poppy is dedicated to Hecate because of its fertility and the multitude of seed-souls that dwell in it as in a city. After all, the poppy is a symbol of the city. Diana carries a bow because the pain of childbirth is very acute. They say that the fruitful force, which is called Ceres, lives with the Moon, which increases it; for Bona Dea, the Good Goddess, is possessed by the power of the Moon. The Moon also takes Dionysus for itself, partly because he, the horned god of fertility, partly because he symbolizes the region of clouds that extends directly below the Moon. The properties of Saturn are slowness, coldness; they were attributed to Saturn as time, depicting him as an old man, for time ages everything. Of the four seasons, those which are said to open the gates of air we have attributed to the Sun, the others to Ceres. The baskets carried by the deities of these seasons are filled with flowers (Spring carries her), or ears of corn (Summer carries her). The property of Mars, since it is fiery and associated with blood, they placed as the head of wars. About Venus they said that she possesses the property of generation and the cause of seed and desire; she is depicted as emerging from the sea, since it is a wet and hot element, and with her frequent movement she generates foam, which is a symbol of the seed. The power of speech and interpretation was called Mercury, who was depicted elongated and standing upright due to the intensity of speech, although the seminal
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the power of words extending everywhere. But when it was necessary to depict compound speech, part of it was depicted as the Sun, and was called Mercury, part - the Moon, which was called Hecate, part - the universe with the name Hermopanus, for he is the seed power of everything."
This is how Eusebius conveys the words of Porfiry. So that the reader can more easily perceive what is said above, it is appropriate to present the discussion about the diverse forces of the Sun and Moon, which, as we have shown, are the pagan gods and goddesses, in the form of symbolic diagrams.
Explanation of the following figure or diagram on p. 252.
In the diagram below there are two figures, the first - the Sun, the second - the Moon. Each shines with 12 rays, which are like 12 fingers, with which various natural actions are carried out; they are the various natural properties through which the Sun and the Moon, the Rulers of the whole world, govern everything. The ancients understood them under the names of various gods, whose names, according to the custom of various peoples, are placed around the circumference of the figures.
| The 12 main pagan gods, which correspond to the various properties of the single Sun, are as follows. 1. Jupiter, the force that permeates the entire universe. |
The 12 main pagan goddesses, to whom the various properties of the Moon correspond, are as follows. 1. Ceres, the power that produces fruit. |
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From these diagrams it clearly follows that all these gods and goddesses, invented by mythologists, are nothing more than multiple properties of the single Sun and Moon, which, if combined, can be traced by their rays to the center, for all these rays share a single general nature. By these two natures everything that contains the sensory world lives and is nourished. They measure years, months and other periods of time. The life of all plants and animals depends on them. All pagan theology points to this Sun and his spouse, the Moon, which, as we have already said many times, all peoples adopted from the Egyptians, who were the first mortals to erect this huge pantheon, where all the gods were reduced to the Sun and the Moon, called Osiris and Isis . The Chaldeans followed the Egyptians with their Saturn and Rhea, to whom, like those to Osiris and Isis, they attributed everything. The Chaldeans were imitated by the Jews, who established the cult of Baal and Astarte, like the Phoenicians - the cult of Adonis, or Tammuz and Venus, the Persians - Mithra and Annaite, the Canaanites - Moloch and the so-called Venus, the Moabites - Chemosh and Baal-peor, the Philistines - Dagon and Atargatis.
So that the reader can understand the diversity of the cults of gods and goddesses among different peoples, it seemed appropriate to place here a table of their parallels, from which one could find out which of the above-mentioned gods corresponded to each other among different peoples, and which ones differed, and how they differed. Although, as we have shown, all gods and goddesses are reduced to the same thing, that is, the Sun and the Moon, and, consequently, to the single material force of the Sun, since the various gods and goddesses are nothing more than the different properties and actions of the Sun, in in our intellect they are present formally in the form of separate concepts. Reason commands us not to confuse them, and to make it easier for the reader to follow this command of reason, we reduce all pagan deities of both sexes to the Egyptian ones, from which they originated, so that the meaning of our reasoning is more clearly visible.
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| Parallels between the above gods | ||
| The Egyptians | Among the Jews, Chaldeans, Babylonians and other eastern peoples | Among the Greeks and Romans |
| OSIRIS | Tammuz, Bel, Saturn, Refan | Jupiter, Zeus, Ammon |
| AROUERIS, Dionysus | Chemos, Mot | Bacchus |
| HON | Sandes, Diodas, Desanay, Dorsan | Hercules, Hercules |
| PHALLOSIRIS | Baal-peor | Priapus |
| ANUBIS | Marcolis, Margemat | Mercury. Hermes |
| GOR | Adonis | Apollo, Phoebus |
| SERPIS | Tamuz | Pluto, Deet |
| TYPHON | Moloch, Mithra | Mars, Ares |
| ISIS FIGURES | Teraphim, Hamanim | Pattaeci, Dii Averunci |
| The Egyptians | Among the Jews and other eastern peoples | Among the Greeks and Romans |
| ISIS on high | Astarte | Venus, Aphrodite |
| OILTHYS | Derketo | Thetis |
| ISIS underworld | Atargatis | Proserpina, Ceres |
| ILITHIA | Mylitta | Hecate |
| ISIS heavenly | Velisama | Anaitis |
| ISIS many-breasted | Sukkot Benot, Kabar, Asiatic Venus | Mylitta, or Great Mother of the Gods, Earth |
Per. from lat. Garcia