The name of Shing Moo, applied by the Chinese to their "Holy
Mother," compared with another name of the same goddess
in another province of China, strongly favours the conclusion
that Shing Moo is just a synonym for one of the well-known names
of the goddess-mother of Babylon. Gillespie (in his Land of
Sinim, p. 64) states that the Chinese goddess-mother, or
"Queen of Heaven," in the province of Fuh-kien, is
worshipped by seafaring people under the name of Ma Tsoopo. Now, "Ama
Tzupah" signifies the "Gazing Mother;"
and there is much reason to believe that Shing Moo signifies the
same; for Mu was one of the forms in which Mut or Maut, the name
of the great mother, appeared in Egypt (BUNSEN'S Vocabulary, vol.
i. p. 471); and Shngh, in Chaldee, signifies "to
look" or "gaze." The Egyptian Mu or
Maut was symbolised either by a vulture, or an eye surrounded by
a vulture's wings (WILKINSON, vol. v. p. 203.) The symbolic
meaning of the vulture may be learned from the Scriptural
expression: "There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and
which the vulture's eye hath not seen" (Job xxviii.7).
The vulture was noted for its sharp sight, and hence, the eye
surrounded by the vulture's wings showed that, for some reason or
other, the great mother of the gods in Egypt had been known as "The
gazer." But the idea contained in the Egyptian symbol
had evidently been borrowed from Chaldea; for Rheia, one of the
most noted names of the Babylonian mother of the gods, is just
the Chaldee form of the Hebrew Rhaah, which signifies at once "a
gazing woman" and a "vulture." The
Hebrew Rhaah itself is also, according to a dialectical
variation, legitimately pronounced Rheah; and hence the name of
the great goddess-mother of Assyria was sometimes Rhea, and
sometimes Rheia. In Greece, the same idea was evidently attached
to the Mother of the children of the sun (see ante, p. 20, Note),
For one of her distinguishing titles was Ophthalmitis (SMITH'S
Classical Dictionary, "Athena," p. 101),
thereby pointing her out as the goddess of "the
eye." It was no doubt to indicate the same thing that,
as the Egyptian Maut wore a vulture on her head, so the Athenian
Minerva was represented as wearing a helmet with two eyes, or
eye-holes, in the front of the helmet.--(VAUX'S Antiquities, p.
186.)
Having thus traced the gazing mother over the earth, is it
asked, What can have given origin to such a name as applied to
the mother of the gods?
A fragment of Sanchuniathon (pp. 16-19), in regard to the
Phenician mythology, furnishes us with a satisfactory reply.
There it is said that Rheia conceived by Kronos, who was her own
brother, and yet was known as the father of the gods, and in
consequence brought forth a son who was called Muth, that is, as
Philo-Byblius correctly interprets the word, "Death."
As Sanchuniathon expressly distinguishes this "father of
the gods" from "Hypsistos," The Most
High, * we naturally recall what Hesiod says in regard to his
Kronos, the father of the gods, who, for a certain wicked deed,
was called Titan, and cast down to hell.--(Theogonia, 1. 207, p.
18.) The Kronos to whom Hesiod refers is evidently at bottom a
different Kronos from the human father of the gods, or Nimrod,
whose history occupies so large a place in this work. He is
plainly none other than Satan himself; the name Titan, or Teitan,
as it is sometimes given, being, as we have elsewhere concluded
(pp. 275, 276), only the Chaldee form of Sheitan, the common name
of the grand Adversary among the Arabs, in the very region where
the Chaldean Mysteries were originally concocted,--that Adversary
who was ultimately the real father of all the Pagan gods,--and
who (to make the title of Kronos, "the Horned One,"
appropriate to him also) was symbolised by the Kerastes, or
Horned serpent. All "the brethren" of this
father of the gods, who were implicated in his rebellion against
his own father the "God of Heaven," were
equally called by the "reproachful" name "Titans";
but, inasmuch as he was the ringleader in the rebellion, he was,
of course, Titan by way of eminence. In this rebellion of Titan,
the goddess of the earth was concerned, and the result was that
(removing the figure under which Hesiod has hid the fact) it
became naturally impossible that the God of Heaven should have
children upon earth--a plain allusion to the Fall.
Now, assuming that this is the "Father of the
gods," by whom Rhea, whose common title is that of the
Mother of the gods, and who is also identified with Ge, or the
Earth-goddess, had the child called Muth, or Death, who could
this "Mother of the gods" be, but just our
Mother Eve? And the name Rhea, or "The Gazer,"
bestowed on her, is wondrously significant. It was as "the
gazer" that the mother of mankind conceived by Satan,
and brought forth that deadly birth, under which the world has
hitherto groaned. It was through her eyes that the fatal
connection was first formed between her and the grand Adversary,
under the form of a serpent, whose name, Nahash, or Nachash, as
it stands in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, also signifies "to
view attentively," or "to gaze." (Gen.
iii. 6) "And when the woman saw that the tree was good
for food, and pleasant to the eyes," etc., "she
took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and gave also unto her
husband with her, and he did eat." Here, then, we have
the pedigree of sin and death; "Lust, when it had
conceived, brought forth sin; and sin, when it was finished,
brought forth death" (James i. 15). Though Muth, or
Death, was the son of Rhea, this progeny of hers came to be
regarded, not as Death in the abstract, but as the god of death;
therefore, says Philo-Byblius, Muth was interpreted not only as
death, but as Pluto.--(SANCHUN., p. 24.) In the Roman mythology,
Pluto was regarded as on a level, for honour, with Jupiter (OVID, Fasti, lib. vii. 578): and in Egypt, we have evidence that
Osiris, "the seed of the woman," was the "Lord
of heaven," and king of hell, or "Pluto"
(WILKINSON, vol. iv. p. 63; BUNSEN, vol. i. pp. 431,432); and it
can be shown by a large induction of particulars (and the reader
has somewhat of the evidence presented in this volume), that he
was none other than the Devil himself, supposed to have become
incarnate; who, though through the first transgression, and his
connection with the woman, he had brought sin and death into the
world, had, nevertheless, by means of them, brought innumerable
benefits to mankind. As the name Pluto has the very same meaning
as Saturn, "The hidden one," so, whatever
other aspect this name had, as applied to the father of the gods,
it is to Satan, the Hidden Lord of hell, ultimately that all came
at last to be traced back, for the different myths about Saturn,
when carefully examined, show that he was at once the Devil, the
father of all sin and idolatry, who hid himself under the
disguise of the serpent,--and Adam, who hid himself among the
trees of the garden,--and Noah, who lay hid for a whole year in
the ark,--and Nimrod, who was hid in the secrecy of the
Babylonian Mysteries. It was to glorify Nimrod that the whole
Chaldean system of iniquity was formed. He was known as Nin, "the
son," and his wife as Rhea, who was called Ammas, "The
Mother." The name Rhea, as applied to Semiramis, had
another meaning from what it had when applied to her, who was
really the primeval goddess, the "mother of gods and
men.'" But yet, to make out the full majesty of her
character, it was necessary that she should be identified with
that primeval goddess; and, therefore, although the son she bore
in her arms was represented as he who was born to destroy death,
yet she was often represented with the very symbols of her who
brought death into the world. And so was it also in the different
countries where the Babylonian system spread.
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