APPENDIX - The Identity of the Scandinavian
Odin and Adon of Babylon
1. Nimrod, or Adon, or Adonis, of Babylon,
was the great war-god. Odin, as is well known, was the same. 2.
Nimrod, in the character of Bacchus, was regarded as the
god of wine; Odin is represented as taking no food but wine. For
thus we read in the Edda: "As to himself he [Odin]
stands in no need of food; wine is to him instead of every other
aliment, according to what is said in these verses: The
illustrious father of armies, with his own hand, fattens his two
wolves; but the victorious Odin takes no other nourishment to
himself than what arises from the unintermitted quaffing of
wine" (MALLET, 20th Fable, vol. ii. p. 106). 3.
The name of one of Odin's sons indicates the meaning of
Odin's own name. Balder, for whose death such lamentations were
made, seems evidently just the Chaldee form of Baal-zer,
"The seed of Baal;" for the Hebrew z, as is well known,
frequently, in the later Chaldee, becomes d. Now, Baal and Adon
both alike signify "Lord"; and, therefore, if
Balder be admitted to be the seed or son of Baal, that is as much
as to say that he is the son of Adon; and, consequently, Adon and
Odin must be the same. This, of course, puts Odin a step back;
makes his son to be the object of lamentation and not himself;
but the same was the case also in Egypt; for there Horus the
child was sometimes represented as torn in pieces, as Osiris had
been. Clemens Alexandrinus says (Cohortatio, vol. i. p. 30),
"they lament an infants torn in pieces by the Titans." The
lamentations for Balder are very plainly the counterpart of the
lamentations for Adonis; and, of course, if Balder was, as the
lamentations prove him to have been, the favourite form of the
Scandinavian Messiah, he was Adon, or "Lord,"
as well as his father. 4. Then, lastly, the name
of the other sons of Odin, the mighty and warlike Thor,
strengthens all the foregoing conclusions. Ninyas, the son of
Ninus or Nimrod, on his father's death, when idolatry rose again,
was, of course, from the nature of the mystic system, set up as Adon, "the Lord." Now, as Odin had a son
called Thor, so the second Assyrian Adon had a son called Thouros (Cedrenus, vol.
i. p. 29). The name Thouros seems just to be
another form of Zoro, or Doro, "the seed;" for
Photius tells us that among the Greeks Thoros signified "Seed"
(Lexicon, pars i. p. 93). The D is often pronounced as Th,--Adon, in the pointed Hebrew, being pronounced
Athon.
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