Gerald Massey's Lectures - Society in evolution - Awardspace

IN REPLY TO PROFESSOR A. H. SAYCE.
As an opponent of what may be termed the Aryan school of interpretation it has been my
special work to show that mythology is not a farrago of foolish fables, nor the mere
raving of words that have lost their senses. I have amply demonstrated the fact that the
myths were no mere products of ancient ignorance, but are the deposited results of a
primitive knowledge; that they were founded upon natural phenomena and remain the
register of the earliest scientific observation. Those, however, who have not yet learned
that mythology contains the gnosis of the earliest science, and is the great pre-historic
record, are unable to teach us anything fundamental concerning it. They cannot read the
record itself or verify it by continual reference to those natural phenomena on which it is
based, and by which the truth of the interpretation has to be verified and tested. Without
this foothold of fact being firmly established mythology resolves itself into a bog without
a bottom.
It appears to me that Professor Sayce in his lectures on the Babylonian Religions, is
frequently dealing with matters which can only be fathomed by the comparative process,
and that it is misleading to compare the ancient mythologies with the Egyptian omitted,
whereas he rigorously rejects any light from that source. No Mythological Religion can
be explained by itself alone. The comparative method is as the bringing together of flint
and steel to strike the first spark for the necessary light. Without question or inquiry;
without collecting and comparing the data; without presenting his evidence for the
assertion, he makes the following authoritative declaration. "Apart from the general
analogies which we find in all early civilizations, the Script, the Theology and the
Astronomy of Egypt and Babylonia show no vestiges of a common source." (Hib. Lect.
p. 136.)
There may be a pitfall intended in these delusive words as the mythology and so-called
cosmology are entirely omitted. But you cannot have the Astronomy apart from the
Mythology by which it was represented! The Prof. says further there is one conclusive
and fatal objection to the derivation from Egypt "inasmuch as there is no traceable
connection between the hieroglyphics of Egypt and the primitive pictures out of which
the cuneiform characters were developed." Professor Sayce is an expert and an authority
passably orthodox, whose word will be taken for gospel by those who are not qualified to
question it. I am not an acknowledged authority. I can only plead that my facts may have
a hearing. Without knowing the facts we cannot attain the truth, and short of the fullest
truth there is no final authority. The Egyptian hieroglyphics were developed out of the
same primitive pictures and natural objects as the Akkadian. Both were direct transcripts
from nature at first, and there is but one origin in nature for the earliest figures. Again he
says: "If Lepsius were right (in maintaining the opposite view) the primitive
hieroglyphics out of which the cuneiform characters were evolved would offer
resemblances to the hieroglyphics. But this is not the case. Even the idea of divinity is
represented differently in them. In Chaldea it is expressed by an eight-rayed star; in
Egypt, by a stone-headed axe" (p. 435).
That is true; and yet in the sole illustration adduced by him the Professor is wrong! The
evidence of the first witness called is against the truth of his vaguely vast generalization.
The star with the eight rays is likewise an Egyptian ideograph of divinity; it is a
numerical figure for the Nunu or Associate Gods. (Burton E.H. 34.) This is the sign of the
pleroma of the godhead, the divine ogdoad. It was continued as a symbol of Horus-Orion,
the manifestor of the Eight, the mummy-constellation of the only one who rose again!
The eight-rayed sign was also a symbol of Hathor and of Taht because, like the eightrayed