Part 5: Britain Key to World History...The Manoeuvres of Moses...This Isle of Isaiah

Britain Key to World History

by Comyns Beaumont

PART THREE - 

CLIMAX 

"Very few Bible students have devoted the necessary time to a search for parallel events related in what is termed profane history---Unfortunately for the progress of truth, clerical influences tend to suppress the publication of any evidence which is seen to be in conflict with the Scriptural accounts." 

E. E. Jessel: 

Unknown Hist. Of The Jews. 

"Investigations into the beginnings of religion have accumulated steadily throughout the past half-century. It is only by great efforts of censorship, by sectarian education of an elaborately protected sort, and the like, that ignorance about them is maintained." 

H. G. Wells: 

The Fate Of Homo Sapiens. 

I. 

THE MANOEUVRES OF MOSES

 

AMENOPHIS, THE last Pharaoh of the nineteenth Dynasty, who, as has been indicated, corresponds with the Sesostris of Diodorus and Herodotus, reigned for nearly twenty years according to Manetho. 

His was an intensely dramatic era which culminated in a prolonged war, the invasion of his country by vast and well-armed hordes, accompanied by meteorological events of a phenomenal character, and finally ended in the Great Catastrophe which destroyed him and most of his nation. He was the Pharaoh of the Exodus, a period of world unrest in which Moses, the real creator of the Jewish faith, organised revolt inside Egypt and brought powerful forces from outside to defeat and overthrow Pharaoh and his people. 

Manetho, it will be recalled from my earlier description, tells of how the Hyksos, the original Israelites who occupied the lands of Mizraim, were expelled from these territories in the eighth year of King David, when they quitted Hebron and the Egyptian lands and moved to Jerusalem after having lorded it over the Egyptians in the south-west for 511 years. Manetho then explains the period of the death of Amenophis, 327 years later. His list of the Ramses kings forming the eighteenth and nineteenth Dynasties over this stretch of time is as follows : 

The average length of reigns of these seventeen monarchs is a trifle over nineteen years, quite a normal period, and it comprises a precise list for even the months are included. If we synchronise this period of 327 years with the kings of Judah—those of the separate kingdom of Israel have more than one interregnum—we find that from the eighth year of David we reach the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, during whose first thirteen years of reign untoward events took place especially relating to the land of Egypt. The Old Testament does not give months in the reigns of the Kings of Judah, the rule being that if a reign lasted for six months or over it counted as a year, whereas if under six months the year was ignored. It was a rough-and-ready method, but not so wrong on average as might be expected, only two years' difference if we synchronise it with the fourteenth of Hezekiah as for certain reasons appears to have been the case. In this period fifteen kings had reigned, and Hezekiah, still reigning, making the sixteenth against the seventeen Ramses Pharaohs. For comparison I give the Judean list:

EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH 

RAMSES DYNASTIES 

Length of Reign Years Months 

Tethmosis (or Thummosis) 

after Hyksos' expulsion              25-4 

Chebron (or Hebron).                 13-0 

Amenophis I                          20-7 

Amesses (Queen)                      21-9 

Mephres                              12-9 

Mephra Muthosis                      25-10 

Tethmosis II                          9-8 

Amenophis II                         39-10 

Onus (or Horus).                     36-3 

Achenchres (Queen).                  12-1 

Rathotis                              9-0 

Acenceres I                          12-3 

Acenceres II                         12-3 

Armais                                4-1 

Ramses I (Seti)                       1-4 

Ramses II (Miammun)                  60-2 

Amenophis III.                       19-6 

 Total 327 0[2

KINGS OF JUDAH FROM 8TH OF DAVID TO I 4 TH OF HEZEKIAH David (after quitting Hebron) 32 years; Solomon 40 years; Rehoboam 17; Ahijam 3; Asa 41; Jehoshaphat 25; Jehoram 8; Ahaziah I; Queen Athaliah 6; Jehoash 40; Amaziah 29; Azariah 52; Jotham 16; Ahaz 6; first 13 years of Hezekiah, 13. Total 329. The difference may be attributed to discrepancy in the Judean method, two years in all compared with Manetho's List. 

Such then is the synchronisation, but, on the present system of the O.T. with its chaotic chronology, it appears impossible to reconcile such a contingency as to make Hezekiah contemporaneous with the Pharaoh of the Exodus and the prophet Moses. That Amenophis lived in the earlier years of the fourteenth century B.C. is confirmed by astronomy, namely by the Sothic Cycle, which was named after him as the "Epoch of Menophres," and occurred in 1322 B.C., albeit our modern Egyptologists have so far "improved" on Manetho's Lists as to give him a date of 1233 to 1223 B.C., a century later, thus ignoring the Sothic Cycle. Hezekiah, by O.T. chronology, lived some six centuries later than the date as compared with Manetho. The subject of ancient chronology has always been a vexed question, but to avoid a long digression it will be more convenient to give particulars of this synchronisation elsewhere.[2] 

The very first years of Hezekiah's reign were anxious ones to the rulers of Judah because of the growing menace of Assyria and her allies. In the third year of Hoshea, King of Israel (the first of Hezekiah), there came against him the Assyrian monarch Shalmaneser or Sargon, from Nineveh, with various allies and tributaries who looted the country and forced Hoshea to pay tribute. Previous to this invasion, Ahaz, King of Judah, worsted in his wars against the Samaritan Government and the Syrians of Damascus, had whetted the appetite of the Assyrians by appealing to Tiglath-Pileser (or Pul) for aid, who was only too pleased to come across the "Euphrates" and pillage. In his sixth year Hoshea was accused by Shalmaneser of conspiring with "So," King of Egypt, and was thrown into prison, while Samaria, which shut her gates on the enemy, was besieged for three years and suffered untold miseries until finally the inchoate kingdom of Israel collapsed, her survivors being taken as slaves and sold in the cities of the Medes and elsewhere. This same Shalmaneser reputedly invaded Syria and failed to capture the fortress of Tyre. 

Behind these invasions lay always the implied threat to Egypt, as is shown by Shalmaneser's treatment of Hoshea who had asked Pharaoh for aid and his savage destruction of Hoshea's capital. Before long Egypt in turn fell beneath the heel of the conqueror, and the story of her eclipse has yet to be told in full, but during this period we have the sayings of the great contemporaneous prophet Isaiah. Egypt was apparently leaderless and her sovereignty had departed, for they were under the thraldom—"thrown over" are the words used—of a "cruel lord" and a "fierce king," who ruled over them.[3] Who were these two men? They answer to Rabshakeh as the cruel lord, and to Shalmaneser, or, more probably to his son and successor, Sennacherib, as the fierce king. Egypt was disorganised. They were quarrelling among themselves, city opposed to city, kingdom to kingdom, the while they sought vainly for help from their oracles, wizards and witches. 

The princes of Zoan (continues the prophet) had become fools, those of Noph (No or No-Ammon) were deceived and had led Egypt astray. The land of Judah had become a "terror" unto Egypt, words perhaps explained by the movements of Moses as described by Manetho to which we shall arrive shortly. The Lord in short would "smite Egypt---in that day shall be a highway out of Egypt into Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptians shall serve with (under?) the Assyrians."[4] 

We may read into these expressions a situation in which Egypt had drifted into a state of anarchy and despair, her king either having fled or being unable to stave off defeat, and her rulers threatened or overawed, although that may not entirely explain the situation which seems to have developed. Strange phenomena were evidently taking place in the heavens above. There was a terrible drought, and waters failed from the sea, the "great river''—of Egypt understood--dried up like the brooks, reeds and flax withered, and fish disappeared or died.[5] This extraordinary period is referred to in the Book of Enoch, in these words: 

And in the days of the sinners the years (months?) shall be, shortened; their seed shall be tardy on the land and fields; all things on the earth shall alter and shall not appear in their time; the rain shall be kept back, and heaven shall withhold it.[6] 

Nor were these the only phenomena which terrified the people of that period, or, probably, a little later: 

The moon shall alter her order and shall not appear in her due time; in these days the sun shall rise in the evening and as a great chariot journey to the west causing distress as it goes. It shall shine more brightly than accords with its order of light. And many chief stars shall transgress their prescribed order, and these shall alter their orbits and not appear at the seasons proper to them. And evil shall be multiplied upon the sinners and punishment shall come upon them so as to destroy all.[7] 

It is inadmissible in these present times to accept any statement that the sun itself could rise in the evening, but an approaching cometary body might give such an illusion, and that such did occur is confirmed by Isaiah in circumstances to be examined later. The writer of Enoch, in his allusion to the sun as resembling a "great chariot," calls to mind again the myth of Phaeton who stole the horses and chariot of the sun, his father Helios, and swept down so close to the earth that Zeus was forced to hurl him into the River Eridanus, in the Cimmerian lands, to prevent the whole world from being destroyed by fire. How can we explain the analogy of the sun or a cometary body as resembling a chariot? The answer may be sought in the strange designs on sculptured stones of Scotland, long prehistoric, like the Golspie Stone, the Dyce Stone, and others, which symbolise a twin comet as two wheels with an axle linking them—described by archaeologists as "spectacles"—possibly an illusion caused by atmospherics, although twin comets have been observed by astronomers in modern times.[8] 

Such are aspects of the celestial phenomena observed during this period, accompanied by extreme drought. Before I pass from this to the next point in this extraordinary period mention may be made of that very ancient collection of legends related to the Antichrist era, from apocryphal sources by the French savant Bousset. He describes, among other features of that age, the drought, when there was no rain, the rivers dried up, the land lay arid, birds died, and wives could obtain no food for their progeny. Later comes the climax, when a fiery chariot and a brand are beheld in the skies, a sword falls from heaven, and a great star burns up the ocean, followed by a fiery storm which lasts forty days, in which the fire consumes earth and water, the period when the "angel made Egypt desolate." With all this occurred the Flood.[9] 

At this point it will be appropriate to return to Manetho and examine his description of the plight in which Egypt found herself at this same period, or a little before the culmination of circumstances. 

He records that Amenophis, "desirous of becoming a spectator of the gods like Horus" (one of his human predecessors as the Manethonic list states), communicated his desire to a seer of the same name as himself. I suggest that the inner meaning of this occult suggestion is wrapped up in the Underworld cult as was previously examined in relation to King Arthur. The seer that he might be allowed to "see the gods" if he would clear the country of the "lepers and impure people" who infested it. Accordingly, the Pharaoh sent 80,000 of these unwanted or, as described, "polluted persons" to work in the quarries and be segregated from the Egyptians.[10] And where were these quarries situated? They were at Avaris or Abaris, shown previously as our own Avebury, and where such quarries of stone still remain at least in part. The anxiety of Amenophis to see the "gods" compares with the veiled bardic accounts of Arthur's visits to the Underworld so intimately related to Avalon. "Arthur," says Mr. Spence, "like Osiris, was the god of a mystical cult who must periodically take a journey through the Underworld." It might perhaps be more materialistically explained by suggesting that Amenophis was anxious to discover how far he could rely on the services of the Cabiri priests in respect of arms! 

The seer also named Amenophis, we are told, learned that some priests who had been sent to Avaris with these undesirables were leprous, and he became alarmed lest the "gods" should be irate with Pharaoh and himself if any violence were offered to the unwanted peoples. This fear of what the "gods" might inflict on the Egyptians is contained in another passage of very serious import: 

Certain people would come to the assistance of these polluted wretches, would conquer Egypt and keep it in their possession for thirteen years. However, he durst not tell the king of these things but left a letter behind him about all those matters and then slew himself, which made the king disconsolate.[11] 

The seer would seem to have obtained occult information of coming events of a highly dangerous character to the independence of Egypt, so much so that he committed suicide. His information caused Pharaoh anxiety as well it might. Manetho then continues: 

After those that were sent to work in the quarries had continued in that miserable state for a long while, the king was desired that he would set apart the city Avaris, which was then left desolate by the Shepherds (Hyksos), for their habitation and protection, which desire he granted them. Now this city, according to the ancient theology, was Typho's (Typhon's) city, but when these men were gotten into it and found the place ready for revolt, they appointed a ruler out of the priests of Heliopolis, whose name was Osarsiph, and they took their oaths that they would be obedient to him in all things---When he was gone over to these people his name was changed, and he was called Moses.[12] 

It has been made abundantly clear from what has been earlier advanced in this work that Abaris or Avaris was the original Israelite Hebron, probably represented today by Barbury Castle, north of Avebury, and that the British settlement below it, covering a considerable area, adjoining the immense quarry of monolithic stones, was the administrative capital named Ramah, having been established by Ab'Ram, son of the Ram, the Rama, which city, after the defeat and expulsion of the tribes under David, had been renamed Ramses by their victors some 314 years previously. Ramses was the starting-point of those Israelites and others of the Exodus who were led away for a time by Moses after the Tenth Plague, having despoiled or robbed the Egyptians dwelling there. Manetho is therefore giving his version of the circumstances preceding the exodus, and if his testimony be acceptable it proves that Amenophis was the Pharaoh of that very mysterious epoch at the time that part of the world was grievously affected by phenomenal meteorological conditions. Moses is depicted as a priest of Heliopolis (Egyptian On) who became the leader of the ensuing insurrection. 

Manetho continues his account by stating that Moses made the outcasts or slaves in the quarries swear obedience to his commands. They were told they must eschew the Egyptian deities, even to slay all the sacred animals which the Egyptians worshipped, and he also ordered them to erect new walls about Avaris in order to prepare for a war against Pharaoh. If this were the case, there is little wonder if Amenophis said to his own people, "Let us deal wisely with them lest they multiply, and it come to pass that when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies and fight against us, and so get them out of the land."[13] He was confronted with the same problem as faces modern nations who open their frontiers too widely to aliens, "friendly" or otherwise, who can undermine the independence and soul of a great nation. He wanted them out of his country, not as the Book of Exodus represents him, a hard-hearted tyrant who forced them to remain against their will. Who were these unwanted people? The Book of Exodus says that they were the Israelites, and thus they must have been descendants of those who failed to accompany David long before and had become Egyptianised, in addition to many thousands of others who probably included the Ishmaelites, always described as Gypsies or Egyptians, well-known for their laziness, sloth, and dirty habits. 

The seer Amenophis foresaw what might happen only too well. Their leader Moses, while making these secret preparations for an uprising against the Egyptian king, sent messengers, we are told, to those "who had long before been driven away to Jerusalem," inviting their aid in the war he was hatching, and promising in return to "bring them back to their ancient city and country Avaris," and that he would protect and fight for them. Manetho says that they came with alacrity, some 200,000 strong; although we have reason to believe that the newcomers were not the people of Jerusalem, but a vast horde of Gothic or Scythian invaders who at the time were besieging that city. 

When the Pharaoh heard of this invasion of his country, he recollected the ill-omens of the seer, and was greatly "confused." He called up his army, conferred with his chiefs, ordered the priests to remove the sacred animals and images of the gods to safe keeping, and then "sent his son Sethos, who was also called Ramses, after his father Ramses (Miammun), being but five years old, to a friend of his." In another excerpt from Manetho it says that this infant was concealed in a cave and later avenged his father.[14] Having completed these matters, 

He then passed on with the rest of the Egyptians, being 300,000 of the most warlike of them, against the enemy, who met them. 

Yet did he not join battle with them, but thinking that would be to fight the gods, he returned back, came to Memphis, where he took Apis and other sacred animals, and presently marched into Ethiopia, together with his whole army and multitude of the Egyptians; for the King of Ethiopia was under an obligation to him, who received him and took care of the multitude with him. He also allotted cities and villages for this exile that was to be during those fatally determined ( Page 103 ) thirteen years. He pitched a camp for his Ethiopian army as a guard to King Amenophis upon the borders of Egypt.[15] 

Thus mysteriously did Amenophis quit his beloved country and people, leaving them to the mercy of rapacious enemies bent on overthrowing it and retired with his army to the north, although another account suggests that his army deserted him at the critical hour. It sounds unaccountable unless his motive were to obtain help from the "Ethiopians" (Cush) to meet this invasion of vast forces from overseas. Yet an army of 300,000 men should have been powerful enough to confront the enemy. 

If we recognise that Amenophis was Sesostris, and take his previous military campaigns into account when he defeated or rendered tributary so many nations beyond the seas, in which loot does not seem to have been his main purpose, could it be that he was then looking ahead because he had prior information that a great assembly of nations was being roused against him by Moses who had fled and so endeavoured to take time by the forelock? From Jordanis, for one historian, and from Orosius for another, we gather there would seem to have been every reason to suspect that within a short time of his last campaign against the Scythians, an apparently abortive campaign, he found himself with weakened resources assailed by a huge army of invaders, armed with the latest weapons of the age, even though, from a biblical account, the Assyrians are mainly mentioned. In other words, did Amenophis' irresolution and apparent cowardice arise from a knowledge that these newcomers possessed arms of a calibre with which he could not compete? Must not these vast armaments have taken many years to perfect and accumulate? 

Note that phrase of Manetho, "He did not join battle with them, thinking that would be to fight against the gods." What gods? Cabiri gods? How far was the man we know as Moses behind this situation? We know from the Scriptures that earlier he had fled from Egypt with a price put on his head and now had returned defiantly to threaten Pharaoh. Apart from the stories in Exodus of how after each plague Moses and Aaron visited the King and demanded that he should free the so-called Israelites in Avaris, there is that strange account of how Moses and Aaron cast their "serpent-rods" defiantly before Pharaoh seated on his throne, which "ate" or destroyed the "serpent-rods" of the Egyptian magicians. If we read between the lines the implication was that he threatened Pharaoh with superior weapons unless he consented to this demand. Josephus throws a yet clearer light on the subject. He describes how Moses, on his return to Egypt after a long absence during which time he had been initiated into his new god Jehovah or J.H.V.H., was met on the frontier by the chief Hebrews, who at first showed disbelief in some sweeping claims he made until he produced "astonishing signs which ensured their deliverance." 

What could they have been other than some then advanced form of armament? He was led before Pharaoh, from whom he demanded the release of the people he was championing, and to prove his power gave him a similar demonstration. Pharaoh angrily called him an evil man who had formerly run away from Egypt and now returned with "deceitful tricks, and wonders, and magical arts," in order to astonish him.[16] His comment may have been caused by chagrin, but the story in Exodus suggests that Moses was able to prove that his "magical arts" were vastly superior to those of the Egyptians. Not that the Egyptians were without such "serpent rods." Is there not a suggestiveness in the account of how Amenophis required to "see the gods" before he rounded up the unwanted peoples? 

There is a highly instructive passage of Isaiah where the prophet says, "O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall smite thee with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against thee, after the manner of Egypt."[17] We have also these words, "O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation,"[18] a passage which in veiled language appears to denote that with these weapons they punished the shortcomings of those they defeated and destroyed. In analysing the past I cannot over-stress how vital and important is always this problem of weapons. Moses, as I shall attempt to prove, was behind the vast movements of this period with the intention of defeating Egypt, overthrowing her power, and annexing the country for his Scythians, or, more notably, Sakai. 

From the foregoing the inference I draw is that Amenophis realised later that he could not face the impending invasion with any prospect of success and decided to retire until such time as he could strengthen his arms. In view of this development the hitherto, inexplicable attitude of the seer Amenophis, as previously cited, may be regarded in another light. If it were he, as the text of Manetho suggests, who was to have initiated Pharaoh into the latest mysteries of Underworld activity—and as to what this signified we have obtained some information—he stood as an hierophant of the secret cult, and the King's object was to ascertain through Ptah (or his human representative) the latest development of the occult science. For did not the seer warn the King that he should be careful not to antagonise the representatives of the enemy gods, presumably because he had himself learnt the menacing facts about them? 

So commenced the thirteen years' war and rapine between the Gods and the Giants, described in so many a myth, which directly preceded the Great Catastrophe. It was a war which heralded the destruction of Atlantis, because, as is said in the Book of Esdras (the second Book is filled with information on this subject), "of the devices come into the world," added to earthquakes and uproars of the people of the earth. 

With the retreat of Amenophis, as told of by Isaiah, the invaders enjoyed a halcyon time. They overran Egypt, pillaged her, demanded heavy tribute from cities, enslaved many, and were accused of savagery and "horrid wickedness" by Manetho. This "wickedness" appears to have been the destruction of the images of the gods, and used, such as were made of wood, to roast the sacred animals which they consumed, and after forcing the priests to become their "executioners," ejected them from the country. This is an aspect of the exodus which does not appear—nor should we expect it so to do—in the Scriptures. 

From the Book of Exodus we learn that the Pharaoh, "which knew not Joseph," decided to expel the Hebrews from his dominions. We are told that they were fruitful, increased abundantly, multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty, so that the land was filled with them. There arose this king who said to his people, "Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we," and very naturally it must be said he preferred their room to their company. If such were the case the account of his refusal to let them go was not in consonance with the story of the plagues and his reiterated refusal to release them, but probably because if released they would make war on his people as, indeed, they did. They escaped in the nick of time. 

These alleged Israelites who had bred and multiplied to such an amazing number as to constitute a threat to the Egyptians can only be explained as the descendants of the original Hyksos who had stayed behind 327 years previously, who preferred to be subject to the kings of Egypt rather than march with David to another region. When we are told that 600,000 persons went out from Ramses with Moses, besides children and a "mixed multitude," if they were Israelites there seems to be no other solution, but it is more than probable they included the Hagarites or Gypsies and many of the invaders. They certainly could not have been the descendants of the few persons who are supposed to have ventured into Egypt in the time of Joseph, only a generation or two back. In any case Moses wanted these undesirables out of the way for other reasons and apparently the bulk of them were led to a far distant land. Manetho's account is his version of the circumstances which preceded the exodus, and if his testimony is acceptable it definitely proves that Amenophis was the Pharaoh of that period when the heavens themselves were in a state of chaos, by the approaching comet, as shown by the incidence of the various plagues, and upset, it would seem, Moses' intentions. 

It may assist if I give an outline of where these vast hordes were probably led to in the first place. 

************* 

Ramses was the starting-point of the emigrants, and before hurriedly leaving they "borrowed" from the Egyptians jewels of silver and gold and raiment, and slew a large number of those whose houses were marked down beforehand, reminiscent of the Massacre of the Huguenots many centuries later. After their flight they journeyed from Ramses (Avebury) to Succoth, which seems to have been the ancient little town of Sherston, lying between Malmesbury and Bristol.[19] It has the remains of extensive prehistoric fortifications. Its Saxon name is said to have been Sceorstan, signifying "Scots' Town." They then advanced to Etham, "edge of the wilderness," suggested as the Mendip country, fleeing from the Egyptian pursuit, and reached Pi-ha-hi-roth "mouth of caves," over against Baal-zephon (the "Lord of the west wind"), near the edge of the sea, where, we are told, Pharaoh believed that they were "entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut thee in."[20] In my reconstruction of their movements I suggest tentatively that they had descended from Sherston across Mendip to Cheddar ("mouth of Caves"), which stands near the Western Sea and also overlooks the valley of the Somerset Axe, formerly the northern bay of the Uxella or inland sea. Thus they were "shut in by the wilderness" and Pharaoh was probably fully justified in believing that he had this horde cornered who had murdered and robbed his subjects. 

"And they departed from before Pi-ha-hi-roth and passed through the midst of the sea into the wilderness."[21] The Egyptians, however, had not calculated on the abnormal conditions of weather then prevailing. We are told that the "pillar of cloud" (fog), which had preceded them, went behind, in other words it blotted them out to the eyes of their pursuers, and to overcome their predicament the Israelites marched over the frozen waters of the Uxella. The fog was accompanied by severe frost—no miracle so far as Britain was concerned—which thus enabled them to outwit the Egyptians on their heels. That this was no miracle may be recognised by a common-sense understanding of the text: 

The Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry, and the waters were divided---and the waters were a wall unto them---and it came to pass that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the. Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians. And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily---And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared----And the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea---there remained not so much as one of them.[22] 

The words italicised make it evident that the waters of this inland sea had frozen over, as further confirmed in Moses' pæan of triumph, after the Egyptians had been drowned in a quick thaw the morning following: 

And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright as an heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea.[23] 

In plain, everyday language the waters of the inland sea were frozen over, congealed, and with this situation confronting them, the fugitives took the opportunity during a heavy night fog to cross over the frozen water. It was not a long crossing, but in the morning when the sun peeped through the fog and the host of Pharaoh saw they had eluded them, they chanced the crossing also but their heavy chariots sank into the ice and they were drowned. 

The sea was not the "Red Sea" at all. We find it described as the "Sea of the plain," as it was. It was also called the "Sea of Suph" (or Zuph), a Hebrew word meaning weeds or reeds.[24] It was the inland sea of Somerset, the Uxella, which throws a quite new complexion on this supposed miracle, as may well have frozen over and across a comparatively narrow waterway, the fugitives succeeded in escaping from the punishment they had anticipated. The "Sea of Weeds" exactly expresses the reedy waterways of the marshy inland sea of Somerset.[25] 

To continue: Moses reached dry land at Elim, again towards the wilderness (i.e. uninhabited spaces, including forest land), towards Shur, otherwise, as previously seen, on the borders of Somerset and Dorset. They came to Rephidim, where the people were dying of thirst and where Moses smote the rock Horeb with his "rod," and called the place Meribah, and when he so smote it both Aaron and he fell on their faces, probably to avoid any ricochetting from the shot which struck the rock. Meribah, generally identified with the Waters of Merom or Meroz, agrees with the "vast marsh called Erebea" of Avienus, in the valley of the Parrett.[26] Hereabouts, when in camp at Kadesh-Barnea, perhaps Cadbury. Castle, they came into conflict with the Amalekites (Melq or Malek, implying Phoenicians), whom they defeated because Moses on a hill lifted his "rod," which was so weighty that others had to sustain it while he fired it against the enemy, who wilted when it operated and gained when he delayed, as loading it was doubtless a long task. As a result, victory accruing, he erected an altar to "Jehovah Nissi," "God of Serpents," an excellent description.[27] 

The peregrinations of the Israelites from Egypt to Edom and Mount Sinai are very involved, and also complicated because it is not always easy to discern whether they were on their exodus or returning after forty years in the wilderness, but the Book of Deuteronomy describes how, when they departed from KadeshBarnea, they went through the "great and terrible wilderness" by the "mountain of the Amorites." From here Moses sent twelve men to spy out the land who came to Eshcol. Meanwhile his followers murmured that the people were giants and their cities walled up to heaven.[28] The Amorites in question attacked them from their mountain and chased them unto Seir and Hormah.[29] 

In the near vicinity of the rock Horeb and Merom was the city of Hazor, on a high hill, where King Jabin dwelt, whose general Sisera was defeated by the waters of Merom, which swelled and destroyed his host. In the Book of Joshua we are told how the King of Hazor was utterly defeated in a battle fought at Merom when the Israelites were returning after their forty years' seclusion, how Joshua burnt their chariots with fire, and how he chased them to Sidon and the Heights of Dor and elsewhere.[30] 

It seems likely that this "high city" was that immense prehistoric camp known as Hamdon Hill, the Moridunum of the Romans (Fort of the Mori or Amorites), which was described by Sir R. Colt Hoare, in his work Ancient Wiltshire, as having earthworks "the most extensive I have ever met with." This vast camp stands on a high hill, east of the Parrett River, on the borders of the former Uxella, three miles west of Yeovil and twelve miles south-west of Cadbury Castle. The Fosse Way skirted Hamdon on its course to Axmouth and Seaton. Phelps describes its former walls or circumvalli as not less than 210 acres, in appearance it being like an amphitheatre with stone quarries within the walls. Bones, skulls, lance and spearheads have been found on the site, together with articles of brass and iron, and even fragments of chariot wheels.[31] 

According to the Book of Deuteronomy the Amorites from the mountain chased and destroyed the Israelites in Seir, "even unto Hormah." They had journeyed by way of the Sea of Suph, and compassed Mount Seir for "many days," being allowed to pass through the land of Edom on the highway in a peaceful capacity. Apparently they then removed to Hazeroth and came to the desert of Paran, where they were told a generation would die in that place, Paran being a volcano in the same region as Mount Sinai. The latter was in full activity in accord with the celestial phenomena of the period: 

And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people in the camp trembled---And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire.[32] 

Here Moses seized the occasion to expound his new laws to an awestruck congregation. They—or some of them—apparently dwelt in this desert country for most of the thirty-eight years before ( Page 107 ) they returned to the conquest of Canaan. The Hebrew word midbar, translated as "wilderness" or "desert," is somewhat misleading to the reader because it really denoted all uncultivated lands, mountainous or pasture grounds, and even the common lands used for pasture and timber near large towns, quite unlike our conception of a desert. From Paran and Sinai it seems these wanderers settled or stayed for some time at Ezion-geber.[33] In my estimation Paran and Sinai were situated on Dartmoor. 

Dartmoor possesses some of the most remarkable antiquities in the world. It has been in the past an intensely volcanic region. Heights like Yes Tor, Lynx Tor, Great Mis Tor, Cawsand Beacon, Brent Tor and others were at one time flaming volcanoes of granitic origin. Mr. A. W. Clayden, in his History of Devonshire Scenery, calling those parts in the neighbourhood of Tavistock and Princetown, the "Dartmoor Dome," describes it as formerly a great composite volcano or a number of smaller cones and craters. Brent Tor is a remnant of a carboniferous volcano which must have been originally of considerable size, while all this area consisted of extensive cones from which acid lavas were outpoured and threw out layers of volcanic ash. Into these parts came a race in the Bronze Age, the men who erected stone circles and avenues, set up stone idols in rock basins, including that of Hermes, and who worked both the copper and tin found in the vicinity. 

Within near range of Merivale Bridge, most inhabited of their many settlements, with immense avenues, circles and hut circles, copper was mined and tin was smelted in sites along the Walkham River. In the heart of all this towers Great Mis Tor with immense granite rocks, and evidently at one period regarded as of great sanctity. Can Great Mis Tor represent the vestiges of Mount Sinai of old? 

It is far from improbable that these workers in metal were Iberes brought originally from the north by Ab'Ram and known to folklore as Picts. According to tradition they were dark, of small stature, even pigmy in size against the surrounding population. They dwelt or worked usually in caves, such as at Pittenween, a seaport on the Forth, and also in beehive huts found in Caithness, in Cornwall, and on Dartmoor. These "Picts' houses" in the south-west are associated in legend with pixies, a type of malicious fairy, and with satyrs, in the opinion of Dr. Waddell because of their witch-ridden cult of the Matriarch or Wise Woman.[34] They have left other traces in Cornwall, where they also mined, of prehistoric whorls of pierced stones called locally "Pixies' grindstones" and "snake stones," which in turn are closely related to the widespread carvings of the serpent on prehistoric stone monuments of Ireland and Scotland, where the celestial serpent and its interlacing coils is freely sculptured on prehistoric monuments, many of which are depicted by Dr. Stuart in his Sculptured Stones of Scotland. 

From a more material aspect I think we may confidently claim that these Hebrews or Picts were engaged in the manufacture of arms, dwelt in communities away from the usual haunts of man in the region of ores. It may explain why Moses led the so-called Israelites, the "polluted peoples" of Manetho, to these regions at a time when the ancient world was become topsy-turvy. 

****************** 

In a previous chapter reference was made to a striking passage in the Book of Judith in which it is said that the King of Assyria, who answered to Sennacherib, sent his messengers "westward" to Gilead, Galilee, Gades, etc., after which, having had his messengers treated with derision, he marched against them. He had demanded heavy tribute. The same thing had happened with the people of Judah, who, during Shalmaneser's campaigns, had only boasted a nominal independence by paying tribute to that monarch. On the death of Shalmaneser it was not paid, and as a result, in the fourteenth year of oppression, his successor flung himself like a wolf in the fold upon the defenceless people.

An Assyrian army so-called, but drawn from many sources, speaking a foreign tongue, laid siege to Jerusalem. Too late did Hezekiah, a youthful prince, filled with dread at the events in Egypt, strip the Temple of its precious gold and send it hurriedly to Sennacherib. Instead of thereby placating that monarch, the sequel was the appearance of Rabshakeh, the voice of the Assyrian king, who stood outside the walls and arrogantly demanded the city's surrender, and who sought the opportunity to spread panic and fear into the hearts of the people. We should take careful stock of Rabshakeh, whose pose was that of a militant prophet after the manner of Moses. 

Speaking to them in the Hebrew tongue, this remarkable man did not mince his words before the people who listened to him from the city wall. Even judged by modern propaganda methods he was not ineffective. He uttered a tirade against King Hezekiah and sneered at Pharaoh as a "broken reed," an appropriate simile. Yet Pharaoh had been so great! Rabshakeh held up the God of Jerusalem to ridicule, whose temples throughout the land the King had closed so as to give the monopoly of doctrinal teaching to those of Solomon's Temple, an unpopular act much resented, thus affording him a chord on which he adroitly played. He advised the people not to believe that Hezekiah's God would deliver them and instanced many cities whose native gods were unable to save them from the Assyrians, and so why should their God be able to accomplish it? He, Rabshakeh, on the other hand, had come with his god, who had said, "Go up against this land and destroy it." With the menace of a great hostile force outside their gates little wonder if he lowered the public morale.[35] 

Three high officers of state who listened to this harangue were greatly alarmed at the blatant incitement to the people to revolt, and humbly begged Rabshakeh to "speak to thy servants in the Aramaic tongue (Chaldean) for we understand it, and not in that of the Jews," but the Assyrian emissary roughly refused to consent and continued to tempt the people in their native Hebrew. Mixing bribes with threats, he offered the common people a land of milk and honey if they surrendered, but if they refused they should be destroyed. Yet, behind the alluring offer was the certainty that they would be removed from their homes and country. 

He said: Make agreement with me and come out to me; and eat ye every man of his vine and every man of his fig-tree, and drink ye every one of the waters of his own cistern. Until I come to take you away to a land like your own, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards.[36] 

This dishonest bribe, which caused so much perturbation to the rulers of Jerusalem, recalls the statement of Manetho that Moses sent to the people of Jerusalem and invited their aid against Pharaoh, holding out the promise that he would restore them to their "ancient city and country Avaris," otherwise Hebron, though whether the offer was genuinely intended is another matter. We recall that he offered a similar bribe to the Hebrews in Avaris, promising them a land of milk and honey, who took him at his word, and later cried reproachfully in the wilderness, "Who shall give us flesh to eat?" recalling with tears the fish they ate in Mizraim, the cucumbers, melons, leeks, and garlic.[37] 

Rabshakeh, the spokesman and adviser of Sennacherib, offers the key to the political situation and the war of invasion during these thirteen years. His title—for Rabshakeh was such—is derived from two words, Rab and Shakeh, the first signifying a teacher or instructor in matters divine, essentially in those priest-ridden times, a law-giver, from which root we have the word rabbi, the Jewish priest and law-giver; and Shakeh, the Hebrew name of the Sakai, Sacae, or Saxons, who were generally regarded by classic writers as identical with the Goths and often included the Scythians. The name Saxon is said to have been derived from the battle-axe, or sax, as it was called in Scandinavia, their favourite weapon. They were represented always as a fierce, sheep-raising people, rather than maritime, and that may be said to apply to the Saxons and Goths of historical times.[38] 

Rabshakeh, a prophet, culture-leader, and divine teacher of the Sakai or Getae, a very militant priest who boasted of his own god of battles, and who adroitly mixed specious promises with ( Page 109 ) dire threats—whom does he resemble? Yes, Moses, definitely. To students of prehistory and of comparative religions he recalls immediately also Zalmoxis, the law-giver and spiritual leader of the Goths or Getae, whose name appears to have been derived from an ancient Persian word cal, meaning venerable, and Moxis, the latter very near Moses. Zalmoxis, again, was certainly related in one way or another to the far-famed Zoroaster, the prophet and leader of the Persians, who in turn became the world rulers by sheer force of "magic" arms, and although it may seem to be stretching the long arm of coincidence beyond the bounds of probability, both Zoroaster and Zalmoxis may represent the original of the god, or prophet, or war-leader, the Scandinavian Odin or Votan. In these circumstances, and in view of the importance of reaching an understanding of the events of the past now under revision, to realise the vast importance of the man Moses in the events of his own era, in which greedy kings were merely his puppets, and his bearing on the past of Britain, we should examine these factual matters. 

The story of Zalmoxis, culture hero, prophet, militant priest, one acclaimed as a god by his followers, is told albeit vaguely by Strabo, Herodotus, and Jordanis, the Goth. Strabo says that he was a slave in Egypt, who escaped to Samothrace, the centre of occult magic, in the land of the Getae, where he dwelt for long. He was chosen by this people as their priest (or chief priest), was highly reverenced, and subsequently esteemed by them as a god. He retired into inaccessible caverns, rarely communicating with anyone, and afterwards he returned to Egypt to teach his countrymen what he had learnt.[39] The little we gather from Strabo points to Moses, who, among other strange deeds, disappeared in the caves of Mount Sinai for forty days. 

Herodotus confirms and implements Strabo to some extent. He says he dwelt in Samothrace, became wealthy, obtained his freedom from slavery in Egypt, and returned thither. The Thracians (or Getae) were then, he adds, poor and ignorant, and Zalmoxis caused an underground apartment to be built where he feasted the principal men, to whom he taught (like Odin) the immortality of the soul, and declared that after death they would go to a place where they would live forever in the enjoyment of every conceivable happiness. He also constructed other subterranean places into which he suddenly withdrew, thus vanishing from the sight of the Thracians who mourned him as dead, but after long lapses of time he as suddenly reappeared once more among them. They accepted his doctrines, but the Greek historian was uncertain whether he borrowed them from Pythagoras or whether he were really a god.[40] 

From the foregoing it is difficult to avoid the conviction that this culture-hero, prophet, or what not, who escaped from slavery in Egypt, fled to Samothrace as Moses fled to some undefined country, became a man of immense influence, regarded as a god or a semi-divine person, and returned to Egypt, can answer to anyone other than Moses himself. When we consider in addition that Moses on his arrival in Egypt produced certain magic possessions, inferentially his serpent-rods which so impressed the Hebrew chiefs of his ability to overthrow the Egyptians, it is very evident that all the mysterious disappearances in underground caves and his initiation of the principal men for purposes we may, well conceive, should dispel any further doubt as to the identity of Zalmoxis. Well do we know that Samothrace from the very earliest times became the traditional centre or headquarters of the Cabiri gods. 

We may fairly assume two other factors in this account, one being that the weapons he forged, or presided over while this happened, were superior to anything possessed by the Egyptians and assured their owners their victory in warfare, the other that his doctrine of the immortality of the soul, added to the glorification of the after-life, an adaptation possibly of the Pythagorean teaching, was closely akin to the militant gospel of Odin. That equally mysterious culture-hero promised a delightful immortality to the northern warriors who died in battle, an everlasting enjoyment of earthly bliss, quaffing mead, enjoying celestial sirens, and fighting victorious battles, designed for the one purpose of inculcating into them a contempt of death and so add to their valour in warfare. It was a policy of militarism based on a subtle understanding of the Scandinavian character as is outstandingly clear in the ancient records of Odin and his times. 

All these long preparations were a means to an end. Jordanis, probably an Alan or Scythian by birth, who later became a monk, in his work De Rebus Geticis (as mentioned briefly earlier), says that Zalmoxis reigned over the Goths and that these people, "swarming like bees," left "Scandza in the north, in the Arctic Sea near Thule," were led to Scythia and became Scythians, calling it the "land of Oium," where Zalmoxis ruled over them. This lay where "in the midst of Scythia the mighty Tanais flows," generally believed to indicate the River Don, which rises west of Tula, south-west of Moscow, a city originally named Mazaca after Moxis or Moses. Another body went to the north of Sweden (as it now is called), opposite the Vistula River, and dwelt near another Tanais, near the Palus Maeotis, the latter answering to the Gulf of Bothnia (not the Sea of Azov), the Tanais being the Tana River and Fiord, which originally separated Europe from Asia, and provided a waterway from the Gulf of Bothnia into the Arctic Ocean. Here, says Jordanis, they waged desperate war with the husbands of the Amazons, and met the Egyptians in battle whom they pursued to the bounds of Egypt. These movements are quite comprehensible, from Norway, facing the Shetland Isles (Thule), one body led south-east towards the present Moscow, and another to the north of Sweden where they defeated the army of Sesostris or Amenophis, and who subsequently pursued the Egyptian enemy to Egypt. Zalmoxis was their leader. 

After this, we are told (but how long we know not), the victorious Goths or Scythians returned to their original home, Scandza, conquered all "Asia" and made it subject to their "dear friend Sornus, King of the Medes," but who Sornus was history does not relate, unless it were Cyrus. It is interesting to note that the terrain of these movements, if correctly traced, embraces Scandinavia, the Baltic, northern and the middle Russia, with Mazaca, a city of the Scythian Iberes, and named after Moses. It explains the movements of the ancient peoples in the north according to the reality of the circumstances in this readjustment of history and geography. 

What, may be asked, was the motive of Zalmoxis or Moses to be so anxious to evacuate nations in this manner? We are aware from the history of Scandinavia and its folklore that periodically when crops failed to mature or other troublous conditions arose, numbers of the population were forced to emigrate or starve. The great movements of the Goths, the Vandals, the Lombards, the Cimbri and others obtained their impetus mostly through natural causes and may have influenced Zalmoxis in that troubled period. There is the similar puzzling conduct of Moses, who is supposed to have led the Israelites out of Egypt into the wilderness for a forty years' sojourn. There are indications that the Hebrews who quitted Egypt were in large part taken much farther away than to the direction of Dartmoor. How can we explain the words of Jeremiah that the days would come when no longer would it be said that the children of Israel came out of Egypt, but that the "seed of the house of Israel" was brought up and led "out of the north country and from all countries whither I had driven them."[41] Does that not bear on what Jordanis says of Zalmoxis? 

In another passage, relating to those who were brought out of Egypt, there is an illuminating statement, to wit, that they were led "through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought and of the shadow of death, through a land no man passed through and where no man dwelt."[42] It might relate possibly to the Arabian Desert, although Bedouins have dwelt there from prehistoric times, but it may indicate somewhere in the region of bitter frosts and deserted lands. The ancient Slav Bible claims that the Hebrews were led into Siberia, whose name appears to have been adapted from Iberia, as a considerable part of what we term northern Russia was so named in later classic times. Why was this? Unless it had been occupied by the Hebrews or Iberes. In these problems the discerning may sight the hand of Moses or Zalmoxis. 

When Shalmaneser transferred the defeated and enslaved people of Samaria and other places to Media, we find a queer account of how certain foreigners were brought in to settle in their former homes, and how he assigned them "a priest of the country to teach them the manner of the god of the land."[43] This is a significant sentence because it could not have been expected that the Assyrian king, a triumphant invader, would ascribe any particular virtue to the local divinities who had so signally failed to protect their votaries from the Assyrians, as Rabshakeh caustically reminded the people of Jerusalem. Was there more behind it? 

There was. The priest in question did not inculcate the virtues of the local divinity at all, but proceeded to instil into them the doctrines laid down by Moses. His instruction was in the true Mosaic vein, as, for example, "with whom the Lord had made a covenant and charged them, saying, 'Ye shall not fear other gods nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them---but the Lord your God shall ye fear.'[44] The idolaters thus introduced to the priest's new deity, however, refused to profit by it. We are told that they continued to serve their "graven images." 

I suggest that the "priest of the country" was no other than Moses or Zalmoxis, who returned later with Sennacherib as Rabshakeh.

II. 

"THIS ISLE" OF ISAIAH 

The Assyrians were, there is reason to believe for reasons to be stated, the true ancestors of the Saxons, which latter people invaded the island of Britain in a long prehistoric time. At a later period they were known as Belgae, the people of the god Bel (Baal) from whom the Belgians derive their name. When Caesar invaded Britain the Belgac occupied a considerable part of southern England at least, but long before they were masters of the lower Rhine, and it would appear of the territories as far east as the mouth of the Elbe. In the time of Charlemagne, the Belgae lands, or part of them, were called Saxonia, and embraced the Low Countries, and the Belgae, according to Caesar, were constantly at war with the Germans. 

The Saxons were reputed to be grasping, unscrupulous, and cruel, who made war on their neighbours heedless of treaties or pacts, pouncing on them suddenly without warning. In such manner did the Assyrians attack the kingdom of Israel and then Judah, having Egypt in the west as their main objective. The Assyrian siege of Samaria lasted three years, and was outstanding by reason of the atrocious cruelty shown, accompanied by terrible famine. Whiston, the translator of Josephus, contends that this siege is referred to in both Leviticus and Deuteronomy, which is not surprising for the doctrinal Books of Moses were compiled, as the internal evidence shows, during the Babylonian captivity. In Leviticus, allusion is made to the straits to which the people were reduced, so that they were compelled to practise cannibalism.[45] In Deuteronomy, they are told that a nation shall be brought against them from afar, a nation whose tongue they understand not, a nation of fierce countenance which shall besiege them and compel them to eat the flesh of their children from hunger, and that they shall be scattered from one end of the earth to the other.[46] These were, of course, ex post facto "prophecies"—founded on past events. 

Which was the nation whose language the Hebrews could not understand? Jeremiah explains: 

Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from afar, O house of Israel, saith the Lord; it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandeth what they say. Thus saith the Lord: Behold, a people cometh from the north country, and a great nation shall be raised from the sides of the earth. They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea.[47] 

From the north country! From the "sides," properly "ends," of the earth. There dwelt the Getae or Goths, whose name is yet preserved in the name of Gothenburg, and the island of Gotland, of great antiquity, with the Scythians beyond them. Can we discriminate between the ancient Goths and Saxons? Strabo described the Sakai as "a fierce and savage nation."[48] We know that they differed very considerably from the Celtic people in religion and customs. In their dress they wore breeches instead of the short skirts or kilts worn by the Celts, including the Egyptians and Greeks, as well as the Iberes or Hebrews. 

In the foregoing pages we have seen how Moses, as Rabshakeh, affected the Sakai, and if we translate the name for present purposes as meaning Assyrians, it may be understood that his intention or agreement with the Assyrian kings was to expel, enslave overseas, or destroy the ancient Celtic inhabitants of the envied lands and place the Assyrians or Saxons in their place. There is a very significant passage in Genesis, which says that Israel is to be called in Isaac's name. The actual text is, "And God said unto Ab'Ram, for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.'[49] Again, "For they are not all Israel which are of Israel: neither because they are of the seed of Ab'Ram---but in Isaac shall thy seed be called."[50] Also, there are the words, "Of whom it was said, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called."[51] These are very strange words when they are considered. There was the tribe of Issachar, to be sure, but in the Israelite genealogy he was only the ninth son of Jacob by Leah. These apportionments of the claims of Israel fail to accord with the text when God appeared to Jacob and said, "Thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name---and the land I gave Ab'Ram and Isaac, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed after thee."[52] 

The conclusion I must reach is that the supposed sons of Isaak were to be regarded as the legitimate inheritors of Israel and all that name betokened. It dispossessed the Hebrews, the sons of Jacob, from the claims hitherto made in his name for his descendants, and thus the conclusion inevitably is that the sons of Isaac—whoever they were—usurped the inheritance of the seed of Ab'Ram; in other words, that the lands and properties of Canaan which had for so many centuries been regarded by the Hebrews as their inalienable right were snatched from them for what purpose?—to accord them to the Saxons. 

This is a very big question which has not received the attention it demands. 

The Pentateuch, as every instructed student of Old Testament writings is well aware, is pieced together from various sources and for various motives. As far back as the second century A.D. the Clementine Homilies disputed the authenticity of the Mosaic writings. It is mainly agreed that they were compiled in Babylon under the auspices of Ezra, the "ready scribe of Moses," the intention being to establish the religion of Jehovah on a strong basis while giving absolute power into the hands of the rabbis. Ezra used Israel's history as a vehicle to advance his policy, but how far it was reliable, or how far manipulated to serve another purpose than history, is another matter. The Talmud states that Ezra re-wrote the Old Testament because the original was lost in the destruction of Jerusalem's Temple. The motive was to establish the monotheism of the Mosaic doctrine and especially to claim that it had been the doctrine of the Hebrews throughout their history long before such was the case. It was also directed to impose this cult upon the very heterogeneous collection of those who returned to Jerusalem after the Captivity in Babylon, people whose origins were of a very mixed order. 

When we examine the accounts of the early patriarchs in their marital adventures—if one may use that term without being disrespectful—doubt arises whether they were more than fable. Isaac is especially a case in point. His life, as related, contains little other than an epitome of Ab'Ram's before him. He disputed with Abimelech, King of Gerar, as did Ab'ram, also he passed off his wife Rebecca to that prince as his sister, as did Ab'Ram his wife Sarah, and Abimelech had taken her as a concubine in the same way that Sarah was so treated by the Pharaoh, the excuse in both cases, namely that they were afraid otherwise they might be put to death, being similar. Isaac's herdsmen quarrelled about the wells in the same way and place as did Ab'Ram's. Both were said to have founded Beersheba. The same sort of adventures that Jacob experienced when he went to Padan-Aram in search of a wife were also attributed to Isaac. In short, it is open to the contention that Isaac was a later manufactured character, an interloper in the original Israelite genealogy, introduced by the scribes of Babylon, who invented the son of Ab'Ram and Sarah in their very old age, making him an eponymous hero solely in order to justify the claim of the Sakai or Saxons, made by Moses and his followers, to give support to the pretence that they were descendants of this very dubious Isaac. 

It will be understood, I trust, that it is not my purpose to maintain the rights of the Hebrews to the land of Canaan any more than to those of the ensuing Saxons. Neither had a shadow of any such right except that of the sword. Nor do I seek to establish any academic point, but rather as an historical fact I believe it is true to say that the Saxon race, or some of the Saxon peoples, did, actually establish themselves in those lands termed Canaanite which had originally been in the occupation of the Hebrew people, but to recognise this in its entirety we must cast aside the maps of the alleged ancient Palestine and reconstruct the territories of the Saxons in Britain, and when I say Britain I mean for the main part in the south of the Thames. It was these ancient, lands which experienced the result of that particular act of policy inspired in the first place by Moses, in which the Egyptians, or Philistines, and Hebrews or Iberes were expelled or taken away to distant lands, notably to Russia, and the Saxons invaded their lands of which the hill-top villages offer evidence difficult to refute. It is possible to redistribute the various regions seized and occupied by the invaders, whose descendants dwell here to the present day. 

Moses, as we see him in his own role, or as Rabshakeh, or as Zalmoxis, stands out vividly as a culture leader who took the Goths or Sakai to his bosom, and who, for their part, accepted his doctrine in return for services rendered. It explains much otherwise incomprehensible and confusing, for this involved war with its tremendous repercussions took place in the north of Europe with Britain the goal of the Continental invaders. Britain, in fact, is the key which unlocks the door to a true and intelligent understanding of the Old Testament. 

In the name of Assyrians and others, the Goths and Saxons were led into the true Palestine, dubbed "Israelites," and succeeded in establishing themselves over a great part, the Celts or Egyptians for their part having to retreat northwards, when it would seem they constructed that enormous series of defences termed the Wansdyke, stretching from beyond Savernake Forest to the mouth of the Avon, thus shielding Rabbath-Ammon or Bath from the enemy. Those who erected this vast barrier, with various outlying forts, must have been fighting the enemy to the death. Wansdyke signifies the dyke or wall of Wodin, otherwise Odin, and Odin and Zalmoxis were very near to one another. Historians, including Kemble, Lappenburg, and Palgrave, have all contended that Saxons under various names were in Britain from a very early period. 

Whatever motive may be ascribed to Moses (or Rabshakeh), there was definitely a policy to expel the existing population and bestow the fairest, lands for sheep-raising and agriculture on the Saxons. He may have been inspired by genuine hatred of the debased polytheism as practised by both Egyptians and Phoenicians; he may have been influenced by admiration for the sturdy characteristics of the Gothic and Saxon peoples who accepted him as their leader; or, again, it may have been due to overweening ambition to dominate the civilised world which has shown itself as the beckoning finger of doom to tyrant after tyrant throughout the ages, and none more so than those living in the present age. But one result of his activities still lives as an unquenchable fire —I refer to the age-inherited and implacable hatred felt for the Saxon race by the Welsh and Irish Celts, a hatred inexplicable and unreasonable, but a never-ending racial antagonism which time cannot assuage. It is a psychological reaction which ages cannot obliterate, for it is instinctive. 

I cannot terminate this investigation into the activities of Moses in the age under review without turning to another apparent phase of that extraordinary man's career. The question is whether he was also the same as Zoroaster, who converted the Median and Persian kings to his monotheistic doctrines at an early period and also taught them the arts of Black Magic. 

Zoroaster, or Zerdusht, was never claimed as an Oriental, but he arrived in Persia and preached that "Consuming Fire" was the only proper emblem of the Deity.[53] Regarded at first as an impostor he was imprisoned by Gushtasp, King of Persia, but owing to the efforts of Isfundear, the king's son, who became a convert to his doctrine, he was released and finally Gushtasp accepted with enthusiasm the prophet and his teaching. Like Zalmoxis, to apply his "Consuming Fire," Zoroaster—a word meaning "bright azure star," i.e. lightning—built a subterranean temple where the king was initiated into certain divine secrets in a "House of Fire," after which "temples of Fire" were erected both by Gushtasp and Isfundear, by which means, it was said, and with the aid of Zoroaster, the Persians were enabled to conquer the countries of the Orient, including India, and so became by such means the founder of the greatest of Oriental Empires.[54] 

In this sinister phenomenon of the ancient world appears to lie the explanation of how there came to pass the appalling spectacle in which first Assyria, and then the Median Empire, were able to grind all peaceable nations underfoot by the use of armaments none could withstand, whereby powerful cities like Nineveh and Babylon fell like ninepins later, before the devouring force of Cyrus, whose addiction to the cult of Jehovah, otherwise Iacchus or Bacchus-Dionysus, is indicated in the Book of Daniel and in Bel and the Dragon. Strange is it that Pliny, in discussing Magic, which he admitted sprang from chemistry, should have remarked that the Druids might well have taught the Persians! Prophet or no prophet, there is little doubt but that Zoroaster was a scientist or had the means to impose a new type of force upon the suffering world by certain knowledge only divulged to a few. For all that many of his own era regarded him with deep suspicion. The Persian poet Ferdewsi says that the Devil spoke to him out of a flame, and in the Shah-Namah relates how Asjasp, King of Tartary, told his chiefs that "glory, wisdom, and true religion had fled from Persia because a sorcerer, styling himself a prophet," had corrupted the princes of that country. Others declared him to be an impostor and a false prophet, asserting that "the devil himself, Ahriman, had taught him a new and blasphemous doctrine." The inference is obvious.[55] 

Zoroaster became the prophet and law-giver to the Persians in the same way as Moses to the children of Israel or Zalmoxis to the Getae or Saxons, and as Odin became to the "Asar" or those he led into the Baltic and Scandinavian lands. He received, it was said, the "Book of the Law," from Ormuzd, the Persian deity, as Moses received the like in the two tables of stone he brought down from Mount Sinai. Again, like Moses, he was said to have been a "dangerous child," also the "divine Messenger," who performed miracles of a like nature such as striking the rock with his staff when water gushed forth.[56] Like Moses, Zalmoxis, and Odin, he disappeared for considerable periods, and these curious appearances and disappearances suggest that his manifold activities were such that (since even a magician cannot be in two places at once), he was busily engaged in first one place and then another in the furtherance of his principal object. Dion Chrysostom says that he withdrew from men and dwelt in solitude upon a mountain consumed by fire, but that he escaped injury and addressed the multitude, words which entirely conform with what the Bible says of Moses. 

When did Zoroaster live? It is a vexed question. Writers in the Encyclopaedia Britannica place it at some vague prehistoric date, Pliny for one surmising that he lived five hundred years before Plato, others more succinctly that it was before the split in the Aryans, which is exactly the age when Moses lived. It is admitted that he bore many resemblances to Moses, but some proclaimed him the false prophet Baal. 

Without any wish to complicate this question we ought not to ignore that strange and significant myth which revolves round the god Dionysus and the prophet Silenus, for it bears strange indications of having preserved the folk-memory of an invasion of the west by a Zoroaster-led army from the east, in which the oft erstwhile styled "false prophet" Silenus became the all-conquering by reason of his deity Dionysus, the "Serpent god," proclaimed by his followers as "Devouring Fire" or "Consuming Fire." That the myth of Silenus is not a mere fantasy is perhaps indicated by the legend which relates that he taught Midas, the gold-grasping King of Phrygia, that in the west beyond the ocean lived the Meropes among whom gold was more common than iron. 

The origin of Dionysus is somewhat obscure, the earliest version being that, as Zagreus, a "horned child," he was the son of Saturn by Persephone, goddess of Hades, and was born in Crete, destined to supreme dominion if he reached maturity. He was not then so destined, for the Titans, incited by the jealous Hera, smeared their faces with plaster while the youthful Zagreus was seated on the throne, guarded by Apollo and the Curetes, slew him while he contemplated his face in a mirror, then cut up his body and boiled it. Athene carried his heart to Zeus who struck down the Titans into Tartarus. A possible interpretation is that before Zagreus reached maturity, some deed of the Titans was the cause whereby Zeus destroyed them.[57] 

Another version is that Dionysus was born at Cadmeian Thebes, the son of Zeus and Semele, daughter of Cadmus. This birth was also premature because Zeus materialised before Semele as lightning, which so terrified her that she died, and hence the god's epithet, "Ignigena," Born of Fire. Zeus, however, sewed the prematurely-born deity in his thigh until the time became ripe for his further development. Entrusted to the care of Hermes, he was once again given birth, or reborn, at Samothrace, the great centre of his secret worship, home of the Cabiri, the city where Zalmoxis was so industrious in underground caves. A further variation is that he was developed in a cave on Mount Nysa, of which Homer sings:-

There is a certain Nysa, mountain high, 

With forests thick, in Phoenice afar, 

Close to Egyptus' stream.[58] 

These accounts of the birth and parentage of Dionysus afford a mythological explanation that, although the god was evolved in Crete and also in Cadmeian Thebes—as previously explained, Ab'Ram brought the knowledge of explosives from Ur of the Chaldees—it was later at Samothrace, the city of Hermes, may we not say through the activities of Zalmoxis, that he burst forth as the god of firearms or "serpents" on the prodigious scale of subsequent events? If we read into this the deft hand of the militant prophet it may assist to comprehend the subsequent allusions to the god's future "madness," his wanderings through many countries bent on teaching mankind the "blessings" of the cultivation of the "grape," an innocent-sounding enough device, but as sinister nevertheless as Pandora's "Box." 

Thus he reputedly travelled from Thrace to Phrygia—where, be it noted, lay the famous classic city of Troy—to Lydia and Assyria, preaching the gospel of the "grape," until eventually he reached the Orient and tried his experiments on India, where "fire temples" were traditionally instituted and the wealth of her cities looted. Obviously behind the "god" was concealed a man, and who was he but Silenus? The Dionysiac worship was most frenzied and fanatical in Phrygia and Lydia, where the orgies attained (says the historian Grote) to dissolute and savage heights. 

Is it necessary to declaim that the East never absorbed the virtues of the vine and the grape? Triumphant in establishing the dominion of the Dionysiac worship, eventually Silenus and Dionysus set forth on their portentous march to the west, accompanied by a great army. Diodorus says that this army consisted of 120,000 footmen, 12,000 horse and 400 ships, which compares numerically with the story in the Book of Judith, of the army of Nabuchodonosor or Sennacherib, of 120,000 foot, 12,000 horse, "swelled by a great number also of sundry countries like locusts,"[59] forces scarcely consistent with the genial idea of Bacchanalian revels! Jeremiah strips this sham pretence asunder in a grim passage: 

Take the wine cup of this Fury at my hand and cause all the nations to drink it. And they shall drink it and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them.[60] 

Jeremiah, in this ex post facto prophecy, in which always so much is wrapped up having a totally different reference to that supposed, continues by naming all the countries to suffer, including Egypt, the Philistines, Edom, Moab, Dedan, and the Isles beyond the sea. 

Thus we must perceive that the march of Dionysus with Silenus was not quite the jovial festival the fable so deceptively portrays. Regarded apart from Silenus, the god Dionysus was in fact a colourless deity. Silenus mystically reared and fathered him and taught him the great secrets of nature. The supposedly rollicking god of the vine was depicted by poets and sculptors as surrounded by his camp followers, most prominent being his drunken and inseparable companion Silenus, the latter usually shown as being held on his ass by his own Sileni, unable to sit upright, waving a goblet, his head encircled by vine-leaves or ivy-leaves, whilst exotic beasts of prey, tigers, panthers, serpents and the like are prominent in the gathering. 

Silenus was supposed to possess the gift of prophecy when in his cups, and as for his mischievous Sileni or Satyrs, half-men, half-goats, they enjoyed nothing better than to pursue the fleeing Mænads or Nymphs in forest glades. Behind this false façade they were in reality murderous villains who struck terror in the hearts of men and whose taste in warfare was demonstrated by their peculiar armed dance, the sikinnis, very reminiscent of the berserk rage or madness attributed to Odin's Asar-men, who were supposed to bite their shields in furious ecstasy. These were the men who used the "serpent-rods" of improved design and range, and the play on the word "grape" may have been related to their type of ammunition. Such was the allegorical type of those invaders who marched to northern Europe to establish their "New Order" for the alleged benefit of mankind and found their way to both sides of the Baltic, then crossing the "river"—recall the 400 ships of Diodorus—fell upon nations unprepared for war against these well-armed hordes. The "vine," "grape" and "wine" were synonyms for munitions and bloodshed. 

Dionysus was usually represented by the Greeks far later as a handsome but effeminate youth, his head adorned with vine, or ivy leaves, his expression reflective or dreamy, giving a faint impression of inebriation as shown in the famous statue of Praxiteles. Sometimes he was styled Maemonemos, the Drunken God. The Vatican statue of supposedly King Sardanapalus is believed by some to have represented Dionysus. It shows a bearded, effeminate youth attired in Royal Persian robes. But there is reason to believe that the mystic secret of Dionysiac power was more truly revealed in certain stone monuments discovered in the ruined cities of Iraq and Iran of gigantic "cherubim" standing on either side of a so-called "Sacred Tree," from which emanations proceed in the guise of fluorescent designs, and really demonstrate in symbolic form the Sileni as manifesting "consuming fire," the "Tree" being a gun or mortar. All these winged beings or acolytes, symbolic of their calling, are pronouncedly Semitic in type. There exists also a crude bas-relief on a stone near Ibreez, in the Taunus Mountains, which depicts a smirking Semitic Dionysus, decorated with grapes and carrying sheaves of corn,being worshipped by a Semitic high-priest wearing a mitre, probably intended for Silenus. 

These attributes of Dionysus and his progress to sow the knowledge of the "vine" support the historical and Bible evidence that the cult of munitions was brought in a high state of development in that era by Moses or Zalmoxis, or Zoroaster or Silenus, perfected in Persia or Russia, and that thereby the Empire of the Celts was cynically overthrown in that critical epoch. If it be carried to its logical conclusion we should believe that it arrived in the north with Odin, otherwise Silenus or Moses, a faith which held immense sway for many centuries and for long was a successful rival of Christianity. It became the Black Art, and the origin of witchcraft. Concealed under mystery and disguise the evolution of Dionysus was in effect a military revolution in the use of munitions of war, much as the discovery of the atom bomb may prove in our own era. Is history repeating itself? I pray not. 

Silenus was represented as a pot-bellied, bearded, jovial old sot, with a bald head and a snub nose, like many a carousing monk of the Middle Ages. It was part of the role, no doubt, although Moses or Zoroaster might have formed the original of the caricature. Diodorus has preserved a curious description supposedly of Moses, found far later in Jerusalem: 

Antiochus Epiphanes, after he had conquered the Jews, entered into their Holy of Holies into which only priests were admitted. He found there a stone image of a bearded man who sat on an ass and held a book in his hand. He took this for Moses, who had founded Jerusalem, organised the people, given them laws, and had introduced the disgraceful customs of misanthropy.[61] 

A doubtless more true impression of Silenus than as a dotard is a relief in the British Museum, as also found in the Vatican and the Louvre, which represents the Reception of Dionysus by Icarius the Attican. In this he appears as a tall, aged, dignified, long-bearded man attired in a long robe with a fillet binding his vine-leaf locks, while he is propped up behind by a satyr. It is intended to be Silenus, not the Serpent God. 

A few words about Odin or Votan are required to complete the examination. He conducted his Asar-men from the east, as did Silenus, Moses, and Zalmoxis, founded a new religion in the north, and while esteemed as a mortal man became deified at his death as god of war. He built temples and taught sacrifices, magic and transmigration of souls being included in his rites. He practised magic in underground temples, and Snorre Sturleson, the ancient Scandinavian historian, says he used "Magic" in battle. The serpent was sacred to him and among his many epithets was "the Serpent," as well as the "Long-Bearded." Saxo Grammaticus discourses on his many voyages and he was reputed to undertake long journeys.[62] The Prose Edda describes him as King of Troy, and how he appointed rulers who met at the Idavöll (Mount Ida of Troy) in the centre of the "divine city," where also they "transmuted metals."[63] Mexican legends have much to say of Votan, who also taught a new religion, and constructed underground chambers, but there seems to have been more than one Votan and it is not unlikely that the cult of Odin was carried across the Atlantic by the early Northmen. 

The age of Odin is obscure and lost in the mists of time like that of Zoroaster and Zalmoxis. It varies from 70 B.C. to an indefinite prehistoric period. Carlyle, that sage philosopher, sized up the conundrum in these words: 

Of Odin there exists no history; no document of it; no guess about it worth repeating---Odin, says Saxo Grammaticus, came into Europe about the year 70 before Christ. Of all which, as grounded on mere uncertainties, found to be untenable now, I need say nothing. Far, very far, beyond the year 70! Odin's date, adventures, whole terrestrial history, figure and environment are sunk from us forever into unknown thousands of years.[64] 

Nevertheless the reader may deduce whether or no the evidence brought forward here relates to that one remarkable character Moses or no. His teachings, like the Saxons, remain with us to this day. That he was Rabshakeh is, I believe, without serious question, especially in view of the revision of chronology which confirms this. Meanwhile, having endeavoured to elucidate the circumstances, we return to the actual period under examination, the fourteenth year of the war of oppression, at the time when Jerusalem was strictly besieged, certain defences had fallen, and the situation was most desperate. 

* * * * 

It was about this time that Isaiah, pent up in Jerusalem, wrote these despondent, if not despairing words: 

So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Mizraimites prisoners, and the Cushites captive, young and old, naked and barefoot, even to their buttocks uncovered to the shame of Mizraim. And the inhabitant of THIS ISLE shall say in that day, "Behold, such is our expectation whether we fly for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria; and how shall we escape?"[65] 

The passage is clumsily worded, but it appears to ask how it was possible for the other inhabitants of "this Isle" to elude similar treatment as that being suffered by the Egyptians and Cushites (Gadites of Tarshish), who were being led away into slavery stark naked. To whom could Jerusalem look for aid? How could she escape from the logical conclusion that a like fate awaited her inhabitants? 

Only a miracle, in fact, could save them from their plight. Astonishing as it may seem, the miracle did happen at the eleventh hour and they were saved! And note, according to the text, that the grim drama took place in "this Isle"—this Britain!

next-III. THE "WONDER" IN THE LAND

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