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four heads, and watered the blissful garden. It may further be remarked, that the covenant of marriage, more especially, was entered into under the hallowed tree, which stood "in the "midst" of the grove, overshadowing the highplaces of heathen superstition; thus in Homer, Hector, when debating with himself, whether he should meet Achilles, is made to say,

Ου

μεν πως νυν εστιν αποΔΡΥΟΣ, ουδ' απο ΠΕΤΡΗΣ Τω οαριζέμεναι, ατε παρθενος ηιθεοςτε

Παρθενος ήιθεος τ' οαρίζετον αλληλοισιν.

Which may be paraphrased thus:-"This meet"ing with Achilles is a very different one from "that of a young man and woman, when they "converse together under the sacred oak, or on "the high-place ;"—and this custom of entering into their marriage vows under these circumstances, and in this manner, was undoubtedly derived from the original institution of that sacred state in paradise, of which so many traditions had reached them. Beershebah, we find, afterwards, was the scene of another covenant between Isaact and the King of Gerah, perhaps the son of the former Abimelech. And long after this, the patriarch Jacob, + Gen. xxvi. 33.

* Iliad xxii. 127.

before he ventured to take his journey down "Beershebah,

into Egypt, came to this very

"and offered sacrifices to the God of his father "Isaac," seeking an oracular answer for the direction of his future conduct, which he was graciously permitted to receive "in visions of the night."* All these circumstances are important, for we shall perceive in the course of the present investigation, that they were invariably attendant upon the consultation of many heathen oracles, whose origin may be traced up to traditions of paradise.

'It may be worth while to inquire why the oak was so often fixed upon as the sacred tree either in groves, or gardens, or high-places, both by believers and others. In the Hebrew the name of this tree is generally, with some slight variations, ns, which appears to have been given it from" its remarkably interposing "and protecting both men and animals from "storms and tempests." The Septuagint translators have once rendered it descriptively by Aevope ovakiačovros, "the overshadowing tree;" and it is remarkable, that from a root very nearly the same in the sacred language, is derived the word for "the denouncing of a curse," as also,

Gen. xlvi. 2.

the name of the ever-blessed Trinity, "the Covenantors.". Some traditions of all this were evidently extant in Canaan before the arrival of the Father of the Faithful in that country. For Abram* passed through the land, unto the place of Sichem, by tηy APYN тny výnλnv "unto the lofty oak," or the "high-place of the "oak," as it might be rendered. This extraordinary oak was doubtless consecrated, and stood in the midst of one of the sacred gardens or paradisi of Canaan, for "the Canaanite was "then in the land." We hear of it again in one of the following chapters of Genesis, where we are told that, after the treacherous overthrow of Hamor's city and family by Levi and Simeon, Jacob their father took the strange gods, which had begun to infect his own family, "and hid them under the oak by Shechem."t In the prophetic blessing pronounced upon his children just before his death, he seems to have noticed that horrid transaction of his two sons, and to have, alluded particularly to one circumstance attending it, declaring that "in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will "they digged down a wall," as our

* Gen. xii. 6.

+ Gen. xxxv. 4.

Sur or Sar, which signifies not only "a wall," but generally a rock or promontory. This radical, like Tar, Tur, and Tarit, is

A

version renders the passage, but the Septuagint, more correctly, evevρokownσav TAYPON. This Tauron was one of the sacred towers, sometimes called Tursis, whose origin must be sought for in paradisaic traditions. In after ages, when Shechem had been rebuilt, and their idolatry restored, we read that the men of Shechem made Abimelech, the spurious son of Gideon, king over them, and entered, of course, into a covenant with him concerning the kingdom,*

"under the oak in Shechem." Our translators have rendered it"a pillar," which was indeed sometimes made use of as a substitute for the tree in the centre of these sacred enclosures; but the word in the Hebrew is the same as is elsewhere translated "an oak," and the

often compounded with On; and hence the title Sar-On was conferred upon any high-place, where there was a grove of ancient oaks, as being sacred to the Deity so called. Sometimes the particle vs As, was added, denoting fire. Est et regio Saronas, sive Spuuos. Reland. Palest. p. 188. These rocks and high-places were not only called Saronides, from the consecrated groves of oaks which grew upon them; but what is yet more remarkable, the Druids were so styled, by whom these particular trees were held so sacred. Bryant's Anal. vol. i. pp. 90-94.

* Judges ix. 6. Perhaps this was the same idolatrous grove which still remained, even in the days of Elisha. 2 Kings xiii. 6.9 51.4

προς

Septuagint have also rightly expressed it πpos Thy Baλarw-Connected with this consecrated tree, we hear of the temple or tower of the god BaalBerith. This tower was of the same nature as the Tauron, overthrown by the sons of Israel, and alluded to by their father in his prophecy. It was sacred to Baal-Berith. Now Baal here certainly means the hallowed fire, whose emblem was a compound idol, representing the form of a bull in union with a man. Thus we recognize the vestiges of that cherubic guard, with the fiery sword, which protected the garden of Eden; and, from the figure of the bull, the appellation of Tauron, from Taupos Tauros, might in part have risen; or rather more probably the name of the animal itself was derived from its consecration in the fire tower, called Taupov Tauron, from the Chaldee n Tur, or Taur, and the radical On, as has been before observed. · The latter title of the Shechemitish deity was Berith, an appellation literally signifying a purifier, or a purification sacrifice," and impli edly denoting, “a covenant," with the sacrificial rite usual on such an occasion, which was both among believers and heathens, either cutting the victim in twain, or in pieces; thereby demonstrating that, at these solemn leagues, they had a view to that one great Sacrifice expected to

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