be offered up for the sins of men, and, that altogether it was an emblematical expression of the parties staking their hopes of purification by that great Sacrifice, on their performing their respective conditions of the covenant, on which the n Berith was offered. The Shechemites, as well as other heathens, probably must have derived their notions of all this, from traditions of that blessed covenant of grace first offered to mankind in paradise, when the great Berith, or Purifier, was promised, as the seed of the woman who was to bruise the serpent's head; and therefore it was, that here they connected the fire-tower Tavpov, of the god Baal-Berith, with the traditionary traces yet extant among them of the garden of Eden. Before we leave Shechem, one may remark the exquisite propriety of Jotham in his parable delivered on Mount Gerizim ;* he, as well as those who heard him, had before their eyes a view of the traditionary representation of paradise in the sacred grove of Shechem, with one tree in the midst, as it were, like the king of the garden. All, therefore, must have powerfully understood the force of his address, and the correctness of so beautiful an allegory.

* Judges ix. 7-15.

D

Beside other places in the land of Canaan consecrated to the celebration of paradisaic memorials, there were some which had the appellation of Cades, or Kadesh, which in fact is only Hades, written or pronounced with, a guttural, after the oriental manner. They were also frequent in many other parts of the world, as will be shewn hereafter. They will always be found to exhibit more or less, of the traces of those traditions, from which their original is to be looked for. Some sacred symbol or symbols, consisting of one or more peculiar tree or trees, or one or two remarkable fountains, will be generally discovered in the centre; or perhaps all these, and yet more singular vestiges of Eden, will be seen connected together, while the garden or grove itself is considered often as the future state of existence for the soul of man, into which he enters upon his dissolution, by means of sacrifice and lustration. Indeed, the whole Hades, or invisible world of the ancients, appears made up of scenical representations of those ideas which tradition afforded them of the happy and blissful garden, from which the first pair of mankind were expelled for their transgression, after it had been the scene of their shameful fall, through the wiles of the serpent; and after it had witnessed the delivery of the

promise that "the seed of the woman should "bruise the serpent's head." This will appear more especially, when we come to consider the view of Hades, which the poets and philosophers have given us, and particularly Homer, Virgil, and Plato. For the present, it may be sufficient to remark, that here, as well as elsewhere, the reader will perceive one tree in the midst, with some vestiges of a river or lake parting into four heads, and not a few traces of the Cherubim who guarded Eden, among which may be mentioned, as an example, the well known three-headed dog Cerberus, who kept the door of death and hell, and who was to be appeased alone by the rites and offerings hereafter to be considered.

i

There seems to have been more than one Cades, even in Palestine.

One is mentioned

* Gen. xiv. 7. Numbers xx. 1, 14, 16. Psalm xxix. 8. Two of these, at all events, were different places, and, like many others, were probably the sacred enclosures before alluded to, containing many vestiges of paradisaic tradition. The Targum of Onkelos paraphrases the title Kades, in Genesis and Numbers, and the Targum of Ben Uzziel in the Psalms, by the word op Rekem, which signifies “bro"cade or embroidery, variegated with a number of figures.” Possibly this might allude to the figures of compounded and winged animals, (traces of the Cherubim,) with which the idolaters frequently surrounded their consecrated gardens or

in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, and rendered by the Septuagint, “την πηγην τῆς κρίσεως αυτη "EOT KAAHE the fountain of judgment, this is "Kades." The fountain Styx in the Hades or infernal regions (as they were often considered) of the poets, was also looked upon as "the "fountain of judgment;" but more of the actual nature of the Cades of Canaan will be discovered in the history of another sacred enclosure of the same kind and name, which has been preserved by Philostratus.* It was doubtless derived from that which Chedorlaomor destroyed, or at least one very similar to it, being founded in the most early ages subsequent to the deluge, and by a Phoenician colony. The place I allude to now is Gades, as the Romans expressed it; or Dsp Kades, as the Orientals and Phoenicians wrote it; although the latter sometimes termed it Gadir, which was likewise the name which the Greeks gave it; or Cadiz, manifestly Cades, as it is at present called. There was here in ancient times a most delight

paradisi:-for sometimes, I apprehend, a pavilion was made to supply the place of the Tursis or fire-tower-vid. Versio. Tremell. et Francis. Jun. et Annot. ad loc. Gen xiv. 7. The breast-plate of Cybele was ornamented with these winged figures, called TUTO emblems." Phorn. de Nat. Deo. p. 9. *Philost. de Vit. Apol. lib. v. cap. 4. P. 190.

ful garden consecrated by solemn rites and ceremonies to idolatrous worship. In the midst of it were two very remarkable trees, according to Philostratus, though Pausanias* only mentions one, the like to which were no where else to be found. They grew out of the tomb of Geryon, a tricorporate monster, which Hercules was there said to have overcome and slain. These trees were of a mixed nature, and it was affirmed of them that they distilled drops of blood, in the same manner as the poplars on the banks of Eridanus† (or Ur-Adonis, the river of Eden or Adonis) distilled gold and amber. Hard by this sacred enclosure was a lake, with an island in its centre, and a temple on it of precisely the same dimensions, so that it appeared to float; in which the same victorious Hercules, called Ewrnp, or the Saviour, was worshipped. The long series of his labours was also here represented; but it is worthy of

*Pausanias in Atticis, cap. 35. He calls it Δενδρον TаρExεσlaι diapopes μoppas. Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. iv. cap. 36. + Philost. ut sup. cap. 5.

He was so called in common with other deities, as can

be proved from several ancient medals; vide Spanhem. Diss. L 7, de P. and V. numism. p. 417. Bacchus, Apollo, Esculapius, and others were all termed Σwrnp. Philost. pp. 340 and 342. Annot. in Olear. Ed.