1861
NOTE
The Rev. F. R. A. Glover was a true believer that the English were the successors of King David and a Lost Tribe of Israel. To that end he created a historical myth still promulgated today. From a mixture of selective quotation, what-if questions, and outright fabrication, Glover created the story of how Jeremiah brought the the Stone of Jacob to Ireland, whence it came to Scotland as the Stone of Scone. He conflated historical figures from various times and places, and he did so in service of an idea that gave rise to white supremacist claims about the divine favor God bestowed upon the Anglo-Saxon race. Later authors would take his work and conflate his references to Jeremiah with other claims about Jeremiah's disposition of the Ark of the Covenant to invent a still more fanciful myth that the Ark and the Pillar both came with Jeremiah to Ireland.
"Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying, The Two Families which The Lord hath chosen, He hath even cast them off?
Thus saith the Lord; If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; Then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David my servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Jer. 33:24-26.
"We see not our signs" Psa. 74:9
The intent of these pages is to prove,
First, that as, England is, in God's providence, in possession of a Certain Stone, called JACOB'S PILLOW, which is the seat of the Coronation Throne of the Empire, cherished and protected by her, in a very special manner, as her Chiefest National Muniment; so also, if it be the case that the Stone be Jacob's Pillow,
Secondly, there must have been THE SEED ROYAL OF JUDAH to set upon it, as certainly, if not as
Thirdly, manifestly, she has THE STANDARD OF JUDAH to wave above it: and, herein, that she is entitled to be considered "The Remnant of Judah."
And again, to show that the THREE are, at the appointed time, - when Judah and Israel are to return to "their own land," - also to return together to that place from which they, together, came, now some 2400 years, since, under the care, and leading of the Prophet JEREMIAH, who established them in Ireland; his mission being a FOURTH point to be proved: inasmuch as the mission of that illustrious Prophet was, at that time, to do the will of the Lord in "planting and building" in another land (Jer. 15:11), that, which he had been equally commissioned to "pluck up," "root out," and "destroy," in his own: viz. the Throne, the Seed, and the Polity of Judah (Jer. 1:10; 34:17, 22; 37:8-10).
Considering the extraordinary elevation to which the nation has raised this Relic of Antiquity - this so-called Jacob's Pillow upon which so grand an Edifice is thus apparently to be raised, - and the singular manner in which we guard it and provide for its safety; and that it is hardly creditable to us as Men, or as a Nation, not to be able to give some rational and credible account of it; it is held to be no less pious than reasonable to search out what there is, that is connected with this religious monument of so remote antiquity, that may throw light on its history, and such its very curious position.
The proposition and allegations based upon it, and connected with it, are, it may be, at first sight, somewhat startling:-
1. A Stone from Judea, consecrated to God 3600 years since by the patriarch Jacob;-
2. The Race of Judah to use it as a Throne; over which, a Prophet of Judah having inaugurated the one, and re-established the other, planted above them,
3. The Standard of the tribe of Judah;-
and, these three, all to be with us in honour, and flourishing in positive reality and fullest prosperity, in England at THE PRESENT TIME! ... and all in full exercise of their respective functions, without our knowing aught of the last things, and being in entire disbelief, altogether, of the pretensions of the first: and yet, upon the truth and reality of which pretensions to be what it professes to be, the proof of the reality of the other two things may be thought to depend:- all this is indeed strange!
Strange, however, as it is, it may be, notwithstanding, not more strange than true: for, it is to be particularly remembered, in the outset, that there is no physical hindrance, to the FULL POSSIBILITY of all that is here supposed to Constitute the facts of the case. Accordingly we hope to prove, that the conspicuous importance we consent to give to this Ancient Stone ought to be satisfactory to the common sense of all who are reasonable men as well as earnest Christians.
At present, we seem, as Keepers of this Stone, to be merely gratifying our pride as the holders of an old curiosity; not to give our conduct in this respect a worse name. A state of custody not creditable to us personally as men of sense: nor, nationally, as a practical people; satisfied to hold what may be the most important sign of the dealings of God with Israel, past and future, as a "curious fact" (see quotation later). For such appears to be about the best account our antiquarians and historians can, at present, give of this Stone to ourselves and to foreigners! So little, truly, do the people who fail to "look to the rock whence they were hewed, and to the hole of the pit whence they were digged," "see their signs" (Isa. 51:1, Ps. 74:9)
A fact, however, it is, - this 'curious fact" and its belongings, - little as most men know of it, and still less that those, who do know of it, regard it, - which lies at the bottom of the greatest and most important National Act, executed from time to time, in our greatest and most important National Assembly. Not in the great WITENAGEMOT of King, Clergy, and Lords; neither in that other important assembly, the MYKEL GEMOTE, the Commons of England, by Representatives assembled: but, in that, which combines the fact of the ancient Wittena Gemote with the principle and fact of the Mykel Gemote; both convened in common assembly, in Common-Hall, so to speak, - the Wittena Gemote and the Mykel Gemote together, - at the Coronation of the Monarch of the Empire: ... that great event, which, those who understand the matter best, have declared, and well declared, to be, the Safeguard of our Liberties. Why is this? Because, then, THE NATION assembles in its great Temple, - namely, the Temple of GOD, Westminster Abbey, at the beginning of each Reign, - Clergy, Lords, and Representatives of the Commons, - to exact from the Monarch, whom, seated upon that Stone, they are about to elect for coronation, the Oath, that he will preserve and maintain, whole and inviolate, the rights and privileges and liberties of all orders and degrees of men and classes of the community of our great and imperishable nation.
Imperishable! Why Imperishable?
This Stone, into whose history, past and prospective, we propose to inquire, will show us why.
For much as all this is, much more remains behind. It is only half of the subject. It concerns JUDAH; and, in one sense, Judah only. But "The Stone" is "The Stone of Israel" (Gen. 49:24) and, that which concerns Judah alone is no more the whole subject, than the executive of an empire is the administrative; though the executive be, the manifestation of the other, in itself. "The Everlasting Covenant" (Jer. 32) is with "the Two Families" in one band (Isa. 11:12), under one Head (Hos. 1:10). "The remnant of Judah," (Jer. 44:14; 55:11, Zeph. 3:10) that important element in the world's future, is indeed there; the Ordinance Head, it may be, and is, of that Illustrious Power. The Throne is there; the Seed Royal is there; and the Ensign of the Perpetual Sceptre withal!
But the Strength of Israel, where is that? - that has not yet appeared on the stage! Nevertheless, it is there; all there. For as it is in Joseph, and by Joseph, that "the Shepherd," "the Stone of Israel," is to appear (Gen. 49:24), in the clearing up of what has been termed, not unaptly, "the great Asian mystery;" so does the investigation of this Stone's history, and what the Stone imports, bring upon the stage, England, as the full development of that important element of Israel's greatness, viz. "the multitude of nations of Ephraim;" as the Descendants and Representatives of him upon whom the Patriarch Jacob namedhis name, 'his own imparted name (Gen. 48:5, 16), ... the name of ISRAEL, The PRINCE of GOD. And so, England, i.e., Israel, in the sense of "the multitude of nations" of Ephraim (Gen. 48:19), now, is the representative of him who had power with God and Man, and prevailed. (Gen. 32:28)
And England, as ruled over by a descendant of the house of Judah, is herself, in that Head, the Representative and Executive of The Two Families whose captivity is to return when the promises of God to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are to be fulfilled in the land which "their seed are to have for an everlasting possession:" (Gen. 48:4) .. even at the time when "men are to buy fields for money, and subscribe evidences and seal them, and take witnesses in the land of Benjamin and in the cities of Judah, (Jer. 32:44) and in the cities of the mountains, and in the cities of the valleys and of the south;" and when the title-deeds of Jeremiah to his possessions in Anathoth, sunk (Jer. 32:14), as the evidence of his faith in a faithful Creator, shall be placed, side by side, with the Stone of Israel returned from Britain to Jerusalem, in pursuance of the promise of these words:
"And now therefore thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning, this city, whereof ye say, It shall be delivered into the band of the king of Babylon by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence; Behold, I will gather them out of all countries, whither I have driven them in mine anger, and in my fury, and in great wrath; and I will bring them again unto this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: and I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children after them: and I will make an EVERLASTING COVENANT with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.
"Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul. For thus saith the Lord;
"Like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them. And fields shall be bought in this land, whereof ye say, 'It is desolate without man or beast; it is given into the hand of the Chaldeans:' for I will cause their captivity to return, saith the Lord." (Jer. 32:36-44)
In order to the better understanding of the subject, the importance of which few will be disposed to underrate, it will be best to subdivide it into two parts, viz.: the SIGNS Of JUDAH, and the SIGNS of EPHRAIM.
THE SIGNS OF JUDAH
ENGLAND and the REMNANT OF JUDAH
CHAPTER I
"Judah is a lion's whelp. Thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise. The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come." - Gen. 49:9-10
"Bring him unto his people: let his hands be sufficient for him: and be thou an help from his enemies." - Deut. 33:7
In the system of Polity of England there are three prominent and very important matters:
1. A Material Fact.
2. An Hereditary Descent.
3. An Heraldic Blazon.
If these things exist, - there is no denying them. They do exist. There is a cause for their existence. These things are all Eastern:-
The first is, Jacob's Stone.
The second, The Descent of the Monarch enthroned on it.
The third, The Standard of the Lion Rampant.
If these things came from the East, they must have been brought. Who brought them?
They are all Hebraish.
The first manifestly, as its name implies.
The second, proveably so.
The third, is, The Standard of the Tribe of Judah.
The bringer of them must, therefore, have been a Hebrew; and, undoubtedly, one of note and power.
Viewed collectively, these things have great significance; and may have, or exercise, an important influence on present and future events: the which, indeed, must be the case, if the character, the power, and the mission, of the bringer of these things from Judea, be taken into account. For it will be seen, by a variety of circumstantial evidence, that this bringer was no less a person, and no other, than the illustrious prophet Jeremiah: the man destined by God, in his early days, to foretell, and to aid in, the out-rooting of the polity and kingdom of Judah; as he was equally, in his latter days, to help " to plant and to build " the same (jer 1:10) elsewhere. (Jer 15:11; 25:11)
And this can be proved. Not because certain traditions affirm that the Prophet was in Ireland, as the Instructor of one of its greatest kings; but because, the three premisses admitted, nobody but Jeremiah could have conveyed them thither; or, bringing them, have established the Stone so as to accord with the terms of the tradition concerning it. The Legend of the Stone and that Tradition is, that, - Wherever that Stone might be, a Sceptre should be with it, until it returned to the East, whence it came. A tradition confirmed, as to the eastern origin of the Stone, by the discovery now, that its name, which was thought to be Irish, is Irish, only inasmuch as it is adopted from the Hebrew; and, as to its prophetic aspect, as not contradicted, hitherto, by subsequent events connected with it, although traversing a strange and chequered course, for upwards of 2400 years. For, The Stone has still a Sceptre belonging to it; even that of the mightiest nation on the earth [JML: 1861]; a "Nation of Nations;" - truly, even so, a Nation of Nations. And the Ruler who is enthroned thereon, can claim to descend from the Kings of the Race, then and there set upon it.
At the Council Table at Whitehall, on the 21st April, 1613, King James I said, - "There is a double cause why I should be careful of the welfare of that people [the Irish] : first, as King of England, by reason of the long possession the Crown of England hath had of that land : and, also, as King of Scotland; for the ancient kings of Scotland are descended of the kings of Ireland." - See Cox's Hibernia Anglicana.
And who shall say that it is not to go back to that East whence it came, in honour and power, even as it emerged from it, out of disaster and woe? .. "that those that sowed in tears" (Jer. 15:11; Zeph. 3:10) shall not have a joyful harvest?
This TRADITION, however, it is to be especially noted, though a Prophecy, and a Promise requiring the presence of some certain one to make it of possible performance, is without any allusion to the most important facts of the case; viz. the identity of the individuals, in whom the transaction of the setting-up of this Stone in Ireland originated, with two celebrated persons, intimately and officially connected with Hebrew history and the Hebrew polity; viz. one, a Prophet and Priest; the other a Woman, a Princess: a state of things which is only now, at this moment, being first exhibited to Man; and which, - the proof being based upon material and historical facts, (now, first, drawn from the obscurity of a language which concealed them, and, placed in juxta-position,) - he is called upon to consider, with relation to their practical bearing on present and future events: since they establish, as an historical fact, that, England is the Remnant of Judah.
For, if this case can be proved, then, this strange fact stands out upon the canvas of modern history; namely, that England is the possessor of the Throne of David, and its Representative; and, the continuator of that Sceptre of Judah, of which the patriarch Jacob foretold the continuance until the coming Of SHILOH: and that, coupled with all this, the Standard of Judah is, not only the Ensign which this Power will have sooner or later to unfurl, as the Ensign to the Nations, and to which "the dispersed of Judah" will have to rally; but that her own Scottish Blazon, is, as that Standard of Judah, the mark, outward and visible, by which the connexion is established between the dislodged Royalty of Jerusalem and the rehabilitated Judah of the West: and that she, England, is, therefore, under this triple manifestation of Hebraical Identity, the true and proveable and legal representative and essence of "the remnant of Judah:" that remnant, including "king's daughters," (Jer. 41:10, 43:5-7) which was warned to escape from Egypt, in company with the Prophet Jeremiah, and promised protection if it did. (Jer. 44:14, 28; 15:11)
That Remnant, making Judea its way to sanctuary, ("The little sanctuary" here alluded to, is that of the Tribes. And if Joseph had one, was not one as needful for Judah? - Ezek. 11:16), became, under the conduct of the prophet,-whose duty it was to provide for such a restoration of the royal house, wherever he might, in the providence of God, be directed to go, (and that he went to Ireland we are able to prove)-the Legal Representative of the House of David, of the Polity of Judah, and, of the interim state of Entire Israel. ("Thou art a God that hidest Thyself," - Isa 45:15; Ezek. 11:16)
This, however, will seem to many a relation so strange, as that no man should be called upon to give it credence without proof. The first point to establish, will be the Office of the Prophet Jeremiah in the matter: he being the substratum of foundation upon which the whole edifice is made to rest.
JEREMIAH, THE PROPHET TO THE NATIONS
CHAPTER II
"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee. I ordained thee a Prophet unto the Nations. Thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee. Whatsoever I command thee, thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee."
"See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant." - Jer. 1:5-7, 8-10.
To Build and to Plant!
Where such an important part is attributed to the prophet Jeremiah as the re-habilitation of an embryo-kingdom of Judah in Ireland, - an event involving immense consequences, - it would be natural to expect that some footmarks would be left by the way, by which the steps of this great man might be tracked. Such unmistakable footmarks, if to be found, might be more reliable as evidence of his presence, than any chronology of the times might afford, even if such existed; seeing that they would be beyond suspicion of fabrication. Accordingly there are, both personal and official, as well as legal, marks of the Prophet's presence in Ireland at the proper time; independent of the priestly one of blessing the Stone in inauguration of the new Dynasty destined to perpetuate and redeem the forfeited promise to the line of David, and to secure the continuance of the Sceptre of Judah. Such marks are discoverable in the various points, as regards Jeremiah, below enumerated.
1. OLLAM FOLA, the reputed king, sage, and legislator, and the College of Ollams which he founded at Tara;-
2. INNIS-PHAIL, the Isle of Destiny;-
3. JODHAN MORAN, the Righteous Judge (Isa. 11);-
4. LIA FAIL, [Gaelic (Irish) for] the Stone of Destiny,
5. The MATERIAL FACT;-
6. TARA, the name of the Royal Settlement of Ireland;-
7. The LAW OF SLAVERY, the seven years' law of the Hebrews;-
(As regards the Hereditary Descent of the Royal Race of Britain,)
8. The IRISH MYSTERY not to be uttered;-
9. The Scottish-Irish LAW OF DESCENTS
10. The GENEALOGY;-
11. The Lion Rampant of Scotland; the HERALDIC BLAZON;-
12. The HEBRAICAL Etymological COINCIDENCES at Tara.
OLLAM FOLLA OF TARA
CHAPTER III
"Ollav Fola is celebrated in ancient history as a sage and legislator, eminent for learning, wisdom, and excellent institutions ; and his historic fame has been recognized by placing his medallion, in basso relievo, with those of Moses, and other great legislators, on the interior of the dome of the Four Courts in Dublin." - Annals of the Four Masters, p. 227, notes.
"The ancient Records and Chronicles of the kingdom were ordered to be written and carefully preserved at Tara by Ollav Fola, and these formed the basis of the ancient History of Ireland, called the Psalter of Tara." - Ibid. p. 297, note.
Ollam Fodhla - pronounced Ollav Fola - is a man well-known of, though not accurately known in, Irish tradition, as a great Monarch, Sage, and Lawgiver. He is mentioned thus in the Annals of the Four Masters, p. 412:-
"Amongst the most celebrated kings of Ulster, who also reigned as monarchs of Ireland, was Ollamh Fodhla, or Ollav Fola, the famous legislator, whose reign is placed by Tigernach, O'Flaherty, and others about seven centuries before the Christian era. He founded, the Conventions of Tara."
This is that Eocaid-Ollambh-Fodhla-Heremon-Ardrigh (Each'd=Historian, Ollam=Prophet, Fola=Destiny or Learned, Heremon=King, Ardrigh=Head-King [Pentarch]) of Tara, of whom the Chronicles of Eri make such ample and honorable mention (Chronicles of Eri, vol ii pp.70, 85,91,116).
"Their kings had many names and titles; these titles have been branched out into persons, and inserted in the lists of real monarchs; ... by which means the chronology of Egypt has been greatly embarrassed." So, as Bryant said of Egyptian history and chronology, may be said of Irish, as Mr. Moore well suggests. This case, however, affords an example of the converse evil: a compound, in which mere titles have been converted into a man, and two persons thrown into one. - Moore's Ireland,i. 161.
"Ollav Fola" is no king at all:- is not the name of a king, nor of any one. It is, if we are to judge of his true position by the circumstantial evidence that the case affords, the title of an Official. We have to prove that his Office was made and filled by the prophet Jeremiah.
The Ollav Fola, of Irish history, was the chief and first, and founder of the Order of Ollams, in Ireland. This was an order, not of kings, but of priests or sages; Druids so called: more properly Draoi, as General Vallancey insists. They were not Pagans. They were simple Deists.
This Ollav Fola founded, also, a college of Ollams, at Tara; "At Tara, was also the building called Mur-Ollam-ham, or the House of the Learned: in which resided the bards, brehons, and other learned men." - Annals of the Four Masters, p. 293.. Or, as the Hebrews would say, 'a school of the prophets;' but not a college of kings.
Who ever beard of an order of kings? or, a college of kings? Therefore, this Ollam Fola is not, in his presumed name, a king, by reason of this word Ollam. The word Ollam has a meaning. It is a Hebrew word, (Strong's No. 5769); and has to do with any period of time short of eternity, or eternity: a natural word to apply to the office of a man whose business it was to teach men to look to Him "who keeps the times and seasons in His own hand," and Who, incarnate, should, according to the Hebrew Scriptures, at some certain time, appear in the East.
As Kingship, therefore, is evidently not in the word Ollam, we must seek for it in the other portion of this official's name; that is, in the word Fola.
Now, this word, this illustrious official had in common with a certain Eastern Princess, married to the King of the Country, one of the many Queens after whom Ireland has been said to be named, Inis-Fodhla, Inis-Fola. The letters "dh" introduced into the word, were a subsequent invention. When the language came to be written, and men had to find out reasons for what they did not know, they changed the Fola of conversation into some other word, the meaning of which they did know, by the arbitrary incorporation of unsounding consonants: a process by which the word Fola, which was unintelligible as Irish, became invested with a meaning, which they thought would fit the circumstances of the case.
But if the Island was named Fodhla at all, or, Fola, in pronunciation, why not after the alleged king, who was a wonderfully learned man, and a great man, instead of after a woman? For the greatness of this Ollam Fola, which it is impossible to treat as a fiction, has come down to us, notwithstanding a halo of the impossible which surrounds the demi-god, as an undeniable reality. So much is this the case, that notwithstanding his alleged apocryphal existence, he is en-dome-d at this day in the grand Hall of the Four Courts, in Dublin, with Moses and other magnates of ancient celebrity. The apocrypha in the case is, his imaginary kingship; which, intruding unnaturally into the legends concerning the man, has, by turning truth into fiction, thrown a cloud of doubt over the whole. The Ollam Fola is a reality, and a grand reality, but not that of a king. He was a Prophet and a Hebrew, as the word and its significant meaning declare to us.
And what Hebrew prophet of note was living at the time assigned as the era of this Ollam Fola, - cir. B.C. 600, according to the corrected chronology of Mr. O'Connor of Balanagare, in his Dissertations, - but Jeremiah? .. the man who was appointed prophet to the Gentiles, and the restorer of the eradicated kingdom of Judah (jer. 1:5, 10; 15:11). He was; and was adrift at the time. And, the place of his death and burial being unknown, (for his tomb is shown at three places, Taphnis, Jerusalem, and Babylon, and the legends of his death being in terms that carry their own confutation,) be may as well have lived and died in Ireland as in any other country. (See Jer. 1:8 and 19. So far from any thing being known as to the certainty of his death, a fanciful idea obtained that he never died at all; record of which is to be seen in the questions of the disciples of John, the Forerunner, to their Lord; a notion that very well accords with the fact of the prophet's disappearance towards the Fortunate Islands, and his long looked-for return from those imaginary Elysian Fields, the Suvarna-Dwip of Sanskrit theology. [Suvarna-Dwip is the name by which Ireland was known by those to whom Father Abraham was known; and was the place to which their descendants, later, swarmed, when driven out of Pali-stan by him whom they have handed down to posterity as "Joshua the son of Nun, the Robber."])
He, Jeremiah, had, as we shall see, a great business to do somewhere: and he was, doubtless, under the guidance, as before he had been under the protection of Almighty God, to do it.
With respect to the reason as to why Ollam Fola might have been concluded to be a king when he was none other than a prophet, it is easy to suppose that the Conductor and Guardian of the King's Daughters, would, as guardian of these high-destinied women, be held by the vulgar, and by the Bards also in course of time, as himself a king. The character, also, which he had, the position he filled, and the relation in which he stood towards them and God, in Whose Name he spoke and Whom he represented (2 Cor. 5:20), would necessarily inspire that admiration and profound respect for the man, which, the kings who knew him readily according him, would, by the same vulgar, be interpreted into kingship over them. Hence all the exaggerated statements concerning the wonderful phantom, Ollam-Fola-Heremon: of whom and whose imaginary character the poet Moore feels constrained, albeit with great respect for the illustrious dead, to speak in the following philosophic terms:-"
"Among the numerous kings, that, in this dim period of Irish history, pass like shadows before our eyes, the Royal Sage, Ollamh Fodhla, is almost the only one, who, from the strong light of tradition thrown round him, stands out as a being of historical substance and truth. It would serve to illustrate the nature and extent of the evidence with which the world is sometimes satisfied, to collect together the various celebrated names which are received as authentic, on the strength of tradition alone; and few, perhaps, could claim a more virtual title to this privilege than the great legislator of the Irish, Ollamh Fodhla. In considering the credit, however, that may safely be attached to the accounts of this celebrated personage, we must dismiss wholly from our minds, the extravagant antiquity assigned to him by the Seneachies; and as it has been shown that the date of the dynasty itself, of which he was so distinguished an ornament, cannot, at the utmost, be removed further back than the second century before our era, whatever his fame may thus lose in antiquity, it will be found to gain in probability; since, as we shall see, when I come to treat of the Irish annals, the epoch of this monarch, if not within the line to which authentic history extends, is, at least, not very far beyond it." Moore's Ireland, vol. i. 113, 114.
"In fixing the period of this Monarch's reign, chronologers have been widely at variance. While some place it at no less than 1316 years before the Christian Era" (the time of Gideon), "Plowden makes it 960 years" (the time of Jeroboam), "O'Flaherty, between 700 and 800" (the time of the Israelitish Dispersion), "and the author of the Dissertations, Mr. C. O'Connor, of Balanagare, about 600." [The time. of the besieging of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, being, according to Hales, 602 B.C.]
This extravagant difference in the fixing the era of the most distinguished man that ever lived in Ireland, to say nothing of Mr. Moore's own further reduction of 400 years in the antiquity of the illustrious individual, shows that there is still a great want of information as to the realities of the case. Possibly, when historians shall have agreed to the propriety of un-king-ing the man who was no king, and dislodging him from the imaginary dynasty, to all the exigencies of the theories concerning which this official's life and acts have been made to conform, his true place and time in history may be more easily determined than is now the case; while the truth established in this so-important an instance, may become the stand-point for the rectification of a great deal of other matter: matter very valuable in itself, but quite unusable from the heterogeneous inter-comminglings of Persons and Things, which Irish Tradition now so often presents to the anxious inquirer after truth and facts.
Mr. Moore's observations on this point are,-
"It is a task ungracious and painful, more especially to one accustomed from his early days to regard, through a poetic medium, the ancient fortunes of his country, to be obliged, at the stern call of historical truth, not only to surrender his own illusions on the subject, but to undertake also the invidious task of dispelling the dreams of others who have not the same imperative motives of duty or responsibility for disenchanting themselves of so agreeable an error. That the popular belief in this national tale should so long have been cherished and persevered in, can hardly be a subject of much wonder. .. . Even in our own times, all the most intelligent of those writers who have treated of ancient Ireland, have each, in turn, adopted the tale of the Milesian Colonization, and lent all the aid of their learning and talent to elevate it into history. But, even in their hands the attempt has proved an utter failure: nor could any effort, indeed, of ingenuity succeed in reconciling the improbabilities of a story, which in no other point of view differs from the fictitious origins invented for their respective countries by Humbold, Suffridius, Geoffroy Monmouth, and others, than in having been somewhat more ingeniously put together, and far more fondly persevered in by the imaginative people, whose love of high ancestry it flatters, and whose wounded pride it consoles. Suffridius was a fabricator of fictitious origins for the Frisons, as Humbold was an inventor in the same line for the Franks; the latter founding his fictions professedly on Druidical remains. There is scarcely a nation, indeed, in Europe, which has not been provided thus with some false scheme of antiquity; and it is a fact, mournfully significant, that the Irish are now the only people among whom such visionary pretensions are still clung to with any trust."
" Had the Bards, in their account of the early settlements, so far followed the natural course of events as to place that colony they wished to have considered as the original of the Irish people at the commencement instead of at the end of the series, we should have been spared, at least, those difficulties of chronology, which, at present, beset the whole scheme .. . The ideal colony - the Milesian Settlement - which ought to have been placed beyond the bounds of authentic record, where its inventors would have had free scope for their flights, has, on the contrary, been introduced among known personages and events, and compelled to adjust itself to the unpliant neighbourbood of facts: while on the other hand accredited beings of history, have, by the interposition of this shadowy intruder, been separated, as it were, from the real world, and removed into distant regions of time, where sober chronology would in vain attempt to reach them." (According to the calculation of the Bards, the arrival of the Belgae, for example, must have been, at least, 1500 years before the Christian era.)
"It is true, the more moderate of the Milesian believers, on being made aware of these chronological difficulties, have surrendered the remote date at first assigned to the event; and, in general, content themselves with fixing it near 1000 years later. But this remove, beside that it exposes the shifting foundation on which the whole history rests, serves but to render its gross anachronisms and improbabilities still more glaring .. . When brought near the daylight of modern history, and at the distance of nearly a thousand years from their pretended progenitors, it is plain that these Milesian heroes, at once, shrink into mere shadows of fable." - Moore, pp. 91.123.
Seen from our point of view, the dignity of the great Ollam Fola of Irish Tradition has hardly been magnified beyond due proportions, as men, in those times, would see and feel what they understood, (i.e., were able to understand,) of his position, and of the great powers with which he, if our conjecture be the truth of the case, was endowed: particularly if the Papal view of such endowments can invest even the pretender to such, with a grandeur, in presence of which, that of kings and emperors must pale; and out of the assumption of which, upon no authority but his own assurance, a Christian bishop has been found to magnify himself into, and has found others to make of him, a King of kings, and Lord of lords, and further dared to act, the Mighty Ruler of Princes.
The words thus applied by Jehovah to the office of the Prophet Jeremiah having been those upon which the Bishops of Rome established their travesty of Almighty Power on Earth, over kings, emperors, and states: as is clear from the Preamble to the Bull of Pope Pius V., by which that Bishop of Rome thought to deprive the Queen of England of her throne and power:-
"Pius, Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God. He, Who reigneth in the highest .. hath committed to me, .. Church .. to one alone upon Earth, .. the Bishop of Rome, to be governed in fulness of power. .. Him alone, He made Prince over all people, with power to pluck up, destroy, scatter, consume, plant, and build."
The word, of the Lord to Jeremiah were, - "See, I have set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root out, to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant."
I have, however, no desire to encumber my hypothesis, with any argument, as to whether the Ollam Fodhla of Irish Tradition is, or is not a mistake for Jeremiah the Prophet. I feel that the case of the presence of the illustrious Seer in Ireland is made out on other grounds; that, indeed, he must have been the transporter of the Stone, the conductor of "the King's Daughters" and the planter of the Standard of Judah, in Ireland. I was satisfied of this, long before I heard a word of the Legend, of his having been Instructor to the great warrior Finn McCoyle, or even of the existence of this Ollam Fola. But as the existing history of Ollam Fola is inconsistent with itself, .. as his kingship is evidently a fiction, while the facts of his reality and his wisdom cannot be denied; .. and as, moreover, the chronology of the real individual is brought down to accord with the times of the Prophet; and as his acts are exactly those that the Prophet's acts would have been had he had the power to do as he would have felt it to be his duty to do, viz. the establishing an order of learned men to carry on the knowledge of that Law, the Tara, which he certainly would have brought with him and left them, with that office of Jodhan Moran, of which he was evidently the introducer, - I submit,
1. That the Eochaid-Ollam-Fola-Heremon-Ardri of fiction, is, when reduced to its proper elements, the description of two officials instead of one person:-
2. That the Eochaid Ollam Fola, when divested of the royalty which belongs to the first of the last two words of this pretentious name, and of the Pentarchate expressed by the last, is the Jeremiah of reality:-
3. That the two last words belong to the King contemporary with him, the King Pentarch at the time of the Prophet's arrival in Ireland, and who married the Princess from the East:-
4. That the word Eochaid as prefixed to the words Olla-Fola, is an adjective characteristic of respect, such as we are accustomed to use towards the ancient chronicler, the Venerable Bede:
The word Each'd, evidently the same as Eocaid, means "History," "Annals." "The ancient Records and Chronicles of the kingdom were ordered to be written and carefully preserved at Tara, by Ollav Fola," - more Hebraico? - "and these formed the basis of the ancient history of Ireland called the Psalter of Tara." - Annals of the Four Masters, note, p. 297. Well, therefore, did Ollam Fola deserve the immortalization of the epithet, "The Chronicler." Vide also Moore, i. 114.
5, and lastly. That, in the capacity and character thus assigned to him, as the Prophet-Restorer of the Monarchy of Judah, the Ollam Fola of Tara, Chronicler, Sage, and Lawgiver, divested of both Pentarchy and Royalty, is more worthy of the exaltation given him in the Dome of the Four Courts in the Irish Capital, than any other would be, though entitled to the dignity of all the adjuncts through which Ollam Fola has been presented to the world, since the true knowledge of the real man became lost to the generations which succeeded him.
INNIS-PHAIL, THE ISLE OF DESTINY
CHAPTER IV
"FAIL, simply, appears to have been a favourite epithet." - p. 328.
"Verily it shall be well with thy remnant. Verily I will cause the enemy to entreat thee well in the time of affliction." - Jer. 15:11.
Ireland has had many names. She is now Hibernia, and Erin, and "the Emerald Isle;" but she has been Inis Ealga, the Noble; and Fioah-Inis, the Woody; and Crioch Fuiniah, the Final, - similar to Finis-Terre, and the Land's End. And we read that
"Inis-Fail, it was also called, after the Lia-Fail; and 'Fail,' simply, appears to have been a favourite epithet. The Danans also gave Ireland the names of Eire, Fodhla, and Barba, from three of their queens, being beautiful and euphonious in sound." And people, it seems, credit this nonsense! "Erin also; and Ierne, the Sacred Isle; Plutarch calls it Ogygia, or 'The ancient land.' Roman writers call it Iuverna, Iuvernia, Ouvernia, Ibernia, Ierna, and Vernia, and Caesar called it first Hibernia." - Annals of the Four Masters, (Notes), 388. 90-1.
But a principal name for the famous Island has been Scotia Vetus; and Scotia Major, to distinguish it from Hibernian Scotland; then called, Scotia Minor: though now known, mostly, as Scotland. - 391.
But if Ireland has had many names, she has had as many reasons assigned for some of her names; for Scotia, for example, there are not less than nine given: as Sir Wm. Betham has shown in his Gael and Cymbri, p. xi-xiv. Hence, one may collect that not much is known about the reality of the case. A lady is honoured as being the cause of this effect: Scota, the daughter or wife of Gathelus. But as she and her illustrious companion are assigned to very early times, and the word Scotia was never beard of as a name for Ireland earlier than the third century after Christ, that celebrated lady may be set aside with all the other ladies, whose names were always at hand, with Bards and Annalists, to give a name to Ireland whenever a reason had to be assigned for what chroniclers had heard of, as an adjective descriptive of their Island, and they were unable otherwise to account for.
As this name is not on record earlier than the times that the Greeks were masters of the Seas and of the trade of the World, .. and as the men of that day would talk of "going into the Darkness" as now an American would speak of "going down West" .. and as considerable emigration had taken place at different times from Phoenicia, and those who had emigrated would be considered as having "gone West," or "into the Darkness," .. and hence, as living in the West, the Finis-Terre, they would be designated generally the Skoti, (Gk.) it is clear that the Greek word, Skotia, Darkness, is the etymology of a word which came to be used to convey the idea of the local habitation of those who had gone West. This was the word by which Ireland was universally known, after the time when men understood Greek nautical terms. Porphyry, in the third century, is the first writer who called the Irish Scoti. By the same name they are known ever after by St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, and the poet Claudian, and so downwards to the eleventh century. "Pinkerton says, 'From the consent of all antiquity, the name of Scoti, belonged to the Irish alone.'" Annals of the Four Masters p.390-1, notes.
Whether or not the above suggestion gives the true origin of the name, Scotia, for Ireland, we know, that as the Sun-Rising,Anatolee, where the light first shows in the morning stood for the East, with the Greeks; so, skotia, darkness, is in the West, where the light vanishes in the evening; that there, Ireland, was certainly, by the Greeks, known to be; and that Scotia, its name, is a Greek word, signifying Darkness.
The, object in thus depriving the celebrated princess, Scota, of her name and honours is to show, that the assertion with respect to the Lady with the "euphonious'" name, Fodhla, may be as void of foundation as the existence of her, who has been supposed to have given a name to Ireland for a thousand years, and to Scotland to the present time. The Princess Fola, as much gave a name to Ireland as did the Lady Scota, who never existed. The name Fola, is, evidently, a corruption of a known word that did exist, and did give a name to Ireland; a name which is, proveably, not Irish at all, because it is Hebrew. That a queen had to do with it, is possible, is probable; but it was not in her name as a woman: it was altogether on other and higher grounds. The woman had a destiny; a great destiny: and it was the word that identified her with that, which she and the Island had in common. The meaning of the Irish-Hebrew compound Innis-phail, is, the Isle of Destiny; from Inis, an Island; and Fail, Mystery or Destiny.
If Ireland were indeed ever named Inis-Fola, Fola is not so far, in sound, from Fail, as are a good many alleged kindred etymologies from their assumed cognates: and if, as a matter of fact, as the island of Fola, it became Inis-Fola by the same rule of construction that the island of Fate or Fail became Inis-Fail, .. and that Ireland were called, anywhere, in this connexion, Inis-Fola, would any doubt exist in the mind of the philologist, that the two words Inis-Fail and Inis-Fola had been confounded? .. the one taken for the other? .. that they meant, in fact, the same thing, and were the same word, somewhat differently pronounced?
Those -who are accustomed to accept of such transmutations as St. Coemgere into St. Kevin, and again Koemin or Caymin into the same Kevin, will hardly make a difficulty in finding in Inis-Fola and Inis-Fail two words expressive of the same thing, and therefore of the same meaning. - See Ledwich's History and Antiquities of Ireland. -Art. Glendalough, p. 174.
But, as in this case, the word in question was common to the Man, and the Princess; and as the Man, the Woman, and the Stone all came on the stage at the same time, doubtless, the word belongs to them all; and is the same word, modified by time; or, changed by bardic imaginations to fit fanciful ideas. The stone was the Stone of Destiny:- the woman in whose destiny and joint agency the perpetual sceptre of Judah was again set up and identified, was a Woman of Destiny:- the High Ollam, the founder of the order of Ollams, he who proclaimed the destiny, remembrance of which, the Order that he founded, was ever to keep fresh in men's minds, and who sanctified the whole with a grand inauguration, and re-consecration of the Stone - the Stone of Witness to the great destiny of the people to whom it belonged - was, properly, the Ollam of Destiny. So that the meaning of the word would seem to be, not that of the subsequently written word, Fodhla, "learning," which would be a mere reduplication of its conjunct, Ollam, - but a meaning which would cover and be common to the whole transaction.
The priest who proclaimed the destiny, viz. that the Stone, the Race, and the Standard should abide until the time of their restoration to the East, was an Ollam of Destiny, i.e. a prophet. He proclaimed the same, as connected with the Woman of Destiny, enthroned, doubtless, with her husband on the Stone of Destiny; that Lia-Fail, after which the Island was certainlynamed: .. even that same Pillar of Witness which Jacob set up at Bethel the morning after his vision, and consecrated, then and there, unto the Lord, in proof of his confidence that the DESTINY promised to Abraham and confirmed to himself, would be fulfilled in the fortunes of his Children. See Gen. 28:13, 15.
And who are, and where now are, these Children? Has the destiny foretold failed? Were not rather, a Remnant, entirely contrary to what might have been ordinarily looked for, well-treated of the Baalitish enemy, when, in the day of Judah's affliction, and of the Remnant's wandering, they honoured them by giving to their own Island a new name in the Jew's language, and, in honour of their faith and hope?
JODHAN MORAN, THE RIGHTEOUS JUDGE
CHAPTER V
"What nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, in all that they call upon him for?" - Deut. 4:7
We learn from unexceptionable authority, that "the Rabbi in the Talmud say, that the Messias shall be called Joden Muren, for He shall be the Judge, as in Isaiah 11. Thus it is very plain that the Irish name is derived from the Chaldee, Choshen Hemeshpot, or Joden Muran." J. Heidegger, Prof Ling. Oriental. apud Keating.
The mention of the existence of this Official, so named, is constantly on record in Irish history.
The words themselves, according to the application made of them by the above authorities, are the highest prophecy of The High Being whose advent was to be.
How is it possible to account for these words of prophecy and its concomitant events being understood, or being at all, in Ireland, at that time? .. the promise also of the perpetual sceptre, and the promised return to the East, - all alike indicative of the expectation of the Shiloh in the East, - but in the presence, there, of the mind, of what we know would, under the circumstances, have been the mind of Jeremiah? This can point only to Jeremiah.
Again, why was this Hebrew phrase incorporated into the nomenclature of a foreign people? Does not this fact exhibit strikingly the influence which the Hebrew introducer of this Office and Title must have had with those whom he persuaded, in recognizing the office, as well, to adopt a Hebrew name for it?
Whence this influence of this strange man with this Baalitish people, in the things of God, but that it was felt, or believed, he was a messenger of God? If they believed this, it must have been because he declared he was. And who could have so declared, at that time, in Ireland, but Jeremiah? He not only was, - he was so by special appointment, - "prophet to the nations," but the prophet as well who had the duty to perform "to plant and to build" the kingdom of the Lord wherever he came: namely, that of resuscitated Judah, the perpetuity of which he had been so expressly commanded to declare I? (Jer. 33:17, 21, 26)
Jeremiah, also, had been instructed, commanded in a very especial manner, on two several occasions, (Jer. 23, 32) to declare the advent of The Righteous Judge of Isaiah and the SHILOH Of Jacob (Gen. 48:10), at whose appearance Judah should be saved, and Israel dwell safely and, "out of the north Country," restored "to its own land."
Now, the Jodhan Moran of Irish history was, when first that name was assumed, the Prophetic Impersonation of this SHILOH; that gatherer-up of all the promises "spoken by all the holy prophets since the world began." (Acts 3:21) And the fact of an Official assuming, in the Name of God, this highest of all earthly titles, showed, that he who assumed it, and in assuming proclaimed it, and proclaimed the doctrine involved in it, knew what he was about; and that he know also what, his duty it was, to state. He who set up this office, in these words, could only have been Jeremiah.
Keating says, "The famous Moran was one of the chief judges of this kingdom (Ireland). When he sat upon the bench to administer justice, he put his miraculous JODHAN MORAN about his neck " [by a chain], "which had that wonderful power, that if the judge pronounced an unjust decree, the breastplate would instantly contract itself, and encompass the neck so close that it would be impossible to breathe; but, if he delivered a just sentence, it would open itself and hang loose upon his shoulders."
The Jodhan Moran is a character who appears not only in the pages of Keating, but over and over again on the stage of Irish History; but the gold insignia of the Office having been exhumed more than once from the bogs of Ireland, into which they may have been cast, or buried, in times of trouble, no more doubt can exist as to the reality of tho Office, than of Tara itself, or of any other fact well authenticated by circumstantial evidence. A golden collar or breastplate, supposed by Vallancey to be the Jodhan Moran, was found, some years since, in the county of Limerick, twelve feet deep in a bog. "It is made of thin plated gold, and chased in a very neat and workmanlike manner; the breastplate is single, but the hemispherical ornaments at the top are lined throughout with another thin plate of pure gold." Collectan. Hibern. No. 13. The traditional memory of this chain or collar (says O'Flanigan) is so well preserved to this day, that it is a common expression for a person asseverating absolute truth to say, " I would swear by Moran's chain for it." - Trans. of Gaelic Soc. vol. i. apud Moore.
It seems then, thus, that there was once an officer in Ireland, a chief justiciary, whose office not only gave him great influence, but that it was, at one time, believed to be endowed - as was that of the Hebrew High Priest - with miraculous powers.
Dismissing all consideration of the marvelous from this case, the doctrine set forth, by this teacher, was good. It inculcated the direct interference of Almighty God to overrule the acts of His servants, for His people's good; for he who dispensed justice in the name of The Righteous Judge was necessarily God's servant (Deut. 4:7); while the promise which the title itself implied, was the highest then, or since known by Revelation; namely, the coming of a GREAT ONE, - in Whose Name this Witness for God presented himself to the People, - to bring in Universal Righteousness and renovate the Earth (Acts 3:21): a doctrine which was, as we shall see, proclaimed in the title itself of this grand officer of state.
The full import of this Phrase, can only be arrived at, by quoting the chapter referred to by the Talmudist, and those chapters in the Book of Jeremiah which declare the same truth of the same great person, alleged, by the Talmudist, to be the Messiah.
The Judge in Isaiah 11, then, is, "a Root out of the Stem of Jesse; and, a Branch is to grow out of his Roots; and which, in that day, is to stand for an Ensign to the people: to it shall the Gentiles seek, and his Rest shall be glorious." It is He who is to be, THE RIGHTEOUS JUDGE. He is, to "set up the Ensign for the nations," .. to assemble "the outcasts of Israel," and gather together "the dispersed of Judah" from the "four corners of the earth."
When? In the day in which THE STONE is to return to the East, whence it came?
The same is He who is spoken of in Jeremiah 23, "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a Righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute JUDGMENT and JUSTICE (="The Righteous Judge") on the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is the name by which he" [the Righteous Judge] "shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS."
When? In the day that the Stone is to return to the East, whence it came?
And, again, when Jeremiah was in prison (Jer.33:1) for foretelling the destruction of Judah, he was informed, and instructed especially to set the testimony before the people, "Behold, the days come, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the House of Israel "- (then already 180 years scattered and lost to sight, - almost to memory, and never, even yet, restored or recovered) - "and to the House of Judah:" then about to be cut off with a severity amounting, to an entire excision of the males of the Royal Line of Judah, which also came to pass; for there was no King of the House of Judah to resume the throne on the return from the captivity. And yet, notwithstanding, the Prophet was instructed to say, "In those days, and, at that time, will I cause the Branch of Righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute Judgment and Righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely. And this is the name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. For thus saith the Lord, David shall never want a man to sit upon the Throne of the House of Israel."
In those days! When? In the day that the Stone which came from the East is to return to the East, whence it came?
It is impossible not to see that these three portions of Holy Writ are identical: and that, therefore, what appertains to one of them, is inseparable from the other two; referring all of them, as they do, to the same person, The Righteous Judge, The Branch of Judah; therefore, to the same time, and to the same great event; and, therefore, to all its concomitants. That event, which we call the second Advent of the Lord Jesus, the Jews before Christ considered, even as the present "dispersed of Judah" consider it, the Coming of Messiah; .. that Shiloh of Jacob, until the time of Whose appearance, the sceptre of Judah was never to disappear from the earth as a Reality and a Power (Gen. 49:10). So, if Jeremiah had been made to pronounce its excision (Jer. 22: 28,30; 36:30), and was in prison because he did so in obedience to the word of the Lord, he was called upon, at the same time, in accordance with his own belief, to record and reiterate that it could be no more than a partial eclipse of the promised perpetuity of enduring continuance of the Royal Line; inasmuch as he was made to conclude the message with the remarkable promises in the succeeding parts of the chapter. (Jer. 33:17, 20-26)
Here, then, is the authority for Jeremiah to pronounce, as he would set up the Stone of Jacob any where, and anoint it with oil again, as it had been anointed aforetime (Gen. 28:48), at Bethel, that, God would not leave it until He had done by it, and those to whom it should belong and should belong of right, all of which He had spoken to our Father, Jacob (Gen. 28:15): viz. that the sceptre should abide with it, until the time of its return to the place whence it came; .. the time that Shiloh, The Righteous Judge, should come to manifest Himself to the nations, to restore Jerusalem to Judah, and "their own Land, to Israel." Now all this knowledge was evidently in the mind of him, who, in the Name and in the Character of the Branch of Jesse, set up, in The Righteous Judge, the witness for GOD in Ireland: the witness to Him Who was to come, in fulfillment of the words of Isaiah and of the prophet Jeremiah, before spoken in Judea.
Who then, we ask, could have done that, at that time, and have dared to conceive of the Stone, and to pronounce of it, and connect with it, the words and promise of the Legend, but this very Prophet, Jeremiah, himself? - he, who alone knew, and was able to see through, the mystery Of the CUT-OFF, and to-be-resuscitated House of Judah? .. "cut off," for the breaking of Sabbaths, themselves; .. for promising to the Lord and keeping it not, in breaking the law of the Sabbatical year to their slaves (Jer. 34); .. for despising the Prophets; .. for cutting up the word of the Lord and burning it in the fire (Jer 36:23); .. for these and like things "cut off," but to be resuscitated. "King (Jer. 33:17-18) and priest", "not by bow, nor sword, nor battle, nor horses, nor horsemen" (Hos 1:7) - by what then? - by influence (Jer. 15:11) - "by the Lord their God;" (Hos 1:7) because God would not fail Jacob, whom He had promised, nor Abraham whom He had loved; (Deut 7:8) nor David, to whom Nathan had been commanded to say, "Thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever." (2 Sam. 7:16)
Here, then, are two very extraordinary things; with respect to the Man, and with respect to the Stone. What we have chiefly to consider, as concerning the man, in connexion with the Legend of the Stone is, that the phrase, "The Righteous Judge," is itself, a Prophecy of His future appearance to restore Israel to "his own," and "his own" to Israel. He who knew of The Righteous Judge, must have known the concomitants of the Prophecy: for, by the parallel passages quoted, that is all contained in the proper knowledge of this one phrase: and none knew this so well as Jeremiah; Isaiah having been dead, and the Prophet having twice given forth the same grand prophecy of Isaiah, with amplifications.
The Righteous Judge, of the Root of Jesse, would be in the East; and the Stone was to go back to the East; until when, a Sceptre was to continue with it: that is, until Shiloh, The Branch, The Righteous Judge, would be manifested. What is, then, the Legend of the Stone, supposing it to have been pronounced by a proper authority, but a paraphrase of the prophecy, "The Sceptre shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh come?"
There are, thus, unmistakable indications of a Prophet having been in Ireland at that remote time: and what Prophet of the Lord but Jeremiah, - consecrated the "Prophet to the Gentiles" in his mother's womb, - could have had any business there? He had; and he was able to go there.
And while he had also, as we have already seen, good reasons for going somewhere, Jeremiah's peculiar doctrine is found in Ireland, where he is, also, said to have gone: a doctrine, which, in so far as we can see, could hardly have been taken there by any but himself. Thus, he, and the business which he had to do somewhere, appear on the Scene, in Ireland, at Tara, at the very time that he was free to go where he listed: which business, as done at Tara, nobody else beside himself could have had, at that time, either knowledge, or authority, or power to do, as we now discover, and consequently, know, it to have been done.
Hence, it is concluded, with entire conviction of the truth of the conclusion, that, if the accounts of the presence of the Jodhan Moran in Ireland be true, Jeremiah the Prophet, and Jeremiah alone, was, could be, the only then living being, who was able to know, do, and say, and be justified in saying at that time, that, which the account declares to have been known, done, and said, with respect to the Stone of Destiny, then, at Tara, in Ireland: and that he accordingly was there, and did it.
It will, consequently, be clear, from the foregoing, that the fact of the Prophet Jeremiah having been in Ireland, requires no other evidence to establish it, than that of this one fact, even if it stood alone; viz. the certainty of the existence of this Official with this significant Title, to illustrate and give sense to the Legend of the Stone.
LIA-PHAIL, THE STONE OF DESTINY
CHAPTER VI
"And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy Father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it." - Gen. 28:13-15, 18.
Next, with respect to the Stone of Destiny, it is in the Legend itself, attached to it, that we have the highest evidence of a priestly presence in the inaugurator of the Stone; and, herein, of the official and providential inauguration of the Seed of David on the Throne of Israel, to wield the Sceptre under the Standard of Judah, according to the intimation in the last words of the tenth verse of the first chapter of the book of Jeremiah; - for he had "to build and to plant," a kingdom.
The Stone came from the East;-
Wherever it be, a Sceptre is to be with it;-
And it is to return to the East, whence it came.
But what is this Stone, to which this important Legend is attached?
It is that Eastern, Hebraish, MATERIAL FACT, already spoken of, and which is the first, there enumerated, of the Signs of Judah in England.
Where is it?
This Stone is in the Coronation Throne - Seat of the Kings of England. It is called by some, THE STONE or, DESTINY; in Irish, LIA-FAIL; and by the English, JACOB'S PILLOW.
Why is it where it is?
In his Essay on Certain Monuments of Antiquity, Mr. Weaver says, p. 118, - "It appears that the Irish kings, from very ancient times until A.D. 513, were crowned upon a particular sacred stone, called 'Liath Fail,' 'the Stone of Destiny;' that so, also, were the Scottish kings until the year 1296; when Edward I. of England brought it here: and it is a curious fact, that this stone has not only remained in England until now, and is existing still under the Coronation-Chair of our British Sovereigns in Westminster Abbey, but that all our Kings, from James I., have been crowned in that Chair. This being a fact so curious, we shall quote its particulars in a note, as taken from Toland, in his 'History of the Druids' (pp. 137-9), and from Mr. Edward O'Reilly, author of the 'Irish Dictionary,' in his letter to Sir William Betham, and inserted in his Irish Antiquarian Researches.'
"Toland's statement is this: 'The Fatal Stone (Liag fail), so called, was the stone on which the supreme kings of Ireland used to be inaugurated, in times of heathenism, on the hill of Tarah; it was superstitiously sent to confirm the Irish colony in the North of Great Britain, where it continued as the Coronation-Seat of the Scottish Kings ever since Christianity; till, in the year 1300, Edward 1. of England brought it from Scone, placing it under the Coronation-Chair at Westminster, and there it still continues. I had almost forgot to tell you, that it is now called by the vulgar, Jacob's Stone, as if this had been Jacob's Pillow at Bethel.'
So far Toland. Now we extract O'Reilly's account. Speaking of 'Leath Fail' he says:
'All our Irish historical writers, ancient and modern, tell us that it was a large stone of extraordinary virtue brought into Ireland; that the monarchs of Ireland, from A.M. 2764 [see later for correction of this date] to A.D. 513, were all inaugurated on the Lia Fail, which, until that period, was kept at Tara in Meath, the chief seat of the Irish monarchs. At this last-mentioned period, Muisceortagh (Murkertagh) reigned; Fergus, his brother, having established for himself a kingdom in Alba, or, as it has been since called, Scotland, procured from his brother the Lia Fail, that on it he might, with the greater solemnity, be inaugurated king over his new possession. The Stone was never returned to Ireland, but remained in Scotland; and each succeeding king of Scotland was crowned thereon until Edward I. of England invaded that country, A.D. 1296, and carried off into his own country the Scottish regalia, among which was the Lia Fail. From that period to the present day it has remained in England; and ever since the reign of James I. has continued to serve the purpose for which it was so long used in Ireland and Scotland; the kings of England from his time down to the present sovereign having been crowned on it.'"
With respect to the Stone, we have seen that the date assigned for the presence of Lia Fail in Ireland, viz. advent of the Ollam Fola is B.C. 600. Jerusalem was destroyed and the great fact of the Captivity took place, B.C. 602.
If then the Stone which we have, be Jacob's Pillow, it must have been conveyed to Ireland, certainly not before the time of Jeremiah; but most probably by him, and for some purpose. We set about now ,
First, to prove; that he might have taken it;
Next, we ask what his object would have been in taking it out of the East at all?
Thirdly, we have to show, that, whoever took it, it was set up under such attendant circumstances at Tara, as fit none but a man whose pretensions and authority were such as were those pertaining to Jeremiah;
Fourthly, accompanied, as he might have been, by some member of the Family of David. A series of evidence which seems only to want the confirmation, the direct assertion furnished by tradition, that he was, personally, in Ireland, to establish firmly the fact that, Jeremiah having been himself in Ireland, he did, therefore, take with him the Stone, and set it up as a Pillar of Witness, as had been done by it aforetime, and pronounce a blessing upon it. The substance of this has been handed down to posterity, in the very terms of the legend.
If Jeremiah took the Stone, all the marvels about Tara, its Eastern Princess, its Judge, and Mysterious Priest, and the Law, are not only solved, but are necessary events. If it be Jacob's Pillow, and set up by Jeremiah, there is sense in the legend; otherwise, it is an absurdity, and something worse.
1. The Prophet might have taken the Stone.
In the year 602 B.C. Jerusalem was taken by king Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon; and, so considerable a portion of the people was carried away, that, after the raid, made upon the remnant left behind, by Ishmael the son of Nethaniah (Jer.41), and the subsequent migration of the remains of the remnant, the place was (Jer. 43:7) almost entirely deserted. (Jer. 41:10, 43:4-7)
On the departure of the main body for Babylon, the prophet Jeremiah was allowed the option, by the monarch, to go to Babylon (Jer. 40:4), or to remain behind (Jer. 39:12, 40:4). For reasons best known to himself (Jer. 40:6), he decided to remain at Jerusalem, i.e., at Mizpah; and he made use of this licence to secure those invaluable endowments of the first temple, which, if lost, could never be replaced. Accordingly, we read in 2 Maccabees, 2:4-7, "It was also contained in the same writing, that the prophet, being warned of God, commanded the Tabernacle and the Ark to go with him, as he went forth into the mountain, where Moses climbed up, and saw the heritage of God. And when Jeremiah came thither, he found an hollow cave, wherein he laid the tabernacle, and the ark, and the altar of incense, and so stopped the door. And some of those that followed him came to mark the way, but they could not find it. Which, when Jeremiah perceived, he blamed them, saying, As for that place, it shall be unknown until the time that God gather His people again together, and receive them unto mercy."
At this time Jacob's Pillow was an object of hardly less veneration, in Jerusalem, than the miraculous furniture in the Temple: and, as we find that in the subsequent capture of Jerusalem by the Caliph Omar, in his veneration for the stone shown to him by the patriarch as Jacob's Pillow, he immediately ordered a mosque to be built over it, in honour of it (and which we know to have been a fictitious "pillow," - for we have the true one) we have herein pointed out to us, with sufficient certainty, the place where the ante-captivity Jews had set up this National Stone; the sacred memento of the promises of national greatness, made to their father Jacob, when he dreamed his dream at Bethel.
We learn from Hosea that the temple of Bethel had come to be changed, in the language of prophetical denunciation, from Beth-el to the contemptuous name of Beth-aven, "The house of nought;" which would hardly have been the case, had "the Pillar of Witness" been the foundation of its altar.
Was, then, Jeremiah the man, - it having been shown that he did care for one set of Holy Things, - to disregard the existence, or be careless, of this other Holy Thing? For it was a consecrated thing; and it lay deep, so to speak, in the fundamental traditions of the Empire.
The Stone, then, being a conspicuous object among the holy things belonging to the holy city, we may be sure that the prophet no more neglected to take care of and for it, than he did for the things which be set in the cave. In some such cave, therefore, or in some other safe place, he doubtless secreted it; possibly in the same in which Baruch had secreted by burying in an earthen vessel, "The Evidences" of his purchase (Jer. 32:14). In such case, therefore, he would be able to lay his hands upon it readily, when he returned to the Land of Judah, with the small number that escaped the sword in Egypt (Jer. 44:28). And when subsequently, on his arrival, he considered the duty that lay upon him, according to the injunctions of his first commission over the nations, "to plant and to build," (Jer. 1:10) coupled with the impossibility of his doing so within the land of Judea, which was to be in bondage for seventy years, (Jer. 25:12) - and he himself was now fifty-six years old, [by computation] - and therefore felt the necessity of going thence, and that he had authority to do so; the absence of all the Jews of influence, and the fact of the authority he had with the Babylonish Lieutenant (Jer. 39:12), would make the removal of the cherished Stone to him a matter of no difficulty: whereas the Jews with him, and also the Babylonish officer, would have absolutely forbid its being removed by any other person but Jeremiah.
2. But what reason could the prophet Jeremiah have for desiring to remove this stone?
In proportion as was the veneration of the nation for this Stone, as a National Emblem, - one representing the destiny of the nation, - so might a man who had the intention, and felt the duty weighing upon him, to re-establish the Sceptre of Judah, towards the reunion of "the Two Families " of Israel, very well feel the necessity of being accompanied by such a National Muniment; and, as his determination was to make flight by sea, - for the hypothesis is that he came to an island, - to some distant land, there would be no hindrance to his carrying with him that, which would be an almost unbearable burden by land. The present form of the Stone indicates its having been reduced from its original shape (The stone is 26 inches long, 16.75 broad, and 10.5 thick; and a little broader at one end than at the other); possibly to make it manageable for its journey from Jerusalem to the sea-shore, under circumstances of difficulty.
3. The Stone being found at Tara, in Ireland, and at the time that it was bound, as it were, to disappear from Judea, and the Legend attaching to it being what we know it to be, none but Jeremiah could have been the declarer of such a Legend.
Not alone because of the foregoing; but because no other person could have pronounced the legend concerning perpetuity and promise of return. For who could have been authorized to say such things, of any Stone? If any body but he had said any thing like this, at that time, it would have been nonsense if he did not believe what he said, or, blasphemy if he did: i.e., to prophesy without authority. But if Jeremiah said such words, they were not only the evidence of his perfect faith in his mission and pregnant with meaning, but strictly what he was well authorized to do. For his commission was, "to plant and to build." What? Trees and Houses? No, but an Empire, on a foundation which should last, "until Shiloh, to whom the gathering of the people should be, should appear." To the Jews the prophet had been sent as the minister of God's judgment "to root out, to pluck up, and to destroy" their Polity for their multiplied iniquities; but he was, in the same decree, named as the messenger "to the nations" to proclaim the Power of God, and to make it manifest among, them by the re-establisbing of the Sceptre of Judah (Jer. 1:10), and to confirm it with a blessing and a promise.
Furthermore, it must be asserted, that if the prophet Jeremiah pronounced the Legend, feeling authority to do so, we may be sure that the terms of it will be fulfilled. And hitherto are they not? "Frustration is for the Tokens of Liars," but the Lord "confirmeth the word of His servants, and performeth the counsel of His messengers." (Isa. 44:25-6)
If then the Legend be sound, which may be assumed, as having been spoken by one who had authority, which could be no other but Jeremiah; and the facts of the case, hitherto, are not inconsistent with its being so;- and if the fulfillment of the Legend be intended - and who will venture to say that it be not? - then the Stone must be the throne of the blood royal of Judah. That is to say:-
4. The Prophet must have been accompanied by some member of the Family of David, in order to have made the prediction of possible realization.
For to a sceptre of what Stock could a Hebrew prophet promise continuance, until a return to the East, but to the sceptre of Judah? .. to a sceptre, of which Stock, to appear in the East in the promised SHILOH, as the Hebrew would very well know, uninterrupted dominion was promised. And how could a throne of David be re-established, but in the presence of those by whom a perpetuation of the race would be possible? Therefore, a man of the seed royal, or woman, must have been present, to make the promise, possible and reasonable.
But the kings and princes of the royal house had been all cut off; consequently none of them were there. "The king's daughters" had not been cut off. They were manifestly in the Prophet's company on his two forced journeys from Jerusalem; first (Jer. 41:10), with Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, towards Ammon; and last (Jer. 43:6), with Johanan the son of Kareah, to Taphnis in Egypt. When there against his will, the Prophet was commanded to escape from it, and promised safety in flight (Jer. 44:12-14), to return to Judea; and safety, consequently, to those with him, who should, in so escaping, obey the voice of the Lord (Jer. 44:28; 1:19, 15:20; 20:13).
"The king's daughters," therefore, would, for their own sakes, take care to be with him on his return to Judea. When there (Jer. 5:14), he had the opportunity of transporting thence, whithersoever he would, the Stone of Israel, the grand national relic, .. the ancient Pillar of Witness (Gen. 28:13-15, 18, 22), .. even to whatever place he would be moved to proceed "to plant and to build" (Jer. 1:10) that kingdom, - i.e., to reestablish that kingdom of Israel (Jer. 33:24),--whose restoration he had been commanded to foretell.
In Judea, it was not possible for Jeremiah to set up this resuscitated kingdom. It was to lie waste for seventy years; and the prophet was now, as we have seen, fifty-six years old. In Babylon it could not be. Neither in, nor under the protection of, Egypt could it be. Whither then was he to set about "to plant and to build" that which he had been ordained to help "to pluck up and destroy?" and set up again that Pillar of Witness, by which the Patriarch of old had handed down to the generations to come, the assurance of his Faith in the promises of God? Did "the Isles of the Sea" suggest themselves as a likely place for sanctuary to that "righteous man in the East?" or were they suggested to him?
However that may be, the fact is very remarkable, that this Stone, this Pillar of Witness to the Truth of God's Promise, and for the safety of which, it was the duty of the earnest prophet to provide, is found, later, in great repute and preservation, "in the utmost ends of the earth," away in "the Islands of the Sea," - the name by which our Islands are, to this day, known by "the dispersed of Judah;" - and is, even yet, after 2400 years, still used for the same purpose for which it was then first set up in Ireland, just about the time that it disappeared in the East: and it is, to this day, guarded as the Nation's greatest Treasure, by the nation which has charge of it, by the Constable of the National Fortress in the Heart of the Empire. And the Legend pertaining to it is as fresh as it was the day on which it was declared; namely, that it came from the East; that the blessing of God is with it, even to the guaranteeing to its possessor, a Sceptre, and to his Dynasty an abiding continuance, until the time shall arrive when it is to go back to the East from whence it came. And the Token of the Utterer has not been yet frustrated!
Is then this Stone a Talisman? or are men to be taught to consider it such?
There is no doubt, but that, as well in Scotland as in Ireland, and even later, in England, this Stone has been held, superstitiously, to be the Palladium of the Empire. But when Jacob took the Stone on which he slept, did the Patriarch consider there was any particular virtue in the Stone which he set up as a Pillar of Witness? So neither do we believe that there is any particular virtue in the Coronation Stone. The Stone may or may not be Jacob's Stone. I believe it is. It is more likely to be than not. But there is no necessity that it should be the identical Stone. What God wants is not a Stone, but faith.Faith in the Homage of the Seed Royal to the Shiloh in the East, is more than the Identity of a Stone; and he who entertains that faith will bear all the brazen blasts of the infidel deniers of Providence, unscathed. Judah will be restored to Jerusalem; and to that fact future, the Legend of the English Stone is a perpetual witness. That belief is the palladium, not only of our Empire of this world, but the guarantee of every Christian's, in that which is to come!
THE MATERIAL FACT
CHAPTER VIII
"I work a work in your days, which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you." - Acts 13:41.
Here, then, to enable us to satisfy ourselves that the Material Fact of which mention has been made, is indeed Jacob's Stone, known as his Pillar by the Jews, - to sum up the Premises, concerning both the Man and the Stone, - we have shown that, -
1. Here is a Man, a Prophet of the Lord, who had a great duty to perform:-
2. Here is a Stone, in Jerusalem, which it is the duty of that man to take care of, and to care for :-
3. At the time when a Stone, (which has come to be called Jacob's Stone,) appears in another country, the above-mentioned Prophet is free to do what, and go where, he will: so that there was no political or physical hindrance to his having taken it from Judea:-
4. That Stone, with a Hebrew name and signification, was set up in a foreign country, under the cognizance of or by a great official, the chief Justiciary of the Land, who is himself signalized by a Hebrew name, and that, a name of the highest spiritual import in Hebrew Theology:-
5. In the country in which a Stone is later found, with a Hebrew name, much accounted of, and which is, later, declared to be the above-named Stone - the certainty of which is established by its having an (unsuspected) Hebrew etymology - such a prophecy and legend is attached to its history, as none but Jeremiah could have pronounced; a blessing which it would have been his duty, under the circumstances, to have pronounced, as connected with such a stone as this Stone is declared to be:-
6. The title of the Official in whom the Stone was set up, is the equivalent of the Future Title of the LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS at the time that the Stone is to resume its place in the East; and, of which time and its concomitant facts, the Church of England, in the most pointed and express manner, renews our special recognition at the most solemn season of expectation every year [See the Book of Common Prayer, "Epistle" for Pre-Advent Sunday], so identifying with it her own existence:-
7. And lastly, it is the common assertion of the People who have possession of the Stone, that it is, Jacob's Pillow.
Hence we conclude, from the foregoing Premises, interchangeably,-
1. That, if Jeremiah brought any Stone from the East, Jacob's Pillow is what he would have brought:-
2. That (while other traditions exist, altogether independently of any connexion with this subject, affirming that Jeremiah was in Ireland), as we have seen that he must have been there, and was in a position to bring the Stone, he did bring it:-
3. That, the concurrence of the time of the disappearing of the Stone known as Jacob's Pillow, from Judea, with the appearance of the Stone supposed to be Jacob's Pillow in Ireland, affords, in connexion with the foregoing considerations, a strong circumstantial proof that the two thus-named Stones, are one and the same:-
4. That, as the consciousness on the part of the Prophet of what the Stone was, coupled with that of the duty he had to perform, would have justified him in asserting of the Stone in the terms of the Legend, he certainly did so:- and finally,
5. That the necessity of otherwise accounting for the Legend and the Stone, and the Hebrew Justiciary in Ireland - not to involve here other considerations which will appear hereafter - in any reasonable way, amounts to a moral proof, - no physical hindrance opposing the possibility of the things surmised, - that these conjectures so nearly touch the realities of the case, that the main conclusion arrived at, may be considered to be the proper one, and the actual truth; which is, that the common report concerning the Stone is true. That is to say, That the Stone, which is the Throne-Seat of the Monarchs of England, is Jacob's Pillow, (or a portion of) that Stone, on which The PRINCE Of ISRAEL slept when he dreamed that dream (Gen. 28:11-12), that was the VISION and PROPHECY, and renewed assurance to the Grandson, of the future greatness on Earth of the House of his grand-Father Abraham.
If all this be so, then, indeed, of that House, its future greatness and perpetuity, the Throne and State of England is, by the interposition and providential existence of this Material Fact, the present proof and earnest: and, the Queen thereof, who is enthroned on the one, to rule over the other, as the Vicar of Jesus Christ according to God's Law, must be the Representative and Ordinance Head, (1). to her own people, .. (2). to "the dispersed of Judah," .. and (3). "to the nations" at large, .. of the Remnant of the House of Judah. Hence, consequently, this great Material Fact, i.e., The Existence of Jacob's Pillow as the Throne-Seat of England, stands indisputably a proof, that the Providence of God is manifestly at work, to identify the Fortunes of Britain with the Destiny promised to the House of Judah:.. of Judah, Ordinance Head, by Divine appointment, of the House, of the many-tribed House, of Israel. (Gen. 49, I Chron. 5:2 "Of him came the Chief Ruler.")
[Glover's note 1: 17 Chap. Code of Edward the Confessor - "Rex, quasi Vicarius Summi Regis, ad hoc constituitur; ut Regnum, Terram, et Populum Domini, et super omnia, Sanctam Ecclesiam Ejus, veneretur et regat, et ab injuriosis defendat."]
[Glover's note 2: It is much to be remembered, that while S. Sylvester, Bishop of Rome, received and accepted the title of Vicar and the Pall, the badge of Temporal Subjection, from the Emperor Constantine, - the Bishop thereby acknowledging him, the Emperor, as God's Vicar, - S. Eleutherius, Bishop of Rome, some 150 years earlier (171 to 185), had already informed Lucius the Great, King of Britain, on his conversion to Christianity, that he, Lucius, as King, was God's Vicar in his kingdom: on which expression of Eleutherius, and the doctrine it conveyed, the here-quoted law of Edward the Confessor was avowedly framed.]
[Glover's note 3: "Eleutherius, then Bishop of Rome, sent the king, Lucius, as a gift, both the Old and Now Testaments, and this letter: 'You have received, in the kingdom of Britain, by God's mercy, both the law and faith of Christ; you have both the Old and New Testament. Out of the same, through God's grace, by the advice of your realm, make a Law; and by the same, through God's sufferance, rule your kingdom in Britain; for in that kingdom you are God's Vicar.'" - Apud Holinshed, vol. i. pp. 511, 512.]
N.B. - Some people have thought to be facetious in comparing the transport of a Stone from Judea to Ireland, with that of the House of the Annunciation from Nazareth to Loretto. There is as much resemblance between the two as there is between 'the possible' and 'the impossible.' A Stone, somewhat of the shape of a not very large writing desk, is not a very untransportable thing in a ship, or by land. The theory concerning the House of Loretto is, that it was its own ship; and which, according to Dr. Stanley's obliging comparison of the foundation on which it stood with its present form, must have taken advantage of freedom from contact with the earth, to have given itself more seemly proportions than the long narrow original edifice presented ('Sinai and Palestine,' by A. P. Stanley, D.D., Reg. Prof. Eccles. Hist. Oxon, and Canon of Christ Church. See Comparative Ground Plans, p. 432, and pp. 438-446.) This resemblance, indeed, between them, there is: "Pillars of Witness," they both are :- the one, of the truth of God; the other of - (Consult 2 Thess. 2:9)
TARA
CHAPTER VIII
"Tara had various names in ancient times." - Annals of the Four Masters, p. 293 (note).
"The Hill of Tara is large, verdant, level at the top, and extremely beautiful; and, though not very high, commands extensive and most magnificent prospects over the great and fertile plains of Meath" (p. 296). "It was for many ages the seat of the Irish monarchy, the chief royal residence being, at Teamhair, or Tara, hence called Teamhairna-Riogh, or Tara of the Kings, being the chief seat of the Ard-Righ: that is, the high king or monarch who presided over the five provincial kings and kingdoms of Meath, Ulster, Connaught, Leinster, and Munster, forming the Irish Pentarchy " (p. 292, note).
"Tara became deserted as a Royal residence in the sixth century, owing to a quarrel between the King Dermot and St. Ruadham, Abbot of Lothra. The latter having cursed the former and the residence for his sake, from the death of Dermot, A.D. 565, no other king resided at Tara. The Stone of Destiny had already been removed to Scotland. What were the convulsions which led to the ruin of Tara, are little known; but somewhat of their character may be guessed at from the fact, that "in one of the earthen ramparts there were discovered, in the year 1810, two of the ornaments called Torques; a sort of golden collar of spiral or twisted workmanship, and of a circular form, open at one side, worn on the necks of ancient kings and chiefs; and similar to those which were worn by the ancient kings and chiefs of Gaul, and were called torc in the Celtic language. One of the torques discovered at Tara is five feet seven inches in length, and something more than twenty-seven ounces in weight, and all formed of the purest gold; the other torque is beyond twelve ounces in weight, and they form some of the most interesting remains of ancient Irish art " (p. 293, note).
F.R.A. Glover: As it is somewhat the custom to imagine that the supposed extensiveness of the settlement at Tara, and almost its very existence, is a fable, - even Moore's mention of it is of the most meager character, - the above fact is here recorded to satisfy the reader of the contrary. Phantoms and fictions are not usually dressed up in robes of solid metal. Tara was a very large settlement, as sufficient remains even now attest. And though ridiculous stories are told of its vastness and riches and goblets of gold, that all is not fable is proveable by what remains above ground, as well as what has been found under it; and, not less, by the various names under which it has established its reality in history. It is with the last of these, and with the fact of this change of its name, that we have to do.
We learn then that it was called successively Hazel-Wood (Annals of the Four Masters, p.294); Liath Druim, or the Hill of Liath; Drum Cain; and, subsequently, Cathair Crofinn, or the Fortress of Crofinn, from one of the Danan queens; and on the coming of a certain princess from over the sea, it acquired the name of Teamair; a word which people will insist upon being the same as Tara. As thus, - "Tamhar, a tower, the great tower of Tamhra, now Tara, is much celebrated in Irish history" (Vallancey's Prospectus of a Dictionary, p.78). In a book called the 'Chronicles of Eri', the change of name is made to be the result of setting up the Lia Fail; for, Eocaid-Ollam-Fola-Heremon-Ardri, the king, is made to say to the heralds, "From this day forth, what if this mount be called 'the Hill of Tobrad?' [later corrupted to Tara, Vol ii p.92, 95] and all said 'Yea.'
But, that which is the chief point to be considered in all this, is, that The Nine Laws were established at this time, against murder, theft, false witness, perjury, and neglect of parents; and that every one should do to others as they would wish others to do to them, &c., by the authority of the great Ollam, together with a house and endowment for the order of Ollams." (Chronicles of Eri, vol. ii. pp. 2. 100. 102. 108 (note). 112. 114-5. 140.)
But granting all this, Why should the name of Crofinn have been changed to Tura, at the time that the Ollam Fola set Heremon on the Lia Fail as a throne? The answer is apparent. Clearly because at that time also, he set up the Laws of God, in conformity, - even as that enemy of Hebrew Revelation, Mr. O'Connor (Chronicles of Eri, passim: especially pp. 499. 501, vol. ii), admits, - with the requirements of the Social Law of the Two Tables, in charge of the Ollams, and, in opposition to the priesthood of Baal. For the word, which seems to have bad numerous supposed derivations, all equally unsatisfactory, - as Tamra, Tahmair, Tobrad, "Tea-mur, hence was derived the name of Tara." (Annals of the Four Masters, p. 294.) - is itself the best explanation of itself, and, as to what it means. The name of Tara, adopted at that time, is, in itself, an evidence that the Law of the Two Tables, called by the Hebrews Torah, (pronounced taw-rab,) was there set up at that time. (The Hebrews call, The Teaching of God, Torah).
Jeremiah, it is to be remembered, had received a commission as "ordained prophet to the nations" (Jer. 1:5) as well as to his own people. The setting up the Law of the Two Tables, with distinction, there, where he had had those other duties to go through of which mention has been made, is clearly what he ought to have done (Deut. 4:10). If he set up any system of teaching, - and that, he would, certainly, do, - what could Jeremiah set up but the 'teaching of God?' .. that is, the Torah. If, then, Words and Names can teach any thing, this name Tara seems clearly to point to this great needful fact; and also, as clearly, as to why an order of Ollams should have been founded at the same time; viz. to perpetuate The Torah, and to expound its requirements, as the basis of that law, upon which each subsequent Jodhan Moran was to rule his decisions. And the Hill and Settlement, where " the Teaching of God" was a known and well-proclaimed fact, would from that time, naturally be, preeminently, the Hill of Torah.
Tara, they say, is the Hill of Conventions. It is, it was, the Hill where was set up, there, at that time, by the man who had the power, the means, and the authority to do it, the Great Convention made between God and His people at the giving of the law (Exod. 19:8, 24:3, 7). The same, which another great Sage and Lawgiver, but who was a King, Alfred of Britain, also set up, in his time, as the convention between God and Man. The First Chapter of Alfred's Code of Laws, is, The Two Tables of GOD'S Commandments.
It is very evident, from considerations which will later be set before the reader (chap. xiv.), that this occasion was, indeed, a grand National Convention; at which, in all probability, the triennial meetings and other needful institutions may have been determined upon.
P.S. - It is interesting to note, as connecting the ancient grandeur of Tara with present existing and recognized dignities, that the Bishops of Meath take precedence of all other Irish Bishops, and have the ducal Coronet to their Mitres; are styled Most Reverend, and assume other archi-episcopal style, because the ancient Regal Settlement of Tara is within the Diocese of Meath.
THE LAW OF SLAVERY AN MANUMISSION IN ANCIENT IRELAND
CHAPTER IX
"Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel; I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondmen, saying, At the end of seven years let ye go every man his brother an Hebrew, which hath been sold unto thee; and when he hath served thee six years, thou shalt let him go free." - Jer. 34:13, 14,
Another footfall by which the path of the prophet Jeremiah is to be tracked in his sojourn in Ireland, is to be seen in the Law of Release of the Slave after seven years of bondage: a law in common acknowledgment in Ireland even down to the days of St. Patrick. That illustrious personage having claimed freedom, from his bondage after seven years of service, according to it, from the master, to whom he had been sold by the pirates who bad seized him from his paternal home, on a raid into Brittany; this master refusing like the Jews in the time of Jeremiah, to fulfil the will of God in this wise, the saint was compelled to have recourse to gold to obtain that which the tyrant refused to accord to right and law. But so the fact comes out: viz., that the law, more Hebraico, s the Annalist intimates, en passant, set up by the "Prophet to the Nations," if by him, had abided in full repute, for 800 years, the Law of the Land; a law which, we may well believe, the Prophet would have bad it much in his mind to insist upon to his new people, in the recollection of the woe which its neglect and denial had wrought upon that elect nation, of whose small remnant he had been, partly on this very account (Jer. 34), the leader from an earthly paradise to the wild wastes of Crioch Fuiniab, "the ends of the earth," - Emerald Isle though they be!
It is said in some of the Lives of St. Patrick, that there was a law in Ireland, according to which slaves should become free in the seventh year; and that it was under this law he gained his liberty. The same writers add, that this was conformable to the practice of the Hebrews, more Hebraeorum, (Lev. 25:40). See on this point Dr. Lani, chap iv. From Moore's Ireland, vol. i. p. 219, note.
T H E H E R E D I T A R Y D E S C E N T
THE IRISH MYSTERY - THE KING'S DAUGHTERS
CHAPTER X
"She gave a name to her fair cahir The woman with the prosperous royal smile.
* * *
It is a mystery not to be uttered."
Mr. Petrie's Paper, p. 134.
Whether or not the direct succession of the Irish Royal House from the Royal House of Judah, was that to which the legend alludes as a thing which it was necessary, in the counsels of God, should be kept out of sight of man until the time come that it is to be known ("Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself." Isa. 45:15), I dare not say. But if the Prophet Jeremiah were in Ireland, and set up the Stone of Jacob, with a promise that the Sceptre - the Sceptre of Judah (subaudi, i.e., sensed but not expressed) - was to abide with it for ever it could not, as has been seen, have been the Stone alone, that he set up with such a promise. He must, along with the Stone, have had one of the Seed of the House of Judah there present, by whom and by whose progeny alone, the promised Sceptre could be wielded (Jer. 22:26-30); and, as this points to the presence of "the King's Daughters " with the Prophet, it is of importance to establish that point; that being the point, on which the whole subject, in so far as the connexion or identity of the Sceptre of England with that of Judah, turns.
It will be, doubtless, readily admitted, that, if the prophet Jeremiah, on leaving Judea, had been accompanied by "the King's Daughters;" .. and that, on his arrival in Ireland, his representations concerning the Seed Royal of Judah were such as to induce the monarch of Ireland to seek alliance with the Illustrious Stock; .. and that the King had, consequently, allied with one of them, either by himself or a kinsman, in the hands of whose sons and sons' sons or daughters, from that time to this, a Sceptre had continued, .. there would then be no doubt, but that the present wielder of such Sceptre would be a Ruler of the Stock of Judah.
It will also be admitted that though there be no proofs whatever existing, nor any shadow of proof, that such is the case, yet, that absence of proof, is no proof that such is not the case.
Nevertheless, it is reasonable, perhaps, to suppose, that some vestiges of such event, - one so fraught with important issues, - might have left their marks visible in a country so full of ancient reminiscences as Ireland is: albeit, perhaps in no country have the marks of an early civilization been so ruthlessly handled, .. of mental culture with so reckless a vandalism destroyed; sad to relate, in the name and in honour of Christianity.
The first step towards proving that the Seed Royal of Judah was in Ireland, must certainly be to quote Jeremiah, chapters 41:10, and 43:5, 6; from which passages of Scripture - from their mention of the King's Daughters - we see that a possibilityexisted of the Prophet having been accompanied by such members of the Seed Royal; all that were left of the Royal House : for all the King's sons were cut off, and no male was to sit on the throne of David, in Jerusalem, (that is in Judah, Jer 32:30) from that time forth. Yet, as Jeremiah was to re-habilitate the Royal House (Jer. 1:10, 15:11), and, as that could not be done by him in his lifetime, there, in Jerusalem, even if it had been lawful to do so, - inasmuch as Jerusalem was to be waste according to the terms of his own prophecy, seventy years (Jer. 25:11), - it was necessary that he should do that needful work elsewhere.
Why Ireland should have been chosen, it is not for any man to be expected to declare. That may appear hereafter, whichmay account for it: but no man dare say why this or that has been done, when there is no revelation of the mind of God on the subject. The way to Ireland was the gang-way of traffic in those days; and if it was remote, remoteness may have been an object with the Prophet, for reasons best known to him. The Irish are, and call themselves, Canaanites, and had a reputation in matters spiritual in Heathendom, - at a period when people were more zealous in the worship of their idols than a good many Christians, so-called, are now for the honour and praise of the great and good God, who has allowed His children to call Him, Father, - that, we can hardly realize in these times of rationalistic semi-Christianity. The people, who had constantly led Israel astray with idolatrous practices, were there in great force. Those who had escaped or fled from "Joshua the Robber," had transferred to Ireland, all that, for which they were driven out of the land of Canaan.
The new country of the Refugees was, naturally, well known to those who had succeeded them in the old; from which, also, their descendants had never been entirely ejected. A communication would, therefore, ever be kept up between those of Tyre and Sidon and the newly planted colonies in Ireland. Hence, traffic existing in the time of Jeremiah, and intercourse of which he might be disposed to take advantage, - and, as he had means at command to redeem his inheritance (Jer. 32:10), we may very well suppose him to have been able to carry out all such arrangements as would be needful for effecting, a voyage in those days, - there is, then, every reason to conclude, that, while this ground was open to him to choose, and as there were no impediments existing to his choosing it, he, (in accordance with the traditions of the people of Ireland who declare, to this day, that Jeremiah was the teacher of one of the Irish Kings,) actually did sail for and reach Ireland.
Having arrived in Ireland, the Prophet would naturally be an object of note and respect to the kings of the country. An alliance with a Royal Race, to which such promises and blessings were declared, by such a Prophet, to attach, would be a most natural thing for a king to desire. Such an arrangement the Prophet would, also, certainly promote. Is there then any proof existing of any such alliance having been made between a Princess arriving in Ireland over sea from the East, and an Irish Chief Monarch about this time?
There is something that looks very much like it, which drops out in the Legends of the Historiographers of the Irish Monarchy.
In the year of our Lord, 513, the Irish Kings and Grandees, oppressed by a consciousness that something mysterious existed in the foundation of the ancient muniments of Tara, assembled, with great circumstance, to inquire into all that Bards and Seneachies could declare concerning the ancient foundation and the ancient times. They devoted themselves to the pious labour, with fasting and prayer, for three days continuously. Alas! such had been the destruction of records in the confusion of the times, and the struggle of the Baalitish Priests to recover the ascendancy which they bad lost during the time of the Hebraizing of their chief stronghold, - this very Tara, - that nothing could be ascertained farther on the matter in hand, than that it was a subject shrouded in deep mystery, and connected in some way with the existence of a woman from over the great plain - the Sea - "with a Royal Prosperous Smile:" and who - such had been the intensity of respect of their ancestors for this illustrious scion of royalty, concerning whom, also, there was some mystery, too deep to be uttered, - was buried in a tomb sixty feet long and wide.
A Poem or Record was composed on this occasion by one Amergin, (Quaere, Does the word Amergin mean Chief Bard in Irish? If not, either Amergin had a very long life, or the name was common among Bards), Chief Bard to King Dermod, monarch of Ireland in the Sixth Century, from information communicated to him by an old sage, called Fintan. The following verses are from a literal translation of this Poem, as presented to us in the Notes of the "Annals of the Four Masters," p. 294.
"Temor of Bregia, whence so called?
Relate to me, O learned Sages.
* * *
When was the place called Te-mor
(When was Teamair Teamair? - Mr. Petrie's Paper.)
Was it in the time of Partholan of battles?
Or at the first arrival of Caesaire?
Tell me, in which of these invasions
Did the place obtain the name of Tea-mor?
O Tuan! O generous Finnchahb!
O Bran! O active Cu-alladh!
O Dubhan! ye venerable Five,
Whence was acquired the name of Te-mor?"
It appears that it bad been once called "Hazelwood," and three other names in succession.
"Until the coming of the agreeable Tea,
The wife of Heremon of noble aspect."
Then was the name changed.
"A Rampart was raised around her house,
For Tea, the daughter of Lughaidh.
She was buried outside in her mound,
And from her it was named Tea-mur."
We accept the fact without the parentage as signed in this distich.
"The Seat of the Kings it was called,
The princes, descendants of the Milesians:
Five names it had ere that time,
That is from Fordruim to Temor.
I am Fintan the Bard,
The Historian of many tribes:
In latter times I have passed my days
At the earthen fort above Temor."
Such was the substance of the record declared one thousand years after the facts, concerning which the inquiry was made, had occurred.
The following, is from a Poem on Tara, 500 years later, by a celebrated bard, Cu-au O'Cochlain, A.D. 1024: a considerable man, and, for a time, once, Regent of Ireland.
"It gave great happiness to the women
When Temor was erected.
* * * *
Where, after her death, was Tea's monument;
Which event perpetuated her fame.
* * * *
The grave of the great Mergech,
A sepulchre which was not violated.
The daughter of Pharaoh of many champions,
Tephi, the most beautiful that traversed the plain,
Here, formed a fortress, circular and strong, (otherwise, Formed a cahir, strong the circle)
Which she described with her breast-pin and wand.
She gave a name to her fair fortress,
This Royal Lady of agreeable aspect, (otherwise, the woman with the prosperous royal smile)
The fortress of Tephi, where met the assembly,
Where every proceeding was conducted with propriety.
It may be related without reserve
That a mound was raised over Te-phi as recorded,
And she lies beneath this unequalled Tomb,
Which mighty Queens had formed there.
* * * *
It is a mystery not to be uttered, (Mr. Petrie's Paper)
* * * *
The length and breadth of the Tomb of Tephi
Accurately measured by the sages,
Was sixty feet of exact measure,
As Prophets and Druids have related.
Tephi was her name; she excelled all virgins,
And unhappy for him who had to entomb her,
Sixty feet of correct admeasurement (apportionment)
Were marked as a sepulchre to enshrine her.
The mournful death of Tephi, who had come to the North,
Was not for a moment concealed.
* * * *
**** a meeting should be held to select a sepulchre
In the South, as a Tomb for the beloved Tephi.
Temor, the impregnable, of lasting resources, (a reference possibly to the Stone, the Race, the Standard, and the College of Ollams)
Which conferred, on the women, high renown."
Now all this, it is to be observed, was at Tara, called also Teamar; where the Stone, which came from over the sea, was set up, with the promise of blessing and perpetuation, at the time that the Jacob's Pillow disappeared from Judea. And this Woman, mysterious and royal, is declared to have caused the importance and consequence of Teamar; and to have given it a new name, as the Stone was said to have done also to Tara. That her name also should be Teamar, or Teamair, is not without significance, considering that Tamar, as a woman's name, occurs twice in the nomenclature of her ancestry; i.e., if she be allowed to have come of Judah. And our Eastern Princess may naturally have been thought to be the daughter of a Pharaoh of Egypt, since she who came almost direct from Taphnis, the royal Egyptian city, may, in the confusion of persons, places, and things, at that distance of time - in the records of oral tradition - well have been held to be a daughter of the only great Eastern potentate of whom the Bard, 1500 years later, had ever heard.
Whether or not, in that wonderful tomb, was deposited any sacred relic of the Law, in Two Tables, called by the Hebrews Torah, and from which the Mount of the Covenant might have gotten its name, is more than one can say. The Buddhists have changed Torah - the same Word, with the same meaning - into Ura: the sounds are almost alike. Possibly, also, the Canaanitish emigrants may have done the same.
At all events, the assembled sages knew nothing of the name of the place, nor of the woman, nor where she came from, but this; viz., that a remarkable woman came to the north and from the East, certainly as a Pharaoh's daughter (General Vallancey says that this is a false translation); that of those who came, she was the most beautiful, and that she became the wife of one King, Heremon, "of noble aspect," the king contemporary with Ollam Fola, and who has been confounded with him, - that imaginary king with five names, Eochaid-Ollam-Fola-Heremon-Ardri; - that the foundations of the fortress Teamor, were, as it were, laid in her, to do her honour; and that at her decease - which seems to have been thought very odd - possibly they had conceived that she was to have lived to take the Stone back again herself to the East - she was honoured with a Temple or Mausoleum, sixty feet square; and that, at the time of the inquiry, all knowledge failed "the venerable five" to determine any thing positive about her farther than has been declared.
Withal, all the reasons assigned, as explanatory of the naming Temair after the lady in question, were so unsatisfactory to the more recent chronicler of the events, that he ventures a derivation of his own. He would have Temoria, into which word he changes Temair, or Tara, to suit his theory, to be derived from Theooreoo (Gk.), to perceive; because Temor is conspicuously placed. All this wild conjecture, and the fusion of two names into one, not less than the shifting name of the chief person, proves that the real cause of the change of name was unknown to them all alike; that they had lost the record of the real name after which Tamor was called, which was, in all probability, the name of the lady herself, viz. Tamar. For,
"She gave a name to her fair cahir,
The woman with the prosperous royal smile."
Mr. Petrie's Paper.
How many of these particulars, including the name of the fortress after the lady's own name, fit the case of the "king's daughter," who might have accompanied the Prophet, the reader is able to judge for himself. A handsome daughter of an Eastern monarch is found, no cause assigned, - there was "a mystery not to be uttered" connected with her, - having strayed into Ireland. What would a daughter of Pharaoh have to do, straying away from home? The daughter of Judah had no home in the East. She, even as those had, who wailed beside the waters of Babylon, had lost hers "in Jerusalem." In her presence in Ireland, therefore, there was, at the time that she could have allied with King Heremon, just as much sense and probability, as in the case of a daughter of a Pharaoh of Egypt being there, there would be neither one nor the other.
Considering that the supposition set up, viz., that one of the king's daughters, who accompanied Jeremiah, had, on landing, attracted the attention and admiration of the monarch of the country, and had married him, required some corroboration from the traditions of the country, the most critical will admit that in the substance of the above-quoted lines, and the causes that led to the creation of the earlier poem, there is something that looks very much like it.
It may be, also, that this inquiry has thrown more light on the subject of that conference, so painfully carried out, than the whole position of things has ever yet received, since the time that the words Tara and Teamor were confounded. That the true import of the foundation of Teamor should have been lost sight of in the lapse of ages, is a thing perfectly to be understood, when, records having been destroyed, - beside that the name of the illustrious lady was never uttered but with bated breath, - traditions were handed down viva voce, but only by the privileged and hereditary bards; of whom some were as fit for their office probably, as those hereditary heralds to whom Moore pleasantly introduces us, who had every requisite for office but the voice for which they were wanted (From Herodotus, vol. i. p. 115.).
So, even as King Josiah had occasion to lament the lapses of his people to gross misconduct, from having lost all knowledge of the Law, - (and all the copies of the Law were lost, save the one copy that Hilkiah the priest discovered in the Temple, 2 Chron. 34:15, though religion was maintained by an endowed body of priests,) - we need hardly be surprised that, in however perfect a state a Prophet of God may have left things at his death, amongst a Canaanitisb people, they had become in such a condition, one thousand years later, that little or nothing should be known, or could be declared with certainty on so grave and important a subject; especially when it is remembered that there was a displaced body of priests of Baal, who, superseded by the Ollams of Ollam Fola, as Teachers, and by the Jodhan Morans, as Judges, gnashed their teeth at the first, at the institution of the Ollams, when established by an influence that they were as little able to resist (see Chapter xiv), as were the priests of Baal that of Elijah in the days of Ahab (I Kings 18).
But, the Prophet being dead, in the confusion arising from conflicting interests, and the successful efforts of the priests of Baal to outroot the newly imported doctrines from Judea, every thing perishable went the way of all perishable things. The imperishable, the Stone of Jacob, and the Seed of Judah, remained; and, the Standard of Judah. And these, in process of time, King Fergus transferred to another country (Chapter xiii); from whence they have reached in safety their present sanctuary, ready to be revealed in due time.
T H E H E R E D I T A R Y D E S C E N T
SCOTTISH-IRISH LAW OF DESCENTS
CHAPTER XI
"There is a double cause why I should be careful of the welfare of that people [the Irish]: first, as the king of England, by reason of the long possession the crown of England hath had of that land; and also as king of Scotland, for the ancient kings of Scotland are descended of the kings of Ireland." - Speech of King James I. at Whitehall, Apr. 21, 1613.
There is a passage in Scottish History, connected with Irish Legend, which appears so extravagant in itself, that it has been pronounced to be utterly beyond the possibility of reality; it has, indeed, been stigmatized as much as if it had been invented, merely to show how far absurdity could be carried or credulity taxed. If it stood alone, one's wonder might almost be excited that any man of so much mental culture as to have attained the position of a chronicler, should have troubled himself to refer to such a poor story; or, much more, have thought it worth the time occupied in transcribing it. Therefore Mr. Moore's observations concerning it are not altogether surprising.
It may, however, be neither untrue nor stupid; and it is, in any case, doubtless, founded on fact.
When the Picts "first desired that some of the Milesian Women should accompany them to Scotland," so runs the Legend, "they pledged themselves solemnly that, should they become masters of the country they were about to invade, the Sovereignty should ever after be vested in the descendants of the female line" (Moore, i, 111). In so far there is nothing very extravagant; this was evidently to secure that the Blood Royal of Scotland should be one with the Blood Royal of Scotia Major, i.e., Ireland. What follows is, however, treated in the comment of Mr. Moore, as being too strong for his digestion. He says, " This matrimonial compact is, thus, in a spirit far worse than absurd, misrepresented by O'Halloran. 'They, at the same time, requested wives from Heremon; engaging, in the most solemn manner, that not only then, but for ever after, if they, or their successors, should have issue by a British and again by an Irish woman; that the issue of this last only, should be capable of succeeding to the inheritance! and which law continued in force to the days of Venerable Bode; i.e., about 2000 years! A mark of such striking distinction, that it cannot be paralleled in the History of any nation under the sun!" Vol. ii. ch. 4, O'Halloran' (Moore i, 111, note).
Yet this story, absurd as it seems, and against which, as the representation of a supposed state of things, the Historian found it in his conscience to reclaim as above, must have had some foundation of fact, on which to have been based; and, indeed, the chronology corrected, - i.e. for 2000 Years read 1000, - might, under certain imaginable circumstances, be not only reasonable but true; and even by us, at this time, be reasonably held, according to the view of the case taken by the imponents, to be a necessary imposition. And, seeing that these certain circumstances trench very closely on the hypothesis of this work, and that the Irish King would, if such circumstances had existed, have had, on the one hand, high authority to adduce for the laying down of the stipulation; and the Scottish, on the other, would have had good reason for accepting it; it almost becomes a duty in us, for the credit's-sake of our ancestors, to inquire, whether such circumstances did exist as, existing, would convert the absurd and unreasonable into what would have been a perfectly intelligible and justifiable requirement; and therefore reasonably likely on the part of the Scottish, to be acquiesced in.
Can any good reason, then, be assigned for the stipulation, on the part of the Irish Monarch, that could have produced such a willing acquiescence on the part of the Scottish, as Bede declares to have been the case in this matter, and to have had such a long endurance?
It is not necessary, however, it must be remarked, that the supposed facts, in such imaginable circumstances, should have ever really existed. It is sufficient to make the story probable, that the general belief was, that the case was as it was imagined to be. And it may be remarked, generally, that it is hardly becoming in us to travel out of the record, for the purpose, as it were, of impugning the intelligence of our ancestors, by proving to our own satisfaction that they were mere dupes; when, if we keep strictly within it - as we ought, at least, not to neglect to do, - investigation of the marks along the highway which they trode, may show us, that those whom we think to have been unwise, because they did not act just as we think we should have done, are, on the contrary, the wise: .. those, whose acts bear witness for them, and who do not, like some others, bear witness for themselves, and "warm themselves in their own sparks" (Isa. 1:11). Credulity is a poor thing, it may be; and our poor half-civilized ancestors may have been credulous. Nevertheless, it is astonishing how much credulity some people have, who are credulous of their own wisdom, as they compare themselves with "ancient men and their good fathers who begat them" (Ecclesiasticus 44). A wretched example of this self-adulation has recently been most painfully presented to the world!
What good reason, then, - what sufficient reason can be assigned, for the stipulation, on the part of the Irish King; and the covenant entered into by the Scottish Petitioners? such as may account for that willing acquiescence on the part of the latter, which Bede declares to have been of so enduring a character among their descendants?
We know that from the time when it was declared that "the Seed of the woman was to bruise the Serpent's Head," (Gen. 3:15) that "the man from the Lord" (Gen. 4:1) appointed in the Divine Counsels to do it, was "the desire of women:" (Dan. 11:37) and that, amongst the Jews, this promised seed was so earnestly longed for by every woman individually, that barrenness of the womb was held to be a curse from the Lord amongst those of whom Messiah could possibly come. And though, ultimately, the Shiloh, "the desire of all nations," (Hag. 2:7) was announced as to come of Judah, still, the feeling had been so strongly implanted in the minds of all, that "the desire of women" continued a well-known form of expression: however, in reality, universally recognized, that the field of the possible occurrence of the Event was narrowed, even among, the descendants of Judah, to the Root of Jesse: i.e., to the Descendants of David. (Mic. v. 2.) Consequently, in the event of any woman of the Seed Royal of David, being granted, in alliance, beyond the pale of her own people, - (the possibility of the birth of the Messiah through her womb, being a part of her endowment, and may it not have been to this, that "the mystery not to be uttered," alluded?) - it would be natural, that those who were conscious of this possibility of Descent, should stipulate, before they granted the favour solicited, - viz. to spare a portion of the Elect Seed, - for such terms as they felt would be necessary to secure, that Descents from her, should take precedence of all other Descents. For the expected Seed was to be, it is to be remembered, born, a pre-eminent monarch. And if, on the one hand, those solicited, explained to those who solicited, why they demanded this; and on the other hand, those who solicited the favour and the honour, believed that the others spoke the truth; then it was, would be, would have been, entirely reasonable, that they who acknowledged the reality of the declared endowment, should give in to such demand, and, that all concerned in it, should acquiesce therein.
Now, if we suppose that the Royal Family, or the Chief Race in Ireland, had reason to believe that they were of the Race from which Messiah, the true Jodhan Moran, who was to be, according to their notions, the bearer of the Stone back to the East, in triumph, was to spring; .. and of which Race, they showed the Standard, the Standard of Judah, as their own; being also, at the same time, as they thought, able to affirm, that they had the mark of the assurance of God's favour in the possession of that Stone, of which it was declared, with great confidence, that it was to be with their Race, until some one of those connected with them, should return with it, to the East, as a Sceptred Monarch, as the promised Messiah, as the Righteous Judge, the expected Shiloh; - then, would they not only have been perfectly right in making the alleged stipulation, but it would have been most culpable in them to have neglected any thing which they should have thought to be their duty, towards God and Man, with respect to a due provision for such a possible Event.
But that is the very hypothesis; and which is assumed to be the actual fact in the case: not, indeed, that the Messiah was to come of that Stock, but that, they thought, He might come of it.
The Hebrews, down to the time of the coming of the Messiah, were universally of opinion that He was to be the restorer of the Monarchy of Judah, which would be a monarchy in "the East," as the people in the West would see it, - and a universal King. The belief, therefore, to the same effect, of these simple ones of the West, was no more discreditable to them, than was the persistence in that opinion to the learned hierarchy and fully-civilized intelligence of Judea at the time of the Advent of Christ. For entertaining that opinion, it is to be remembered, that the Jews were never blamed. It was for their persistencein the opinion, after proof sufficient had been exhibited to them that they misunderstood the time rather than misread the predictions, that they were blameworthy: and for which, and their conduct influenced by such misunderstanding of the time, the Jews of the Crucifixion and their descendants suffered.
The allegation, therefore, of the ancient Chronicler, becomes, not a self-evident fiction, credulously accepted by "fanciful Old Bede," but the credible declaration of a reasonable fact by the Venerable Historiographer: and, the conversion, by such a supposition, of what would be utterly extravagant, not to say nonsensical and inconceivable among rational men, into reasonableness and propriety, affords strong ground for presuming that this was the very idea that possessed those who made the stipulation; and that it was accepted as stated, as the Rule of Succession, willingly, by those upon whom it was imposed. And the rumour or declaration that such an extraordinary Rule of Succession prevailed, and was acted upon, affords strong ground equally for the belief that the stipulation was made, and by some of the descendants of some branches of the original stock, maintained, and to a comparatively late period, acted upon: and an argument, in so far, that all the parties, respectively, believed that they had amongst them the favoured Seed of the Perpetual Race to whom had been assigned, the Throne of David, the Sceptre of Judah, and the invaluable endowments of Jacob, as inherited from Abraham.
This is an argument that will have little weight with such as treat the Revelation of God as an elaborate fiction. But the fictionof Revelation is not now, nor here, the question. It is not, "Were these people right, to believe so and so?" - but, "Are there fair reasons for assuming that they did so believe?" If there are, they acted as has been declared by Venerable Bede. And, so acting, as they did not do so, without some assignable grounds for their belief, those grounds are the marks along the highway which show us by which road our ancestors travelled, and at the same time indicate the reasons why they took that particular way. And we may be erring against truth not less than against decency to pronounce the record nonsense, or the reasonable conduct of the ancients, incredible folly, because some dare to think Revelation, in which our ancestors believed, a fiction, and themselves warranted in denying premisses, on which they formed their conclusions.
Had Mr. Moore had any idea of the real value of this fact, which it fell in his way to relate and comment on, or of the character and name of the several persons and things connected with Irish and Scottish ancient History, and of Tara in particular, of which he has spoken with less consideration than they deserve, we may be sure that he would have given the subject all the advantage that it could have derived from being handled by one of his extensive local knowledge.
T H E H E R E D I T A R Y D E S C E N T
THE GENEALOGY
CHAPTER XII
"Confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work will perform it, until the day of Jesus Christ." Phil. 1:6
Having now brought into prominence those footfalls of the presence of the Blood Royal of the Privileged Race of Judah, which, occurring in the records of Ireland and Scotland, tend to prove the fact that the indestructible Race was really imported into the Islands of the Sea, - the name by which the Hebrews know and still designate these countries, - it remains to show that the present occupant of the English throne is the lineal descendant of her, who is concluded to have accompanied the Prophet Jeremiah, when seeking a land where to plant the Stem and to build the House of dislodged Judah, although we may have no genealogical table of names to attest and illustrate the fact.
As the possession of the Pillar of Witness, and of the outward and visible sign of the House of Judah, would be no substitute for the Seed of David; .. and as no guarantee that could have been offered would have been sufficient as a physical substitute, in the absence of such material fact, had the Seed of David not been visibly present when the Stone was set up at Tara, to assure those present of the possibility of the allegations made, in the promise recorded in the Legend of the Stone; .. so, the presence of a Royal Stem, at the time of the inauguration of the Stone, would be no proof to us, that the present occupant of the throne of these realms is the lineal descendant of the Princess of Judah then present, - and whose name is conjectured to have been Tamar, - unless a reliable pedigree of descents from that time to the present were producible; or, what would be still more reliable, such circumstantial evidence of the fact, as tends to establish the certainty of it, more assuredly than any list of names in a genealogy could. A genealogical list of names might be interesting; but such list would afford no proof.
It is one of the great elements in the controversy of the Jew with the Christian, that the genealogy presented to our belief in the Gospels, is not to be relied on : inasmuch as, they allege, that, after the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, the Jewish people bad become, and still became, so mixed with the foreigner, and the confusion in the descents arising from other causes was so great, that certainty in their pedigrees was utterly an impossibility: and that, consequently, the genealogies offered by the Evangelical Records of the descents of Joseph and of the Blessed Virgin, from David the King, carry no conviction along with them to those conversant with the realities of the case.
In ordinary cases, to prove the claim to a lapsed peerage, as amongst ourselves, or right of succession to an estate, a complete genealogical tree of descents may be a legal necessity. But, He who commended Himself to the acceptance of Man in Judea, needed no genealogical tree to prove to those among whom He walked, that the Carpenter's Wife's Son Who stood before them, low though He was in earthly station, was King of Israel, Lord of the Temple, and thence, the looked-for Prince of Judah, the Son of David (John 7:42).
The genealogical tree of our Lord's descent from the Stem of Jesse, is, to us, no moral necessity. The proof of its correctness lies, not in the succession of names so much as in this: viz. that we know, that, under the circumstances, that alleged fact, that Jesus of Nazareth was of the Lineage of David, must be so. As a cavilling point for the Jew, who is compelled to catch at any thing to justify an untenable position, his allegation is much for him to lay hold of and insist upon. But what Christian now troubles himself, if any ever did, to think about the written genealogies as a proof of that which is proved to him in fifty ways without them? Nevertheless, there was a line of descents; and, doubtless, the genealogies presented to us are correct: but the case, as it now exists, does not require, even if it ever did, genealogies, as an element towards making up faith in the truth of the mission of Jesus Christ.
The genealogies are unnecessary for the substantiation of the faith of any body. Belief in the truth of them is just as much a matter of faith, as is the great fact to which the Jew would make the truth of each an essential accessory. Who is to know how true they are, either as physical or moral proofs in what they allege, but as one takes them as presented? The fact is proved, not by the genealogy, or its assumed correctness, but by the circumstances of the case having proved that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of David. So in this case a genealogical tree, though one might construct such an interesting detail of names, would afford no such proof of reality of the fact of the right successor always filling up rightly, the line of descents, if it were ever so authentic, as the circumstances of the case themselves: they make it absolutely certain that the thing required, existed. It did so, because it must have done so.
The Law of Succession, in those rude monarchies of Scotia Major and Minor, was, that, on the death of the monarch, the fittest man of the Sept was elected. ("The tribe or clan, however numerous, comprised each but one family, of which the chief was elective, though always chosen from a particular stock." - O'Driscoll's Ireland, p. 389.) But he was always a Sept's-man; a system which produced, perhaps, much blood-shedding, and sometimes fratricide; but such was the case. ("The inheritance descendeth not to the son [when a minor, subaudi], but to the brother, nephew, or cousin-germaine, eldest or most valiant; for the childe being oftentimes left in nonage, and otherwise young and unskilfull, were never able to defend his patrimonie; being his no longer than he could hold it by force of arms. But by that time he grew to a competent age, and have buried an uncle or two, he also taketh his turne and leaveth it in like order to his posterity." - Spenser's Ireland.) The contention was, however, always confined to the Royal Stock. In the event of a king leaving minors, the next eldest brother of the deceased king, if he was fit, was elected and crowned king; and he was a king, bona fide: a king, not until the minor came of age, but for life; as they held that a king, once a king could not be un-king-ed. On his death, however, the succession reverted, as a matter of course, to the eldest son or heir-proper of the former king; and so on: so that, in that manner, were the royal stock always preserved for, and presented to, the people.
This was the Scottish rule, which came in with Fergus; and he brought with him from Ireland, we may be sure, all the family traditions and use: the man who would not attempt any landing in Scotland to establish his rule, without the family Stone and the family Standard, was not likely to intermit the usages of his race, or neglect any family tradition.
Not however to compare small things with great, as the facts in the one case substantiate the descent, so must the facts in this case be the proof, that the genealogy is unbroken, though it be not forthcoming. If the Jews' allegation be worthy of disproof, "the day" will make all clear. So will "the day" likewise declare if this be the truth. The Providence that brought the Seed Royal to Ireland is equal to the completing of whatever work It pleases to take in hand. If the Stone, which is the symbol of that Providence towards the Throne of Jacob, and the Standard of Judah, have been manifestly preserved to this Royal Family of England, we need not doubt but that the other essential to the identification of its state with that of Judah, as the full and efficient representative of the Royal House, has been equally preserved.
The Prophet Jeremiah was "to plant and to build" a kingdom. When did he do it? and where?
To the throne of David was promised an everlasting duration. Where do we see it?
The sceptre of Judah was to continue with Judah till Shiloh should come. Where is the sceptre of Judah to be seen?
But Shiloh is come! If He be come, where was the Sceptre of Judah visible after the Babylonish Captivity in the Restoration? There was no king in Judah: the Maccabees were Levites: Herod was an Edomite : and Jerusalem was in bondage one hundred and eighty-seven years to the Malum Regnum [JML: evil rule] before Christ appeared. Has the prophecy then failed?
But, if Shiloh has come, He has not been manifested. In the sense promised, He has not come. He to whom "the gathering of the People" is to be, is not in presence: in the sense therefore to satisfy "the people," Jesus Christ, as the Shiloh, is to them,unintelligible. To the Christian Mind, which can see through the enigma, certainly, Jesus is the veritable Shiloh, .. the Light that shineth in the dark place, to the illuminated mind of man. But to the Human Body, He is not: nor, in that sense, will He be, until "the gathering of the People" shall be the accomplished fact of the Future. Has then the prophecy failed? Impossible! Where then is the indefeasible Sceptre of Judah?
In Ireland, the Witness for Truth was set up in the words of Isaiah, and in the spirit of Jeremiah, and in the Type of the Shiloh, by one who was accompanied by a Mysterious Woman from the East, with a Royal Prosperous Smile, in, and for, and by whom were done things which are unaccountable altogether under any other supposition save the one, viz., that she was such a woman as the exigency of this hypothesis requires. If she, after whom the place Tamar was named, were a Hebrew Princess, the case is clear. The Seed of Judah, in the Providence of God, came hither, and, by the same Providence, has been preserved. If there was a purpose in its having been brought, the purpose is fulfilling; and the Legend of the Stone points to it: and, in this fulfillment, two illustrious prophecies are manifestly meeting their's: the prophecy of the Perpetuance of the Sceptre of Judah, and the promise of the Unfailing Throne of David.
Under any other hypothesis, we are still to seek for their manifestation and fulfillment. With respect to the prophecy of the Sceptre of Judah (Gen. 49:10), all that has been said and written about that in the attempt to prove that it has been fulfilled, is mere accommodation, if not mystification; altogether unworthy the reputation of those who have attempted it: ingenuity having been made largely to supply the deficiency of fact. The attempt arose doubtless in a sort of nervous anxiety of man to prove that God is as good as His Word. It has, however, pleased the Lord, for His own all-gracious purpose, "to hide Himself." May He not do this if He will? (Isa. 45:15) We need not fear. "Hath the Lord spoken, and shall He not bring it to pass? Hath He said, and shall He not do it?" (Num. 23:19) We must bide the Lord's time.
It is a great mistake, and something more perhaps, to attempt to hasten an interpretation. A false interpretation by a great name, is not only bad because it is false; but, because it is mischievous in proportion as men are satisfied with it. Like the great Newton's avowed fiction, which he offered as a substitute for the True Theory of the Tides, and which, unduly elevated by unreasoning admirers of his great name, acts not only as a screen to keep men from seeking further after that as yet undiscovered fact, but causes those who do to be scorched by accusations of conceit and presumption for daring to think in the line in which he thought without effect; so, the great names of those who have discovered that the Sceptre of Judah is no sceptre at all but a Tribe; and of others, that Levi and Edom, and the malum regnum of the Latins for one hundred and eighty-seven years, was the domination of the Tribe of Judah; and of all, that Shiloh has come to and restored Judah and Israel; while, manifestly, the coming of the Lord in humiliation being the cause of the dispersion of the one, and Israel not being yet allowed to be in presence at all, is a proof that the prophecy is misread: .. all this constitutes such a confusion of names, and things, and fancies, inconsistent with, and so contradictory of, one another, as shows, that nothing but the Exigency of System could have induced the production of so many antagonistic facts as, or by way of, proof of the fulfillment of the promise. And, so long as men are content to take up with such unintelligible fulfilments of a very plain assertion, so long will the Vision of Truth, as it is acted out upon the common-place stage of the earth's theatre, though visible to those whose minds are not preoccupied by the conviction that the prophecy of the Peace of the Shiloh, has been accomplished by War, and Woe, and False Manifestations of God's Truth for 2300, or for 1800, or 1260 years, - be utterly invisible to those whose judgment is led astray by false interpretations of great men.
But if, indeed, the Sceptre of Judah and its prophesied continuance can be thus sublimated away, where are we to find the Indestructible Throne of David? Is it in 'Change Alley? - or in the Jew's Quarter in Frankfort? Is money, or money-dealing the foundation or manifestation of the Throne which was never to be without an occupant of the Stem of Jesse? Where then is it?
I say, under any other hypothesis than that which the case of England exhibits to men's astonished eyes, as in the details here presented to them, we are still to seek for the manifestation of their fulfillment, as a now present reality, on the earth. Where is the Perpetual Sceptre of Judah? Where is the Indestructible Throne of David?
All things are possible with God: and such a manifestation of fulfilled prophecy and promise may be possible, apart from the present circumstances of the British Empire. But it is difficult to the human mind to conceive how, on the one hand, on the face of the earth, such a fulfillment could be presented to man, other than the State of Britain presents; and, on the other, how at the same time, the things which have led to these conclusions could have come together, and thus clustered themselves, and thus strangely, by chance that the Elements of the Remnant of Judah should be collected into one place, and belong, to one power; .. and, as would be, in the future-expected state of things, fitting, that power, the greatest on the earth; .. whose Monarch is seated on a Throne, which her, people insist on calling Jacob's Pillow; and over whose head waves, in sight of all the world, in every Sea, on every Continent, and in all the Corners of the Earth, the Lion of the Irish and Scottish Kings, which is, the Standard of the Tribe of Judah!
T H E H E R A L D I C B L A Z O N
THE LION RAMPANT OF SCOTLAND
CHAPTER XIII
"Judah is a lion's whelp." - Gen. 49:9
"Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensign of his father's house." - Num. 2:2
"In the first place went the standard of the camp of the children of Judah." - Num. 10:14.
It will not have escaped the attention of the least observant, that, in the National Flag, called the Royal Standard, which is the Blazon of the National Arms, in the upper and outer quartering of that Ensign, there is a Lion Rampant, red, on a Golden Ground.
That Lion is the Lion of Scotland, incorporated, according to the Rules of Heraldry, into the Arms and Standard of England from the time that James VI. of Scotland, inheriting by his English Descent the Realm of England, united the Two Crowns.
How that Eastern Tropical Beast, a Lion, came to be the Blazon of a Country lying so far West as Scotland, and in the Icy North, the following extract from Campion's Historie of Ireland, p. 32, in Spenser's Publication, will declare,-
First therefore came from Ireland Fergusius, the Son of Ferchardus; a man very famous for his skill in blazoning of armes. Himselfe bore the Red Lyon, rampant in a Golden Field (John Major, lib. 2, cap.1 ). There was in Ireland a monument of marble, fashioned like a throne; and .. because he deemed the finding thereof to be ominous to some kingdome, he brought it along with him and layde it up in the country for a Jewell. This marble Fergusius obtained towards the prospering of his voyage, and in Scotland he left it, which they used many years after, in Coronation of their kings at Scone."
Thus, it will be seen, that the Lion of Scotland was, in reality, the Lion of Ireland: and, as the Lion is no more an Irish than a Scottish wild beast, it is evidently an importation to that Country from the East: further, as having been associated, as is seen above, by Fergus with the National and Family Stone, it is clear that he must have considered it equally as the Family and National Standard.
The Harp became the National Standard of Ireland, only from the time of Henry VIII (Ledwich, 232), in order to commemorate his election as king of Ireland by the common assent of the Irish Princes. They were no less glad than the English, to be rid of the unseemly intrusions of the Bishop of Rome; and they thus expressed their gratitude to the doughty king. However deservedly reprobated for his tyranny in other matters, the king was a great favourite with the Chief Princes in Ireland; who willingly recognized his authority and kingship, and did homage to him, accordingly, as King of Ireland.
Up to this time it would seem that the Irish had no common or National Standard; for, "in an ancient Roll of Arms preserved by Leland (Collectanea 616), of the age of Hen. III., giving the bearings of most European Princes, we find the Arms of Wales, of Scotland, and the little Isle of Man, but not a word of Ireland." (Ledwich's Antiquities, p.232).
The cause of this might have been, that the English considered their Arms as the Arms of the English Pale; and would have felt it to be untrue as well as impolitic, to give any blazon of any of the then existing Irish kings, as the Arms of Ireland.
But, as Fergus had taken the Lion Rampant with him to Scotland as a proper accompaniment to the National Stone, which he, possibly, held to have had some talismanic virtue, it is evident that he thought that that Standard was the Standard of his Race; and we may, therefore, very well believe that he felt it to be the Standard of his nationality also.
That this Irish Lion was the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, introduced into Ireland by the Prophet Jeremiah at the same time that the Stone from the East and the Seed Royal were introduced, there is no need to affirm. Of the probability of such a deed on the part of the Prophet, others are as well capable of judging as he who writes. It is very evident, that an Eastern Beast, never indigenous to these countries, was once the Standard of Ireland, or of the Reigning Family of Ireland; and that that goes to establish the fact of a connexion of that Family with the East: and further, that this Figure of a Lion Rampant, is the Ensign of the Hebrew Tribe of Judah; which concurrence tends much to show the likelihood of a Hebrew connexion between Ireland and the East. Certainly, whatever be the ancient facts of the case, this Irish connexion has been the means of introducing and maintaining, in constant display, on the National Keep of Royalty, over the anointed Head of this United Empire, the Blazon identical with the Standard of the Tribe of Judah. This may indicate what has been suggested, or it may mean nothing. It may be accident, and not Providence. It certainly ties Ireland to the East, .. to those of the East who bad a Lion Rampant for their Standard. And the son of Jesse had a Lion Rampant for his Standard. And if there be any reason to imagine that Jeremiah, in the exercise of his office and mission "to plant and to build" the kingdom of Judah, for the perpetuation of the Sceptre thereof, and the continuation of the Throne of David, set up any mark of Jewish Nationality and Descent, what badge would he have brought and left as the mark and sign of that Monarchy, but the old well-known and prophetically inspired Standard of the Race he represented?
THE HEBRAICAL ETYMOLOGICAL COINCIDENCES AT TARA
CHAPTER XIV
"It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; but of kings to search it out." - Prov. 25:2.
The argument here set forth is materially strengthened, by the proof afforded in the fact that of all the different Notabilia connected with Tara, in relation to this point, every one is originally Hebrew, and has a Hebrew name; and not an Irish name, except by adoption or corruption. From the Stone of Destiny downwards, to the establishment of the College of Ollams, there are eight several points, as will be seen by the following sentence, in which the words or things having Hebrew equivalents are marked with small capitals. It exhibits the nine assumed historical Hebraical facts of the case.
The Stone of DESTINY, (Called Lia-Fail. Phail from Heb. Phelia, Buxtorf.) of Ireland (called, Hebraically, after it, the Isle of DESTINY, INIS-FAILIA, Inis-Phail) is the "Jacob's Pillow " of England; on which was once crowned, on the hill of TARA (Heb. Torah, the Law) in Ireland, TAMAR (Teamair), "the KING'S DAUGHTER" OF JUDAH, under THE STANDARD OF JUDAH, by the OLLAMI FOLA (Fola, or Aramaic, Phola = Magnates, Vallancey), of Ireland; who was Jeremiah the prophet. He, as Jehovah's " Prophet to the Nations," there set up the TORAH, the Law of God; instituted the office of the JODHAN MORAN (The Righteous Judge, Isa. 11; Jer. 23; 33), the REACTAIRE (Ra-ta, Governor, Judge; Moore's Ireland i 135) (or, Judge) of Tara; and founded the Mur-OLLAM-ham, or school of Ollams, to teach The Law at the place which was called from that time, TARA.
The evidence that is furnished by each of these matters in relation to the others, so acts and re-acts upon the whole of them, that the assurance of the prophet's having brought the Stone, the Blood Royal, and the Standard from Judea, and their being what they are believed to be, - coupled with the great National Fact that the Sceptre in connexion with them still flourishes, and is, of those in all the world, the most illustrious, - may be held to be established to the point of moral certainty.
Concerning, these things, it is to be observed that they "drop out," so to speak. They tell nothing of a Prophet; nothing of Jeremiah; the chief of them absolutely seems to make it impossible for him to be the person meant: .. they are hardly discernible, by the ordinary reader, to have any relation to any System, or to the facts of such a case as we suppose the realities of this one to constitute. With respect to the Prophet himself, the chief actor of the whole scene and the pivot on which it all turns, to get at him at all, the disguise of a false office is first of all to be stripped off an imagined man before it is possible to get a glimpse of the real official; and then, the truth of the attribute-adjunct, Fail, is to be recovered from the perversion the real word has undergone, and a sense given to it, consistent with the meaning of its conjoined word, applicable to the character of the man and his office: i.e., Irish metamorphosis has to be reduced to Hebrew sound and Hebrew sense to bring it into congruity with the office of the man. These things done, the Ollam, the Teacher, i.e., the Ollam-Fola, Teacher of Destiny, reveals the Prophet. And, when he is seen as the Prophet who set up the witness of The Jodhan Moran, - a phrase itself taking in the whole system of Theology that the Holy Scriptures reveal, or had revealed up to that time, and indeed, if standing alone would contain the whole argument in itself, - nothing from such premisses can be concluded, but that these people had the advantage of a Hebrew Prophet to proclaim glad tidings to them, and that, that Prophet, was Jeremiah. Culled, however, thus, out of the histories of the times, cast together, and each made to throw a gleam of light on the presence or existence of its neighbour, they constitute a cluster of coincidences too remarkable to be passed over with neglect by the Christian or the Philosopher, whether truly or falsely so called.
But, while treating of the probability of these matters being in accordance with the hypothesis of this work, the very remarkable fact must not be overlooked, that there appears thus, as above, to have been a complete Hebrew revolution at Tara effected, at the time that the Stone, the Seed Royal, and the Standard of Judah were set up. (With respect to the chronology here assumed, the text does not accord with the date quoted in chapter vi. But it is to be recollected, that as Mr. O'Connor has brought down the date of the Chief Actor in this whole drama from the fabulous times of the nearly antediluvian era to the reasonable date of circa 600 A.C., while it is not possible to imagine that the Stone itself could have been adrift from Jerusalem until its polity and temple were brought to nought; while the name of Fola, common to the Ollam and the Princess, makes these two characters synchronous, it is not possible to arrive at any other conclusion, to make these facts consistent, but the assumption of the text.)
For it is not alone in the Name of the Stone, in the changed Name of the place, (the rectification and establishment of one date involves the correction of the assumed date of all contemporaneous events), in the Title of the Fortress, and the Standard itself, that we have Hebrew words and indications; but, the Jodhan Moran, the Ollam-Fola and the School of the Ollams, and the Reactaire, (the Judge), were not only Hebrew names or things; but they were, as all existing, on the same spot, indicative of the introduction of an ENTIRE HEBREW SYSTEM, and of the unhesitating confidence and obedience with which all these Things, Persons, and Offices with Strange Names, were accepted, and allowed to supplant the national institutions and nomenclature: having been suffered, evidently, by the people, to supersede by one general sweep, all that had previously been the order of the day.
Under the supposition that the people believed that they had been favoured with a direct visitation from ALMIGHTY GOD, to which it behoved them without question to yield, the solution of this strange fact is easy. Under any other supposition, it is altogether unimaginable how such a state of things could have so recommended itself as to have brought about this overwhelming change.
If any man, at that time, could have wrought such a change from Irish Heathenism to Hebrew Deism, have introduced the Torah, have set before the People the full Revelation of Hebrew Theology, in the Office of The Righteous Judge, and have established an Order of Teachers to magnify the one and to expound the other, - who could he have been but a Hebrew?
Had an Ogygian Sage gone to Judea, and there been taught the law of The Two Tables, and desired, on his return to Ireland, to introduce the necessary Officers for carrying it out, and had been able to do so, he would hardly have encumbered big argument and increased the difficulty of his undertaking, by using outlandish words to convey his meaning to his people.
The fact, therefore, of all these Words and Things being Hebrew, and of their being exhibited and perpetuated among the people under Hebrew names, tells its own tale. The Hebrew influence must have been overwhelmingly in the ascendant, when these institutions were introduced. The work was done with intelligence and forecast. Therefore, a Hebrew must have been there, to do this work which has, evidently, been done. And those who accepted and acknowledged the authority of the innovator, must have believed that they were obeying a Divine impulse - as no doubt they were - in receiving the founder of the things in question, and accepting all that he said and did, with reverence (Jer. 15:11).
These Hebrew words, things, and institutions, therefore, clustered at Tara, constitute full evidence that the whole institution as remodelled by the Hebrew Innovator, was, in a sort, a transplanted Jerusalem; and that the people who submitted to and acknowledged the authority of him who brought them from the East, must have believed that he was, to them, a messenger from God. And so no doubt he was: for it was Jeremiah the Hebrew, the priest of Anathoth, consecrated prophet to the Gentiles when in his mother's womb. And the favour with which he was received, as evidenced by this multifold fact, is a proof that the promises of God made to the Prophet when in quiet in Jerusalem long before, had not been forgotten, by His gracious Lord, when in faith in His providence, be committed himself and the Remnant the Lord had given him to His guidance (Ps. 37:5).
THE REMNANT OF JUDAH AND THE MARKS THEREOF
CHAPTER XV
"A Stone, a Woman, and a Flag." - Introduction.
'Verily it shall be well with thy remnant; verily I will cause the enemy to entreat thee well in the time of affliction." Jer. 15:11.
"Thine eyes shall behold the land that is very far off." Isa. 33:17.
Behold we then the prophet to the Gentiles - so consecrated while an unborn infant - accompanied by the relics, the Stone of Witness, the Standard of Judah, the Law, and the Stem of the Old Kingdom as the Seed-Plant of the New Empire, on the great waters, taking sail, to set up a kingdom and the knowledge of God among Gentiles, under the providence of the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, for "the ultimate bounds" of the West: for those countries where trade had already established a well-tracked line of communication: and where, beyond the reach of Egyptian influence, the Stone of Israel might be set up for a little moment, until the tyranny, under which the necessity for the transportation of this Remnant of Judah had originated, were overpast.
Little idea had the faithful prophet, possibly, of the long interval that was to pass before this Stone of Israel, now set up in Ireland, as the Throne-Seat of the Resuscitated Dynasty, should be restored to the Mount of the Lord, whence he had, in full faith in its return, brought it; .. of the period to elapse between The Righteous Judge's appearance and withdrawal for a season (John 16:18), and His return to the land of his love and his longing, what time Ephraim should have learnt not to envy Judah, and Judah to have ceased to wish to vex Ephraim. The time when the Ensign of which Isaiah prophesied, should be lifted up by the Root of Jesse, for the Nations, .. for the assembling of the outcasts of Israel, and the gathering together the dispersed of Judah, not now from Babylon, but from the four corners of the earth, the East, the West, the North, and the South.
Of one thing he was entirely satisfied: viz., that, as sure as he set up the Pillar of Witness in the Name of his God; and, in the same Holy Name blessed the Race incorporated with its destiny with the promise of a continuance to abide until the appearance of The Righteous Judge, with Whose name, office, and dignity, he, a prophet to the Gentiles, made those Gentiles then acquainted; so surely would that blessing be fulfilled (Isa. 33:17-22): and that, until, in God's own time, He would bring it to pass (Psa. 37:5):
"David should never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel." (Jer. 33:17).
For he had himself been instructed to say, "If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season, then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers. As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured; so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me. Moreover the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying, The Two Families which the Lord bath chosen, he bath even cast them off? thus they have despised my people, that they should be no more a nation before them. Thus saith the Lord; If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David my servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them." (Jer. 33:20-26).
Lo! then, the significancy of the fact, that, Jeremiah the Prophet having had to do all these things which have been here ascribed to him, all these things themselves point to him as their conductor into the West, and establisher when there.
Lo! the reason of the preservation of a simple Stone; that on which the monarchs of England are crowned. A Stone of no intrinsic or inherent value; but of such, nevertheless, as Jacob's Pillar of Witness, that all the armaments of the world shall not wrest it from the grip of the Anglo-Saxon, so long as they are true to their God and themselves.
Lo! again, also, the cause of the dignity and preeminence of the Race enthroned on it; and of the fact of that Lion Blazon of the British Empire being its highest merit (see Chapter XIII), and pre-eminent election; for it is GOD'S MARK upon us, and constitutes the nation that has it, by right, The Standard-Bearer of the God of Israel: that standard being England's, not by assumption, but by inheritance and right; for it is the Standard of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah; and the Blood of Judah, through the Stem of Jesse, sits on the throne of England: so that the Monarch of England is herein, now, the Living Representative of the REMNANT OF JUDAH of the Prophet Jeremiah: even that Remnant of Judah to whom the Lord promised sanctuary and recovery; for "The Lord said, Verily it shall be well with thy remnant; verily,I will cause the enemy to entreat thee well in the time of evil and in the time of affliction" (Jer. 15:11). And "the remnant" that escaped of the House of Judah, did take root downward, and has borne fruit upward (II Kings 19:30-31), and will: for, already, "of one, has become a thousand, - of a little one a great nation," (Isa. 40:22) the earnest of a greater; and it is still "the Remnant of Judah;" .. the marks whereof, these, "The Islands of the Sea," have, and can show them: even a Stone, a Woman, and a Flag, as heretofore, with such evidence of the Presence of a Prophet amongst us to notify the will and do the work of the Lord (see Introduction), as the foregoing pages, in part, may suffice to declare.
Lo! then, the Remnant of Judah, and these, the marks thereof:-
The mysterious Throne:-
The mysterious Race seated on it:-
and, The Ensign of The Lion of the Tribe of Judah (Rev. 5:5).
And are all these things, these Three Things, here in England? They are; and are England's, not only by Right of Possession, but the Monarch of THE ISLANDS OF THE SEA has inherited them.
Are they here for nothing? or is all this seeming Providence purposeless?
Are they SIGNS? or are they not SIGNS?
WHAT ARE THE SIGNS OF EPHRAIM?
CHAPTER XVI
"Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord." - Jer. 31:20. Spoken B.C. 587
"I am a Father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first-born," Jer 31:9.
If, then, these things be such, and, as is affirmed of them, they are, as constituting "The Remnant of Judah," in power and permanence here; then is the position of the Monarchs of England of this Race, that of Perpetuators of the Sceptre of Judah until SHILOH come, - even of Judah, who is to be Lord over his Brethren and Victor over all his Enemies (Gen 49:8-9). And, wonderfully indeed has the Lord blessed the arms of England with victory in the several conflicts in which she has contended, for Right and Principle, with the various nations of the world!
But that same section of Scripture which foretells the perpetuity of the Sceptre of Judah, his dominance over all his brethren, and that his "hand is to be in the neck of his enemies," also promises universal dominion to Joseph. His power is to run "to the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills," to encompass the earth, and he is to become, in the Ephraim of Israel, "a multitude of nations." (Gen. 49:26; 48:19).
How can these things be? .. that is How can they co-exist? If Joseph be dominant, Judah must decline. If Judah is to rule the nations and is to receive "the praise of his brethren," how can the power of Joseph be universal? .. how can Joseph be a Lord-Paramount on Earth?
That England, is, in her royal family, enthroned on the Stone of Israel, under the mark and the power of the Ensign of Judah, the Remnant of Judah, and authorized, through those marks and what they import, to receive the homage of "the dispersed of Judah" as the Head of their House, wherever they are in dispersion, is manifest enough. But where is Israel? And how can Judah, how is he, to receive the homage of the Tribes ? How, of Joseph in particular, .. the first-born (1 Chron. 5:2), the beloved Ephraim? Where is Israel? where the Israel of Ephraim? of Ephraim and Manasseh? entitled above all, to the Namewhich Israel won (Gen. 48:16)? And when found, will that Israel bow down to Judah?
And if "Ephraim, remembered of the Lord," (Jer. 31:20) though long lost, were now to appear, what room is there for him on the face of the earth, and in power, unless he should possess himself of the domains of Judah? If Joseph run down and bring Judah to vassalage, where is the fulfillment of the promise of sceptral power to Judah over all his brethren, and his immunity from the power of his enemies (Gen. 48:8)?
Besides, where are we to seek for this grand Joseph? him, whose greatness is to be equal to that of Judah? Is it in the Russian Empire? Is it in that of France? either of which have already handled in conjunction, and in disjunction, Turkey and Syria, the nucleus of the Land of Promise! Is it in rising Italy? Is it in waning Austria? Is it in Prussia, looming to a Germanic Empire, a possible incorporation of all the Tribes save four (to wit:- Reuben, Simeon, Zebulun, Issachar, Dan, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, excluding Judah and Benjamin, Ephraim and Manasseh. Levi is a distributable tribe)? Or, is it in The United States? Which of these are likely to volunteer absorption into the arms of, and to make identity with, England, and become, with her, one in faith and love, as well as one in Arms and Power? Have they not all, in turn, shown that jealousy of her, that forbids the likelihood of any coalition, much less identification by incorporation? Have not the very favours she has done them all in turn, been made food for the heaviest revilings, the bitterest of cursings ? And even among our brethren of the United States, own cousins though we are, our earnest love towards our own Race, and anxiety that they might spare themselves the pang of fratricid, are returned to us with bitterness, and cursings, and threats of war!
Let us, however, not be weary in well-doing. Wishing well and doing well to all mankind, we must be content to heap the coals of fire of good deeds on their heads, even without the comfort of thinking that we merit the thanks of God for so doing. We act as we ought to act; and are, withal, but unprofitable servants to our Master.
But where, in the mean time, are we to find this mighty Joseph, whose greatness is not to be dimmed by the presence of Judah? This Israel, blessed, and to be blessed with blessings, spiritual and temporal, beyond all that man can desire and hardly dare to conceive? Blessings of the Heaven, the Earth, and the Sea; of the Breast, and of the Womb! To the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills they are to extend and run over, and become withal "a multitude of nations."
If, indeed, Judah and Joseph, - Judah being what he is, and Joseph equally great somewhere in visible existence, - were to combine and agree to be one, and it were lawful in the sight of God that this should be, then indeed would all these difficulties disappear, and the greatness of each tribe would be the augmentation of that of the other in this confirmation of the blessing to both.
Now, strange as it may sound to hear this, or difficult as it may be, to bring one's self to think it, yet, what is tantamount to this combining, this agreeing of the two to combine, has already occurred, and can now be hindered by the jealousy of no power on earth, nor by all of them in combination. Its lawfulness also in the sight of God must be indisputable: for His Providence has already brought it to pass. Man's acts have unconsciously wrought out, in this behalf, the will of God. England is this Joseph! England is this Ephraim! For, Joseph, long lost, has appeared, and been, a long time, one with Judah, the substantial representative of its dignity, the manifestation of its power. Judah and Joseph are one, in the dignity and power of the State of England. And they are already full to overflowing with the amplitude of terrestrial possessions; for, such is England's greatness and power, that any aggrandizement in the way of territorial or political augmentation has long been felt by this strange power to be a nuisance and a hindrance, and it would now hardly be voluntarily increased, save under the motion of a divine impulse.
Yes, truly, strange as all this is, yet is it not more strange than true. Strange indeed, not that the ways of God, Who has planted
"His footsteps in the sea,
His wonders to perform," (vide Chapter XV.)
are greater than man's ways, but that this thing should have been manifestly set forth before us for now upwards of 250 years, and that we should not have seen it! And that, while we have been looking for The Lost Tribes in every corner of the earth, and have fancied that we have detected them in the presence of every degraded portion of the human race, we, in the very midst of them, part of them, - the most important part of them, - should have been blind to their existence as such; .. should have failed to see them where certainly Joseph ought to be looked for if not found; viz. amongst the noblest and grandest of the species that tread the face of the earth, - in England! In England?
How is England of the Lost Tribes of Israel ? How is England, Joseph ? How is England, Ephraim? How is England, Manasseh? How is Joseph, here, Lord-Paramount? How is Joseph Lord-Paramount of the Earth? And then, if that be, How is Judah Lord over his Brethren? i.e., How is the envy of Ephraim to depart, and Judah to cease to vex Ephraim ? and, How are the Two Families to agree to choose one Head?
ENGLAND, OF THE TEN TRIBES OF ISRAEL
CHAPTER XVII
"The Saxons were a Gothic or Scythian Tribe; and of the various Scythian nations which have been recorded, the Sakai, or Sacae, are the people from whom the descent of the Saxons may be inferred, with the least violation of probability." Sharon Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 100.
"The fact that we have six or seven hundred words in our language of Persian origin, agrees with our own origin amongst the Persians, but not [as] of them. Hebrew Roots, too, are amongst our homeliest words." - Dr. Moore's Lost Tribes, p.91.
How is England of the Ten Tribes?
About some 120 years before the events occurred, which were the basis of the Argument of the first fifteen Chapters of this Book, - viz., the breaking up of the Polity and Rule of the House of Judah, by its removal from Jerusalem to Babylon, - Phul, Tiglath-Pileser (II Kings 15:29), Shalmaneser (I Chron. 5:26), &c., led away the Israelites captive. They were deported to the depopulated cities of the Medes, off the Caspian Sea, in the territory lying between the rivers Araxes and Gozan, B.C. 720. This done, by the will of the Lord, they, worthy of punishment, were punished. But, though erring children, they were Sons of Jacob and Children of Abraham, and neither of the Patriarchs would God fail because of the unworthiness or sin of their descendants (Gen. 28:15). So, after punishment, came reconciliation, and thenceforward prosperity and multiplication; enlargement of their border and manifestation of power. They stretched up northwards, by land and by sea; and, as a powerful nation, by the name of Sakae (tzaa-chi), or the Tribes of Isaac (Isaac, "House of Isaac," Amos 7:9, 16. Heb. tzakhak, laughter; hence 'Isaac.' Gen. 18:12, 21:6), overlaying the northern sea-board of the Caspian, were the first people who could say to the conquering Alexander, "Turn about and return by the way that you came, for here you shall not pass." And he did turn back.
As to their adoption or acquisition of the name of Sakae, by which they and their descendants subsequently were known, it appears that, after the separation of the Ten Tribes, when they, in their pride and arrogance, refused to be ruled over by a Son of Judah, and renounced thus the hopes and promises connected with the House of David, they arrogated to themselves the title of "the Sons of Isaac:" for it was not until after that event they were known by the name of "the House of Isaac," as synonymous with the Israel of Jeroboam (amos 7:9, 16).
"This is," as Dr. Moore observes (It is to be noted that this learned layman, who seems here to touch the position of the Deistical writers in the "Essays and Reviews," can hardly have had them in his mind, as his book was written apparently before theirs was published), "memorable. They did not think, by this rejection of God's anointed, to reject the hopes of Israel, but rather, in their wilfulness, appeared to fall back upon the anterior promise, and to look for blessing and power in the name of Isaac, the true seed of Abraham;" [when as yet there was no blessing by Israel to a pre-eminent Prince of Judah; but, in whom, certainly, all the nations of the earth should be blessed.] "They arrogated the right of dominion, in this name, when occupying the hills of Samaria; and it is, therefore, highly probable, that when the conquering Assyrian king drove all their families from their fatherland, they still boasted of their descent from Isaac. They preferred to mingle idol-worship on high-places with their traditional ritual; and thought, perhaps, with the opinionated and Cain-like spirit of refiners of God's ordinances, to honour Jehovah more, by calling Him Baal, or Lord of All, than by worshipping Him as the God of their fathers, and the chosen people only. The origin of the name of Sacae, or Sakai, for the inhabitants of that part of Armenia, which the Sacae occupied after the expulsion of the Scythians, is thus naturally accounted for. That they should be confounded with the Scythians is equally natural, especially as there is reason to suppose that they afterwards colonized amongst that wide-spread race of marauders, and gave their name to the country they occupied beside the Massa-Getae. They attained so conspicuous a position amongst the Scythian nations, from superior arts, power, and industry, as at length to give their royal name to the dominant part of that race. It is at least remarkable that the name Sacae is not applied by the Classic historians and geographers to any tribe of the Scythians until some time subsequent to the exile of the House of Isaac." - pp. 97-99.
Ultimately, as Sakae, these people spread out westward and eastward. And, after many changes of place and power, of those who came westward, some became the Angles of England. They were followed later by other off-slips of the same determined race, named Sons of Sakae (Sakasones, Suni = Söhne, Ger. sons). Lo! the origin of the Anglo-Saxons, - that ever-advancing Race, who have since occupied all England, and absorbing the Scottish and Irish, have at length spread themselves out into a "nation of nations" (Gen. 48:19).
There are three very striking - what may be called popular - marks, by which this descent of England from Israel may be seen:
(1) the Wittena Gemote, the evidence of the Medo-Persian residence of the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons, - such institution, in name and thing, being, identical with the same custom, so named also, and so used by the Persians; (There are numerous words in the Persian language which are, in sound and signification, precisely the same in the old English ; we will only instance one: Witten-a-gemote, which, in both tongues, literally means a national assembly. Huet says, the German language bears a great affinity to the Persian. The cause of this may be imputed to their common origin from the Scythians." - Pennie's Historical Drama, 530.)
(2) the Seven-Day weekly division of time, still known among us under the names of the gods whom they, during their heathendom, held sacred; and
(3) their use of the Three Yearly Feasts of the Hebrews (Deut. 16:16), the Passover, of which the Saxon heathen name still remains in use amongst us, as Easter, the Feast of Weeks, as Whit-Sunday, - and the Feast of Tabernacles, by the Anglo-Saxons, when they were still lost in the slough of Wodenism. See Wilson, p. 128.
For further proof on this interesting subject, the Reader is referred to a Book of "Lectures on Ancient Israel," setting forth"Our Israelitish Origin," by Mr. Wilson (Nesbit). This learned layman commenced to lecture upon it at the instance, it seems, of a valuable and eminent servant of the Church (Rev. Peter roe, Kilkenny); who was desirous that what he had himself heard might be delivered in every city and town in Ireland. This was at once set about; and as well also, many chief places in Scotland and England benefited by this valuable witness's 'labour of love.' The substance of the fourteen Lectures has been in print for now twenty-one years, and the Book has gone through many editions.
Mr. Wilson has collected all that is sufficient, in proof of this case, in his Lectures, to which the Reader is referred: to cite passages in proof is out of the question: it would be to reprint the whole book.
In the mean time, Mr. Wilson's authorities for his facts and deductions are chiefly Mr. Sharon Turner, Rapin de Thoyras, and the Abbé Milot, from his work, entitled, "Elements of the History of England:" all of whom, without being at all aware that they are speaking to the case, and viewing things, in general, from quite different points, most curiously illustrate the theory of Mr. Wilson; which is, .. That the purpose of God has been overruling the actings of His people, (the sons of Joseph,) in such a manner, that their greatness and power is rather the result of a destiny than any ordinary issue of effect from cause: that they have been made great, in spite of themselves; their mistakes having been so overruled, as to work out the advantage of the nation. Thus, he says,
"All changes He hath overruled for their good. The wonderful manner in which they withstood, as it were, the world at the commencement of this century; and in which they have been enriching it with their wise and useful inventions, more and more ever since, is most worthy of note; and all this they are to ascribe, not to chance, but to the goodness of the God of their Fathers, who had promised so to defend them, and so to cause them to be for blessings unto all the nations of the earth. In their case are manifested, not the supposed freaks of blind fortune, but the good providence of the God of Israel."
"That this people have been wondrously dealt with is acknowledged," continues Mr. Wilson, "by those who have had the best opportunity of judging: by those who have studied their history in comparison with other nations." - p. 120.
" How impenetrable are the decrees of Heaven!" exclaims the Abbé in astonishment,as he contemplates the events in succession. He concludes his summary of the events of our History in these words: "To this very imperfect summary of the principal epochas, let us add, the detail of those laws successively established, to form a rampart to liberty, and lay the foundation of public order; the progress of letters and of sciences, so closely connected with the happiness and glory of States: the singularities of the English genius, profound, contemplative, yet capable of every extreme; the interesting picture of parliamentary debates, fruitful in scenes, the variety and spirit of which equally strike us. The reader will easily conceive that this history is unparalleled in its kind." [What wonder! is it not the history of Joseph?] "In other countries, princes, nobles, fill the entire theatre; here, men, citizens, act a part which is infinitely more interesting to man." - p. 121. [Wilson.]
In page five of his Preface to his third Edition, in 1844, Mr. Wilson laments that the dissemination of his views has not been undertaken by the Clergy, and others, and public teachers, "whose position in society was advantageous for their dissemination to the extent that is desirable." Of this "desirable extent," it is possible that an estimate of that is formed elsewhere. When the time comes for action, men's minds will doubtless be moved. The fact may be, that men may see a War Rocket in that which Mr. Wilson deems to be only a Signal; and that the Political Corollary to Mr. Wilson's Religious Proposition is a Fire-Work not to be ignited, heedless of the political issues of a national adoption of his hypothesis. In the mean time, notwithstanding all the apparent apathy on the subject, multitudes of earnest and deeply-religious men have imbibed the great truth that Mr. Wilson was privileged to proclaim. That the seed was not spread broad-cast in vain, if his own experience have not already assured him abundantly, not only may these pages satisfy him, but those of another learned layman, from whose recent publication I think it right to make the accompanying extract.
"A work was published some time since, (by Mr. Wilson of Brighton) entitled 'Our Israelitish Origin' This was too much opposed to the views of popular expositors to be received with the candour it deserved; but it must be acknowledged that Mr. Wilson, in that work, has done much more to meet the requirements of prophecy, than any that preceded him: and, although we dare not follow him into all the results to which he would lead us, still he has shown a large amount of probability, and indeed very much of the letter of Scripture, in favour of the opinion he has advocated, viz., that the Saxons are the descendants of the Israelites as distinguished from the Jews. Mr. Wilson has not advanced any direct evidence of Saxon connexion with Israel by descent; but he has indicated a great deal in the Anglo-Saxon character and customs which accords better with the notion of our Israelitish origin, than with any other explanation of our peculiarities."
"Could we but find the broken link in the chain, by which the Sakai or Sacae are supposed to have been connected with the Israelites, we should be at no loss to discover some of the modes in which the wondrous prophecies, so apparently contradictory and paradoxical, concerning the outcast tribes, have been fulfilled in their descendants: for here we are, the Anglo-Saxons, with mind and heart imbued with the history and hopes of Israel, elevated and enlarged by the sublime doctrines and predictions of their sacred seers, sages kings and prophets, singing the songs of Zion in our temples, living in the noble expectation of universal blessedness under the glorious reign of the King of Salem, and desiring and endeavouring to promote the coming of His kingdom in all lands. The [Anglo]-Saxons embrace the world; and the devout amongst them realize, in faith and spirit, the visions of all true prophets and seers that have been since the world began ; and now anticipate the period when a King, shall reign in righteousness and princes rule in judgment. (Isa. 32.) What could converted Israelites do more?" - Dr. Moore's Lost Tribes, pp. 94, 95.
But granting what Sharon Turner, and Rapin, and others have declared as suggestive of this descent of the Anglo-Saxon races from the lost tribes deported into the Heathendom of Medo-Persia, and the many marks existing, among us, political, social, and domestic, by which the identity of this people with the Tribes of Israel is established, upon what ground can any one assume that England is entitled to be considered as the representative of Joseph?
ENGLAND IS JOSEPH
CHAPTER XVIII
"Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall: {23} The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him: {24} But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:) {25} Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb: {26} The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren. Genesis 49:22-26
"And of Joseph he said, Blessed of the LORD be his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath, {14} And for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon, {15} And for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills, {16} And for the precious things of the earth and fulness thereof, and for the good will of him that dwelt in the bush: let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his brethren. {17} His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh." Deuteronomy 33:13-17
"But the birthright was Joseph's." - 1 Chron. 5:2.
How is England Joseph?
The prophecy concerning Joseph himself, by Jacob, is so peculiar in its promises and terms, and it seems so exactly to fit the condition of England, that one is driven to see England's existence and power, as foretold in the endowments promised to Joseph; which endowments cannot, by any stretch of fancy or accommodation of language, be extended to suit the condition of any other of the Teutonic or Continental nations, sprung equally from the tribes with ourselves, or any other, sprung from any other source.
So much colour is there for this assertion, that
"Mr. Wilson," says Dr. Moore, "who has not advanced any direct evidence of Saxon connexion with Israel by descent, while he has indicated a great deal in the Anglo-Saxon Character and Customs which accords better with the notion of our Israelitish origin than with any other explanation of our peculiarities, lays most stress upon the circumstances that the prophecies concerning the family of Joseph are not fulfilled, unless in the Anglo Saxons. This, however, will scarcely serve to prove," continues the Doctor, "that the Gothic and Saxon races are the direct descendants of Joseph, to whom were promised all the blessings of increase and abundance. The facts and arguments, accumulated by several writers, may well suffice, however, to convince us that an Israelitish influence has been infused into the people from whence we sprung, and that the Spirit of Israel's training, in war, legislature, religion, and all outward endeavour, has been operating amongst us to qualify our population to colonize all countries; and while preparing the ground for the highest culture, penetrating the everlasting hills for gold and treasure, traversing seas, building docks in every harbour, intersecting the mountains and the valleys with roads of wrought iron, riding on fiery chariots with the speed of tempests, sending forth their thoughts and words on lightning wings from land to land, and declaring every where this earthly earnestness, notwithstanding that this world is not our rest. These, however, are not the positive marks by which the offspring of the escaped remnant" - he means the remnant of Israel - "is to be known at last." - Moore's Lost Tribes, p. 94,
Having thus eloquently, but truthfully withal, delivered himself concerning this wonderfully endowed and gifted people, in illustration of the prophecy concerning those who were promised the fulness of the riches of Heaven and Earth and Sea - things spiritual, physical, and temporal - it seems bard to conceive what further proof be or others can desire to satisfy them, that those of whom he so wrote must be Very-Joseph.
But should any doubt linger in the mind of any as to the identity of England with Joseph, through lack of proof, as in absence of some more definite mark of identification between England and Joseph, that will pass away in the answer to the question, How is England Ephraim?
ENGLAND IS EPHRAIM
CHAPTER XIX
"I know it, my son, I know it: he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations." - Gen. 48:18-19.
"Again will I build thee, and thou shalt be built, O Virgin of Israel .. Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria. For thus saith the Lord; Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the Head of the Nations." - Jer. 31:4, 5. 7.
"The name Sacae was applied to them first, as simply the Tribes; perhaps adopted from themselves: but ultimately it came to signify Bow-men, because they, like the Ephraimites (Ps. 78:9), and the English, were so famous for the use of the bow." - Moore, p. 89.
How is England, Ephraim?
If, notwithstanding all that has already been said and quoted, this admits of a doubt in the minds of candid inquirers, who desire not to arrogate to our glorious land more than justly belongs to her, - a thing, certainly, most.earnestly to be guarded against, - the fact that England is Joseph, - will be brought home to the mind of every man of our empire, who considers England's position as manifested in her Colonies, which constitute a constellation of nations. These "nations," though they are as one with us, and so, we constitute one people, are, in so far as concerns the administration of power, equal, at any moment, to start, each, as an independent nation; having, all, a form of government, and being equal to the labour of self-existence: each, in fact, being a Nation in embryo, as having the germ of a nation in itself.
God forbid that they should ever desire to commit suicide by separating from the parent stem, either through false ideas of the glory of independence, or through the gratification of some vague notion of "the fitness of things" by any insensate doctrinaire, in temporary power, amongst ourselves. There, however, they are, to separate if they list. Nobody wants to keep them for our own sake. It is hard to see what they would gain by separating, beyond the chance and likelihood of being swallowed up by any power that chose to march in upon them with 400,000 men, and occupy their sea-board, if they had any, with iron-plated frigates, with a Constitution for them, ready cut and framed, according to the most exact regulation-order of some imperial wisdom. He who is one with England, be he no bigger than the smallest atom of herself [the island of Sark, for instance, with one man upon it], has, in union, all the strength and power of England to defend him; and those who are bigger than Europe have found that they have not done themselves much service by starting on their own independence. It is a great thing to be Joseph; which is, the proper title, dignity, and eminence of all that belongs, or has ever belonged to, England. But it is to Joseph with Judah that the blessing is. It, is Judah that has THE ABIDING SCEPTRE!
Who can look on the present state of the United States without anguish of soul and body? There is Joseph who was one with Judah, but is not. They would not be. They chose to separate: and now they are, all, in all the energy of infuriated discord, ready to plunge a knife each into the bowels of his brother. If the price of their ill-conceived desire of independence is a war of extermination among themselves, - not possible so long as they were in the band of Judah, - which of them, as they give out their last gasp and leave their unhappy widows and helpless infants to the miserable issues that must befall, but will have cause to deplore the acts which led their fathers to separate from "the mother that bare them," and to wish that the grand energies that God gave them had not been turned to some other and better account, than to create the opportunity to show to the enemies of freedom the most miserable spectacle that mankind will ever have had to deplore? .. unless, in God's Providence, He be mercifully pleased even yet to cry, "Hold! enough. Repent, and do your first works of humiliation and repentance!" .. and they do them.
Let therefore all Large Colonies take warning and Small Ones count the cost, how they separate from that grand Mother which is the HEART through which the life-blood of all who belong to her may circulate. Judah is to Ephraim what the heart is to the body. Nevertheless, as the example of the United States has shown, that, that which was with us may become a Nation, it does not require those who are still with us to follow that example to prove, that each separate Colony is one of "the nation of nations of Ephraim," and to go adrift from us to give material evidence of the great fact, which is sufficiently evident without it.
This Multitude of Nations, then, the Colonies and Dependencies of Great Britain, making it palpable that England is Ephraim, .. and, as omne majus continet omne minus, Ephraim in multitude must be Joseph in nucleus, England must be, therefore, Joseph: and so, whatever is promised to Joseph as well as to Ephraim, will be fulfilled in the destinies of the land in which the multitude of Ephraim is felt, as well as the strength and power of Joseph, is seen, to be.
