Blair Collection > Treatise on the language, poetry, and music of the Highland clans

OF THE HIGHLAND CLANS. 17
hollow to bo found in all the Druid altar stones, to receive the blood of the
executed criminals, (who were solemnly sacrificed on the altar of their god to
the justice of their country,) may have confirmed, if it did not even give rise, to
that belief Had the Culdees been capable of misrepresenting the religion of
the Druids, they would not have preserved their names for God, the soul, the
good, the bad, &c., since these names are descriptive, and refute every falsity
circulated in reference to their religion and morality. They had three names
lor God : deo, from the roots ti, a great being, and eol, knowledge ; dia, from ti
and a(]h, pronounced a', good ; and, hith-uile, abbreviated hcl, from bith, life
and uile, all. It is thus seen that the Druid represented God as the great, the
good Being, the life of all. He had two names also for the soul, dco, from his
regarding the soul as an emanation of God. Hence, when a person dies, the
Highlander does not say, " thuair (hu-ayr) e 'm bas," as he would say of a
beast ; but " chai an deo as," — the soul has gone out of him. The other name
of the soul is still more striking, anam, from an, antagonism, defiance, and
am, time ; that is, the antagonist or defier of time, or, in other words, the
immortal.
It is a very singular coincidence, that the idolatrous priesthood of the
East, by preserving the inscriptions on ancient monuments, have furnished the
philologist with the means of proving that they also had derived their know-
ledge of the attributes of God from Nature. This is a reasonable inference
from these inscriptions, and from the significant and accordant fact, namely,
that they symbolized His different attributes, — wisdom, power, benevolence,
&c., by different and distinct statues and figures. It is diflScult to believe that
man could have allowed himself to be juggled out of such knowledge by priest-
craft, after having once attained it ; yet the inscriptions in the East, and the
names of God in the West, can leave no doubt that the Druid priesthood, both
in the East and the West, had a knowledge of the omnipotent power, wisdom,
and benevolence of God, at a period beyond the date of revealed religion. For
instance, an inscription under an ancient statue of Isis has been translated, " I
am all that is ;" and the inscription on a monument at Sais has been translated,
" I am all that is or was." The Jehovah of Scripture would, according to Gaelic
etymon, have been spelt Ti-ha-va ; viz., ti, the Great Being, ha, is, and va
was, — the Great Being that is and was. This is identical with the inscription
at Sais. It is a legitimate inference from this inscription, that the monument
or pyramid at Sais was erected to symbolize the origin and unity of all sublime
attributes and enduring power in one living and eternal God. No one was
allowed to enter the Temple of Serapis without having the name Jehova
(abbreviated Jaho in these inscriptions) inscribed on his breast. Circumcision
was a preliminary to the study of the philosophy of symbols, being probably
intended to impress indelibly on the mind of the student that most ancient of
all symbols of God, the circle. Moses, according to Philo, was initiated in the
philosophy of symbols as well as Plato. He had thus acquired a knowledge of
God from the natural theology of the Eastern Druids, before he became the
legislator of the Jews.