symbol of the fawning dog represents the Future, the domain of uncertain but flattering hope. But whom should Past, Present, and Future serve except their author? His head, crowned with the calathus, typifies the height of the planet above us, and his all-powerful capaciousness; since to him all things earthly return, being drawn up by the heat which he emits."

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Again when Nicocreon, king of Cyprus, consulted Serapis as to which of the gods he ought to be held, he responded,

A god I am, such as I show to thee:

The starry heaven my head, my trunk the sea;
Earth forms my feet, the air my ears supplies,

The sun's far-darting brilliant rays my eyes.'

"Hence, it is apparent that the nature of Serapis and of the Sun is one and indivisible. Isis, so universally worshipped, is either the earth or Nature as subjected to the sun. Hence, the body of the goddess is covered with continuous rows of udders, to show that the universe is maintained by the perpetual nourishment of the earth or Nature."

But the true development of the Egyptian doctrines in a new phase is very conspicuous in the extensive class of Gnostic intagli, which, with the exception of a few rude engravings of victories, eagles, &c., are the sole glyptic

monuments we possess of the last centuries of Roman domination in the West. As may be supposed, the art displayed in these intagli is at its lowest ebb; and the work appears to have been executed by means of a very coarse wheel, like that on the Sassanian stamps of Persia, a country the source of a large proportion of the ideas expressed in their figures and legends. Instead of the choice Sards, Amethysts, and Nicoli of an earlier period, we find these amulets almost without exception cut upon inferior stones, most commonly on bad Jaspers, black, green, and yellow; on dull Plasmas, or perhaps Jade, and sometimes on Loadstone, but rarely on Sards or Calcedony. These Gnostic types, when found of good work, and engraved on fine stones, as is sometimes the case, will on examination turn out to be works of the CinqueCento period, when similar subjects, and all figures bearing any relation to astrology, were again executed in large numbers, in compliance with the ruling superstition of the day. A fine Amethyst once in my possession, engraved with a figure of the hawk-headed, Priapean, Thoth, standing on a serpent, and holding in his extended right hand a small figure of Anubis, was a remarkable instance of this revival of ancient ideas; for the work was worthy of the best times of the art, and in itself a convincing proof that the intaglio could not have belonged to the Gnostic era. Pastes of this class do not exist: the real stones were cut so rudely, and doubtless produced so cheaply, that it was not worth while to imitate them in a less valuable material. The sole exception that has come under my notice, to the inferior quality of the gems used for these amulets, is an extraordinary garnet tablet, described further on.

Without entering into the intricate maze of these doctrines, except occasionally, and just as far as is necessary to explain the representations involving some of their ideas, I shall

proceed to classify them in the order of their antiquity. The earliest are doubtless those which offer purely Egyptian types; a very frequent one being a serpent, erect, and with a lion's head surrounded by seven rays, and usually accompanied by the inscription XNOYPIC or XNOYMIC. This is Chneph, the good genius of the Egyptian religion, the type of

life and of the sun. Sometimes we find this idea more fully developed in the form of a lion-headed man, bearing a wand entwined with a serpent, the head of which is directed towards his face. A common inscription around the figure, or on the back of the stone, is the Hebrew-Greek, CEMEC EIAAM, "the eternal sun;" alluding to the appearance of Christ "the sun of righteousness," regarded as the equivalent of the genius of light; to whom also refers the legend ANA ANABAA, “thou art our Father," a corruption of the Hebrew "Lanu atha ab." To the Egyptian family also belongs the Harpocrates, seated upon the lotus flower (having the life-giving symbol purposely exaggerated) and often accompanied by Anubis, serving as a type of the necessary regeneration of the believer." The same deity often is repre

The regeneration of the soul is sometimes typified in a very singular and literal manner, by a group of

the Sun-Lion impregnating a naked female, the usual Eastern symbol of the disembodied spirit.

10

sented sailing through the air in the mystic boat, steered by two hawks, with the sun and moon above his head. The backs of these intagli are often filled up by the seven vowels of the Greek alphabet, arranged in as many lines, each vowel being repeated until it fills its respective line; illustrative of the curious tenet, that each vowel represented the sound uttered in its course by one particular planet, which, when all combined, formed a hymn to the glory of the great Creator of the Universe. An outline of a human figure entirely filled up with these vowels and other legends, is the type of the regenerated and spiritual man, entirely freed from all earthly taint. Again, we have a combination of different deities in the figures with many wings and arms, and uniting the attributes of Athor and Sate, the Egyptian Venus and Juno. But the most frequent type of this class is the Anubis, or jackal-headed god, sometimes represented in his ancient form, and as bearing the caduceus of Hermes, to denote his office of conducting the souls of the dead through the shades unto their final resting-place in the Pleroma; and sometimes appearing as a being with both a human and a jackal's head, to express his identity with Christ as the guardian of the spirit when released from the body. This idea explains the meaning of a rude drawing on the wall of a vault in the Palatine, where this jackal-headed figure is represented

10 Scaliger takes him to be the representative of the 365 Aeons, all their names being supposed to be compressed within the outline.

In gems of a better period Hermes is not unfrequently seen with his caduceus, bending over and assisting the soul to emerge from the earth, or Hades. A strange coincidence in form, at least (if not in origin), with the common mediaval

representation of Christ raising souls out of Purgatory. The Hell of the Persians, the burning lake of molten metal, into which at the Day of Judgment Ahriman and his followers were to be cast, had for its object the ultimate purification of the condemned; a doctrine recognised by some of the Christian Fathers, and even by St. Jerome.

crucified, with the inscription AAEZAMENOC CEBETE TON OEON, "Alexamenos adores the god;" the work of some pious Gnostic in reality, but which is usually interpreted as a heathen blasphemy, from the jackal's head being mistaken for that of an ass. A Sard in my collection presents to the first view the primitive and orthodox representation of the Good Shepherd bearing the lamb upon his shoulders, his loins girt with a belt with long and flowing ends; but on a closer view the figure resolves itself into the double-headed Anubis, the head of the lamb doing duty for the jackal's, springing from the same shoulders as that of the man, whilst the floating end of the girdle becomes the thick and curled tail of the same animal. I have also met with another type of difficult explanation: a a woman seated upon a huge crested serpent; evidently not the usual Chneph, as it does not bear the lion's head-the invariable adjunct to that symbol. Stones also occur entirely covered on both sides with long legends in the Coptic language but Greek character, the most curious of which was the famous Garnet of the Herz Collection, an oblong slab, 24 inches high by 14 wide, with 11 lines on one side, and 14 on the other, of a long invocation in the Greek character, but in a different language, in which many Hebrew (or Chaldee) words were interspersed, together with the names of angels. A very singular type is

2 It is a most singular coincidence that the inscriptions on each side of this tablet (excepting a few words enclosed within a coiled serpent at the top of the other) exactly correspond with those on the oval Calcedony given by Chiflet, xvii. 69, and of which his friend Wendelin had sent him a very orthodox version, which, however, did not by any means, and with good reason,

satisfy the learned and sagacious

canon.

3 Iamblichus (Letter to Porphyry) expressly says that the gods are pleased with invocations in Assyrian and Egyptian, as being ancient and cognate languages to their own, and those in which prayers were first made to them, and that they have stamped as sacerdotal the entire language of these holy nations.