Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer | Page 9

and
my soul procure Wherewith to sate its malice, and to turn Even like a
heartless conqueror of the earth, All misery to my fame. The race of
men Chosen to my honor, with impunity May sate the lusts I planted in
their hearts. Here I command thee hence to lead them on, Until, with
harden'd feet, their conquering troops Wade on the promised soil
through woman's blood. And make my name be dreaded through the
land, Yet ever-burning flame and ceaseless woe Shall be the doom of
their eternal souls, With every soul on this ungrateful earth, Virtuous or
vicious, weak or strong--even all Shall perish to fulfill the blind
revenge (Which you to men call justice) of their God."
In another place Shelley is equally descriptive of the early stages of
Jewish history, and makes the following observations on the building
of the Temple of Jerusalem, which rearing high its thousand golden
domes to heaven, exposed its glory to the face of day:
"Oh! many a widow, many an orphan cursed The building of that fane;
and many a father, Worn out with toil and slavery, implored The poor
man's God to sweep it from the earth, And spare his children the
detested task Of piling stone on stone, and poisoning The choicest days
of life, To soothe a dotard's vanity. There an inhuman and uncultured
race Howl'd hideous praises to their demon--God; They rushed to war,
tore from the mother's womb The unborn child--old age and infancy
Promiscuous perished; their victorious arms Left not a soul to breathe.
Oh! they were fiends, And what was he who taught them that the God
Of nature and benevolence had given A special sanction to the trade of
blood? His name and theirs are fading, and the tales Of this barbarian
nation, which imposture Recites till terror credits, are pursuing Itself
into forgetfulness."
With the enlightenment of the present century in every department of

knowledge, so has a corresponding degree of advancement been thrown
on the science of history, which Shelley only partially apprehended. An
enormous amount of new information is now to be gleaned from the
writings of Ewald, Fergusson, Bunsen, Deutsch, Max Muller,
Baring-Gould, Stanley, and other scholars of Orientation, which shows
that the Hebrews, like every other nation, passed through the various
phases of Nomadism and Pastoralism, to that of offensive and
defensive war. The same as other races, they came through the usual
steps in religious progress--Fetishism, Astrolatry, Polytheism and
Monotheism. During phases in their history they participated in the
various forms of tree and serpent, Phallic, or fire-worship. They had, as
the Talmud, Targums, and the Old Testament show, a knowledge of the
Egyptian or Chaldaic account of the creation and fall, the latter still to
be seen on the walls of the temple of Osiris at Philae. They had much
knowledge of the Cabala, through their great prophet Moses, who was
"learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," and, like Pythagoras, had
been initiated into their mysteries, and who both imparted the
knowledge in part to their compatriots, on which they both founded
systems.
A great traveler, and most learned modern writer on Occultism, who
claims, on good grounds, to have been received into the ancient branch
of the Rosie Cross in the far East, Madame Helena P. de Blavatsky,
imparts the following particulars: "The first Cabala in which a mortal
man ever dared to explain the greatest mysteries of the universe, and
show the keys to those masked doors in the ramparts of Nature, through
which no mortal can ever pass without rousing dread sentries never
seen upon this side her wall, was compiled by a certain Simeon Ben
Jochai, who lived at the time of the second temple's destruction. Only
about thirty years after the death of this renowned Cabalist, his MSS.
and written explanations, which had till then remained in his possession
as a most precious secret, were used by his son, Rabbi Elizzar, and
other learned men. Making a compilation of the whole, they so
produced the famous work called Zohar (God's splendor). This book
proved an inexhaustible mine for all the subsequent Cabalists, their
source of information and knowledge, and all more recent and genuine
Cabalas were all more or less carefully copied from the former. Before

that, all the mysterious doctrines had come down in an unbroken line of
merely oral tradition as far back as man could trace himself on earth.
They were scrupulously and jealously guarded by the wise men of
Chaldea, India, Persia and Egypt, and passed from one initiate to
another, in the same purity of form as when handed down to the first
man by the angels, students of God's great Theosophic seminary."
Many Free Thinkers, in their anxiety to crush everything belonging to