And this also, no doubt, reconciled the parents who actually sacrificed their children to Moloch, to the cruel sacrifice, the belief being cherished that the fire that consumed them also "perfected" them, and made them meet for eternal happiness. As both the passing through the fire, and the burning in the fire, were essential rites in the worship of Moloch or Nimrod, this is an argument that Nimrod was Tammuz. As the priest and representative of the perfecting or purifying fire, it was he that carried on the work of perfecting or purifying by fire, and so he was called by its name. When we turn to the legends of India, we find evidence to the very same effect as that which we have seen with regard to Zoroaster and Tammuz as head of the fire-worshippers. The fifth head of Brahma, that was cut off for inflicting distress on the three worlds, by the "effulgence of its dazzling beams," referred to in the text of this work, identifies itself with Nimrod. The fact that that fifth head was represented as having read the Vedas, or sacred books produced by the other four heads, shows, I think, a succession. *
* The Indian Vedas that now exist do not seem to be of very great antiquity as written documents; but the legend goes much further back than anything that took place in India. The antiquity of writing seems to be very great, but whether or not there was any written religious document in Nimrod's day, a Veda there must have been; for what is the meaning of the word "Veda"? It is evidently just the same as the Anglo-Saxon Edda with the digamma prefixed, and both alike evidently come from "Ed" a "Testimony," a "Religious Record," or "confession of Faith." Such a "Record" or "Confession," either "oral" or "written," must have existed from the beginning. Now, coming down from Noah, what would that succession be? We have evidence from Berosus, that, in the days of Belus--that is, Nimrod--the custom of making representations like that of two-headed Janus, had begun. Assume, then, that Noah, as having lived in two worlds, has his two heads. Ham is the third, Cush the fourth, and Nimrod is, of course, the fifth. And this fifth head was cut off for doing the very thing for which Nimrod actually was cut off. I suspect that this Indian myth is the key to open up the meaning of a statement of Plutarch, which, according to the terms of it, as it stands, is visibly absurd. It is as follows: Plutarch (in the fourth book of his Symposiaca) says that "the Egyptians were of the opinion that darkness was prior to light, and that the latter [viz.