She, too, though history makes her to have been killed with the sword by one of her own sons, * was nevertheless in the myth, said to have been carried by her son bodily to heaven, and to have been made Pambasileia, "Queen of the universe." Finally, to clench the whole, the name by which she was now known was Semele, which, in the Babylonian language, signifies "THE IMAGE." ** Thus, in every respect, to the very least jot and tittle, she became the express image of the Babylonian "beast that had the wound by a sword, and did live."
* In like manner, Horus, in Egypt, is said to have cut off his mother's head, as Bel in Babylon also cut asunder the great primeval goddess of the Babylonians. (BUNSEN)
** Apollodorus states that Bacchus, on carrying his mother to heaven, called her Thuone, which was just the feminine of his own name, Thuoenus--in Latin Thyoneus. (OVID, Metam.) Thuoneus is evidently from the passive participle of Thn, "to lament," a synonym for "Bacchus," "The lamented god." Thuone, in like manner, is "The lamented goddess." The Roman Juno was evidently known in this very character of the "Image"; for there was a temple erected to her in Rome, on the Capitoline hill, under the name of "Juno Moneta." Moneta is the emphatic form of one of the Chaldee words for an "image"; and that this was the real meaning of the name, will appear from the fact that the Mint was contained in the precincts of that temple. (See SMITH'S "Juno") What is the use of a mint but just to stamp "images"? Hence the connection between Juno and the Mint. After what the reader has already seen in a previous part of this work, it is hardly necessary to say that it is this very goddess that is now worshipped in the Church of Rome under the name of Mary. Though that goddess is called by the name of the mother of our Lord, all the attributes given to her are derived simply from the Babylonian Madonna, and not from the Virgin Mother of Christ. *
* The very way in which the Popish Madonna is represented is plainly copied from the idolatrous representations of the Pagan goddess. The great god used to be represented as sitting or standing in the cup of a Lotus-flower. In India, the very same mode of representation is common; Brahma being often seen seated on a Lotus-flower, said to have sprung from the navel of Vishnu. The great goddess, in like manner, must have a similar couch; and, therefore, in India, we find Lakshmi, the "Mother of the Universe," sitting on a Lotus, borne by a tortoise. Now, in this very thing, also Popery has copied from its Pagan model; for, in the Pancarpium Marianum the Virgin and child are represented sitting in the cup of a tulip. There is not one line or one letter in all the Bible to countenance the idea that Mary should be worshipped, that she is the "refuge of sinners," that she was "immaculate," that she made atonement for sin when standing by the cross, and when, according to Simeon, "a sword pierced through her own soul also"; or that, after her death, she was raised from the dead and carried in glory to heaven. But in the Babylonian system all this was found; and all this is now incorporated in the system of Rome.