is no other than Beddou himself; for among the Indians,
Chinese, Lamas, etc., the planet Mercury and the
corresponding day of the week (Wednesday) bear the name of
Beddou, and this accounts for his being placed in the rank
of mythological beings, and discovers the illusion of his
pretended existence as a man; since it is evident that
Mercury was not a human being, but the Genius or Decan, who,
placed at the summer solstice, opened the Egyptian year;
hence his attributes taken from the constellation Syrius,
and his name of Anubis, as well as that of Esculapius,
having the figure of a man and the head of a dog: hence his
serpent, which is the Hydra, emblem of the Nile (Hydor,
humidity); and from this serpent he seems to have derived
his name of Hermes, as Remes (with a schin) in the oriental
languages, signifies serpent. Now Beddou and Hermes being
the same names, it is manifest of what antiquity is the
system ascribed to the former. As to the name of Samanean,
it is precisely that of Chaman, still preserved in Tartary,
China, and India. The interpretation given to it is, man of
the woods, a hermit mortifying the flesh, such being the
characteristic of this sect; but its literal meaning is,
celestial (Samaoui) and explains the system of those who are
called by it.--The system is the same as that of the
sectaries of Orpheus, of the Essenians, of the ancient
Anchorets of Persia, and the whole eastern country. See
Porphyry, de Abstin. Animal.

These celestial and penitent men carried in India their
insanity to such an extreme as to wish not to touch the
earth, and they accordingly lived in cages suspended from
the trees, where the people, whose admiration was not less
absurd, brought them provisions. During the night there
were frequent robberies, rapes and murders, and it was at
length discovered that they were committed by those men,
who, descending from their cages, thus indemnified
themselves for their restraint during the day. The Bramins,
their rivals, embraced the opportunity of exterminating
them; and from that time their name in India has been
synonymous with hypocrite. See Hist. de la Chine, in 5
vols. quarto, at the note page 30; Hist. de Huns, 2 vols.
and preface to the Ezour-Vedam.

Then, retorting the prete