THE EARTHMOVERS: Ninus is said to have been the son of Belus or Bel, and Bel is said to have been the founder of Babylon . . . If Ninus was Nimrod, then who was the historical Bel? He must have been Cush; for “Cush begat Nimrod” (Gen. X.8), and Cush is generally represented as having been the ringleader in the great apostasy. But again, Cush, as the son of Ham, was Her-mes or Mercury; for Hermes is just an Egyptian synonym for the “son of Ham.”
Now, Hermes was the great original prophet of idolatry; for he was recognised by the pagans as the author of their religious rites, and the interpreter of the gods . . . Mercury then, or Hermes, or Cush, “the son of Ham,” was the “DIVIDER of the speeches of men.” He, it would seem, had been the ringleader in the scheme for building the great city and tower of Babel; and, as the well-known title of Hermes [Hermēs Trismegistus - the interpreter of the gods] would indicate, had encouraged them, in the name of God, to proceed in their presumptuous enterprise, and so had caused the language of men to be divided, and themselves to be scattered abroad on the face of the earth . . .
That Cush was known to pagan antiquity under the very character of Bel “The Confounder,” a statement of Ovid very clearly proves. The statement to which I refer is that in which Janus “the god of gods,” from whom all the other gods had their origin, is made to say of himself “the ancients . . . called me Chaos.” Now, first this decisively shows that Chaos was known not merely as a state of confusion, but also as the “god of Confusion.” But secondly, who that is at all acquainted with the laws of Chaldaic pronunciation, does not know that Chaos is just one of the established forms of the name of Chūs or Cush? (Rev. Alex Hislop: The Two Babylons, Loizeau Bros, Roma, 1862. pp. 25-27.)
The MYSTERIES founded by Hermēs were Cham-line cults that arose throughout the populated world after the Deluge. They may be regarded as the church of the ancient pagan gentile nations. In them all there is found a peculiar though common conception of the divine nature as a type of pantheism that constitutes their common bond of unity. These institutions, not exactly uniform in their various rites, were widely distributed and flourished in Egypt, Chaldea, India, China, Japan, Canaan, Africa, Greece, Rome, Mexico, and in the isles of the sea. Their mode of religious instruction was esoteric. This was not taught in a dogmatic way but by rite and symbol of religious conception communicated to the initiated only.
The Mysteries were known and transmitted by priests. The sages and philosophers taught in these institutions what they hardly dared to teach in public, and the disciples were bound to secrecy concerning the things heard and learned. It was contended by some of the priests that if the secrets therein taught were divulged, the universe would fall.