Part 42 (1/2)
Lucian tells us that the bull Apis, sacred to the Egyptians, was the image of the celestial Bull, or Taurus; and that Jupiter Ammon, horned like a ram, was an image of the constellation Aries. And Clemens of Alexandria a.s.sures us that the four princ.i.p.al sacred animals, carried in their processions, were emblems of the four signs or cardinal points which fixed the seasons at the equinoxes and solstices, and divided into four parts the yearly march of the sun. They wors.h.i.+pped fire also, and water, and the Nile, which river they styled Father, Preserver of Egypt, sacred emanation from the Great G.o.d Osiris; and in their hymns in which they called it the G.o.d crowned with millet (which grain, represented by the _pschent_, was part of the head-dress of their kings), bringing with him abundance. The other elements were also revered by them: and the Great G.o.ds, whose names are found inscribed on an ancient column, are the Air, Heaven, the Earth, the Sun, the Moon, Night, and Day. And, in fine, as Eusebius says, they regarded the Universe as a great Deity, composed of a great number of G.o.ds, the different parts of itself.
The same wors.h.i.+p of the Heavenly Host extended into every part of Europe, into Asia Minor, and among the Turks, Scythians, and Tartars.
The ancient Persians adored the Sun as Mithras, and also the Moon, Venus, Fire, Earth, Air, and Water; and, having no statues or altars, they sacrificed on high places to the Heavens and to the Sun. On seven ancient _pyrea_ they burned incense to the Seven Planets, and considered the elements to be divinities. In the Zend-Avesta we find invocations addressed to Mithras, the stars, the elements, trees, mountains, and every part of nature. The Celestial Bull is invoked there, to which the Moon unites herself; and the four great stars, Taschter, Satevis, Haftorang, and Venant, the great Star Rapitan, and the other constellations which watch over the different portions of the earth.
The Magi, like a mult.i.tude of ancient nations, wors.h.i.+pped fire, above all the other elements and powers of nature. In India, the Ganges and the Indus were wors.h.i.+pped, and the Sun was the Great Divinity. They wors.h.i.+pped the Moon also, and kept up the sacred fire. In Ceylon, the Sun, Moon, and other planets were wors.h.i.+pped: in Sumatra, the Sun, called Iri, and the Moon, called Handa. And the Chinese built Temples to Heaven, the Earth, and genii of the air, of the water, of the mountains, and of the stars, to the sea-dragon, and to the planet Mars.
The celebrated Labyrinth was built in honor of the Sun; and its twelve palaces, like the twelve superb columns of the Temple at Hieropolis, covered with symbols relating to the twelve signs and the occult qualities of the elements, were consecrated to the twelve G.o.ds or tutelary genii of the signs of the Zodiac. The figure of the pyramid and that of the obelisk, resembling the shape of a flame, caused these monuments to be consecrated to the Sun and to Fire. And Timaeus of Locria says: ”The equilateral triangle enters into the composition of the pyramid, which has four equal faces and equal angles, and which in this is like fire the most subtle and mobile of the elements.” They and the obelisks were erected in honor of the Sun, termed in an inscription upon one of the latter, translated by the Egyptian Hermapion and to be found in Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus, ”Apollo the strong, Son of G.o.d, He who made the world, true Lord of the diadems, who possesses Egypt and fills it with His glory.”
The two most famous divisions of the Heavens, by seven, which is that of the planets, and by twelve, which is that of the signs, are found on the religious monuments of all the people of the ancient world. The twelve Great G.o.ds of Egypt are met with everywhere. They were adopted by the Greeks and Romans; and the latter a.s.signed one of them to each sign of the Zodiac. Their images were seen at Athens, where an altar was erected to each; and they were painted on the porticos. The People of the North had their twelve _Azes_, or Senate of twelve great G.o.ds, of whom Odin was chief. The j.a.panese had the same number, and like the Egyptians divided them into cla.s.ses, seven, who were the most ancient, and five, afterward added: both of which numbers are well known and consecrated in Masonry.
There is no more striking proof of the universal adoration paid the stars and constellations, than the arrangement of the Hebrew camp in the Desert, and the allegory in regard to the twelve Tribes of Israel, ascribed in the Hebrew legends to Jacob. The Hebrew camp was a quadrilateral, in sixteen divisions, of which the central four were occupied by images of the four elements. The four divisions at the four angles of the quadrilateral exhibited the four signs that the astrologers called _fixed_, and which they regard as subject to the influence of the four great Royal Stars, Regulus in Leo, Aldebaran in Taurus, Antares in Scorpio, and Fomalhaut in the mouth of Pisces, on which falls the water poured out by Aquarius; of which constellations the Scorpion was represented in the Hebrew blazonry by the Celestial Vulture or Eagle, that rises at the same time with it and is its paranatellon. The other signs were arranged on the four faces of the quadilateral, and in the parallel and interior divisions.
There is an astonis.h.i.+ng coincidence between the characteristics a.s.signed by Jacob to his sons, and those of the signs of the Zodiac, or the planets that have their domicile in those signs.
_Reuben_ is compared to running water, unstable, and that cannot excel; and he answers to Aquarius, his ensign being a man. The water poured out by Aquarius flows toward the South Pole, and it is the first of the four Royal Signs, ascending from the Winter Solstice.
The Lion (Leo) is the device of _Judah_; and Jacob compares him to that animal, whose constellation in the Heavens is the domicile of the Sun; the Lion of the Tribe of Judah; by whose grip, when that of apprentice and that of fellow-craft,--of Aquarius at the Winter Solstice and of Cancer at the Vernal Equinox,--had not succeeded in raising him, Khurum was lifted out of the grave.
_Ephraim_, on whose ensign appears the Celestial Bull, Jacob compares to the ox. _Dan_, bearing as his device a Scorpion, he compares to the Cerastes or horned Serpent, synonymous in astrological language with the vulture or pouncing eagle; and which bird was often subst.i.tuted on the flag of Dan, in place of the venomous scorpion, on account of the terror which that reptile inspired, as the symbol of Typhon and his malign influences; wherefore the Eagle, as its paranatellon, that is, rising and setting at the same time with it, was naturally used in its stead.
Hence the four famous figures in the sacred pictures of the Jews and Christians, and in Royal Arch Masonry, of the Lion, the Ox, the Man, and the Eagle, the four creatures of the Apocalypse, copied there from Ezekiel, in whose reveries and rhapsodies they are seen revolving around blazing circles.
The Ram, domicile of Mars, chief of the Celestial Soldiery and of the twelve Signs, is the device of _Gad_, whom Jacob characterizes as a warrior, chief of his army.
Cancer, in which are the stars termed _Aselli_, or little a.s.sess, is the device of the flag of _Issachar_, whom Jacob compares to an a.s.s.
Capricorn, of old represented with the tail of a fish, and called by astronomers the Son of Neptune, is the device of _Zebulon_, of whom Jacob says that he dwells on the sh.o.r.e of the sea.
Sagittarius, chasing the Celestial Wolf, is the emblem of _Benjamin_, whom Jacob compares to a hunter: and in that constellation the Romans placed the domicile of Diana the huntress. Virgo, the domicile of Mercury, is borne on the flag of _Naphtali_, whose eloquence and agility Jacob magnifies, both of which are attributes of the Courier of the G.o.ds. And of _Simeon_ and _Levi_ he speaks as united, as are the two fishes that make the Constellation Pisces, which is their armorial emblem.
Plato, in his Republic, followed the divisions of the Zodiac and the planets. So also did Lycurgus at Sparta, and Cecrops in the Athenian Commonwealth. Chun, the Chinese legislator, divided China into twelve Tcheou, and specially designated twelve mountains. The Etruscans divided themselves into twelve Cantons. Romulus appointed twelve Lictors. There were twelve tribes of Ishmael and twelve disciples of the Hebrew Reformer. The New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse has twelve gates.
The Souciet, a Chinese book, speaks of a palace composed of four buildings, whose gates looked toward the four corners of the world. That on the East was dedicated to the new moons of the months of Spring; that on the West to those of Autumn; that on the South to those of Summer; and that on the North to those of Winter: and in this, palace the Emperor and his grandees sacrificed a lamb, the animal that represented the Sun at the Vernal Equinox.
Among the Greeks, the march of the Choruses in their theatres represented the movements of the Heavens and the planets, and the Strophe and Anti-Strophe imitated, Aristoxenes says, the movements of the Stars. The number five was sacred among the Chinese, as that of the planets other than the Sun and Moon. Astrology consecrated the numbers twelve, seven, thirty, and three hundred and sixty; and everywhere _seven_, the number of the planets, was as sacred as twelve, that of the signs, the months, the oriental cycles, and the sections of the horizon.
We shall speak more at large hereafter, in another Degree, as to these and other numbers, to which the ancients ascribed mysterious powers.
The Signs of the Zodiac and the Stars appeared on many of the ancient coins and medals. On the public seal of the Locrians, Ozoles was Hesperus, or the planet Venus. On the medals of Antioch on the Orontes was the ram and crescent; and the Ram was the special Deity of Syria, a.s.signed to it in the division of the earth among the twelve signs. On the Cretan coins was the Equinoctial Bull; and he also appeared on those of the Mamertins and of Athens. Sagittarius appeared on those of the Persians. In India the twelve signs appeared upon the ancient coins.
The Scorpion was engraved on the medals of the Kings of Comagena, and Capricorn on those of Zeugma, Anazorba, and other cities. On the medals of Antoninus are found nearly all the signs of the Zodiac.
Astrology was practised among all the ancient nations. In Egypt, the book of Astrology was borne reverentially in the religious processions; in which the few sacred animals were also carried, as emblems of the equinoxes and solstices. The same science nourished among the Chaldeans, and over the whole of Asia and Africa. When Alexander invaded India, the astrologers of the Oxydraces came to him to disclose the secrets of their science of Heaven and the Stars. The Brahmins whom Apollonius consulted, taught him the secrets of Astronomy, with the ceremonies and prayers whereby to appease the G.o.ds and learn the future from the stars.
In China, astrology taught the mode of governing the State and families.
In Arabia it was deemed the mother of the sciences; and old libraries are full of Arabic books on this pretended science. It flourished at Rome. Constantine had his horoscope drawn by the astrologer Valens. It was a science in the middle ages, and even to this day is neither forgotten nor unpractised. Catherine de Medici was fond of it. Louis XIV. consulted his horoscope, and the learned Casini commenced his career as an astrologer.
The ancient Sabaeans established feasts in honor of each planet, on the day, for each, when it entered its place of _exaltation_, or reached the particular degree in the particular sign of the zodiac in which astrology had fixed the place of its exaltation; that is, the place in the Heavens where its influence was supposed to be greatest, and where it acted on Nature with the greatest energy. The place of exaltation of the Sun was in Aries, because, reaching that point, he awakens all Nature, and warms into life all the germs of vegetation; and therefore his most solemn feast among all nations, for many years before our Era, was fixed at the time of his entrance into that sign. In Egypt, it was called the Feast of Fire and Light. It was the Pa.s.sover, when the Paschal Lamb was slain and eaten, among the Jews, and Neurouz among the Persians. The Romans preferred the place of _domicile_ to that of exaltation; and celebrated the feasts of the planets under the signs that were their _houses_. The Chaldeans, whom, and not the Egyptians, the Sabaeans followed in this, preferred the places of exaltation.
Saturn, from the length of time required for his apparent revolution, was considered the most remote, and the Moon the nearest planet. After the Moon came Mercury and Venus, then the Sun and then Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
So the risings and settings of the Fixed Stars, and their conjunctions with the Sun, and their first appearance as they emerged from his rays, fixed the epochs for the feasts inst.i.tuted in their honor; and the Sacred Calendars of the ancients were regulated accordingly.