Part 44 (2/2)
”Canst thou,” asks Job, ”bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion?” And in the book of Amos we find these Stars connected with the victory of Light over Darkness: ”Seek Him,” says that Seer, ”that maketh the Seven Stars (the familiar name of the Pleiades), and Orion, AND TURNETH THE SHADOW OF DEATH INTO MORNING.”
An old legend in Masonry says that a dog led the Nine Elus to the cavern where Abiram was hid. Bootes was anciently called Caleb Anubach, a Barking Dog; and was personified in Anubis, who bore the head of a dog, and aided Isis in her search. Arcturus, one of his Stars, fiery red, as if fervent and zealous, is also connected by Job with the Pleiades and Orion. When Taurus opened the year, Arcturus rose after the Sun, at the time of the Winter Solstice, and seemed searching him through the darkness, until, sixty days afterward, he rose at the same hour. Orion then also, at the Winter Solstice, rose at noon, and at night seemed to be in search of the Sun.
So, referring again to the time when the Sun entered the Autumnal Equinox, there are nine remarkable Stars that come to the meridian nearly at the same time, rising as Libra sets, and so seeming to chase that Constellation. They are Capella and Menkalina in the Charioteer, Aldebaran in Taurus, Bellatrix, Betelgueux, the Three Kings, and Rigel in Orion. Aldebaran pa.s.ses the meridian first, indicating his right to his peculiar t.i.tle of _Leader_. Nowhere in the heavens are there, near the same meridian, so many splendid Stars. And close behind them, but further South, follows Sirius, the Dog-Star, who showed the nine Elus the way to the murderer's cave.
Besides the division of the signs into the ascending and descending series (referring to the upward and downward progress of the soul), the latter from Cancer to Capricorn, and the former from Capricorn to Cancer, there was another division of them not less important; that of the six superior and six inferior signs; the former, 2455 years before our era, from Taurus to Scorpio, and 300 years before our era, from Aries to Libra; and the latter, 2455 years B.C. from Scorpio to Taurus, and 300 years B.C. from Libra to Aries; of which we have already spoken, as the two Hemispheres, or Kingdoms of Good and Evil, Light and Darkness; of Ormuzd and Ahriman among the Persians, and Osiris and Typhon among the Egyptians.
With the Persians, the first six Genii, created by Ormuzd, presided over the first six signs, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, and Virgo: and the six evil Genii, or Devs, created by Ahriman, over the six others, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces. The soul was fortunate and happy under the Empire of the first six; and began to be sensible of evil, when it pa.s.sed under the Balance or Libra, the seventh sign. Thus the soul entered the realm of Evil and Darkness when it pa.s.sed into the Constellations that belong to and succeed the Autumnal Equinox; and it re-entered the realm of Good and Light, when it arrived, returning, at those of the Vernal Equinox. It lost its felicity by means of the Balance, and regained it by means of the Lamb. This is a necessary consequence of the premises; and it is confirmed by the authorities and by emblems still extant.
Sall.u.s.t the Philosopher, speaking of the Feasts of Rejoicing celebrated at the Vernal Equinox, and those of Mourning, in memory of the rape of Proserpine, at the Autumnal Equinox, says that the former were celebrated, because then is effected, as it were, the return of the soul toward the G.o.ds; that the time when the principle of Light recovered its superiority over that of Darkness, or day over night, was the most favorable one for souls that tend to re-ascend to their Principle; and that when Darkness and the Night again become victors, was most favorable to the descent of souls toward the infernal regions.
For that reason, the old astrologers, as Firmicus states, fixed the locality of the river Styx in the 8th degree of the Balance. And he thinks that by Styx was allegorically meant the earth.
The Emperor Julian gives the same explanation, but more fully developed.
He states, as a reason why the august Mysteries of Ceres and Proserpine were celebrated at the Autumnal Equinox, that at that period of the year men feared lest the impious and dark power of the Evil Principle, then commencing to conquer, should do harm to their souls. They were a precaution and means of safety, thought to be necessary at the moment when the G.o.d of Light was pa.s.sing into the opposite or adverse region of the world; while at the Vernal Equinox there was less to be feared, because then that G.o.d, present in one portion of the world, _recalled souls to Him_, he says, _and showed Himself to be their Saviour_. He had a little before developed that theological idea, of the attractive force which the Sun exercises over souls, drawing them to him and raising them to his luminous sphere. He attributes this effect to him at the feasts of Atys, dead and restored to life, or the feasts of Rejoicing, which at the end of three days succeeded the mourning for that death; and he inquires why those Mysteries were celebrated at the Vernal Equinox. The reason, he says, is evident. As the sun, arriving at the equinoctial point of Spring, drawing nearer to us, increases the length of the days, that period seems most appropriate for those ceremonies. For, besides that there is a great affinity between the substance of Light and the nature of the G.o.ds, the Sun has that occult force of attraction, by which he draws matter toward himself, by means of his warmth, making plants to shoot and grow, etc.; and why can he not, by the same divine and pure action of his rays, attract and draw to him fortunate souls?
Then, as light is a.n.a.logous to the Divine Nature, and favorable to souls struggling to return to their First Principle, and as that light so increases at the Vernal Equinox, that the days prevail in duration over the nights, and as the Sun has an attractive force, besides the visible energy of his rays, it follows that souls are attracted toward the solar light. He does not further pursue the explanation; because, he says, it belongs to a mysterious doctrine, beyond the reach of the vulgar and known only to those who understand the mode of action of Deity, like the Chaldean author whom he cites, who had treated of the Mysteries of Light, or the G.o.d with seven rays.
Souls, the Ancients held, having emanated from the Principle of Light, partaking of its destiny here below, cannot be indifferent to nor unaffected by these revolutions of the Great Luminary, alternately victor and overcome during every Solar revolution.
This will be found to be confirmed by an examination of some of the Symbols used in the Mysteries. One of the most famous of these was THE SERPENT, the peculiar Symbol also of this Degree. The Cosmogony of the Hebrews and that of the Gnostics designated this reptile as the author of the fate of Souls. It was consecrated in the Mysteries of Bacchus and in those of Eleusis. Pluto overcame the virtue of Proserpine under the form of a serpent; and, like the Egyptian G.o.d Serapis, was always pictured seated on a serpent, or with that reptile entwined about him.
It is found on the Mithriac Monuments, and supplied with attributes of Typhon to the Egyptians, The sacred basilisc, in coil, with head and neck erect, was the royal ensign of the Pharaohs. Two of them were entwined around and hung suspended from the winged Globe on the Egyptian Monuments. On a tablet in one of the Tombs at Thebes, a G.o.d with a spear pierces a serpent's head. On a tablet from the Temple of Osiris at Philae is a tree, with a man on one side, and a woman on the other, and in front of the woman an erect basilisc, with horns on its head and a disk between the horns. The head of Medusa was encircled by winged snakes, which, the head removed, left the Hierogram or Sacred Cypher of the Ophites or Serpent-wors.h.i.+ppers. And the Serpent, in connection with the Globe or circle, is found upon the monuments of all the Ancient Nations.
Over Libra, the sign through which souls were said to descend or fall, is found, on the Celestial Globe, the Serpent, grasped by Serpentarius, the Serpent-bearer. The head of the reptile is under Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown, called by Ovid, _Libera_, or _Proserpine_; and the two Constellations rise, with the Balance, after the Virgin (or Isis), whose feet rest on the eastern horizon at Sunrise on the day of the equinox. As the Serpent extends over both signs, Libra and Scorpio, it has been the gate through which souls descend, during the whole time that those two signs in succession marked the Autumnal Equinox. To this alluded the Serpent, which, in the Mysteries of Bacchus Saba-Zeus, was flung into the bosom of the Initiate.
And hence came the enigmatical expression, _the Serpent engenders the Bull, and the Bull the Serpent_; alluding to the two adverse constellations, answering to the two equinoxes, one of which rose as the other set, and which were at the two points of the heavens through which souls pa.s.sed, ascending and descending. By the Serpent of Autumn, souls fell; and they were regenerated again by the Bull on which Mithras sate, and whose attributes Bacchus-Zagreus and the Egyptian Osiris a.s.sumed, in their Mysteries, wherein were represented the fall and regeneration of souls, by the Bull slain and restored to life.
Afterward the regenerating Sun a.s.sumed the attributes of _Aries_ or the Lamb; and in the Mysteries of Ammon, souls were regenerated by pa.s.sing through that sign, after having fallen through the Serpent.
The Serpent-bearer, or Ophicus, was aesculapius, G.o.d of Healing. In the Mysteries of Eleusis, that Constellation was placed in the eighth Heaven: and on the eighth day of those Mysteries, the feast of aesculapius was celebrated. It was also termed Epidaurus, or the feast of the Serpent of Epidaurus. The Serpent was sacred to aesculapius; and was connected in various ways with the mythological adventures of Ceres.
So the libations to Souls, by pouring wine on the ground, and looking toward the two gates of Heaven, those of day and night, referred to the ascent and descent of Souls.
Ceres and the Serpent, Jupiter Ammon and the Bull, all figured in the Mysteries of Bacchus. Suppose Aries, or Jupiter Ammon occupied by the Sun setting in the West;--Virgo (Ceres) will be on the Eastern horizon, and in her train the Crown, or Proserpine. Suppose Taurus setting;--then the Serpent is in the East; and reciprocally; so that Jupiter Ammon, or the Sun of Aries, causes the Crown to rise after the Virgin, in the train of which comes the Serpent. Place reciprocally the Sun at the other equinox, with the balance in the West, in conjunction with the Serpent under the Crown; and we shall see the Bull and the Pleiades rise in the East. Thus are explained all the fables as to the generation of the Bull by the Serpent and of the Serpent by the Bull, the biting of the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es of the Bull by the Scorpion, on the Mithriac Monuments; and that Jupiter made Ceres with child by tossing into her bosom the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es of a Ram.
In the Mysteries of the bull-horned Bacchus, the officers held serpents in their hands, raised them above their heads, and cried aloud ”Eva!”
the generic oriental name of the serpent, and the particular name of the constellation in which the Persians placed Eve and the serpent. The Arabians call it _Hevan_, Ophiucus himself, _Hawa_, and the brilliant star in his head, _Ras-al-Hawa_. The use of this word _Eva_ or _Evoe_ caused Clemens of Alexandria to say that the priests in the Mysteries invoked _Eve_, by whom evil was brought into the world.
The mystic winnowing-fan, encircled by Serpents, was used in the feasts of Bacchus. In the Isiac Mysteries a basilisc twined round the handle of the mystic vase. The Ophites fed a serpent in a mysterious ark, from which they took him when they celebrated the Mysteries, and allowed him to glide among the sacred bread. The Romans kept serpents in the Temples of Bona Dea and aesculapius. In the Mysteries of Apollo, the pursuit of Latona by the serpent Python was represented. In the Egyptian Mysteries, the dragon Typhon pursued Isis.
According to Sanchoniathon, TAAUT, the interpreter of Heaven to men, attributed something divine to the nature of the dragon and serpents, in which the Phnicians and Egyptians followed him. They have more vitality, more spiritual force, than any other creature; of a fiery nature, shown by the rapidity of their motions, without the limbs of other animals. They a.s.sume many shapes and att.i.tudes, and dart with extraordinary quickness and force. When they have reached old age, they throw off that age and are young again, and increase in size and strength, for a certain period of years.
The Egyptian Priests fed the sacred serpents in the temple at Thebes.
Taaut himself had in his writings discussed these mysteries in regard to the serpent. Sanchoniathon said in another work, that the serpent was immortal, and re-entered into himself; which, according to some ancient theosophists, particularly those of India, was an attribute of the Deity. And he also said that the serpent never died, unless by a violent death.
The Phnicians called the serpent _Agathodemon_ [the good spirit]; and Kneph was the Serpent-G.o.d of the Egyptians.
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