Part 41 (2/2)
In _Leo_ are the splendid Stars, REGULUS, directly on the ecliptic, and DENEBOLA in the Lion's tail. Southeast of Regulus is the fine Star COR HYDRae.
The combat of Hercules with the Nemaean lion was his first labor. It was the first sign into which the Sun pa.s.sed, after falling below the Summer Solstice; from which time he struggled to re-ascend.
The Nile overflowed in this sign. It stands first in the Zodiac of Dendera, and is in all the Indian and Egyptian Zodiacs.
In the left hand of VIRGO (Isis or Ceres) is the beautiful Star SPICA Virginis, a little South of the ecliptic. VINDEMIATRIX, of less magnitude, is in the right arm; and Northwest of Spica, in Bootes (the husbandman, Osiris), is the splendid star ARCTURUS.
The division of the first Decan of the Virgin, Aben Ezra says, represents a beautiful Virgin with flowing hair, sitting in a chair, with two ears of corn in her hand, and suckling an infant. In an Arabian MS. in the Royal Library at Paris, is a picture of the Twelve Signs.
That of Virgo is a young girl with an infant by her side. Virgo was Isis; and her representation, carrying a child (Horus) in her arms, exhibited in her temple, was accompanied by this inscription: ”I AM ALL THAT IS, THAT WAS, AND THAT SHALL BE; and the fruit which I brought forth is the Sun.”
Nine months after the Sun enters Virgo, he reaches the Twins. When Scorpio begins to rise, Orion sets: when Scorpio comes to the meridian, Leo begins to set, Typhon reigns, Osiris is slain, and Isis (the Virgin) his sister and wife, follows him to the tomb, weeping.
The Virgin and Bootes, setting heliacally at the Autumnal Equinox, delivered the world to the wintry constellations, and introduced into it the genius of Evil, represented by Ophiucus, the Serpent.
At the moment of the Winter Solstice, the Virgin rose heliacally (_with_ the Sun), having the Sun (Horus) in her bosom.
In LIBRA are four Stars of the second and third magnitude, which we shall mention hereafter. They are Zuben-es-Chamali, Zuben-el-Gemabi, Zuben-hak-rabi, and Zuben-el-Gubi. Near the last of these is the brilliant and malign Star, ANTARES in Scorpio.
In SCORPIO, ANTARES, of the 1st magnitude, and remarkably red, was one of the four great Stars, FOMALHAUT, in Cetus, ALDEBARAN in Taurus, REGULUS in Leo, and ANTARES, that formerly answered to the Solst.i.tial and Equinoctial points, and were much noticed by astronomers. This sign was sometimes represented by a Snake, and sometimes by a Crocodile, but generally by a Scorpion, which last is found on the Mithriac Monuments, and on the Zodiac of Dendera. It was considered a sign accursed, and the entrance of the Sun into it commenced the reign of Typhon.
In Sagittarius, Capricornus, and Aquarius there are no Stars of importance.
Near Pisces is the brilliant Star FOMALHAUT. No sign in the Zodiac is considered of more malignant influence than this. It was deemed indicative of _Violence_ and _Death._ Both the Syrians and Egyptians abstained from eating fish, out of dread and abhorhence; and when the latter would represent anything as odious, or express hatred by Hieroglyphics, they painted a fish.
In Auriga is the bright Star CAPELLA, which to the Egyptians never set.
And, circling ever round the North Pole are Seven Stars, known as Ursa Major, or the Great Bear, which have been an object of universal observation in all ages of the world. They were venerated alike by the Priests of Bel, the Magi of Persia, the Shepherds of Chaldea, and the Phnician navigators, as well as by the astronomers of Egypt. Two of them, MERAK and DUBHE, always point to the North Pole.
The Phoenicians and Egyptians, says Eusebius, were the first who ascribed divinity to the Sun, Moon, and Stars, and regarded them as the sole causes of the production and destruction of all beings. From them went abroad over all the world all known opinions as to the generation and descent of the G.o.ds. Only the Hebrews looked beyond the visible world to an invisible Creator. All the rest of the world regarded as G.o.ds those luminous bodies that blaze in the firmament, offered them sacrifices, bowed down before them, and raised neither their souls nor their wors.h.i.+p above the visible heavens.
The Chaldeans, Canaanites, and Syrians, among whom Abraham lived, did the same. The Canaanites consecrated horses and chariots to the Sun. The inhabitants of Emesa in Phnicia adored him under the name of Elagabalus; and the Sun, as Hercules, was the great Deity of the Tyrians. The Syrians wors.h.i.+pped, with fear and dread, the Stars of the Constellation Pisces, and consecrated images of them in their temples.
The Sun as Adonis was wors.h.i.+pped in Byblos and about Mount Liba.n.u.s.
There was a magnificent Temple of the Sun at Palmyra, which was pillaged by the soldiers of Aurelian, who rebuilt it and dedicated it anew. The Pleiades, under the name of Succoth-Beneth, were wors.h.i.+pped by the Babylonian colonists who settled in the country of the Samaritans.
Saturn, under the name of Remphan, was wors.h.i.+pped among the Copts. The planet Jupiter was wors.h.i.+pped as Bel or Baal; Mars as Malec, Melech, or Moloch; Venus as Ashtaroth or Astarte, and Mercury as Nebo, among the Syrians, a.s.syrians, Phnicians, and Canaanites.
Sanchoniathon says that the earliest Phnicians adored the Sun, whom they deemed sole Lord of the Heavens; and honored him, under the name of BEEL-SAMIN, signifying _King of Heaven._ They raised columns to the elements, fire, and air or wind, and wors.h.i.+pped them; and Sabaeism, or the wors.h.i.+p of the Stars, flourished everywhere in Babylonia. The Arabs, under a sky always clear and serene, adored the Sun, Moon, and Stars.
Abulfaragius so informs us, and that each of the twelve Arab Tribes invoked a particular Star as its Patron. The Tribe Hamyar was consecrated to the Sun, the Tribe Cennah to the Moon; the Tribe Misa was under the protection of the beautiful Star in Taurus, Aldebaran; the Tribe Tai under that of Canopus; the Tribe Kais, of Sirius; the Tribes Lachamus and Idamus, of Jupiter; the Tribe Asad, of Mercury; and so on.
The Saracens, in the time of Heraclius, wors.h.i.+pped Venus, whom they called CABAR, or The Great; and they swore by the Sun, Moon, and Stars.
Shahristan, an Arabic author, says that the Arabs and Indians before his time had temples dedicated to the seven Planets. Abulfaragius says that the seven great primitive nations, from whom all others descended, the Persians, Chaldaeans, Greeks, Egyptians, Turks, Indians, and Chinese, all originally were Sabaeists, and wors.h.i.+pped the Stars. They all, he says, like the Chaldaeans, prayed, turning toward the North Pole three times a day, at Sunrise, Noon, and Sunset, bowing themselves three times before the Sun. They invoked the Stars and the Intelligences which inhabited them, offered them sacrifices, and called the fixed stars and planets G.o.ds. Philo says that the Chaldaeans regarded the stars as sovereign arbiters of the order of the world, and did not look beyond the visible causes to any invisible and intellectual being. They regarded NATURE as the great divinity, that exercised its powers through the action of its parts the Sun, Moon, Planets, and Fixed Stars, the successive revolutions of the seasons, and the combined action of Heaven and Earth.
The great feast of the Sabaeans was when the Sun reached the Vernal Equinox: and they had five other feasts, at the times when the five minor planets entered the signs in which they had their exaltation.
Diodorus Siculus informs us that the Egyptians recognized two great Divinities, primary and eternal, the Sun and Moon, which they thought governed the world, and from which everything receives its nourishment and growth: that on them depended all the great work of generation, and the perfection of all effects produced in nature. We know that the two great Divinities of Egypt were Osiris and Isis, the greatest agents of nature; according to some, the Sun and Moon, and according to others, Heaven and Earth, or the active and pa.s.sive principles of generation.
And we learn from Porphyry that Chaeremon, a learned priest of Egypt, and many other learned men of that nation, said that the Egyptians recognized as G.o.ds the stars composing the zodiac, and all those that by their rising or setting marked its divisions; the subdivisions of the signs into decans, the horoscope and the stars that presided therein, and which were called Potent Chiefs of Heaven: that considering the Sun as the Great G.o.d, Architect, and Ruler of the World, they explained not only the fable of Osiris and Isis, but generally all their sacred legends, by the stars, by their appearance and disappearance, by their ascension, by the phases of the moon, and the increase and diminution of her light; by the march of the sun, the division of time and the heavens into two parts, one a.s.signed to darkness and the other to light; by the Nile and, in fine, by the whole round of physical causes.
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