everything around him has disappeared, and he seems alone with himself
and the black shades that surround him, feels his existence a blank and
nothingness, except so far as memory recalls to him the glories and
splendors of light. Everything is dead to him, and he, as it were, to
Nature. How crushing and overwhelming the thought, the fear, the dread,
that _perhaps_ that darkness may be eternal, and that day may possibly
never return; if it ever occurs to his mind, while the solid gloom
closes up against him like a wall! What then can restore him to like, to
energy, to activity, to fellowship and communion with the great world
which God has spread around him, and which perhaps in the darkness may
be passing away? LIGHT restores him to himself and to nature which
seemed lost to him. Naturally, therefore, the primitive men regarded
light as the principle of their real existence, without which life would
be but one continued weariness and despair. This necessity for light,
and its actual creative energy, were felt by all men: and nothing was
more alarming to them than its absence. It became their first Divinity,
a single ray of which, flashing into the dark tumultuous bosom of chaos,
caused man and all the Universe to emerge from it. So all the poets sung
who imagined Cosmogonies; such was the first dogma of Orpheus, Moses,
and the Theologians. Light was Ormuzd, adored by the Persians, and
Darkness Ahriman, origin of all evils. Light was the life of the
Universe, the friend of man, the substance of the Gods and of the Soul.
The sky was to them a great, solid, concave arch; a hemisphere of
unknown material, at an unknown distance above the flat level earth; and
along it journeyed in their courses the Sun, the Moon, the Planets, and
the Stars.
The Sun was to them a great globe of fire, of unknown dimensions, at an
unknown distance. The Moon was a mass of softer light; the stars and
planets lucent bodies, armed with unknown and supernatural influences.
It could not fail to be soon observed, that at regular intervals the
days and nights were equal; and that two of these intervals measured the
same space of time as elapsed between the successive inundations, and
between the returns of spring-time and harvest. Nor could it fail to be
perceived that the changes of the moon occurred regularly; the same
number of days always elapsing between the first appearance of her
silver crescent in the West at evening and that of her full orb rising
in the East at the same hour; and the same again, between that and the
new appearance of the crescent in the West.
It was also soon observed that the Sun crossed the Heavens in a
different line each day, the days being longest and the nights shortest
when the line of his passage was furthest North, and the days shortest
and nights longest when that line was furthest South: that his progress
North and South was perfectly regular, marking four periods that were
always the same,--those when the days and nights were equal, or the
Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes; that when the days were longest, or the
Summer Solstice; and that when they were shortest, or the Winter
Solstice.
With the Vernal Equinox, or about the 25th of March of our Calendar,
they found that there unerringly came soft winds, the return of warmth,
caused by the Sun turning back to the Northward from the middle ground
of his course, the vegetation of the new year, and the impulse to
amatory action on the part of the animal creation. Then the Bull and the
Ram, animals most valuable to the agriculturist, and symbols themselves
of vigorous generative power, recovered their vigor, the birds mated and
builded their nests, the seeds germinated, the grass grew, and the trees
put forth leaves. With the Summer Solstice, when the Sun reached the
extreme northern limit of his course, came great heat, and burning
winds, and lassitude and exhaustion; then vegetation withered, man
longed for the cool breezes of Spring and Autumn, and the cool water of
the wintry Nile or Euphrates, and the Lion sought for that element far
from his home in the desert.
With the Autumnal Equinox came ripe harvests, and fruits of the tree and
vine, and falling leaves, and cold evenings presaging wintry frosts; and
the Principle and Powers of Darkness, prevailing over those of Light,
drove the Sun further to the South, so that the nights grew longer than
the days. And at the Winter Solstice the earth was wrinkled with frost,
the trees were leafless, and the Sun, reaching the most Southern point
in his career, seemed to hesitate whether to continue descending, to
leave the world to darkness and despair, or to turn upon his steps and
retrace his course to the Northward, bringing back seed-time and Spring,
and green leaves and flowers, and all the delights of love.
Thus, naturally and necessarily, time was divided, first into days, and
then into moons or months, and years; and with these divisions and the
movements of the Heavenly bodies that marked them, were associated and
connected all men's physical enjoyments and privations. Wholly
agricultural, and in their frail habitations greatly at the mercy of the
elements and the changing seasons, the primitive people of the Orient
were most deeply interested in the recurrence of the periodical
phenomena presented by the two great luminaries of Heaven, on whose
regularity all their prosperity depended.
And the attentive observer soon noticed that the smaller lights of
Heaven were, apparently, even more regular than the Sun and Moon, and
foretold with unerring certainty, by their risings and settings, the
periods of recurrence of the different phenomena and seasons on which
the physical well-being of all men depended. They soon felt the
necessity of distinguishing the individual stars, or groups of stars,
and giving them names, that they might understand each other, when
referring to and designating them. Necessity produced designations at
once natural and artificial. Observing that, in the circle of the year,
the renewal and periodical appearance of the productions of the earth
were constantly associated, not only with the courses of the Sun, but
also with the rising and setting of certain Stars, and with their
position relatively to the Sun, the centre to which they referred the
whole starry host, the mind naturally connected the celestial and
terrestrial objects that were _in fact_ connected: and they commenced by
giving to particular Stars or groups of Stars the names of those
terrestrial objects which seemed connected with them; and for those
which still remained unnamed by this nomenclature, they, to complete a
system, assumed arbitrary and fanciful names.
Thus the Ethiopian of Thebes or Saba styled those Stars under which the
Nile commenced to overflow, Stars of Inundation, or that _poured out
water_ (AQUARIUS).
Those Stars among which the Sun was, when he had reached the Northern
Tropic and began to _retreat_ Southward, were termed, from his
retrograde motion, the Crab (CANCER).
As he approached, in Autumn, the middle point between the Northern and
Southern extremes of his journeying, the days and nights became equal;
and the Stars among which he was then found were called Stars of the
Balance (LIBRA).
Those stars among which the Sun was, when the Lion, driven from the
Desert by thirst, came to slake it at the Nile, were called Stars of the
Lion (LEO).
Those among which the Sun was at harvest, were called those of the
Gleaning Virgin, holding a Sheaf of Wheat (VIRGO).
Those among which he was found in February, when the Ewes brought forth
their young, were called Stars of the Lamb (ARIES).
Those in March, when it was time to plough, were called Stars of the Ox
(TAURUS).
Those under which hot and burning winds came from the desert, venomous
like poisonous reptiles, were called Stars of the Scorpion (SCORPIO).
Observing that the annual return of the rising of the Nile was always
accompanied by the appearance of a beautiful Star, which at that period
showed itself in the direction of the sources of that river, and seemed
to warn the husbandman to be careful not to be surprised by the
inundation, the Ethiopian compared this act of that Star to that of the
Animal which by barking gives warning of danger, and styled it the Dog
(SIRIUS).
Thus commencing, and as astronomy came to be more studied, imaginary
figures were traced all over the Heavens, to which the different Stars
were assigned. Chief among them were those that lay along the path which
the Sun travelled as he climbed toward the North and descended to the
South: lying within certain limits and extending to an equal distance on
each side of the line of equal nights and days. This belt, curving like
a Serpent, was termed the Zodiac, and divided into twelve Signs.
At the Vernal Equinox, 2455 years before our Era, the Sun was entering
the sign and constellation Taurus, or the Bull; having passed through,
since he commenced, at the Winter Solstice, to ascend Northward, the
Signs Aquarius, Pisces and Aries; on entering the first of which he
reached the lowest limit of his journey Southward.
From TAURUS, he passed through Gemini and Cancer, and reached LEO when
he arrived at the terminus of his journey Northward. Thence, through
Leo, Virgo, and Libra, he entered SCORPIO at the Autumnal Equinox, and
journeyed Southward through Scorpia, Sagittarius, and Capricornus to
AQUARIUS, the terminus of his journey South.
The path by which he journeyed through these signs became the
_Ecliptic_; and that which passes through the two equinoxes, the
_Equator_.
They knew nothing of the immutable laws of nature; and whenever the Sun
commenced to tend Southward, they feared lest he might continue to do
so, and by degrees disappear forever, leaving the earth to be ruled
forever by darkness, storm, and cold.
Hence they rejoiced when he commenced to re-ascend after the Winter
Solstice, struggling against the malign influences of Aquarius and
Pisces, and amicably received by the Lamb. And when at the Vernal
Equinox he entered Taurus, they still more rejoiced at the assurance
that the days would again be longer than the nights, that the season of
seed-time had come, and the Summer and harvest would follow.
And they lamented when, after the Autumnal Equinox, the malign influence
of the venomous Scorpion, and vindictive Archer, and the filthy and
ill-omened He-Goat dragged him down toward the Winter Solstice.
Arriving there, they said he had been slain, and had gone to the realm
of darkness. Remaining there three days, he rose again, and again
ascended Northward in the heavens, to redeem the earth from the gloom
and darkness of Winter, which soon became emblematical of sin, and evil,
and suffering; as the Spring, Summer, and Autumn became emblems of
happiness and immortality.
Soon they personified the Sun, and worshipped him under the name of
OSIRIS, and transmuted the legend of his descent among the Winter Signs,
into a fable of his death, his descent into the infernal regions, and
his resurrection.
The Moon became Isis, the wife of Osiris; and Winter, as well as the
desert or the ocean into which the Sun descended, became TYPHON, the
Spirit or Principle of Evil, warring against and destroying Osiris.
From the journey of the Sun through the twelve signs came the legend of
the twelve labors of Hercules, and the incarnations of Vishnu and
Buddha. Hence came the legend of the murder of Khūrũm, representative of
the Sun, by the three Fellow-crafts, symbols of the three Winter signs,
Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces, who assailed him at the three gates
of Heaven and slew him at the Winter Solstice. Hence the search for him
by the nine Fellow-crafts, the other nine signs, his finding, burial,
and resurrection.
The celestial Taurus, opening the new year, was the Creative Bull of the
Hindus and Japanese, breaking with his horn the egg out of which the
world is born, Hence the bull APIS was worshipped by the Egyptians, and
reproduced as a golden calf by Aaron in the desert. Hence the cow was
sacred to the Hindús. Hence, from the sacred and beneficent signs of
Taurus and Leo, the human-headed winged lions and bulls in the palaces
at Kouyounjik and Nimroud, like which were the Cherubim set by Solomon
in his Temple: and hence the twelve brazen or bronze oxen, on which the
laver of brass was supported.
The Celestial Vulture or Eagle, rising and setting with the Scorpion,
was substituted in its place, in many cases, on account of the malign
influences of the latter: and thus the four great periods of the year
were marked by the Bull, the Lion, the Man (Aquarius) and the Eagle;
which were upon the respective standards of Ephraim, Judah, Reuben, and
Dan; and still appear on the shield of American Royal Arch Masonry.
Afterward the Ram or Lamb became an object of adoration, when, in his
turn, he opened the equinox, to deliver the world from the wintry reign
of darkness and evil.
Around the central and simple idea of the annual death and resurrection
of the Sun a multitude of circumstantial details soon clustered. Some
were derived from other astronomical phenomena; while many were merely
poetical ornaments and inventions.
Besides the Sun and Moon, those ancients also saw a beautiful Star,
shining, with a soft, silvery light, always following the Sun at no
great distance when he set, or preceding him when he rose. Another of a
red and angry color, and still another more kingly and brilliant than
all, early attracted their attention, by their free movements among the
fixed hosts of Heaven: and the latter by his unusual brilliancy, and the
regularity with which he rose and set. These were Venus, Mars, and
Jupiter. Mercury and Saturn could scarcely have been noticed in the
world's infancy, or until astronomy began to assume the proportions of a
science.
In the projection of the celestial sphere by the astronomical priests,
the zodiac and constellations, arranged in a circle, presented their
halves in diametrical opposition; and the hemisphere of Winter was said
to be adverse, opposed, contrary, to that of Summer. Over the angels of
the latter ruled a king (OSIRIS or ORMUZD), enlightened, intelligent,
creative, and beneficent. Over the fallen angels or evil genii of the
former, the demons or Devs of the subterranean empire of darkness and
sorrow, and its stars, ruled also a chief. In Egypt the Scorpion first
ruled, the sign next the Balance, and long the chief of the Winter
signs; and then the Polar Bear or Ass, called Typhon, that is, _deluge_,
on account of the rains which inundated the earth while that
constellation domineered. In Persia, at a later day, it was the serpent,
which, personified as Ahriman, was the Evil Principle of the religion of
Zoroaster.
The Sun does not arrive at the same moment in each year at the
equinoctial point on the equator. The explanation of his anticipating
that point belongs to the science of astronomy; and to that we refer you
for it. The consequence is, what is termed the precession of the
equinoxes, by means of which the Sun is constantly changing his place in
the zodiac, at each vernal equinox; so that now, the signs retaining the
names which they had 300 years before Christ, they and the
constellations do not correspond; the Sun being now in the constellation
Pisces, when he is in the sign Aries.
The annual amount of precession is 50 seconds and a little over [50"
1.]. The period of a complete Revolution of the Equinoxes, 25,856 years.
The precession amounts to 30° or a sign, in 2155.6 years. So that, as
the sun now enters Pisces at the Vernal Equinox, he entered Aries at
that period, 300 years B.C., and Taurus 2455 B.C. And the division of
the Ecliptic, now _called_ Taurus, lies in the Constellation Aries;
while the _sign_ Gemini is in the _Constellation_ Taurus. Four thousand
six hundred and ten years before Christ, the sun entered Gemini at the
Vernal Equinox.
At the two periods, 2455 and 300 years before Christ, and now, the
entrances of the sun at the Equinoxes and Solstices into the signs, were
and are as follows:--
_B.C._ 2455.
Vern. Equinox, he entered Taurus from Aries.
Summer Solstice Leo from Cancer.
Autumnal Equinox Scorpio from Libra.
Winter Solstice Aquarius from Capricornus.
_B.C._ 300.
Vern. Eq. Aries from Pisces.
Summer Sols. Cancer from Gemini.
Autumn Eq. Libra from Virgo.
Winter Sols. Capricornus from Sagittarius.
1872.
Vern. Eq. Pisces from Aquarius.
Sum. Sols. Gemini from Taurus.
Aut. Eq. Virgo from Leo.
Winter Sols. Sagittarius from Scorpio.
From confounding _signs_ with _causes_ came the worship of the sun and
stars. "If," says Job, "I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon
progressive in brightness; and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or
my mouth hath kissed my hand, this were an iniquity to be punished by
the Judge; for I should have denied the God that is above."
Perhaps we are not, on the whole, much wiser than those simple men of
the old time. For what do we know of _effect_ and _cause_, except that
one thing regularly or habitually _follows_ another?
So, because the heliacal rising of Sirius _preceded_ the rising of the
Nile, it was deemed to _cause_ it; and other stars were in like manner
held to _cause_ extreme heat, bitter cold, and watery storm.
A religious reverence for the zodiacal Bull [TAURUS] appears, from a
very early period, to have been pretty general,--perhaps it was
universal, throughout Asia; from that chain or region of Caucasus to
which it gave name; and which is still known under the appellation of
Mount Taurus, to the Southern extremities of the Indian Peninsula;
extending itself also into Europe, and through the Eastern parts of
Africa.
This evidently originated during those remote ages of the world, when
the colure of the vernal equinox passed across the stars in the head of
the sign Taurus [among which was Aldebarán]; a period when, as the most
ancient monuments of all the oriental nations attest, the light of arts
and letters first shone forth.
The Arabian word AL-DE-BARÁN, means the _foremost_, or _leading_, star:
and it could only have been so named, when it did precede, or _lead_,
all others. The year then opened with the sun in Taurus; and the
multitude of ancient sculptures, both in Assyria and Egypt, wherein the
bull appears with lunette or crescent horns, and the disk of the sun
between them, are direct allusions to the important festival of the
first new moon of the year: and there was everywhere an annual
celebration of the festival of the first new moon, when the year opened
with Sol and Luna in Taurus.
David sings: "Blow the trumpet in _the New Moon_; in the time appointed;
on our solemn feast-day: for this is a statute unto Israel, and a law of
the God of Jacob. This he ordained to Joseph, for a testimony, when he
came out of the land of Egypt."
The reverence paid to Taurus continued long after, by the precession of
the Equinoxes, the colure of the vernal equinox had come to pass through
Aries. The Chinese still have a temple, called "The Palace of the horned
Bull"; and the same symbol is worshipped in Japan and all over
Hindostan. The Cimbrians carried a brazen bull with them, as the image
of their God, when they overran Spain and Gaul; and the representation
of the Creation, by the Deity in the shape of a bull, breaking the shell
of an egg with his horns, meant Taurus, opening the year, and bursting
the symbolical shell of the annually-recurring orb of the new year.
Theophilus says that the Osiris of Egypt was supposed to be dead or
absent fifty days in each year. Landseer thinks that this was because
the Sabæan priests were accustomed to see, in the lower latitudes of
Egypt and Ethiopia, the first or chief stars of the Husbandman [BOÖTES]
sink achronically beneath the Western horizon; and then to begin their
lamentations, or hold forth the signal for others to weep: and when his
prolific virtues were supposed to be transferred to the vernal sun,
bacchanalian revelry became devotion.
Before the colure of the Vernal Equinox had passed into Aries, and after
it had left Aldebarán and the Hyades, the Pleiades were, for seven or
eight centuries, the leading stars of the Sabæan year. And thus we see,
on the monuments, the disk and crescent, symbols of the sun and moon in
conjunction, appear successively,--first on the head, and then on the
neck and back of the Zodiacal Bull, and more recently on the forehead of
the Ram.
The diagrammatical character or symbol, still in use to denote Taurus,
[Glyph], is this very crescent and disk: a symbol that has come down to
us from those remote ages when this memorable conjunction in Taurus, by
marking the commencement, at once of the Sabæan year and of the cycle of
the Chaldean Saros, so pre-eminently distinguished that sign as to
become its characteristic symbol. On a bronze bull from China, the
crescent is attached to the _back_ of the Bull, by means of a cloud, and
a curved groove is provided for the occasional introduction of the disk
of the sun, when solar and lunar time were coincident and conjunctive,
at the commencement of the year, and of the lunar cycle. When that was
made, the year did not open with the stars in the _head_ of the Bull,
but when the colure of the vernal equinox passed across the middle or
later degrees of the asterism Taurus, and the Pleiades were, in China,
as in Canaan, the leading stars of the year.
The crescent and disk combined always represent the conjunctive Sun and
Moon; and when placed on the head of the Zodiacal Bull, the commencement
of the cycle termed SAROS by the Chaldeans, and Metonic by the Greeks;
and supposed to be alluded to in Job, by the phrase, "Mazzaroth in his
season"; that is to say, when the first new Moon and new Sun of the year
were coincident, which happened once in eighteen years and a fraction.
On the sarcophagus of Alexander, the same symbol appears on the head of
a Ram, which, in the time of that monarch, was the leading sign. So too
in the sculptured temples of the Upper Nile, the crescent and disk
appear, not on the head of Taurus, but on the forehead of the Ram or the
Ram-headed God, whom the Grecian Mythologists called Jupiter Ammon,
really the Sun in Aries.
If we now look for a moment at the individual stars which composed and
were near to the respective constellations, we may find something that
will connect itself with the symbols of the Ancient Mysteries and of
Masonry.
It is to be noticed that when the Sun is _in_ a particular
constellation, no part of that constellation will be seen, except just
before sunrise and just after sunset; and then only the edge of it: but
the constellations _opposite_ to it will be visible. When the Sun is in
Taurus, for example, that is, when Taurus _sets with_ the Sun, Scorpio
rises as he sets, and continues visible throughout the night. And if
Taurus rises and sets with the Sun to-day, he will, six months hence,
rise at sunset and set at sunrise; for the stars thus gain on the Sun
two hours a month.
Going back to the time when, watched by the Chaldean shepherds, and the
husbandmen of Ethiopia and Egypt,
"The milk-white Bull with golden horns
Led on the new-born year,"
we see in the neck of TAURUS, the Pleiades, and in his face the Hyades,
"which Grecia from their showering names," and of whom the brilliant
Aldebarán is the chief; while to the southwestward is that most splendid
of all the constellations, Orion, with Betelgueux in his right shoulder,
Bellatrix in his left shoulder, Rigel on the left foot, and in his belt
the three stars known as the Three Kings, and now as the Yard and Ell.
Orion, ran the legend, persecuted the Pleiades; and to save them from
his fury, Jupiter placed them in the Heavens, where he still pursues
them, but in vain. They, with Arcturus and the Bands of Orion, are
mentioned in the Book of Job. They are usually called the Seven Stars,
and it is said there _were_ seven, before the fall of Troy; though now
only six are visible.
The Pleiades were so named from a Greek word signifying _to sail._ In
all ages they have been observed for signs and seasons. Virgil says that
the sailors gave names to "the Pleiades, Hyades, and the Northern Car:
_Pleiadas, Hyadas, Claramque Lycaonis Arcton."_ And Palinurus, he
says,--
_Arcturum, pluviasque Hyadas, Geminosque Triones,
Armatumque auro circumspicit Oriona,--_
studied Arcturus and the rainy Hyades and the Twin Triones, and Orion
cinctured with gold.
Taurus was the prince and leader of the celestial host for more than two
thousand years; and when his head set with the Sun about the last of
May, the Scorpion was seen to rise in the Southeast.
The Pleiades were sometimes called _Vergiliœ,_ or the Virgins of Spring;
because the Sun entered this cluster of stars in the season of blossoms.
Their Syrian name was _Succoth,_ or _Succothbeneth,_ derived from a
Chaldean word signifying to _speculate_ or _observe._
The _Hyades_ are five stars in the form of a V, 11° southeast of the
Pleiades. The Greeks counted them as seven. When the Vernal Equinox was
in Taurus, Aldebarán led up the starry host; and as he rose in the East,
Aries was about 27° high.