theory in regard to the legend of Osiris; in which he makes the
constellation Boötes play a leading part. He observes that, as none of
the stars were visible at the same time with the Sun, his actual place
in the Zodiac, at any given time, could only be, ascertained by the
Sabæsan astronomers by their observations of the stars, and of their
heliacal and achronical risings and settings. There were many solar
festivals among the Sabæans, and part of them agricultural ones; and the
concomitant signs of those festivals were the risings and settings of
the stars of the Husbandman, Bear-driver, or Hunter, BOÖTES. His stars
were, among the Hierophants, the established nocturnal indices or signs
of the Sun's place in the ecliptic at different seasons of the year, and
the festivals were named, one, that of the _Aphanism_ or disappearance;
another, that of the _Zetesis,_ or search, etc., of Osiris or Adonis,
that is, of _Boötes._
The returns of certain stars, as connected with their concomitant
seasons of spring (or seed-time) and harvest, seemed to the ancients,
who had not yet discovered that gradual change, resulting from the
apparent movement of the stars in longitude, which has been termed the
precession of the equinoxes, to be eternal and immutable; and those
periodical returns were to the initiated, even more than to the vulgar,
celestial oracles, announcing the approach of those important changes,
upon which the prosperity, and even the very existence of man must ever
depend; and the oldest of the Sabæan constellations seem to have been,
an astronomical _Priest,_ a _King,_ a _Queen,_ a _Husbandman,_ and a
_Warrior_; and these more frequently recur on the Sabæan cylinders than
any other constellations whatever. The _King_ was _Cepheus_ or
_Chepheus_ of Ethiopia: the _Husbandman, Osiris, Bacchus, Sabazeus,
Noah_ or _Boötes_. To the latter sign, the Egyptians were nationally,
traditionally and habitually grateful; for they conceived that from
Osiris all the greatest of terrestrial enjoyments were derived. The
stars of the Husbandman were the signal for those successive
agricultural labors on which the annual produce of the soil depended;
and they came in consequence to be considered and hailed, in Egypt and
Ethiopia, as the genial stars of terrestrial productiveness; to which
the oblations, prayers, and vows of the pious Sabæan were regularly
offered up.
Landseer says that the stars in Boötes, reckoning down to those of the
5th magnitude inclusive, are _twenty-six,_ which, seeming achronically
to disappear in succession, produced the fable of the cutting of Osiris
into twenty-six pieces by Typhon. There are more stars than this in the
constellation; but no more that the ancient votaries of Osiris, even in
the clear atmosphere of the Sabæan climates, could observe without
telescopes.
Plutarch says Osiris was cut into _fourteen_ pieces: Diodorus, into
_twenty-six_; in regard to which, and to the whole legend, Landseer's
ideas, varying from those commonly entertained, are as follows:
Typhon, Landseer thinks, was the _ocean_, which the ancients fabled or
believed surrounded the Earth, and into which all the stars in their
turn appear successively to sink; [perhaps it was DARKNESS personified,
which the ancients called TYPHON. He Was hunting by moonlight, says the
old legend, when he met with Osiris].
The ancient Saba must have been near latitude 15° north. Axoum is nearly
in 14°, and the Western Saba or Meroë is to the north of that.
Forty-eight centuries ago, Aldebaran, the leading star of the year, had,
at the Vernal Equinox, attained at daylight in the morning, an elevation
of about 14 degrees, sufficient for him to have ceased to be _combust_,
that is, to have emerged from the Sun's rays, so as to be visible. The
ancients allowed _twelve_ days for a star of the first magnitude to
emerge from the solar rays; and there is less twilight, the further
South we go.
At the same period, too, Cynosura was not the pole-star, but Alpha
Draconis was; and the stars rose and set with very different degrees of
obliquity from those of their present risings and settings. By having a
globe constructed with circumvolving poles, capable of any adjustment
with regard to the colures, Mr. Landseer ascertained that, at that
remote period, in lat. 15° north, the 26 stars in Bootes, or 27,
including Arcturus, did not set anchronically in succession; but several
set simultaneously in couples, and six by threes simultaneously; so
that, in all, there were but _fourteen_ separate settings or
disappearances, corresponding with the fourteen pieces into which Osiris
was cut, according to Plutarch. Kappa, Iota, and Theta, in the uplifted
western hand, disappeared together, and last of all. They really skirted
the horizon; but were invisible in that low latitude, for the three or
four days mentioned in some of the versions; while the _Zetesis_ or
search was proceeding, and the women of Phœnicia and Jerusalem sat
weeping for the Wonder, Thammuz; after which they immediately
reappeared, below and to the eastward of _a_ Draconis.
And, on the very morning after the achronical departure of the last star
of the Husbandman, Aldebaran rose heliacally, and became visible in the
East in the morning before day.
And precisely at the moment of the heliacal rising of Arcturus, also
rose Spica Virginis. One is near the middle of the Husbandman, and the
other near that of the Virgin; and Arcturus may have been the part of
Osiris which Isis did not recover with the other pieces of the body.
At Dedan and Saba it was thirty-six days, from the beginning of the
_aphanism_, i.e., the _disappearances_ of these stars, to the heliacal
rising of Aldebaran. During these days, or forty at Medina, or a few
more at Babylon and Byblos, the stars of the Husbandman successively
sank out of sight, during the _crepusculum_ or short-lived morning
twilight of those Southern climes. They disappear during the glancings
of the dawn, the special season of ancient sidereal observation.
Thus the forty days of mourning for Osiris were measured out by the
period of the departure of his Stars. When the last had sunken out of
sight, the vernal season was ushered in; and the Sun arose with the
splendid Aldebaran, the Tauric leader of the Hosts of Heaven; and the
whole East rejoiced and kept holiday.
With the exception of the Stars χ, ε˛ and δ, Boötes did not begin to
reappear in the Eastern quarter of the Heavens till after the lapse of
about four months. Then the Stars of Taurus had declined Westward, and
Virgo was rising heliacally. In that latitude, also, the Stars of Ursa
Major [termed anciently the Ark of Osiris] set; and Benetnasch, the last
of them, returned to the Eastern horizon, with those in the head of Leo,
a little before the Summer Solstice. In about a month, followed the
Stars of the Husbandman; the chief of them, Ras, Mirach, and Arcturus,
being very nearly simultaneous in their heliacal rising.
Thus the Stars of Boötes rose in the East immediately after
Vindemiatrix, and as if under the genial influence of its rays; he had
his annual career of prosperity; he revelled orientally for a quarter of
a year, and attained his meridian altitude with Virgo; and then, as the
Stars of the Water-Urn rose, and Aquarius began to pour forth his annual
deluge, he declined Westward, preceded by the Ark of Osiris. In the
East, he was the sign of that happiness in which Nature, the great
Goddess of passive production, rejoiced. Now, in the West, as he
declines toward the Northwestern horizon, his generative vigor gradually
abates; the Solar year grows old; and as his Stars descend beneath the
Western Wave, Osiris dies, and the world mourns.
The Ancient Astronomers saw all the great Symbols of Masonry in the
Stars. Sirius still glitters in our Lodges as the Blazing Star,
(_l'Étoile Flamboyante_). The Sun is still symbolized by the point
within a Circle; and, with the Moon and Mercury or Anubis, in the three
Great Lights of the Lodge. Not only to these, but to the figures and
numbers exhibited by the Stars, were ascribed peculiar and divine
powers. The veneration paid to numbers had its source there. The three
Kings in Orion are in a straight line, and equidistant from each other,
the two extreme Stars being 3° apart, and each of the three distant from
the one nearest it 1° 30'. And as the number _three_ is peculiar to
apprentices, so the straight line is the first principle of Geometry,
having length but no breadth, and being but the extension of a point,
and an emblem of Unity, and thus of Good, as the divided or broken line
is of Duality or Evil. Near these Stars are the Hyades, _five_ in
number, appropriate to the Fellow-Craft; and close to them the Pleiades,
of the master's number, _seven_; and thus these three sacred numbers,
consecrated in Masonry as they were in the Pythagorean philosophy,
always appear together in the Heavens, when the Bull, emblem of
fertility and production, glitters among the Stars, and Aldebaran leads
the Hosts of Heaven (_Tsbauth_).
Algenib in Perseus and Almaach and Algol in Andromeda form a
right-angled triangle, illustrate the 47th problem, and display the
Grand Master's square upon the skies. Denebola in Leo, Arcturus in
Boötes, and Spica in Virgo form an equilateral triangle, universal
emblem of Perfection, and the Deity with His Trinity of Infinite
Attributes, Wisdom, Power, and Harmony; and that other, the generative,
preserving, and destroying Powers. The Three Kings form, with Rigel in
Orion, two triangles included in one: and Capella and Menkalina in
Auriga, with Bellatrix and Betelgueux in Orion, form two isosceles
triangles with β Tauri, that is equidistant from each pair; while the
first four make a right-angled parallelogram,--the oblong square so
often mentioned in our Degrees.
Julius Firmicus, in his description of the Mysteries, says, "But in
those funerals and lamentations which are annually celebrated in honor
of Osiris, their defenders pretend a physical reason. They call the
seeds of fruit, Osiris; the Earth, Isis; the natural heat, Typhon: and
because the fruits are ripened by the natural heat, and collected for
the life of man, and are separated from their marriage to the earth, and
are sown again when Winter approaches, this they would have to be the
death of Osiris: but when the fruits, by the genial fostering of the
earth, begin again to be generated by a new procreation, this is the
finding of Osiris."
No doubt the decay of vegetation and the falling of the leaves, emblems
of dissolution and evidences of the action of that Power that changes
Life into Death, in order to bring Life again out of Death, were
regarded as signs of that Death that seemed coming upon all Nature; as
the springing of leaves and buds and flowers in the spring was a sign of
restoration to life: but these were all secondary, and referred to the
Sun as first cause. It was _his_ figurative death that was mourned, and
not theirs; and that with that death, as with his return to life, many
of the stars were connected.
We have already alluded to the relations which the twelve signs of the
Zodiac bear to the legend of the Master's Degree. Some other
coincidences may have sufficient interest to warrant mention.
Khir-Om was assailed at the East, West, and South Gates of the Temple.
The two equinoxes were called, we have seen, by all the Ancients, the
Gates of Heaven, and the Syrians and Egyptians considered the Fish (the
Constellation near Aquarius, and one of the Stars whereof is Fomalhaut)
to be indicative of violence and death.
Khir-Om lay several days in the grave; and, at the Winter Solstice, for
five or six days, the length of the days did not perceptibly increase.
Then, the Sun commencing again to climb Northward, as Osiris was said to
arise from the dead, so Khir-Om was raised, by the powerful attraction
of the Lion (Leo), who waited for him at the Summer Solstice, and drew
him to himself.
The names of the three assassins may have been adopted from three Stars
that we have already named. We search in vain in the Hebrew or Arabic
for the names _Jubelo, Jubela_, and _Jubelum_. They embody an utter
absurdity, and are capable of no explanation in those languages. Nor are
the names _Gibs, Gravelot, Hobhen_, and the like, in the Ancient and
Accepted Rite, any more plausible, or better referable to any ancient
language. But when, by the precession of the Equinoxes, the Sun was in
Libra at the Autumnal Equinox, he met in that sign, where the reign of
Typhon commenced, three Stars forming a triangle,--_Zuben-es Chamali_ in
the West, _Zuben-Hak-Rabi_ in the East, and _Zuben-El-Gubi_ in the
South, the latter immediately below the Tropic of Capricorn, and so
within the realm of Darkness. From these names, those of the murderers
have perhaps been corrupted. In Zuben-Hak-Rabi we may see the original
of Jubelum Akirop; and in Zuben-El-Gubi, that of Jubelo Gibs: and time
and ignorance may even have transmuted the words Es Chamali into one as
little like them as Gravelot.
Isis, the Moon personified, sorrowing sought for her husband. Nine or
twelve Fellow-Crafts (the Rites vary as to the number), in white aprons,
were sent to search for Khir-Om, in the Legend of the Master's Degree;
or, in this Rite, the Nine Knights Elu. Along the path that the Moon
travels are nine conspicuous Stars, by which nautical men determine
their longitude at Sea;--Arietis, Aldebaran, Pollux, Regulus, Spica
Virginis, Antares, Altair, Fomalhaut, and Markab. These might well be
said to accompany Isis in her search.
In the York Rite, _twelve_ Fellow-Crafts were sent to search for the
body of Khir-Om and the murderers. Their number corresponds with that of
the Pleiades and Hyades in Taurus, among which Stars the Sun was found
when Light began to prevail over Darkness, and the Mysteries were held.
These Stars, we have shown, received early and particular attention from
the astronomers and poets. The Pleiades were the Stars of the ocean to
the benighted mariner; the Virgins of Spring, heralding the season of
blossoms.
As six Pleiades only are now visible, the number twelve may have been
obtained by them, with Aldebaran, and five far more brilliant Stars than
any other of the Hyades, in the same region of the Heavens, and which
were always spoken of in connection with the Pleiades; the Three Kings
in the belt of Orion, and Bellatrix and Betelgueux on his shoulders;
brightest of the flashing starry hosts.
"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. Boötes 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 passes the meridian first, indicating his right to
his peculiar title 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 passed under the Balance or Libra, the
seventh sign. Thus the soul entered the realm of Evil and Darkness when
it passed 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.
Sallust 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 Gods; 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 God of Light was passing into the opposite or adverse region of
the world; while at the Vernal Equinox there was less to be feared,
because then that God, 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 Gods, 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 analogous 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 God 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 God 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 God with a spear
pierces a serpent's head. On a tablet from the Temple of Osiris at Philæ
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-worshippers. 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 passed, 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 assumed, in
their Mysteries, wherein were represented the fall and regeneration of
souls, by the Bull slain and restored to life.
Afterward the regenerating Sun assumed the attributes of _Aries_ or the
Lamb; and in the Mysteries of Ammon, souls were regenerated by passing
through that sign, after having fallen through the Serpent.