_“Which things are an allegory.”—Gal. 4:24._
WORSHIP is natural to man, and all systems of religion, many think,
received their cult from Nature-worship. Typology, mythology, theology
followed each other as the links of a well-forged chain.
Cicero well suggested: “Do you not see how, from the beginning, from the
productions of nature and the useful inventions of men have arisen
fictitious and imaginary deities, which have been the foundations of
false opinions, pernicious errors, and miserable superstitions?” He
asserts that “if the sacred mysteries celebrated by the most ancient
peoples were properly understood, they would rather explicate the nature
of things than portray the knowledge of the gods.” Plato said he “would
exclude from his ideal republic the poems of Homer, because the young
would not be able to distinguish between what was allegorical and what
was actual.” Proclus alleges that even Plato himself drew many of his
peculiar dogmas from the symbolisms of the ancients. It is also said
that he was curious to find out what was the secret meaning of the
allegories of the more ancient sages and philosophers, while at the same
time he affirmed that what he should successfully find out he would keep
to himself. It is well known that the real offence of Socrates was in
publishing to the common people the wisdom secreted by other teachers.
Heyne has truly said that “from myths all the history and all the
philosophy of the ancients proceed.” Gerald Massey, in his great work
_The Natural Genesis_, claims that it is only in the symbolic stage of
expression that we can expect to recover the lost meanings of priestly
dogmas. These are preserved in the gesture-signs, ideographic types,
images, and myths scattered over the world. The symbolic extends beyond
the written or spoken language of any people now extant.
He well says that “ancient symbolism was a mode of expression which has
bequeathed a mould of thought that imprisons the minds of myriads as
effectually as the toad shut up in the rock in which it dwells is
confined.” Myths and allegories, anciently unfolded to initiates in the
mysteries, have been ignorantly adopted by modern priests and published
to the world as the literal truth. The main dogmas of modern theology
are based on distorted myths, “under the shadow of which we have been
cowering as timorously as birds in a stubble when an artificial kite in
the shape of a hawk is hovering overhead.” Modern dogmatic theology is
largely what Mr. Massey has tersely called “fossilized symbolism.” It
was the habit of the Oriental mind to personify almost everything.
Ancient mystics veiled all their thoughts in allegory and draped their
sacred lessons in symbols. They invented many poetic riddles and
fantastic stories, which the initiated knew to be fanciful, but which in
time came to be regarded by the masses as substantial historic facts. It
is well known that this method was not confined to the ancients, but
played a conspicuous part in the Middle Ages, and that its baneful
influence is not yet exhausted. It will hereafter be shown that in no
writings extant can be found so many illustrations of the symbolic
method of teaching as in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. Even in
our day the common people have not outgrown this habit of
personification, and are wont to tell their children of Santa Claus and
Kriss Kringle who bring them presents at Christmastime, and of Jack
Frost who will bite them if they go out in the cold. Modern folk-lore is
full of symbolisms and personifications, as real to multitudes as are
the mythical stories found in writings supposed to contain an infallible
divine revelation.
A large number of learned authors favor the theory that all systems of
dogmatic theology are mythic suggestions of the phenomena of physical
nature, postulated by philosophers and poets in the most ancient periods
of the world. They maintain this hypothesis, in part from the well-known
fact that many of the most widely-separated peoples, who never could
have had any intercourse, directly or indirectly, have used the same
imagery and substantially adopted the same systems of religion. This
suggestion regarding Nature-worship is worthy of careful and reverent
examination. Primitive peoples, living mostly in the open air, were
brought in close contact with external natural objects and phenomena.
One of the most prevalent forms of religion in ancient times was
_tree-worship,_ and it entered largely into the religious thought of the
ancient Jews. The tree furnished the food, mainly, upon which our race
in its infancy depended for subsistence. The grove was called “the
retreat beloved by gods and men.” It furnished shelter from storm, and
shade from the tropical sun. It was a place of rest and a thing of
beauty. Mr. Barlow, in his excellent book on Symbolism, says the most
generally-received symbol of life was a tree. It was inseparable from
the ancient conception of a garden. It was the “tree of life” in the
mythic paradise. It was suggestive of passion and offspring in
connection with the serpent, which was an emblem of male virility. The
tree has many suggestions, not only in it leaves, but in its fruit and
mode of propagation. The sap of certain trees has an exhilarating, and
even an intoxicating, quality. The sacred soma was taken before reading
the Vedic hymns “to quicken the memory.” It was supposed to promote
spirituality and inspiration. Various trees and plants are suggestive of
fertility and fecundity in man. The lotus is the flower of Venus. There
is a “language of trees” as well as “language of flowers.” There are
poetic and symbolic reasons in the form of the stems and shape of the
leaves for the display of orange-blossoms as bridal decorations, as
thoughtful botanists can readily see. Much of the symbolism of the Old
Testament is identical with the Eastern tree-worship; and without some
knowledge of this form of imagery much of the Hebrew Scriptures must
remain a dead letter. The frequent references to palms, cedars, oaks,
vines, mandrakes, etc. etc., are vastly significant to the adept in
symbolism.
The Jewish Bible is full of Nature-worship to all whose eyes are not
veiled by sacerdotalism. The fact that God is said to have appeared to
Moses in the burning bush is suggestive of both tree- and fire-worship
(Ex. 3: 2). Josephus says, “The bush was holy before the flame appeared
in it and because it was holy it became the vehicle of the burning,
fiery, jealous God of the Jews. Even our Christmas evergreens contain a
recognition of the gods of the trees. The feet is, many of the religious
rites of both Jews and Christians are but slight modifications of the
ancient Nature-worship, as all well-read men know, but to which truth
our modern theologians are as blind as bats. Abraham, the alleged
progenitor of the Jewish nation (so called), is represented as a
dissenter from the religion of his native country; yet he, and his
descendants and followers after him for hundreds of years, employed the
same religious symbols and forms of worship used by the people of
Chaldea and other so-called idolatrous nations. Read the solemn
arraignment of the “chosen people” by the prophet, recorded in Ezek.
16:15 to the end of that chapter, if you would have proof of this
charge. The fact is, if we treat the story of Abraham and other
so-called Old-Testament patriarchs as we do the traditions of other
nations, we shall be forced to give it an esoteric interpretation rather
than a literal or an historic one. But more of this farther on.
_Serpent-worship_ is another form of sacred symbolism, and has an
intimate connection with phallic rites. The serpent was not at first a
personification of evil, but of wisdom, and is so used in our New
Testament, “... wise (shrewd) as serpents, harmless as doves.” It also
denotes the art or gift of healing, and was not only so used by
Esculapius, but also by Moses, and is recognized as a type by Jesus
himself: “... And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even
so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth on him
should not perish, but have, eternal life” (Num. 21:9; John 3:14, 15).
Indeed, the serpent has almost universally been regarded as a symbol of
immortal life, and especially, as frequently presented in ancient
sculptures, with its tail in its mouth, thus forming an endless circle.
This idea may have been suggested at first by its tenacity of life, and
its being so thoroughly alive in all its parts, its body and tail moving
and living after its head has been crushed; and, further, from the
periodic renewal of its skin, suggesting a new and continuous life. Then
there are other significant qualities in the serpent—viz. its power of
voluntary enlargement and self-erection, combined with its intense gaze
and wonderful secret of fascination and its noiseless and mysterious
movement—all suggestive of the _spirituel_. It is also a symbol of power
and divinity, and as such was embroidered upon ancient robes and flags
of royalty. Upon a decorative banner recently displayed upon the walls
of an edifice in Philadelphia wherein recently met the General Assembly
of the Presbyterian Church of the United States, the symbolic serpent
was prominent; and those who criticised it were silenced by a member’s
pointing to the fact that the serpent is engraved upon the seal of the
General Assembly itself. Think of Presbyterians perpetuating
serpent-symbolism!
It was doubtless the emblematic snakes which had been used in Ireland in
the Druidic worship, before the introduction of Christianity, that the
somewhat mythical St. Patrick drove out of the “Emerald Isle”—all the
snakes according to Romish tradition, now believed by millions of devout
worshippers to be strictly historical, though known by priests to be
mythical. He destroyed the emblematic serpents. It was not until after
the invention of the talking subtle serpent that tempted Eve in Eden
that the serpent became a symbol of evil. The Jews never heard of that
“old serpent the devil” until after their captivity in Babylon. We must
not fail, however, according to the Old Testament, to give King Hezekiah
credit for having been a sort of Hebrew St. Patrick, in attempting to
drive serpent-worship from among the Israelites after it had prevailed
among them for about seven hundred years.
In a line or two we sum up the symbolism of the serpent, as has been
suggested, in that it is thoroughly alive, has a fiery nature, is swift
in motion, and moves without bands or feet. It assumes a variety of
forms, is long-lived, and renews its youth by shedding its external
covering, and at pleasure stands erect, enlarges its size, is strong,
and is said to have the marvellous secret of fascination.
Initiates worshipped only the qualities or principles symbolized by
outward forms, while the ignorant may have really worshipped the
external or literal object. Every quality in the objects of the ancient
Nature-worship has suggested a religious dogma, which was first
incorporated into ancient systems of sacerdotalism, and can now be
traced in an occult and esoteric sense in all bodies of modern dogmatic
theology. Ninety-nine out of every one hundred of professional
ecclesiastics are as ignorant of these things as unborn babes, while the
select few know, but conceal, the truth. The larger class are honest
dupes and dunces, while the others are hypocrites and impostors.
_Phallieism_, the worship of the genital organs, was another form of
natural symbolism. Men saw that in some mysterious way the race was
propagated by the congress of the generative organs, male and female,
and soon naturally worshipped them as at least the symbols of the
unknown fecundating power of the universe.
This form of symbolism prevailed in the most distant ages, and has
continued in many countries unto the present time. Richard Payne Knight,
an honorable English gentleman, in 1865 wrote a quarto book, of which
only two hundred copies were printed, entitled _A Discourse on the
Worship of Priapus, and its Connection with the Theology of the
Ancients_, in which this whole subject is boldly discussed, and
phallicism illustrated by one hundred and thirty-eight engravings, many
of them copied from actual emblems now preserved in the British Museum
and in the Secret Museum in Naples. Major-General Forlong, of the
British army, has also fully presented this subject in his recent quarto
in two volumes, entitled _Rivers of Life; or, Sources and Streams of the
Faiths of Man in all Lands._
It would doubtless astound many modern theologians to be told that even
the Jews did not escape the influence of this form of Nature-worship,
and that our Bible, especially the Old Testament, contains many
evidences of it; and yet it is a fact. Circumcision was no doubt an
offshoot of phallicism. It did not originate with Abraham. It was known
by the Egyptians, Abyssinians, and African tribes long before the time
he is said to have lived. It was practised, according to Herodotus, at
least twenty-four hundred years before our era, and was even then an
ancient custom. When Jacob entered into a covenant with Laban, a pillar
was set up, surrounded by a heap of stones (Gen. 31:45-53), which was a
phallic emblem, and frequently used in the Old Testament. Hebrew
patriarchs desired numerous descendants, and hence the symbolic pillar
was well suited to their religious cult.
The name of the reputed father of Abraham, Terah, signifies “a maker of
images.” In Amos 5: 26 it is said that the Hebrews in the wilderness
worshipped a deity known by a name signifying “God of the Pillar,” as is
shown by the name Baal Tamar, which means the “fructifying god.” The
Semitic custom of giving sanction to an oath or sacred pledge by what
the Hebrews called the “putting of the hand under the thigh” is
explained by the Talmudists to be the touching of that part of the body
which is sealed and made holy by circumcision. The translations of the
Jewish Scriptures through motives of delicacy are full of these
euphemisms. Professor Joseph P. Lesley, in his _Man’s Origin and
Destiny_, suggests that phallicism converted all the older Arkite
symbols into illustrations of its own philosophical conceptions of the
mystery of generation, and thus gave to the various parts of the human
body those names which constitute the special vocabulary of obscenity of
the present day. Every scholar knows it to be a fact that certain words
and names now never spoken except by the vulgar abound in the original
Jewish writings, and are partly concealed by the convenient methods of
euphemism. When Abraham called his servant to take a solemn oath, he
required him to lay his hands upon his parts of generation as the most
sacred and revered parts of his body (Gen. 24:2), and Jacob, when dying,
made his son Joseph take the same form of oath (Gen. 47: 29). This was
but little more than the equivalent of the modern custom of laying the
hand upon the heart as a token of sincerity. The proper translation of
what the servant of Abraham was required to do is given in the margin of
Bagster’s _Comprehensive Bible_ thus: “In sectione circumcisionis meæ.”
We have in this form of phallic oath an important suggestion as to the
origin, or at least the use, of the words _testimony, testament,
testify_, and their cognates (_testis_, a witness), which cannot fail to
occur to the learned reader, but which cannot here be fully explained.
“_Caute lege_” (read carefully) was a warning of a secret or concealed
meaning which esoteric writers anciently put in the margin of their
books when they would call the special attention of the initiated to
what is now called “reading between the lines.” Until our readers
comprehend this hint they will not be able to understand what is really
meant by the “testimony” mentioned in connection with the “ark of the
covenant,” as it occurs in Ex. 16: 34, before any laws, or even altars,
were known in Sinai or its thunders heard of. In this hint may also be
found the true explanation of David’s nude dance before the ark, and of
the attending circumstances. Scores and scores of proofs could here be
furnished from the Old-Testament Scriptures, showing that the use of
phallic emblems was the rule rather than the exception for centuries
among the Jews; and the idols stolen by Rachel (teraphim) need no longer
be misunderstood, nor the meaning of the wedges upon which she sat and
refused to rise when the “custom of women was upon her” (Gen. 31:35).
She was engaged in an act of devotion. General Forlong asserts that at
this present day Queen Victoria of Christian England rules over more
than one hundred millions of phallic worshippers! Indeed, more than half
of the population of our globe still worship, as symbols of fertility
and fecundity, the genital organs.
A correspondent of the London Times, of April 8, 1875, says: “The Roman
Catholic Church still keeps up certain suggestions of phallicism. As the
ancient temple or dagoba was the womb or feminine principle of the god
Siva or Bod and others, so the new cardinal, Archbishop Manning, was
after his elevation conducted to his church, which is here entitled, in
its relation to him, bride or spouse, he calling it _sponsa mea_. The
cardinal was called the bridegroom, and the _actual building_ (the
shrine of St. Gregory) _his_ spouse, and not the spiritual Church, which
is called Chrises.” The _Times_’ correspondent further writes of this
“sacerdos magnus,” as he is termed, going to meet his spouse, the
Church: “He stood reverently at the door, when holy water was presented
to him and clouds of incense spread around him, to symbolize that,
inasmuch as before the bridegroom enters the bride-chamber he washes and
is perfumed, so the cardinal, having been espoused to the Church with
the putting on of a ring, of his title, holy water and incense were
offered to him, when the choir burst forth with the antiphon, ‘Ecce
sacerdos magnus’—‘Behold the great sacerdotal!’”
We are thus assured, as far as this is possible, that the phallic idea
and a phallic faith lie at the base of this creed; and we are reminded
of Apis of the Nile entering his palace for his works of sacrifice and
mercy—terms applied to the Great Generator or Great Creator. The
ancients all taught that their Great One, Manu, Man, or Noh, was in the
great ark which floats in the midst of the waters, and that the whole
was a mystery incomprehensible to the uninitiated. He who is lord of the
Christian ark is the lord of all nations, which the great sacerdos or
pope claims to be. He was till very lately a temporal as well as a
spiritual head of kings and nations. So no wonder that the holder of the
rod, baton, or banner, who occupies the place also of Moses to lead his
flocks through this wilderness, is always examined as to his phallic
completeness before being confirmed in the pontificate. This, we read in
the life of Leo X. by Roscoe, is required in the case of popes, just as
the laws of Moses required that all who came to worship their very
phallic JHVH should first prove their completeness as men. From this we
may conclude that eunuchs or incompetent men were children of the devil,
or at least, not of this phallic god—a fact which the writer of Matt.
19:12, and the Fathers Origen and Valentine, and a host of other saints
who acted on this text, must have overlooked. Wm. Roscoe, the historian,
thus writes: “On the 11th of August, 1492, after old Roderigo (Borgia)
had assumed the name of Alexander VI., and made his entrance as supreme
pontiff into the church of St. Peter, after the procession and pageants
had all been gone through, Alexander was taken aside to undergo the
final test of his qualifications, which in his particular case might
have been dispensed with.” The historian of course alludes to his
numerous progeny.
The author expects to be criticised, and perhaps charged with obscenity,
for introducing this subject. But it has been well said: “Prudery and
pruriency are frequently companions, equally impure and cowardly; and in
all scientific investigations they should be disregarded rather than
conciliated.” The ancients saw no impurity in the symbolism of parentage
to indicate the work of creation. What is divine and natural to be and
to do cannot be immodest and obscene. No person can with decency and
propriety impugn the operation of Nature’s laws to which he owes his
existence; and he is degraded and corrupt above all others who regards
that law as essentially sensual. Phallicism meant no wrong until
sensuality and impurity of life suggested that to mention it was
indecorous. No clean and chaste mind can be shocked by the most obvious
laws of nature. Lydia Maria Child and other grand women have written
brave words on this subject which silly prudes would do well to study,
if, indeed, they ever read anything beyond a lascivious French novel.
Women only expose their ignorance when they are reddened with blushes at
the mention of phallic worship, and at the same time wear the mystic
horse-shoe or the crescent upon their immaculate bosoms, eat hot
cross-buns, dance around the Maypole, and worship beneath the church
steeple. Even the vestments of priests are ornamented with phallic
emblems; and one can hardly go abroad without beholding things which
show how innocently and unconsciously “the records of the past” are
preserved in church architecture, ecclesiastical rites, and many other
things daily before our eyes—well understood by really learned men, but
to the true origin and significance of which the masses are totally
blind. There are churches in Philadelphia, and elsewhere, even among
those who call themselves _liberal_, which are ornamented with all the
emblems of the ancient Nature-worship, especially sun-worship and
phallus-worship. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union held a great
meeting recently at Ocean Grove, N. J., and innocently used a programme
decorated with the horseshoe and many other phallic emblems. They had
the cat seated on the crescent, which, according to Egyptian mythology,
said, “We are virgins, but nevertheless desire that commerce which
eventuates in offspring.” They had the emblematic _hare_ also, which
always denotes _fecundity_, and many other emblems not to be mentioned
in polite society. Even our ordinary playing-cards, over which so much
precious time is wasted, are distinguished by phallic symbols!
Passing by the symbolism of fire-worship prevalent in nearly all ancient
lands, and omitting to notice ancestor-worship, the _worship of the
sun_, which embraces nearly all the forms of Nature-worship, now claims
our attention. It should be kept in mind what has already been
intimated, that the use of natural objects in worship is not necessarily
idolatrous.
The priests of Chaldea, Babylonia, Hindostan, and Egypt disclaimed the
actual worship of the material objects prominent in their rituals, and
held that these visible signs were necessary for the vulgar to
contemplate, while intelligent worshippers fixed their spiritual eyes
upon the thing or principle signified by the sign. The Roman Catholic
Church well understands this principle, and by its appeal to the ear and
eye of uneducated people attracts them to its gorgeous temples and holds
them in loyal subjection to the priests. Take the following as an
illustration of the ancient customs referred to:
“Mr. F. Buckland tells us, in _Land and Water_, that on the first of May
all the choristers of Magdalen College, Oxford, still meet on the summit
of their tower, one hundred and fifty feet high, and sing a Latin hymn
as the sun rises, whilst the final peal of ten bells simultaneously
welcomes the gracious Apollo. In former days high mass was held here,
and the rector of Slymbridge, in Gloucestershire, it appears, still has
to pay ten pounds yearly for the one performance of sundry pieces of
choir-music at 5 A. M. on the top of this tower. This May music,
Christian priests explain, is for the repose of the souls of kings and
others, which, of course, is quite an after-thought. Early mass for Sol
used also to be held in the college chapel, but it is now explained
that, owing to this having been forbidden at the Reformation, it has
since been performed at the top of the tower. After the present hymn is
sung by the choristers—boys dressed in womanly raiment—the lads throw
down eggs upon the crowd beneath, and blow long loud blasts to Sol
through bright new tin horns—showing us that the Bacchic and Jewish
trumpet fêtes are not yet forgotten by Christians. Long before daybreak
the youths of both sexes used to rise and go to a great distance to
gather boughs and flowers, and reach home at sunrise to deck all doors,
windows, and loved spots.... Long before man was able to appreciate
ploughing and harvesting, he keenly felt the force of the winter and of
the vernal equinox, and was ready to appreciate the joyous warmth of the
sun and its energizing power on himself, as well as on fruits and
flowers.”
While the Jewish and Christian Bibles contain traces of all forms of the
ancient Nature-worship, there is one form that is specially conspicuous
from the first chapter of Genesis to the last of Revelation—to wit, the
worship of the sun.
This form of worship was more general among pagan nations than any
other. It was natural for those primitive people, leading pastoral lives
in the open air, to fix their attention upon the sun and to notice his
relations to other celestial orbs. It was natural for the contemplative
and devout to come to regard the sun as the best emblem of the creating,
animating, fecundating spirit of the universe, while the ignorant
multitude may never have looked beyond the material object. Those who
have read the history of the sun-worshippers of Mexico and Peru,
detailed in the great works of Prescott, must have been impressed by the
fact that these nations enjoyed a higher prosperity and a purer public
morality when they were worshippers of the sun than they have ever
enjoyed since under the Roman Catholic religion called Christian.
To fully understand how the astronomical element came to be extensively
incorporated into the Jewish and Christian religions, it is absolutely
necessary to familiarize ourselves with that ancient pictorial device
known as the solar zodiac.
Zodiac-1
Zodiac-2
This is nothing more than an imaginary belt covering that region of the
starry heavens within the bounds of which the apparent motions of the
sun, moon, and many other large planets are observed. It is divided into
twelve equal parts of thirty degrees each, called “signs,” known as
“constellations” and designated as follows:
Aries, the Ram or Lamb; Taurus, the Bull; Gemini, the Twins; Cancer, the
Crab; Leo, the Lion; Virgo, the Virgin; Libra, the Balance; Scorpio, the
Scorpion; Sagittarius, the Archer; Capricornus, the Goat; Aquarius, the
Water-carrier; Pisces, the Fishes.
These constellations are filled up with imaginary forms of men, women,
animals, monsters, and many fantastic figures, each including a group of
stars. In the ancient astronomy these groups numbered thirty-six, to
which many modern additions have been made. Through these constellations
passes a wavy line called the Ecliptic, apparently marking the path of
the sun, but really indicating the path of our own earth around the sun.
The sun seems to move thirty degrees a month, and at the end of the year
appears at the point from which he started. We thus have a natural belt
or way about sixteen degrees wide extending around the entire heavens,
one half the year north, and the other half south, of the equator. But
the sun does not cross the equator at the same point each year, so that
in crossing he is not always in the same sign. The sun seems to recede,
and as the apparent recession of the sun is caused by the real movement
of the earth, the phenomenal result is the precession of the equinoxes;
and as the equinoctial point recedes in a fixed ratio, this point will
go back through the whole circle of the constellations in about
twenty-five thousand years, requiring about twenty-one hundred and sixty
years to pass through each sign. According to the ancient astrology, the
sun assumed at different times the character of the particular sign
through which it passed, and as such was symbolically worshipped. Four
thousand years ago the sign Taurus gave rise to the worship of the Bull
(the Egyptian Apis); and when the sun passed into the sign of Aries the
Lamb, this emblem dominated the worship of Persians and other
sun-worshippers, and so became the paschal or passover lamb of the
ancient Hebrews.
You will now begin to see what this zodiacal device has to do with our
interpretations of the Bible. The Jewish Scriptures also contain it,
and, as will soon be made to appear, it is impossible to make sense of
large portions of the Bible without it.
Many superficial persons imagine this peculiar mapping of the celestial
heavens to be a modern fancy, because it is found in modern almanacs and
in the maps and charts of modern school-books; but the fact is that it
is so old and so universal that it is impossible to ascertain with
historical accuracy when and where and how it did originate. There are
two ancient zodiacs—one at Esne on the Nile, and one in India—besides
two more modern ones at Denderah in Egypt. Sir William Drummond, who
wrote in 1811, estimated the age of the one at Esne at about 6500 years;
Dupuis made it 1000 years older; while other calculations date the
Indian zodiac back 22,875 years, and the Egyptian one 30,100 years.
These calculations are based upon the assumption that the signs were in
a certain position at certain known times, so that the computation is
one of simple mathematical astronomy. The credibility of these
calculations is strengthened by the following fact: Upon the coffin of
an Egyptian mummy, now in the British Museum, is found a zodiac with the
precise indication of the position of the constellations in the year
1722 B. c. Our own Professor Mitchell calculated the exact position of
the celestial bodies belonging to our solar system at the time
indicated, and found that on October 7, 1722 B. c., the planets had
actually occupied the position in the heavens marked upon the mummy
coffin!
But further proofs are superfluous, as the zodiacal designs must be much
older than the Bible or they could not have been so frequently used in
it.
The Chaldean drama called the book of Job is supposed by some persons to
be very ancient, and its author showed his familiarity with the zodiacal
constellations when he so sublimely challenged his opponent: “Canst thou
bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?”
“Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth?” etc. etc. But can there be any doubt
as to the antiquity of the zodiac when there is an honored Protestant
doctor of divinity, now living, who holds to the opinion that Enoch, or
even Adam himself, invented the zodiac to foreshadow the redemption of
fallen man through the birth, death, resurrection, and ascension of a
veritable God? Martin Luther is said to have thrown his inkstand at the
head of the devil. If the lusty old Reformer could now visit this world,
he would denounce in unmeasured terms of righteous wrath a man who under
the garb of a Lutheran minister could utter such consummate nonsense.
And yet we must not forget that Dr. Martin Luther himself denounced
Copernicus as an atheist and a fool.
It is the misfortune of the prevalent dogmatic theology that it was
formed by people who held the _geocentric_ theory—that is, that this
little globe is the centre of the universe. Even now our professional
priests seldom extend their thoughts beyond the narrow limits of the
planet upon which we dwell. They do not realize that, while the earth
travels at the rate of 68,000 miles an hour, Mercury makes 110,000 miles
an hour, and that the sun has 1,380,000 times our earth’s bulk, and has
a diameter of 822,000 miles to our earth’s 8000; and that astronomers
have some knowledge of a fixed star in the constellation of the Swan
which is 62,481,500,000,000 (62 trillions 481 billions 500 millions) of
miles from this planet, and that light, which travels from the sun to
the earth in eight minutes, would require ten years to reach us from
that star. Yet the author of the _Gospel in the Stars_ thinks the whole
celestial universe was so constructed as to shadow forth the dogmas of
petty preachers of modern times! One can only laugh at such fanciful
follies.