or, The Constellations
by Frances Rolleston

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GEMINI
THE TWINS, THE UNITED

In the First Decan, according to the Persians, there was a serpent, also in the Egyptian zodiac, in the French Egypte. Zeeb, the wolf, in Arabic means coming quickly; in Heb., this shall come. In the Persian sphere, the Second Decan was figured as a wolf: one of the Twins had also the head of a wolf in some Oriental zodiacs. Some ancient forms of this sign are said by Hyde to have been two kids (Dupuis, Richer).

CANCER
THE CRAB OR SCARABAEUS, HOLDING THE POSSESSION

The Scarabaeus is thought to have been the original emblem in Cancer. Sartan, who holds, would well apply to the "sacred beetle" of the Egyptians, who holds its "progeny" fast even in death. The Scarabaeus was placed here in the Persian sphere.

Some of the Arabs called Ursa Major El Naish, the bier, or funeral assembly (Ideler, Hyde, Barnes, &c.). The Christian Arabs called it the funeral of Lazarus, with Mary and Martha walking after it (Hyde, &c.).

Decan, a part or piece, Heb. and Arab. Daniel 2:45 qd

Decans are divisions of a sign, each occupying about a third. This division is said to have been introduced into Egypt by King Necepsos, about 700 years BC The Decans are here arranged from a work by Albumazer, Flor. Astro., a Latin translation of which is in the Library of the British Museum. Albumazer speaks of them as in the Persian, Egyptian, and Indian spheres. The Persians, he says, understood, but the Indians perverted them with inventions. He describes them from both. Amidst considerable variations, analogies may be traced to the constellations as now figured. Of the Signs and other thirty-six constellations as received in his time, he says, all the names and figures had been transmitted unaltered.

Albumazer, or Abu Masher, lived about the year 800 (AD). He is known as a great Arab physician and astronomer. At that time astronomy was much studied by the Arabs: it had also been cultivated by the Gerbanites, a sect of Arab astronomers, some centuries before the Christian era. Lyell, in his Geology, says of them, "These were evidently great astronomers." Ricciolus, an astronomical writer AD 1598, says that it appears from Arab astronomy, that it was as old as Adam, and the names preserved by the Arabs antediluvian. Aben Ezra, a celebrated Jewish writer who lived in the thirteenth century, refers to Albumazer as a great authority. He records that Auriga was called the Shepherd by the ancient Hebrews.

Ulugh Beigh, a Tartar prince and astronomer who lived about the middle of the fifteenth century, is considered to have transmitted the ancient Arabian science. His catalogue of the stars was printed by Dr. Hyde, with Commentaries, about 1660. See Hyde's Syntagma, &c. It has been since reprinted in England.

None of the Arabic names in Ursa Major and Minor have any reference to a bear. Dub in Hebrew is a bear; Dubhe is strength in Hebrew and Chaldee (Buxtorf). The bear was probably so named from its strength. El Acola, Hebrew and Arabic, is explicitly sheepfold, as other names are sheep and flock. In the Persian sphere there are three damsels walking, as "the daughters of Ash," and the same figures in Ursa Minor and Argo. There is no trace of a ship in any of them.

LEO
THE LION, THE SEPARATING

"The Lion of the tribe of Judah" (Rev 5:5) is known to have been always borne on the standard of Judah, whether in the wilderness (Num 2), or in after-times. Bailly says the zodiac must have been first divided when the sun at the summer solstice was in 1^o Virgo, where the Woman's head joins the Lion's tail. Necepsos and Petosiris, Egyptian astronomers about 700 BC, taught that at the creation the sun rose in Leo, at the summer solstice, the moon in Cancer.

Dupuis says, "The ancient Persians called the starry serpent the Serpent of Eve." He refers to a book of Zoroaster, the Boundesh, which he calls their Genesis. The same star, Al Chibar, the joined, is reckoned both in the Raven and in Hydra; as El Nath in the horn of Taurus and in the heel of Auriga, Antares in the head of Scorpio and the heel of Ophiuchus, &c. By these junctions the places of the figures were preserved; also by naming one star as the head, as Ras al Awa in Ophiuchus, others the hand, as Caph in Cassiopeia, and Rigol, the foot, in Orion. Ulugh Beigh thus describes most of the constellations.

VIRGO
THE WOMAN, BEARING THE BRANCH

Bethulah in Arabic is the sucker or branch of the palm (Castel), also a virgin. Ben in Hebrew branch, also son, as in Psalm 80:15, 17.

In the Pythian procession, the Greeks spoke of breaking from the laurel "the atoning bough." The branch-bearing sibyl of the Aeneid will here be traced.

The First Decan of Virgo, Albumazer says, was every where a woman with an infant. In the planisphere of Dendera, the woman, as the sign, carries the branch: below is a woman holding an infant. The palm-branches, John 12:13, with which the multitudes greeted the entry of our Lord into Jerusalem, acknowledged him as the promised "Branch," Zechariah 3:8, &c.

Baion is the comer, from Bao, to come. Erigone (Georg. I), who bears the coming One.

Albumazer describes Virgo as "a sign of two parts and three forms." Apparently the woman and the branch are the two parts, the ears of corn the third form. He then says, "There arises in the First Decan, as the Persians, Chaldeans, and Egyptians, the two Hermes, and Ascalius teach, a young woman, whose Persian name translated into Arabic is Adrenedefa,* a pure and immaculate virgin, holding in the hand two ears of corn, sitting on a throne, nourishing an infant, in the act of feeding him, who has a Hebrew name (the boy, I say), by some nations named Ihesu, with the signification Ieza, which we in Greek call Christ." Ieza is evidently the Hebrew verb "yesha," to save.

* Adrenedefa, Heb. a pure virgin, offering (Exo 35:29).

Layard gives the figure of an Assyrian goddess who holds an infant in her arms, and reads her name Mylitt, or Mylitta, which would be "she who beings forth." Eratosthenes called Virgo Isis. Isis, with other Egyptian goddesses differently named, is often figured holding the infant deity Horus, he who cometh. From Gaffarelli it appears that "the ancient Arabs figured Virgo as a fruitful branch." The Christian Arabs placed an infant near Virgo, as Coma.

In the sacred books of the Chinese, it was said that "a virgin should bring forth a child in the West."

Among the Gauls, 100 BC, an altar was found with this inscription, "To the virgin who is to bring forth."

The Taurians in the Crimea had human sacrifices to a virgin. Krishna, in India, Mexitli, in Mexico, had no human father.

All these nations had the zodiac, where they might find the woman, and the branch; but that the woman was a virgin, the infant the seed of the woman, prophecy only could have told them. R. Ben Jochai on Genesis 3 speaks of Messiah as to be born of a virgin, probably from Isaiah 7.

The brightest star in the Centaur has been observed by Sir John Herschell to be growing rapidly brighter: it seems, therefore, one of the changeable stars. The name Toliman, annexed to it by Ulugh Beigh, the star of heretofore and hereafter, indicates an early observation of its changes.

Bootes has by all antiquity been called the guardian of the constellations called the Great and Little Bear. The name Arcturus has been given to the figure, as well as to its brightest star.

LIBRA
THE SCALES, THE REDEEMING

The emblem of the Scales, or Balance, is found in all the Eastern zodiacs. In some it is said to have been held in the claws of the Scorpion; whence Chelae, the claws, was sometimes substituted in the West for Libra (Virg. Georg).

In the Persian sphere, the First Decan was a man as in wrath, holding a balance in one hand, a lamb in the other. Thau, bound or limit, finished, is the name of the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, originally in the form of a cross. Long before the Christian era, the cross was a most sacred emblem among the Egyptians. A few days before the sun entered Aries, the ancient Persians had the feast of the cross. At that time the Southern Cross was visible by night, probably about 10^o above the horizon. They called Aries, the Lamb (Dupuis, &c.).

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