(5) Wishing to express Sun in writing, they make a circle; and Moon, a figure like the Moon, like its proper shape. But in using the figurative style, by transposing and transferring, by changing and by transforming in many ways as suits them, they draw characters. In relating the praises of the kings in theological myths, they write in anaglyphs. Let the following stand as a specimen of the third species - the Enigmatic. For the rest of the stars, on account of their oblique course, they have figured like the bodies of serpents; but the sun, like that of a beetle, because it makes a round figure of ox-dung, and rolls it before its face. And they say that this creature lives six months under ground, and the other division of the year above ground, and emits its seed into the ball, and brings forth; and that there is not a female beetle. All then, in a word, who have spoken of divine things, both Barbarians and Greeks, have veiled the first principles of things, and delivered the truth in enigmas, and symbols, and allegories, and metaphors, and such like tropes. Such also are the oracles among the Greeks. And the Pythian Apollo is called Loxias. Also the maxims of those among the Greeks called wise men, in a few sayings indicate the unfolding of matter of considerable importance. Such certainly is that maxim, "Spare Time:" either because life is short, and we ought not to expend this time in vain; or, on the other hand, it bids you spare your personal expenses; so that, though you live many years, necessaries may not fail you. Similarly also the maxim "Know thyself" shows many things; both that thou art mortal, and that thou wast born a human being; and also that, in comparison with the other excellences of life, thou art of no account, because thou sayest that thou art rich or renowned; or, on the other hand, that, being rich or renowned, you are not honoured on account of your advantages alone. And it says, Know for what thou wert born, and whose image thou art; and what is thy essence, and what thy creation, and what thy relation to God, and the like. And the Spirit says by Isaiah the prophet, "I will give thee treasures, hidden, dark." Now wisdom, hard to hunt, is the treasures of God and unfailing riches. But those, taught in theology by those prophets, the poets, philosophize much by way of a hidden sense. I mean Orpheus, Linus, Musaeus, Homer, and Hesiod, and those in this fashion wise. The persuasive style of poetry is for them a veil for the many.

(2) And there are those who fashion ears and eyes of costly material, and consecrate them, dedicating them in the temples to the gods - by this plainly indicating that God sees and hears all things. Besides, the lion is with them the symbol of strength and prowess, as the ox clearly is of the earth itself, and husbandry and food, and the horse of fortitude and confidence; while, on the other hand, the sphinx, of strength combined with intelligence - as it had a body entirely that of a lion, and the face of a man. Similarly to these, to indicate intelligence, and memory, and power, and art, a man is sculptured in the temples. And in what is called among them the Komasiae of the gods, they carry about golden images - two dogs, one hawk, and one ibis; and the four figures of the images they call four letters. For the dogs are symbols of the two hemispheres, which, as it were, go round and keep watch; the hawk, of the sun, for it is fiery and destructive (so they attribute pestilential diseases to the sun); the ibis, of the moon, likening the shady parts to that which is dark in plumage, and the luminous to the light. And some will have it that by the dogs are meant the tropics, which guard and watch the sun's passage to the south and north. The hawk signifies the equinoctial line, which is high and parched with heat, as the ibis the ecliptic. For the ibis seems, above other animals, to have furnished to the Egyptians the first rudiments of the invention of number and measure, as the oblique line did of circles.

(3) These words of his so spurred me on, that I Strained every nerve, behind him scrambling up, Until the circle was beneath my feet. Thereon ourselves we seated both of us Turned to the East, from which we had ascended, For all men are delighted to look back. To the low shores mine eyes I first directed, Then to the sun uplifted them, and wondered That on the left hand we were smitten by it. The Poet well perceived that I was wholly Bewildered at the chariot of the light, Where 'twixt us and the Aquilon it entered. Whereon he said to me: "If Castor and Pollux Were in the company of yonder mirror, That up and down conducteth with its light, Thou wouldst behold the zodiac's jagged wheel Revolving still more near unto the Bears, Unless it swerved aside from its old track. How that may be wouldst thou have power to think, Collected in thyself, imagine Zion Together with this mount on earth to stand, So that they both one sole horizon have, And hemispheres diverse; whereby the road Which Phaeton, alas! knew not to drive,

(1) Whence also the Egyptians did not entrust the mysteries they possessed to all and sundry, and did not divulge the knowledge of divine things to the profane; but only to those destined to ascend the throne, and those of the priests that were judged the worthiest, from their nurture, culture, and birth. Similar, then, to the Hebrew enigmas in respect to concealment, are those of the Egyptians also. Of the Egyptians, some show the sun on a ship, others on a crocodile. And they signify hereby, that the sun, making a passage through the delicious and moist air, generates time; which is symbolized by the crocodile in some other sacerdotal account. Further, at Diospolis in Egypt, on the temple called Pylon, there was figured a boy as the symbol of production, and an old man as that of decay. A hawk, on the other hand, was the symbol of God, as a fish of hate; and, according to a different symbolism, the crocodile; of impudence. The whole symbol, then, when put together, appears to teach this: "Oh ye who are born and die, God hates impudence."

(21) And thereupon it comes, that Man many Times in the Dwelling of the Brains, and of the Heart, as also in all the five Senses, in the Region [or Dominion] of the Stars, is in his Or according to the Complexions. Mind P often like a Wolf, a churlish Dog, crafty, fierce, and greedy; and P often like a Lion, stern, cruel, sturdy and active in devouring of his Prey; P often like a Dog, snappish, envious, malicious; often like an Adder and Serpent, subtle, venomous, stinging, poisonous, slanderous in his Words, and mischievous in his Deeds, ill-conditioned and lying, like the Quality of the Devil in the Shape of a Serpent at the Tree of Temptation; P often like a Hare, timorous, or fearful, starting and running away; P often like a Toad, whose Mind is so very venomous, that it poisons a tender [or weak] Mind to the temporal Death by its Imagination, which many Times makes Witches and Sorcerers, for the first Ground serves enough to it; P often like a tame Beast; and P often like a merry Beast, &c. all according as the Constellation stood, in its Incarnation in the wrestling Wheel, with its Virtue of the Quinta Essentia, so is the Starry Mind on rit region figured; although the Hour of Man's Birth alters much, and does hold in the first, whereof I will write hereafter in its Place, concerning Man's Birth [or Nativity.]

(2) The stars, their images, as the stars of the Zodiac, he fixed

(2) Hence, likewise, it says that he is one and the same, but that the vicissitudes of his form, and his configurations, must be admitted to exist in the recipients. On this account it asserts “that he is changed every hour, according to the signs of the zodiac,” in consequence of these being variously changed about the God, according to the many modes by which they receive him. The Egyptians use prayers to the sun, conformable to these assertions, not only in visions which are seen by the bodily eyes, but also in their more common supplications, all which have such a meaning as this, and are offered to the God conformably to a symbolic and mystic doctrine of this kind. Hence it would not be reasonable in any one to undertake a defence of them.

(5) Thus unto me he said; and then withdrew To his own band, and the band closed together; Then like a whirlwind all was upward rapt. The gentle Lady urged me on behind them Up o'er that stairway by a single sign, So did her virtue overcome my nature; Nor here below, where one goes up and down By natural law, was motion e'er so swift That it could be compared unto my wing. Reader, as I may unto that devout Triumph return, on whose account I often For my transgressions weep and beat my breast,— Thou hadst not thrust thy finger in the fire And drawn it out again, before I saw The sign that follows Taurus, and was in it. O glorious stars, O light impregnated With mighty virtue, from which I acknowledge All of my genius, whatsoe'er it be, With you was born, and hid himself with you, He who is father of all mortal life, When first I tasted of the Tuscan air; And then when grace was freely given to me To enter the high wheel which turns you round, Your region was allotted unto me.

(2) For time always proceeding the divine mode of knowledge becomes evanescent, through being frequently mingled and contaminated with much of what is mortal. This divine mode is indeed [in astrology also], and a certain clear indication of truth, though it is but small, is at the same time preserved in it. For it places before our eyes manifest signs of the mensuration of the divine periods, when it predicts the eclipses of the sun and moon, and the concursions of the moon with the fixed stars, and when the experience of the sight is seen to accord with the prediction. Moreover, the observations of the celestial bodies through the whole of time, both by the Chaldeans and by us, testify that this science is true. Indications, also, more known than these might be adduced, if the present discussion was precedaneously about these particulars. But as they are superfluous, and do not pertain to the knowledge of the peculiar dæmon, I shall, as it is fit so to do, omit them, and pass on to things more appropriate than these.

(3) Possibly, however, they act not by choice but under stress of their several positions and collective figures?

But if position and figure determined their action each several one would necessarily cause identical effects with every other on entering any given place or pattern.

And that raises the question what effect for good or bad can be produced upon any one of them by its transit in the parallel of this or that section of the Zodiac circle- for they are not in the Zodiacal figure itself but considerably beneath it especially since, whatever point they touch, they are always in the heavens.

It is absurd to think that the particular grouping under which a star passes can modify either its character or its earthward influences. And can we imagine it altered by its own progression as it rises, stands at centre, declines? Exultant when at centre; dejected or enfeebled in declension; some raging as they rise and growing benignant as they set, while declension brings out the best in one among them; surely this cannot be?

We must not forget that invariably every star, considered in itself, is at centre with regard to some one given group and in decline with regard to another and vice versa; and, very certainly, it is not at once happy and sad, angry and kindly. There is no reasonable escape in representing some of them as glad in their setting, others in their rising: they would still be grieving and glad at one and the same time.

Further, why should any distress of theirs work harm to us?

No: we cannot think of them as grieving at all or as being cheerful upon occasions: they must be continuously serene, happy in the good they enjoy and the Vision before them. Each lives its own free life; each finds its Good in its own Act; and this Act is not directed towards us.

Like the birds of augury, the living beings of the heavens, having no lot or part with us, may serve incidentally to foreshow the future, but they have absolutely no main function in our regard.

(7) And the disk of the sun was a great dragon whose tail was in his mouth and who reached to seven powers of the Left and whom four powers in the form of white horses drew. And the base of the moon had the type of a ship which a male and a female dragon steered and two white bulls drew. The figure of a babe was on the stern of the moon who guided the dragons who robbed the light from the rulers. And on its prow was a cat's face. And the whole world and the mountains and the seas fled together to the west to the left.

(142) The most celebrated of the Babylonians, together with Ostanes and Zoroaster, very properly call the starry Spheres "Herds"; whether because these alone among corporeal magnitudes, are perfectly carried about around a Centre, or in conformity to the Oracles, because they are considered by them as in a certain respect the bonds and collectors of physical reasons, which they likewise call in their sacred discourse "Herds" (agelous) and by the insertion of a gamma (aggelous) Angels. Wherefore the Stars which preside over each of these herds are considered to be Deities or Dæmons, similar to the Angels, and are called Archangels; and they are seven in number.

(1) These things, therefore, having been accurately discussed, the solution of the doubts which you have met with in certain books will be manifest. For the books which are circulated under the name of Hermes contain Hermaic opinions, though they frequently employ the language of the philosophers: for they were translated from the Egyptian tongue by men who were not unskilled in philosophy. But Chæremon, and any others who have at all discussed the first causes of mundane natures, have unfolded the last rulers of these. And such as have written concerning the planets, the zodiac, the decans, horoscopes, and what are called powerful and leading planets, these have unfolded the partible distributions of the rulers. The particulars, also, contained in the Calendars comprehend a certain very small part of the Hermaic arrangements. And the causes of such things as pertain to the phases or occultations of the stars, or to the increments and decrements of the moon, are assigned by the Egyptians the last of all.

(2) And God appointed the sun4 to be a great sign on the earth for days and for sabbaths and for months and for feasts and for years and for sabbaths of years and for jubilees and for all seasons of the years.

(1) Since, however, every part of the heavens, every sign of the zodiac, all the motion of the heavens, every period of time according to which the world is moved, and all things contained in the wholes of the universe, receive the powers which descend from the sun, some of which are complicated with these wholes, but others transcend a commixture with them, the symbolical mode of signification represents these also, indicating “ that the sun is diversified according to the signs of the zodiac, and that every hour he changes his form .” At the same time, also, it indicates his immutable, stable, never failing, and at once collected communication of good to the whole world. But since the recipients of the impartible gift of the God are variously affected towards it, and receive multiform powers, from the sun, according to their peculiar motions, hence the symbolical doctrine evinces through the multitude of the gifts, that the God is one, and exhibits his one power through multiform powers.

(32) Indeed they honoured, prayed to, or worshipped the sun and stars for gods, but knew not how these were created or came to be, nor out of what they came to be: For they might well have thought that that which proceeded from somewhat, and that that which created this, must needs be older and higher or greater than all the stars.

Then when Sophia Zoe saw that the rulers of darkness cursed her companions, she was angry. And when she came out of the first heaven with every power, she chased the rulers from their heavens, and she cast them down to the sinful world, that they might dwell there as evil demons upon the earth. She sent the bird that was in paradise so that, until the consummation of the age, it might spend the thousand years in the rulers’ world: a vital living being with soul, called the phoenix, which kills itself and reanimates itself for a witness to their judgment, because they dealt unjustly with Adam and his race. There are three human beings and their descendants in the world until the consummation of the age: the spiritual and the psychical and the earthly. This is like the three kinds of phoenixes of paradise: the first is immortal; the second attains one thousand years; as for the third, it is written in the Holy Book that it is consumed. Likewise three baptisms exist: the first is spiritual, the second is by fire, the third is by water. Just as the phoenix appears as a witness for the angels, so too the water serpents in Egypt have become a witness to those who go down for the baptism of a true person. The two bulls in Egypt, insofar as they indicate the sun and the moon as a mystery, exist for a witness to Sabaoth, that Sophia of the world has been exalted above the sun and the moon, from the day when she created them and sealed her heaven until the consummation of the age. And the worm that is brought forth from the phoenix is also a human being. It is written of it, “The just will sprout like the phoenix.” The phoenix first appears alive, and dies, and rises again, as a sign of what appears at the consummation of the age. These great signs appeared only in Egypt, not in other lands, signifying that it is like the paradise of god.

(2) First he produced, the celestial sphere, and the constellation stars are assigned to it by him; especially these twelve whose names are Varak (the Lamb), Tôrâ (the Bull), Dô-patkar (the Two-figures or Gemini), Kalakang (the Crab), Sêr (the Lion), Khûsak (Virgo), Tarâzûk (the Balance), Gazdûm (the Scorpion), Nîmâsp (the Centaur or Sagittarius), Vahîk (Capricornus), Dûl (the Waterpot), and Mâhîk (the Fish);

(9) He produced Samech, predominant in sleep, crowned, combined, and formed Sagittarius in the world, Kislev in the year, and the stomach of man.

(1) God produced He, predominant in Speech, crowned, combined, and formed Aries in the world, Nisan in the year, and the right foot of man.