These four standards, or rather, three of them, meet us again in a very interesting connection. When Israel reached the borders of Moab, Balak, the king of Moab, sent for a seer of great reputation, Balaam, the son of Beor, to "Come, curse me Jacob, and come, defy Israel." Balaam came, but instead of cursing Jacob, blessed the people in four prophecies, wherein he made, what would appear to be, distinct references to the standards of Judah, Joseph and Reuben.

"Behold the people riseth up as a lioness, And as a lion doth he lift himself up."

Then again—

"He couched, he lay down as a lion, And as a lioness; who shall rouse him up?"

And in two passages—

"God bringeth him forth out of Egypt; He hath as it were the strength of the wild ox."

The wild ox and lion are obvious similes to use concerning a powerful and warlike people. These two similes are, therefore, not sufficient by themselves to prove that the tribal standards are being referred to. But the otherwise enigmatical verse—

"Water shall flow from his buckets,"

appears more expressly as an allusion to the standard of Reuben, the "man with the river," Aquarius pouring water from his pitcher; and if one be a reference to a standard, the others may also well be.



It is surely something more than coincidence that Joseph, who by his father's favour and his own merit was made the leader of the twelve brethren, should be associated with the bull or wild ox, seeing that Taurus was the leader of the zodiac in those ages. It may also well be more than coincidence, that when Moses was in the mount and "the people gathered themselves unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him," Aaron fashioned the golden earrings given him into the form of a molten calf; into the similitude, that is to say, of Taurus, then Prince of the Zodiac. If we turn to St. Stephen's reference to this occurrence, we find that he says—

"And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven."

In other words, their worship of the golden calf was star worship.

It has been often pointed out that this sin of the Israelites, deep as it was, was not in itself a breach of the first commandment—

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

It was a breach of the second—

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them."

The Israelites did not conceive that they were abandoning the worship of Jehovah; they still considered themselves as worshipping the one true God. They were monotheists still, not polytheists. But they had taken the first false step that inevitably leads to polytheism; they had forgotten that they had seen "no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto" them "in Horeb out of the midst of the fire," and they had worshipped this golden calf as the similitude of God; they had "changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass." And that was treason against Him; therefore St. Stephen said, "God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven;" the one sin inevitably led to the other, indeed, involved it. In a later day, when Jeroboam, who had been appointed by Solomon ruler over all the charge of the house of Joseph, led the rebellion of the ten tribes against Rehoboam, king of Judah, he set up golden calves at Dan and Bethel, and said unto his people, "It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." There can be little doubt that, in this case, Jeroboam was not so much recalling the transgression in the wilderness—it was not an encouraging precedent—as he was adopting the well-known cognizance of the tribe of Joseph, that is to say, of the two tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, which together made up the more important part of his kingdom, as the symbol of the presence of Jehovah.

The southern kingdom would naturally adopt the device of its predominant tribe, Judah, and it was as the undoubted cognizance of the kingdom of Judah that our Richard I., the Crusader, placed the Lion on his shield.

More definitely still, we find this one of the cherubic forms applied to set forth Christ Himself, as "The Root of David," Prince of the house of Judah—

"Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof."

FOOTNOTES:

[187:1] Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, III. vii. 5-7.



CHAPTER V

LEVIATHAN

There are amongst the constellations four great draconic or serpent-like forms. Chief of these is the great dragon coiled round the pole of the ecliptic and the pole of the equator as the latter was observed some 4600 years ago. This is the dragon with which the Kneeler, Hercules, is fighting, and whose head he presses down with his foot. The second is the great watersnake, Hydra, which 4600 years ago stretched for 105 deg. along the celestial equator of that day. Its head was directed towards the ascending node, that is to say the point where the ecliptic, the sun's apparent path, crosses the equator at the spring equinox; and its tail stretched nearly to the descending node, the point where the ecliptic again meets the equator at the autumn equinox. The third was the Serpent, the one held in the grip of the Serpent-holder. Its head erected itself just above the autumn equinox, and reached up as far as the zenith; its tail lay along the equator. The fourth of these draconic forms was the great Sea-monster, stretched out along the horizon, with a double river—Eridanus—proceeding from it, just below the spring equinox.



None of these four figures was suggested by the natural grouping of the stars. Very few of the constellation-figures were so suggested, and these four in particular, as so high an authority as Prof. Schiaparelli expressly points out, were not amongst that few. Their positions show that they were designed some 4600 years ago, and that they have not been materially altered down to the present time. Though no forms or semblances of forms are there in the heavens, yet we still seem to see, as we look upwards, not merely the stars themselves, but the same snakes and dragons, first imagined so many ages ago as coiling amongst them.

The tradition of these serpentine forms and of their peculiar placing in the heavens was current among the Babylonians quite 1500 years after the constellations were devised. For the little "boundary stones" often display, amongst many other astronomical symbols, the coiled dragon round the top of the stone, the extended snake at its base (see p. 318), and at one or other corner the serpent bent into a right angle like that borne by the Serpent-holder—that is to say, the three out of the four serpentine forms that hold astronomically important positions in the sky.

The positions held by these three serpents or dragons have given rise to a significant set of astronomical terms. The Dragon marked the poles of both ecliptic and equator; the Watersnake marked the equator almost from node to node; the Serpent marked the equator at one of the nodes. The "Dragon's Head" and the "Dragon's Tail" therefore have been taken as astronomical symbols of the ascending and descending nodes of the sun's apparent path—the points where he seems to ascend above the equator in the spring, and to descend below it again in the autumn.

The moon's orbit likewise intersects the apparent path of the sun in two points, its two nodes; and the interval of time between its passage through one of these nodes and its return to that same node again is called a Draconic month, a month of the Dragon. The same symbols are applied by analogy to the moon's nodes.

Indeed the "Dragon's Head," [symbol], is the general sign for the ascending node of any orbit, whether of moon, planet or comet, and the "Dragon's Tail," [symbol], for the descending node. We not only use these signs in astronomical works to-day, but the latter sign frequently occurs, figured exactly as we figure it now, on Babylonian boundary stones 3000 years old.

But an eclipse either of the sun or of the moon can only take place when the latter is near one of its two nodes—is in the "Dragon's Head" or in the "Dragon's Tail." This relation might be briefly expressed by saying that the Dragon—that is of the nodes—causes the eclipse. Hence the numerous myths, found in so many nations, which relate how "a dragon devours the sun (or moon)" at the time of an eclipse.



The dragon of eclipse finds its way into Hindoo mythology in a form which shows clearly that the myth arose from a misunderstanding of the constellations. The equatorial Water-snake, stretching from one node nearly to the other, has resting upon it, Crater, the Cup. Combining this with the expression for the two nodes, the Hindu myth has taken the following form. The gods churned the surface of the sea to make the Amrita Cup, the cup of the water of life. "And while the gods were drinking that nectar after which they had so much hankered, a Danava, named Rahu, was drinking it in the guise of a god. And when the nectar had only reached Rahu's throat, the sun and the moon discovered him, and communicated the fact to the gods." Rahu's head was at once cut off, but, as the nectar had reached thus far, it was immortal, and rose to the sky. "From that time hath arisen a long-standing quarrel between Rahu's head and the sun and moon," and the head swallows them from time to time, causing eclipses. Rahu's head marks the ascending, Ketu, the tail, the descending node.

This myth is very instructive. Before it could have arisen, not only must the constellations have been mapped out, and the equator and ecliptic both recognized, but the inclination of the moon's orbit to that of the sun must also have been recognized, together with the fact that it was only when the moon was near its node that the eclipses, either of the sun or moon, could take place. In other words, the cause of eclipses must have been at one time understood, but that knowledge must have been afterwards lost. We have seen already, in the chapter on "The Deep," that the Hebrew idea of tehōm could not possibly have been derived from the Babylonian myth of Tiamat, since the knowledge of the natural object must precede the myth founded upon it. If, therefore, Gen. i. and the Babylonian story of Creation be connected, the one as original, the other as derived from that original, it is the Babylonian story that has been borrowed from the Hebrew, and it has been degraded in the borrowing.

So in this case, the myth of the Dragon, whose head and tail cause eclipses, must have been derived from a corruption and misunderstanding of a very early astronomical achievement. The myth is evidence of knowledge lost, of science on the down-grade.

Some may object that the myth may have brought about the conception of the draconic constellations. A very little reflection will show that such a thing was impossible. If the superstition that an eclipse is caused by an invisible dragon swallowing the sun or moon had really been the origin of the constellational dragons, they would certainly have all been put in the zodiac, the only region of the sky where sun or moon can be found; not outside it, where neither can ever come, and in consequence where no eclipse can take place. Nor could such a superstition have led on to the discoveries above-mentioned: that the moon caused eclipses of the sun, the earth those of the moon; that the moon's orbit was inclined to the ecliptic, and that eclipses took place only near the nodes. The idea of an unseen spiritual agent being at work would prevent any search for a physical explanation, since polytheism is necessarily opposed to science.

There is a word used in Scripture to denote a reptilian monster, which appears in one instance at least to refer to this dragon of eclipse, and so to be used in an astronomical sense. Job, in his first outburst of grief cursed the day in which he was born, and cried—

"Let them curse it that curse the day, Who are ready (margin, skilful) to rouse up Leviathan. Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark Let it look for light, but have none; Neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning."

"Leviathan" denotes an animal wreathed, gathering itself in coils: hence a serpent, or some great reptile. The description in Job xli. is evidently that of a mighty crocodile, though in Psalm civ. leviathan is said to play in "the great and wide sea," which has raised a difficulty as to its identification in the minds of some commentators. In the present passage it is supposed to mean one of the stellar dragons, and hence the mythical dragon of eclipse. Job desired that the day of his birth should have been cursed by the magicians, so that it had been a day of complete and entire eclipse, not even the stars that preceded its dawn being allowed to shine.

The astronomical use of the word leviathan here renders it possible that there may be in Isa. xxvii. an allusion—quite secondary and indirect however—to the chief stellar dragons.

"In that day the Lord with His sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and He shall slay the dragon that is in the sea."

The marginal reading gives us instead of "piercing," "crossing like a bar"; a most descriptive epithet for the long-drawn-out constellation of Hydra, the Water-snake, which stretched itself for one hundred and five degrees along the primitive equator, and "crossed" the meridian "like a bar" for seven hours out of every twenty-four. "The crooked serpent" would denote the dragon coiled around the poles, whilst "the dragon which is in the sea" would naturally refer to Cetus, the Sea-monster. The prophecy would mean then, that "in that day" the Lord will destroy all the powers of evil which have, as it were, laid hold of the chief places, even in the heavens.

In one passage "the crooked serpent," here used as a synonym of leviathan, distinctly points to the dragon of the constellations. In Job's last answer to Bildad the Shuhite, he says—

"He divideth the sea with His power, And by His understanding He smiteth through the proud. (R.V. Rahab.) By His spirit He hath garnished the heavens; His hand hath formed the crooked serpent."

The passage gives a good example of the parallelism of Hebrew poetry; the repetition of the several terms of a statement, term by term, in a slightly modified sense; a rhyme, if the expression may be used, not of sound, but of signification.

Thus in the four verses just quoted, we have three terms in each—agent, action, object;—each appears in the first statement, each appears likewise in the second. The third statement, in like manner, has its three terms repeated in a varied form in the fourth.

Thus—

His power = His understanding. Divideth = Smiteth through. The sea = Rahab (the proud).

And—

His spirit = His hand. Hath garnished = Hath formed. The heavens = The crooked serpent.

There can be no doubt as to the significance of the two parallels. In the first, dividing the sea, i. e. the Red Sea, is the correlative of smiting through Rahab, "the proud one," the name often applied to Egypt, as in Isa. xxx. 7: "For Egypt helpeth in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I called her Rahab that sitteth still." In the second, "adorning the heavens" is the correlative of "forming the crooked serpent." The great constellation of the writhing dragon, emphatically a "crooked serpent," placed at the very crown of the heavens, is set for all the constellations of the sky.

There are several references to Rahab, as "the dragon which is in the sea," all clearly referring to the kingdom of Egypt, personified as one of her own crocodiles lying-in-wait in her own river, the Nile, or transferred, by a figure of speech, to the Red Sea, which formed her eastern border. Thus in chapter li. Isaiah apostrophizes "the arm of the Lord."

"Art Thou not It that cut Rahab in pieces, That pierced the dragon? Art Thou not It that dried up the sea, The waters of the great deep; That made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?"

And in Psalm lxxxix. we have—

"Thou rulest the raging of the sea; When the waves thereof arise Thou stillest them. Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces as one that is slain, Thou hast scattered Thine enemies with Thy strong arm."

So the prophet Ezekiel is directed—

"Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and say unto him, thou wast likened unto a young lion of the nations: yet art thou as a dragon in the seas."

In all these passages it is only in an indirect and secondary sense that we can see any constellational references in the various descriptions of "the dragon that is in the sea." It is the crocodile of Egypt that is intended; Egypt the great oppressor of Israel, and one of the great powers of evil, standing as a representative of them all. The serpent or dragon forms in the constellations also represented the powers of evil; especially the great enemy of God and man, "the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan." So there is some amount of appropriateness to the watery dragons of the sky—Hydra and Cetus—in these descriptions of Rahab, the dragon of Egypt, without there being any direct reference. Thus it is said of the Egyptian "dragon in the seas," "I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the earth, and to the fowls of the heaven;" and again, "I will cause all the fowls of the heaven to settle upon thee," just as Corvus, the Raven, is shown as having settled upon Hydra, the Water-snake, and is devouring its flesh. Again, Pharaoh, the Egyptian dragon, says, "My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself;" just as Cetus, the Sea-monster, is represented as pouring forth Eridanus, the river, from its mouth.



But a clear and direct allusion to this last grouping of the constellations occurs in the Apocalypse. In the twelfth chapter, the proud oppressor dragon from the sea is shown us again with much fulness of detail. There the Apostle describes his vision of a woman, who evidently represents the people of God, being persecuted by a dragon. There is still a reminiscence of the deliverance of Israel in the Exodus from Egypt, for "the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that there they may nourish her a thousand two hundred and threescore days." And the vision goes on:—

"And the serpent cast out of his mouth, after the woman water as a river, that he might cause her to be carried away by the stream. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the river which the dragon cast out of his mouth."

This appears to be precisely the action which is presented to us in the three constellations of Andromeda, Cetus, and Eridanus. Andromeda is always shown as a woman in distress, and the Sea-monster, though placed far from her in the sky, has always been understood to be her persecutor. Thus Aratus writes—

"Andromeda, though far away she flies, Dreads the Sea-monster, low in southern skies."

The latter, baffled in his pursuit of his victim, has cast the river, Eridanus, out of his mouth, which, flowing down below the southern horizon, is apparently swallowed up by the earth.

It need occasion no surprise that we should find imagery used by St. John in his prophecy already set forth in the constellations nearly 3,000 years before he wrote. Just as, in this same book, St. John repeated Daniel's vision of the fourth beast, and Ezekiel's vision of the living creatures, as he used the well-known details of the Jewish Temple, the candlesticks, the laver, the altar of incense, so he used a group of stellar figures perfectly well known at the time when he wrote. In so doing the beloved disciple only followed the example which his Master had already set him. For the imagery in the parables of our Lord is always drawn from scenes and objects known and familiar to all men.

In two instances in which leviathan is mentioned, a further expression is used which has a distinct astronomical bearing. In the passage already quoted, where Job curses the day of his birth, he desires that it may not "behold the eyelids of the morning." And in the grand description of leviathan, the crocodile, in chapter xli., we have—

"His neesings flash forth light, And his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning."

Canon Driver considers this as an "allusion, probably to the reddish eyes of the crocodile, which are said to appear gleaming through the water before the head comes to the surface." This is because of the position of the eyes on the animal's head, not because they have any peculiar brilliancy.

"It is an idea exclusively Egyptian, and is another link in the chain of evidence which connects the author of the poem with Egypt. The crocodile's head is so formed that its highest points are the eyes; and when it rises obliquely to the surface the eyes are the first part of the whole animal to emerge. The Egyptians observing this, compared it to the sun rising out of the sea, and made it the hieroglyphic representative of the idea of sunrise. Thus Horus Apollo says: When the Egyptians represent the sunrise, they paint the eye of the crocodile, because it is first seen as that animal emerges from the water."[209:1]

In this likening of the eyes of the crocodile to the eyelids of the morning, we have the comparison of one natural object with another. Such comparison, when used in one way and for one purpose, is the essence of poetry; when used in another way and for another purpose, is the essence of science. Both poetry and science are opposed to myth, which is the confusion of natural with imaginary objects, the mistaking the one for the other.

Thus it is poetry when the Psalmist speaks of the sun "as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber"; for there is no confusion in his thought between the two natural objects. The sun is like the bridegroom in the glory of his appearance. The Psalmist does not ascribe to him a bride and children.

It is science when the astronomer compares the spectrum of the sun with the spectra of various metals in the laboratory. He is comparing natural object with natural object, and is enabled to draw conclusions as to the elements composing the sun, and the condition in which they there exist.

But it is myth when the Babylonian represents Bel or Merodach as the solar deity, destroying Tiamat, the dragon of darkness, for there is confusion in the thought. The imaginary god is sometimes given solar, sometimes human, sometimes superhuman characteristics. There is no actuality in much of what is asserted as to the sun or as to the wholly imaginary being associated with it. The mocking words of Elijah to the priests of Baal were justified by the intellectual confusion of their ideas, as well as by the spiritual degradation of their idolatry.

"Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awakened."

Such nature-myths are not indications of the healthy mental development of a primitive people; they are the clear signs of a pathological condition, the symptoms of intellectual disease.

It is well to bear in mind this distinction, this opposition between poetry and myth, for ignoring it has led to not a little misconception as to the occurrence of myth in Scripture, especially in connection with the names associated with the crocodile. Thus it has been broadly asserted that "the original mythical signification of the monsters tehom, livyāthān, tannim, rahab, is unmistakably evident."

Of these names the first signifies the world of waters; the second and third real aquatic animals; and the last, "the proud one," is simply an epithet of Egypt, applied to the crocodile as the representation of the kingdom. There is no more myth in setting forth Egypt by the crocodile or leviathan than in setting forth Great Britain by the lion, or Russia by the bear.

The Hebrews in setting forth their enemies by crocodile and other ferocious reptiles were not describing any imaginary monsters of the primaeval chaos, but real oppressors. The Egyptian, with his "house of bondage," the Assyrian, "which smote with a rod," the Chaldean who made havoc of Israel altogether, were not dreams. And in beseeching God to deliver them from their latest oppressor the Hebrews naturally recalled, not some idle tale of the fabulous achievements of Babylonian deities, but the actual deliverance God had wrought for them at the Red Sea. There the Egyptian crocodile had been made "meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness" when the corpses of Pharaoh's bodyguard, cast up on the shore, supplied the children of Israel with the weapons and armour of which they stood in need. So in the day of their utter distress they could still cry in faith and hope—

"Yet God is my King of old, Working salvation in the midst of the earth. Thou didst divide the sea by Thy strength: Thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, And gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness. Thou didst cleave the fountain and the flood: Thou driedst up mighty rivers. The day is Thine, the night also is Thine: Thou hast prepared the light and the sun. Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: Thou hast made summer and winter."

FOOTNOTES:

[209:1] P. H. Gosse, in the Imperial Bible-Dictionary.



CHAPTER VI

THE PLEIADES

The translators of the Bible, from time to time, find themselves in a difficulty as to the correct rendering of certain words in the original. This is especially the case with the names of plants and animals. Some sort of clue may be given by the context, as, for instance, if the region is mentioned in which a certain plant is found, or the use that is made of it; or, in the case of an animal, whether it is "clean" or "unclean," what are its habits, and with what other animals it is associated. But in the case of the few Scripture references to special groups of stars, we have no such help. We are in the position in which Macaulay's New Zealander might be, if, long after the English nation had been dispersed, and its language had ceased to be spoken amongst men, he were to find a book in which the rivers "Thames," "Trent," "Tyne," and "Tweed" were mentioned by name, but without the slightest indication of their locality. His attempt to fit these names to particular rivers would be little more than a guess—a guess the accuracy of which he would have no means for testing.

This is somewhat our position with regard to the four Hebrew names, Kīmah, Kĕsīl, 'Ayish, and Mazzaroth; yet in each case there are some slight indications which have given a clue to the compilers of our Revised Version, and have, in all probability, guided them correctly.

The constellations are not all equally attractive. A few have drawn the attention of all men, however otherwise inattentive. North-American Indians and Australian savages have equally noted the flashing brilliancy of Orion, and the compact little swarm of the Pleiades. All northern nations recognize the seven bright stars of the Great Bear, and they are known by a score of familiar names. They are the "Plough," or "Charles's Wain" of Northern Europe; the "Seven Plough Oxen" of ancient Rome; the "Bier and Mourners" of the Arabs; the "Chariot," or "Waggon," of the old Chaldeans; the "Big Dipper" of the prosaic New England farmer. These three groups are just the three which we find mentioned in the earliest poetry of Greece. So Homer writes, in the Fifth Book of the Odyssey, that Ulysses—

"There view'd the Pleiads, and the Northern Team, And Great Orion's more refulgent beam, To which, around the axle of the sky, The Bear, revolving, points his golden eye."

It seems natural to conclude that these constellations, the most striking, or at all events the most universally recognized, would be those mentioned in the Bible.

The passages in which the Hebrew word Kīmah, is used are the following—

(God) "maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades (Kīmah), and the chambers of the south" (Job ix. 9).

"Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades (Kīmah), or loose the bands of Orion?" (Job xxxviii. 31).

"Seek Him that maketh the seven stars (Kīmah) and Orion" (Amos v. 8).

In our Revised Version, Kīmah is rendered "Pleiades" in all three instances, and of course the translators of the Authorized Version meant the same group by the "seven stars" in their free rendering of the passage from Amos. The word kīmah signifies "a heap," or "a cluster," and would seem to be related to the Assyrian word kimtu, "family," from a root meaning to "tie," or "bind"; a family being a number of persons bound together by the very closest tie of relationship. If this be so we can have no doubt that our translators have rightly rendered the word. There is one cluster in the sky, and one alone, which appeals to the unaided sight as being distinctly and unmistakably a family of stars—the Pleiades.

The names 'Ash, or 'Ayish, Kĕsīl, and Kīmah are peculiar to the Hebrews, and are not, so far as we have any evidence at present, allied to names in use for any constellation amongst the Babylonians and Assyrians; they have, as yet, not been found on any cuneiform inscription. Amos, the herdsman of Tekoa, living in the eighth century B.C., two centuries before the Jews were carried into exile to Babylon, evidently knew well what the terms signified, and the writer of the Book of Job was no less aware of their signification. But the "Seventy," who translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, were not at all clear as to the identification of these names of constellations; though they made their translation only two or three centuries after the Jews returned to Jerusalem under Ezra and Nehemiah, when oral tradition should have still supplied the meaning of such astronomical terms. Had these names been then known in Babylon, they could not have been unknown to the learned men of Alexandria in the second century before our era, since at that time there was a very direct scientific influence of the one city upon the other. This Hebrew astronomy was so far from being due to Babylonian influence and teaching, that, though known centuries before the exile, after the exile we find the knowledge of its technical terms was lost. On the other hand, kīma was the term used in all Syriac literature to denominate the Pleiades, and we accordingly find in the Peschitta, the ancient Syriac version of the Bible, made about the second century A.D., the term kīma retained throughout, but kesil and 'ayish were reduced to their supposed Syriac equivalents.

Whatever uncertainty was felt as to the meaning of kīmah by the early translators, it is not now seriously disputed that the Pleiades is the group of stars in question.

The word kīmah means, as we have seen, "cluster" or "heap," so also the word Pleiades, which we use to-day, is probably derived from the Greek Pleiones, "many." Several Greek poets—Athenaeus, Hesiod, Pindar, and Simonides—wrote the word Peleiades, i. e. "rock pigeons," considered as flying from the Hunter Orion; others made them the seven doves who carried ambrosia to the infant Zeus. D'Arcy Thompson says, "The Pleiad is in many languages associated with bird-names, . . . and I am inclined to take the bird on the bull's back in coins of Eretria, Dicaea, and Thurii for the associated constellation of the Pleiad"[217:1]—the Pleiades being situated on the shoulder of Taurus the Bull.

The Hyades were situated on the head of the Bull, and in the Euphrates region these two little groups of stars were termed together, Mas-tab-ba-gal-gal-la, the Great Twins of the ecliptic, as Castor and Pollux were the Twins of the zodiac. In one tablet 'Imina bi, "the sevenfold one," and Gut-dua, "the Bull-in-front," are mentioned side by side, thus agreeing well with their interpretation of "Pleiades and Hyades." The Semitic name for the Pleiades was also Temennu; and these groups of stars, worshipped as gods by the Babylonians, may possibly have been the Gad and Meni, "that troop," and "that number," referred to by the prophet Isaiah (lxv. 11).

On many Babylonian cylinder seals there are engraved seven small discs, in addition to other astronomical symbols. These seven small stellar discs are almost invariably arranged in the form :::' or:::. much as we should now-a-days plot the cluster of the Pleiades when mapping on a small scale the constellations round the Bull. It is evident that these seven little stellar discs do not mean the "seven planets," for in many cases the astronomical symbols which accompany them include both those of the sun and moon. It is most probable that they signify the Pleiades, or perhaps alternatively the Hyades.

Possibly, reference is made to the worship of the Pleiades when the king of Assyria, in the seventh century B.C., brought men from Babylon and other regions to inhabit the depopulated cities of Samaria, "and the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth." The Rabbis are said to have rendered this by the "booths of the Maidens," or the "tents of the Daughters,"—the Pleiades being the maidens in question.

Generally they are the Seven Sisters. Hesiod calls them the Seven Virgins, and the Virgin Stars. The names given to the individual stars are those of the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione; thus Milton terms them the Seven Atlantic Sisters.

As we have seen (p. 189), the device associated expressly with Joseph is the Bull, and Jacob's blessing to his son has been sometimes rendered—

"Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; the daughters walk upon the bull."

That is, "the Seven Sisters," the Pleiades, are on the shoulder of Taurus.

Aratus wrote of the number of the Pleiades—

"Seven paths aloft men say they take, Yet six alone are viewed by mortal eyes. From Zeus' abode no star unknown is lost, Since first from birth we heard, but thus the tale is told."



Euripides speaks of these "seven paths," and Eratosthenes calls them "the seven-starred Pleiad," although he describes one as "All-Invisible." There is a surprisingly universal tradition that they "were seven who now are six." We find it not only in ancient Greece and Italy, but also among the black fellows of Australia, the Malays of Borneo, and the negroes of the Gold Coast. There must be some reason to account for this widespread tradition. Some of the stars are known to be slightly variable, and one of the fainter stars in the cluster may have shone more brightly in olden time;—the gaseous spectrum of Pleione renders it credible that this star may once have had great brilliancy. Alcyone, now the brightest star in the cluster, was not mentioned by Ptolemy among the four brightest Pleiads of his day. The six now visible to ordinary sight are Alcyone, Electra, Atlas, Maia, Merope and Taygeta. Celoeno is the next in brightness, and the present candidate for the seventh place. By good sight, several more may be made out: thus Maestlin, the tutor of Kepler, mapped eleven before the invention of the telescope, and in our own day Carrington and Denning have counted fourteen with the naked eye.

In clear mountain atmosphere more than seven would be seen by any keen-sighted observer. Usually six stars may be made out with the naked eye in both the Pleiades and the Hyades, or, if more than six, then several more; though with both groups the number of "seven" has always been associated.

In the New Testament we find the "Seven Stars" also mentioned. In the first chapter of the Revelation, the Apostle St. John says that he "saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of Man, . . . and He had in His right hand seven stars." Later in the same chapter it is explained that "the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches; and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches." The seven stars in a single compact cluster thus stand for the Church in its many diversities and its essential unity.

This beautiful little constellation has become associated with a foolish fable. When it was first found that not only did the planets move round the sun in orbits, but that the sun itself also was travelling rapidly through space, a German astronomer, Maedler, hazarded the suggestion that the centre of the sun's motion lay in the Pleiades. It was soon evident that there was no sufficient ground for this suggestion, and that many clearly established facts were inconsistent with it. Nevertheless the idea caught hold of the popular mind, and it has acquired an amazing vogue. Non-astronomical writers have asserted that Alcyone, the brightest Pleiad, is the centre of the entire universe; some have even been sufficiently irreverent to declare that it is the seat of heaven, the throne of God. A popular London divine, having noticed a bright ring round Alcyone on a photograph of the group, took that halo, which every photographer would at once recognize as a mere photographic defect, as a confirmation of this baseless fancy. Foolishness of this kind has nothing to support it in science or religion; it is an offence against both. We have no reason to regard the Pleiades as the centre of the universe, or as containing the attracting mass which draws our sun forward in its vast mysterious orbit.

R. H. Allen, in his survey of the literature of the Pleiades, mentions that "Drach surmised that their midnight culmination in the time of Moses, ten days after the autumnal equinox, may have fixed the Day of Atonement on the 10th of Tishri."[221:1] This is worth quoting as a sample of the unhappy astronomical guesses of commentators. Drach overlooked that his suggestion necessitated the assumption that in the time of Moses astronomers had already learned, first, to determine the actual equinox; next, to observe the culmination of stars on the meridian rather than their risings and settings; and, third and more important, to determine midnight by some artificial measurement of time. None of these can have been primitive operations; we have no knowledge that any of the three were in use in the time of Moses; certainly they were not suitable for a people on the march, like the Israelites in the wilderness. Above all, Drach ignored in this suggestion the fact that the Jewish calendar was a lunar-solar one, and hence that the tenth day of the seventh month could not bear any fixed relation either to the autumnal equinox, or to the midnight culmination of the Pleiades; any more than our Easter Sunday is fixed to the spring equinox on March 22.

The Pleiades were often associated with the late autumn, as Aratus writes—

"Men mark them rising with Sol's setting light, Forerunners of the winter's gloomy night."

This is what is technically known as the "acronical rising" of the Pleiades, their rising at sunset; in contrast to their "heliacal rising," their rising just before daybreak, which ushered in the spring time. This acronical rising has led to the association of the group with the rainy season, and with floods. Thus Statius called the cluster "Pliadum nivosum sidus," and Valerius Flaccus distinctly used the word "Pliada" for the showers. Josephus says that during the siege of Jerusalem by Antiochus Epiphanes in 170 B.C., the besieged wanted for water until relieved "by a large shower of rain which fell at the setting of the Pleiades." R. H. Allen, in his Star-Names and their Meanings, states that the Pleiades "are intimately connected with traditions of the flood found among so many and widely separated nations, and especially in the Deluge-myth of Chaldaea," but he does not cite authorities or instances.

The Talmud gives a curious legend connecting the Pleiades with the Flood:—

"When the Holy One, blessed be He! wished to bring the Deluge upon the world, He took two stars out of Pleiades, and thus let the Deluge loose. And when He wished to arrest it, He took two stars out of Arcturus and stopped it."[223:1]

It would seem from this that the Rabbis connected the number of visible stars with the number of the family in the Ark—with the "few, that is, eight souls . . . saved by water," of whom St. Peter speaks. Six Pleiades only are usually seen by the naked eye; traditionally seven were seen; but the Rabbis assumed that two, not one, were lost.

Perhaps we may trace a reference to this supposed association of Kīmah with the Flood in the passage from Amos already quoted:—

"Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, . . . that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: the Lord is His name."

Many ancient nations have set apart days in the late autumn in honour of the dead, no doubt because the year was then considered as dead. This season being marked by the acronical rising of the Pleiades, that group has become associated with such observances. There is, however, no reference to any custom of this kind in Scripture.

What is the meaning of the inquiry addressed to Job by the Almighty?

"Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades?"

What was the meaning which it possessed in the thought of the writer of the book? What was the meaning which we should now put on such an inquiry, looking at the constellations from the standpoint which the researches of modern astronomy have given us?

The first meaning of the text would appear to be connected with the apparent movement of the sun amongst the stars in the course of the year. We cannot see the stars by daylight, or see directly where the sun is situated with respect to them; but, in very early times, men learnt to associate the seasons of the year with the stars which were last seen in the morning, above the place where the sun was about to rise; in the technical term once in use, with the heliacal risings of stars. When the constellations were first designed, the Pleiades rose heliacally at the beginning of April, and were the sign of the return of spring. Thus Aratus, in his constellation poem writes—

"Men mark them (i. e. the Pleiades) rising with the solar ray, The harbinger of summer's brighter day."

They heralded, therefore, the revival of nature from her winter sleep, the time of which the kingly poet sang so alluringly—

"For, lo, the winter is past, The rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; The time of the singing of birds is come, And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; The fig-tree ripeneth her green figs, And the vines are in blossom, They give forth their fragrance."

The constellation which thus heralded the return of this genial season was poetically taken as representing the power and influence of spring. Their "sweet influences" were those that had rolled away the gravestone of snow and ice which had lain upon the winter tomb of nature. Theirs was the power that brought the flowers up from under the turf; earth's constellations of a million varied stars to shine upwards in answer to the constellations of heaven above. Their influences filled copse and wood with the songs of happy birds. Theirs stirred anew the sap in the veins of the trees, and drew forth their reawakened strength in bud and blossom. Theirs was the bleating of the new-born lambs; theirs the murmur of the reviving bees.

Upon this view, then, the question to Job was, in effect, "What control hast thou over the powers of nature? Canst thou hold back the sun from shining in spring-time—from quickening flower, and herb, and tree with its gracious warmth? This is God's work, year by year over a thousand lands, on a million hills, in a million valleys. What canst thou do to hinder it?"

The question was a striking one; one which must have appealed to the patriarch, evidently a keen observer and lover of nature; and it was entirely in line with the other inquiries addressed to him in the same chapter.

"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?"

The Revised Version renders the question—

"Canst thou bind the cluster of the Pleiades?"

reading the Hebrew word Ma'anaddoth, instead of Ma'adannoth, following in this all the most ancient versions. On this view, Job is, in effect, asked, "Canst thou gather together the stars in the family of the Pleiades and keep them in their places?"

The expression of a chain or band is one suggested by the appearance of the group to the eye, but it is no less appropriate in the knowledge which photography and great telescopes have given us. To quote from Miss Clerke's description of the nebula discovered round the brighter stars of the Pleiades—Alcyone, Asterope, Celoeno, Electra, Maia, Merope and Taygeta:—

"Besides the Maia vortex, the Paris photographs depicted a series of nebulous bars on either side of Merope, and a curious streak extending like a finger-post from Electra towards Alcyone . . . Streamers and fleecy masses of cosmical fog seem almost to fill the spaces between the stars, as clouds choke a mountain valley. The chief points of its concentration are the four stars Alcyone, Merope, Maia, and Electra; but it includes as well Celoeno and Taygeta, and is traceable southward from Asterope over an arc of 1 deg. 10'. . . . The greater part of the constellation is shown as veiled in nebulous matter of most unequal densities. In some places it lies in heavy folds and wreaths, in others it barely qualifies the darkness of the sky-ground. The details of its distribution come out with remarkable clearness, and are evidently to a large extent prescribed by the relative situations of the stars. Their lines of junction are frequently marked by nebulous rays, establishing between them, no doubt, relations of great physical importance; and masses of nebula, in numerous instances, seem as if pulled out of shape and drawn into festoons by the attractions of neighbouring stars. But the strangest exemplification of this filamentous tendency is in a fine, thread-like process, 3'' or 4'' wide, but 35' to 40' long, issuing in an easterly direction from the edge of the nebula about Maia, and stringing together seven stars, met in its advance, like beads on a rosary. The largest of these is apparently the occasion of a slight deviation from its otherwise rectilinear course. A second similar but shorter streak runs, likewise east and west, through the midst of the formation."[229:1]



Later photographs have shown that not only are the several stars of the Pleiades linked together by nebulous filaments, but the whole cluster is embedded in a nebulous net that spreads its meshes far out into space. Not only is the group thus tied or bound together by nebulous clouds, it has other tokens of forming but a single family. The movements of the several stars have been carefully measured, and for the most part the entire cluster is drifting in the same direction; a few stars do not share in the common motion, and are probably apparent members, seen in perspective projected on the group, but in reality much nearer to us. The members of the group also show a family likeness in constitution. When the spectroscope is turned upon it, the chief stars are seen to closely resemble each other; the principal lines in their spectra being those of hydrogen, and these are seen as broad and diffused bands, so that the spectrum we see resembles that of the brightest star of the heavens, Sirius.

There can be little doubt but that the leaders of the group are actually greater, brighter suns than Sirius itself. We do not know the exact distance of the Pleiades, they are so far off that we can scarcely do more than make a guess at it; but it is probable that they are so far distant that our sun at like distance would prove much too faint to be seen at all by the naked eye. The Pleiades then would seem to be a most glorious star-system, not yet come to its full growth. From the standpoint of modern science we may interpret the "chain" or "the sweet influences" of the Pleiades as consisting in the enfolding wisps of nebulosity which still, as it were, knit together those vast young suns; or, and in all probability more truly, as that mysterious force of gravitation which holds the mighty system together, and in obedience to which the group has taken its present shape. The question, if asked us to-day, would be, in effect, "Canst thou bind together by nebulous chains scores of suns, far more glorious than thine own, and scattered over many millions of millions of miles of space; or canst thou loosen the attraction which those suns exercise upon each other, and move them hither and thither at thy will?"

FOOTNOTES:

[217:1] Glossary of Greek Birds, pp. 28, 29.

[221:1] R. H. Allen, Star Names and their Meanings, p. 401.

[223:1] Berachoth, fol. 59, col. 1.

[229:1] The System of the Stars, 1st edit., pp. 230-232.



CHAPTER VII

ORION

Kĕsīl, the word rendered by our translators "Orion," occurs in an astronomical sense four times in the Scriptures; twice in the Book of Job, once in the prophecy of Amos, and once, in the plural, in the prophecy of Isaiah. In the three first cases the word is used in conjunction with Kīmah, "the Pleiades," as shown in the preceding chapter. The fourth instance is rendered in the Authorized Version—

"For the stars of heaven and the constellations (Kĕsīlim) thereof shall not give their light."

The Hebrew word Kĕsīl signifies "a fool," and that in the general sense of the term as used in Scripture; not merely a silly, untaught, feckless person, but a godless and an impious one. Thus, in the Book of Proverbs, Divine Wisdom is represented as appealing—

"How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?"



What constellation was known to the ancient Hebrews as "the fool"? The Seventy who rendered the Old Testament into Greek confess themselves at fault. Once, in Amos, both Kīmah and Kĕsīl are left untranslated. Instead of "Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion," we have the paraphrase, "That maketh and transformeth all things." Once, in Job, it is rendered "Hesperus," the evening star; and in the other two instances it is given as "Orion." The tradition of the real meaning of the word as an astronomical term had been lost, or at least much confused before the Septuagint Version was undertaken. The Jews had not, so far as there is any present evidence, learned the term in Babylon, for the word has not yet been found as a star-name on any cuneiform inscription. It was well known before the Exile, for Amos and Isaiah both use it, and the fact that the author of Job also uses it, indicates that he did not gain his knowledge of the constellation during the Babylonian captivity.

The majority of translators and commentators have, however, agreed in believing that the brightest and most splendid constellation in the sky is intended—the one which we know as Orion. This constellation is one of the very few in which the natural grouping of the stars seems to suggest the figure that has been connected with it. Four bright stars, in a great trapezium, are taken to mark the two shoulders and the two legs of a gigantic warrior; a row of three bright stars, midway between the four first named, suggest his gemmed belt; another row of stars straight down from the centre star of the belt, presents his sword; a compact cluster of three stars marks his head. A gigantic warrior, armed for the battle, seems thus to be outlined in the heavens. As Longfellow describes him—

"Begirt with many a blazing star, Stood the great giant, Algebar, Orion, hunter of the beast! His sword hung gleaming by his side, And, on his arm, the lion's hide Scattered across the midnight air The golden radiance of its hair."

In accord with the form naturally suggested by the grouping of the stars, the Syrians have called the constellation Gabbārā; and the Arabs, Al Jabbār; and the Jews, Gibbōr. The brightest star of the constellation, the one in the left knee, now generally known as Rigel, is still occasionally called Algebar, a corruption of Al Jabbār, though one of the fainter stars near it now bears that name. The meaning in each case is "the giant," "the mighty one," "the great warrior," and no doubt from the first formation of the constellations, this, the most brilliant of all, was understood to set forth a warrior armed for the battle. There were gibbōrim before the Flood; we are told that after "the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men (gibbōrim) which were of old, men of renown."

But according to Jewish tradition, this constellation was appropriated to himself by a particular mighty man. We are told in Gen. x. that—

"Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one (gibbōr) in the earth."

and it is alleged that he, or his courtiers, in order to flatter him, gave his name to this constellation, just as thousands of years later the University of Leipzic proposed to call the belt stars of Orion, Stellae Napoleonis, "the Constellation of Napoleon."[234:1]

There was at one time surprise felt, that, deeply as the name of Nimrod had impressed itself upon Eastern tradition, his name, as such, was "nowhere found in the extensive literature which has come down to us" from Babylon. It is now considered that the word, Nimrod, is simply a Hebrew variant of Merodach, "the well-known head of the Babylonian pantheon." He was probably "the first king of Babylonia or the first really great ruler of the country." It is significant, as Mr. T. G. Pinches points out, in his Old Testament in the Light of the Records from Assyria and Babylonia, that just as in Genesis it is stated that "the beginning of his (Nimrod's) kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh," so Merodach is stated, in the cuneiform records, to have built Babel and Erech and Niffer, which last is probably Calneh. The Hebrew scribes would seem to have altered the name of Merodach in two particulars: they dropped the last syllable, thus suggesting that the name was derived from Marad, "the rebellious one"; and they prefixed the syllable "Ni," just as "Nisroch" was written for "Assur." "From a linguistic point of view, therefore, the identification of Nimrod as a changed form of Merodach is fully justified."



The attitude of Orion in the sky is a striking one. The warrior is represented as holding a club in the right hand, and a skin or shield in the left. His left foot is raised high as if he were climbing a steep ascent, he seems to be endeavouring to force his way up into the zodiac, and—as Longfellow expresses it—to be beating the forehead of the Bull. His right leg is not shown below the knee, for immediately beneath him is the little constellation of the Hare, by the early Arabs sometimes called, Al Kursiyy al Jabbār, "the Chair of the Giant," from its position. Behind Orion are the two Dogs, each constellation distinguished by a very brilliant star; the Greater Dog, by Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens; the Lesser Dog, by Procyon, i.e. the "Dog's Forerunner." Not far above Orion, on the shoulder of the Bull, is the little cluster of the Pleiades.

There are—as we have seen—only three passages where Kīmah, literally "the cluster" or "company,"—the group we know as the Pleiades,—is mentioned in Scripture; and in each case it is associated with Kĕsīl, "the fool,"—Orion. Several Greek poets give us the same association, likening the stars to "rock-pigeons, flying from the Hunter Orion." And Hesiod in his Works and Days writes—

"Do not to plough forget, When the Seven Virgins, and Orion, set: Thus an advantage always shall appear, In ev'ry labour of the various year. If o'er your mind prevails the love of gain, And tempts you to the dangers of the main, Yet in her harbour safe the vessel keep, When strong Orion chases to the deep The Virgin stars."

There is a suggestion of intense irony in this position of Orion amongst the other constellations. He is trampling on the Hare—most timid of creatures; he is climbing up into the zodiac to chase the little company of the Pleiades—be they seven doves or seven maidens—and he is thwarted even in this unheroic attempt by the determined attitude of the guardian Bull.

A similar irony is seen in the Hebrew name for the constellation. The "mighty Hunter," the great hero whom the Babylonians had deified and made their supreme god, the Hebrews regarded as the "fool," the "impious rebel." Since Orion is Nimrod, that is Merodach, there is small wonder that Kĕsīl was not recognized as his name in Babylonia.[238:1]

The attitude of Orion—attempting to force his way upward into the zodiac—and the identification of Merodach with him, gives emphasis to Isaiah's reproach, many centuries later, against the king of Babylon, the successor of Merodach—

"Thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High."

In the sight of the Hebrew prophets and poets, Merodach, in taking to himself this group of stars, published his shame and folly. He had ascended into heaven, but his glittering belt was only his fetter; he was bound and gibbeted in the sky like a captive, a rebel, and who could loose his bands?

In the thirteenth chapter of Isaiah we have the plural of kĕsīl—kĕsīlim. It is usually understood that we have here Orion, as the most splendid constellation in the sky, put for the constellations in general. But if we remember that kĕsīl stands for "Nimrod" or "Merodach," the first proud tyrant mentioned by name in Scripture, the particular significance of the allusion becomes evident—

"Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heavens and the constellations"—(that is the kĕsīlim, the Nimrods or Merodachs of the sky)—"thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible."

The strictly astronomical relations of Orion and the Pleiades seem to be hinted at in Amos and in Job—

"Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night."

In this passage the parallelism seems to be between the seven stars, the Pleiades, with sunrise, and Orion with sunset. Now at the time and place when the constellations were mapped out, the Pleiades were the immediate heralds of sunrise, shortly after the spring equinox, at the season which would correspond to the early part of April in our present calendar. The rising of Orion at sunset—his acronical rising—was early in December, about the time when the coldest season of the year begins. The astronomical meaning of the "bands of Orion" would therefore be the rigour in which the earth is held during the cold of winter.

It is possible that the two great stars which follow Orion, Sirius and Procyon, known to the ancients generally and to us to-day as "the Dogs," were by the Babylonians known as "the Bow-star" and "the Lance-star"; the weapons, that is to say, of Orion or Merodach. Jensen identifies Sirius with the Bow-star, but considers that the Lance-star was Antares; Hommel, however, identifies the Lance-star with Procyon. In the fifth tablet of the Babylonian Creation epic as translated by Dr. L. W. King, there is an interesting account of the placing of the Bow-star in the heavens. After Merodach had killed Tiamat—

75. "The gods (his fathers) beheld the net which he had made, 76. They beheld the bow and how (its work) was accomplished. 77. They praised the work which he had done [ . . . ] 78. Then Anu raised [the . . .] in the assembly of the gods. 79. He kissed the bow, (saying), 'It is [ . . . ]'! 80. And thus he named the names of the bow, (saying), 81. 'Long-wood shall be one name, and the second name [shall be . . . ], 82. And its third name shall be the Bow-star, in heaven [shall it . . . ]!' 83. Then he fixed a station for it."

Dr. Cheyne even considers that he has found a reference to these two stars in Job xxxviii. 36—

"Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts (Lance-star), Or who hath given understanding to the heart (Bow-star)."

But this interpretation does not appear to have been generally accepted. The same high authority suggests that the astronomical allusions in Amos may have been inserted by a post-exilic editor, thus accounting for the occurrence of the same astronomical terms as are found in Job, which he assigns to the exilic or post-exilic period. This seems a dangerous expedient, as it might with equal reason be used in many other directions. Further, it entirely fails to explain the real difficulty that kīmah and kĕsīl have not been found as Babylonian constellation names, and that their astronomical signification had been lost by the time that the "Seventy" undertook their labours.

Quite apart from the fact that the Babylonians could not give the name of "Fool" to the representation in the sky of their supreme deity, the Hebrews and the Babylonians regarded the constellation in different ways. Several Assyriologists consider that the constellations, Orion and Cetus, represent the struggle between Merodach and Tiamat, and this conjecture is probably correct, so far as Babylonian ideas of the constellations are concerned, for Tiamat is expressly identified on a Babylonian tablet with a constellation near the ecliptic.[241:1] But this means that the myth originated in the star figures, and was the Babylonian interpretation of them. In this case, Cetus—that is Tiamat—must have been considered as a goddess, and as directly and immediately the ancestress of all the gods. Orion—Merodach—must have been likewise a god, the great-great-grandson of Tiamat, whom he destroys.

The Hebrew conception was altogether different. Neither Merodach, nor Tiamat, nor the constellations of Orion and Cetus, nor the actual stars of which they are composed, are anything but creatures. Jehovah has made Orion, as well as the "Seven Stars," as "His hand hath formed the crooked serpent." By the mouth of Isaiah He says, "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord, do all these things." The Babylonian view was of two divinities pitted against each other, and the evil divinity was the original and the originator of the good. In the Hebrew view, even the powers of evil are created things; they are not self-existent.

And the Hebrews took a different view from the Babylonians of the story told by these constellations. The Hebrews always coupled Orion with the Pleiades; the Babylonians coupled Orion with Cetus—that is, Merodach with Tiamat.

The view that has come down to us through the Greeks agrees much better with the association of the constellations as held amongst the Hebrews, rather than amongst the Babylonians. The Hunter Orion, according to the Greeks, chased the Pleiades—the little company of Seven Virgins, or Seven Doves—and he was confronted by the Bull. In their view, too, the Sea-monster was not warring against Orion, but against the chained woman, Andromeda.

FOOTNOTES:

[234:1] But the fact that Napoleon's name was thus coupled with this constellation does not warrant us in asserting that Napoleon had no historical existence, and that his long contest with the great sea-power (England), with its capital on the river Thames (? tehom), was only a stellar myth, arising from the nearness of Orion to the Sea-monster in the sky—a variant, in fact, of the great Babylonian myth of Marduk and Tiamat, the dragon of the deep.

It seems necessary to make this remark, since the process of astrologizing history, whether derived from the Bible or from secular writers, has been carried very far. Thus Dr. H. Winckler writes down the account of the first three Persian kings, given us by Herodotus, as myths of Aries, Taurus, and Gemini; David and Goliath, too, are but Marduk and Tiamat, or Orion and Cetus, but David has become the Giant, and Goliath the Dragon, for "Goliath" is claimed as a word-play on the Babylonian galittu, "ocean." Examining an Arabic globe of date 1279 A.D.—that is to say some 4,000 years after the constellations were devised,—Dr. Winckler found that Orion was represented as left-handed. He therefore used this left-handed Orion as the link of identification between Ehud, the left-handed judge of Israel, and Tyr, the left-handed Mars of the Scandinavian pantheon. Dr. Winckler seems to have been unaware of the elementary fact that a celestial globe necessarily shows its figures "inside out." We look up to the sky, to see the actual constellations from within the sphere; we look down upon a celestial globe from without, and hence see the designs upon it as in the looking-glass.

[238:1] Dr. Cheyne says, in a note on p. 52 of Job and Solomon, "Heb. K'sīl, the name of the foolhardy giant who strove with Jehovah. The Chaldeo-Assyrian astrology gave the name Kisiluv to the ninth month, connecting it with the zodiacal sign Sagittarius. But there are valid reasons for attaching the Hebrew popular myth to Orion." So Col. Conder, in p. 179 of The Hittites and their Language, translates the name of the Assyrian ninth month, Cisleu, as "giant." Now Sagittarius is in the heavens just opposite to Orion, so when in the ninth month the sun was in conjunction with Sagittarius, Orion was in opposition. In Cisleu, therefore, the giant, Orion, was riding the heavens all night, occupying the chamber of the south at midnight, so that the ninth month might well be called the month of the giant.

[241:1] Dr. L. W. King, Tablets of Creation, appendix iii. p. 208.



CHAPTER VIII

MAZZAROTH

We have no assistance from any cuneiform inscriptions as to the astronomical significance of 'Ayish, Kīmah, and Kĕsīl, but the case is different when we come to Mazzaroth. In the fifth tablet of the Babylonian Creation epic we read—

"1. He (Marduk) made the stations for the great gods; 2. The stars, their images, as the stars of the zodiac, he fixed. 3. He ordained the year, and into sections (mizrāta) he divided it; 4. For the twelve months he fixed three stars. 5. After he had [. . .] the days of the year [. . .] images 6. He founded the station of Nibir to determine their bounds; 7. That none might err or go astray. 8. He set the station of Bēl and Ea along with him."

In the third line mizrāta, cognate with the Hebrew Mazzārōth, means the sections or divisions of the year, corresponding to the signs of the zodiac mentioned in the second line. There can therefore be little doubt that the translators who gave us our English versions are practically correct in the rendering of Job xxxviii. 32 which they give in the margin, "Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth (or the twelve signs) in his season?"

The foregoing extract from the fifth tablet of Creation has no small astronomical interest. Merodach is represented as setting in order the heavenly bodies. First of all he allots their stations to the great gods, dividing to them the constellations of the zodiac, and the months of the year; so that the arrangement by which every month had its tutelary deity or deities, is here said to be his work. Next, he divides up the constellations of the zodiac; not merely arranging the actual stars, but appropriating to each constellation its special design or "image." Third, he divides up the year to correspond with the zodiac, making twelve months with three "stars" or constellations to each. In other words, he carries the division of the zodiac a step further, and divides each sign into three equal parts, the "decans" of the astrologers, each containing 10 deg. (deka) of the ecliptic.

The statement made in line 4 refers to an important development of astronomy. The constellations of the zodiac, that is, the groups made up of the actual stars, are very unequal in size and irregular in shape. The numerous theories, ancient or modern, in which the constellations are supposed to owe their origin to the distinctive weather of the successive months, each constellation figure being a sort of hieroglyph for its particular month, are therefore all manifestly erroneous, for there never could have been any real fixed or steady correlation between the constellations and the months. Similarly, the theories which claim that the ancient names for the months were derived from the constellations are equally untenable. Some writers have even held both classes of theory, overlooking the fact that they mutually contradict each other.

But there came a time when the inconvenience of the unequal division of the zodiac by the constellations was felt to be an evil, and it was remedied by dividing the ecliptic into twelve equal parts, each part being called after the constellation with which it corresponded most nearly at the time such division was made. These equal divisions have been called the Signs of the zodiac. It must be clearly understood that they have always and at all times been imaginary divisions of the heavens, that they were never associated with real stars. They were simply a picturesque mode of expressing celestial longitude; the distance of a star from the place of the sun at the spring equinox, as measured along the ecliptic,—the sun's apparent path during the year.

The Signs once arranged, the next step was an easy one. Each sign was equivalent to 30 degrees of longitude. A third of a sign, a "decan," was 10 degrees of longitude, corresponding to the "week" of ten days used in Egypt and in Greece.

This change from the constellations to the Signs cannot have taken place very early. The place of the spring equinox travels backwards amongst the stars at the rate of very little more than a degree in 72 years. When the change was made the spring equinox was somewhere in the constellation Aries, the Ram, and therefore Aries was then adopted as the first Sign, and must always remain such, since the Signs move amongst the stars with the equinox.



We cannot fix when this change was made within a few years, but it cannot have been before the time when the sun at the spring equinox was situated just below Hamal, the brightest star of the Ram. This was about 700 B.C. The equal division of the zodiac must have taken place not earlier than this, and with it, the Bull must have been deposed from the position it had always held up to that time, of leader of the zodiac. It is probable that some direct method of determining the equinox itself was introduced much about the same time. This new system involved nothing short of a revolution in astronomy, but the Babylonian Creation story implies that this revolution had already taken place when it was composed, and that the equal division of the zodiac was already in force. It is possible that the sixth and seventh lines of the poem indicate that the Babylonians had already noticed a peculiar fact, viz. that just as the moon passes through all the signs in a month, whilst the sun passes through only one sign in that time; so the sun passes through all the signs in a year, whilst Jupiter passes through but one sign. Nibir was the special Babylonian name of the planet Jupiter when on the meridian; and Merodach, as the deity of that planet, is thus represented as pacing out the bounds of the zodiacal Signs by his movement in the course of the year. The planet also marks out the third part of a sign, i. e. ten degrees; for during one-third of each year it appears to retrograde, moving from east to west amongst the stars instead of from west to east. During this retrogression it covers the breadth of one "decan" = ten degrees.



The Babylonian Creation epic is therefore quite late, for it introduces astronomical ideas not current earlier than 700 B.C. in Babylonia or anywhere else. This new development of astronomy enables us also to roughly date the origin of the different orders of systematic astrology.

Astrology, like astronomy, has passed through successive stages. It began at zero. An unexpected event in the heavens was accounted portentous, because it was unexpected, and it was interpreted in a good or bad sense according to the state of mind of the beholder. There can have been at first no system, no order, no linking up of one specific kind of prediction with one kind of astronomical event. It can have been originally nothing but a crude jumble of omens, just on a level with the superstitions of some of our peasantry as to seeing hares, or cats, or magpies; and the earliest astrological tablets from Mesopotamia are precisely of this character.

But the official fortune-tellers at the courts of the kings of Nineveh or Babylon must speedily have learned the necessity of arranging some systems of prediction for their own protection—systems definite enough to give the astrologer a groundwork for a prediction which he could claim was dependent simply upon the heavenly bodies, and hence for which the astrologer could not be held personally responsible, and at the same time elastic enough to enable him to shape his prediction to fit in with his patron's wishes. The astrology of to-day shows the same essential features.

This necessity explains the early Babylonian tablets with catalogues of eclipses on all days of the month, and in all quarters of the sky. The great majority of the eclipses could never happen, but they could be, none-the-less, made use of by a court magician. If an eclipse of the sun took place on the 29th day and in the south, he could always point out how exceedingly unpleasant things might have been for the king and the country if he, the magician, had not by his diligence, prevented its happening, say, on the 20th, and in the north. A Zulu witch-doctor is quite equal to analogous subterfuges to-day, and no doubt his Babylonian congeners were not less ingenious 3,000 years ago. Such subterfuges were not always successful when a Chaka or a Nebuchadnezzar had to be dealt with, but with kings of a more ordinary type either in Zululand or Mesopotamia they would answer well enough.

Coming down to times when astronomy had so far advanced that a catalogue of the stars had been drawn up, with their positions determined by actual measurement, it became possible for astrologers to draw up something like a definite system of prediction, based upon the constellations or parts of a constellation that happened to be rising at any given moment, and this was the system employed when Zeuchros of Babylon wrote in the first century of our era. His system must have been started later than 700 B.C., for in it Aries is considered as the leader of the zodiac; the constellations are already disestablished in favour of the Signs; and the Signs are each divided into three. A practical drawback to this particular astrological system was that the aspect presented by the heavens on one evening was precisely the same as that presented on the next evening four minutes earlier. The field for prediction therefore was very limited and repeated itself too much for the purpose of fortune-tellers.

The introduction of the planets into astrology gave a greater diversity to the material used by the fortune-tellers. An early phase of planetary astrology consisted in the allotment of a planet to each hour of the day and also to each day of the week. It has been already shown in the chapter on "Saturn and Astrology," that this system arose from the Ptolemaic idea of the solar system grafted on the Egyptian division of the day into twenty-four hours, and applied to the week of seven days. It probably originated in Alexandria, and arose not earlier than the third century before our era. Mathematical astrology—the complex system now in vogue—involves a considerable knowledge of the apparent movements of the planets and a development of mathematics such as did not exist until the days of Hipparchus. It also employs the purely imaginary signs of the zodiac, not the constellations; and reckons the first point of Aries as at the spring equinox. So far as we can ascertain, the spring equinox marked the first point of the constellation Aries about B.C. 110.

All these varied forms of astrology are therefore comparatively recent. Before that it was of course reckoned ominous if an eclipse took place, or a comet was seen, or a bright planet came near the moon, just as spilling salt or crossing knives may be reckoned ominous to-day. The omens had as little to do with observation, or with anything that could be called scientific, in the one case as in the other.

It is important to realize that astrology, as anything more than the crude observance of omens, is younger than astronomy by at least 2,000 years.

Mazzārōth occurs only once in the Bible, viz. in Job xxxviii. 32, already so often quoted, but a similar word Mazzālōth occurs in 2 Kings xxiii. 5, where it is said that Josiah put down the idolatrous priests, "them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets (Mazzālōth), and to all the host of heaven." The context itself, as well as the parallel passage in Deuteronomy—"When thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldst be driven to worship them,"—shows clearly that celestial luminaries of some kind are intended, probably certain groups of stars, distinguished from the general "host of heaven."

Comparing Job ix. 9, with Job xxxviii. 31, 32, we find 'Ash, or 'Ayish, Kīmah and Kĕsil common to the two passages; if we take 'Ash and 'Ayish as identical, this leaves the "chambers of the south" as the equivalent of Mazzaroth. The same expression occurs in the singular in Job xxxvii. 9—"Out of the south (marg. chamber) cometh the whirlwind." There need be but little question as to the significance of these various passages. The correspondence of the word Mazzārōth with the Babylonian mizrātā, the "divisions" of the year, answering to the twelve signs of the zodiac, points in exactly the same direction as the correspondence in idea which is evident between the "chambers of the south" and the Arabic Al manāzil, "the mansions" or "resting-places" of the moon in the lunar zodiac.

Mazzaroth are therefore the "divisions" of the zodiac, the "chambers" through which the sun successively passes in the course of the year, his "resting-place" for a month. They are "the chambers of the south," since that is their distinctive position. In Palestine, the sun, even at rising or setting at midsummer, passes but little to the north of east or west. Roughly speaking, the "south" is the sun's quarter, and therefore it is necessarily the quarter of the constellation in which the sun is placed.

It has been made an objection to this identification that the Israelites are said to have worshipped Mazzālōth, and we have no direct evidence that the signs or constellations of the zodiac were worshipped as such. But this is to make a distinction that is hardly warranted. The Creation tablets, as we have seen, distinctly record the allocation of the great gods to the various signs, Merodach himself being one of the three deities associated with the month Adar, just as in Egypt a god presided over each one of the thirty-six decades of the year.

Again, it is probable that the "golden calf," worshipped by the Israelites in the wilderness, and, after the disruption, at Bethel and at Dan, was none other than an attempt to worship Jehovah under the symbol of Taurus, the leader of the zodiac and cognizance of the tribe of Joseph; regarded as a type of Him Who had been the Leader of the people out of Egypt, and the Giver of the blessings associated with the return of the sun to Taurus, the revival of nature in spring-time. It was intended as a worship of Jehovah; it was in reality dire rebellion against Him, and a beginning of the worship of "Mazzālōth and the heavenly host;" an idolatry that was bound to bring other idolatries in its train.

A three-fold symbol found continually on Babylonian monuments, "the triad of stars," undoubtedly at one time set forth Sin, the moon-god, Samas, the sun-god, and Ištar, in this connection possibly the planet Venus. It has therefore been suggested by Prof. Schiaparelli that Mazzālōth is the planet Venus; and, since the word is plural in form, Venus in her double capacity;—sometimes an evening, sometimes a morning star. The sun and the moon and Mazzālōth would then set forth the three brightest luminaries, whilst the general congress of stars would be represented by the "host of heaven." But though Venus is sometimes the brightest of the planets, she is essentially of the same order as Jupiter or Mars, and is not of the same order as the sun and moon, with whom, on this supposition, she is singled out to be ranked. Moreover, if Ištar or Ashtoreth were intended in this passage, it does not appear why she should not be expressly named as such; especially as Baal, so often coupled with her, is named. The "triad of stars," too, had originally quite a different meaning, as will be seen later.

Moreover, the parallelism between Job ix. and Job xxxviii. is destroyed by this rendering, since the planet Venus could not be described as "the chambers of the south." These are therefore referred by Professor Schiaparelli to the glorious mass of stars in the far south, shining in the constellations that set forth the Deluge story,—the Ship, and the Centaur, much the most brilliant region of the whole sky.

Another interpretation of Mazzaroth is given by Dr. Cheyne, on grounds that refute Professor Schiaparelli's suggestion, but it is itself open to objection from an astronomical point of view. He writes—

"Mazzaroth is probably not to be identified with Mazzaloth (2 Kings xxiii. 5) in spite of the authority of the Sept. and the Targum. . . . Mazzaroth = Ass. Mazarati; Mazzaloth (i.e. the zodiacal signs) seems to be the plural of Mazzāla = Ass. Manzaltu, station."[254:1]

Dr. Cheyne therefore renders the passage thus—

"Dost thou bring forth the moon's watches at their season, And the Bear and her offspring—dost thou guide them? Knowest thou the laws of heaven? Dost thou determine its influence upon the earth?"

Mazzaloth are therefore "the zodiacal signs," but Mazzaroth "the watches or stations of the moon, which marked the progress of the month;"[254:2] or, in other words, the lunar zodiac.

But the lunar and the solar zodiac are only different ways of dividing the same belt of stars. Consequently when, as in the passage before us, reference is made to the actual belt of stars as a whole, there is no difference between the two. So that we are obliged, as before, to consider Mazzaroth and Mazzaloth as identical, and both as setting forth the stars of the zodiac.

So far as the two zodiacs differ, it is the solar and not the lunar zodiac that is intended. This is evident when we consider the different natures of the apparent motions of the sun and the moon. The sun passes through a twelfth part of the zodiac each month, and month by month the successive constellations of the zodiac are brought out, each in its own season; each having a period during which it rises at sunset, is visible the whole night, and sets at sunrise. The solar Mazzaroth are therefore emphatically brought out, each "in its season." Not so the lunar Mazzaroth.

The expression, "the watches or stations of the moon which marked the progress of the month," is unsuitable when astronomically considered. "Watches" refer strictly to divisions of the day and night; the "stations" of the moon refer to the twenty-seven or twenty-eight divisions of the lunar zodiac; the "progress of the month" refers to the complete sequence of the lunar phases. These are three entirely different matters, and Dr. Cheyne has confused them. The progress of the moon through its complete series of stations is accomplished in a siderial month—that is, twenty-seven days eight hours, but from the nature of the case it cannot be said that these "stations" are brought out each in his season, in that time, as a month makes but a small change in the aspect of the sky. The moon passes through the complete succession of its phases in the course of a synodical month, which is in the mean twenty-nine days, thirteen hours—that is to say from new to new, or full to full—but no particular star, or constellation, or "station" has any fixed relation to any one given phase of the moon. In the course of some four or five years the moon will have been both new and full in every one of the "lunar stations."

"Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?"

He, who has lived out under the stars, in contact with the actual workings of nature, knows what it is to watch "Mazzaroth" brought "out in his season;" the silent return to the skies of the constellations, month by month, simultaneous with the changes on the face of the earth. Overhead, the glorious procession, so regular and unfaltering, of the silent, unapproachable stars: below, in unfailing answer, the succession of spring and summer, autumn and winter, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, rain and drought. If there be but eyes to see, this majestic Order, so smooth in working, so magnificent in scale, will impress the most stolid as the immediate acting of God; and the beholder will feel at the same a reverent awe, and an uplifting of the spirit as he sees the action of "the ordinances of heaven," and the evidence of "the dominion thereof in the earth."

Dr. Cheyne, however, only sees in these beautiful and appropriate lines the influence upon the sacred writer of "the physical theology of Babylonia";[256:1] in other words, its idolatrous astrology, "the influence of the sky upon the earth."

But what would Job understand by the question, "Canst thou bring forth Mazzārōth in his season?" Just this: "Canst thou so move the great celestial sphere that the varied constellations of the zodiac shall come into view, each in their turn, and with them the earth pass through its proper successive seasons?" The question therefore embraced and was an extension of the two that preceded it. "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades? Canst thou prevent the revival of all the forces of nature in the springtime?" and "Canst thou loose the bands of Orion; canst thou free the ground from the numbing frosts of winter?"