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THE ZODIAC AND THE PATRIARCHS. 715
(Virgo-) Scorpio, in Dan, who is described as "a serpent, an adder
in the path that biteth," etc.; Capricornus in Naphtali, who is "a hind
(a deer) let loose"; Cancer, in Benjamin, for he is "ravenous"; Libra,
the Balance, in Asher, whose "bread shall be fat"; Sagittarius in
Joseph, because "his bow abode in strength." To make up for the
twelfth Sign, Virgo, made independent of Scorpio, we have Dinah, the
only daughter of Jacob. Tradition shows the alleged tribes carrying
-.:he twelve signs on their banners. But indeed the Bible, in addition to
the above, is
and personifications.
filled with theo-cosmological and astronomical symbols
It remains to wonder, and to query—if the actual, living
Patriarchs'
destiny was so indissolubly wound up with the Zodiac—how it is that,
after the loss of the ten tribes, the ten signs also out of the twelve have
not miraculously disappeared from the sidereal fields But this is of
no great concern.
Let us rather busy ourselves with the historv' of the
Zodiac itself.
The reader may be reminded of some opinions expressed as to
Zodiac by several of the highest authorities in Science.
Newton believed that the invention of the Zodiac could be traced as
far back as the expedition of the Argonauts; and Dulaure fixed its
origin at 6,500 years B.C., just 2,496 years before the creation of the
world, according to the Bible chronology.
Creuzer thought that it was very easy to show that most of the
Theogonies were intimately connected with religious calendars, and
were related to the Zodiac as to their prime origin ; if not to the Zodiac
known to us now, then to something very analogous with it. He felt
certain that the Zodiac and its mystic relations are at the bottom of all
the mythologies, under one form or another, and that it had existed in
the old form for ages, before it was brought out in the present defined
astronomical garb, owing to some singular coordination of events.*
Whether the "genii of the planets," our Dhyan Chohans of supramundane
spheres, showed themselves to "holy prophets," or not, as
claimed in the Dabistan, it would seem that great la3'men and warriors
were favoured in the same way in days of old in Chaldaea, when astrological
Magic and Theophania went hand in hand.
Xenophon, no ordinary man, narrates of Cyrus .... that at the moment
of his death he thanked the Gods and heroes, for having so often
themselves about the signs in heaven—ev ovpaviots cn;/iet'ots.f
the
instructed him
» Creuzer, iii. p. 930. t Cyropadia, %iii. p. 7> as quoted in Des Es{>riU, iv. p. 55.