PREFACE.
p. 1.
MOST persons have been taught the names and figures of the signs of the zodiac. Many have been repelled by the explanations usually given of these and the other constellations; and it has been proposed to substitute a kind of survey of the heavens, where lines and angles should take the place of the traditional figures. Should this alteration be adopted, the message these figures were intended to transmit will not be less impressive when the types in which it was conveyed are not longer made subservient to the purposes of practical astronomy; especially as through being thus used the forms of the emblems are already disguised and modernized, and new figures, the most incongruous and absurd, have been intruded among them, while the names of the stars are becoming continually more corrupted.
The object of this work is to show, by the combined testimony of tradition and of ancient writers, and from the meaning of the yet extant ancient names of stars and emblems, that they were invented to transmit the earliest and most important knowledge possessed by the first fathers of mankind. Such records were supposed to exist in the hieroglyphics of Egypt, but among them have only been discovered the names and dates, the conquests and the praises of sovereigns. It is intended in this work to prove that far higher and more important records, those of the only true wisdom of ...
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Mazzaroth, though sometimes in modern lexicons differently interpreted, is here used as meaning the constellations. In Job xxxviii.32, it stands in the text of the English Bible untranslated: in the margin it is rendered "the twelve signs." Mazzaroth is a feminine or neuter plural noun, applied to separate chambers or divisions, such as the constellations. Mazaloth, a word with which it is sometimes identified, means a way through which any thing goes, as the sun through the zodiac, and the moon through the lunar mansions, or Manzil al Kamar, the Arabic appellation of the lunar zodiac still used in the East. It occurs in the sacred Scriptures only in 2 Kings xxiii.5, probably in the same sense.
p. 2.
man, are established in the emblems of the constellations. The agreement of the figures will be shown, with the types used by "the holy prophets who have been since the world began," in their predictions of Him, first promised to Adam as the seed of the woman and the conqueror of the serpent; also that in the names the very words in which their prophecies were delivered are frequently to be recognized; and that the primitive roots (by which the Assyrian and Babylonian records are now interpreted) exist alike in the names of the stars and in the dialects used by the prophets. These names, and the idea conveyed by the figures, are traced in the mythology of the nations; and it will be shown, from the confused and incongruous use there made of them, that the fables were invented from the constellations, and not the constellations from the fables 1. It has been attempted by means of these coincidences 2 to derive the origin of all religions from the constellations; but no reasons have been given why the constellations should be thus figured and thus named. In this work such reasons will be brought forward, and adequate cause assigned, in the revelation made to Adam and recorded by the subsequent prophets, for the invention of those names and figures; their origin being sought in the religion given by God, and in their perversion being found the origin of the false religions set up by man.
MOST persons have been taught the names and figures of the signs of the zodiac. Many have been repelled by the explanations usually given of these and the other constellations; and it has been proposed to substitute a kind of survey of the heavens, where lines and angles should take the place of the traditional figures. Should this alteration be adopted, the message these figures were intended to transmit will not be less impressive when the types in which it was conveyed are not longer made subservient to the purposes of practical astronomy; especially as through being thus used the forms of the emblems are already disguised and modernized, and new figures, the most incongruous and absurd, have been intruded among them, while the names of the stars are becoming continually more corrupted.
The object of this work is to show, by the combined testimony of tradition and of ancient writers, and from the meaning of the yet extant ancient names of stars and emblems, that they were invented to transmit the earliest and most important knowledge possessed by the first fathers of mankind. Such records were supposed to exist in the hieroglyphics of Egypt, but among them have only been discovered the names and dates, the conquests and the praises of sovereigns. It is intended in this work to prove that far higher and more important records, those of the only true wisdom of ...
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Mazzaroth, though sometimes in modern lexicons differently interpreted, is here used as meaning the constellations. In Job xxxviii.32, it stands in the text of the English Bible untranslated: in the margin it is rendered "the twelve signs." Mazzaroth is a feminine or neuter plural noun, applied to separate chambers or divisions, such as the constellations. Mazaloth, a word with which it is sometimes identified, means a way through which any thing goes, as the sun through the zodiac, and the moon through the lunar mansions, or Manzil al Kamar, the Arabic appellation of the lunar zodiac still used in the East. It occurs in the sacred Scriptures only in 2 Kings xxiii.5, probably in the same sense.
p. 2.
man, are established in the emblems of the constellations. The agreement of the figures will be shown, with the types used by "the holy prophets who have been since the world began," in their predictions of Him, first promised to Adam as the seed of the woman and the conqueror of the serpent; also that in the names the very words in which their prophecies were delivered are frequently to be recognized; and that the primitive roots (by which the Assyrian and Babylonian records are now interpreted) exist alike in the names of the stars and in the dialects used by the prophets. These names, and the idea conveyed by the figures, are traced in the mythology of the nations; and it will be shown, from the confused and incongruous use there made of them, that the fables were invented from the constellations, and not the constellations from the fables 1. It has been attempted by means of these coincidences 2 to derive the origin of all religions from the constellations; but no reasons have been given why the constellations should be thus figured and thus named. In this work such reasons will be brought forward, and adequate cause assigned, in the revelation made to Adam and recorded by the subsequent prophets, for the invention of those names and figures; their origin being sought in the religion given by God, and in their perversion being found the origin of the false religions set up by man.
NOTE ON "CONSTELLATIONS."
The ancients divided the heavens by forty-eight constellations, imaginary and arbitrary divisions, sometimes, but not always, comprising remarkable stars. Among the twelve signs, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Scorpio, and Virgo, have bright stars, leading the eye to fix on them as constellations, but the others have not; and would not be naturally distinguished as such. It is therefore evident that the distinction of the starry heavens into constellations, like the division of the earth into districts, is the work of man's imagination for his own purposes. In this case the purpose was to declare the glory of God. Orion, the Great Bear, Cassiopeia, Lyra, the Southern Cross, and perhaps some others, have bright stars pointing them out, but the records of ancient astronomy only determine what minor stars are reckoned as belonging to them; for instance the serpentine emblems are so mingled with the others as to be complained of as causing confusion by those who did not see in them an intentional type of the works of the enemy as intricately interwoven with the destinies of man.
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1 The evidence by which these statements are supported will be found in the Second Part.
2 Dupuis, L'Origine des Cultes.
LONDON: RIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE. 1862. FRANCES ROLLESTON.
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