On a post i made on another thread i quoted some of the ideas of Constantin Volney;

[www.hallofmaat.com]


The notion of a Celestial Garden of Eden he certainly held...




* "The Persians," says Chardin, "call the constellation of the
serpent Ophiucus, serpent of Eve: and this serpent Ophiucas or
Ophioneus plays a similar part in the theology of the Phoenicians,"
for Pherecydes, their disciple and the master of Pythagoras, said
"that Ophioneus Serpentinus had been chief of the rebels against
Jupiter." See Mars. Ficin. Apol. Socrat. p. m. 797, col. 2. I
shall add that ephah (with ain) signifies in Hebrew, serpent.


These traditions related that the woman had decoyed and seduced the
man.*


* In a physical sense to seduce, seducere, means only to attract,
to draw after us.


"And in fact, the virgin, setting first, seems to draw the herdsman
after her.

"That the woman tempted him by offering him fruit fair to the sight
and good to eat, which gave the knowledge of good and evil.

"And in fact, the Virgin holds in her hand a branch of fruit, which
she seems to offer to the Herdsman; and the branch, emblem of
autumn, placed in the picture of Mithra* between winter and summer,
seems to open the door and give knowledge, the key of good and
evil.


* See this picture in Hyde, page 111, edition of 1760.


That this couple had been driven from the celestial garden, and
that a cherub with a flaming sword had been placed at the gate to
guard it.

"And in fact, when the virgin and the herdsman fall beneath the
horizon, Perseus rises on the other side;* and this Genius, with a
sword in his hand, seems to drive them from the summer heaven, the
garden and dominion of fruits and flowers.


* Rather the head of Medusa; that head of a woman once so
beautiful, which Perseus cut off and which beholds in his hand, is
only that of the virgin, whose head sinks below the horizon at the
very moment that Perseus rises; and the serpents which surround it
are Orphiucus and the Polar Dragon, who then occupy the zenith.
This shows us in what manner the ancients composed all their
figures and fables. They took such constellations as they found at
the same time on the circle of the horizon, and collecting the
different parts, they formed groups which served them as an almanac
in hieroglyphic characters. Such is the secret of all their
pictures, and the solution of all their mythological monsters. The
virgin is also Andromeda, delivered by Perseus from the whale that
pursues her (pro-sequitor).


That of this virgin should be born, spring up, an offspring, a
child, who should bruise the head of the serpent, and deliver the
world from sin.

"This denotes the son, which, at the moment of the winter solstice,
precisely when the Persian Magi drew the horoscope of the new year,
was placed on the bosom of the Virgin, rising heliacally in the
eastern horizon; on this account he was figured in their
astrological pictures under the form of a child suckled by a chaste
virgin,* and became afterwards, at the vernal equinox, the ram, or
the lamb, triumphant over the constellation of the Serpent, which
disappeared from the skies.


* Such was the picture of the Persian sphere, cited by Aben Ezra in
the Coelam Poeticum of Blaeu, p. 71. "The picture of the first
decan of the Virgin," says that writer. "represents a beautiful
virgin with flowing hair; sitting in a chair, with two ears of corn
in her hand, and suckling an infant, called Jesus by some nations,
and Christ in Greek."

In the library of the king of France is a manuscript in Arabic,
marked 1165, in which is a picture of the twelve signs; and that of
the Virgin represents a young woman with an infant by her side: the
whole scene indeed of the birth of Jesus is to be found in the
adjacent part of the heavens. The stable is the constellation of
the charioteer and the goat, formerly Capricorn: a constellation
called proesepe Jovis Heniochi, stable of Iou; and the word Iou is
found in the name Iou-seph (Joseph). At no great distance is the
ass of Typhon (the great she-bear), and the ox or bull, the ancient
attendants of the manger. Peter the porter, is Janus with his keys
and bald forehead: the twelve apostles are the genii of the twelve
months, etc. This Virgin has acted very different parts in the
various systems of mythology: she has been the Isis of the
Egyptians, who said of her in one of their inscriptions cited by
Julian, the fruit I have brought forth is the sun. The majority of
traits drawn by Plutarch apply to her, in the same manner as those
of Osiris apply to Bootes: also the seven principal stars of the
she-bear, called David's chariot, were called the chariot of Osiris
(See Kirker); and the crown that is situated behind, formed of ivy,
was called Chen-Osiris, the tree of Osiris. The Virgin has
likewise been Ceres, whose mysteries were the same with those of
Isis and Mithra; she has been the Diana of the Ephesians; the great
goddess of Syria, Cybele, drawn by lions; Minerva, the mother of
Bacchus; Astraea, a chaste virgin taken up into heaven at the end
of a golden age; Themis at whose feet is the balance that was put
in her hands; the Sybil of Virgil, who descends into hell, or sinks
below the hemisphere with a branch in her hand, etc.


That, in his infancy, this restorer of divine and celestial nature
would live abased, humble, obscure and indigent.

"And this, because the winter sun is abased below the horizon; and
that this first period of his four ages or seasons, is a time of
obscurity, scarcity, fasting, and want.

"That, being put to death by the wicked, he had risen gloriously;
that he had reascended from hell to heaven, where he would reign
forever

"This is a sketch of the life of the sun; who, finishing his career
at the winter solstice, when Typhon and the rebel angels gain the
dominion, seems to be put to death by them; but who soon after is
born again, and rises* into the vault of heaven, where he reigns.





Morph.