the constellations was
changed into a political history; the heavens became a human state,
where things happened as on the earth. Now, as the earthly states, the
greater part despotic, had already their monarchs, and as the sun was
apparently the monarch of the skies, the summer hemisphere (empire of
light) and its constellations (a nation of white angels) had for king
an enlightened God, a creator intelligent and good. And as every rebel
faction must have its chief, the heaven of winter, the subterranean
empire of darkness and woe, and its stars, a nation of black angels,
giants and demons, had for their chief a malignant genius, whose
character was applied by different people to the constellation which
to them was the most remarkable. In Egypt it was at first the Scorpion,
first zodiacal sign after Libra, and for a long time chief of the winter
signs ; then it was the Bear, or the polar Ass, called Typhon, that is
to say, deluge,** on account of the rains which deluge the earth during
the dominion of that star. At a later period,*** in Persia,**** it was
the Serpent, who, under the name of Abrimanes, formed the basis of the
system of Zoroaster; and it is the same, O Christians and Jews! that
has become your serpent of Eve (the celestial virgin,) and that of the
cross; in both cases it is the emblem of Satan, the enemy and great
adversary of the Ancient of Days, sung by Daniel.

* The ancient priests had three kinds of spheres, which it
may be useful to make known to the reader.

"We read in Eusebius," says Porphyry, "that Zoroaster was
the first who, having fixed upon a cavern pleasantly
situated in the mountains adjacent to Persia, formed the
idea of consecrating it to Mithra (the sun) creator and
father of all things: that is to say, having made in this
cavern several geometrical divisions, representing the
seasons and the elements, he imitated on a small scale the
order and disposition of the universe by Mithra. After
Zoroaster, it became a custom to consecrate caverns for the
celebration of mysteries: so that in like manner as temples
were dedicated to the Gods, rural altars to heroes and
terrestrial deities, etc., subterranean abodes to infernal
deities, so caverns and grottoes were consecrated to the
world, to the universe, and to the nymphs: and from hence
Pythagoras and Plato borrowed the idea of calling the earth
a c