In the religion of Judaism we hear of a God making certain promises
to a man by the name of Abraham. He promised that he would make
Abraham's seed as numerous as the sands upon the seashore; and
we are told how he dealt with Abraham's grandson Jacob, who was
the husband of four wives, by whom he had twelve sons and one
daughter. These are looked upon as the forefathers of the Jewish
nation.
This is an astronomical allegory dealing with the migration of
the heavenly bodies, as will be evident from a careful perusal
of the 49th chapter of Genesis and the 33rd chapter of Deuteronomy,
where the blessings of Jacob upon his sons show how they are identified
with the twelve signs of the zodiac: Simeon and Levi sharing the
sign Gemini, the twins, and the feminine sign Virgo being allotted
to Jacob's only daughter, Dinah; Gad represents the sign Aries;
Issachar, Taurus; Benjamin, Cancer; Judah, Leo; Asher, Libra;
Dan, Scorpio; Joseph, Sagittarius; Napthali, Capricorn; Reuben,
Aquarius; and Zebulun, Pisces. The four wives are the four phases
of the Moon and Jacob is the Sun.
This is similar to the teaching we find among the Greeks, where
Gaia, the Earth, is the wife of Apollo, the Sun; and among the
Egyptians, where heat and moisture, the Sun and the Moon, were
personified in Osiris and Isis. The sacred rivers Jordan and Ganges
are also connected etymologically with the river Eridanus,* which
is one of the constellations. It means "source of descent,"
and for agriculturists such as were these ancient people, these
rivers were the sources of the Waters of Life.
Josephus tells us that the Jews carried the twelve signs of the
zodiac on their banners, and camped around the tabernacle which
held the seven-branched candlestick representing the Sun and the
heavenly bodies which move inside the circle formed by the twelve
signs of the zodiac.
The Jews located their temples so that the four corners pointed
northeast, southeast, northwest, and southwest and the sides directly
north, east, south, and west; and like all solar temples, the
main entrance was in the east, so that the rising Sun might illumine
its portal and herald each day the victory of light over the powers
of darkness.
Thus was brought to nascent humanity the message that the contest
of light and darkness on the material plane is but the counterpart
of a similar contest in the moral and mental worlds where the
human soul is groping its way toward the light. The battle of
light and darkness in the material world, like all other phenomena,
is a suggestion of the realities in the invisible realms. Therefore,
these truths were given to man as myths by divine leaders who
led him until his growing intellect gave birth to arrogance which
caused his benefactors to withdraw, and let him learn by the hard
knocks of experience. Then he forgot them and has come to regard
the ancient stories of gods and demigods as imaginary.
Yet, even the early Christian Church was imbued with this knowledge
of the significance of the solar myth, for the Cathedral of St.
Peter at Rome is built facing the east, like all other solar temples,
telling humanity of the "Great Light of the World,"
who is to come and dispel the spiritual darkness which as yet
envelops us-the Light Bringer who shall bring peace on Earth and
goodwill among men, causing the nations to beat their swords into
ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks.
The Jews greeted the Sun with the morning-sacrifice, and took
leave of it at sunset in the similar manner by an evening oblation,
offering up on their sabbath an additional sacrifice to the lunar
race-god, Jehovah. Him they also worshiped by sacrifice at the
new Moon. One great feast was Easter, when they celebrated the
Passover, the time when the Sun "passes over" its easter(n)
node, leaving the southern hemisphere where it winters and commencing
its northern journey in its chariot of fire, hailed with joy by
men as their savior from hunger and cold which would inevitably
result if it stayed in south declination always.
The last of the Jewish feasts and the most important is the Feast
of Tabernacles, when the Sun crosses its western node in autumn,
having yielded to man the "bread of life" wherewith
to sustain his material being until the next return of the Sun
to the northern heavens.
For the above reasons the six southern signs (Libra, Scorpio,
Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces) which the Sun occupies
in winter are always called "Egypt," the "Land
of the Philistines," etc., a name for something that is bad
for "God's people"; whereas the northern signs (Aries,
Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, and Virgo), through which the Sun
passes during the fruitful season, are "heaven," "the
promised land," which "flows with milk and honey."
We see this in such passages as the one where the celebration
of the Passover is enjoined, to "remember thy coming out
of Egypt" (Ex. 13:3). This feast is a rejoicing over the
emergence of the Sun from the southern signs. The same indication
is in the recorded fact that Jacob was with Joseph in Egypt when
he died. At the winter solstice when the Sun of the past year
has completed its journey and reached its lowest degree of south
declination, it is in the zodiacal sign Sagittarius. By reference
to Genesis 49:24, where the dying Jacob speaks of the "bow"
of Joseph, it is easy to identify him with the sign Sagittarius,
which represents a centaur in the act of drawing his bow, and
thus the story of Jacob dying in Egypt with Joseph is re-enacted
each year when the Sun dies in the sign Sagittarius at the winter
solstice.
The story of Samson is another phase of the solar myth. As long
as Samson's hair was allowed to grow, his strength would increase.
Samson is the Sun, and its rays represent Samson's hair. From
the winter solstice in December to the summer solstice in June
the Sun's rays grow, and it gains in strength with every day.
This frightens the "powers of darkness," the winter
months, the Philistines, for if this Light Bringer continues to
reign, their kingdom will come to an end, and they counsel together
against Samson to discover wherein his strength lies. They secure
the cooperation of the woman, Delilah, which is the sign Virgo,
and when Samson, the Sun, passes through that sign in September
he is said to have laid his head on the woman's lap and to have
confided his secret to her.
She shears him of his locks, for at that time the rays of the
Sun begin to grow shorter and lose their strength. Then the Philistines
or winter months come and carry the debilitated giant into their
prison, the southern signs where the Sun is in winter. They put
out his eyes or deprive him of his light and at last bring him
to their temple, their stronghold, at the winter solstice. There
they subject him to infamous indignities, believing they have
vanquished the light completely, but with his last remaining strength
the fettered solar giant shatters their temple. Although he dies
in the effort, he overcomes his enemies and thus leaves the way
clear for another sun-child to be born to save humanity from the
cold and famine which would result if he had remained bound in
the toils of the powers of darkness, the Philistines, the winter
months.
The lives of all the saviors of mankind are also founded upon
the passage of the Sun around the circle of the zodiac, which
pictures the trials and triumphs of the initiate, and the fact
has given rise to the erroneous conclusion that these saviors
never existed, that the stories are merely sun-myths. This is
wrong. All divine teachers sent to man are cosmic characters,
and the ordering of their lives is in accord with the marching
orbs, which contain, as it were, an anticipated biography of their
lives. Each came with divine spiritual light and knowledge to
help man to find God, and therefore the events in their lives
were in accord with the events which the physical lightbearer,
the Sun, encounters on its pilgrimage through the year.
The saviors were all born of an immaculate virgin, at the time
when darkness is greatest among mankind, as the Sun of the coming
year is born, or begins its journey on the longest night of year,
when the zodiacal sign Virgo, the Virgin, stands on the eastern
horizon between 10:00 and 12:00 P.M. in all latitudes. She remains
as immaculate as ever after she has given birth to her sun-child;
hence we see the Egyptian goddess Isis sitting on the crescent
Moon nursing her divine babe Horus; Astarte, the immaculate lady
of Babylon, with her babe Tammuz, and a crown of seven stars over
her head; the lady Devaki in India with her infant Krishna; and
our own Virgin Mary, giving birth to the Savior of the Western
World under the Star of Bethlehem. Everywhere the same story:
the immaculate mother, the divine babe, and the Sun, Moon, or
Stars.
*Eridanus: a long winding constellation extending southward from
Taurus and containing the bright star Achernar.
— Rays from the Rose Cross Magazine, March/April, 1996
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