of the autumn grape he drank copiously with the damsel until none was left; whereupon she suggested that he should turn water into wine, but he resisted further temptation, exclaiming, “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” and pursued his course towards the autumnal equinox, where he passed into _Libra_ and crossed the equator and ecliptic again, or, in other words, was crucified in Egypt as the “just man,” being at length separated from _Aries_ for six months, which caused him to exclaim in grief, “My ram! my ram! why hast thou forsaken me?” After three days’ and three nights’ struggle he descended into hell, the tomb, or the dark regions, to be born again at the winter solstice as before; after which he would reconquer the powers of evil, or the winter signs, and again become the lamb of god, “slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. xiii. 8) the Amen, or Jupiter Ammon, of the Apocalypse, at which moment he exclaims, “I am he that liveth and was dead, and behold I, Amen, am alive for evermore” (Rev. i. 18), and “These things saith Amen, the true and faithful witness, the beginning of the creation of God” (Rev. iii. 14). The winter period, commencing with _Libra_, was called by the ancients the period of scorpions, because _Scorpio_ was the principal sign of the period, and next after the equinoxial sign; Egypt (see Rev. xi. 8), because, that being the most southerly country then known, the sun appeared to descend into it at that time of the year; and Sodom, Gomorrah, etc., because it was a period of evil. The sea-monster, _Cetus_, is the same that is referred to in Rev. xiii. as blasphemy, with a mouth like a lion, feet like a bear, and leopard-like marks on its forequarters, and whose number was declared to be 666, which figure being made up of ס 60, ת 400, ו 6, and ר 200, stands for the word סתור, Setur, the concealed one, the Latin equivalent of which is _Cetus_. This was probably something like the original Christian myth, which, as time wore on, became converted into the absurd story presented to us in the four Gospels.