These twelve signs of the zodiac were, in fact, the twelve principal gods of all races; the seven summer signs, including the two equinoxial signs, being the seven specially sacred gods, inhabiting the upper temple of the most high god, which was the vault of the summer heavens, supported by the two pillars of the equinoxes or covenants. Almost every race had temples divided into upper and lower courts or rooms, the upper one being the residence of their chief gods; and these temples were originally meant to represent the universe, having an upper hemisphere, governed by the good principle, and a lower hemisphere, governed by the bad principle, this idea being frequently further represented by a closed ark or chest, representing the lower or dark hemisphere, upon which sat the chief deity, representing the good principle of the upper hemisphere. The Egyptians, according to Plutarch, enclosed the body of Osiris in an ark every year at the autumnal equinox, when the sun was in _Scorpio_, which was a rite emblematical of the annual death of the sun-god of summer; and the Jews, it will be remembered, suffered defeat at the hands of the Philistines, immediately after they had taken the ark out of Shiloh, where it had been deposited, the word Shiloh being the name of a tiny group of stars in the sign _Scorpio_. The movable temple of the Hebrews, or tabernacle, as described in Exodus, is the best example we have of this representation of the universe, being described in such minute detail as to betray its meaning to the dullest mind. It was divided into two portions—the lower or outer portion, and the upper or inner portion, the holy of holies, where dwelt the Hebrew chief tribal god, Yahouh, or Yah, sitting upon the ark of the covenant, representing the winter part of the heavens between the two covenants or equinoxes. On each side of Yah was a cherub, or monster with four faces (or, according to some, with four bodies)—one like a bull, another like a man, a third like an eagle, and the last like a lion, as we find fully described by Ezekiel (chap. i.). In my “Popular Faith Unveiled” (pp. 131, 174, and 247) I have attributed these heads (or bodies) to the four zodiacal signs of ascension after the vernal equinox, that like a bull to _Taurus_, that like a man to _Gemini_, that like an eagle to _Cancer_, and that like a lion to _Leo_; but, according to Sir W. Drummond, in his “Œdipus Judaicus,” they correspond with the signs at the four quarters of the sphere—viz., the man to _Aquarius_, the ox to _Taurus_, the lion to _Leo_, and the eagle to _Scorpio_, this calculation being based on the supposition that the cherubim were first introduced during the period prior to B.C. 2188, when _Taurus_ was the vernal equinoxial point, while mine supposes _Aries_ to have been the chief zodiacal sign. Which calculation is right the reader must decide for himself, after carefully studying the reasons given for both conclusions.