That these fables have allusion to the signs of the zodiac, the solar system, the elements and seasons, has been shown by Volney, Dupuis, and others. Many of the apparently gross absurdities of the Bible are easily explained by the key of ancient astronomy. Indeed, all the principal personages of that book, as well as those of remote pagan antiquity, whether, ranking as deities or men, were either personifications of constellations, planets, seasons, or other natural objects, or their affects; and whenever miraculous powers were ascribed to those fanciful creations, all men who understood the mysteries, such as Herodotus, Philo, Origen, etc., knew that the literal sense could not be true; and that the right interpretation was allegorical. The ancient languages of the East having no neuter gender, the host of celestial existences were denominated in the masculine or feminine. Amongst these, their grand immaculate chieftain, the sun, in all the eastern theogonies, and under a thousand different names, was always adored as the omnipotent _Creator_ and _Regulator_. "O Sun," cried the great prophet of Persia, "thou art powerful in thy blaze! glorious in thy lustre! the burster of darkness! head of the world! king of stars! mightiest of beings above!" That those polytheisms of the East, from which emanated Judaism and Christianity, had their root in astronomy, is proved from the most authentic sources. "The Egyptians," says Plutarch, "inserted nothing into their worship without a reason, nothing merely fabulous, nothing superstitious, as many suppose; but their institutions have either a reference to morals, or to something useful in life; and many of them bear a beautiful resemblance of some appearance in nature." Chæremon, the Egyptian philosopher, says: "What is said of Osiris and Isis,* and all the sacred fables, may be resolved into the stars--their occultations and risings--into the course of the Sun through the zodiac; or the nocturnal and diurnal hemispheres." * According to Eratosthenes, the celestial Virgin was supposed to be Isis, that is, the symbol of the returning year. It was in honor of this goddess that the Egyptians celebrated the famous festival of light, which was imitated by the Christians in their feast of Candlemas. From the Egyptians, the Romans took their Solar festivals, in honor of the birth of the god of light, celebrated on the 25th December, at which time, says Sexvius, the Sun may, properly speaking, be said to be new, or to have a new birth. Hence the Christmas of the Christians, which had also been, previously, a Druidical festival, in honor of the solar God's birth; hence the evergreen emblems--the holly, the mistletoe, etc., all sacred among the Druids thousands of years before Christ.