These constellations are filled up with imaginary forms of men, women, animals, monsters, and many fantastic figures, each including a group of stars. In the ancient astronomy these groups numbered thirty-six, to which many modern additions have been made. Through these constellations passes a wavy line called the Ecliptic, apparently marking the path of the sun, but really indicating the path of our own earth around the sun. The sun seems to move thirty degrees a month, and at the end of the year appears at the point from which he started. We thus have a natural belt or way about sixteen degrees wide extending around the entire heavens, one half the year north, and the other half south, of the equator. But the sun does not cross the equator at the same point each year, so that in crossing he is not always in the same sign. The sun seems to recede, and as the apparent recession of the sun is caused by the real movement of the earth, the phenomenal result is the precession of the equinoxes; and as the equinoctial point recedes in a fixed ratio, this point will go back through the whole circle of the constellations in about twenty-five thousand years, requiring about twenty-one hundred and sixty years to pass through each sign. According to the ancient astrology, the sun assumed at different times the character of the particular sign through which it passed, and as such was symbolically worshipped. Four thousand years ago the sign Taurus gave rise to the worship of the Bull (the Egyptian Apis); and when the sun passed into the sign of Aries the Lamb, this emblem dominated the worship of Persians and other sun-worshippers, and so became the paschal or passover lamb of the ancient Hebrews. You will now begin to see what this zodiacal device has to do with our interpretations of the Bible. The Jewish Scriptures also contain it, and, as will soon be made to appear, it is impossible to make sense of large portions of the Bible without it.