The _contortions_ of the snake were easily transferred to the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. “When the ancients,” says Boulanger, “found out the true cycle of the sun, they coined names by a _jeu de mots_, or words, signifying its heat, or its course, that made up the number 365, as they had done before to make up 360. The name Sabasins, that has so much perplexed antiquaries and etymologists, is no more than a _numerical name_, which was given to Jupiter and to Bacchus as _periodical_ deities. When the suppliant was initiated into the mysteries of Sabasins, a _serpent_, the symbol of revolution, was thrown upon his breast. Το ΣΑΒΟΕ, which the Greeks repeated so often in the feasts of Bacchus _without understanding the meaning of the words_, meant no more than the cycle of the year, from the Chaldean _Sabb circuire vertere_, etc. The ancient religion, which applied entirely to the motions of the heavens and _periodical return_ of the stars, was for that reason named _Sabianism_, all derived from the Chaldee _Seba_, a _revolution_”; and this, though Boulanger knew it not, from the Irish Sabh, _serpent_, or _pith_. Sabaism, therefore, and Ophiolatreia were all one with Gadelianism; and while, apparently, purporting to be the worship of the _serpent_ and the _stars_, were in reality the worship of the _Sabh_ or _Yoni_--so that the dialogue in Genesis between Eve and the _serpent_, was, in truth, a parley between Eve and the _Yoni_: and the materials for the allegory were afforded by the fact of _serpent_ and _yoni_ being both expressed in the sacred, _i.e._ Irish language, by one and the same name, just as the Lingam and the Tree of Knowledge have been before identified. The mystery, then, of our ancient escutcheon, viz. a _serpent_ twisted _round a rod_, resolves itself into the _Yoni embracing_ the _Lingam_. Hence, too, it was that the portals of all the Egyptian temples were decorated with the impress of the circle and the serpent. You see also, why the _seasons_, at the equinoxes and solstices, should have been marked upon the circle at p. 225; and you further see the mysterious tendency of the Prophet’s injunction to his children, when he said, “Remember that ye are _Sabians_,” to have been equivalent with--Keep constantly in view that you are the offspring of _concupiscence_, and, by the suggestion of the _serpent_, begotten in _sin_, the penalty of which, as a breach of the Creator’s commandments, is inevitable _death_, from which you are only extricated through the promised Redeemer, emanating from the same source which was before instrumental in entailing your sorrow! Every syllable of this is hieroglyphically expressed upon the plate inserted at p. 223, where you observe the _cockatrice_, or snake-god, placed at the bottom; over him the _crescent_, or mysterious _boot_, _i.e._ _yoni_, the object seduced; and, finally, the _cross_ in triumph over both, intimating emancipation by the vicarious passion of God’s own Son.