Voltaire's Romances, Complete in One Volume — John Shaqi
Voltaire's Romances, Complete in One VolumeVoltaire
Philosophy
Voltaire's Romances, Complete in One Volume
Voltaire
French fiction -- Translations into English
"It appears from the book or history of the Exod, that it was on
the leaving of Egypt that Moses changed the object of adoration
from Taurus to Aries. It appears that the change took place on the
mountain of _Sin_, or Nisi, or Bacchus, which was evidently its old
name before Moses arrived there. The Israelites were punished for
adhering to the old worship, that of the Calf, in opposition to the
paschal Lamb, which Moses had substituted--'the Lamb which taketh
away the sins of the world,'--in place of the Bull or Calf which
took away the sins of the world.
"The planets were in later times all called by names appropriated
to the days of the week, which were dedicated by astrologers to the
gods who were typified by the Bull: Monday to the horned _Isis_;
Tuesday to Mercury, the same as Hermes and Osiris; Wednesday to
Woden, Fo, Buddha, and Surya; Thursday or Thor-day, or _Tur_, or
Taurus, or Bull-day, to Jove or Jupiter, who, as a Bull, stole
Europa; Friday was dedicated to Venus, Ashteroth or beeve-horned
Astarte; Saturday to Saturn, identified by Mr. Faber with Moloch
and the _Centaur Cronus_ or Taschter; Sunday to the Sun, everywhere
typified by Taurus. All these, I think, must have taken their names
after the entrance of the Sun into Taurus; and before this date all
history and even mythology fails us.
"In ancient collections we often meet with a person in the prime of
life killing a young bull. He is generally accompanied with a
number of astrological emblems. This Bull was the mediatorial
Mithra, slain to make atonement for, and to take away the sins of
the world. This was the God Bull, to whom the prayers were
addressed which we find in Bryant and Faber, and in which he is
expressly called the Mediator. This is the Bull of Persia, which
Sir. William Jones and Mr. Faber identify with Buddha or Mahabad.
The sacrifice of the Bull, which taketh away the sins of the world,
was succeeded by the sacrifice of the Agni or of Fire, by our
Indians in, comparatively speaking, modern times; it was closely
connected with the two principles spoken of above. While the sun
was in Taurus, the Bull was slain as the vicarious sacrifice; when
it got into Aries, the Ram or Lamb was substituted.
"M. Dupuis observes, that the lamb was a symbol or mark of
initiation into the Christian mysteries, a sort of proof of
admission into the societies of the initiated of the lamb, like the
private sign of the free-masons. It follows, then, that the
mysteries of Christ are the mysteries of the Lamb, and that the
mysteries of the Lamb are mysteries of the same nature as those of
the Mithraitic Bull to which they succeeded by the effect of the
precession of the equinoxes, which substituted the slain _lamb_ for
the slain _bull_."--E.
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