The Witness of the Stars. E. W. Bullinger

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      Another important statement is made by Dr. Budge, of the British Museum.{15} He says, “It must never be forgotten that the Babylonians were a nation of star-gazers, and that they kept a body of men to do nothing else but report eclipses, appearances of the moon, sun-spots, etc., etc.”

      “Astronomy, mixed with astrology, occupied a large number of tablets in the Babylonian libraries, and Isaiah, xlvii. 13, refers to this when he says to Babylon, ‘Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now thy astrologers (marg. viewers of the heavens), the star-gazers, the monthly prognosticators stand up.’ The largest astrological work of the Babylonians contained seventy tablets, and was compiled by the command of Sargon of Agade thirty-eight hundred years before Christ! It was called the ‘Illumination of Bel.’”

      “Their observations were made in towers called ‘ziggurats’” (p. 106).

      “They built observatories in all the great cities, and reports like the above [which Dr. Budge gives in full] were regularly sent to the King” (p. 110).

      “They were able to calculate eclipses, and had long lists of them.” “They found out that the sun was spotted, and they knew of comets.” “They were the inventors of the Zodiac” (?). There are fragments of two (ancient Babylonian) planispheres in the British Museum with figures and calculations inscribed upon them. “The months were called after the signs of the Zodiac” (p. 109).

      We may form some idea of what this “representation of the heavens” was from the fifth “Creation Tablet,” now in the British Museum. It reads as follows:—

      “Anu [the Creator] made excellent the mansions [i.e. the celestial houses] of the great gods [twelve] in number [i.e. the twelve signs or mansions of the sun].

      The stars he placed in them. The lumasi [i.e. groups of stars or figures] he fixed.

      He arranged the year according to the bounds [i.e. the twelve signs] which he defined.

      For each of the twelve months three rows of stars [i.e. constellations] he fixed.

      From the day when the year issues forth unto the close, he marked the mansions [i.e. the Zodiacal Signs] of the wandering stars [i.e. planets] to know their courses that they might not err or deflect at all.”

      Coming down to less ancient records: EUDOXOS, an astronomer of Cnidus (403 to 350 B.C.), wrote a work on Astronomy which he called Phainomena. ANTIGONUS GONATAS, King of Macedonia (273-239 B.C.), requested the Poet ARATUS to put the work of EUDOXUS into the form of a poem, which he did about the year 270 B.C. ARATUS called his work Diosemeia (the Divine Signs). He was a native of Tarsus, and it is interesting for us to note that his poem was known to, and, indeed, must have been read by, the Apostle Paul, for he quotes it in his address at Athens on Mars’ Hill. He says (Acts xvii. 28), “For in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.”{16} Several translations of this poem have been made, both by CICERO and others, into Latin, and in recent times into English by E. Poste, J. Lamb, and others. The following is the opening from the translation of Robert Brown, jun.:—

      “From Zeus we lead the strain; he whom mankind

      Ne’er leave unhymned: of Zeus all public ways,

      All haunts of men, are full; and full the sea,

      And harbours; and of Zeus all stand in need.

      We are his offspring:{17} and he, ever good and mild to man,

      Gives favouring signs, and rouses us to toil.

      Calling to mind life’s wants: when clods are best

      For plough and mattock: when the time is ripe

      For planting vines and sowing seeds, he tells,

      Since he himself hath fixed in heaven these Signs,

      The stars dividing: and throughout the year

      Stars he provides to indicate to man

      The seasons’ course, that all things duly grow,” etc., etc.

      Then ARATUS proceeds to describe and explain all the Signs and Constellations as the Greeks in his day understood, or rather misunderstood, them, after their true meaning and testimony had been forgotten.

      Moreover, ARATUS describes them, not as they were seen in his day, but as they were seen some 4,000 years before. The stars were not seen from Tarsus as he describes them, and he must therefore have written from a then ancient Zodiac. For notwithstanding that we speak of “fixed stars,” there is a constant, though slow, change taking place amongst them. There is also another change taking place owing to the slow recession of the pole of the heavens (about 50" in the year); so that while Alpha in the constellation of Draco was the Polar Star when the Zodiac was first formed, the Polar Star is now Alpha in what is called Ursa Minor. This change alone carries us back at least 5,000 years. The same movement which has changed the relative position of these two stars has also caused the constellation of the Southern Cross to become invisible in northern latitudes. When the constellations were formed the Southern Cross was visible in N. latitude 40°, and was included in their number. But, though known by tradition, it had not been seen in that latitude for some twenty centuries, until the Cape of Good Hope had been discovered. Then was seen again The Southern Cross depicted by the Patriarchs. Here is another indisputable proof as to the antiquity of the formation of the Zodiac.

      PTOLEMY (150 A.D.) transmits them from HÏPPARCHUS (130 B.C.) “as of unquestioned authority, unknown origin, and unsearchable antiquity.”

      Sir William Drummond says that “the traditions of the Chaldean Astronomy seem the fragments of a mighty system fallen into ruins.”

      The word Zodiac itself is from the Greek Ζωδιακός, which is not from Ζάω, to live, but from a primitive root through the Hebrew Sodi, which in Sanscrit means a way. Its etymology has no connection with living creatures, but denotes a way, or step, and is used of the way or path in which the sun appears to move amongst the stars in the course of the year.

      To an observer on the earth the whole firmament, together with the sun, appears to revolve in a circle once in twenty-four hours. But the time occupied by the stars in going round, differs from the time occupied by the sun. This difference amounts to about one-twelfth part of the whole circle in each month, so that when the circle of the heavens is divided up into twelve parts, the sun appears to move each month through one of them. This path which the sun thus makes amongst the stars is called the Ecliptic.{18}

      Each of these twelve parts (consisting each of about 30 degrees) is distinguished, not by numbers or by letters, but by pictures and names, and this, as we have seen, from the very earliest times. They are preserved to the present day in our almanacs, and we are taught their order in the familiar rhymes:—

      “The RAM, the BULL, the heavenly TWINS,

      And next the CRAB, the LION shines,

      The VIRGIN and the SCALES;

      The SCORPION, ARCHER, and SEA-GOAT,

      The MAN that carries the Water-pot,

      And FISH with glittering scales.”

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