220 
had observed innumerable planetary configurations, and 
represented them on their monuments from the earliest 
times.* Consequently, a great many of those monuments 
seen by Diodorus and others being still in existence, the 
astronomical inscriptions of Egypt cannot have disap- 
peared entirely. Further, Chseremon, an Egyptian priest, 
says expressly that all the deities of his country signify the 
planets and the signs of the zodiac and its subdivisions, f 
The same we find in Aristotle, and many other Greek and 
Latin authors, referring their own gods to be planets and 
the zodiacal signs, which verifies the statement of Chaere- 
mon.ij: For, since all the pagan nations, according to 
Jeremiah li. 7, brought their mythology with them out of 
Babel ; since Plutarchus testifies that there was no difference 
between the deities of the Xorth and the South, the East and 
the West ;§ and since all the people of antiquity worshipped 
seven Cabiri and twelve great gods ; it is obvious that the 
Greek and Roman deities, as well as the other pagan gods, 
really referred to the seven planets and the twelve signs of 
the zodiac. Finally, we learn from Firmicus, Pliny, and the 
monuments themselves, that the Egyptians, Greeks, and 
Romans observed planetary configurations on the four cardi- 
nal days, i.e. on the days of the vernal or autumnal equinox, 
or those of the summer and winter solstice, always previous 
* Diodor. Sicul. L, chap. 81, 83 : Taj Trepi ikxo-tuv ao-Tpt»rv avaypa^aj If 
hj'ZSv aTTiVrwy too ttXhS"£j $i\a.T7ov<Jiv. 
+ Porphyrius in Jamblichus' De My stems .Egypt, page 7 : " Chgeremon," 
says Porphyrius, " aliique multi nihil quid agnoscunt, ante mundum nunc 
adspectabilem, neque alios ^Egyptiorum, in ipsis scriptorum suorum exordiis, 
ponunt Deos prseter vulgo dictos planetas et Zodiaci signa." 
J Aristotle, Metaphys., xi. 8, says : " It is related by the ancients that the 
planets and constellations are deities ;" and in other passages he refers the 
twelve great gods to the twelve signs of the Zodiac. 
§ Plutarch De Is. et Osir, p. 377, says : " There is no difference between 
the deities of the Greeks and those of the Barbarians — those of the Southern 
and of the Northern nations.'' 
