179 
we are told tliat Nebuchadnezzar made Zedekiah swear by God, 
i.e., by “Elohim,” — passing by Nebo and all the gods of 
Babylon. This oath the Israelitish monarch is reprobated for 
not having kept. 
In all this we do not see a trace of the modern figment of 
man raising himself by slow degrees to the conception of the 
Supreme Being. It is all the other way, and the primitive 
knowledge common to all the world was kept down or crushed * 
by unrighteousness. The true God seems to have been 
known as El, and it was — the Most High God, 
whom Melchizedec acceptably worshipped. It is the Allah 
of the East to the present day. 
Strange to say, and confirming the scripture history, amongst 
the very earliest idolatries we have the worship of Hea, the 
serpent, the god of wisdom, who takes possession of the Lady of 
the earth, and by her has the promised seed, — the Mediator. 
Was this, then, the purpose of the Old Serpent ? Did he 
thus seek to become the Lord of the whole earth, in the person 
of the Mediator, as his adopted Son ? Do we not listen to the 
voice of the same personality in the temptation of our Saviour 
where he says, — “ All this power will I give thee, and the 
glory of them, for that is delivered unto me, and to whomso- 
ever I will I give it. If thou, therefore wilt worship me, all 
shall be thine.”+ 
“ In the Assyrian system it was the special work of the god 
Hea and his son Merodach to check and reverse the work of 
these [seven] demons, the messengers of the vengeance of 
Anu, the Supreme God of heaven.” 
The Chaldeans divided the night and day into twelve 
instead of twenty-four hours, and the circumference of the 
heaven into twelve signs of the Zodiac, through which the sun 
passes in its annual course. These were the mansions, to 
each of which were assigned three stars (called, according 
to Lenormant,{ dieux conseillers, and, I suppose, alluded to in 
the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, where he sees a watcher and an 
holy one come down from heaven). These twelve signs of the 
Zodiac corresponded to the twelve months of the year. 
The heavenly host of stars were naturally regarded as a 
flock, and when they began to form these into groups and con- 
stellations it was most suitable to assign the leading place in 
the zodiac (from ^Coov, animal) to the Bam as the leader; 
then followed the bull, the twins, the crab, the lion, the 
virgin, the scorpion, the claws of the scorpion, the archer, the 
* See Alford (Gr. Test.) on Rom. i. 18. t Luke iv. 6 ; S.B.A. Trans., iii. 458. 
X Les Origines, p. 335 ; Daniel iv. 13. 
