830 
illustration by Beane) cannot but recall tbe remarkable passage 
in the Acts (ch. vii. v. 43) : “ Ye took up the tabernacle of 
Moloch and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye 
made to worship them, and I will carry you away beyond 
Babylon.” In other words, you shall be captives in the land 
whose idols you have chosen. It is remarkable that in the 
Arthurian order of the Garter the cross in the centre ot the 
circle agrees with that of Asshur, and the rays assimilate in 
each case; while, if we go further east, the order of the Golden 
Fleece has the exact form of that in the wheel of Asshui (ng. , 
and supra , fig. 5), which latter the Assyrian sculptor has 
studiedly sacrificed drawing to delineate, showing that the form 
had a meaning; and these early orders it must be borne m 
mind were all mystical, and even mythological. The examples 
will be seen in diagram Q. 
16. Although the sun, the serpent, and the sun-serpent 
were all worshipped before the Greeks went to Egypt, it 
is not improbable, as the Greeks worshipped Apol o, and 
the Egyptians the serpent, that the fable of Apollo de- 
stroying the serpent may also have received fresh force 
from the ultimate supremacy of the Greeks over the Egyp- 
tians, though apart from nature-worship, it probably arose as 
symbolical of the Greek and Trojan warfare. Once established, 
from whatever origin, the idea would of course receive accretions. 
17. But the far- darting Apollo, though presiding over the 
Muses, was apt to send darts which had a baneful influence ; 
and here, also, we find opposite attributes; they could hardly 
both be innate, and therefore we must look for an explanation 
in his amalgamation with the serpent. But are we then to 
suppose the good and bad serpent powers were both embodied 
in him ? If not, whence is the bad ? 
18. Let us look further. In the figures .14, 15, lb, 
the Egyptian serpent, known as the Urseus, is shown in 
positions with the orb, or sun, so often surmounting its 
head, to say nothing of its other positions, such as issuing 
out of the sun, &c. (fig. 16a), that the sun for the serpent s 
head is no longer a matter of conjecture ; while m the repre- 
sentation in figure 17, we see the Phoenician serpent deity 
with its head surrounded with a nimbus, or halo, as ot the 
sun itself, curiously enough reproduced as one of the sup- 
porters to the arms of the Highland clan Donnachie. But 
the arrows of the “ far-shooting Apollo” brought him many 
a victim ; and the Phoenicians sacrificed human victims to 
their deities : we find, then, a good and an evil influence repre- 
sented here also, for that they considered their deities had good 
attributes we cannot doubt. 
