US Army Medical core adopted it despite opposition and a different explanation of symbols.

Interestingly, John Donne. uses the title for crucifixion of Christ. There must have been some other ritualistic meaning to caudaceus.

PD

Mark wrote:Ok its only wikipedia but according to this piece the attribution of the caduceus to medicine is an error. This misunderstanding seems to be quite widespread in North America

Thanks Mark, that must be where I'm getting it from.

Interesting posts, everyone!

Margherita, my guess was that someone born with Cetus rising would be swallowed up by whales, Jonah-style; but Manilius says he will be a whaler. Close! Incidentally, you have a wonderful website.

I don't know if many astrologers are interested in the Bible as having a lot of encrypted astrology in it, but I think it's there, and that it would qualify as traditional. So please bear with me. Feedback welcome. Or else just skip the rest of this post!
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The staff of Aesclepius is interesting, because it shows up today not only in the emblems of medical and pharmacy associations, but it closely resembles the biblical rod of Aaron that turns into a snake (Exodus 7:8-12). In this story the Egyptian magicians also had staffs that would turn into snakes (!) but Aaron's was more powerful. The staffs of Aaron and Moses were instrumental in starting the 10 plagues of Egypt. (Possibly the precursors of the magic wands of fairy tales.)

The bronze serpent staff of Moses in Numbers 21:6-9 has even closer affinities to the stories of the physician Aesclepias and the constellation of Manilius. Apparently the Israelites in the desert were being bitten by snakes, so God told Moses to make a poisonous snake and to set it on a pole. Then when people were bitten, they could look at the snake and live--a healing function. This staff was kept until the days of the king Hezekiah, who destroyed it because the Israelites "had made offerings to it and called it Nehushtan." (2 Kings: 18:4) Apparently the name is a play on words of the Hebrew names for snake and bronze.

Then in the NT, Mark (16: 18 ) says that the true believers "will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover." This looks much like the imagery of the constellation Ophichus, as well as Aesclepias's healing abilities. John 3:14 gives: "And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life." Aesclepias was credited with raising the dead.

I think the constellation Ophiuchus originally was interpreted as the ancient Tree of Life, which shows up in archaeological finds in the Near East, as well as in Genesis 2 and Revelation. Stick figures of the constellation (including the snake) could easily be imagined as a snake in a tree. Biblical images often have both a positive and negative connotation--distinguishing between the good snakes ("be you as wise as serpents") and negative ones.

If we can connect the dots a bit, there is also a myth that Jupiter killed the physician Aesclepias and turned him into a constellation, at the insistence of Pluto, who was concerned about Aesclepias's ability to raise the dead, thus depriving Pluto of his souls. This all begins to sound a bit like Jesus.

My belief (based on prior interpreters--no original claim here) is that the NT writers were very much concerned with the slipping of the equinoxes from Aries/Libra into Pisces/Sagittarius. The OT has a lot of imagery of shepherds and sheep (Aries) and a just God (Libra, around the time of Yom Kippur.) So we find in Jesus a healer (Ophiuchus--replacing Sagittarius in the same portion of the sky), who befriends fishermen and walks on water (Pisces), who is born of a Virgin (Virgo) and whose disciples include brothers and who may even have had a twin brother Thomas (Gemini.) Other texts in the Bible can be read to support keeping the key dates and angles in the cardinal signs: the Lamb of God trope and a deity who is born in a manger (Praesepe, the central asterism of Cancer,) for example.

Obviously this is thinking is blasphemous from an orthodox religious perspective, but the book of Enoch and Josephus give further evidence of an esoteric astrological tradition in the Bible.

Hi Waybread,

In terms of the likeliest historical influences on the Greek star-lore I would suggest its more relevant to look at Mesopotamian rather than Christian beliefs. We know the Greeks borrowed most of their constellations from the Babylonians and other neighbouring cultures such as the Phoenicians. Indeed it was the Phoenician alphabet that the Greeks used as a template to develop their own.

In his book Babylonian Star-Lore Gavin White proposes that Ophiuchus may in fact be remotely descended from the Babylonian constellation, representing Nirah, a Babylonian serpent-god who was sometimes depicted with his upper half human but serpents for legs, perhaps identical with the constellation of Babylonian astronomy.

Still, I dont rule out a Jewish influence. Not least as the Jews were a sizeable and influential minority in both the Persian and later Parthian Empire. The Moses story seems to fit the imagery too.

Incidentally, here is another couple of articles on the constellations of Ophiuchus and Serpens from the website of Ian Ridpath (adopted from his book Star Tales.

http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/ophiuchus.htm

http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/serpens.htm

By the time of Aratus of Soli (3rd century BCE) Ophiuchus was already established as a constellation in the Greek star lore:

To the Phantom?s back the Crown is near, but by his head mark near at hand the head of Ophiuchus, and then from it you can trace the starlit Ophiuchus himself: so brightly set beneath his head appear his gleaming shoulders. They would be clear to mark even at the midmonth moon, but his hands are not at all so bright; for faint runs the gleam of stars along on this side and on that. Yet they too can be seen, for they are not feeble. Both firmly clutch the Serpent, which encircles the waist of Ophiuchus, but he, stedfast with both his feet well set, tramples a huge monster, even the Scorpion, standing upright on his eye and breast. Now the Serpent is wreathed about his two hands ? a little above his right hand, but in many folds high above his left.

Mark

I can't speak to the New Testament, as I'm not a scholar of Christianity, but I've always seen the Tanakh (old testament) as the 'big book of Jewish astrology' amongst other things. It's a wonderful multi-purpose document.

It's not even that 'coded' if you know Hebrew, though as any educated Jew will tell you, the entire Tanakh needs to be read on four levels - pshat, the literal meaning of the text or story, remez, the hints and memory cues for recall, drash, which is the allegorical and homiletic value, and sod (long o - sort of like soda), which are the mystical meanings. Do believe me that this tradition is still very much alive in many synagogues today - the rabbi (or whoever's turn it is that week) reads the Torah parsha (portion) of the week, and the haftarat - the corresponding portion from the prophets - and then everyone sits around arguing about what it means for a couple of hours. It gets very lively at times, and it's lots of fun.

I know that the medieval Catholic church also followed the 'four levels' scheme to some degree, but I think it's a bit different to the Jewish one, and I don't know if it's still alive today, at least outside of history courses in seminaries. What astrology they found I'm not certain, as noun-driven koine Greek is a very different animal to verb-driven biblical Hebrew. Much, much, of the textual meaning, plays on words, double-entendres, puns, and the like are lost in translations to non-semitic languages.

There is a lengthy rabbinic tradition of astrological interpretation of the Tanakh, oddly it's even used by some folks who are anti-astrology. They'll at least always explain that 'this' is the Sun, or 'that' is Jupiter, or whichever planets are involved where it can't be avoided because it's staring you smack in the face.

Sadly, the more 'modern' streams of Judaism have dismissed the astrology as a bit of an embarassment, or put it down to superstition - they can't outright deny it since it's all over the place, though I have seen the arguments - pretty sad ones. I don't fall on the Orthodox side of things as a rule, but if you're Jewish here, you're pretty much Orthodox, and they do hold onto it, usually with what I've come to call the 'Nachmanides solution' (he was a very respected Torah commentator). To wit: you can't outright ask an astrologer for a prediction, BUT... if you happen to be within hearing distance of an astrologer who makes a prediction, of course you can act on it, and it would probably be wise to do so'.

With the discovery of the cities of Mari and Nutzi in the 1920s and 1930s, and the ongoing archaeological investigations, we're finding that for people of faith, if they want to believe the biblical narratives, they actually do have pretty good ground to stand on. We don't have records of the early patriarchs historically, but we know the names, travel routes, diet, inheritance and marriage laws, property laws, clothing, all that matches up with what we have been able to find - which is a fascinating subject all by itself. If you're interested, I can recommend an excellent (and dirt cheap) series of DVDs done by a friend of mine on the subject and intended for a lay audience of anyone interested, and it's not aimed towards biblical literalists. Wonderful stuff.

For the record, I'm not a biblical literalist, but it was lovely to find out that the 'cracks' in biblical texts (you know, those sentences where you wonder 'why on earth did he/she do THAT, especially in a book promoting staunch monotheism?') actually have reasons.

Anyway, off of that digression - we do know that Moses was an Egyptian name. And if there was a historical Moses, or at least a figure that the biblical Moses was based on (I'm coming down on the side that there probably was a historical prototype), he likely would have had a first-rate Egyptian education - and that would have included things like astrology, and probably a good chunk of Egyptian medicine as well.

Sorry for the length of the post - I used to teach Judaism, occasionally still get pressed into service to do so, so I end up detouring. It's not meant as offence to anyone's religious beliefs or lack of same.

Pankajdubey wrote:

...controlling the snake was also associated with female goddess but somewhere along the line it changed over to male identities such as Heracles, Krishna.

I have been reflecting further on Pankajdubey's comment that this constellation was originally represented as a Goddess. I dont know much of Indian star lore excluding the Nakshatras but there seems some support for the idea that the ancient core of the myth may have originated with a goddess rather than a god.

In terms of Greek culture its bronze age predecesser was the Minoan culture based on the Island of Crete. Snakes seems to have formed a central part of the Minoan Goddess religion. In particular a goddess holding snakes in her hands.

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/m/mino ... ddess.html
The discussion of Moses also made me think about Egyptian myths too. The Goddess Isis is strongly associated with snakes. In Egypt, her images often include the snake, especially the cobra. The cobra is often depicted on the base of the crown of Isis. The sacred uraeus, which, when worn by queens, indicates their identification with the divine, is a near- constant companion. In images from the Graeco-Roman era, priestesses are depicted carrying serpents in procession. Serpents entwine around surviving altars, or rise up around the body of Osiris. One of the most important forms of Isis as snake goddess is that of Thermouthis, the serpent goddess of the fields, often represented as a cobra crowned with the headdress of Isis.

There is an interesting connection between the myths of Asclepius and Isis too. Both are healers. Isis heals her son Horus after he is wounded in the eye by the evil God Set. Isis used her magical powers to restore the dismembered body of her murdered husband Osiris to life. Asclepius was reputed to have preformed many miraculous cures, including the bringing back to life of many dead people. Reviving the dead people and making them immortal was a practice that outraged Hades, the god of the Underworld, who thought that the dead souls rightfully belonged to him. Zeus, at the instigation of Hades, eventually decided to punish Aslcepius for the abnormalities he caused. One day, Zeus struck Asclepius down with a thunderbolt killing him. However, recognising the contribution of Aclepius to humanity Zeus decided to give him immortality in the stars.

More specifically in the oldest form of the Horus myth the baby Horus is killed by a scorpion sent by Set and subsequently healed by Isis (with the help of Thoth). Similarly, the hero Orion is brought back to life by Asclepius after being killed by a scorpion bite. Quite interesting considering that Orion and Horus have been linked to the same region of the night sky ie the constellation of Orion.

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/isishiss.htm

Mark

Thanks for the information Mark and Olivia--very helpful.

I've done some more digging on the mythology end of things, and have found that Aesclepius was only one of the figures linked with Ophiuchus. A (Roman?) author called Hyginus wrote an Astronomica with discussions of each of the constellations. He simply listed a bunch of theories concerning the origin of Ophiuchus; generally as one or another mythological figure immortalized as a constellation: http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusAstronomica.html . Interestingly, some of these myths involved Ceres, one of the goddesses with snake affiliations.

The Latin author Ovid in Metamorphoses (book 15) identifies Aescelpius as a god who seemingly existed normally as a statue in a Greek temple, but who appeared a dream as a man with a staff; and then as a snake in order to travel aboard ship to help cure some Romans of a pestilence. To the dreamer, "He held up a rustic staff in his left hand...'observe this serpent that coils around my staff...I shall change myself into this serpent, but I shall be larger, as large as suits the body of a god when he transforms himself..."

There is quite a lore and archaeological record on snakes in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean region. The cobra on the headress of the goddess Isis in Egypt is one example. The snake-handlers of Crete are really interesting, with the figurine Mark posted possibly mapping reasonably well over the constellation Ophiuchus.

Mark, I believe the chronology of astrology is that it started in Sumer and the later empires of the fertile crescent and spread out from there; although there is an old Jewish belief (midrash, Olivia?) that Abraham either brought astrology to the Israelites from the East, or perhaps even invented it.

Then I think a lot of syncretism or amalgamation takes place, in which each of the societies that adopted some form of astrology had to make it fit in with their earlier beliefs. Christianity appears as an offshoot not only of Judaism, but also of Greece and the Hellenized world.

The Jewish process is kind of interesting. As monotheists (despite all the backsliding) the Jews had to develop an astrology more consistent with their scriptures than the polytheistic lore of their pagan neighbours; although there are major instances of them reworking the older lore.

I don't know if someone already mentioned but Asclepius, Hygieia, and Ophiucus are all paranatellonta of Scorpio.

Albumasar, from the Great Introduction (some advertising ):

And in its first facie there arises the end of a stallion which is called Centaurus too. And there arises the end of a black Bull and a black [thrower] with a rod in his hand. And an image called Hygiea......
According to Ptolemy, there arise the root of the hand of Ursa Minor, and part of the tail of Hydra. And the head of Serpentarius and his right arm.
http://heavenastrolabe.net/albumasar_stars/

Liber Hermetis:

From the 8th to the 10th degree are Ophiucus and Asclepius and Health (ie Hygieia http://en.wikipedia.org) . They make killers of beasts, herbalists, physicians.


Teucer in Rethorius:
And in the first decan there arises Hygieia....In the second Asclepius....in the third the leading parts of Ophiucus.


Likely these are all "barbarian" constellations, coming from Egyptian lore; then being all in the same part of the sky and with the same meaning they were assimilated to the Ophiucus, a least this is my guess of what could be happened.

margherita

"Paranatellonta"? Explanation please?

Thanks.

http://www.skyscript.co.uk/gl/paran.html
regards,
Mansoor

I know that the medieval Catholic church also followed the 'four levels' scheme to some degree, but I think it's a bit different to the Jewish one, and I don't know if it's still alive today, at least outside of history courses

Are you referring to Allegory Olivia?

I know that in the National Gallery here they will show you some wacky painting with figures from classical mythology and tell you it an allegory as opposed to some other genre like portrait or landscape but they never define what it means.

I gather that the second and third forms of allegory involve truth and morals and the cynic in me can't see much use for them these days

Matt

I can't remember the Catholic term, Matt, but if it's allegory, it's probably not allegory in the sense of Pilgrim's Progress. I'll do some web searching.

Wiki actually has a halfway decent - and short - summary of the Jewish levels:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardes_(Jewish_exegesis)

Duh. THere's a link right in that page that goes to the Catholic page, and you're right:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_i ... iddle_Ages

One of the first illustrations is a painting!