SEVENTY-TWO NAMES OF AHURA-MAZDA. (Vol. III, p. 73.) Where can the seventy-two name of the Zoroastrian God be found, corresponding to the same number of Hebrew tradition? X.

The names inquired for are to be found in the Zend-Avesta, and we will here reprint them from the translation of Arthur Henry Bleeck ("Avesta," Vol. III, p. 23, Hertford, 1864). We give them as there given, with the repetitions.

I. I am the Protector, I am the Creator, I am the Nourisher, I am the Knowing, I am the Holiest Heavenly One.

2.

My name is The Healing; my name is: The Most Healing; my name is: The Priest; my name is: The Most Priestly; my name

is God (Ahura); my name is: Great Wise One (Mazda);

:

3. My name is: The Pure; my name is: The Purest; I am called, The Majestic; I am called, The Most Majestic;

4. I am called, The Much-seeing; I am called, The Most Muchseeing; I am called, The Far-seeing; I am called, The Most Far-seeing;

5. I am called, The Watcher; I am called, The Desirer; I am called, The Creator; I am called, The Protector; I am called, The Nourisher; I am called, The Knower; I am called The Most Knowing ;

6. I am called, The Augmenter; I am called, Possessing-increasing Manthras; I am called, The Ruler at Will; I am called, The Most Ruling at Will;

7. I am called, The Ruling with Name; I am called, The Not to be Deceived; I am called, The Undeceived;

8. I am called, The Protecting; I am called, The Tormentor of Torments; I am called, The Smiting here; I am called, The AllSmiting; I am called, The All-Creating ;

9. I am called, The All-Majestic; I am called, Endued with much Majesty; I am called, The Very Majestic; I am called, Endued with Very Great Majesty; I am called, The Effecting-profit; I am called, The Working-gain; I am called, The Profitable;

IO. I am called, The Strong; I am called, The Most Profitable; I am called, The Pure; I am called, The Great ;

II. I am called, The Kingly; I am called, The Most Kingly; I am called, The Well-wise; I am called, The Well-wisest ; I am called, The Far-seeing.*

* The number of names here given is seventy-five, but according to the Parsees, it should be seventy-two, which is a sacred number with them. As most of the manuscripts omit the name "Endued with Very Great Majesty," in verse 9, and the thirteenth and eighteenth names are repeated in verses 2 and 10, the difference is accounted fo r.

Information. Multum in Parvo.

"The Transfiguration," by Raphael, is called " the first and grandest picture of the world."

"The Last Communion of St. Jerome," by Domenichino, is called "the second great picture of the world."

"The Martyrdom of St. Peter, Martyr," by Titian, is called" the third great picture of the world."

"The Blenheim Madonna," by Raphael in 1507, valued $350,000 is considered "the most costly picture in the world."

"The Three Friends," mentioned in Whittier's "Tent on the Beach," were James T. Fields, Bayard Taylor, and John G. Whittier.

The Three Friends of Mine," in Longfellow' sonnet, were Cornelius Canway Felton, Louis John Rudolph Agassiz, and Charles Sumner. "Here lies one whose name was writ in water" is the epitaph which John Keats desired to be engraved upon his tombstone.

"I am safe in the presence of friends" is the signification of raising the hat in recognition, originating in the age of chivalry.

"The rope of Ocnus means profitless labor, an expression of the Greek painter Polygnotus, who died 426 B. C.

"A feather in his cap" originated with the Hungarians in 1499, when all who had slain a Turk was privileged to wear a feather.

"Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle" said Michael Angelo to a critic in reference to details of a painting.

"The Neck-Verse " is the first verse of the 51st Psalm, being assigned by William Rufus for criminals to read to save their lives.

"To the world's greatest poet" was inscribed on a wreath by Alfred Tennyson and sent to the funeral of Victor Hugo, June 1, 1885. "The fellow mixes blood with his colors" said Guido when viewing the picture "The Descent from the Cross," by Rubens.

"Perfidious Albion " were the words uttered by Napoleon on leaving the shores of England for banishment in the Island of St. Helena.

"How do you like your Rebecca?" was what Walter Scott wrote to Washington Irving, on sending him a copy of his " Ivanhoe,"

"I cannot wear a crown of gold where my Savior wore a crown of thorne" said Goefrey de Bouillon, the hero of the first Crusade, and the first Christian king of Jerusalem, elected in 1099.

I.

QUESTIONS.

Who is the author of this, and where found, the age of the oak, quoted in Hodder M. Westropp's "Circle of Development," p. 14.

2.

"Three hundred years an oak expands in growth;
Three hundred years in majesty stands forth;
Three hundred years declines and wastes away;
Then dies, and takes three hundred to decay."

S.

When paper is pasted on the walls of an old house where the boards are perfectly seasoned, why does the paper burst wherever there is an opening between the boards, even if very slight?

S. V. M.

3. Will some reader give the poem containing the following lines: "Two shall be born the whole wide world apart

And live in different climes

And have no thought of the other's being."

S. V. M.

4. Why did Jesus charge his apostles to keep secret that he was Jesus the Christ, namely:

"Then charged he his disciples, that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ."-Matthew XIV, 20. SUNDAY SCHOLAR.

6. Psellus The Younger (1120-1105) credits to Zoroaster the following lines. Can any reader state where these and the context can be found?.

7.

The soul, being a bright fire, by the power of the Father,
Remains immortal and is mistress of life.

SEARCHER.

From what poem is the following quotation taken, found in "The Pentaglot," page 50, by Emmanuel, Londôn, 1885:

"Hail thou of mathless men the mighty mother,

With one world long thine own, thou'st found another." H.

8. Is there at the day a system of Masonry in practice known as the "Order of Melchisedec," as mentioned in Acts VII, 17? STAR.

9. Why do we spell our hereditary name surname, when we spell it sir when used in address as Dear Sir, or as Sir Isaac Newton. ? LLEWELLYN.

IO.

How is the word Abrasax or Abraxas explained as being a representation of 365 heavens ? ALEX.

The Woman and The Serpent.

BY ERNEST DE BUNSEN, LONDON, ENG.

In the late Baron Bunsen's Bibelwerk' the narrative in Genesis on man's fall is thus interpreted: As regards the fall of man in general the same necessarially belongs to the world of idea, not to the historical world of man on the earth; but the fall becomes historical with every man. The fall of Adam is the personal deed of every single man, from the beginning of history to our days. The fall of man and the subdual of evil are both personal; but the fall is quite the self in man, the subduing of evil quite the Divine in him. Like the physical life so the spiritual life is not man's property; nothing is really his except this peculiarity which gives birth to sin.'

According to the narrative of man's fall transmitted in Genesis God spoke these words to the serpent: I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; the same shall aim at thy head, and thou shalt aim at his heel.' Although after the transmitted Hebrew text the serpent is to aim at the heel of the seed of the woman, that is, at 'his' heel, according to the text of the Itala and of Jerome, the seed of the woman shall aim at the head of the serpent, and the serpent shall aim at the heel of the woman. This is the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church, according to which the woman in the earliest messianic prophecy points to the virgin Mary, the seed of the woman to Christ. The most learned teacher of Thomas Aquinas, Albert, Count of Bollsted, or Albertus Magnus (born 1193 or 1205) gives the following explanation of this mysterious prophecy and its fulfillment: We know that the sigin of the celestial virgin rose on the horizon at the moment in which we fix the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. . . . . All mysteries of his Divine incarnation, from his conception to his ascension, are indicated by star-signs or in figures, which announce them (these mysteries).'

What led to this messianic astrology? Is the church's interpretation of what is held to be the first messianic prophecy, connected with astrology?

In the farthest East as well as in the West, the combat of nature between light and darkness was regarded as the symbol of the moral fight between good and evil. Man was conscious of such a combat in his innermost parts and he connected the same with a fight be tween personified powers of nature, between ideal heroes of light and of darkness. In our essay On Solar Symbolism' (Vol. XII, p. 201) we pointed out that the spring equinox was held to be the throne of solar heroes, the autumn equinox the seat of their antagonists, that the former was symbolized by star-figures representing animals favor.

able to life, as the bull and the ram, the latter by animals obnoxious to it, the serpent and the scorpion. Thus Christ was connected with Aries, Satan or the adversary with the Serpent.

The ideal celestial virgin was originally represented, as at Denderah, with a branch, later with an ear of corn in her hand, and still later, but long before the commencement of the Christian era, with a child in her arms. This child was then held to represent the new-born sun, which became the symbol of the virgin-born, of the sun of righteousness, of the Messiah. Isis-Ceres follows Horus, as Istar-Venus follows Tamsi-Adonis into the lower or hidden hemisphere, and the mother rises again on the eastern horison with the new-born child Horus, Dionysos-Bacchus. The Alexandrian librarian Erastosthenes of Cyrene (from B. C. 276 to about B. C. 196) calls Isis the celestial virgin, and Hesychius (about A. D. 380) call Isis the holy virgin. In Riccioli's Almagest she is called 'virgo deipara,' and the Arabian Alboazar or Albumazar says that some call her child Jesus, but we in Greek call it Christ.'

The star-signs of the Zodiac reach back to preabramitic times. This extremely ancient astrological symbolism forms the basis of the church's interpretation of the so-called messianic prophecy in Genesis on the woman and the serpent, and for the fulfillment of this prophecy as asserted in the Apocalypse. For no other reason the mother of Jesus has been connected with the sign of Virgo. We maintain that the composer of the Biblical narratives on the woman and the serpent, in Genesis and the Apocalypse, have had in their minds the relative position of the serpent-figure in the serpent-bearer or Ophiuchus to the star-sign Virgo. This becomes evident by looking at the transmitted representations of the star-figures and star-signs. It there appears that the serpent may be said to aim at the heel of the woman, and that the woman aims at the head of the serpent. Equally certain is the direct reference to these star figures in the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse. A great sign was seen in heaven; a woman arrayed with the sun and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.' This woman is opposed by the old serpent, called the Devil and Satan.' The serpent of old times 'stood before the woman which was about to be delivered, that when she was delivered she might devour the child.' In harmony with this description, sun and moon appear before the sign of Virgo, at regularly returning seasons, though not at the same time. It would have been more exact to say, that on the head of the woman was one of the twelve stars-signs which form the crown of the sun. But if this had been said every reader would at once have understood the reference of the great sign' in heaven of the woman, to the star-figure of Virgo, the greatest sign of the Zodiac.

6

As Moses, or some one in his name, had done in Genesis, so in this