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The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 1 [[Vol. 1, Page]] 386 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. [[This page continued from previous section ]] § IX THE MOON, DEUS LUNUS, PHOEBE. T HIS archaic symbol is the most poetical of all symbols, as also the most philosophical. The ancient Greeks brought it into prominence, and the modern poets have worn it threadbare. The Queen of Night, riding in the majesty of her peerless light in heaven, throwing all, even Hesperos, into darkness, and spreading her silver mantle over the whole sidereal world, has ever been a favourite theme with all the poets of Christendom, from Milton and Shakespeare down to the latest versifier. But the refulgent lamp of night, with her suite of stars unnumbered, spoke only to the imagination of the profane. Until lately, Religion and Science had nought to do with the beautiful mythos. Yet, the cold chaste moon, she, in the words of Shelley -- . . . . "Who makes all beautiful on which she smiles That wandering shrine of soft, yet icy flame, Which ever is transformed, yet still the same, And warms, but not illumines." . . . . stands in closer relations to Earth than any other sidereal orb. The Sun is the giver of life to the whole planetary system; the Moon is the giver of life to our globe; and the early races understood and knew it, even in their infancy. She is the Queen and she is the King, and was King Soma before she became transformed into Phoebe and the chaste Diana. She is pre-eminently the deity of the Christians, through the Mosaic and Kabalistic Jews, though the civilized world may have remained ignorant of the fact for long ages; in fact, ever since the [[Vol. 1, Page]] 387 A GLANCE AT THE LUNAR MYTH. last initiated Father of the Church died, carrying with him into his grave the secrets of the pagan temples. For the "Fathers" -- such as Origen or Clemens Alexandrinus -- the Moon was Jehovah's living symbol: the giver of Life and the giver of Death, the disposer of being -- in our World. For, if Artemis was Luna in Heaven, and, with the Greeks, Diana on Earth, who presided over child-birth and life: with the Egyptians, she was Hekat (Hecate) in Hell, the goddess of Death, who ruled over magic and enchantments. More than this: as the personified moon, whose phenomena are triadic, Diana-Hecate-Luna is the three in one. For she is Diva triformis , tergemina , triceps -- three heads on one neck,* like Brahma-Vishnu-Siva. Hence she is the prototype of our Trinity, which has not always been entirely male. The number seven, so prominent in the Bible, so sacred in its seventh (Sabbath) day, came to the Jews from Antiquity, deriving its origin from the four-fold number 7 contained in the 28 days of the lunar month, each septenary portion thereof being typified by one quarter of the moon. It is worth the trouble of presenting in this work a bird's-eye view of the origin and development of the lunar myth and worship in historical antiquity, on our side of the globe. Its earlier origin is untraceable by exact science, rejecting as it does tradition; while for Theology, which, under the guidance of the crafty Popes, has put a brand on every fragment of literature that does not bear the imprimatur of the Church of Rome, its archaic history is a sealed book. Whether the Egyptian or the Aryan Hindu religious philosophy is the more ancient -- and the Secret Doctrine says it is the latter -- does not much matter in this instance, as the lunar and solar "worship" are the most ancient in the world. Both have survived, and prevail to this day throughout the whole world, with some openly, with others -- e.g. , in Christian symbolics -- secretly. The cat, a lunar symbol, was sacred to Isis, herself the Moon in one sense, as Osiris was the Sun. The cat is often seen on the top of the Sistrum in the hand of the goddess. This animal was held in great veneration in the city of Bubaste, which went into deep mourning after the death of every sacred cat, because Isis, as the Moon, was particularly worshipped in this city of mysteries. The astronomical symbolism connected with it has already been given in Section I. of "Symbolism," and no one has better described it than Mr. G. Massey, in his Lectures and in "The Natural Genesis." The eye of the cat, it is said, seems to follow the lunar phases in its growth and decline, and its orbs shine like two stars in the darkness of night. Hence the mythological allegory which shows Diana hiding under the shape of a cat in the Moon, when, in company with other deities, she was seeking to [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * The goddess [[ Trimorphos ]] in the statuary of Alcamenes. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 388 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. escape the pursuit of Typhon ( Vide the Metamorphoses of Ovid ) . The moon in Egypt was both the "Eye of Horus" and the "Eye of Osiris," the Sun. The same with the Cynocephalus. The dog-headed ape was a glyph to symbolise the sun and moon, in turn, though the Cynocephalus is more a Hermetic than a religious symbol. For it is the hieroglyph of Mercury, the planet, as of the Mercury of the Alchemical philosophers, "as," say the Alchemists, "Mercury has to be ever near Isis , as her minister , as without Mercury neither Isis nor Osiris can accomplish anything in the GREAT WORK." Cynocephalus, whenever represented with the Caduceus, the Crescent, or the Lotus, is a glyph of the "philosophical" Mercury; but when seen with a reed, or a roll of parchment, he stands for Hermes, the secretary and adviser of Isis, as Hanuman filled the same office with Rama. Though the regular Sun-Worshippers, the Parsis, are few, yet not only is the bulk of the Hindu mythology and history based upon and interblended with these two worships, but so is also the Christian religion itself. From their origin down to our modern day it has coloured the theologies of both the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches. The difference, indeed, between the Aryan Hindu and the Aryan European faiths is very small, if only the fundamental ideas of both are taken into consideration. Hindus are proud of calling themselves Suryas and Chandravansas (of the Solar and Lunar dynasties). The Christians pretend to regard it as idolatry, and yet they adhere to a religion entirely based upon the solar and lunar worships.