in the rotation and diversity of the seasons. The apparent retreat of
the sun from the earth, in winter, and his return in the spring,
suggesting the idea of a figurative death and resurrection of the
genius of that luminary, they applied these phenomena of the year to
man, and composed the allegories relative to his fall and redemption,
as inculcated in the Exoteric Creed. In the allegory relating to the
fall, it was taught that, after making the first human pair, the Lord
of Good or the Lord God placed them in a beautiful garden--corresponding
to the seasons of fruits and flowers or months of Spring and Summer,
with the injunction, under a, penalty, not to eat of the fruit of a
certain tree. When the Lord of Evil, or Devil, symbolized by the serpent
and represented by the constellation "Serpens" placed in conjunction
with the Autumnal Equinox, meeting them on the confines of his dominion,
and tempting the woman, and she the man, they ate of the forbidden
fruit; thus, falling from their first estate, and committing the
original sin, they involved the whole human race in the consequences
of their disobedience. Then the Lord God, pronouncing a curse against
the serpent, clothed the man and woman with skins to protect them
against the inclemency of his, dominion as Lord of Evil, and drove them
from the garden; after which they were necessitated to earn their bread
by tilling the ground.

In, reference to the plan of redemption, the ancient Astrologers
divided the 6,000 years appropriated to man, as the duration of his
race on earth, into ten equal cycles, and taught that at the conclusion
of each God Sol, as Lord of Good, would manifest himself in the flesh,
to destroy his works as Lord of Evil, and through suffering and death
make an atonement for sin. Thus having originated the doctrines of
original sin, incarnation and vicarious atonement, as parts of the plan
of redemption, and making its finale correspond, in point of time, to