Chapter XIII: , 3. that John saw “one of his heads, as it were, wounded

to death.” John knew naught in his generation of “a horned” devil.

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Besides which, the Devil had no horns before the fourth century of the Christian era. It is a purely Patristic invention arising from their desire to connect the god Pan, and the pagan Fauns and Satyrs, with their Satanic legend. The demons of Heathendom were as hornless and as tailless as the Archangel Michael himself in the imaginations of his worshippers. The “horns” were, in pagan symbolism, an emblem of divine power and creation, and of fertility in nature. Hence the ram’s horns of Ammon, of Bacchus, and of Moses on ancient medals, and the cow’s horns of Isis and Diana, etc., etc., and of the Lord God of the Prophets of Israel himself. For Habakkuk gives the evidence that this symbolism was accepted by the “chosen people” as much as by the Gentiles. In Chapter III. that prophet speaks of the “Holy One from Mount Paran,” of the Lord God who “comes from Teman, and _whose brightness was as the light_,” and who had “_horns_ coming out of his hand.”

When one reads, moreover, the Hebrew text of Isaiah, and finds that no Lucifer is mentioned at all in Chapter XIV., v. 12, but simply הֵילֵל, _Hillel_, “a _bright_ star,” one can hardly refrain from wondering that _educated_ people should be still ignorant enough at the close of our century to associate a radiant planet—or anything else in nature for the matter of that—with the DEVIL![12]

H. P. B.

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Footnote 12:

The literal words used, and their translation, are: “_Aïk Naphelta
Mi-Shamayim Hillel Ben-Shachar Negdangta La-Aretz Cholesch El-Goüm_,”
or, “How art thou fallen from the heavens, Hillel, Son of the Morning,
how art thou cast down unto the earth, thou who didst cast down the
nations.” Here the word, translated “Lucifer,” is הילל, Hillel, and
its meaning is “shining brightly or gloriously.” It is very true also,
that by a pun to which Hebrew words lend themselves so easily, the
verb _hillel_ may be made to mean “to howl,” hence, by an easy
derivation, hillel may be constructed into “howler,” or a devil, a
creature, however, one hears rarely, if ever, “howling.” In his
Lexicon, Art. הל, Parkhurst says: “The Syriac translation of this
passage renders it אילל ‘howl’; and even Jerome observes that it
literally means ‘to howl.’” Michaelis translates it, ‘Howl, Son of the
Morning.’ But at this rate, Hillel, the great Jewish sage and
reformer, might also be called a “howler,” and connected with the
devil!

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=THE BLOSSOM AND THE FRUIT=:

_A TALE OF LOVE AND MAGIC_.

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BY MABEL COLLINS,

Author of “THE PRETTIEST WOMAN IN WARSAW,” &c., &c., And Scribe of “THE
IDYLL OF THE WHITE LOTUS,” and “THROUGH THE GATES OF GOLD.”

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Only—
One facet of the stone,
One ray of the star,
One petal of the flower of life,
But the one that stands outermost and faces us, who are men and women.

_This strange story has come to me from a far country and was brought to me in a mysterious manner; I claim only to be the scribe and the editor. In this capacity, however, it is I who am answerable to the public and the critics. I therefore ask in advance, one favour only of the reader; that he will accept (while reading this story) the theory of the reincarnation of souls as a living fact._

_M. C._