accept an old Jewish tradition, the constellations may likewise
give us some hint of an event recorded in the tenth chapter of Genesis.
For it has been supposed that the great stellar giant Orion is none
other than "Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord," and the founder
of the Babylonian kingdom; identified by some Assyriologists with
Merodach, the tutelary deity of Babylon: and by others with Gilgamesh,
the tyrant of Erech, whose exploits have been preserved to us in the
great epic now known by his name. Possibly both identifications may
prove to be correct.

More than one third of the constellation figures thus appear to have a
close connection with some of the chief incidents recorded in the first
ten chapters of Genesis as having taken place in the earliest ages of
the world's history. If we include the Hare and the two Dogs as adjuncts
of Orion, and the Cup as well as the Raven with Hydra, then no fewer
than twenty-two out of the forty-eight are directly or indirectly so
connected. But the constellation figures only deal with a very few
isolated incidents, and these are necessarily such as lend themselves to
graphic representation. The points in common with the Genesis narrative
are indeed striking, but the points of independence are no less
striking. The majority of the constellation figures do not appear to
refer to any incidents in Genesis; the majority of the incidents in the
Genesis narrative find no record in the sky. Even in the treatment of
incidents common to both there are differences, which make it impossible
to suppose that either was directly derived from the other.

But it is clear that when the constellations were devised,--that is to
say, roughly speaking, about 2,700 B.C.,--the promise of the Deliverer,
the "Seed of the woman" who should bruise the serpent's head, was well
known and highly valued; so highly valued that a large part of the sky
was devoted to its commemoration and to that of the curse on the
serpent. The story of the Flood was also known, and especially the
covenant made with those who were saved in the ark, that the world
should not again be destroyed by water, the token of which covenant was
the "Bow set in the cloud." The fourfold cherubic forms were known, the
keepers of the way of the tree of life, the symbols of the presence of
God; and they were set in the four parts of the heaven, marking it out
as the tabernacle which He spreadeth abroad, for He dwelleth between the
c