# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1856_S137
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Dr. Seyffarth's Corrections, etc. 137

2146 and 715 years), and accordingly they determined the beginning of a new world-age, which was so important a matter for them that they observed and recorded the constellation at its onset. The first world-age accordingly begins with the year 5871 B.C., the second 3725 B.C., the third 1579 B.C., the fourth A.D. 598 (properly A.D. 568). Each of these world-ages comprises 2146 years. The first constellation, that of 5871, was expressly referred by the ancients to the beginning of the world. Hesiod, Juvenal, Proclus, the Phoenicians, Persians, Indians, Tibetans, and Mexicans place the Creation in the year 5871 B.C. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. the conviction was widespread throughout the whole Christian Church that the 7th millennium since the Creation had begun, upon which chiliasm rests. According to Orpheus the pagan song was to cease in the 6th millennium, and Linus says that with the beginning of the 7th millennium (A.D. 129) a new order of things would begin. At about this same time — but not 1500 years earlier — the Romans expected the Savior of the world. This confirms that from the Creation of the world to Christ 5871 years elapsed, and in particular, that from the Creation to the Flood 2424 years (not 2262) must have elapsed.

All the ancient peoples worshiped 12 great gods, 7 highest deities, and one creator of all things, and it is a much-debated question what the ancients understood by them. Dr. Seyffarth has already, in earlier writings, established beyond all doubt by facts that the ancient peoples worshiped, among their gods, the 7 planets and the twelve gods, the presiding deities of the 12 signs of the zodiac — which is proven in the last section of the present book by a great number of astronomical inscriptions and monuments of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. This doctrine of the gods among the ancient peoples reaches back into the earliest history of the ancient peoples. To the 7 planets a share in the governance of the world is ascribed. The propositions that result from this and from other testimonies for mythology and the general history of religion, and which are important for the correct understanding of the classical authors and of ancient works of art, are the following: The highest object of all cults was the Creator and Author of all things, who created higher intermediate beings between himself and mankind, the 7 planetary gods, the Cabiri, who had a share in the creation and governance of the world. The 7 planets were regarded as the bodies of the Cabiri, the 12 signs as the bodies of the 12 gods, the 36 decans as the bodies of the θεοὶ βουλαῖοι (the "counselor gods"). The earth counts as the body of the eighth Cabir, the eighth son of Siduos. To each planet were referred those things in heaven and on earth that bore the greatest resemblance to the true or apparent properties of the planet; hence each planet received its ducatus (dominion) in space and time. The earth was the embodiment of all the earthly planetary dominions, hence Gaea with 7 breasts, and so on. In the heavens each planet had two signs each, the sun and moon one each, which were the houses of the pla-