The Dabistan

106

m,1 and the philosophers said, that the Almighty
Author created the celestial bodies and the stars in
such a manner that, from their movements, effects
may be manifested in the nether world, that is to
say, the events below are subject to their motions,
and every constellation, and every degree of altitude
has its particular nature; which being known by
experience, and information having been collected
about the qualities of the degrees, the celestial
signs, and their influences, it is in this manner evi-
dent that they are near the all-just; and that the
house of prayer, the Kabah of truth, and the Kiblah
of conviction is heaven. The wise men believe,
that every master of fame worshipped one of the
stars: thus Moses worshipped Saturn, as Saturday

god. According to general belief, this denomination is the approxi-
mative translation ofKnef, or " the good principle," and in that accepta-
tion it was applied to other deities, as for instance, to the Nile, and typi-
fied as the emblem of wisdom, prudence, life, health, youth, eternity,
and inGnitude, in the inoffensive serpent; now and then this form is
combined with that of other animals. According to some authors, Agatho
demon was the Egyptian Chetnuph; and to him are attributed a number
of works, a list of which is given by Fabricius in,his " Bibliotheca
" graeca."

1 The first Hermes of. the Orientals lived one thousand years after
Adam, in the beginning of their second solar millenium, and was no other
but Idris, or Enoch; the second in the third solar millenium, was the
Trismegist of the Greeks. According to Abu '1 farage, the second was
the third; and between these two intervened a Chaldean or Babylonian
Hermes, who lived a few centuries after the deluge, and to whom the
principal notions of astronomy are referred. A disciple of the first Her-
mes, or of Idris, was Escuiapius, of whom hereafter.