does not know what this toil is, and what this prodigy is that revolves in heaven. The heretics, however, wishing by means of this account of the stars to establish their own doctrines, [and] with more than ordinary earnestness devoting their attention to these [astronomic systems], assert that Engonasis is Adam, according to the commandment of God as Moses declared, guarding the head of the Dragon, and the Dragon [guarding] his heel. For so Aratus expresses himself:
"The right-foot's track of the Dragon fierce possessing."[1]
Chapter xlviii.
Invention of the Lyre—allegorizing the Appearance and Position of the Stars—Origin of the Phœnicians—the Logos identified by Aratus with the Constellation Canis—Influence of Canis on Fertility and Life generally.
And [Aratus] says that [the constellations] Lyra and Corona have been placed on both sides near him (now I mean Engonasis), but that he bends the knee, and stretches forth both hands, as if making a confession of sin. And that the lyre is a musical instrument fashioned by Logos while still altogether an infant, and that Logos is the same as he who is denominated Mercury among the Greeks. And Aratus, with regard to the construction of the lyre, observes:
It consists of seven strings, signifying by these seven strings
- ↑ Arat. Phænom. v. 70.
- ↑ "Pierced it through," i.e. bored the holes for the strings, or, in other words, constructed the instrument. The Latin version in Buhle's edition of Aratus is ad cunam (cunabulam) compegit, i.e. he fastened the strings into the shell of the tortoise near his bed. The tortoise is mentioned by Aratus in the first part of the line, which fact removes the obscurity of the passage as quoted by Hippolytus. The general tradition corresponds with this, in representing Mercury on the shores of the Nile forming a lyre out of a dried tortoise. The word translated bed might be also rendered fan, which was used as a cradle, its size and construction being suitable for such a purpose.
- ↑ Arat. Phænom. v. 268.
