[2]. Mirville’s Memoirs to the Academy of France, Vol. IV., quoting Cardinal Ventura.
[3]. Which paganism has passed long milleniums, it would seem, in copying beforehand Christian dogmas to come.
[4]. “Venus is a second Earth,” says Reynaud, in Terre et Ciel (p. 74), “so much so that were there any communication possible between the two planets, their inhabitants might take their respective earths for the two hemispheres of the same world.... They seem on the sky, like two sisters. Similar in conformation, these two worlds are also similar in the character assigned to them in the Universe.”
[5]. Thus saith Des Mousseaux. “Mœurs et Pratiques des Demons.” p. X.—and he is corroborated in this by Cardinal de Ventura. The Devil, he says, “is one of the great personages whose life is closely allied to that of the Church; and without him ... the fall of man could not have taken place. If it were not for him (the Devil), the Saviour, the Redeemer, the Crucified would be but the most ridiculous of supernumeraries and the Cross an insult to good sense.” And if so, then we should feel thankful to the poor Devil.
[6]. De Mirville. “No Devil, no Christ,” he exclaims.
[7]. This is only another version of Narcissus, the Greek victim of his own fair looks.
[8]. The famous temple dedicated to the Seven Angels at Rome, and built by Michael-Angelo in 1561, is still there, now called the “Church of St Mary of the Angels.” In the old Roman Missals printed in 1563—one or two of which may still be seen in Palazzo Barberini—one may find the religious service (officio) of the seven angels, and their old and occult names. That the “angels” are the pagan Rectors, under different names—the Jewish having replaced the Greek and Latin names—of the seven planets is proven by what Pope Pius V. said in his Bull to the Spanish Clergy, permitting and encouraging the worship of the said seven spirits of the stars. “One cannot exalt too much these seven rectors of the world, figured by the seven planets, as it is consoling to our century to witness by the grace of God the cult of these seven ardent lights, and of these seven stars reassuming all its lustre in the Christian republic.” (Les Sept Esprits et l’Histoire de leur Culte; De Mirville’s 2nd memoir addressed to the Academy. Vol. II. p. 358.)
[9]. Herodotus showing the identity of Mitra and Venus, the sentence in the Nabathean Agriculture is evidently misunderstood.
[10]. “Both in Biblical and pagan theologies,” says de Mirville, “the Sun has its god, its defender, and its sacrilegious usurper, in other words, its Ormuzd, its planet Mercury (Mitra), and its Lucifer, Venus (or Ahriman), taken away from its ancient master, and now given to its conqueror.” (p. 164.) Therefore, Lucifer-Venus is quite holy now.
[11]. In Revelation there is no “horn broken,” but it is simply said in Chapter XIII., 3. that[that] John saw “one of his heads, as it were, wounded to death.” John knew naught in his generation of “a horned” devil.