From Mystery to Meaning: The Jesuit Who Tried to Read the World: Translating Athanasius Kircher
- Michelle Hayman
- 2 hours ago
- 31 min read
Athanasius Kircher, the 17th-century Jesuit priest often called the last man who knew everything, was captivated by the mysteries of ancient Egypt. His monumental 1652 work Oedipus Aegyptiacus; dedicated to the Holy Roman Emperor and printed with Church approval; was a sweeping attempt to decode Egyptian hieroglyphs as vessels of primordial, divine wisdom. Drawing from classical, Christian, and Hermetic sources, Kircher envisioned hieroglyphs not as phonetic signs, but as sacred symbols encoding universal truths. Though many of his interpretations were later disproved, Oedipus Aegyptiacus remains a profound fusion of theology, philosophy, and early linguistics. More than a scholarly study, it is a visionary effort to read the cosmos itself as a sacred text.
What follows is my own interpretive essay based on a direct translation from Kircher’s original Latin. This is not merely a linguistic rendering, but an attempt to restore the poetic, allegorical worldview behind his work—and to explore its deeper implications for Christian symbolism, ancient wisdom, and the mysteries still encoded in our sacred architecture.
For those interested in viewing the original text, here is the Latin edition of Athanasius Kircher’s Oedipus Aegyptiacus, published in Rome in 1652 by Vitalis Mascardi under the patronage of Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, and with Church approval (Superiorum Permissu).
Kircher’s Hermetic Fusion of Egyptian and Christian Mysteries
The Jesuit Oedipus and His “Caesar”
Athanasius Kircher; a 17th-century Jesuit polymath; boldly delved into the pagan mysteries of ancient Egypt and attempted to reconcile them with Christian theology. In his monumental work Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1652–1654), Kircher took on the role of a modern Oedipus deciphering the riddle of the Sphinx. He addressed his findings to a patron he grandly calls “Caesar.” Though a Jesuit priest writing under the gaze of the Catholic Church, Kircher did not shy away from pagan symbolism; instead, he presented it as ancient wisdom compatible with, and even fulfilled by, Christian truth. By calling his patron Caesar, Kircher symbolically linked the pope and Holy Roman Emperor to the lineage of Roman emperors and pharaohs. This rhetorical flourish suggested a continuity between the sacred authority of antiquity and that of Christendom. It reveals a deliberate fusion of Hermetic, pagan, and Christian thought at the very highest levels; implying that the Catholic establishment, far from rejecting the old mysteries, saw itself as the inheritor and crowning fulfillment of them.
Kircher’s dedication speaks volumes: he compares entering the Egyptian “Theatre of Marvels” to wandering a desert of monstrous symbols, and humbly offers that only under the divinely ordained guidance of his Caesar-patron could he survive that journey. The Jesuit scholar praises his patron as the one chosen by God to support this reunification of knowledge. In doing so, Kircher hints that deciphering Egyptian wisdom is not merely antiquarian trivia but a sacred endeavor meant to edify the Christian world. This implicit papal (and imperial) endorsement of Hermetic wisdom shows how closely intertwined the Christian authorities allowed pagan knowledge to be; so long as it was seen to point to God. Kircher’s work was, in essence, a hermeneutic gift to the pope and Emperor: a massive study of Egyptian symbols interpreted in a way that harmonized with Christian doctrine. Through this, the Oedipus Aegyptiacus became a kind of esoteric apology, arguing that the pagan past held prophetic reflections of Christian mysteries.
Solar Osiris and Lunar Isis: Resurrection and Cosmic Union
Central to Kircher’s symbolic exegesis are the Egyptian gods Osiris and Isis, whom he recasts in cosmic, almost Christian, roles. Osiris, in Kircher’s reading, represents the Sun: the vivifying divine fire, the paternal principle that bestows life. Isis represents the Moon or the Earth: the maternal principle, receptive, nourishing, and fecund. Kircher describes the Egyptian understanding that creation arises from the sacred marriage of Osiris and Isis; the union of active heat with passive moisture. In one translated passage, Isis offers a Nilotic vessel of water to Osiris and begs him to “impregnate her with his heat—without which the generation of things cannot be brought to effect.” Here Kircher preserves the mystique of the original hieroglyphs while making the meaning plain: without the Sun’s warmth, the Earth would be barren; without a divine father, the mother cannot bring forth life. This is a classic Hermetic-Alchemical concept of sol (sun) and luna (moon) whose synergy creates all living things. Kircher embraces it wholeheartedly, seeing in it a mirror to the Christian idea that the Word (active divine principle) must take flesh in the Virgin (receptive principle) to give life to the world.
Has anyone seen Christ yet?
Osiris’s myth of death and resurrection especially captivated Kircher, who could not miss its echoes of Christ. In Egyptian lore, Osiris was a just king who was murdered by the evil Typhon (Set), dismembered and scattered; only to be restored to life through the devotion of Isis and to become lord of the underworld, presiding over the judgment of souls. Kircher retells this myth in allegorical terms. He even likens his own scholarly quest to “restoring the lost Osiris” that had been scattered by the malice of Typhonian forces (which he equates with the chaos and ignorance of his age). Osiris’s resurrection, for Kircher, symbolizes the perennial truth that life triumphs over death, a truth fully realized in Christ’s resurrection. By highlighting this parallel, Kircher suggests that the Egyptians intuited the same divine pattern celebrated in Christianity: the dying-and-rising god, the promise of renewal beyond destruction.
Isis, meanwhile, embodies the World-Soul and Mother Nature, the maternal face of God hidden in pre-Christian guise. Kircher explicitly calls Isis “the All-Nourishing” and even Pandocheus (“All-receiving”), seeing her as a personification of universal Nature that gives form to all creatures. Dressed in a garment spangled with stars and life-symbols, Isis for Kircher represents the cosmos alive with divine intelligence. He notes that the Egyptians often depicted Isis with lunar horns and identified her with the moon, “crowned with lunar horns” as one translation of Kircher’s text puts it. As the moon reflects the sun’s light, so Isis reflects Osiris’s power.
This is where Kircher’s syncretic vision veers from Christianity into something far older and far stranger. What he presents is not the gospel of Christ, but a veiled pagan cosmology draped in Christian language. The Virgin and Christ are recast not as the Theotokos and Logos Incarnate, but as Isis and Osiris in celestial disguise—the Moon and the Sun, not the Mother of God and the Savior. Kircher dares to write that Isis, the Moon, “tempers” the burning power of Osiris, the Sun; suggesting that the divine fire must be moderated by a feminine force in order to nourish rather than consume. In this schema, Mary is no longer the humble handmaid of the Lord but a lunar mediator whose role eerily mirrors that of the Egyptian goddess. What’s more, this cosmic duality; sun and moon, male and female, light and dark; is presented as a universal law that transcends both time and religion. Kircher, a Jesuit, does not so much Christianize Egyptian myth as he mythologizes Christianity. By blending Osiris and Isis with Christ and Mary, he suggests that both traditions express the same primal archetypes; an assertion that undermines the uniqueness of Christian revelation and flirts openly with Hermetic gnosis. This is not orthodoxy. This is esoteric theology wrapped in priestly vestments.
The Ram of Amun and Jupiter’s Thunder: Horns of Divine Dominion
Among the most striking symbols Kircher examines is the Ram, an animal sacred to the Egyptian god Amun (or Ammon). The ram’s curled horns adorned the iconography of Amun, whom the Greeks identified with Zeus, the Romans with Jupiter Ammon; effectively merging the Egyptian creator-god with the chief deity of the Roman pantheon. Kircher seizes on the ram as a symbol of divine power and procreative force. He explains that the Egyptians took the ram’s head as a hieroglyph representing power and dominion, even deriving a sacred sound or letter from the animal’s bleating. In one analysis, Kircher notes that the figure of a ram in Egyptian texts corresponded to the sound “B” (perhaps referencing the Egyptian hieroglyphic system as understood in his time), and that this creature was “the dwelling place of Jupiter Ammon.” The ram’s horns, curving outward like a crescent, signified the emanation of cosmic authority. To Kircher, the horns of Ammon were a precursor to the radiate halo of later sovereigns and saints.
This symbolism did not remain trapped in Egyptian temples; it found its way to Rome and beyond. Roman emperors, at times, associated themselves with Jupiter Ammon (even Alexander the Great donned ram’s horns on coins to indicate he was the son of Zeus-Ammon). The Christian tradition inherited this imagery in subtle ways. Consider Michelangelo’s famous statue of Moses with two small horns jutting from his head; a feature arising from a Vulgate Latin mistranslation of Moses’ face as “horned” with light after encountering God. That “horned Moses” in the very heart of the Vatican (St. Peter’s Basilica has the statue in its treasury) unintentionally echoes the iconography of divine enlightenment through horns. Kircher, of course, doesn’t mention Michelangelo, but he weaves the idea that horns were ancient signs of divinity’s presence. Jupiter, the great sky-father with his thunderbolt, was often shown with an aura or crown; the Egyptians simply represented that aura with the ram’s majestic horns.
In Kircher’s Hermetic-Christian synthesis, Jupiter’s attributes are transfigured to the one God. Just as Jupiter was pater optimus maximus (the all-good, all-powerful father) ruling the heavens, so too does the Christian God rule; with the miters and crowns of bishops and popes bearing pointed shapes not unlike horns or rays. The pope’s own triple tiara could even be seen as a modern form of a divine crown, a layered echo of that ancient symbolism of triple power (heaven, earth, underworld) that Jupiter Ammon’s authority spanned. Kircher loved to recount how Egyptian priests taught that each sign of the zodiac and each animal symbol carried a spiritual lesson. Aries the Ram, sign of spring, was linked not only to Amun but to the renewal of the world. In Christian timing, Easter (not Passover) the Resurrection; always falls under Aries, the ram season. Thus, the Ram stands as a prime example of how a pagan emblem of Jupiter’s dominion and generative force was absorbed into Christian thought. Kircher’s insistence on such connections underlines his view that nothing in the pagan world was mere idolatry; rather, it was a shadowy foreshadowing of divine truths fully unveiled in Christianity.
The Goat of Mendes and Pan: Fertility, Lust, and Holy Earth
If the ram was a solar, regal symbol, the Goat represented a more earthy, visceral aspect of divinity; fertility and the untamed generative power of nature. Kircher gives considerable attention to the goat in Egyptian context, identifying it with the deity Mendes. In the Delta city of Mendes, Egyptians famously kept sacred he-goats and honored them as embodiments of the procreative principle. Kircher notes that the very word “Mendes” was associated with the Egyptian term for goat, and that images of goats appear in their zodiac (Capricorn, the sea-goat, marked their cosmic calendar). Hieroglyphically, the goat signified “the fertile power of the earth at the beginning of the year.” As Kircher explains, during the months when the Nile’s inundation began to recede and life sprung anew (around our late winter, corresponding to Capricorn), the Egyptians would sacrifice goats as a happy omen of fecundity. The male goat’s sacrifice was a ritual of renewal; acknowledging that from death springs life. Meanwhile, Kircher cites ancient sources that female goats were kept alive as favorites of Isis. This aligns with the pattern of a mother goddess nurturing the source of fertility, while the virile male principle is cyclically expended for the world’s gain.
Kircher intriguingly connects the Egyptian goat of Mendes to the Greek god Pan. Pan, the half-goat rustic god of fields and flocks, was known for his lusty energy and is often depicted with goat horns and hooves. Kircher points out that the Greeks called a certain powerful herb Panion (or “Satyrion”) after Pan, because it “strongly stimulates lust and desire.” This herb; sometimes identified with orchids or “dog’s testicles” in old herbals; was thought to incite fertility, and naming it after Pan and the satyrs underscored the goatish virility it embodied. Kircher uses this as one small example to show how deeply the goat symbol permeated human cultural ideas of life force and reproduction. To the wise Egyptians, he writes, the goat was sacred because it epitomized the life-breeding fire in nature. He even notes that the Greeks equated the Egyptian goat-god with Pan and also with a deity they called Cnubis or Kneph; a horned figure representing the hidden spirit of the world. In one passage, Kircher directly equates “Mendes, the he-goat, whom the Greeks called Pan, the symbol of fecundity.” Thus, Pan (the half goat demon) is subsumed into Kircher’s universal Hermetic system as essentially the same as the Egyptian fertility spirit and, by extension, a facet of God’s creative power.
This notion is provocative because medieval Christianity had cast Pan’s image into the role of the Devil; horns, hooves, and all. The goat became an icon of the demonic in the popular imagination (a transformation solidified by the image of the Satanic goat-headed Baphomet in later centuries). Yet here is Kircher, a Jesuit, rehabilitating the goat: in his learned perspective, the goat of Mendes was not a demon but a natural symbol of life’s generative spark. Kircher’s work implicitly suggests that the Church’s own use of goats and monsters in art (for example, gargoyles or the goat-like visage of certain demons in frescoes) is but a Christian reframing of an older truth; that even the lusty forces of nature ultimately come from the Creator. The goat’s horned visage, frightening to the uninitiated, actually hides a holy mystery: the raw vitality of creation which, though prone to excess and needing guidance, is fundamentally good and God-given. By folding Pan and the goat of Mendes into his grand synthesis, Kircher dissolves the sharp line between pagan fertility rites and the Christian reverence for creation’s bounty. To a Renaissance mind steeped in Neoplatonism, this made sense: all things emanate from the One, even the libidinous dance of goats under the full moon. The Catholic Mass itself, one could note, includes wine and bread; fruits of field and flock, whose joyous, Pan-like intoxication is transformed into spiritual communion. In Kircher’s hermetic vision, the Church does not reject Pan’s realm but transmutes it: the orgiastic festivals of old become orderly feasts of saints, but the underlying principle (celebration of life’s renewal) remains. Little wonder then that Kircher felt confident sending such ideas to his superiors; he presented them not as heresy but as prefigurations of Christian sacraments and mysteries.
"When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left."
— Matthew 25:31–33, KJV
Magic and the World-Soul: Kircher’s Hermetic Cosmology
Throughout Oedipus Aegyptiacus, Kircher treats ancient Egyptian religion not as devilry or foolish idolatry, but as a kind of profound natural philosophy; what one might call magic, in the Renaissance sense of the word. This is a world where material symbols, if used in ritual and aligned with the cosmos, can draw down spiritual forces. Kircher describes an Egyptian cosmos teeming with Intelligences and hidden powers, all emanating from the one God. He often uses the term Iynx (a word from Greek magic meaning “wryneck” or a magical wheel) to denote the divine force that connects the celestial and terrestrial realms. In one striking translation of Kircher’s text, we hear that this Iynx is “the acting power of the whole universe and of the true world,” pouring life and influence into every creature according to its capacity. This is pure Hermetic doctrine; the idea of a World-Soul (Anima Mundi) that animates all things and a chain of being linking the highest god to the lowest form of matter. Far from condemning this idea, Kircher embraces it and finds confirmation of it in Egyptian symbols and Christian theology alike.
Kircher’s Egyptians understand that “the visible might instruct the invisible, and the monstrous might conceal the mysteries of God.” In other words, every symbol; be it an animal-headed god or a hieroglyphic sign; is a conduit for divine truth. This is essentially the Hermetic principle of correspondence (“as above, so below”). Thus, Kircher explains, Egyptian priests inscribed their obelisks and temple walls with patterns of birds, beasts, and celestial signs, knowing that these were not mere decorations but magical sigils that could invoke the qualities they represented. He describes, for instance, a ritual fountain used in secret temple rites: a carved basin pouring water in cascades, adorned with a cross and various symbols, used to “draw down the vital influences of the Intelligences” into the physical realm. According to Kircher (quoting presumably from the Chaldean Oracles or Zoroaster), this fountain symbolized the “Fountain of Fountains, full of vital fecundity, to be worshipped in silence, nourished by God alone.” This quasi-sacramental language shows Kircher depicting Egyptian ceremonies in terms a Christian mystic would understand;silent worship before a life-giving font that God Himself energizes. The magic here is not stage tricks or demonology; it is theurgy, the holy manipulation of nature’s elements to achieve union with the divine.
In Kircher’s reconstructed theology, the Egyptians knew a triadic structure to the divine (often Father, Mind, and Power), which he maps onto the Christian Trinity. They speak of a supreme God beyond names, and a second divine mind (like the Logos) and a animating spirit (like the Holy Spirit or World-Soul). He finds evidence that the Egyptian sages, much like Plato or Orpheus, acknowledged a single hidden Godhead from which emanated all lesser gods and spirits. This aligns perfectly with the Renaissance prisca theologia concept; the belief in an original pure theology shared in various guises by all ancient wise peoples, of which Christianity is the fullest revelation. Kircher, being a Jesuit, frames Egyptian magic as simply a more obscure part of this prisca theologia. Thus magic isn’t diabolic in his narrative; it’s a protoscience and protoreligion. He even defends the use of strange composite creatures in Egyptian art by saying “the wise men of Egypt, interpreting these things mystically, discovered in their animal forms the hidden senses of wisdom.” A serpent coiled in a circle meant eternity; a winged sphinx meant the all-seeing intellect; a frog with a phallus (one bizarre image Kircher explicates) represented primeval matter made fertile by the mingling of lunar and solar forces. All of nature was a book of symbols to the Egyptian priest.
Kircher’s whole project implies that the Catholic ceremonial tradition; its incense, altars, chants, vestments; could be seen as a continuation of an ancient “magic” in the service of God. Indeed, Jesuits like Kircher were deeply involved in scientific inquiry and also in understanding non-Christian religions to better convert people. By finding the truth in pagan practice, Kircher provided a rationale that these things were not the work of the Devil but a preparation for the Gospel. His Hermetic cosmology portrays a living, enchanted universe in which angels and stars influence the world, and priests (whether Egyptian or Catholic) act as intermediaries to channel divine grace into the material realm. It’s a short leap to see Catholic sacraments as exactly that: sacred magic. The bread and wine truly become body and blood, water washes sin from the soul, relics heal the sick; these are mystical transformations and transfers of power. Kircher’s tolerance (even enthusiasm) for Egyptian magic hints that he saw Catholic ritual as the rightful heir to those ancient mysteries. The difference, in his view, would be that Egyptian priests grasped fragments of the truth (“through a glass darkly,” as St. Paul would say), whereas the Church possesses the fullness of truth in Christ. Nevertheless, the methodology; symbol, analogy, ritual; is shared. In Kircher’s Renaissance Catholic world, to study Hieroglyphs and Hermetic texts was not to stray from faith but to deepen it, to see God’s handwriting in all ages.
That couldn't be further from the truth.
Obelisks, Wombs, and Serpents: Egypt’s Sacred Icons in Rome
Nowhere is the fusion of Egyptian, pagan, and Christian symbolism more evident than in the very heart of the Catholic world: Rome. The Vatican itself is a treasury of archaic symbols that Kircher loved to interpret. Consider the obelisk that stands at the center of St. Peter’s Square. This towering needle of red granite was quarried in ancient Egypt, originally erected by pharaohs as a sun-ray frozen in stone, and later brought to Rome as a trophy of empire. In 1586, Pope Sixtus V audaciously had this obelisk moved to the Vatican piazza and topped with a bronze cross, “Christianizing” it in one bold stroke. Kircher, who wrote an entire treatise on obelisks, would often remind readers that an obelisk represents the sun’s power: it is the petrified ray of the sun, a symbol of the solar fire descending to earth. Indeed, in one of his explanations he notes that the obelisk denotes “the power of the rays” of the supreme Intellect or sun, which cause the serpent of earthly life to stir. There is profound esotericism in having an Egyptian obelisk at the epicenter of Catholicism: it is as if the Church planted the ancient Sun-pillars of Ra in the courtyard of the new Son of God. The obelisk in St. Peter’s Square serves as a cosmic gnomon, casting its shadow across the piazza like the hand of a great solar clock. On the equinoxes, the tip of its shadow exactly meets specific marble markers, aligning the papal city with the rhythms of the heavens; just as the Egyptian temples were aligned to solstices and stars. This is no accident but design: the Renaissance popes and architects like Bernini were deeply attuned to sacred geometry and astrology. Kircher’s influence and the general Hermetic revival ensured that symbols like the obelisk were not seen as profane intrusions but as glorious reclaimed trophies of the true faith. The inscription at the base of the Vatican obelisk even addresses it as a conquering sign of Christ, roughly saying, “Behold the Cross of the Lord, flee ye adversaries, the Lion of Judah has conquered.” Thus, the obelisk that once signified the Sun’s creative might now also signifies the Son’s victory over paganism; while quietly still broadcasting its original solar meaning to those with eyes to see.
Surrounding that obelisk is the grand elliptical colonnade of St. Peter’s Square, designed by Bernini to symbolize the embracing arms of Mother Church. The shape of this plaza, when viewed from above, forms a Vesica Piscis; the pointed oval or almond shape that is formed by the overlap of two circles. This shape has a deep mystical import: often called the “mandorla” in Christian art, it is famously seen as the frame around Christ or the Virgin in numerous icons, symbolizing the union of heaven and earth (the two circles) and the gateway between worlds. Esoteric scholars also associate the vesica piscis with the womb of Isis, or the yonic symbol of the divine feminine. It resembles an opening, a sacred vessel of life. The very term vesica piscis means “fish’s bladder” – and indeed the shape looks like a fish without a tail, an ancient Christian symbol for Christ. But the fish/vesica is also a womb – the womb of the universe wherein the “fish” (the divine child) is conceived. By laying out St. Peter’s Square in an oval design focused on the obelisk (a vertical phallic beam), the Church quite literally recreated the cosmic hieros gamos – the holy union – in its front yard. The vertical male pillar (Osiris’s symbol) standing in the horizontal female oval (Isis’s symbol) is an architectural allegory of creation, a marriage of sky and earth under God’s aegis. Kircher was well aware of the vesica piscis’s significance; though he doesn’t mention Bernini’s architecture, he did study the geometry and the symbols of the female principle (he often discussed the “matrix” or womb of nature). The Vatican’s use of the vesica shape also appears in church seals and in the layout of many cathedrals (the nave and transept of a Gothic cathedral often form a vesica shape in plan view). To an initiate, this pervasive shape declares the presence of the goddess hidden in the Church: the Virgin Mary, who in Renaissance iconography was directly identified with Isis by some scholars. In fact, Renaissance Hermeticists loved to quote the inscription supposedly from the Temple of Isis: “I am all that was, is, and ever shall be, and no mortal has lifted my veil.” Many linked this “Isis veil” saying to the Christian Virgin’s mystery. Thus the vesica piscis appearing around Mary or enclosing church spaces is the “veil of Isis” – the oval portal of mysteries that only the initiated (or the saved) may pass through.
Another startling symbol is the serpent in Vatican imagery. While Christianity often casts the serpent as the tempter in Eden or the dragon to be slain by saints, the Vatican intriguingly adopted the serpent as part of its heraldry on more than one occasion. For example, the coat of arms of pope Gregory XIII (who was pope in Kircher’s youth) bore a mighty winged dragon; essentially a serpent with wings; colored red. This winged serpent (the Boncompagni family emblem) can still be seen sculpted in the Gallery of Maps in the Vatican or on coins of Gregory’s reign. Another Pope of Kircher’s era, Paul V of the Borghese family, used an eagle and dragon on his crest. To Hermetic eyes, a dragon or winged serpent is rich in meaning: in alchemy, the winged serpent is the liberated spirit, the union of earthly serpent energy with celestial wings. In Egyptian terms, a winged serpent calls to mind the uraeus (cobra) that adorns the pharaoh’s brow, often depicted with outstretched wings as the Winged Sun Disk – a symbol of divine kingship and protection. The fact that a pope would cheerfully stamp a dragon on the Vatican apartments suggests that the Church had made peace with this potent pagan emblem, turning it to its own purpose. Kircher would likely interpret the papal dragon much as he did other composite creatures: as a bearer of a secret truth. Perhaps it signifies that the Vicar of Christ has tamed the old serpent and now wears it as a sign of wisdom and power, much as Moses lifted the bronze serpent on a staff to heal the Israelites, or as Christ on the cross was likened to that raised serpent (an oft-forgotten typological connection). The winged serpent on a papal coat of arms reveals a Church that does not fear the symbols of antiquity; on the contrary, it wears them like trophies of conquest. This is exactly in line with Kircher’s thesis that Egypt’s “profound mysteries of divine wisdom” were not annihilated by Christianity but rather unveiled and assimilated.
Beyond heraldry, the serpent motif slithers into the margins of Christian architecture and liturgy in numerous ways. The crosier (bishop’s staff) sometimes was made with twin serpents twining up a cross; a design openly inspired by the brazen serpent of Moses or the caduceus of Hermes, and used in some medieval rites to signify healing and wisdom. The Vatican’s monumental art features serpentine forms in its frescos and font designs, often as mere decorative flourishes but symbolically resonant nonetheless. Kircher notes that in Egyptian hieroglyphs, the serpent often meant life or divine energy (as a snake sheds its skin, it was a sign of renewal). How ironic and fitting that the very institution that proclaims Christ as the conqueror of the old serpent also upholds the serpent as an emblem of new life and papal authority. This dual attitude exemplifies the fusion of pagan and Christian: the Church did not simply stamp out the serpent, it converted it. In the esoteric view, wisdom demands reconciliation of opposites; lion and eagle, bull and angel, man and beast. The Vatican’s symbols achieve that reconciliation in art if not in obvious doctrine.
Hermetic Light Under the Papal Tiara
Athanasius Kircher’s explorations in Oedipus Aegyptiacus lay bare a Renaissance truth that often startles modern observers: the Catholic world of the Baroque era was deeply suffused with Hermetic and pagan imagery, woven artfully into the fabric of Christian thought. Kircher, the Jesuit who deciphers hieroglyphs by day and prays the rosary by night, personifies that synthesis. Through the figures of Osiris, Isis, the Sun and Moon, the Ram of Ammon, the Goat of Mendes, Pan, and Jupiter, Kircher reveals a secret theology that runs parallel to scripture; a symbolic language whereby nature and myth whisper the same truths that religion preaches openly. In his hands, Osiris becomes a cipher for Christ, Isis for the Church or the World-Soul, Jupiter Ammon for the one God, Pan for nature’s irrepressible life-force (ultimately harnessed in the rejoicing Easter hymns after Lent’s abstinence). The old Egyptian belief in magic and the manipulation of symbols is shown not to contradict Christian worship but to underlie it: every Mass is a ritual in which bread and wine transmute, every church building is aligned like a temple to channel light and acoustics toward a numinous end, every saint’s statue functions as a focus for contemplation, not unlike an idol imbued with presence. Kircher dared to tell the pope (in scholarly Latin between the lines) that the Hermetic arts were very much alive in the Church, just in a new attire.
Revelation 18:23 (KJV):
“...for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.”
In Kircher’s time, this was a triumphant narrative: Hermes Trismegistus was believed to be a contemporary of Moses, maybe even a prophet of the Gentiles; the Sibyls of Rome were thought to have foretold Christ; Plato and Aristotle were pressed into service as unwitting Christians avant la lettre. Kircher’s Hermetic-Christian syncretism is the theological equivalent of Bernini’s colonnade: two wide arcs (pagan wisdom and Christian revelation) embracing humanity in one grand ellipse. It is a worldview in which nothing is truly pagan except error, and the symbols that once adorned Isis’s temples or Jupiter’s capitols can be baptized and given new names without losing their ancient power. The obelisk stands now not to honor Ra but to point to the heavens and glorify Christ; the vesica piscis no longer represents the womb of Isis giving birth to Horus, but the womb of Mary giving birth to Jesus (yet the symbol is identical, the meaning nearly twin); the winged serpent that once guarded Pharaoh now shields the Pope, its wings signifying the Holy Spirit and its serpent form transformed into a dragon of righteousness.
Kircher’s essay to his “Caesar” was, ultimately, a risky love-letter to the syncretic soul of Catholicism. By invoking Isis, Osiris, and their retinue in a work presented to the pope and Emperor, he was declaring that the Christian civilization stands not in opposition to the pagan past, but upon it; atop a pyramid whose capstone is Christ, but whose foundation stones are cut from every quarry of human seeking. It’s a provocative assertion, even by today’s standards. And yet, Kircher’s life’s work and the very art and architecture of Rome shout its truth: the Hermetic, the pagan, and the Christian are intricately fused in our culture’s symbol-systems. They coexist in our churches and cathedrals, in our rituals and festivals (think of Christmas near the winter solstice with lights and evergreen trees, a nod to ancient Yule; think of the date of Easter, calculated by full moons and equinoxes with echoes of Eostre’s spring rites). Kircher would say this is no coincidence but providence. In the grand divine comedy, pagan gods were the masks and metaphors of natural principles, and Christ arrived as the reality to which they unknowingly pointed.
Here, in Kircher’s own words (as translated from Latin), we glimpse just how deeply the Jesuit’s theology was entangled with solar cults, ancient gods, and cosmic allegory;
"Finally comes the Tautic letter, the most mystical of all, corresponding to the Greek Tau (Τ). Its structure and its hidden meanings I have already described at length in my Prodromus Coptus and in the Fourth Book of the Obeliscus Pamphilius, in the chapter on the Hierogrammatism of Thoth (Tautus). To those discussions I refer the reader, lest in this vast abundance of material we suffer too great a loss of time by repetition".
"These, then, were the first Egyptian letters and elemental characters; by which they not only wrote their ordinary communications and epistles, but also concealed within them great mysteries, known only to the priests, and filled with mystical symbols and sacred meanings.
And so, to give a single synoptic view of all that has been discussed thus far,
I have thought it fitting to add a table that displays exactly the first formation and institution of the Egyptian letters,
as they were established by Thoth, or Mercury Trismegistus,
the founder and divine legislator of Egyptian writing".
In one particularly revealing passage, Kircher writes the following—my own translation from the original Latin text:
"Dedicated to His Most Serene Highness LEOPOLD WILHELM, Archduke of Austria, Supreme Governor of Belgium and Burgundy, and Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, My Most Clement Lord.
In those golden and blessed ages of Egyptian felicity, when kings were raised to the highest summit of royal dignity, it is recorded by Athenæus that, after the ceremony of inauguration, a magnificent banquet was immediately prepared. At this banquet, as many courses of food were served as there were symbolic figures of the royal virtues required for the just and prosperous governance of the realm.
Each dish was adorned with marvelous hieroglyphic metamorphoses, so that the king, seated upon his regal throne, was, by this silent pageantry of symbols, gently reminded; as if by a mute yet divine admonition; of the duties belonging to his office, and of what was to be pursued or avoided in the administration of the kingdom.
Following this ancient example, I have thought it fitting to set before Your August Serenity, not a table of perishable meats, nor of edibles common to men and beasts alike, but rather, to speak as the ancients did, a table filled with the nectar and ambrosia of the immortal gods; a table from which, whoever partook, believed himself thereby admitted to the fellowship of the divine offspring, and destined to join eternal dances in the Elysian fields.
For whatever is wondrous and mysterious within the whole compass of Egyptian wisdom, is here, by a certain sacred majesty of symbolism, gathered and displayed upon this Table, as if in an epitome of the universe. It was, therefore, a kind of mirror of the priests, in whose contemplation they discerned what in human affairs ought to be embraced, and what avoided; drawing their guidance, as it were, from the most abundant oracle of the divine mind itself.
Although, indeed, these things are not to be greatly valued by a Christian heart, being wrapped in the superstitions of the ancients, yet even amid such deep darkness there shine forth, like hidden carbuncles, certain precious sparks of truth; that is, under the analogy of types, sacraments not unlike those of the Christian faith and true religion. From these we may learn, not obscurely, with what devotion we ought to approach the worship of God, and with what reverence to venerate the heavenly powers. Therefore, I have judged these matters not altogether unworthy of study.
Since, then, August Prince, your great mind; which, like a celestial sphere, embraces the admiration of the whole world for your virtues; is so framed that you delight in the symbolic play of ingenious meanings whenever occasion allows, to whom could I more fittingly dedicate this present Table of Isiac Wisdom than to Your Highness?
This I consecrate, therefore, with the more willing spirit as I acknowledge the greater debt of gratitude which I owe you for the innumerable benefits so often and so graciously bestowed upon me.
Hail, then, ornament of Belgium, glory of our age, and, as you have deigned to do, continue to shelter me beneath the sacred shield of Your Most Serene Protection".
Kircher goes onto say....
The Mystical Symbolism of Isis, the World-Soul
"She sits enthroned, to show her power and dominion. Her seat gleams with a dog’s head, for this Iynx Isiac, the paternal foundation itself, shines in the star Sothis (Sirius), as Diodorus testifies.
The wing-woven garment upon her thighs signifies the swiftness and sublimity of her operations, by which she diffuses herself through all the paths of the world.
From the navel to the breast her body is thick-set with innumerable breasts, showing that she feeds and nourishes the entire structure of the universe with the inexhaustible abundance of necessary things.
The zones encircling her neck denote the celestial orbs, which she moves with unceasing motion. Her veiled head signifies the hidden and inaccessible mysteries of the nature that works within her.
Upon her head she bears the plumed crown of the Meleagrides (the spotted guinea-fowl), signifying the variety of beings throughout all nature, aptly represented by the bird’s variegated feathers.
The basket upon the bird’s back denotes fertility and abundance; the leaves of the persea symbolize perfect wisdom, by which she governs all; the horns represent the Moon; and the scarab within the circle, the Sun; showing that, through the combined influence of Sun and Moon, she produces the manifold diversity of all created things.
In her right hand she holds a scepter topped with the lotus, to signify that she moderates all things according to the pattern of the Paternal Mind; for the lotus flower, as Theophrastus tells us, turns incessantly toward the Sun, by day and by night.
With her left hand, in a gesture of command, she intimates that all things stand obedient to her will; for, as Zoroaster says:
“The Father entrusted all things to the Mind His Second Power, which He called by the nations the First among men.”
Thus is she shown to be the Mother of the Universe, whom the ancients named Isis Pandocheus, “the All-Receiving,” “the All-Nourishing,” and “the Horn-Bearing”, in whom the abundance, wisdom, and vital power of the whole cosmos are united".
"Those deities that rule over others were considered active principles (male in nature),whereas those that were subject to higher powers were taken as passive principles (female in nature).
Thus the Moon, considered as the active principle of generation in the elemental world,was called Lunus;but when it was regarded as subject to the influence of the Sun,it was named Luna; as I have elsewhere proved.
Accordingly, in relation to the higher beings,a deity might be considered feminine (passive),but in relation to the lower beings under its rule, masculine (active)".
Kircher continues by explaining
The Osirian Triad
"Above the Hecatic Triad stands the Osirian Triad, in which, first, the Numen of omnipotent and fruitful nature appears, whom Apuleius calls Apis, adorned with precisely the same symbols with which we described him in the Obeliscus Pamphilius (The Obelisk of the Pamphili Family), in the Hierogram of the Bull.
What else do the horns signify, if not rays? What else the asps rising and enclosed within the horns, if not the lunar-solar rays, full of vital influences?
What else the garland fastened upon the bull’s back, made up of phalli and fourfold circles, if not the highest fecundity which the Sun and Moon together bestow upon the fourfold world diffused throughout it?
What else the ansated cross (crux ansata), the amulet marked with the ansated cross and hung upon the neck, if not that this represents an averting daemon, by whose powerful charm all adverse powers are repelled and driven away?
And the star, which is placed above the back of the bull with outspread wings, shows the exaltation of Nephtha, or the Egyptian Venus, in her own house; that is, in Taurus; the sign of the fertility of all things and of the tripartite year in Egypt.
"The Osirian Triad of which Osiris is the Father, and his attendants are Μαρωνη (Maronē) and Τριπτόλεμος (Triptolemos). These the Egyptians call Maron and Triptolemus, as has been said elsewhere; Psellus calls them Μυρώννα and Τρότορον, as has been mentioned above; and Besselius, following Diodorus, has Maron and Triptolemus; names, though most corrupt, which nevertheless bear the closest affinity to one another.
For Diodorus indeed says that Maron was a companion and attendant of Osiris, teaching the cultivation of vineyards, while Triptolemus instructed men in the cultivation of fields and the sowing of seeds into the earth.
These correspond fittingly to the attendants of Osiris. For, as has already elsewhere been abundantly proved, Osiris is the same as Bacchus or Dionysus ; presiding over wine as Bacchus, and as the founder of agriculture, according to the verses of Tibullus":
“Osiris first taught to guide the plow by hand, And to stir the tender soil with iron;He first committed seeds to the untried earth, And gathered fruit from trees unknown before. He taught the tender vine to join to stakes; He cut the green locks with the hard sickle. Bacchus gave to the farmer, after great labor, Joys to dissolve the cares of his heart.”
"Triptolemus, holds in his left hand a cup, in his right a bull’s phallus; by the cup is signified liquid, by the phallus fertility"
"Moreover, on the opposite side of the tablet another triad appears, which being composed of precisely the same symbols, I have thought its explanation should be omitted.
There is, however, one slight difference; that the white bull there precisely denotes the Sun, that is, Apis celestial, in so far as by his power he displays the abundance of all things.
But since concerning the two bulls, Mnevis and Apis, much has been fully treated in various places, both in this work and in the Obeliscus Pamphilius (in the Hierogram of the Bull), we refer the reader thither, lest by repeating here what has already been set forth elsewhere, we should obscure the purpose we have proposed ;the clear explanation of the things themselves".
Building on this, Kircher declares
"For the Egyptians, in representing the equinoxes, painted this animal seated; since, at both equinoxes of the year, it urinates twelve times a day; that is, once every hour ;and does the same at night.
This is further indicated by the number of the fourfold circles engraved on the abacus on which it sits ;for six times four makes twenty-four.
Upon its head it bears a sixth lunar emblem, with a circle containing a serpent, by which is signified the conjunction of the Sun and Moon, which was especially observed in this Ammonian season of the year as a prognostic of coming fertility".
Perhaps the most chilling passage from Kircher is this:
“The first and most divine of all beings was a serpent, having the form of a hawk.”
Suddenly, the papal coat of arms makes perfect sense
Kircher's View On the Winged Serpent
"This winged globe entwined with serpents, that is, πετοκρκοβέσμαδαλ, signifies nothing other than the First Mind, the Supreme Cause of all causes— from which, as from an infinite fountain of all life and all Ideas, all things in all worlds are eternally derived by a perpetual emanation.
This ideal concept they represent by a circle, wings, and a serpent:
For as from the center of a circle all lines are drawn outward to the circumference, so from this circle, whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere, the Word, aptly compared to the serpent, and the Pantamorphic Spirit, denoted by the wings, diffuse the rays of ideal reasons throughout the whole nature of worlds, impressing upon every substance; sensible and insensible alike; the seals of their virtues.
Hence, from this divine source, the life of the entire world depends, as we have already demonstrated above.
Accordingly, this ideal symbol of the Divine Mind was placed upon each of the figures, to signify that there is nothing in the world which does not participate in its being from the supreme influx of the First Cause".
Kircher’s Reflections on Isis
"Through her is expressed the Mind of the Horæan Triad; for she distributes the light and heat received from Horus, represented by the hawk upon her head, into the five vessels of the lower world; namely, the waters, the air, and, in the earthly globe, the seminaries of inanimate things, vegetable nature, and sensitive life; according to the order prescribed to her by Osiris.
She is depicted in female form, because this Intellect of Horus, or Horæan Mind, is, as it were, a receptive womb inclined to generation, ready to bring forth, and disposed to accomplish the will of Horus.
For, as Plutarch rightly says, Isis is nothing else than that power of nature which is the universal womb of generation, on which account she was called Rehem, that is, the womb".
And again (Book 1, chapter 6):
“When they wish to signify God, they paint a hawk—both because this creature is long-lived, and because it seems to be the image of the Sun above all other birds, for by a peculiar and secret power of nature it fixes its gaze most intently upon the rays of the Sun. Hence also they sometimes represent the Sun itself under the form of a hawk, as the guardian and master of sight.”
Perhaps now the Osirian obelisk and the Vesica Piscis; Isis’s symbolic womb; in the Vatican take on a deeper significance
Kircher Continues..
"The ram is therefore most fittingly used to signify this idea,being a fiery and fruitful animal. Of its many meanings we have treated fully in the Hierogrammatism of the Ram,and need not repeat them here.
This ideal schema thus shows how the supreme threefold divinity flows first into the power of Ammon,and from there into its subordinate ministers,to bring the mixture of heat and moisture to perfect activity. Hence, in the Egyptian month Pharmuthi,when the Sun enters Aries, the priests, deriving the Ammonian influx into themselves, performed sacred rites using Nilotic ampullae, ornamented with various flowers and fruits—as we have described in the Egyptian Calendar.This is here represented by figure 20,a floral column upon which a Nilotic vase rests.
The winged globe of the threefold divinity, as already said,represents its emanation; first into the Sun and Moon,or, what is the same thing,into the Intelligences of the Sun and the Moon.
The symbol of this is the accipitrine Sphinx, bearing upon its head the Moon,and within the lunar horns a serpent enclosed in a circle; by which is understood the union of the powers of the Sun and Moon, that is, of heat and moisture,joined under the ministry of Mophtha,to animate the world with vital influx; which especially takes place when the Sun enters Leo in Egypt,as we shall soon explain".
"The altar is introduced because the he-goat was held in the highest honor among the Egyptians, as Herodotus testifies;
and his festival was celebrated with satyr-like thyrsi, which, as Pausanias records, were set around the altars.
We have treated this subject at length in the Obeliscus Pamphilius, in the Hierogrammatism of the Goat".
"The Ammonian Ship, in which Ammon and Horus, united, are borne through the universe,filling it with fertility.
Ammon, the ruler of fecundity, is represented by the two-headed ram,from whose head bursts a bifurcated flame.
The ram is two-headed, because he regards both the higher and the lower world;f or, as we have shown at length in the Hierogrammatism of the Ram in the Pamphilian Obelisk (p. 273), Ammon not only disposes the hidden powers and secret forces of the superior intellectual world,but also governs the worldly heat by which the generations of things are perpetually promoted in the sensible world, through constant ascent and descent.
Therefore, not without reason, he is painted two-headed,with a bifurcated flame upon his head,signifying the diffusion of fiery power and heat in both the upper and lower world.Of these things we have treated fully in the cited place of the Pamphilian Obelisk.
The stern of the ship, adorned with the head of a hawk and with a diadem placed upon it,signifies that Horus and Ammon are the bearers of light and the distributors of fiery warmth through the innermost parts of the whole universe;and that their operation and effects take place at appointed times,as is shown by the astrological quadrant placed beside them".
The Book of Daniel, chapter 8, contains a vivid prophetic vision involving a ram and a goat, which has been interpreted as a symbolic portrayal of geopolitical powers (traditionally Medo-Persia and Greece), but also carries esoteric and mystical layers that relate to figures like Pan, the horned gods, and celestial dynamics.
Here is the key passage from Daniel 8:3–8, 20–21 (KJV):
Daniel 8:3–4"Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great."
Daniel 8:5"And as I was considering, behold, an he goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground: and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes."
Daniel 8:6–7"And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power. And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns: and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him..."
Daniel 8:8"Therefore the he goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven."
Daniel 8:20–21 (the angel Gabriel interprets)"The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king."
Is Catholicism truly aligned with Biblical Christianity? For what fellowship has Christ with Belial?