From the Abzu to the Beast: The Horned Lineage from Ea to Rome

From the ancient cults of the Hurrians and Hittites, the abyss-god Ea, lord of the Abzu, flowed into the worship of Dagan-Bel-Harri, “lord of the pit,” and into the warrior-deity Ninurta, whom the star-lists (MUL.APIN) equate with Saturn. In the western lands he became Baal Hammon, the ram-horned god crowned with the solar disk, ruler of both heavens and depths. In the chaos of the Late Bronze Age Collapse, his devotees moved with the confederation later called the Sea Peoples; the Kittim of the War Scroll; whom that scroll names “the Sons of Darkness” set against the covenant people of God. Among them were the Sherden, later the Nuragic of Sardinia, feared mercenaries and skilled sailors, clad in horned helmets proclaiming the ram-crowned power of their god. They thrived as traders rich in copper, silver, and the purple dye of murex; the very colour of the harlot in Revelation 17:4; carrying with them solar-lunar rites, magic from the old chthonic order, and a claim of descent from semi-divine powers “from below.”

Here, the horns were not symbols of abstract political authority, but literal and cultic signs of the goat and the ram—sacred animals of Baal Hammon-Saturn. As the ram (Aries), crowned with the solar disk, he embodied the visible, celestial power of kingship and light; as the goat-fish (Capricorn), Saturn’s own emblem, he revealed his hidden abyssal nature, uniting the horned beast of the earth with the marine body of the deep—the same hybrid form as the beast from the sea (Revelation 13:1). The prophet Daniel also saw them: in Daniel 7, horned beasts rising from the sea; in Daniel 8, a ram with two horns clashing with a he-goat bearing a great horn.  The sea here is not merely “many nations,” but the primordial deep, the chaotic waters of the underworld, the Abzu of Ea. Even the tall mitre of the high priest recalls the open mouth of a fish, a vestige of the fish-god’s underworld cult hidden in religious dress.

From the Levant, these horned seafarers pushed westward; Philistia, Carthage, and Sardinia; while another branch, the Teresh or Tyrsenoi, settled in Etruria. Ancient tradition recorded by Herodotus claimed the Etruscans came from Lydia in Asia Minor, and modern studies have traced genetic and cultural ties to Anatolia, consistent with a Sea Peoples remnant. Their religion, fatalistic and omen-driven, echoed Hittite-Hurrian cosmology; their seer-priests, the haruspices, read the entrails of sacrificial animals much as the priests of the old chthonic order had done. When the Etruscans rose to prominence in central Italy, they carried these horned-god rites, omens, and Saturnalia into the foundations of the Roman state. By the time Rome emerged as the dominant power, these ancient cultic patterns were not foreign imports to be “absorbed,” but the very spiritual DNA of the empire ; the Sons of Darkness enthroned at its heart.

Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue speaks of a coming messianic figure; Apollo, the virgin, and "a new race from heaven." In my reading, Venus, the light-bearer, births the hidden sun’s light; Saturn, the dethroned ruler cast into the abyss for his pride; returning in the image of Apollo crowned with the solar disk. Yet Revelation 6:12 unmasks the counterfeit, for “the sun became black as sackcloth,” and sackcloth, woven of goat hair, points to the goat-nature hidden beneath the shining face.

Éliphas Lévi and other esoteric thinkers held that the Roman Catholic Church did not destroy these Saturnian and solar mysteries, but preserved them under new forms: pagan gods recast as saints or devils, feast days retimed to the solstices and equinoxes, Baal Hammon and Tanit reborn as haloed saints and the Queen of Heaven. Thus the rites of the ram-horned Saturn endured beneath Christian vestments, their calendar intact, their symbols veiled but unchanged.

Are the Marian Feasts in the Bible? — The Curse of Adding to God’s Word

Babylonian Astronomy and the Virgin Maiden

In the priestly astronomy of Babylon, the spring equinox was no mere seasonal change; it was a moment charged with magic. The Sun entered Aries, the ram, whose horns mirrored those of Baal Hammon, the ram-horned god crowned with the solar disk, ruler of both the heavens and the underworld. In the sky, Venus, emerging as the Morning Star after her descent into the Sun’s glare, rose in the east before dawn. She was Ishtar, returning from the abyss, heralding the Sun’s entry into Aries. Sometimes she appeared alongside Virgo, the celestial maiden, near Spica, the “ear of grain.” To the Babylonian mind, this was the union of virgin, grain of life, ram-horned Sun, and light-bearing goddess—a living talisman for kingship, fertility, and divine sanction.

These rites were timed by the Moon as well as the Sun. In the Enūma Anu Enlil and MUL.APIN texts, the conjunctions of the Moon and Venus were potent omens. A waxing crescent with the Evening Star, or a waning crescent with the Morning Star, was read as the marriage of cyclical time (the Moon) with eternal light (Venus). Priests of Ea; the abyss-god Enki, master of waters and wisdom;presided over such rites, wearing fish-cloaked garments to mark their authority from the Abzu. The Moon’s phases, Venus’s eight-year cycle, and the Sun’s passage into Aries or toward the solstice formed a magical calendar by which temples planned their most sacred festivals.

When these cults passed westward; through Phoenicia, Carthage, Etruria, and finally into Rome; the symbols endured. Under the Julian calendar, the equinox was fixed to March 25, locking the season so that the Virgin in the sky and the Morning Star could still crown the ram-horned Sun at Aries. In the Christian era, this date became the Feast of the Annunciation: Mary, the Virgin, receiving the divine seed. But this feast, like the others in her honour, was not found in Scripture; it was fixed in the same seasonal window that had for centuries been consecrated to Ishtar’s return and the solar enthronement of the ram.

The winter counterpart is the Immaculate Conception on December 8, set in the pre-solstice season when, in many Venus cycles, the crescent Moon and Morning Star appear together in Virgo before dawn. In ancient omen-lore, this was the perfect conception sign: the virgin figure, the Moon’s “womb” of time, and the light-bringer joined together. In the esoteric reading, Saturn; the hidden sun of winter; was bound in the abyss; Venus descended to retrieve his light and returned it to the Virgin, who bore it in purity until the visible Sun was reborn at the solstice.

Éliphas Lévi and other occult philosophers argued that the Roman Catholic Church did not abolish these astral rites but preserved them, veiled under the names of saints and the Virgin Mary. The processions, feast days, and even the placement of the holiest festivals in the liturgical year mirrored the older solar-lunar calendar of Babylon. In this view, Marian feasts serve not as biblical mandates, but as Christianised continuations of astral worship; the Virgin in place of Virgo or Ishtar, the “light of Christ” in place of the Morning Star, and the saints standing where once stood the planetary gods.

Thus, from the Moon and Venus omens of Ea’s temple in Babylon, to the ram-horned Sun in Aries at the equinox, to the Virgin’s immaculate receiving of light before the solstice, the same magical structure persists. The names have changed, but the sky-script remains: the virgin, the horns, the light-bearer, the cycle of descent and return; all still inscribed in the heavens, and still marked in the Church’s year.

The Marian feasts of the Roman Catholic calendar are never mentioned in Scripture. They commemorate events rooted in Christian tradition, but their dating and placement are liturgical inventions, shaped over centuries. Even Catholic sources acknowledge that the Annunciation on March 25 is a traditional choice tied to the belief that the Incarnation and the creation of the world occurred at the spring equinox; Scripture nowhere specifies the date. The Immaculate Conception on December 8 had been celebrated in parts of the medieval West long before the doctrine was defined in 1854 by Pius IX in Ineffabilis Deus. Other Marian observances, such as the Nativity of Mary on September 8, are later fixtures often set by a nine-month mirroring to other feasts. None of these dates are given by the Bible.

When pope Gregory XIII reformed the calendar in 1582 through Inter gravissimas, his stated purpose was to restore the spring equinox to its Council of Nicaea position of March 21 so that Easter would again be kept in the intended season. But in doing so he ensured that the most important Christian feast would always fall inside the same astronomical frame used for millennia in Babylonian and Greco-Roman astral religion. In the Babylonian MUL.APIN star lists and the omen series Enūma Anu Enlil, the spring New Year (akitu) was keyed to the Sun’s entry into Aries ; the horned ram; at the equinox. This was the throne-sign of solar kingship, the same ram-horned image later embodied in Baal Hammon, crowned with the solar disk. At this moment Venus; the planet identified with the goddess Ishtar; often emerged as the Morning Star after its disappearance in inferior conjunction, heralding the new year. Virgo, “The Furrow” (AB.SIN) in Babylonian astronomy, with her brightest star Spica as an ear of grain in her hand, rose in the dawn sky, the celestial maiden ready to receive the seed. Babylonian priests read the triad of Sun in Aries, Venus as Morning Star, and Virgo in the east as a fertility and kingship omen, often reinforced by the magical power of a crescent Moon paired with Venus.

The alignment of the Sun in Aries, Venus as Morning Star, and Virgo rising was regarded in Babylonian astronomy as a celestial doorway; a moment when cosmic forces of kingship, fertility, and divine authority were renewed. The horned ram of Aries marked the Sun’s enthronement, Venus’s reappearance from the underworld signaled Ishtar’s return with the seed of life, and Virgo, the maiden with the ear of grain, stood ready to receive it. Babylonian priests saw this as a potent “astral gate,” and its symbolism persisted into later cultures. The Roman world inherited this cosmic template: Venus, under her Latin name, became the patroness of Rome; Aries remained bound to imperial rulership; and equinox festivals to fertility goddesses were woven into the civic year.

When the Council of Nicaea fixed Easter (Ishtar) to the first Sunday after the full moon on or after March 21, the Church anchored its greatest feast in the very same equinox window. The Annunciation, fixed to March 25, also falls within this alignment, recasting the celestial maiden as Mary, the Virgin, receiving the divine seed while the ram-horned Sun stands in Aries and the Morning Star heralds the new season. Pope Gregory XIII’s 1582 calendar reform, though framed as an astronomical correction, restored this precise tableau; a pattern that in many 8-year cycles still sees Venus blazing in the dawn, Virgo prominent in the east, and the Sun enthroned in Aries. In this way, the Venus–Aries–Virgo gate was preserved under Christian forms, even though its structure had been established millennia earlier in the heavens over Babylon.

The pattern repeats in winter. In many Venus cycles, early December brings a close pairing of the Moon and Venus, sometimes within Virgo’s constellation before dawn. The date of the Immaculate Conception often falls inside this “Virgin + Moon + Light-Bearer” tableau. This is precisely the sort of omen scene the Mesopotamian star-priests ritualized: the maiden in the sky, the crescent Moon as the womb of time, Venus as the herald of divine conception. Modern astronomy confirms the recurrence; for example, on December 4, 2024, a brilliant evening Venus stood near a slender crescent Moon in a globally visible spectacle.

The link to Ishtar is not just astronomical. In the Bible, stars are identified with angels (Job 38:7; Revelation 1:20), and the planets; wandering stars; are connected in Second Temple thought with the principalities and powers of the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12; Jude 1:13). The title “Morning Star” in Revelation 22:16 ; “I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star”; is a spiritual designation of Christ’s glory and eternal kingship, not a reference to the planet Venus. While ancient cultures often used “morning star” for Venus, Scripture does not equate Christ with that celestial body or its associated worship.

In the Greek Septuagint, Isaiah 14:12 reads: πῶς ἐξέπεσεν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ὁ ἑωσφόρος ὁ πρωὶ ἀνατέλλων — “How you have fallen from heaven, O dawn-bringer, who rises in the morning.” The term Heōsphoros (“bringer of dawn”) referred in ancient sky-watching to the bright morning appearance of Venus. The Septuagint does not call this figure a “son,” nor does it assign masculine gender; an important distinction, because in Babylonian astronomy and religion, Venus was feminine, the Queen of Heaven (Ishtar/Inanna), consort of Saturn (Kronos/Baal Hammon).

By contrast, the Latin Vulgate renders the verse as Quomodo cecidisti de caelo, Lucifer, qui mane oriebaris, which in later usage became “Lucifer, son of the morning.” The Latin introduces a masculine “sonship” that is absent in the Greek, facilitating later theological readings that split this “Lucifer” from Saturn and recast him as a distinct, purely male adversary. In the older Near Eastern frame, Venus was not a rebellious “son” but the feminine astral power paired with the enthroned Saturn; a coupling that defined royal and temple cults in Babylon.

This matters for the Venus–Aries–Virgo gate pattern. In Babylon, the spring equinox was the throne-moment of Saturn’s solar kingship in Aries (the ram), with Venus; as Morning Star — heralding the renewal of royal authority. Virgo rose in the dawn as the “maiden with the seed,” a cosmic vessel for fertility and divine rule. The Roman world inherited this sky-script, placing Venus as Rome’s patroness and keeping Aries as the sign of rulership.

In the mythic cycle, Venus as Morning Star emerges first in the east, heralding the Sun’s ascent — in Roman terms, this is also the role of Apollo, the dawn-bringing solar heir, often symbolized by the rooster whose crow announces the day. This makes the sequence complete: Saturn as the hidden sun-king, Venus as the light-bearer and Queen of Heaven, Apollo as the manifested dawn Sun. In biblical categories, this is the same celestial gate Isaiah mocked when he spoke of the fallen (fallen angel) “dawn-bringer”; not a masculine Lucifer detached from Saturn, but the very feminine planetary consort whose cult and timing the Church has preserved under Marian names.

So—do the Marian feasts align with Babylonian star worship? They’re not in the Bible, yet they fall on the same celestial gates once consecrated to Ishtar–Venus, the Moon, and Virgo. Why did the Latin turn Isaiah’s feminine “dawn-bringer” into a masculine “Lucifer, son of the morning”? That mistranslation hid Venus’s role as Saturn’s Queen of Heaven while her timing and imagery slipped into the Church calendar under Marian names. Éliphas Lévi warned that Rome kept the old astral rites, only dressed in new robes, and the sky-patterns prove him right. The eight-pointed star of Ishtar once crowned Babylon’s gate; now it crowns the Porto del Popolo in Rome. But I’m sure; like every other Babylon-to-Rome parallel; it will be dismissed as “just another coincidence.”

The Exsultet, the Church’s most exalted hymn of the year, is proclaimed only once; in the deep of Holy Saturday night, during the Easter Vigil. It comes after the new fire is kindled and the Paschal candle lit, in a church still shrouded in darkness. Then, by the light of a single flame, the deacon sings of the night being turned to day, of darkness fleeing before the rising light. In the Latin, this light is called lucifer ; “the morning star”; recast as Christ. But had the hymn followed the Greek heōsphoros, it would have named the “dawn-bearer,” the feminine Venus of antiquity, and the link to the ancient astral image would have been unmistakable.

The timing itself is deeply symbolic. The Exsultet is sung at the pivot point between night and dawn, mirroring the very moment when Venus as Morning Star rises before the Sun’s appearance; in Babylonian sky-religion, the herald of the Sun’s enthronement in Aries at the spring equinox. In that old cosmic tableau, Saturn’s kingship shone in the ram, Venus announced renewal, and Virgo; the maiden; rose in the east, ready to receive the seed of the new year. The Roman world adopted this sky-script, making Venus its patroness and Aries its sign of imperial power, and the Church fixed Easter itself in that same celestial gate. Gregory XIII’s reform ensured the equinox lock remained, so that year after year, the liturgy’s greatest proclamation is still timed to Ishtar’s old season of power; only now the feminine dawn-bringer has been renamed, re-gendered, and reinterpreted in Christian terms.

Thus the Exsultet, in its placement and its language, embodies what Éliphas Lévi claimed: the survival of the ancient astral rites beneath a new veneer. The heavens are the same, the timing is the same, the dawn-bringer still rises; but the Church has changed her name, changed her gender, and clothed her in the garments of the Resurrection.

From the clay tablets of Enūma Anu Enlil to the whispered rites of forbidden temples, the path of Ishtar has always been a work of celestial magic. Her place among the stars was read for omens and ritual timing; her name spoken in spells to bind lovers, mend hearts, and restore the womb’s fruitfulness. She alone could descend into the underworld and rise again, holding the keys to death and rebirth. In the Sumerian me, she gathered the arts of enchantment, sexuality, and war — gifts taken by cunning from Enki himself.

If Saturn is the hidden sun and Venus the light-bearer, then Ishtar stands as the Magician-Queen of heaven and earth: descending into the abyss, retrieving the imprisoned light, passing through the celestial gates with power, and delivering it for the Sun’s rebirth — a perfect cycle of descent, transformation, and manifestation.

Could Crowley and Éliphas Lévi have been right when they spoke of the Great Sorcery? After all, even the Bible warns, “For by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.”

Lévi taught that true magic is wrought at the thresholds, where the currents of nature meet and cross. All opposites generate a spark: life and death, waking and sleeping, light and darkness, male and female. The magician who understands these gates understands the secret of nature’s balance. Of all thresholds, dawn is the most potent. It is the birth of light out of darkness, the moment when the astral tides turn and the soul is most supple to their influence. To perform the sacred operation at this hour is to harness a natural surge of psychic and celestial energy, and to imprint the will upon the Astral Light in its purest, most obedient state.

And who is Ishtar, none other than the Queen of Heaven herself…