Quetzalcoatl, the Fallen Serpent, and the New Order of the Ages
- Michelle Hayman
- 2 hours ago
- 13 min read
Quetzalcoatl and the Bones of Creation
Aztec mythology taught that the universe cycles through great ages. We live under the Fifth Sun, but when the Fourth Sun perished in deluges and earthquakes, every human was destroyed. Only a heap of bones remained in Mictlan, the land of the dead. Quetzalcoatl – the Feathered Serpent god of wind and learning – volunteered to "restore" humanity. He and his twin Xolotl descended through the nine layers of Mictlan to bargain with Mictlantecuhtli, lord of death. Through cunning they obtained the long-lost bones, though in flight Quetzalcoatl stumbled and shattered them.
In some versions of the myth, Quetzalcoatl wept over the broken bones. His divine comrades ground the fragments into dust. Quetzalcoatl then pierced his own body; some sources say he transfixed his tongue or genitals; and spilled his sacred blood onto the bone-powder. From this bloody mixture sprang the new human race. The theology behind this story is stark: human life itself was forged from sacrifice. Quetzalcoatl’s own blood, willingly given, animated the inert bones. In effect, the Aztecs said that the world required the life-force of a god to raise mankind anew. Sacrifice was not merely a ritual habit but the very substance of creation.
This creation legend casts sacrifice as an ontological principle. Quetzalcoatl’s violent sacrifice of himself regenerates the world. The Aztecs took this literally; their hearts and bones, from warriors to farmers, were part of the cosmic renewal. Quetzalcoatl’s journey through death and back again sets the pattern: the serpent god’s wound and blood give birth to a living humanity, pointing to a universe sustained by death and rebirth.
In Scripture, those outside Christ are described as “children of the devil,” under the power of the serpent, destined to perish with him. Here we see two bloodlines, running side by side through human history. One is preserved by the true God, who saved Noah and fulfilled His promise in Christ, whose blood alone gives life everlasting. The other is a counterfeit bloodline, in which the serpent masquerades as creator, offering a false resurrection and binding mankind into cycles of sacrifice. Quetzalcoatl embodies this second line: a radiant light-bearer, but one whose blood creates only mortality and whose fatherhood enslaves rather than redeems.
John 8:44 LXX
“You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and did not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it.”
Quetzalcoatl and Venus, the Morning Star
Quetzalcoatl was also the Morning Star – the planet Venus at dawn – known to the Nahua as Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, “Lord of the House of Dawn.” The Aztec priests watched Venus’s motions carefully, for its cycle foretold upheavals. When Venus blazed just before sunrise, it was an ill omen: war, disease, and sacrifice often followed. In the Aztecs’ cyclical cosmos, Venus’ disappearance below and reappearance above the horizon symbolized death and rebirth. Quetzalcoatl as Venus embodied that paradoxical role – the bright herald of a new day, yet a harbinger of chaos.
Mesoamerican armies even timed battles to the planet’s cycles. The pictorial codices record “Venus wars” launched when Venus first rose as Morning Star. Likewise, captives were executed at dawn to honor Quetzalcoatl in his star-form. Victims’ hearts were offered up as nourishment for the sky-god. In Aztec thought, Quetzalcoatl the Morning Star demanded living sacrifice. He was not merely a gentle patron of culture but a cosmic force requiring blood tribute, just as the sun needs fuel each morning.
Quetzalcoatl’s story even tells of his own ritual death and resurrection. In some myths, he becomes drunk on pulque, dishonors himself, then immolates his body on a pyre. His ashes ascend to the heavens, and his spirit becomes the Morning Star. This ritual suicide is encoded in the astronomical role: as Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, Quetzalcoatl dies at night and is born again at dawn. His title literally unites light and fire: Tlahuizcalpan means “dawn,” and tecuhtli means “lord,” making him the Lord of Dawn. In this way he is a light-bringer, etymologically parallel to the biblical “Lucifer.” Yet Quetzalcoatl’s light is always double-edged; it dazzles with knowledge and hope, but it is inseparably bound to blood and ritual death. In essence, the fiery flying serpent reveals itself as the very figure Scripture calls the Queen of Heaven, the deceptive radiance that enthralls while consuming — not unlike the androgynous form of Baphomet, blending opposites to mask a darker reality.
The Fiery Flying Serpent of Isaiah
Remarkably, a similar image appears in ancient Hebrew scripture. Isaiah speaks of a seraph me‘opheph, “fiery flying serpent” (Isaiah 14:29; 30:6). This “seraph” shares a root with the heavenly seraphim in Isaiah 6, angelic beings of fire. Yet in the prophecies of judgment the flying serpent is a plague – venomous, airborne, and ominously radiant. The Hebrew word saraph (burning one) thus bridges celestial and infernal. In Isaiah it hints at a twisted echo of the angelic order.
This winged serpent recalls Quetzalcoatl: the Feathered Serpent is literally a flying serpent adorned with radiant plumage. Both blend snake and sky imagery, both bring fiery influence, and both demand sacrifice of a sort (whether victims for the star or at the altar). In the Christianized reading of Isaiah 14:12 (“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Day-Star, son of Dawn!”), the serpent or star becomes Lucifer, the fallen light-bringer. The Aztec Quetzalcoatl parallels this Luciferian pattern: a heavenly light-bringer who falls into death. Both figures blur angels and demons – they are serpents winged, fallen, yet shining.
Comparative theology even links them further. The winged serpent of Isaiah (a symbol of arrogant power destroyed) and Quetzalcoatl (a deceiver in some readings) resonate with later apocalyptic images. Revelation speaks of the beast “that was, and is not, and is to come” – language very much like Quetzalcoatl’s vanishing and promised return. Lucifer and Quetzalcoatl both lure humanity with light, then entangle us in cycles of blood and loyalty. They epitomize the archetype of the radiant deceiver: shining on high but dragging followers toward sacrifice and destruction.
Quetzalcoatl as Sun, Venus, and Saturn
Quetzalcoatl’s cosmic identity is multi-layered. In Aztec lore he is intertwined with the myths of the “Five Suns.” One of the Four Tezcatlipoca deities, he represents the West and the morning star. In one legend the gods chose Quetzalcoatl to reign as the sun during the Second Sun. But humanity soon failed, and Quetzalcoatl, in sorrow, unleashed storms on mankind before relinquishing his solar role. Later, for the Fifth Sun (our age), Quetzalcoatl again rescued the situation: by retrieving the ancestral bones from Mictlan and mixing them with blood, he allowed Huitzilopochtli to rise as the new sun. In each case Quetzalcoatl is bound up with the solar cycle – giving humans to the sky, then fallible, then giving life again through sacrifice and blood.
This solar aspect connects to another mythic figure: Saturn (the Roman name for Greek Cronus). In comparative myth, Saturn was the aged sky-god of a Golden Age who was overthrown by his son (Zeus). Saturn’s reign was once a “sun” of perfection, but he lost power and was imprisoned in Tartarus. Prophetic traditions foresaw Saturn’s return – a golden age restored. In David Talbott’s The Saturn Myth, Saturn is even described as a “First Sun.” Quetzalcoatl mirrors Saturn’s profile: like Cronus devouring his children to thwart fate, Quetzalcoatl “devours” through sacrifice. Both sustain cosmic order by ingesting life. Both are sages dethroned, promised to come back.
In Quetzalcoatl’s world, the moon goddess was Coyolxauhqui, “She of the Golden Bells,” remembered as a figure of sorcery and night power. In myth she led a cosmic rebellion, only to be struck down and cast into pieces. As goddess of the moon and magic, she represents the dismembered feminine principle of chaos and enchantment. Set beside Quetzalcoatl as Venus, the light-bringer who binds humanity through blood, she embodies the same spirit of defiance. Both the Feathered Serpent and the Moon goddess mirror rebellion not merely against cosmic order, but against the true Creator Himself.
At Chichén Itzá, the great pyramid of Kukulkán dramatizes Quetzalcoatl’s role in the cosmic cycle. Twice each year, at the spring and autumn equinoxes, the setting sun casts a serpent of light down the northern staircase, linking heaven to earth in a ritual of descent and return. For the Maya and the Aztecs, this was no accident of architecture: it was a theological drama inscribed in stone. The Feathered Serpent himself appeared in light and shadow, descended, united with the earth, and then vanished again until the cycle repeated. The equinox was thus a ritual of cosmic renewal, the rebirth of time through the descent of the radiant serpent.
It is not without irony that this event coincides with the season of Easter in the Christian calendar. For Christians, Easter marks Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection; the once-for-all triumph over sin and death. Where Quetzalcoatl’s descent perpetuated the endless cycle of blood and return, Christ’s descent into death broke the cycle itself. The parallel of season is striking, but the meaning could not be more different: one is a ritualized false resurrection requiring "perpetual sacrifice", the other the true resurrection ending sacrifice forever.
And yet the liturgical calendar of the “Mother Church” muddies this distinction. Careful study of scripture shows that Christ could not have been crucified on what tradition calls Good Friday. The Gospel of John speaks of sabbaths in the plural, and the Greek Septuagint confirms the use of the plural. That week contained two sabbaths: the High Sabbath of Passover, and the regular weekly (Saturday) Sabbath. Crucifixions were forbidden on sabbaths to prevent riots. If Friday was one sabbath and Saturday the weekly Sabbath, then Christ’s death could not have occurred on Friday. The ecclesiastical tradition fixed the days, but scripture itself contradicts the claim.
Here lies a disturbing convergence. Quetzalcoatl, in his aspect as Venus, is tied to Friday ; dies Veneris, the day of Venus in Latin. Quetzalcoatl is also the solar serpent, tied to the sun itself. The Church’s calendar proclaims that Christ was crucified on Friday, the day of Venus, and rose on Sunday, the day of the Sun. Thus, the flying fiery serpent, archetype of the false light, is represented by both Venus and the Sun; the very days institutional tradition assigned to the crucifixion and resurrection.
The coincidence is unsettling. In Quetzalcoatl’s myth, the radiant one falls, dies, and rises again in counterfeit glory. In the Church’s calendar, Christ’s passion is commemorated on the very days sacred to Venus and the Sun.
For a deeper breakdown, see my recent post on the true timing of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.
Quetzalcoatl as a Man
In later Mexica tradition Quetzalcoatl also appears as a historical person: the Toltec ruler Ce Acatl Topiltzin, who lived in the tenth century A.D. His name literally means “Our Prince One-Reed Feathered Serpent.” Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl was said to be a priest-king of the ancient city of Tula. He brought peace, built temples, and famously abolished human sacrifice during his reign. Instead of blood sacrifice, he instituted offerings of flowers, birds, and serpent self-bloodletting as penance.
Legends diverge on his downfall. Some say Quetzalcoatl was tricked into shame – perhaps through sorcery or his own yielding to pulque – and felt dishonored. Whether by trickery or remorse, he gathered his belongings and rowed east toward the sunrise. On the coast (at Tlapallan), he either burned himself on a funeral pyre or simply walked into the burning sea. In sacrifice and death he ascended, transforming into the Morning Star as promised. Others say he did not kill himself but rather sailed away alive on a raft, vowing to return one day under the sign One-Reed. To this day, a prophecy of return clung to his legend. Emperor Moctezuma later wondered if the Spanish Conquistador Cortez was Quetzalcoatl come back.
Topiltzin’s tale – a wise lawgiver who becomes a deity – fits a common heroic archetype. It recalls figures like Nimrod or Gilgamesh. Nimrod, the mighty “hunter” of Babylon, was later demonized as a god-king who rebelled against the true Creator. Gilgamesh, the historic king of Uruk, was deified in myth: he journeyed to the edges of the world seeking immortality, descended into death’s domain, and returned transformed (though realizing he cannot escape death). Like them, Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl is a giant of legend: man among men, then divine among stars. His life story blurs into mythology. In symbolic terms, he is the living light-bringer who falls into ruin and yet promises rebirth – the human who becomes myth.
“I said, ‘You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.’” (Psalm 82:6–7)
This passage has long been read as a judgment against rebellious heavenly beings—“gods” or “angels of God”—who are stripped of their immortality and condemned to mortality.
It ties directly into the Quetzalcoatl theme: a radiant, exalted figure, remembered as divine, yet destined to fall and die like a man.
The Archetypal Pattern: Radiance, Fall, Death, Return
Quetzalcoatl’s narrative embodies a repeating cosmic pattern. He begins in radiance: whether as the sun itself, the morning star, or a beloved ruler, he shines with life and wisdom. Then comes the fall: a rival or fate overthrows him (the god Tezcatlipoca, or his own human failings), casting him down. He undergoes death or descent: whether immolation, journey into the underworld, or exile. Finally, he returns – not as he was, but transfigured: as a star.
This cycle mirrors many “light-bringer” myths. In Isaiah 14:12, the fallen “Day-Star” (Latin Lucifer) cries out from the ground after being hurled from heaven, echoing Quetzalcoatl’s descent. Revelation’s Beast is described as “one that was, and is not, and is to rise again” – directly paralleling Quetzalcoatl’s vanishing and anticipated coming back. Saturn (Cronus) was cast down and imprisoned, yet ancient prophecies held that his reign would return. Even Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue proclaims “Saturnia regna redux” – the return of Saturn’s golden kingdom. In every case, the beloved ruler or radiant one dies only to be reborn or to inspire the hope of renewal.
Quetzalcoatl is at the heart of this archetype. He is at once sun, star, man, and god; giver of life and consumer of sacrifice. His “resurrection” is a staged phenomenon of cosmic imagery: light and shadow, sacrifice and renewal. And yet it is “counterfeit” in a sense: the light he brings demands the darker truth of blood, war, and false promises. He offers a shining, cyclical salvation – only to tie the world ever more tightly to sacrifice and dependency.
The Great Seal and the Number 52
Strikingly, a very similar cosmic message is encoded on the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States, printed on the one-dollar bill. The unfinished pyramid, with its thirteen visible steps crowned by the all-seeing eye, a geometric emblem of ascent through struggle and initiation toward a radiant capstone of false light. Beneath it lies the motto Novus Ordo Seclorum, “New Order of the Ages,” taken from Virgil’s prophecy of a returning golden age, when Saturn would rise again.
The symbolism of thirteen saturates the design. It is not only in the pyramid’s steps but repeated deliberately across the Seal: thirteen letters in Annuit Coeptis, thirteen letters in E Pluribus Unum, thirteen stars above the eagle’s head, thirteen arrows in its talon, and thirteen stripes upon its shield. The recurrence of the number encodes thirteen as sacred; the number of transformation, death, and renewal.
Numerically, the pyramid’s thirteen steps, multiplied across its four faces, yield fifty-two. In Mesoamerican cosmology, fifty-two marked the calendar round; the convergence of the 260-day ritual cycle and the 365-day solar year. At this moment the Aztecs believed the cosmos itself might die unless renewed with sacrifice. Hence the New Fire Ceremony: all lights extinguished, homes cast into darkness, idols smashed, and at midnight a captive slain on the Hill of the Star. A new flame was kindled within his chest and spread across the empire. Without it, they feared, the sun would not rise, and the stars would fall as monsters to devour the world.
The number thirteen itself carries darker associations. In esoteric lore it marks death and transformation; in biblical reckoning it is tied to rebellion and apostasy. Multiplied by six; the number of man; it produces seventy-eight, the number of Tarot’s full deck, a system of occult initiation. Seventy-eight thus encodes humanity (six) bound to endless cycles of death and false renewal (thirteen).
Read this way, the Great Seal’s use of thirteen is no mere homage to the colonies. It encodes an archetype of cosmic ascent through death, the renewal of time by blood, and the promise of false light at the summit. The Novus Ordo Seclorum beneath does not simply proclaim a political beginning but echoes Virgil’s Saturnian prophecy of an age reborn. Set beside Quetzalcoatl’s cycles of death and renewal, the Great Seal whispers the same message: the world continues through sacrifice, darkness, and rebirth under a counterfeit order of the ages.
Virgil, Saturn, and the New Order of the Ages
This theme transcends both hemispheres. In Greco-Roman myth, Saturn once ruled an idyllic Golden Age, until Jupiter (Zeus) rebelled and cast him down. Yet some sources say the Saturnian reign would return someday. Virgil’s famous Fourth Eclogue (written in turbulent times) proclaimed that “Saturn’s kingdom” (the Golden Age) would again flourish under a destined child. Early Christians later applied Virgil’s vision to Christ, but originally it was pagan prophecy of regaining paradise. It spoke of ages ending, a “new order” being born, and even mentioned Apollo (the sun-god) finally reigning in a pure world.
When American revolutionaries chose Novus Ordo Seclorum in 1782, they were borrowing Virgil’s hopeful imagery. Thomson, a Latin scholar, explained it as “the beginning of the new American Era.” Nevertheless, that phrase literally meant the birth of a new cycle of ages. In the same eclogue, Virgil had paired this with the return of Apollo and Saturn’s restoration. In architecture, the pyramid on the seal was deliberately echoing ancient pyramid symbolism.
Conclusion: Quetzalcoatl and the Counterfeit Light
Quetzalcoatl thus stands at the confluence of human mythic themes. He is star and serpent, king and savior, creator and destroyer. His story encodes the idea of a light that captivates but requires a terrible price. On every level – from Mesoamerican creation cosmogonies to classical prophecy to modern symbolism – the pattern repeats: a radiant ruler is exalted, then cast down, only to return or inspire anew. Nimrod, Gilgamesh, Lucifer, Saturn, even Revelation’s Beast – all are variations on this same archetype of fall and counterfeit resurrection.
In stone and story, in dollar bills and pyramids, humanity memorializes the dance of sacrifice and renewal that Quetzalcoatl represents. The equinox serpent of Chichén Itzá is as real as the pyramid on the dollar bill: both are monuments to a serpent of light that descends, then goes away. At the heart of the myth is the assertion that order depends on sacrifice, and hope on a light that is deceptive. Whether in an ancient temple or modern seal, the enduring image is the fallen light-bringer who “was, and is not, and is to come.” It is a story woven into the cycles of the sky and the soul – the counterfeit radiance that demands our blood and our faith.
“Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” — John 3:5