Chapter 351

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Aretia is the female form of Artes, the Egyptian Mars. Thence the Chaldæan (and now Hebrew) word ארצ (Arets), “Earth.” Seyffarth, the author of Beiträge zur Kenntniss (under “Artes,” Mars) quotes as follows: “Addit Cedrenus (Salm. I. c): Stella Martis ab Ægyptiis vocatur Ertosi (plantare, generare). Significat autem hoc omnis generis procreationem et vivificationem, omnisque substantiæ et materiæ naturam et vim ordinantem atque procreantem.” It is Earth as “source of being”; or, as explained by the author of The Source of Measures (p. 186), Arts is the same in Hebrew and Egyptian, and both “combine the primal idea of earth as source; precisely as in the Hebrew itself, under another form, Adam and Mâdim, Mars, are the same, and combine the idea of earth, with Adam under the form of h-adam-h.”