Note 455 — Chapter XV · MEDICAL TALISMANS.

According to the Bible narrative, which Lenormant says is “a tradition whose origin is lost in the night of the remotest ages and which all the great nations of Western Asia possessed in common, with some variations” (Beginnings of History, p. xv), the luminaries were placed in the heavens “to divide the day from the night and to be signs for the time of festivals, the days and the years” (Gen., i, 14). This is from the Elohist version, which, with the Jehovist, may be found in Lenormant’s work. The ordinary version was drawn from the two.