Seasonal Cycles as the Foundation of Religious Doctrine
The dogmatic core of early religion was not a revealed history but a construction drawn from how nature behaves—specifically the twin processes of destruction and renewal that play out across the turning year. Because the sun appears to recede from the earth during winter and come back in spring, ancient thinkers saw in this pattern a figurative dying and rising of the sun's spirit. They took this annual drama and mapped it onto the human condition, shaping the allegories of humanity's fall and redemption that later appeared in the Exoteric Creed.
The Garden Allegory
In the fall narrative, the first human pair is placed by the Lord of Good—or the Lord God—in a delightful garden. This garden matches the season of fruits and flowers, the spring and summer months. A prohibition is given: do not eat from a particular tree, under threat of penalty. Then the Lord of Evil, or Devil—symbolized by the serpent and represented by the constellation Serpens, which sits near the Autumnal Equinox—meets them at the border of his realm. He tempts the woman, she tempts the man, and they eat the forbidden fruit. Having fallen from their original state and committed the original sin, they drag the entire human race into the consequences of their disobedience. The Lord God then curses the serpent, clothes the man and woman in skins to shield them from the harsh conditions of the Lord of Evil's domain, and expels them from the garden. From that point on, they must earn their bread by working the soil.
Redemption as a Cyclical Promise
Regarding the plan of redemption, ancient astrologers divided the 6,000 years allotted to humanity—the span of the race on earth—into ten equal cycles. They taught that at the close of each cycle, God Sol, as Lord of Good, would appear in the flesh to destroy the works of the Lord of Evil and, through suffering and death, make atonement for sin. This is how the doctrines of original sin, incarnation, and vicarious atonement entered the redemption scheme. With the finale timed to coincide with the end of the 12,000-year cycle, later priestly successors added the further dogmas of the general judgment and future rewards and punishments, as shown in the introduction.
The fables of humanity's fall and redemption rest on the premise that people were driven, without their own will, from God's dominion into the Devil's—in other words, on their subjection to the inexorable necessity that makes the harsh seasons of autumn and winter follow the benevolent ones of spring and summer. This is the origin of the text found in Romans 8:20: “The creature was made subject to vanity (Evil), not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope.”
Allegory, Not Literal History
If not for popular teaching that treats it as literal history, no one could read the account of the fall in Genesis chapter 3 without seeing it as a simple allegory. Nor could anyone miss the force of the argument: no fall, no redemption; and if no redemption, then no God to reward and no Devil to punish; no hell to suffer and no heaven to enjoy. These are paired ideas that arrived together, and they must survive or perish together. Pull them apart, and the entire theological fabric falls to pieces.