~ 101 ~
or the Christian, and we have seen that it has been seriously suggested that Justin purposely avoids using such a name in connexion with the day of the Crucifixion. But apart from the fact that Venus is not always the goddess of impure love or of sexual love in general—many will remember the glorious hymn with which Lucretius opens his great poem and in which he hails her as the all-generating power of nature and love—Friday is not, properly speaking, the day of Venus but of the star of Venus—that most beautiful and in astrological lore most beneficent of the planets, in eastern countries said to be visible all day, often ranked with sun and moon as forming the great triad of the heavens, the star in fact which is both evening and morning star. Though it is probably true that the attributes of the planets came to be coloured by the attributes assigned to their patron deities in other spheres, strict thought and indeed strict language did not confuse them. Cicero, for instance, regularly uses 'stella Mercurii,' 'stella Martis,' not Mercurius or Mars. All five, indeed, had in early Greek usage non-divine names. Mercury was Stilbon or the 'twinkler,' Mars Pyroeis or the 'fiery' one, Jupiter Phaethon or the shining one, Saturn Phaenon meaning perhaps the revealer, and Venus was, of course, Phosphorus the light-bringer or Hesperus the evening star. The first four of these alternative names though not entirely lost were largely
