Lepus and Lupus

Lepus and Lupus are two constellations rarely heard of except that Lepus contains a famous deep red variable known as Hind's Crimson Star.

Lepus is known as The Hare; Lupus as The Wolf. Which would you guess represents a dangerous enemy? Most would say the wolf—although if you have a garden, you might consider the hare a more immediate threat.

The Hare. Hebrew and Arabic names associated with the constellation Lepus mean the enemy, the mad, the bound, and the deceiver. Lepus' head lies just below the upraised foot of the mighty Orion, and so we have here another of the heavenly pictures of the Seed of the woman crushing the head of the serpent, as God declared in the Garden of Eden.

The Wolf. Before this constellation's name became Lupus, it wasn't any particular type of animal—just a nondescript beast. The figures show it either carried in the right hand of Centaurus or pierced by the spear Centaurus carries. The constellation is also known as Victima, the victim.

Centaurus is a complicated figure with a complicated meaning. He is both the slayer and the slain. He pierces Victima, but he himself is a willing victim on behalf of another. This idea was carried into the myths surrounding the Centaur Chiron, but the origin of that thought lay in the mind of God from eternity.

Surely he took up our infirmities
       and carried our sorrows,
       yet we considered him stricken by God,
       smitten by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
       he was crushed for our iniquities;
       the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
       and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
       each of us has turned to his own way;
       and the LORD has laid on him
       the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4-6 NIV)