Chapter XXXIX: Explanation

After what we have seen concerning the numerous virgin-born, crucified and resurrected Saviours, believed on in the Pagan world for so many centuries before the time assigned for the birth of the Christian Saviour, the questions naturally arise: were they real personages? did they ever exist in the flesh? whence came these stories concerning them? have they a foundation in truth, or are they simply creations of the imagination?

The _historical_ theory--according to which _all_ the persons mentioned in mythology were once real human beings, and the legends and fabulous traditions relating to them were merely the additions and embellishments of later times--which was so popular with scholars of the last century, has been altogether abandoned.

Under the historical point of view the gods are mere deified mortals, either heroes who have been deified after their death, or Pontiff-chieftains who have passed themselves off for gods, and who, it is gratuitously supposed, found people stupid enough to believe in their pretended divinity. This was the manner in which, formerly, writers explained the mythology of nations of antiquity; but a method that pre-supposed an historical Crishna, an historical Osiris, an historical Mithra, an historical Hercules, an historical Apollo, or an historical Thor, was found untenable, and therefore, does not, at the present day, stand in need of a refutation. As a writer of the early part of the present century said:

"We shall never have an ancient history worthy of the perusal
of men of common sense, till we cease treating poems as
history, and send back such personages as Hercules, Theseus,
Bacchus, etc., to the heavens, whence their history is taken,
and whence they never descended to the earth."

The historical theory was succeeded by the _allegorical_ theory, which supposes that all the myths of the ancients were _allegorical_ and _symbolical_, and contain some moral, religious, or philosophical truth or historical fact under the form of an allegory, which came in process of time to be understood literally.

In the preceding pages we have spoken of the several virgin-born, crucified and resurrected Saviours, as real personages. We have attributed to these individuals words and acts, and have regarded the words and acts recorded in the several sacred books from which we have quoted, as said and done by them. But in doing this, we have simply used the language of others. These gods and heroes were not real personages; _they are merely personifications of the_ SUN. As Prof. Max Müller observes in his Lectures on the Science of Religion:

"One of the earliest objects that would strike and stir the
mind of man, and for which a _sign_ or a _name_ would soon be
wanted, is surely the _Sun_.[467:1] It is very hard for us to
realize the feelings with which the first dwellers on the
earth looked upon the Sun, or to understand fully what they
meant by a morning prayer or a morning sacrifice. Perhaps
there are few people who have watched a sunrise more than once
or twice in their life; few people who have ever known the
meaning of a morning prayer, or a morning sacrifice. But think
of man at the very dawn of time. . . . think of the Sun
awakening the eyes of man from sleep, and his mind from
slumber! Was not the sunrise to him the first wonder, the
first beginning of all reflection, all thought, all
philosophy? Was it not to him the first revelation, the first
beginning of all trust, of all religion? . . . .

"Few nations only have preserved in their ancient poetry some
remnants of the natural awe with which the earlier dwellers on
the earth saw that brilliant being slowly rising from out of
the darkness of the night, raising itself by its own might
higher and higher, till it stood triumphant on the arch of
heaven, and then descended and sank down in its fiery glory
into the dark abyss of the heaving and hissing sea. In the
hymns of the _Veda_, the poet still wonders whether the Sun
will rise again; he asks how he can climb the vault of heaven?
why he does not fall back? why there is no dust on his path?
And when the rays of the morning rouse him from sleep and call
him back to new life, when he sees the Sun, as he says,
stretching out his golden arms to bless the world and rescue
it from the terror of darkness, he exclaims, 'Arise, our life,
our spirit has come back! the darkness is gone, the light
approaches.'"

Many years ago, the learned Sir William Jones said:

"We must not be surprised at finding, on a close examination,
that the characters of all the Pagan deities, male and female,
melt into each other, and at last into one or two; for it
seems as well founded opinion, that the whole crowd of gods
and goddesses of ancient Rome, and modern Varanes, mean only
the powers of nature, and principally those of the SUN,
expressed in a variety of ways, and by a multitude of fanciful
names."[467:2]

Since the first learned president of the Royal Asiatic Society paved the way for the science of _comparative mythology_, much has been learned on this subject, so that, as the Rev. George W. Cox remarks, "recent discussions on the subject seem to justify the conviction that the foundations of the science of _comparative mythology_ have been firmly laid, and that its method is unassailable."[468:1]

If we wish to find the gods and goddesses of the ancestors of our race, we must look to the sun, the moon, the stars, the sky, the earth, the sea, the dawn, the clouds, the wind, &c., _which they personified and worshiped_. That these have been the gods and goddesses of all nations of antiquity, is an established fact.[468:2]

The words which had denoted the sun and moon would denote not merely living things but living persons. From personification to deification the steps would be but few; and the process of disintegration would at once furnish the materials for a vast fabric of mythology. All the expressions which had attached a living force to natural objects would remain as the description of personal and anthropomorphous gods. Every word would become an attribute, and all ideas, once grouped around a simple object, would branch off into distinct personifications. The sun had been the lord of light, the driver of the chariot of the day; he had toiled and labored for the sons of men, and sunk down to rest, after a hard battle, in the evening. But now the lord of light would be Phoibos Apollon, while Helios would remain enthroned in his fiery chariot, and his toils and labors and death-struggles would be transferred to Hercules. The violet clouds which greet his rising and his setting would now be represented by herds of cows which feed in earthly pastures. There would be other expressions which would still remain as floating phrases, not attached to any definite deities. These would gradually be converted into incidents in the life of heroes, and be woven at length into systematic narratives. Finally, these gods or heroes, and the incidents of their mythical career, would receive each "a local habitation and a name." _These would remain as genuine history, when the origin and meaning of the words had been either wholly or in part forgotten._

For the proofs of these assertions, the Vedic poems furnish indisputable evidence, that such as this was the origin and growth of Greek and Teutonic mythology. In these poems, the names of many, perhaps of most, of the Greek gods, indicate natural objects which, if endued with life, have not been reduced to human personality. In them Daphne is still simply the morning twilight ushering in the splendor of the new born sun; the cattle of Helios there are still the light-colored clouds which the dawn leads out into the fields of the sky. There the idea of Hercules has not been separated from the image of the toiling and struggling sun, and the glory of the life-giving Helios has not been transferred to the god of Delos and Pytho. In the Vedas the myths of Endymion, of Kephalos and Prokris, Orpheus and Eurydike, are exhibited in the form of detached mythical phrases, which furnished for each their germ. The analysis may be extended indefinitely: but the conclusion can only be, that in the Vedic language we have the foundation, not only of the glowing legends of Hellas, but of the dark and sombre mythology of the Scandinavian and the Teuton. Both alike have grown up chiefly from names which have been grouped around the sun; but the former has been grounded on those expressions which describe the recurrence of day and night, the latter on the great tragedy of nature, in the alternation of summer and winter.

Of this vast mass of solar myths, some have emerged into independent legends, others have furnished the groundwork of whole epics, others have remained simply as floating tales whose intrinsic beauty no poet has wedded to his verse.[469:1]

"The results obtained from the examination of language in its several forms leaves no room for doubt that the general system of mythology has been traced to its fountain head. We can no longer shut our eyes to the fact that there was a stage in the history of human speech, during which all the abstract words in constant use among ourselves were utterly unknown, when men had formed no notions of virtue or prudence, of thought and intellect, of slavery or freedom, but spoke only of the man who was strong, who could point the way to others and choose one thing out of many, of the man who was not bound to any other and able to do as he pleased.

"That even this stage was not the earliest in the history of language is now a growing opinion among philologists; but for the _comparison_ of legends current in different countries it is not necessary to carry the search further back. Language without words denoting abstract qualities implies a condition of thought in which men were only awakening to a sense of the objects which surrounded them, and points to a time when the world was to them full of strange sights and sounds, some beautiful, some bewildering, some terrific, when, in short, they knew little of themselves beyond the vague consciousness of their existence, and nothing of the phenomena of the world without. _In such a state they could but attribute to all that they saw or touched or heard, a life which was like their own in its consciousness, its joys, and its sufferings._ That power of sympathizing with nature which we are apt to regard as the peculiar gift of the poet was then shared alike by all. This sympathy was not the result of any effort, it was inseparably bound up with the words which rose to their lips. It implied no special purity of heart or mind; it pointed to no Arcadian paradise where shepherds knew not how to wrong or oppress or torment each other. We say that the morning light rests on the mountains; they said that the sun was greeting his bride, as naturally as our own poet would speak of the sunlight clasping the earth, or the moonbeams as kissing the sea.

"We have then before us a stage of language corresponding to a stage in the history of the human mind _in which all sensible objects were regarded as instinct with a conscious life_. The varying phases of that life were therefore described as truthfully as they described their own feelings or sufferings; and hence every phase became a picture. But so long as the conditions of their life remained unchanged, they knew perfectly what the picture meant, and ran no risk of confusing one with another. Thus they had but to describe the things which they saw, felt, or heard, in order to keep up an inexhaustible store of phrases faithfully describing the facts of the world from their point of view. This language was indeed the result of an observation not less keen than that by which the inductive philosopher extorts the secrets of the natural world. Nor was its range much narrower. Each object received its own measure of attention, and no one phenomenon was so treated as to leave no room for others in their turn. They could not fail to note the changes of days and years, of growth and decay, of calm and storm; _but the objects which so changed were to them living things, and the rising and setting of the sun, the return of winter and summer, became a drama in which the actors were their enemies or their friends_.

"That this is a strict statement of facts in the history of the human mind, philology alone would abundantly prove; but not a few of these phrases have come down to us in their earliest form, and point to the long-buried stratum of language of which they are the fragments. _These relics exhibit in their germs the myths which afterwards became the legends of gods and heroes with human forms, and furnished the groundwork of the epic poems, whether of the eastern or the western world._

"The mythical or mythmaking language of mankind had no partialities; and if the career of the _Sun_ occupies a large extent of the horizon, we cannot fairly simulate ignorance of the cause. Men so placed would not fail to put into words the thoughts or emotions roused in them by the varying phases of that mighty world on which we, not less than they, feel that our life depends, although we may know something more of its nature.

"Thus grew up a multitude of expressions which described the sun as the child of the night, as the destroyer of the darkness, as the lover of the dawn and the dew--of phrases which would go on to speak of him as killing the dew with his spears, and of forsaking the dawn as he rose in the heaven. The feeling that the fruits of the earth were called forth by his warmth would find utterance in words which spoke of him as the friend and the benefactor of man; while the constant recurrence of his work would lead them to describe him as a being constrained to toil for others, as doomed to travel over many lands, and as finding everywhere things on which he could bestow his love or which he might destroy by his power. His journey, again, might be across cloudless skies, or amid alternations of storm and calm; his light might break fitfully through the clouds, or be hidden for many a weary hour, to burst forth at last with dazzling splendor as he sank down in the western sky. He would thus be described as facing many dangers and many enemies, none of whom, however, may arrest his course; as sullen, or capricious, or resentful; as grieving for the loss of the dawn whom he had loved, or as nursing his great wrath and vowing a pitiless vengeance. Then as the veil was rent at eventide, they would speak of the chief, who had long remained still, girding on his armor; or of the wanderer throwing off his disguise, and seizing his bow or spear to smite his enemies; of the invincible warrior whose face gleams with the flush of victory when the fight is over, as he greets the fair-haired Dawn who closes, as she had begun, the day. To the wealth of images thus lavished on the daily life and death of the Sun there would be no limit. He was the child of the morning, or her husband, or her destroyer; he forsook her and he returned to her, either in calm serenity or only to sink presently in deeper gloom.

"So with other sights and sounds. The darkness of night brought with it a feeling of vague horror and dread; the return of daylight cheered them with a sense of unspeakable gladness; and thus the Sun who scattered the black shade of night would be the mighty champion doing battle with the biting snake which lurked in its dreary hiding-place. But as the Sun accomplishes his journey day by day through the heaven, the character of the seasons is changed. The buds and blossoms of spring-time expand in the flowers and fruits of summer, and the leaves fall and wither on the approach of winter. Thus the daughter of the earth would be spoken of as dying or as dead, as severed from her mother for five or six weary months, not to be restored to her again until the time for her return from the dark land should once more arrive. But as no other power than that of the Sun can recall vegetation to life, this child of the earth would be represented as buried in a sleep from which the touch of the Sun alone could arouse her, when he slays the frost and cold which lie like snakes around her motionless form.

"_That these phrases would furnish the germs of myths or legends teeming with human feeling, as soon as the meaning of the phrases were in part or wholly forgotten, was as inevitable as that in the infancy of our race men should attribute to all sensible objects the same kind of life which they were conscious of possessing themselves._"

Let us compare the history of the _Saviour_ which we have already seen, with that of the _Sun_, as it is found in the _Vedas_.

We can follow in the _Vedic_ hymns, step by step, the development which changes the _Sun_ from a mere luminary into a "_Creator_," "_Preserver_," "_Ruler_," and "_Rewarder of the World_"--in fact, into a _Divine or Supreme Being_.

The first step leads us from the mere light of the Sun to that light which in the morning wakes man from sleep, and seems to give new life, not only to man, but to the whole of nature. He who wakes us in the morning, who recalls all nature to new life, is soon called "_The Giver of Daily Life_."

Secondly, by another and bolder step, the Giver of Daily Light and Life becomes the giver of light and life in general. _He who brings light and life to-day, is the same who brought light and life on the first of days._ As light is the beginning of the day, so light was the beginning of creation, and the Sun, from being a mere light-bringer or life-giver, becomes a Creator, and, if a Creator, then soon also a Ruler of the World.

Thirdly, as driving away the dreaded darkness of the night, and likewise as fertilizing the earth, the Sun is conceived as a "Defender" and kind "Protector" of all living things.

Fourthly, the Sun sees everything, both that which is good and that which is evil; and how natural therefore that the evil-doer should be told that the sun sees what no human eye may have seen, and that the innocent, when all other help fails him, should appeal to the sun to attest his guiltlessness!

Let us examine now, says Prof. Müller, from whose work we have quoted the above, a few passages (from the _Rig-Veda_) illustrating every one of these perfectly natural transitions.

"In hymn vii. we find the Sun invoked as '_The Protector of
everything that moves or stands, of all that exists_.'"

"Frequent allusion is made to the Sun's power of seeing
everything. The stars flee before the all-seeing Sun, like
thieves (R. V. vii.). He sees the right and the wrong among
men (Ibid.). He who looks upon the world, knows also all the
thoughts in men (Ibid.)."

"As the Sun sees everything and knows everything, he is asked
to forget and forgive what he alone has seen and knows (R. V.
iv.)."

"The Sun is asked to drive away illness and bad dreams (R. V.
x.)."

"Having once, and more than once, been invoked as the
life-bringer, the Sun is also called the breath or life of all
that moves and rests (R. V. i.); and lastly, he becomes _the
maker of all things_, by whom all the worlds have been brought
together (R. V. x.), and . . . Lord of man and of all living
creatures."

"He is the God among gods (R. V. i.); he is the divine leader
of all the gods (R. V. viii.)."

"He alone rules the whole world (R. V. v.). The laws which he
has established are firm (R. V. iv.), and the other gods not
only praise him (R. V. vii.), but have to follow him as their
leader (R. V. v.)."[473:1]

That the history of _Christ_ Jesus, the Christian Saviour,--"the true _Light_, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,"[473:2]--is simply the history of the _Sun_--the real Saviour of mankind--is demonstrated beyond a doubt from the following indisputable facts:

1. _The birth of Christ Jesus_ is said to have taken place at _early dawn_[473:3] on the 25th day of December. Now, this is the _Sun's birthday_. At the commencement of the sun's apparent annual revolution round the earth, he was said to have been born, and, on the first moment after midnight of the 24th of December, all the heathen nations of the earth, as if by common consent, celebrated the accouchement of the "_Queen of Heaven_," of the "_Celestial Virgin of the Sphere_," and the birth of the god _Sol_. On that day the sun having fully entered the winter solstice, the _Sign of the Virgin_ was rising on the eastern horizon. The woman's symbol of this stellar sign was represented first by ears of corn, then with a new-born male child in her arms. Such was the picture of the _Persian_ sphere cited by Aben-Ezra:

"The division of the first decan of the Virgin represents a
beautiful virgin with flowing hair, sitting in a chair, with
two ears of corn in her hand, and suckling an infant called
IESUS by some nations, and _Christ_ in Greek."[474:1]

This denotes the _Sun_, which, at the moment of the winter solstice, precisely when the Persian magi drew the horoscope of the new year, was placed on the bosom of the Virgin, rising heliacally in the eastern horizon. On this account he was figured in their astronomical pictures under the form of a child suckled by a chaste virgin.[474:2]

Thus we see that Christ Jesus was born on the same day as Buddha, Mithras, Osiris, Horus, Hercules, Bacchus, Adonis and other _personifications of the_ SUN.[474:3]

2. _Christ Jesus was born of a Virgin._ In this respect he is also the _Sun_, for 'tis the sun alone who can be born of an immaculate virgin, who conceived him without carnal intercourse, and who is still, after the birth of her child, a virgin.

This Virgin, of whom the Sun, the true "Saviour of Mankind," is born, is either the bright and beautiful _Dawn_,[474:4] or the dark _Earth_,[474:5] or _Night_.[474:6] Hence we have, as we have already seen, the _Virgin_, or _Virgo_, as one of the signs of the zodiac.[474:7]

This Celestial Virgin was feigned to be a mother. She is represented in the Indian Zodiac of Sir William Jones, with ears of corn in one hand, and the lotus in the other. In Kircher's Zodiac of Hermes, she has corn in both hands. In other planispheres of the Egyptian priests she carries ears of corn in one hand, and the infant Saviour _Horus_ in the other. In Roman Catholic countries, she is generally represented with the child in one hand, and the lotus or lily in the other. In Vol. II. of Montfaucon's work, she is represented as a female nursing a child, with ears of corn in her hand, and the legend IAO. She is seated on clouds, a star is at her head. The reading of the Greek letters, from right to left, show this to be very ancient.

In the Vedic hymns Aditi, _the Dawn_, is called the "_Mother of the Gods_." "She is the mother with powerful, terrible, with _royal sons_." She is said to have given birth to the _Sun_.[475:1] "As the _Sun_ and all the _solar deities_ rise from the _east_," says Prof. Max Müller, "we can well understand how Aditi (the Dawn) came to be called the 'Mother of the Bright Gods.'"[475:2]

The poets of the Veda indulged freely in theogonic speculations without being frightened by any contradictions. They knew of Indra as the greatest of gods, they knew of Agni as the god of gods, they knew of Varuna as the ruler of all; but they were by no means startled at the idea that their Indra had a mother, or that Varuna was nursed in the lap of Aditi. All this was true to nature; for their god was the _Sun_, and the mother who bore and nursed him was the _Dawn_.[475:3]

We find in the _Vishnu Purana_, that Devaki (the virgin mother of the Hindoo Saviour Crishna, whose history, as we have seen, corresponds in most every particular with that of Christ Jesus) _is called Aditi_,[475:4] which, in the _Rig-Veda_, is the name for the _Dawn_. Thus we see the legend is complete. Devaki is Aditi, Aditi is the Dawn, and the Dawn is the Virgin Mother. "The Saviour of Mankind" who is born of her is the Sun, the Sun is Crishna, and Crishna is Christ.

In the _Mahabharata_, Crishna is also represented as the "Son of _Aditi_."[475:5] As the hour of his birth grew near, the mother became more beautiful, and her form more brilliant.[475:6]

_Indra_, the sun, who was worshiped in some parts of India as a _Crucified God_, is also represented in the Vedic hymns as the _Son of the Dawn_. He is said to have been born of Dahana, who is Daphne, a personification of the Dawn.[475:7]

The _humanity_ of this SOLAR GOD-MAN, this demiurge, is strongly insisted on in the _Rig-Veda_. He is the son of God, but also the son of Aditi. He is Purusha, the man, the male. Agni is frequently called the "Son of man." It is expressly explained that the titles Agni, Indra, Mitra, &c., all refer to _one Sun god_ under "many names." And when we find the name of a mortal, _Yama_, who once lived upon earth, included among these names, the humanity of the demiurge becomes still more accentuated, and we get at the root idea.

_Horus_, the Egyptian Saviour, was the son of the virgin _Isis_. Now, this Isis, in Egyptian mythology, is the same as the virgin Devaki in Hindoo mythology. She is the _Dawn_.[476:1] _Isis_, as we have already seen, is represented suckling the infant Horus, and, in the words of Prof. Renouf, we may say, "in whose lap can the _Sun_ be nursed more fitly than in that of the _Dawn_?"[476:2]

Among the goddesses of Egypt, the highest was Neith, who reigned inseparably with Amun in the upper sphere. She was called "Mother of the gods," "Mother of the sun." She was the feminine origin of all things, as Amun was the male origin. She held the same rank at Sais as Amun did at Thebes. Her temples there are said to have exceeded in colossal grandeur anything ever seen before. On one of these was the celebrated inscription thus deciphered by Champollion:

"I am all that has been, all that is, all that will be. No
mortal has ever raised the veil that conceals me. _My
offspring is the Sun._"

She was mother of the _Sun_-god _Ra_, and, says Prof. Renouf, "is commonly supposed to represent _Heaven_; but some expressions which are hardly applicable to heaven, render it more probable that she is one of the many names of the _Dawn_."[476:3]

If we turn from Indian and Egyptian, to Grecian mythology, we shall also find that their _Sun-gods_ and _solar heroes_ are born of the same virgin mother. Theseus was said to have been born of Aithra, "_the pure air_," and OEdipus of Iokaste, "_the violet light of morning_." Perseus was born of the virgin Danae, and was called the "_Son of the bright morning_."[476:4] In Iô, the mother of the "sacred bull,"[476:5] the mother also of Hercules, we see the _violet-tinted morning_ from which the sun is born; all these gods and heroes being, like _Christ_ Jesus, _personifications of the Sun_.[476:6]

"The Saviour of Mankind" was also represented as being born of the "_dusky mother_," which accounts for many Pagan, and so-called Christian, goddesses being represented _black_.[477:1] This is the _dark night_, who for many weary hours travails with the birth of her child. The Sun, which scatters the darkness, is also the child of the darkness, and so the phrase naturally went _that he was born of her_. Of the two legends related in the poems afterwards combined in the "Hymn to Apollo," the former relates the birth of Apollo, the _Sun_, from Leto, the _Darkness_, which is called his mother.[477:2] In this case, Leto would be _personified_ as a "black virgin," either with or without the child in her arms.

The _dark earth_ was also represented as being the mother of the god Sun, who apparently came out of, or was born of her, in the East,[477:3] as Minos (the sun) was represented to have been born of Ida (the earth).[477:4]

In Hindoo mythology, the _Earth_, under the name of _Prithivi_, receives a certain share of honors as one of the primitive goddesses of the Veda, being thought of as the "_kind mother_." Moreover, various _deities_ were regarded as the progeny resulting from the fancied union of the Earth with Dyaus (_Heaven_).[477:5]

Our Aryan forefathers looked up to the _heavens_ and they gave it the name of _Dyaus_, from a root-word which means "_to shine_." And when, out of the forces and forms of nature, they afterwards fashioned other gods, this name of Dyaus became _Dyaus pitar_, the _Heaven-father_, or Lord of All; and in far later times, when the western Aryans had found their home in Europe, the _Dyaus pitar_ of the central Asian land became the _Zeupater_ of the Greeks, and the _Jupiter_ of the Romans, and the first part of his name gave _us_ the word _Deity_.

According to Egyptian mythology, Isis was also the Earth.[477:6] Again, from the union of Seb and Nut sprung the mild Osiris. Seb is the _Earth_, Nut is _Heaven_, and Osiris is the _Sun_.[477:7]

Tacitus, the Roman historian, speaking of the Germans in A. D. 98, says:

"There is nothing in these several tribes that merit
attention, except that they all agree in worshiping the
goddess _Earth_, or as they call her, _Herth_, whom they
consider as the common mother of all."[477:8]

These virgin mothers, and virgin goddesses of antiquity, were also, at times, personifications of the _Moon_, or of Nature.[478:1]

Who is "God the _Father_," who overshadows the maiden? The overshadowing of the maiden by "God the Father," whether he be called Zeus, Jupiter or Jehovah, is simply the _Heaven_, the _Sky_, the "_All-father_,"[478:2] looking down upon with love, and overshadowing the maiden, the broad flushing light of _Dawn_, or the _Earth_. From this union the _Sun_ is born without any carnal intercourse. The _mother_ is yet a _virgin_. This is illustrated in Hindoo mythology by the union of Pritrivi, "_Mother Earth_," with Dyaus, "Heaven." Various deities were regarded as their progeny.[478:3] In the Vedic hymns the _Sun_--the Lord and Saviour, the Redeemer and Preserver of Mankind--is frequently called the "_Son of the Sky_."[478:4]

According to Egyptian mythology, Seb (the _Earth_) is overshadowed by Nut (_Heaven_), the result of this union being the beneficent Lord and Saviour, Osiris.[478:5] The same thing is to be found in ancient Grecian mythology. Zeus or Jupiter is the _Sky_,[478:6] and Danae, Leto, Iokaste, Io and others, are the _Dawn_, or _the violet light of morning_.[478:7]

"The _Sky_ appeared to men (says Plutarch), to perform the
functions of a _Father_, as the _Earth_ those of a _Mother_.
The sky was the father, for it cast seed into the bosom of the
earth, which in receiving them became fruitful, and brought
forth, and was the mother."[479:1]

This union has been sung in the following verses by Virgil:

"Tum pater omnipotens fecundis imbribis æther
Conjugis in grenium lætæ descendit."

(Geor. ii.)

The _Phenician_ theology is founded on the same principles. _Heaven_ and _Earth_ (called Ouranos and Ghè) are at the head of a genealogy of æons, whose adventures are conceived in the mythological style of these physical allegorists.[479:2]

In the Samothracian mysteries, which seem to have been the most anciently established ceremonies of the kind in Europe, the _Heaven_ and the _Earth_ were worshiped as a male and female _divinity_, and as the _parents of all things_.[479:3]

The Supreme God (the _Al-fader_), of the ancient _Scandinavians_ was _Odin_, a personification of the _Heavens_. The principal goddess among them was _Frigga_, a personification of the _Earth_. It was the opinion among these people that this Supreme Being or Celestial God had united with the Earth (Frigga) to produce "Baldur the Good" (the Sun), who corresponds to the Apollo of the Greeks and Romans, and the Osiris of the Egyptians.[479:4]

_Xiuletl_, in the Mexican language, signifies _Blue_, and hence was a name which the Mexican gave to _Heaven_, from which _Xiuleticutli_ is derived, an epithet signifying "_the God of Heaven_," which they bestowed upon _Tezcatlipoca_, who was the "Lord of All," the "Supreme God." He it was who overshadowed the Virgin of Tula, Chimelman, who begat the Saviour Quetzalcoatle (the Sun).

3. _His birth was foretold by a star._ This is the bright _morning star_--

"Fairest of stars, last in the train of Night,
If better, thou belongst not to the Dawn,
Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn
With thy bright circlet"--

which heralds the birth of the god _Sol_, the beneficent Saviour.

A glance at a geography of the heavens will show the "chaste, pure, immaculate Virgin, suckling an infant," preceded by a _Star_, which rises immediately preceding the Virgin and her child. This can truly be called "_his Star_," which informed the "Wise Men," the "Magi"--_Astrologers and Sun-worshipers_--and "the shepherds who watched their flocks by night" that the Saviour of Mankind was about to be born.

4. _The Heavenly Host sang praises._ All nature smiles at the birth of the Heavenly Being. "To him all angels cry aloud, the heavens, and all the powers therein." "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men." "The quarters of the horizon are irradiate with joy, as if moonlight was diffused over the whole earth." "The spirits and nymphs of heaven dance and sing." "Caressing breezes blow, and a marvelous light is produced." For the Lord and Saviour is born, "to give joy and peace to men and Devas, _to shed light in the dark places_, and to give sight to the blind."[480:1]

5. _He was visited by the Magi._ This is very natural, for the Magi were _Sun-worshipers_, and at early dawn on the 25th of December, the astrologers of the Arabs, Chaldeans, and other Oriental nations, greeted the infant Saviour with gold, frankincense and myrrh. They started to salute their God long before the rising of the Sun, and having ascended a high mountain, they waited anxiously for his birth, facing the East, and there hailed his first rays with incense and prayer.[480:2] The shepherds also, who remained in the open air watching their flocks by night, were in the habit of prostrating themselves, and paying homage to their god, the Sun. And, like the poet of the Veda, they said:

"Will the powers of darkness be conquered by the _god of light_?"

And when the Sun rose, they wondered how, just born, he was so mighty. They greeted him:

"Hail, Orient Conqueror of Gloomy Night."

And the human eye felt that it could not bear the brilliant majesty of him whom they called, "The Life, the Breath, the Brilliant Lord and Father." And they said:

"Let us worship again the _Child of Heaven_, the Son of
Strength, Arusha, the Bright Light of the Sacrifice." "He
rises as a mighty flame, he stretches out his wide arms, he is
even like the wind." "His light is powerful, and his (virgin)
mother, the Dawn, gives him the best share, the first worship
among men."[480:3]

6. _He was born in a Cave._ In this respect also, the history of _Christ_ Jesus corresponds with that of other Sun-gods and Saviours, for they are nearly all represented as being born in a cave or dungeon. This is the dark abode from which the wandering _Sun_ starts in the morning.[481:1] As the Dawn springs fully armed from the forehead of the cloven Sky, so the eye first discerns the blue of heaven, as the first faint arch of light is seen in the East. This arch is the cave in which the infant is nourished until he reaches his full strength--in other words, until the day is fully come.

As the hour of his birth drew near, the mother became more beautiful, her form more brilliant, while the dungeon was filled with a heavenly light as when Zeus came to Danae in a golden shower.[481:2]

At length the child is born, and a halo of serene light encircles his cradle, just as the Sun appears at early dawn in the East, in all its splendor. His presence reveals itself there, in the dark cave, by his first rays, which brightens the countenances of his mother and others who are present at his birth.[481:3]

6. _He was ordered to be put to death._ All the Sun-gods are fated to bring ruin upon their parents or the _reigning monarch_.[481:4] For this reason, they attempt to prevent his birth, and failing in this, seek to destroy him when born. Who is the dark and wicked Kansa, or his counterpart Herod? He is _Night_, who reigns supreme, but who must lose his power when the young prince of glory, the Invincible, is born.

The _Sun_ scatters the _Darkness_; and so the phrase went that the child was to be the destroyer of the reigning monarch, or his parent, _Night_; and oracles, and magi, it was said, warned the latter of the doom which would overtake him. The newly-born babe is therefore ordered to be put to death by the sword, or exposed on the bare hillside, as the Sun seems to rest on the Earth (Ida) at its rising.[481:5]

In oriental mythology, the destroying principle is generally represented as a serpent or dragon.[482:1] Now, the position of the sphere on Christmas-day, the birthday of the Sun, shows the Serpent all but touching, and certainly aiming at the woman--that is, the figure of the constellation _Virgo_--who suckles the child Iessus in her arms. Thus we have it illustrated in the story of the snake who was sent to kill Hercules, when an infant in his cradle;[482:2] also in the story of Typhon, who sought the life of the infant Saviour Horus. Again, it is illustrated in the story of the virgin mother Astrea, with her babe beset by Orion, and of Latona, the mother of Apollo, when pursued by the monster.[482:3] And last, that of the virgin mother Mary, with her babe beset by Herod. But like Hercules, Horus, Apollo, Theseus, Romulus, Cyrus and other _solar heroes_, _Christ_ Jesus has yet a long course before him. Like them, he grows up both wise and strong, and the "old Serpent" is discomfited by him, just as the sphynx and the dragon are put to night by others.

7. _He was tempted by the devil._ The temptation by, and victory over the evil one, whether Mara or Satan, is the victory of the _Sun_ over the clouds of storm and darkness.[482:4] Growing up in obscurity, the day comes when he makes himself known, tries himself in his first battles with his gloomy foes, and _shines_ without a rival. He is rife for his destined mission, but is met by the demon of storm, who runs to dispute with him in the duel of the storm. In this struggle against darkness the beneficent hero remains the conqueror, the gloomy army of Mara, or Satan, broken and rent, is scattered; the Apearas, daughters of the demon, the last light vapors which float in the heaven, try in vain to clasp and retain the vanquisher; he disengages himself from their embraces, repulses them; they writhe, lose their form, and vanish.

Free from every obstacle, and from every adversary, he sets in motion across space his disk with a thousand rays, having avenged the attempts of his eternal foe. He appears then in all his glory, and in his sovereign splendor; the god has attained the summit of his course, it is the moment of triumph.

8. _He was put to death on the cross._ The Sun has now reached his extreme Southern limit, his career is ended, and he is at last overcome by his enemies. The powers of _darkness_, and of _winter_, which had sought in vain to wound him, have at length won the victory. The bright Sun of summer is finally slain, _crucified in the heavens_, and pierced by the arrow, spear or thorn of winter.[483:1] Before he dies, however, he sees all his disciples--his retinue of light, and the _twelve_ hours of the day, or the twelve months of the year--disappear in the sanguinary mêlée of the clouds of the evening.

Throughout the tale, the _Sun-god_ was but fulfilling his doom. These things must be. The suffering of a violent death was a necessary part of the mythos; and, when his hour had come, he must meet his doom, as surely as the Sun, once risen, must go across the sky, and then sink down into his bed beneath the earth or sea. It was an iron fate from which there was no escaping.

Crishna, the crucified Saviour of the Hindoos, is a personification of the Sun crucified in the heavens. One of the names of the Sun in the Vedic hymns is _Vishnu_,[483:2] and Crishna is Vishnu in human form.[483:3]

In the hymns of the _Rig-Veda_ the _Sun_ is spoken of as "_stretching out his arms_," in the heavens, "to bless the world, _and to rescue it from the terror of darkness_."

Indra, the crucified Saviour worshiped in Nepal and Tibet,[484:1] is identical with Crishna, the Sun.[484:2]

The principal Phenician deity, El, which, says Parkhurst, in his Hebrew Lexicon, "was the very name the heathens gave to their god SOL, their Lord or Ruler of the Hosts of Heaven," was called "_The Preserver_ (or _Saviour_) of _the World_," for the benefit of which _he offered a mystical sacrifice_.[484:3]

The crucified _Iao_ ("Divine Love" personified) is the crucified Adonis, the Sun. The Lord and Saviour Adonis was called _Iao_.[484:4]

_Osiris_, the Egyptian Saviour, was crucified in the heavens. To the Egyptian the cross was the symbol of immortality, an emblem of the _Sun_, and the god himself was crucified to the tree, which denoted his fructifying power.[484:5]

_Horus_ was also crucified in the heavens. He was represented, like Crishna and Christ Jesus, with _outstretched arms in the vault of heaven_.[484:6]

The story of the crucifixion of _Prometheus_ was allegorical, for Prometheus was only a title of the SUN, expressing _providence_ or _foresight_, wherefore his being _crucified_ in the extremities of the earth, signified originally no more than the restriction of the power of the SUN during the winter months.[484:7]

Who was _Ixion_, bound on the wheel? He was none other than the god _Sol_, crucified in the heavens.[484:8] Whatever be the origin of the name, _Ixion_ is the "_Sun of noonday_," crucified in the heavens, whose four-spoked wheel, in the words of Pindar, is seen whirling in the highest heaven.[484:9]

The _wheel_ upon which Ixion and criminals were said to have been extended _was a cross_, although the name of the thing was dissembled among Christians; it was a St. Andrew's cross, of which two spokes confined the arms, and two the legs. (See Fig. No. 35.)

The allegorical tales of the triumphs and misfortunes of the _Sun_-gods of the ancient Greeks and Romans, signify the alternate exertion of the generative and destructive attributes.

_Hercules_ is torn limb from limb; and in this catastrophe we see the _blood-red sunset_ which closes the career of Hercules.[485:1] The Sun-god cannot rise to the life of the blessed gods until he has been slain. The morning cannot come until the Eôs who closed the previous day has faded away and died in the black abyss of night.

_Achilleus_ and _Meleagros_ represent alike the _short-lived Sun_, whose course is one of toil for others, ending in an early death, after a series of wonderful victories alternating with periods of darkness and gloom.[485:2]

In the tales of the Trojan war, it is related of Achilleus that he expires at the Skaian, or _western gates of the evening_. He is slain by Paris, who here appears as the Pani, or dark power, who blots out the light of the Sun from the heaven.[485:3]

We have also the story of _Adonis_, born of a virgin, and known in the countries where he was worshiped as "The Saviour of Mankind," killed by the wild _boar_, afterwards "rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven." This Adonis, Adonai--in Hebrew "My Lord"--is simply the _Sun_. He is crucified in the heavens, put to death by the wild boar, _i. e._, _Winter_. "Babylon called Typhon or Winter _the boar_; they said he killed Adonis or the fertile _Sun_."[485:4]

The _Crucified Dove_ worshiped by the ancients, was none other than the crucified Sun. Adonis was called the _Dove_. At the ceremonies in honor of his resurrection from the dead, the devotees said, "Hail to the Dove! the Restorer of Light."[485:5] Fig. No. 35 is the "Crucified Dove" as described by Pindar, the great lyric poet of Greece, born about 522 B. C.

"We read in Pindar, (says the author of a learned work
entitled "Nimrod,") of the venerable bird Iynx bound to the
wheel, and of the pretended punishment of Ixion. But this
rotation was really no punishment, being, as Pindar saith,
_voluntary_, and prepared _by himself_ and _for himself_; or
if it was, it was appointed in derision of his false
pretensions, whereby he gave himself out as _the crucified
spirit of the world_." "The four spokes represent St. Andrew's
cross, adapted to the four limbs extended, and furnish perhaps
the oldest _profane_ allusion to the crucifixion. The same
cross of St. Andrew was the _Taw_, which Ezekiel commands them
to mark upon the foreheads of the faithful, as appears from
all Israelitish coins whereon that letter is engraved. The
same idea was familiar to Lucian, who calls T _the letter of
crucifixion_. Certainly, the veneration for the cross is very
ancient. Iynx, the bird of Mautic inspiration, bound to the
four-legged wheel, gives the notion of _Divine Love
crucified_. The wheel denotes the world, of which she is the
spirit, and the cross _the sacrifice made for that
world_."[486:1]

This "_Divine Love_," of whom Nimrod speaks, was "_The First-begotten Son_" of the Platonists. The crucifixion of "_Divine Love_" is often found among the Greeks. Iönah or Juno, according to the _Iliad_, was bound with fetters, and _suspended in space_, between heaven and earth. Ixion, Prometheus, Apollo of Miletus, (anciently the greatest and most flourishing city of Ionia, in Asia Minor), were all crucified.[486:2]

Semi-Ramis was both a queen of unrivaled celebrity, and also a goddess, worshiped under the form of a Dove. Her name signifies the _Supreme Dove_. She is said to have been slain by the last survivor of her sons, while others say, she flew away as a bird--a Dove. In both Grecian and Hindoo histories this mystical queen Semiramis is said to have fought a battle on the banks of the Indus, with a king called Staurobates, in which she was defeated, and from which she flew away in the form of a Dove. Of this Nimrod says:

"The name Staurobates, the king by whom Semiramis was finally
overpowered, _alluded to the cross on which she perished_,"
and that, "_the crucifixion was made into a glorious mystery
by her infatuated adorers_."[486:3]

Here again we have the crucified Dove, the _Sun_, for it is well known that the ancients personified the Sun _female_ as well as male.

We have also the fable of the Crucified Rose, illustrated in the jewel of the _Rosicrucians_. The jewel of the Rosicrucians is formed of a transparent red stone, with a red _cross_ on one side, and a red _rose_ on the other--thus it is a _crucified rose_. "The Rossi, or Rosy-crucians' idea concerning this emblematic red cross," says Hargrave Jennings, in his _History of the Rosicrucians_, "probably came from the fable of _Adonis_--_who was the Sun whom we have so often seen crucified_--being changed into a red rose by Venus."[487:1]

The emblem of the _Templars_ is a red rose on a cross. "When it can be done, it is surrounded with a glory, and placed on a calvary (Fig. No. 36). This is the Naurutz, Natsir, or Rose of Isuren, of Tamul, or Sharon, or the Water Rose, the Lily Padma, Pena, Lotus, _crucified in the heavens for the salvation of man_."[487:2]

Christ Jesus was called the ROSE--the Rose of Sharon--of Isuren. He was the renewed incarnation of _Divine Wisdom_. He was the son of Maia or Maria. He was the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley, which bloweth in the month of his mother Maia. Thus, when the angel Gabriel gives the salutation to the Virgin, he presents her with the lotus or lily; as may be seen in hundreds of old pictures in Italy. We see therefore that Adonis, "the Lord," "the Virgin-born," "the Crucified," "the Resurrected Dove," "the Restorer of Light," is one and the same with the "Rose of Sharon," the crucified Christ Jesus.

Plato (429 B. C.) in his _Pimæus_, philosophizing about the Son of God, says:

"The _next power_ to the Supreme God was decussated or figured
_in the shape of a cross on the universe_."

This brings to recollection the doctrine of certain so-called Christian _heretics_, who maintained that Christ Jesus was crucified in the heavens.

The _Chrèstos_ was the Logos, the _Sun_ was the manifestation of the Logos or Wisdom to men; or, as it was held by some, it was his peculiar habitation. The Sun being crucified at the time of the winter solstice was represented by the young man slaying the _Bull_ (_an emblem of the Sun_) in the Mithraic ceremonies, and the slain _lamb_ at the foot of the cross in the Christian ceremonies. The Chrest was the Logos, or Divine Wisdom, or a portion of divine wisdom incarnate; in this sense he is really the Sun or the solar power incarnate, and to him everything applicable to the Sun will apply.

Fig. No. 37, taken from Mr. Lundy's "Monumental Christianity," is evidently a representation of the Christian Saviour _crucified in the heavens_. Mr. Lundy calls it "Crucifixion in Space," and believes that it was intended for the Hindoo Saviour Crishna, who is also represented crucified in space (See Fig. No. 8, Ch. XX.). This (Fig. 37) is exactly in the form of a Romish crucifix, _but not fixed to a piece of wood_, though the legs and feet are put together in the usual way. There is a glory over it, _coming from above_, not shining _from the figure_, as is generally seen in a Roman crucifix. It has a pointed _Parthian coronet_ instead of a crown of thorns. All the avatars, or incarnations of Vishnu, are painted with Ethiopian or Parthian coronets. For these reasons the Christian author will not own that it is a representation of the "True Son of Justice," for he _was not_ crucified in space; but whether it was intended to represent Crishna, Wittoba, or Jesus,[488:1] it tells a secret: it shows that some one was represented _crucified in the heavens_, and undoubtedly has something to do with "The next power to the Supreme God," who, according to Plato, "was decussated or figured _in the shape of a cross on the universe_."

Who was the crucified god whom the ancient Romans worshiped, and whom they, according to Justin Martyr, represented as _a man on a cross_? Can we doubt, after what we have seen, that he was this same _crucified Sol_, whose birthday they annually celebrated on the 25th of December?

In the poetical tales of the ancient _Scandinavians_, the same legend is found. Frey, _the Deity of the Sun_, was fabled to have been killed, at the time of the winter solstice, by the same boar who put the god Adonis to death, therefore a boar was annually offered to him at the great feast of Yule.[489:1] "Baldur the Good," son of the supreme god Odin, and the virgin-goddess Frigga, was also put to death by the sharp thorn of winter.

The ancient _Mexican_ crucified Saviour, Quetzalcoatle, another personification of the Sun, was sometimes represented as crucified in space, _in the heavens_, in a circle of nineteen figures, the number of the metonic cycle. A _serpent_ (the emblem of evil, darkness, and winter) is depriving him of the organs of generation.[489:2]

We have seen in Chapter XXXIII. that Christ Jesus, and many of the heathen saviours, healers, and preserving gods, were represented in the form of a Serpent. This is owing to the fact that, _in one of its attributes_, the Serpent was an emblem of the _Sun_. It may, at first, appear strange that the Serpent should be an emblem of evil, and yet also an emblem of the beneficent divinity; but, as Prof. Renouf remarks, in his _Hibbert Lectures_, "The moment we understand the nature of a myth, all impossibilities, contradictions, and immoralities disappear." The serpent is an emblem of evil when represented with his _deadly sting_; he is the emblem of eternity when represented _casting off his skin_;[489:3] and an emblem of the Sun when represented _with his tail in his mouth_, thus forming a circle.[489:4] Thus there came to be, not only good, but also bad, serpents, both of which are referred to in the narrative of the Hebrew exodus, but still more clearly in the struggle between the good and the bad serpents of Persian mythology, which symbolized Ormuzd, or Mithra, and the evil spirit Ahriman.[489:5]

As the Dove and the Rose, emblems of the Sun, were represented on the cross, so was the Serpent.[489:6] The famous "Brazen Serpent," said to have been "set up" by Moses in the wilderness, is called in the Targum (the general term for the Aramaic versions of the Old Testament) the SAVIOUR. It was probably a serpentine crucifix, as it is called a _cross_ by Justin Martyr. The crucified serpent (Fig. No. 38) denoted the _quiescent Phallos_, or the Sun after it had lost its power. It is the Sun in winter, crucified on the tree, which denoted its fructifying power.[490:1] As Mr. Wake remarks, "There can be no doubt that both the Pillar (Phallus) and the Serpent were associated with many of the _Sun-gods_ of antiquity."[490:2]

This is seen in Fig. No. 39, taken from an ancient medal, which represents the serpent with rays of glory surrounding his head.

The Ophites, who venerated the serpent as an emblem of Christ Jesus, are said to have maintained that the serpent of Genesis--who brought _wisdom_ into the world--was Christ Jesus. The brazen serpent was called the WORD by the Chaldee paraphrast. The Word, or Logos, was _Divine Wisdom_, which was crucified; thus we have the cross, or Linga, or Phallus, with the serpent upon it. Besides considering the serpent as the emblem of Christ Jesus, or of the Logos, the Ophites are said to have revered it as the cause of all the arts of civilized life. In