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 G.o.ds_." "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 Muller, "we can well understand how Aditi (the Dawn) came to be called the "Mother of the Bright G.o.ds.""[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 G.o.ds, they knew of Agni as the G.o.d of G.o.ds, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d_, 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 G.o.d-MAN, this demiurge, is strongly insisted on in the _Rig-Veda_. He is the son of G.o.d, 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 t.i.tles Agni, Indra, Mitra, &c., all refer to _one Sun G.o.d_ 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 G.o.ddesses of Egypt, the highest was Neith, who reigned inseparably with Amun in the upper sphere. She was called "Mother of the G.o.ds," "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_-G.o.d _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-G.o.ds_ and _solar heroes_ are born of the same virgin mother. Theseus was said to have been born of Aithra, "_the pure air_," and dipus 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 Io, 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 G.o.ds 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, G.o.ddesses 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.ddesses 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 G.o.ds, 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 G.o.ddess _Earth_, or as they call her, _Herth_, whom they consider as the common mother of all."[477:8]
These virgin mothers, and virgin G.o.ddesses of antiquity, were also, at times, personifications of the _Moon_, or of Nature.[478:1]
Who is "G.o.d the _Father_," who overshadows the maiden? The overshadowing of the maiden by "G.o.d 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 aether Conjugis in grenium laetae descendit."
(Geor. ii.)
The _Phenician_ theology is founded on the same principles. _Heaven_ and _Earth_ (called Ouranos and Ghe) are at the head of a genealogy of aeons, 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 G.o.d (the _Al-fader_), of the ancient _Scandinavians_ was _Odin_, a personification of the _Heavens_. The princ.i.p.al G.o.ddess among them was _Frigga_, a personification of the _Earth_. It was the opinion among these people that this Supreme Being or Celestial G.o.d 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 G.o.d of Heaven_," which they bestowed upon _Tezcatlipoca_, who was the "Lord of All," the "Supreme G.o.d." 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 G.o.d _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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, the Sun. And, like the poet of the Veda, they said:
"Will the powers of darkness be conquered by the _G.o.d 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-G.o.ds 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]