Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Part 131

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-G.o.ds 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 _s.h.i.+nes_ 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 s.p.a.ce 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 G.o.d 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 melee of the clouds of the evening.

Throughout the tale, the _Sun-G.o.d_ 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 wors.h.i.+ped in Nepal and Tibet,[484:1] is identical with Crishna, the Sun.[484:2]

The princ.i.p.al Phenician deity, El, which, says Parkhurst, in his Hebrew Lexicon, "was the very name the heathens gave to their G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 t.i.tle 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 G.o.d _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_-G.o.ds of the ancient Greeks and Romans, signify the alternate exertion of the generative and destructive attributes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. No. 35]

_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-G.o.d cannot rise to the life of the blessed G.o.ds until he has been slain. The morning cannot come until the Eos 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 wors.h.i.+ped 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_ wors.h.i.+ped 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 ent.i.tled "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. Ionah or Juno, according to the _Iliad_, was bound with fetters, and _suspended in s.p.a.ce_, between heaven and earth.

Ixion, Prometheus, Apollo of Miletus, (anciently the greatest and most flouris.h.i.+ng city of Ionia, in Asia Minor), were all crucified.[486:2]

Semi-Ramis was both a queen of unrivaled celebrity, and also a G.o.ddess, wors.h.i.+ped 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, ill.u.s.trated 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]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. No. 36.]

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 _Pimaeus_, philosophizing about the Son of G.o.d, says:

"The _next power_ to the Supreme G.o.d 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 _Chrestos_ 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. No. 37]

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 s.p.a.ce," and believes that it was intended for the Hindoo Saviour Crishna, who is also represented crucified in s.p.a.ce (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 s.h.i.+ning _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 s.p.a.ce; 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 G.o.d," who, according to Plato, "was decussated or figured _in the shape of a cross on the universe_."

Who was the crucified G.o.d whom the ancient Romans wors.h.i.+ped, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d Odin, and the virgin-G.o.ddess 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 s.p.a.ce, _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 x.x.xIII. that Christ Jesus, and many of the heathen saviours, healers, and preserving G.o.ds, 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 a.s.sociated with many of the _Sun-G.o.ds_ of antiquity."[490:2]