Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Part 133

"You may call the Creator of all things by different names (Bacchus, Hercules, Mercury, etc.), but they are only different names of the same divine being, the _Sun_."

14. _He is to be Judge of the quick and the dead._ Who is better able than the Sun to be the judge of man's deeds, seeing, as he does, from his throne in heaven, all that is done on earth? The Vedas speak of Surya--the pervading, irresistible luminary--as seeing all things and hearing all things, _noting the good and evil deeds of men_.[497:2]

According to Hindoo mythology, says Prof. Max Muller:

"The Sun sees everything, both what is good and what is evil; and how natural therefore that (in the Indian Veda) both 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."

"Frequent allusion is made (in the Rig-Veda), to the sun's power of seeing everything. The stars flee before the all-seeing sun, like thieves. He sees the right and the wrong among men. He who looks upon the world knows also the thoughts in all men. As the sun sees everything and knows everything, he is asked to forget and forgive what he alone has seen and knows."[497:3]

On the most ancient Egyptian monuments, Osiris, the Sun personified, is represented as Judge of the dead. The Egyptian "Book of the Dead," the oldest Bible in the world, speaks of Osiris as "seeing all things, and hearing all things, noting the good and evil deeds of men."

15. _He will come again sitting on a white horse._ The "second coming"

of Vishnu (Crishna), _Christ_ Jesus, and other Sun-G.o.ds, are also _astronomical allegories_. The _white horse_, which figures so conspicuously in the legend, was the universal symbol of the Sun among Oriental nations.

Throughout the whole legend, _Christ_ Jesus is the toiling Sun, laboring for the benefit of others, not his own, and doing hard service for a mean and cruel generation. Watch his sun-like career of brilliant conquest, checked with intervals of storm, and declining to a death clouded with sorrow and derision. He is in constant company with his _twelve_ apostles, the _twelve signs of the zodiac_.[498:1] During the course of his life's journey he is called "The G.o.d of Earthly Blessing,"

"The Saviour through whom a new life springs," "The Preserver," "The Redeemer," &c. Almost at his birth the Serpent of darkness attempts to destroy him. Temptations to sloth and luxury are offered him in vain. He has his work to do, and nothing can stay him from doing it, as nothing can arrest the Sun in his journey through the heavens. Like all other solar heroes, he has his faithful women who love him, and the Marys and Martha here play the part. Of his toils it is scarcely necessary to speak in detail. They are but a thousand variations on the story of the great conflict which all the Sun-G.o.ds wage against the demon of darkness. He astonishes his tutor when sent to school. This we might expect to be the case, when an incomparable and incommunicable wisdom is the heritage of the Sun. He also represents the wisdom and beneficence of the bright Being who brings life and light to men. As the Sun wakens the earth to life when the winter is done, so Crishna, Buddha, Horus, aesculapius, and _Christ_ Jesus were raisers of the dead. When the leaves fell and withered on the approach of winter, the "daughter of the earth"

would be spoken of as dying or dead, and, 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 rouse her.

_Christ_ Jesus, then, is the Sun, in his short career and early death.

He is the child of the Dawn, whose soft, violet hues tint the clouds of early morn; his father being the Sky, the "Heavenly Father," who has looked down with love upon the Dawn, and overshadowed her. When his career on earth is ended, and he expires, the loving mother, who parted from him in the morning of his life, is at his side, looking on the death of the Son whom she cannot save from the doom which is on him, while her tears fall on his body like rain at sundown. From her he is parted at the beginning of his course; to her he is united at its close.

But _Christ_ Jesus, like Crishna, Buddha, Osiris, Horus, Mithras, Apollo, Atys and others, _rises again_, and thus the myth takes us a step beyond the legend of Serpedon and others, which stop at the end of the eastward journey, when the night is done.

According to the Christian calendar, the birthday of John the Baptist is on the day of the summer solstice, when the sun begins to decrease. How true to nature then are the words attributed to him in the fourth Gospel, when he says that he must _decrease_, and Jesus _increase_.

Among the ancient Teutonic nations, fires were lighted, on the tops of hills, on the 24th of June, in honor of the WENDING SUN. This custom is still kept up in Southern Germany and the Scotch highlands, and it is the day selected by the Roman Catholic church to celebrate the nativity of John the Baptist.[499:1]

Mosheim, the ecclesiastical historian, speaking of the uncertainty of the time when _Christ_ Jesus was born, says: "The uncertainty of this point is of no great consequence. We know that the _Sun of Righteousness_ has shone upon the world; and although we cannot fix the precise period in which he arose, this will not preclude us from enjoying the direction and influence of his vital and salutary beams."

These sacred legends abound with such expressions as can have no possible or conceivable application to any other than to the "G.o.d of day." He is "a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory (or brightness) of his people."[499:2] He is come "a light into the world, that whosoever believeth in him should not abide in darkness."[499:3] He is "the light of the world."[499:4] He "is light, and in him no darkness is."[499:5]

"Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, Adonai, and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night."--_Collect, in Evening Service._

G.o.d of G.o.d, light of light, very G.o.d of very G.o.d."--_Nicene Creed._

"Merciful Adonai, we beseech thee to cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church."--_Collect of St. John._

"To thee all angels cry aloud, the heavens, and all the powers therein."

"Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of thy glory" (or brightness).

"The glorious company of the (_twelve months_, or) apostles praise thee."

"Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ!"

"When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man, thou pa.s.sest through the constellation, or zodiacal sign--the Virgin."

"When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of winter, thou didst open the kingdom of heaven (_i. e._, bring on the reign of the summer months) to all believers."

"All are agreed," says Cicero, "that Apollo is none other than the SUN, because the attributes which are commonly ascribed to Apollo do so wonderfully agree thereto."

Just so surely as Apollo is the Sun, so is the Lord _Christ_ Jesus the Sun. That which is so conclusive respecting the Pagan deities, applies also to the G.o.d of the Christians; but, like the Psalmist of old, they cry, "Touch not MY Christ, and do my prophets no harm."

Many Christian writers have seen that the history of their Lord and Saviour is simply the history of the Sun, but they either say nothing, or, like Dr. Parkhurst and the Rev. J. P. Lundy, claim that the Sun is a type of the true Sun of Righteousness. Mr. Lundy, in his "Monumental Christianity," says:

"Is there no bright Sun of Righteousness--no _personal_ and loving Son of G.o.d, _of whom the material Sun has been the type or symbol, in all ages and among all nations_? What power is it that comes from the Sun to give light and heat to all created things? If the symbolical Sun leads such a great earthly and heavenly flock, what must be said to the _true_ and only begotten Son of G.o.d? If Apollo was adopted by early Christian art as a _type_ of the Good Shepherd of the New Testament, _then this interpretation of the Sun-G.o.d among all nations must be the solution of the universal mythos, or what other solution can it have_? To what other _historical_ personage but Christ can it apply? _If this mythos has no spiritual meaning, then all religion becomes mere idolatry, or the wors.h.i.+p of material things._"[500:1]

Mr. Lundy, who seems to adhere to this once-upon-a-time favorite theory, ill.u.s.trates it as follows:

"The young _Isaac_ is his (Christ's) Hebrew type, bending under the wood, as Christ fainted under the cross; _Daniel_ is his type, stripped of all earthly fame and greatness, and cast naked into the deepest danger, shame and humiliation." "_Noah_ is his type, in saving men from utter destruction, and bringing them across the sea of death to a new world and a new life." "_Orpheus_ is a type of Christ. _Agni_ and _Crishna_ of India; _Mithra_ of Persia; _Horus_ and _Apollo_ of Egypt, are all types of Christ." "_Samson_ carrying off the gates of Gaza and defeating the Philistines by his own death, was considered as a type of Christ bursting open and carrying away the gates of Hades, and conquering His and our enemies by his death and resurrection."[501:1]

According to this theory, the whole Pagan religion was typical of Christ and Christianity. Why then were not the Pagans the Lord's _chosen_ people instead of the children of Israel?

The early Christians were charged with being a sect of _Sun wors.h.i.+pers_.[501:2] The ancient Egyptians wors.h.i.+ped the G.o.d _Serapis_, and Serapis was the _Sun_. Fig. No. 11, page 194, shows the manner in which Serapis was personified. It might easily pa.s.s for a representation of the Sun-G.o.d of the Christians. Mr. King says, in his "Gnostics, and their Remains":

"There can be no doubt that the head of Serapis, marked as the face is by a grave and pensive majesty, _supplied the first idea for the conventional portraits of the Saviour_."[501:3]

The Imperial Russian Collection _boasts_ of a head of Christ Jesus which is said to be very ancient. It is a fine intaglio on emerald. Mr. King says of it:

"It is in reality a head of _Serapis_, seen in front and crowned with Persia boughs, easily mistaken for thorns, though the bushel on the head leaves no doubt as to the real personage intended."[501:4]

It must not be forgotten, in connection with this, that the wors.h.i.+pers of Serapis, or the Sun, were called _Christians_.[501:5]

Mrs. Jameson, speaking on this subject, says:

"We search in vain for the lightest evidence of his (Christ's) human, individual semblance, in the writing of those disciples who knew him so well. In this instance the instincts of earthly affection seem to have been mysteriously overruled. He whom all races of men were to call brother, was not to be too closely a.s.sociated with the particular lineaments of any one.

St. John, the beloved disciple, could lie on the breast of Jesus with all the freedom of fellows.h.i.+p, but not even he has left a word to indicate what manner of man was the Divine Master after the flesh. . . . Legend has, in various form, supplied this natural craving, but it is hardly necessary to add, that all accounts of pictures of our Lord taken from Himself are without historical foundation. _We are therefore left to imagine the expression_ most befitting the character of him who took upon himself our likeness, and looked at the woes and sins of mankind through the eyes of our mortality."[501:6]

The Rev. Mr. Geikie says, in his "Life of Christ":

"No hint is given in the New Testament of Christ's _appearance_; and the early Church, in the absence of all guiding facts, had to fall back on imagination."

"In its _first_ years, the Christian church fancied its Lord's visage and form _marred more than those of other men_; and that he must have had no attractions of personal beauty.

Justin Martyr (A. D. 150-160) speaks of him as _without beauty or attractiveness_, and of _mean appearance_. Clement of Alexandria (A. D. 200), describes him as of an _uninviting appearance_, and _almost repulsive_. Tertullian (A. D.

200-210) says he had not even _ordinary human beauty_, far less heavenly. Origen (A. D. 230) went so far as to say that he was '_small in body and deformed_', as well as low-born, and that, '_his only beauty was in his soul and life_.'"[502:1]

One of the favorite ways finally, of depicting him, was, as Mr. Lundy remarks:

"Under the figure of a beautiful and adorable youth, of about fifteen or eighteen years of age, beardless, with a sweet expression of countenance, _and long and abundant hair flowing in curls over his shoulders_. His brow is sometimes encircled by a diadem or bandeau, _like a young priest of the Pagan G.o.ds_; that is, in fact, the favorite figure. On sculptured sarcophagi, in fresco paintings and Mosaics, Christ is thus represented as a graceful youth, _just as Apollo was figured by the Pagans_, and as angels are represented by Christians."[502:2]

Thus we see that the Christians took the paintings and statues of the Sun-G.o.ds Serapis and Apollo _as models_, when they wished to represent _their_ Saviour. That the former is the favorite at the present day need not be doubted when we glance at Fig. No. 11, page 194.

Mr. King, speaking of this G.o.d, and his wors.h.i.+pers, says:

"There is very good reason to believe that in the _East_ the wors.h.i.+p of _Serapis_ was at first combined with _Christianity_, and gradually merged into it with an entire change of name, _not substance_, carrying with it many of its ancient notions and rites."[502:3]

Again he says:

"In the second century the syncretistic sects that had sprung up in _Alexandria_, the very hotbed of Gnosticism, found out in _Serapis_ a prophetic _type_ of Christ, or the Lord and Creator of all."[502:4]