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Pagan and Christian creeds: their origin and meaning

Edward Carpenter

II. SOLAR MYTHS AND CHRISTIAN FESTIVALS

To the ordinary public--notwithstanding the immense amount
of work which has of late been done on this subject--
the connection between Paganism and Christianity still seems
rather remote. Indeed the common notion is that Christianity
was really a miraculous interposition into and
dislocation of the old order of the world; and that the pagan
gods (as in Milton's Hymn on the Nativity) fled away in
dismay before the sign of the Cross, and at the sound
of the name of Jesus. Doubtless this was a view much
encouraged by the early Church itself--if only to enhance
its own authority and importance; yet, as is well known
to every student, it is quite misleading and contrary to
fact. The main Christian doctrines and festivals, besides
a great mass of affiliated legend and ceremonial, are really
quite directly derived from, and related to, preceding Nature
worships; and it has only been by a good deal of deliberate
mystification and falsification that this derivation has been
kept out of sight.

In these Nature-worships there may be discerned three
fairly independent streams of religious or quasi-religious
enthusiasm: (1) that connected with the phenomena of the
heavens, the movements of the Sun, planets and stars, and
the awe and wonderment they excited; (2) that connected
with the seasons and the very important matter of the
growth of vegetation and food on the Earth; and (3)
that connected with the mysteries of Sex and reproduction.
It is obvious that these three streams would mingle and
interfuse with each other a good deal; but as far as
they were separable the first would tend to create Solar heroes
and Sun-myths; the second Vegetation-gods and personifications
of Nature and the earth-life; while the third
would throw its glamour over the other two and contribute
to the projection of deities or demons worshipped
with all sorts of sexual and phallic rites. All three systems
of course have their special rites and times and ceremonies;
but, as, I say, the rites and ceremonies of one
system would rarely be found pure and unmixed with
those. belonging to the two others. The whole subject
is a very large one; but for reasons given in the Introduction
I shall in this and the following chapter--while not
ignoring phases (2) and (3)--lay most stress on phase (1)
of the question before us.

At the time of the life or recorded appearance of Jesus
of Nazareth, and for some centuries before, the Mediterranean
and neighboring world had been the scene of a
vast number of pagan creeds and rituals. There were
Temples without end dedicated to gods like Apollo or Dionysus
among the Greeks, Hercules among the Romans,
Mithra among the Persians, Adonis and Attis in Syria and
Phrygia, Osiris and Isis and Horus in Egypt, Baal and
Astarte among the Babylonians and Carthaginians, and so
forth. Societies, large or small, united believers and the
devout in the service or ceremonials connected with their
respective deities, and in the creeds which they confessed
concerning these deities. And an extraordinarily
interesting fact, for us, is that notwithstanding great
geographical
distances and racial differences between the adherents
of these various cults, as well as differences in the
details of their services, the general outlines of their creeds
and ceremonials were--if not identical--so markedly similar
as we find them.

I cannot of course go at length into these different cults,
but I may say roughly that of all or nearly all the deities
above-mentioned it was said and believed that:

(1) They were born on or very near our Christmas Day.

(2) They were born of a Virgin-Mother.

(3) And in a Cave or Underground Chamber.

(4) They led a life of toil for Mankind.

(5) And were called by the names of Light-bringer,
Healer, Mediator, Savior, Deliverer.

(6) They were however vanquished by the Powers of
Darkness.

(7) And descended into Hell or the Underworld.

(8) They rose again from the dead, and became the
pioneers of mankind to the Heavenly world.

(9) They founded Communions of Saints, and Churches
into which disciples were received by Baptism.

(10) And they were commemorated by Eucharistic
meals.

Let me give a few brief examples.

Mithra was born in a cave, and on the 25th December.[1]
He was born of a Virgin.[2] He traveled far and wide as
a teacher and illuminator of men. He slew the Bull
(symbol of the gross Earth which the sunlight fructifies).
His great festivals were the winter solstice and the Spring
equinox (Christmas and Easter). He had twelve companions
or disciples (the twelve months). He was buried
in a tomb, from which however he rose again; and his
resurrection was celebrated yearly with great rejoicings. He
was called Savior and Mediator, and sometimes figured as
a Lamb; and sacramental feasts in remembrance of him were
held by his followers. This legend is apparently partly
astronomical and partly vegetational; and the same may be said
of the following about Osiris.

[1] The birthfeast of Mithra was held in Rome on the 8th day
before the Kalends of January, being also the day of the
Circassian games, which were sacred to the Sun. (See F. Nork, Der
Mystagog, Leipzig.)

[2] This at any rate was reported by his later disciples (see
Robertson's Pagan Christs, p. 338).

Osiris was born (Plutarch tells us) on the 361st day of
the year, say the 27th December. He too, like Mithra and
Dionysus, was a great traveler. As King of Egypt he
taught men civil arts, and "tamed them by music and
gentleness, not by force of arms";[1] he was the discoverer
of corn and wine. But he was betrayed by Typhon, the
power of darkness, and slain and dismembered. "This happened,"
says Plutarch, "on the 17th of the month Athyr,
when the sun enters into the Scorpion" (the sign of the
Zodiac which indicates the oncoming of Winter). His body
was placed in a box, but afterwards, on the 19th, came again
to life, and, as in the cults of Mithra, Dionysus, Adonis and
others, so in the cult of Osiris, an image placed in a coffin
was brought out before the worshipers and saluted with
glad cries of "Osiris is risen."[1] "His sufferings, his death
and his resurrection were enacted year by year in a great
mystery-play at Abydos."[2]

[1] See Plutarch on Isis and Osiris.

[2] Ancient Art and Ritual, by Jane E. Harrison, chap. i.

The two following legends have more distinctly the character
of Vegetation myths.

Adonis or Tammuz, the Syrian god of vegetation, was
a very beautiful youth, born of a Virgin (Nature), and so
beautiful that Venus and Proserpine (the goddesses of the
Upper and Underworlds) both fell in love with him.
To reconcile their claims it was agreed that he should
spend half the year (summer) in the upper world, and the
winter half with Proserpine below. He was killed by a
boar (Typhon) in the autumn. And every year the maidens
"wept for Adonis" (see Ezekiel viii. 14). In the spring
a festival of his resurrection was held--the women set out
to seek him, and having found the supposed corpse
placed it (a wooden image) in a coffin or hollow tree, and
performed wild rites and lamentations, followed by even
wilder rejoicings over his supposed resurrection. At Aphaca
in the North of Syria, and halfway between Byblus and
Baalbec, there was a famous grove and temple of Astarte,
near which was a wild romantic gorge full of trees, the
birthplace of a certain river Adonis--the water rushing from
a Cavern, under lofty cliffs. Here (it was said) every year
the youth Adonis was again wounded to death, and the
river ran red with his blood,[1] while the scarlet anemone
bloomed among the cedars and walnuts.

[1] A discoloration caused by red earth washed by rain from the
mountains, and which has been observed by modern travelers. For
the whole story of Adonis and of Attis see Frazer's Golden Bough,
part iv.

The story of Attis is very similar. He was a fair young
shepherd or herdsman of Phrygia, beloved by Cybele (or
Demeter), the Mother of the gods. He was born of a Virgin
--Nana--who conceived by putting a ripe almond or
pomegranate in her bosom. He died, either killed by a
boar, the symbol of winter, like Adonis, or self-castrated
(like his own priests); and he bled to death at the foot of
a pine tree (the pine and pine-cone being symbols of fertility).
The sacrifice of his blood renewed the fertility of
the earth, and in the ritual celebration of his death and
resurrection his image was fastened to the trunk of a pine-
tree (compare the Crucifixion). But I shall return to this
legend presently. The worship of Attis became very widespread
and much honored, and was ultimately incorporated
with the established religion at Rome somewhere about the
commencement of our Era.

The following two legends (dealing with Hercules and
with Krishna) have rather more of the character of the
solar, and less of the vegetational myth about them. Both
heroes were regarded as great benefactors of humanity; but
the former more on the material plane, and the latter on the
spiritual.

Hercules or Heracles was, like other Sun-gods and benefactors of
mankind, a great Traveler. He was known in
many lands, and everywhere he was invoked as Saviour.
He was miraculously conceived from a divine Father; even
in the cradle he strangled two serpents sent to destroy him.
His many labors for the good of the world were ultimately
epitomized into twelve, symbolized by the signs of the Zodiac.
He slew the Nemxan Lion and the Hydra (offspring
of Typhon) and the Boar. He overcame the Cretan Bull,
and cleaned out the Stables of Augeas; he conquered Death
and, descending into Hades, brought Cerberus thence and
ascended into Heaven. On all sides he was followed by the
gratitude and the prayers of mortals.

As to Krishna, the Indian god, the points of agreement
with the general divine career indicated above are too salient
to be overlooked, and too numerous to be fully recorded.
He also was born of a Virgin (Devaki) and in a Cave,[1]
and his birth announced by a Star. It was sought to destroy
him, and for that purpose a massacre of infants was ordered.
Everywhere he performed miracles, raising the dead, healing
lepers, and the deaf and the blind, and championing the
poor and oppressed. He had a beloved disciple, Arjuna, (cf.
John) before whom he was transfigured.[2] His death is
differently related--as being shot by an arrow, or crucified on
a tree. He descended into hell; and rose again from the
dead, ascending into heaven in the sight of many people.
He will return at the last day to be the judge of the quick
and the dead.

[1] Cox's Myths of the Aryan Nations, p. 107.

[2] Bhagavat Gita, ch. xi.

Such are some of the legends concerning the pagan and
pre-Christian deities--only briefly sketched now, in order
that we may get something like a true perspective of the
whole subject; but to most of them, and more in detail,
I shall return as the argument proceeds.

What we chiefly notice so far are two points; on the
one hand the general similarity of these stories with that
of Jesus Christ; on the other their analogy with the yearly
phenomena of Nature as illustrated by the course of the
Sun in heaven and the changes of Vegetation on the earth.

(1) The similarity of these ancient pagan legends and
beliefs with Christian traditions was indeed so great that
it excited the attention and the undisguised wrath of the
early Christian fathers. They felt no doubt about the similarity,
but not knowing how to explain it fell back upon the
innocent theory that the Devil--in order to confound the
Christians--had, CENTURIES BEFORE, caused the pagans to
adopt certain beliefs and practices! (Very crafty, we
may say, of the Devil, but also very innocent of the
Fathers to believe it!) Justin Martyr for instance
describes[1] the institution of the Lord's Supper as narrated
in the Gospels, and then goes on to say: "Which the wicked
devils have IMITATED in the mysteries of Mithra, commanding
the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup
of water are placed with certain incantations in the
mystic rites of one who is being initiated you either know
or can learn." Tertullian also says[2] that "the devil by the
mysteries of his idols imitates even the main part of the
divine mysteries." . . . "He baptizes his worshippers in
water and makes them believe that this purifies them from
their crimes." . . . "Mithra sets his mark on the forehead
of his soldiers; he celebrates the oblation of bread;
he offers an image of the resurrection, and presents at once
the crown and the sword; he limits his chief priest to a
single marriage; he even has his virgins and ascetics."[3]
Cortez, too, it will be remembered complained that the Devil
had positively taught to the Mexicans the same things which
God had taught to Christendom.

[1] I Apol. c. 66.

[2] De Praescriptione Hereticorum, c. 40; De Bapt. c. 3; De
Corona, c. 15.

[3] For reference to both these examples see J. M. Robertson's
Pagan Christs, pp. 321, 322.

Justin Martyr again, in the Dialogue with Trypho says
that the Birth in the Stable was the prototype (!) of the
birth of Mithra in the Cave of Zoroastrianism; and boasts
that Christ was born when the Sun takes its birth in the
Augean Stable,[1] coming as a second Hercules to cleanse
a foul world; and St. Augustine says "we hold this
(Christmas) day holy, not like the pagans because of the
birth of the Sun, but because of the birth of him who made
it." There are plenty of other instances in the Early Fathers
of their indignant ascription of these similarities to the work
of devils; but we need not dwell over them. There is no
need for US to be indignant. On the contrary we can now
see that these animadversions of the Christian writers are
the evidence of how and to what extent in the spread of
Christianity over the world it had become fused with the
Pagan cults previously existing.

[1] The Zodiacal sign of Capricornus, iii.).

It was not till the year A.D. 530 or so--five centuries after
the supposed birth of Christ--that a Scythian Monk, Dionysius
Exiguus, an abbot and astronomer of Rome, was
commissioned to fix the day and the year of that birth.
A nice problem, considering the historical science of the
period! For year he assigned the date which we now adopt,[2]
and for day and month he adopted the 25th December
--a date which had been in popular use since about
350 B.C., and the very date, within a day or two, of the
supposed birth of the previous Sungods.[3] From that
fact alone we may fairly conclude that by the year 530
or earlier the existing Nature-worships had become largely
fused into Christianity. In fact the dates of the main
pagan religious festivals had by that time become so
popular that Christianity was OBLIGED to accommodate itself
to them.[1]

[1] As, for instance, the festival of John the Baptist in June
took the place of the pagan midsummer festival of water and
bathing; the Assumption of the Virgin in August the place of that
of Diana in the same month; and the festival of All Souls early
in November, that of the world-wide pagan feasts of the dead and
their ghosts at the same season.

[2] See Encycl. Brit. art. "Chronology."

[3] "There is however a difficulty in accepting the 25th December
as the real date of the Nativity, December being the height of
the rainy season in Judaea, when neither flocks nor shepherds
could have been at night in the fields of Bethlehem" (!). Encycl.
Brit. art. "Christmas Day." According to Hastings's
Encyclopaedia, art. "Christmas," "Usener says that the Feast of
the Nativity was held originally on the 6th January (the
Epiphany), but in 353-4 the Pope Liberius displaced
it to the 25th December . . . but there is no evidence of a
Feast of the Nativity taking place at all, before the fourth
century A.D." It was not till 534 A.D. that Christmas Day and
Epiphany were reckoned by the law-courts as dies non.

This brings us to the second point mentioned a few
pages back--the analogy between the Christian festivals
and the yearly phenomena of Nature in the Sun and the
Vegetation.

Let us take Christmas Day first. Mithra, as we have
seen, was reported to have been born on the 25th December
(which in the Julian Calendar was reckoned as the day
of the Winter Solstice AND of the Nativity of the Sun);
Plutarch says (Isis and Osiris, c. 12) that Osiris was born
on the 361st day of the year, when a Voice rang out proclaiming
the Lord of All. Horus, he says, was born on the
362nd day. Apollo on the same.

Why was all this? Why did the Druids at Yule Tide
light roaring fires? Why was the cock supposed to crow all
Christmas Eve ("The bird of dawning singeth all night
long")? Why was Apollo born with only one hair (the
young Sun with only one feeble ray)? Why did Samson
(name derived from Shemesh, the sun) lose all his strength
when he lost his hair? Why were so many of these gods
--Mithra, Apollo, Krishna, Jesus, and others, born in
caves or underground chambers?[1] Why, at the Easter
Eve festival of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem is a light
brought from the grave and communicated to the candles
of thousands who wait outside, and who rush forth rejoicing
to carry the new glory over the world?[2] Why indeed?
except that older than all history and all written records
has been the fear and wonderment of the children of men
over the failure of the Sun's strength in Autumn--the decay
of their God; and the anxiety lest by any means he should
not revive or reappear?

[1] This same legend of gods (or idols) being born in caves has,
curiously enough, been reported from Mexico, Guatemala, the
Antilles, and other places in Central America. See C. F. P. von
Martius, Etknographie Amerika, etc. (Leipzig, 1867), vol. i, p.
758.

[2] Compare the Aztec ceremonial of lighting a holy fire and
communicating it to the multitude from the wounded breast of a
human victim, celebrated every 52 years at the end of one cycle
and the beginning of another--the constellation of the Pleiades
being in the Zenith (Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, Bk. I, ch.
4).

Think for a moment of a time far back when there were
absolutely NO Almanacs or Calendars, either nicely printed
or otherwise, when all that timid mortals could see was that
their great source of Light and Warmth was daily failing,
daily sinking lower in the sky. As everyone now knows
there are about three weeks at the fag end of the
year when the days are at their shortest and there is very
little change. What was happening? Evidently the god
had fallen upon evil times. Typhon, the prince of darkness,
had betrayed him; Delilah, the queen of Night, had
shorn his hair; the dreadful Boar had wounded him;
Hercules was struggling with Death itself; he had fallen
under the influence of those malign constellations--the
Serpent and the Scorpion. Would the god grow weaker
and weaker, and finally succumb, or would he conquer after
all? We can imagine the anxiety with which those early
men and women watched for the first indication of a lengthening
day; and the universal joy when the Priest (the representative
of primitive science) having made some simple
observations, announced from the Temple steps that the
day WAS lengthening--that the Sun was really born again
to a new and glorious career.[1]

[1] It was such things as these which doubtless gave the
Priesthood
its power.

Let us look at the elementary science of those days a
little closer. How without Almanacs or Calendars could
the day, or probable day, of the Sun's rebirth be fixed?
Go out next Christmas Evening, and at midnight you will
see the brightest of the fixed stars, Sirius, blazing in the
southern sky--not however due south from you, but somewhat
to the left of the Meridian line. Some three thousand
years ago (owing to the Precession of the Equinoxes) that
star at the winter solstice did not stand at midnight where
you now see it, but almost exactly ON the meridian line.
The coming of Sirius therefore to the meridian at midnight
became the sign and assurance of the Sun having reached
the very lowest point of his course, and therefore of having
arrived at the moment of his re-birth. Where then was
the Sun at that moment? Obviously in the underworld
beneath our feet. Whatever views the ancients may have
had about the shape of the earth, it was evident to the
mass of people that the Sungod, after illuminating the
world during the day, plunged down in the West, and
remained there during the hours of darkness in some cavern
under the earth. Here he rested and after bathing in the
great ocean renewed his garments before reappearing in the
East next morning.

But in this long night of his greatest winter weakness,
when all the world was hoping and praying for the renewal
of his strength, it is evident that the new birth would come
--if it came at all--at midnight. This then was the sacred
hour when in the underworld (the Stable or the Cave or
whatever it might be called) the child was born who was
destined to be the Savior of men. At that moment Sirius
stood on the southern meridian (and in more southern lands
than ours this would be more nearly overhead); and that
star--there is little doubt--is the Star in the East mentioned
in the Gospels.

To the right, as the supposed observer looks at Sirius on
the midnight of Christmas Eve, stands the magnificent
Orion, the mighty hunter. There are three stars in his belt
which, as is well known, lie in a straight line pointing to
Sirius. They are not so bright as Sirius, but they are
sufficiently bright to attract attention. A long tradition
gives them the name of the Three Kings. Dupuis[1] says:
"Orion a trois belles etoiles vers le milieu, qui sont de
seconde grandeur et posees en ligne droite, l'une pres de
l'autre, le peuple les appelle les trois rois. On donne aux
trois rois Magis les noms de Magalat, Galgalat, Saraim;
et Athos, Satos, Paratoras. Les Catholiques les appellent
Gaspard, Melchior, et Balthasar." The last-mentioned
group of names comes in the Catholic Calendar in connection
with the feast of the Epiphany (6th January); and
the name "Trois Rois" is commonly to-day given to these
stars by the French and Swiss peasants.

[1] Charles F. Dupuis (Origine de Tous les Cultes, Paris, 1822)
was one of the earliest modern writers on these subjects.

Immediately after Midnight then, on the 25th December,
the Beloved Son (or Sun-god) is born. If we go back in
thought to the period, some three thousand years ago, when
at that moment of the heavenly birth Sirius, coming from
the East, did actually stand on the Meridian, we shall
come into touch with another curious astronomical coincidence.
For at the same moment we shall see the Zodiacal
constellation of the Virgin in the act of rising, and becoming
visible in the East divided through the middle by the line
of the horizon.

The constellation Virgo is a Y-shaped group, of which ,
the star at the foot, is the well-known Spica, a star of
the first magnitude. The other principal stars, at the
centre, and and at the extremities, are of the
second magnitude. The whole resembles more a cup than the human
figure; but when we remember the symbolic meaning
of the cup, that seems to be an obvious explanation of
the name Virgo, which the constellation has borne since
the earliest times. [The three stars , and ,
lie very nearly on the Ecliptic, that is, the Sun's path--a fact
to which we shall return presently.]

At the moment then when Sirius, the star from the East,
by coming to the Meridian at midnight signalled the Sun's
new birth, the Virgin was seen just rising on the Eastern
sky--the horizon line passing through her centre. And
many people think that this astronomical fact is the explanation
of the very widespread legend of the Virgin-birth. I
do not think that it is the sole explanation--for indeed in
all or nearly all these cases the acceptance of a myth seems
to depend not upon a single argument but upon the convergence
of a number of meanings and reasons in the same
symbol. But certainly the fact mentioned above is curious,
and its importance is accentuated by the following
considerations.

In the Temple of Denderah in Egypt, and on the inside
of the dome, there is or WAS an elaborate circular representation
of the Northern hemisphere of the sky and the
Zodiac.[1] Here Virgo the constellation is represented, as
in our star-maps, by a woman with a spike of corn in her
hand (Spica). But on the margin close by there is an annotating
and explicatory figure--a figure of Isis with
the infant Horus in her arms, and quite resembling in style
the Christian Madonna and Child, except that she is
sitting and the child is on her knee. This seems to show
that--whatever other nations may have done in associating
Virgo with Demeter, Ceres, Diana[2] etc.--the Egyptians
made no doubt of the constellation's connection with Isis
and Horus. But it is well known as a matter of history
that the worship of Isis and Horus descended in the early
Christian centuries to Alexandria, where it took the form
of the worship of the Virgin Mary and the infant Savior,
and so passed into the European ceremonial. We have
therefore the Virgin Mary connected by linear succession and
descent with that remote Zodiacal cluster in the sky! Also
it may be mentioned that on the Arabian and Persian globes
of Abenezra and Abuazar a Virgin and Child are figured in
connection with the same constellation.[3]

[1] Carefully described and mapped by Dupuis, see op. cit.

[2] For the harvest-festival of Diana, the Virgin, and her
parallelism
with the Virgin Mary, see The Golden Bough, vol. i, 14 and ii,
121.

[3] See F. Nork, Der Mystagog (Leipzig, 1838).

A curious confirmation of the same astronomical connection
is afforded by the Roman Catholic Calendar. For if this be
consulted it will be found that the festival of the
Assumption of the Virgin is placed on the 15th August, while the
festival of the Birth of the Virgin is dated the 8th September. I
have already pointed out that the stars, , and of Virgo are almost exactly on the Ecliptic, or
Sun's path through the sky; and a brief reference to the
Zodiacal signs and the star-maps will show that the Sun
each year enters the sign of Virgo about the first-mentioned
date, and leaves it about the second date. At the present
day the Zodiacal signs (owing to precession) have shifted
some distance from the constellations of the same name.
But at the time when the Zodiac was constituted and
these names were given, the first date obviously would
signalize the actual disappearance of the cluster Virgo
in the Sun's rays--i. e. the Assumption of the Virgin into
the glory of the God--while the second date would signalize
the reappearance of the constellation or the Birth of the
Virgin. The Church of Notre Dame at Paris is supposed
to be on the original site of a Temple of Isis; and it is said
(but I have not been able to verify this myself) that one of
the side entrances--that, namely, on the left in entering
from the North (cloister) side--is figured with the signs of
the Zodiac EXCEPT that the sign Virgo is replaced by the
figure of the Madonna and Child.

So strange is the scripture of the sky! Innumerable
legends and customs connect the rebirth of the Sun with
a Virgin parturition. Dr. J. G. Frazer in his Part IV of
The Golden Bough[1] says: "If we may trust the evidence
of an obscure scholiast the Greeks [in the worship of
Mithras at Rome] used to celebrate the birth of the luminary
by a midnight service, coming out of the inner
shrines and crying, 'The Virgin has brought forth! The light
is waxing!' (.)" In
Elie Reclus' little book Primitive Folk[2] it is said of the
Esquimaux that "On the longest night of the year two
angakout (priests), of whom one is disguised as a WOMAN,
go from hut to hut extinguishing all the lights, rekindling
them from a vestal flame, and crying out, 'From the new sun
cometh a new light!' "

[1] Book II, ch. vi.

[2] In the Contemporary Science Series, I. 92.

All this above-written on the Solar or Astronomical origins
of the myths does not of course imply that the Vegetational
origins must be denied or ignored. These latter
were doubtless the earliest, but there is no reason--
as said in the Introduction (ch. i)--why the two elements
should not to some extent have run side by side, or been
fused with each other. In fact it is quite clear that they
must have done so; and to separate them out too rigidly,
or treat them as antagonistic, is a mistake. The Cave or
Underworld in which the New Year is born is not only
the place of the Sun's winter retirement, but also the hidden
chamber beneath the Earth to which the dying Vegetation
goes, and from which it re-arises in Spring. The amours
of Adonis with Venus and Proserpine, the lovely goddesses
of the upper and under worlds, or of Attis with Cybele, the
blooming Earth-mother, are obvious vegetation-symbols; but
they do not exclude the interpretation that Adonis
(Adonai) may also figure as a Sun-god. The Zodiacal
constellations of Aries and Taurus (to which I shall return
presently) rule in heaven just when the Lamb and the Bull
are in evidence on the earth; and the yearly sacrifice of
those two animals and of the growing Corn for the good
of mankind runs parallel with the drama of the sky, as it
affects not only the said constellations but also Virgo (the
Earth-mother who bears the sheaf of corn in her hand).

I shall therefore continue (in the next chapter) to point
out these astronomical references--which are full of
significance and poetry; but with a recommendation at the
same time to the reader not to forget the poetry and significance
of the terrestrial interpretations.

Between Christmas Day and Easter there are several minor
festivals or holy days--such as the 28th December (the
Massacre of the Innocents), the 6th January (the
Epiphany), the 2nd February (Candlemas[1] Day), the
period of Lent (German Lenz, the Spring), the Annunciation of the
Blessed Virgin, and so forth--which have been
commonly celebrated in the pagan cults before Christianity,
and in which elements of Star and Nature worship
can be traced; but to dwell on all these would take too
long; so let us pass at once to the period of Easter itself.

[1] This festival of the Purification of the Virgin corresponds
with the old Roman festival of Juno Februata (i. e. purified)
which was held in the last month (February) of the Roman year,
and which included a candle procession of Ceres, searching for
Proserpine. (F. Nork, Der Mystagog.)

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A Doll's House Henrik Ibsen Category: Plays Sections: 12 What's this? Table of Contents		Fiction Non Fiction Short Stories Poetry Plays Sci Fi Philosophy Biography