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Pagan and Christian creeds: their origin and meaning
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
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,
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!' (
[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.)