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Pagan and Christian creeds: their origin and meaning
III. THE SYMBOLISM OF THE ZODIAC
The Vernal Equinox has all over the ancient world, and from the
earliest times, been a period of rejoicing and of festivals in honor
of the Sungod. It is needless to labor a point which is so well known.
Everyone understands and appreciates the joy of finding that the long
darkness is giving way, that the Sun is growing in strength, and that
the days are winning a victory over the nights. The birds and flowers
reappear, and the promise of Spring is in the air. But it may be worth
while to give an elementary explanation of the ASTRONOMICAL meaning of
this period, because this is not always understood, and yet it is very
important in its bearing on the rites and creeds of the early
religions. The priests who were, as I have said, the early students
and inquirers, had worked out this astronomical side, and in that way
were able to fix dates and to frame for the benefit of the populace
myths and legends, which were in a certain sense explanations of the
order of Nature, and a kind of "popular science."
The Equator, as everyone knows, is an imaginary line or circle
girdling the Earth half-way between the North and South poles. If you
imagine a transparent Earth with a light at its very centre, and also
imagine the SHADOW of this equatorial line to be thrown on the vast
concave of the Sky, this shadow would in astronomical parlance
coincide with the Equator of the Sky--forming an imaginary circle
half-way between the North and South celestial poles.
The Equator, then, may be pictured as cutting across the sky either by
day or by night, and always at the same elevation--that is, as seen
from any one place. But the Ecliptic (the other important great circle
of the heavens) can only be thought of as a line traversing the
constellations as they are seen at NIGHT. It is in fact the Sun's path
among the fixed stars. For (really owing to the Earth's motion in its
orbit) the Sun appears to move round the heavens once a
year--travelling, always to the left, from constellation to
constellation. The exact path of the sun is called the Ecliptic; and
the band of sky on either side of the Ecliptic which may be supposed
to include the said constellations is called the Zodiac. How then-- it
will of course be asked--seeing that the Sun and the Stars can never
be seen together--were the Priests ABLE to map out the path of the
former among the latter? Into that question we need not go. Sufficient
to say that they succeeded; and their success--even with the very
primitive instruments they had--shows that their astronomical
knowledge and acuteness of reasoning were of no mean order.
To return to our Vernal Equinox. Let us suppose that the Equator and
Ecliptic of the sky, at the Spring season, are represented by two
lines Eq. and Ecl. crossing each other at the point P. The Sun,
represented by the small circle, is moving slowly and in its annual
course along the Ecliptic to the left. When it reaches the point P
(the dotted circle) it stands on the Equator of the sky, and then for
a day or two, being neither North nor South, it shines on the two
terrestrial hemispheres alike, and day and night are equal. BEFORE
that time, when the sun is low down in the heavens, night has the
advantage, and the days are short; AFTERWARDS, when the Sun has
travelled more to the left, the days triumph over the nights. It will
be seen then that this point P where the Sun's path crosses the
Equator is a very critical point. It is the astronomical location of
the triumph of the Sungod and of the arrival of Spring.
How was this location defined? Among what stars was the Sun moving at
that critical moment? (For of course it was understood, or supposed,
that the Sun was deeply influenced by the constellation through which
it was, or appeared to be, moving.) It seems then that at the period
when these questions were occupying men's minds --say about three
thousand years ago--the point where the Ecliptic crossed the Equator
was, as a matter of fact, in the region of the constellation Aries or
the he- Lamb. The triumph of the Sungod was therefore, and quite
naturally, ascribed to the influence of Aries. THE LAMB BECAME THE
SYMBOL OF THE RISEN SAVIOR, AND OF HIS PASSAGE FROM THE UNDERWORLD
INTO THE HEIGHT OF HEAVEN. At first such an explanation sounds
hazardous; but a thousand texts and references confirm it; and it is
only by the accumulation of evidence in these cases that the student
becomes convinced of a theory's correctness. It must also be
remembered (what I have mentioned before) that these myths and legends
were commonly adopted not only for one strict reason but because they
represented in a general way the convergence of various symbols and
inferences.
Let me enumerate a few points with regard to the Vernal Equinox. In
the Bible the festival is called the Passover, and its supposed
institution by Moses is related in Exodus, ch. xii. In every house a
he-lamb was to be slain, and its blood to be sprinkled on the
doorposts of the house. Then the Lord would pass over and not smite
that house. The Hebrew word is pasach, to pass.[1] The lamb slain was
called the Paschal Lamb. But what was that lamb? Evidently not an
earthly lamb--(though certainly the earthly lambs on the hillsides
WERE just then ready to be killed and eaten)--but the heavenly Lamb,
which was slain or sacrificed when the Lord "passed over" the equator
and obliterated the constellation Aries. This was the Lamb of God
which was slain each year, and "Slain since the foundation of the
world." This period of the Passover (about the 25th March) was to
be[2] the beginning of a new year. The sacrifice of the Lamb, and its
blood, were to be the promise of redemption. The door-frames of the
houses--symbols of the entrance into a new life--were to be sprinkled
with blood.[3] Later, the imagery of the saving power of the blood of
the Lamb became more popular, more highly colored. (See St. Paul's
epistles, and the early Fathers.) And we have the expression "washed
in the blood of the Lamb" adopted into the Christian Church.
[1] It is said that pasach sometimes means not so much to pass over,
as to hover over and so protect. Possibly both meanings enter in here.
See Isaiah xxxi. 5.
[2] See Exodus xii. i.
[3] It is even said (see The Golden Bough, vol. iii, 185) that the
doorways of houses and temples in Peru were at the Spring festival
daubed with blood of the first-born children--commuted afterwards to
the blood of the sacred animal, the Llama. And as to Mexico, Sahagun,
the great Spanish missionary, tells us that it was a custom of the
people there to "smear the outside of their houses and doors with
blood drawn from their own ears and ankles, in order to propitiate the
god of Harvest" (Kingsborough's Mexican Antiquities, vol. vi, p. 235).
In order fully to understand this extraordinary expression and its
origin we must turn for a moment to the worship both of Mithra, the
Persian Sungod, and of Attis the Syrian god, as throwing great light
on the Christian cult and ceremonies. It must be remembered that in
the early centuries of our era the Mithra-cult was spread over the
whole Western world. It has left many monuments of itself here in
Britain. At Rome the worship was extremely popular, and it may almost
be said to have been a matter of chance whether Mithraism should
overwhelm Christianity, or whether the younger religion by adopting
many of the rites of the older one should establish itself (as it did)
in the face of the latter.
Now we have already mentioned that in the Mithra cult the slaying of a
Bull by the Sungod occupies the same sort of place as the slaving of
the Lamb in the Christian cult. It took place at the Vernal Equinox
and the blood of the Bull acquired in men's minds a magic virtue.
Mithraism was a greatly older religion than Christianity; but its
genesis was similar. In fact, owing to the Precession of the
Equinoxes, the crossing-place of the Ecliptic and Equator was
different at the time of the establishment of Mithra-worship from what
it was in the Christian period; and the Sun instead of standing in the
He-lamb, or Aries, at the Vernal Equinox stood, about two thousand
years earlier (as indicated by the dotted line in the diagram), in
this very constellation of the Bull.[1] The bull therefore became the
symbol of the triumphant God, and the sacrifice of the bull a holy
mystery. (Nor must we overlook here the agricultural appropriateness
of the bull as the emblem of Spring-plowings and of service to man.)
[1] With regard to this point, see an article in the Nineteenth
Century for September 1900, by E. W. Maunder of the Greenwich
Observatory on "The Oldest Picture Book" (the Zodiac). Mr. Maunder
calculates that the Vernal Equinox was in the centre of the Sign of
the Bull 5,000 years ago. [It would therefore be in the centre of
Aries 2,845 years ago--allowing 2,155 years for the time occupied in
passing from one Sign to another.] At the earlier period the Summer
solstice was in the centre of Leo, the Autumnal equinox in the centre
of Scorpio, and the Winter solstice in the centre of
Aquarius--corresponding roughly, Mr. Maunder points out, to the
positions of the four "Royal Stars," Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares and
Fomalhaut.
The sacrifice of the Bull became the image of redemption. In a certain
well-known Mithra-sculpture or group, the Sungod is represented as
plunging his dagger into a bull, while a scorpion, a serpent, and
other animals are sucking the latter's blood. From one point of view
this may be taken as symbolic of the Sun fertilizing the gross Earth
by plunging his rays into it and so drawing forth its blood for the
sustenance of all creatures; while from another more astronomical
aspect it symbolizes the conquest of the Sun over winter in the moment
of "passing over" the sign of the Bull, and the depletion of the
generative power of the Bull by the Scorpion --which of course is the
autumnal sign of the Zodiac and herald of winter. One such Mithraic
group was found at Ostia, where there was a large subterranean Temple
"to the invincible god Mithras."
In the worship of Attis there were (as I have already indicated) many
points of resemblance to the Christian cult. On the 22nd March (the
Vernal Equinox) a pinetree was cut in the woods and brought into the
Temple of Cybele. It was treated almost as a divinity, was decked with
violets, and the effigy of a young man tied to the stem (cf. the
Crucifixion). The 24th was called the "Day of Blood"; the High Priest
first drew blood from his own arms; and then the others gashed and
slashed themselves, and spattered the altar and the sacred tree with
blood; while novices made themselves eunuchs "for the kingdom of
heaven's sake." The effigy was afterwards laid in a tomb. But when
night fell, says Dr. Frazer,[1] sorrow was turned to joy. A light was
brought, and the tomb was found to be empty. The next day, the 25th,
was the festival of the Resurrection; and ended in carnival and
license (the Hilaria). Further, says Dr. Frazer, these mysteries "seem
to have included a sacramental meal and a baptism of blood."
[1] See Adonis, Attis and Osiris, Part IV of The Golden Bough, by J.
G. Frazer, p. 229.
"In the baptism the devotee, crowned with gold and wreathed with
fillets, descended into a pit, the mouth of which was covered with a
wooden grating. A bull, adorned with garlands of flowers, its forehead
glittering with gold leaf, was then driven on to the grating and there
stabbed to death with a consecrated spear. Its hot reeking blood
poured in torrents through the apertures, and was received with devout
eagerness by the worshiper on every part of his person and garments,
till he emerged from the pit, drenched, dripping, and scarlet from
head to foot, to receive the homage, nay the adoration, of his
fellows--as one who had been born again to eternal life and had washed
away his sins in the blood of the bull."[1] And Frazer continuing
says: "That the bath of blood derived from slaughter of the bull
(tauro-bolium) was believed to regenerate the devotee for eternity is
proved by an inscription found at Rome, which records that a certain
Sextilius Agesilaus Aedesius, who dedicated an altar to Attis and the
mother of the gods (Cybele) was taurobolio criobolio que in aeternum
renatus."[2] "In the procedure of the Taurobolia and Criobolia," says
Mr. J. M. Robertson,[3] "which grew very popular in the Roman world,
we have the literal and original meaning of the phrase 'washed in the
blood of the lamb'[4]; the doctrine being that resurrection and
eternal life were secured by drenching or sprinkling with the actual
blood of a sacrificial bull or ram."[5] For the POPULARITY of the rite
we may quote Franz Cumont, who says:--"Cette douche sacree
(taurobolium) pareit avoir ete administree en Cappadoce dans un grand
nombre de sanctuaires, et en particulier dans ceux de Ma la grande
divinite indigene, et dans ceux: de Anahita."
[1] See vol. i, pp. 334 ff.
[2] Adonis, Attis and Osiris, p. 229. References to Prudentius, and to
Firmicus Maternus, De errore 28. 8.
[3] That is, "By the slaughter of the bull and the slaughter of the
ram born again into eternity."
[4] Pagan Christs, p. 315.
[5] Mysteres de Mithra, Bruxelles, 1902, p. 153.
Whether Mr. Robertson is right in ascribing to the priests (as he
appears to do) so materialistic a view of the potency of the actual
blood is, I should say, doubtful. I do not myself see that there is
any reason for supposing that the priests of Mithra or Attis regarded
baptism by blood very differently from the way in which the Christian
Church has generally regarded baptism by water--namely, as a SYMBOL of
some inner regeneration. There may certainly have been a little more
of the MAGICAL view and a little less of the symbolic, in the older
religions; but the difference was probably on the whole more one of
degree than of essential disparity. But however that may be, we cannot
but be struck by the extraordinary analogy between the tombstone
inscriptions of that period "born again into eternity by the blood of
the Bull or the Ram," and the corresponding texts in our graveyards
to-day. F. Cumont in his elaborate work, Textes et Monuments relatifs
aux Mysteres de Mithra (2 vols., Brussels, 1899) gives a great number
of texts and epitaphs of the same character as that above-quoted, and
they are well worth studying by those interested in the subject.
Cumont, it may be noted (vol. i, p. 305), thinks that the story of
Mithra and the slaying of the Bull must have originated among some
pastoral people to whom the bull was the source of all life. The Bull
in heaven--the symbol of the triumphant Sungod-- and the earthly bull,
sacrificed for the good of humanity were one and the same; the god, in
fact, SACRIFICED HIMSELF OR HIS REPRESENTATIVE. And Mithra was the
hero who first won this conception of divinity for mankind--though of
course it is in essence quite similar to the conception put forward by
the Christian Church.
As illustrating the belief that the Baptism by Blood was accompanied
by a real regeneration of the devotee, Frazer quotes an ancient
writer[1] who says that for some time after the ceremony the fiction
of a new birth was kept up by dieting the devotee on MILK, like a
new-born babe. And it is interesting in that connection to find that
even in the present day a diet of ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BUT MILK for six
or eight weeks is by many doctors recommended as the only means of
getting rid of deep-seated illnesses and enabling a patient's organism
to make a completely new start in life.
[1] Sallustius philosophus. See Adonis, Attis and Osiris, note, p.
229.
"At Rome," he further says (p. 230), "the new birth and the remission
of sins by the shedding of bull's blood appear to have been carried
out above all at the sanctuary of the Phrygian Goddess (Cybele) on the
Vatican Hill, at or near the spot where the great basilica of St.
Peter's now stands; for many inscriptions relating to the rites were
found when the church was being enlarged in 1608 or 1609. From the
Vatican as a centre," he continues, "this barbarous system of
superstition seems to have spread to other parts of the Roman empire.
Inscriptions found in Gaul and Germany prove that provincial
sanctuaries modelled their ritual on that of the Vatican."
It would appear then that at Rome in the quiet early days of the
Christian Church, the rites and ceremonials of Mithra and Cybele,
probably much intermingled and blended, were exceedingly popular. Both
religions had been recognized by the Roman State, and the Christians,
persecuted and despised as they were, found it hard to make any
headway against them--the more so perhaps because the Christian
doctrines appeared in many respects to be merely faint replicas and
copies of the older creeds. Robertson maintains[1] that a he-lamb was
sacrificed in the Mithraic mysteries, and he quotes Porphyry as
saying[2] that "a place near the equinoctial circle was assigned to
Mithra as an appropriate seat; and on this account he bears the sword
of the Ram [Aries] which is a sign of Mars [Ares]." Similarly among
the early Christians, it is said, a ram or lamb was sacrificed in the
Paschal mystery.
[1] Pagan Christs, p. 336.
[2] De Antro, xxiv.
Many people think that the association of the Lamb-god with the Cross
arose from the fact that the constellation Aries at that time WAS on
the heavenly cross (the crossways of the Ecliptic and Equator-see
diagram, ch. iii), and in the very place through which the Sungod had
to pass just before his final triumph. And it is curious to find that
Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho[1] (a Jew) alludes to an old
Jewish practice of roasting a Lamb on spits arranged in the form of a
Cross. "The lamb," he says, meaning apparently the Paschal lamb, "is
roasted and dressed up in the form of a cross. For one spit is
transfixed right through the lower parts up to the head, and one
across the back, to which are attached the legs [forelegs] of the
lamb."
[1] Ch. xl.
To-day in Morocco at the festival of Eid-el-Kebir, corresponding to
the Christian Easter, the Mohammedans sacrifice a young ram and hurry
it still bleeding to the precincts of the Mosque, while at the same
time every household slays a lamb, as in the Biblical institution, for
its family feast.
But it will perhaps be said, "You are going too fast and proving too
much. In the anxiety to show that the Lamb-god and the sacrifice of
the Lamb were honored by the devotees of Mithra and Cybele in the Rome
of the Christian era, you are forgetting that the sacrifice of the
Bull and the baptism in bull's blood were the salient features of the
Persian and Phrygian ceremonials, some centuries earlier. How can you
reconcile the existence side by side of divinities belonging to such
different periods, or ascribe them both to an astronomical origin?"
The answer is simple enough. As I have explained before, the
Precession of the Equinoxes caused the Sun, at its moment of triumph
over the powers of darkness, to stand at one period in the
constellation of the Bull, and at a period some two thousand years
later in the constellation of the Ram. It was perfectly natural
therefore that a change in the sacred symbols should, in the course of
time, take place; yet perfectly natural also that these symbols,
having once been consecrated and adopted, should continue to be
honored and clung to long after the time of their astronomical
appropriateness had passed, and so to be found side by side in later
centuries. The devotee of Mithra or Attis on the Vatican Hill at Rome
in the year 200 A.D. probably had as little notion or comprehension of
the real origin of the sacred Bull or Ram which he adored, as the
Christian in St. Peter's to-day has of the origin of the Lamb-god
whose vicegerent on earth is the Pope.
It is indeed easy to imagine that the change from the worship of the
Bull to the worship of the Lamb which undoubtedly took place among
various peoples as time went on, was only a ritual change initiated by
the priests in order to put on record and harmonize with the
astronomical alteration. Anyhow it is curious that while Mithra in the
early times was specially associated with the bull, his association
with the lamb belonged more to the Roman period. Somewhat the same
happened in the case of Attis. In the Bible we read of the indignation
of Moses at the setting up by the Israelites of a Golden Calf, AFTER
the sacrifice of the ram-lamb had been instituted--as if indeed the
rebellious people were returning to the earlier cult of Apis which
they ought to have left behind them in Egypt. In Egypt itself, too, we
find the worship of Apis, as time went on, yielding place to that of
the Ram- headed god Amun, or Jupiter Ammon.[1] So that both from the
Bible and from Egyptian history we may conclude that the worship of
the Lamb or Ram succeeded to the worship of the Bull.
[1] Tacitus (Hist. v. 4) speaks of ram-sacrifice by the Jews in honor
of Jupiter Ammon. See also Herodotus (ii. 42) on the same in Egypt.
Finally it has been pointed out, and there may be some real connection
in the coincidence, that in the quite early years of Christianity the
FISH came in as an accepted symbol of Jesus Christ. Considering that
after the domination of Taurus and Aries, the Fish (Pisces) comes next
in succession as the Zodiacal sign for the Vernal Equinox, and is now
the constellation in which the Sun stands at that period, it seems not
impossible that the astronomical change has been the cause of the
adoption of this new symbol.
Anyhow, and allowing for possible errors or exaggerations, it becomes
clear that the travels of the Sun through the belt of constellations
which forms the Zodiac must have had, from earliest times, a profound
influence on the generation of religious myths and legends. To say
that it was the only influence would certainly be a mistake. Other
causes undoubtedly contributed. But it was a main and important
influence. The origins of the Zodiac are obscure; we do not know with
any certainty the reasons why the various names were given to its
component sections, nor can we measure the exact antiquity of these
names; but --pre-supposing the names of the signs as once given--it is
not difficult to imagine the growth of legends connected with the
Sun's course among them.
Of all the ancient divinities perhaps Hercules is the one whose role
as a Sungod is most generally admitted. The helper of gods and men, a
mighty Traveller, and invoked everywhere as the Saviour, his labors
for the good of the world became ultimately defined and systematized
as twelve and corresponding in number to the signs of the Zodiac. It
is true that this systematization only took place at a late period,
probably in Alexandria; also that the identification of some of the
Labors with the actual signs as we have them at present is not always
clear. But considering the wide prevalence of the Hercules myth over
the ancient world and the very various astronomical systems it must
have been connected with in its origin, this lack of exact
correspondence is hardly to be wondered at.
The Labors of Hercules which chiefly interest us are: (1) The capture
of the Bull, (2) the slaughter of the Lion, (3) the destruction of the
Hydra, (4) of the Boar, (5) the cleansing of the stables of Augeas,
(6) the descent into Hades and the taming of Cerberus. The first of
these is in line with the Mithraic conquest of the Bull; the Lion is
of course one of the most prominent constellations of the Zodiac, and
its conquest is obviously the work of a Saviour of mankind; while the
last four labors connect themselves very naturally with the Solar
conflict in winter against the powers of darkness. The Boar (4) we
have seen already as the image of Typhon, the prince of darkness; the
Hydra (3) was said to be the offspring of Typhon; the descent into
Hades (6)--generally associated with Hercules' struggle with and
victory over Death--links on to the descent of the Sun into the
underworld, and its long and doubtful strife with the forces of
winter; and the cleansing of the stables of Augeas (5) has the same
signification. It appears in fact that the stables of Augeas was
another name for the sign of Capricorn through which the Sun passes at
the Winter solstice[1]--the stable of course being an underground
chamber--and the myth was that there, in this lowest tract and
backwater of the Ecliptic all the malarious and evil influences of the
sky were collected, and the Sungod came to wash them away (December
was the height of the rainy season in Judaea) and cleanse the year
towards its rebirth.
[1] See diagram of Zodiac.
It should not be forgotten too that even as a child in the cradle
Hercules slew two serpents sent for his destruction-- the serpent and
the scorpion as autumnal constellations figuring always as enemies of
the Sungod--to which may be compared the power given to his disciples
by Jesus[1] "to tread on serpents and scorpions." Hercules also as a
Sungod compares curiously with Samson (mentioned above, ii), but we
need not dwell on all the elaborate analogies that have been traced[2]
between these two heroes.
[1] Luke x. 19.
[2] See Doane's Bible Myths, ch. viii, (New York, 1882.)
The Jesus-story, it will now be seen, has a great number of
correspondences with the stories of former Sungods and with the actual
career of the Sun through the heavens--so many indeed that they cannot
well be attributed to mere coincidence or even to the blasphemous
wiles of the Devil! Let us enumerate some of these. There are (1) the
birth from a Virgin mother; (2) the birth in a stable (cave or
underground chamber); and (3) on the 25th December (just after the
winter solstice). There is (4) the Star in the East (Sirius) and (5)
the arrival of the Magi (the "Three Kings"); there is (6) the
threatened Massacre of the Innocents, and the consequent flight into a
distant country (told also of Krishna and other Sungods). There are
the Church festivals of (7) Candlemas (2nd February), with processions
of candles to symbolize the growing light; of (8) Lent, or the arrival
of Spring; of (9) Easter Day (normally on the 25th March) to celebrate
the crossing of the Equator by the Sun; and (10) simultaneously the
outburst of lights at the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. There is (11)
the Crucifixion and death of the Lamb-God, on Good Friday, three days
before Easter; there are (12) the nailing to a tree, (13) the empty
grave, (14) the glad Resurrection (as in the cases of Osiris, Attis
and others); there are (15) the twelve disciples (the Zodiacal signs);
and (16) the betrayal by one of the twelve. Then later there is (17)
Midsummer Day, the 24th June, dedicated to the Nativity of John the
Baptist, and corresponding to Christmas Day; there are the festivals
of (18) the Assumption of the Virgin (15th August) and of (19) the
Nativity of the Virgin (8th September), corresponding to the movement
of the god through Virgo; there is the conflict of Christ and his
disciples with the autumnal asterisms, (20) the Serpent and the
Scorpion; and finally there is the curious fact that the Church (21)
dedicates the very day of the winter solstice (when any one may very
naturally doubt the rebirth of the Sun) to St. Thomas, who doubted the
truth of the Resurrection!
These are some of, and by no means all, the coincidences in question.
But they are sufficient, I think, to prove-- even allowing for
possible margins of error--the truth of our general contention. To go
into the parallelism of the careers of Krishna, the Indian Sungod, and
Jesus would take too long; because indeed the correspondence is so
extraordinarily close and elaborate.[1] I propose, however, at the
close of this chapter, to dwell now for a moment on the Christian
festival of the Eucharist, partly on account of its connection with
the derivation from the astronomical rites and Nature-celebrations
already alluded to, and partly on account of the light which the
festival generally, whether Christian or Pagan, throws on the origins
of Religious Magic--a subject I shall have to deal with in the next
chapter.
[1] See Robertson's Christianity and Mythology, Part II, pp. 129-302;
also Doane's Bible Myths, ch. xxviii, p. 278.
I have already (Ch. II) mentioned the Eucharistic rite held in
commemoration of Mithra, and the indignant ascription of this by
Justin Martyr to the wiles of the Devil. Justin Martyr clearly had no
doubt about the resemblance of the Mithraic to the Christian ceremony.
A Sacramental meal, as mentioned a few pages back, seems to have been
held by the worshipers of Attis[1] in commemoration of their god; and
the 'mysteries' of the Pagan cults generally appear to have included
rites-- sometimes half-savage, sometimes more aesthetic--in which a
dismembered animal was eaten, or bread and wine (the spirits of the
Corn and the Vine) were consumed, as representing the body of the god
whom his devotees desired to honor. But the best example of this
practice is afforded by the rites of Dionysus, to which I will devote
a few lines. Dionysus, like other Sun or Nature deities, was born of a
Virgin (Semele or Demeter) untainted by any earthly husband; and born
on the 25th. December. He was nurtured in a Cave, and even at that
early age was identified with the Ram or Lamb, into whose form he was
for the time being changed. At times also he was worshiped in the form
of a Bull.[2] He travelled far and wide; and brought the great gift of
wine to mankind.[3] He was called Liberator, and Saviour. His grave
"was shown at Delphi in the inmost shrine of the temple of Apollo.
Secret offerings were brought thither, while the women who were
celebrating the feast woke up the new-born god. . . . Festivals of
this kind in celebration of the extinction and resurrection of the
deity were held (by women and girls only) amid the mountains at night,
every third year, about the time of the shortest day. The rites,
intended to express the excess of grief and joy at the death and
reappearance of the god, were wild even to savagery, and the women who
performed them were hence known by the expressive names of Bacchae,
Maenads, and Thyiades. They wandered through woods and mountains,
their flying locks crowned with ivy or snakes, brandishing wands and
torches, to the hollow sounds of the drum, or the shrill notes of the
flute, with wild dances and insane cries and jubilation.
[1] See Frazer's Golden Bough, Part IV, p. 229.
[2] The Golden Bough, Part II, Book II, p. 164.
[3] "I am the TRUE Vine," says the Jesus of the fourth gospel, perhaps
with an implicit and hostile reference to the cult of Dionysus--in
which Robertson suggests (Christianity and Mythology, p. 357) there
was a ritual miracle of turning water into wine.
Oxen, goats, even fawns and roes from the forest were killed, torn to
pieces, and eaten raw. This in imitation of the treatment of Dionysus
by the Titans"[1]--who it was supposed had torn the god in pieces when
a child.
[1] See art. Dionysus. Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, Nettleship
and Sandys 3rd edn., London, 1898).
Dupuis, one of the earliest writers (at the beginning of last century)
on this subject, says, describing the mystic rites of Dionysus[1]:
"The sacred doors of the Temple in which the initiation took place
were opened only once a year, and no stranger might ever enter. Night
lent to these august mysteries a veil which was forbidden to be drawn
aside --for whoever it might be.[2] It was the sole occasion for the
representation of the passion of Bacchus [Dionysus] dead, descended
into hell, and rearisen--in imitation of the representation of the
sufferings of Osiris which, according to Herodotus, were commemorated
at Sais in Egypt. It was in that place that the partition took place
of the body of the god,[3] which was then eaten-- the ceremony, in
fact, of which our Eucharist is only a reflection; whereas in the
mysteries of Bacchus actual raw flesh was distributed, which each of
those present had to consume in commemoration of the death of Bacchus
dismembered by the Titans, and whose passion, in Chios and Tenedos,
was renewed each year by the sacrifice of a man who represented the
god.[4] Possibly it is this last fact which made people believe that
the Christians (whose hoc est corpus meum and sharing of an
Eucharistic meal were no more than a shadow of a more ancient rite)
did really sacrifice a child and devour its limbs."
[1] See Charles F. Dupuis, "Traite des Mysteres," ch. i.
[2] Pausan, Corinth, ch. 37.
[3] Clem, Prot. Eur. Bacch.
[4] See Porphyry, De Abstinentia, lii, Section 56.
That Eucharistic rites were very very ancient is plain from the
Totem-sacraments of savages; and to this subject we shall now turn.