Part 129 (2/2)

”Thus grew up a mult.i.tude of expressions which described the sun as the child of the night, as the destroyer of the darkness, as the lover of the dawn and the dew--of phrases which would go on to speak of him as killing the dew with his spears, and of forsaking the dawn as he rose in the heaven. The feeling that the fruits of the earth were called forth by his warmth would find utterance in words which spoke of him as the friend and the benefactor of man; while the constant recurrence of his work would lead them to describe him as a being constrained to toil for others, as doomed to travel over many lands, and as finding everywhere things on which he could bestow his love or which he might destroy by his power. His journey, again, might be across cloudless skies, or amid alternations of storm and calm; his light might break fitfully through the clouds, or be hidden for many a weary hour, to burst forth at last with dazzling splendor as he sank down in the western sky. He would thus be described as facing many dangers and many enemies, none of whom, however, may arrest his course; as sullen, or capricious, or resentful; as grieving for the loss of the dawn whom he had loved, or as nursing his great wrath and vowing a pitiless vengeance. Then as the veil was rent at eventide, they would speak of the chief, who had long remained still, girding on his armor; or of the wanderer throwing off his disguise, and seizing his bow or spear to smite his enemies; of the invincible warrior whose face gleams with the flush of victory when the fight is over, as he greets the fair-haired Dawn who closes, as she had begun, the day. To the wealth of images thus lavished on the daily life and death of the Sun there would be no limit. He was the child of the morning, or her husband, or her destroyer; he forsook her and he returned to her, either in calm serenity or only to sink presently in deeper gloom.

”So with other sights and sounds. The darkness of night brought with it a feeling of vague horror and dread; the return of daylight cheered them with a sense of unspeakable gladness; and thus the Sun who scattered the black shade of night would be the mighty champion doing battle with the biting snake which lurked in its dreary hiding-place. But as the Sun accomplishes his journey day by day through the heaven, the character of the seasons is changed. The buds and blossoms of spring-time expand in the flowers and fruits of summer, and the leaves fall and wither on the approach of winter. Thus the daughter of the earth would be spoken of as dying or as dead, as severed from her mother for five or six weary months, not to be restored to her again until the time for her return from the dark land should once more arrive. But as no other power than that of the Sun can recall vegetation to life, this child of the earth would be represented as buried in a sleep from which the touch of the Sun alone could arouse her, when he slays the frost and cold which lie like snakes around her motionless form.

”_That these phrases would furnish the germs of myths or legends teeming with human feeling, as soon as the meaning of the phrases were in part or wholly forgotten, was as inevitable as that in the infancy of our race men should attribute to all sensible objects the same kind of life which they were conscious of possessing themselves._”

Let us compare the history of the _Saviour_ which we have already seen, with that of the _Sun_, as it is found in the _Vedas_.

We can follow in the _Vedic_ hymns, step by step, the development which changes the _Sun_ from a mere luminary into a ”_Creator_,”

”_Preserver_,” ”_Ruler_,” and ”_Rewarder of the World_”--in fact, into a _Divine or Supreme Being_.

The first step leads us from the mere light of the Sun to that light which in the morning wakes man from sleep, and seems to give new life, not only to man, but to the whole of nature. He who wakes us in the morning, who recalls all nature to new life, is soon called ”_The Giver of Daily Life_.”

Secondly, by another and bolder step, the Giver of Daily Light and Life becomes the giver of light and life in general. _He who brings light and life to-day, is the same who brought light and life on the first of days._ As light is the beginning of the day, so light was the beginning of creation, and the Sun, from being a mere light-bringer or life-giver, becomes a Creator, and, if a Creator, then soon also a Ruler of the World.

Thirdly, as driving away the dreaded darkness of the night, and likewise as fertilizing the earth, the Sun is conceived as a ”Defender” and kind ”Protector” of all living things.

Fourthly, the Sun sees everything, both that which is good and that which is evil; and how natural therefore that the evil-doer should be told that the sun sees what no human eye may have seen, and that the innocent, when all other help fails him, should appeal to the sun to attest his guiltlessness!

Let us examine now, says Prof. Muller, from whose work we have quoted the above, a few pa.s.sages (from the _Rig-Veda_) ill.u.s.trating every one of these perfectly natural transitions.

”In hymn vii. we find the Sun invoked as '_The Protector of everything that moves or stands, of all that exists_.'”

”Frequent allusion is made to the Sun's power of seeing everything. The stars flee before the all-seeing Sun, like thieves (R. V. vii.). He sees the right and the wrong among men (Ibid.). He who looks upon the world, knows also all the thoughts in men (Ibid.).”

”As the Sun sees everything and knows everything, he is asked to forget and forgive what he alone has seen and knows (R. V.

iv.).”

”The Sun is asked to drive away illness and bad dreams (R. V.

x.).”

”Having once, and more than once, been invoked as the life-bringer, the Sun is also called the breath or life of all that moves and rests (R. V. i.); and lastly, he becomes _the maker of all things_, by whom all the worlds have been brought together (R. V. x.), and . . . Lord of man and of all living creatures.”

”He is the G.o.d among G.o.ds (R. V. i.); he is the divine leader of all the G.o.ds (R. V. viii.).”

”He alone rules the whole world (R. V. v.). The laws which he has established are firm (R. V. iv.), and the other G.o.ds not only praise him (R. V. vii.), but have to follow him as their leader (R. V. v.).”[473:1]

That the history of _Christ_ Jesus, the Christian Saviour,--”the true _Light_, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,”[473:2]--is simply the history of the _Sun_--the real Saviour of mankind--is demonstrated beyond a doubt from the following indisputable facts:

1. _The birth of Christ Jesus_ is said to have taken place at _early dawn_[473:3] on the 25th day of December. Now, this is the _Sun's birthday_. At the commencement of the sun's apparent annual revolution round the earth, he was said to have been born, and, on the first moment after midnight of the 24th of December, all the heathen nations of the earth, as if by common consent, celebrated the accouchement of the ”_Queen of Heaven_,” of the ”_Celestial Virgin of the Sphere_,” and the birth of the G.o.d _Sol_. On that day the sun having fully entered the winter solstice, the _Sign of the Virgin_ was rising on the eastern horizon. The woman's symbol of this stellar sign was represented first by ears of corn, then with a new-born male child in her arms. Such was the picture of the _Persian_ sphere cited by Aben-Ezra:

”The division of the first decan of the Virgin represents a beautiful virgin with flowing hair, sitting in a chair, with two ears of corn in her hand, and suckling an infant called IESUS by some nations, and _Christ_ in Greek.”[474:1]

This denotes the _Sun_, which, at the moment of the winter solstice, precisely when the Persian magi drew the horoscope of the new year, was placed on the bosom of the Virgin, rising heliacally in the eastern horizon. On this account he was figured in their astronomical pictures under the form of a child suckled by a chaste virgin.[474:2]

Thus we see that Christ Jesus was born on the same day as Buddha, Mithras, Osiris, Horus, Hercules, Bacchus, Adonis and other _personifications of the_ SUN.[474:3]

2. _Christ Jesus was born of a Virgin._ In this respect he is also the _Sun_, for 'tis the sun alone who can be born of an immaculate virgin, who conceived him without carnal intercourse, and who is still, after the birth of her child, a virgin.

<script>