Part 133 (1/2)
”You may call the Creator of all things by different names (Bacchus, Hercules, Mercury, etc.), but they are only different names of the same divine being, the _Sun_.”
14. _He is to be Judge of the quick and the dead._ Who is better able than the Sun to be the judge of man's deeds, seeing, as he does, from his throne in heaven, all that is done on earth? The Vedas speak of Surya--the pervading, irresistible luminary--as seeing all things and hearing all things, _noting the good and evil deeds of men_.[497:2]
According to Hindoo mythology, says Prof. Max Muller:
”The Sun sees everything, both what is good and what is evil; and how natural therefore that (in the Indian Veda) both the evil-doer should be told that the sun sees what no human eye may have seen, and that the innocent, when all other help fails him, should appeal to the sun to attest his guiltlessness.”
”Frequent allusion is made (in the Rig-Veda), to the sun's power of seeing everything. The stars flee before the all-seeing sun, like thieves. He sees the right and the wrong among men. He who looks upon the world knows also the thoughts in all men. As the sun sees everything and knows everything, he is asked to forget and forgive what he alone has seen and knows.”[497:3]
On the most ancient Egyptian monuments, Osiris, the Sun personified, is represented as Judge of the dead. The Egyptian ”Book of the Dead,” the oldest Bible in the world, speaks of Osiris as ”seeing all things, and hearing all things, noting the good and evil deeds of men.”
15. _He will come again sitting on a white horse._ The ”second coming”
of Vishnu (Crishna), _Christ_ Jesus, and other Sun-G.o.ds, are also _astronomical allegories_. The _white horse_, which figures so conspicuously in the legend, was the universal symbol of the Sun among Oriental nations.
Throughout the whole legend, _Christ_ Jesus is the toiling Sun, laboring for the benefit of others, not his own, and doing hard service for a mean and cruel generation. Watch his sun-like career of brilliant conquest, checked with intervals of storm, and declining to a death clouded with sorrow and derision. He is in constant company with his _twelve_ apostles, the _twelve signs of the zodiac_.[498:1] During the course of his life's journey he is called ”The G.o.d of Earthly Blessing,”
”The Saviour through whom a new life springs,” ”The Preserver,” ”The Redeemer,” &c. Almost at his birth the Serpent of darkness attempts to destroy him. Temptations to sloth and luxury are offered him in vain. He has his work to do, and nothing can stay him from doing it, as nothing can arrest the Sun in his journey through the heavens. Like all other solar heroes, he has his faithful women who love him, and the Marys and Martha here play the part. Of his toils it is scarcely necessary to speak in detail. They are but a thousand variations on the story of the great conflict which all the Sun-G.o.ds wage against the demon of darkness. He astonishes his tutor when sent to school. This we might expect to be the case, when an incomparable and incommunicable wisdom is the heritage of the Sun. He also represents the wisdom and beneficence of the bright Being who brings life and light to men. As the Sun wakens the earth to life when the winter is done, so Crishna, Buddha, Horus, aesculapius, and _Christ_ Jesus were raisers of the dead. When the leaves fell and withered on the approach of winter, the ”daughter of the earth”
would be spoken of as dying or dead, and, as no other power than that of the Sun can recall vegetation to life, this child of the earth would be represented as buried in a sleep from which the touch of the Sun alone could rouse her.
_Christ_ Jesus, then, is the Sun, in his short career and early death.
He is the child of the Dawn, whose soft, violet hues tint the clouds of early morn; his father being the Sky, the ”Heavenly Father,” who has looked down with love upon the Dawn, and overshadowed her. When his career on earth is ended, and he expires, the loving mother, who parted from him in the morning of his life, is at his side, looking on the death of the Son whom she cannot save from the doom which is on him, while her tears fall on his body like rain at sundown. From her he is parted at the beginning of his course; to her he is united at its close.
But _Christ_ Jesus, like Crishna, Buddha, Osiris, Horus, Mithras, Apollo, Atys and others, _rises again_, and thus the myth takes us a step beyond the legend of Serpedon and others, which stop at the end of the eastward journey, when the night is done.
According to the Christian calendar, the birthday of John the Baptist is on the day of the summer solstice, when the sun begins to decrease. How true to nature then are the words attributed to him in the fourth Gospel, when he says that he must _decrease_, and Jesus _increase_.
Among the ancient Teutonic nations, fires were lighted, on the tops of hills, on the 24th of June, in honor of the WENDING SUN. This custom is still kept up in Southern Germany and the Scotch highlands, and it is the day selected by the Roman Catholic church to celebrate the nativity of John the Baptist.[499:1]
Mosheim, the ecclesiastical historian, speaking of the uncertainty of the time when _Christ_ Jesus was born, says: ”The uncertainty of this point is of no great consequence. We know that the _Sun of Righteousness_ has shone upon the world; and although we cannot fix the precise period in which he arose, this will not preclude us from enjoying the direction and influence of his vital and salutary beams.”
These sacred legends abound with such expressions as can have no possible or conceivable application to any other than to the ”G.o.d of day.” He is ”a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory (or brightness) of his people.”[499:2] He is come ”a light into the world, that whosoever believeth in him should not abide in darkness.”[499:3] He is ”the light of the world.”[499:4] He ”is light, and in him no darkness is.”[499:5]
”Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, Adonai, and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night.”--_Collect, in Evening Service._
G.o.d of G.o.d, light of light, very G.o.d of very G.o.d.”--_Nicene Creed._
”Merciful Adonai, we beseech thee to cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church.”--_Collect of St. John._
”To thee all angels cry aloud, the heavens, and all the powers therein.”
”Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of thy glory” (or brightness).
”The glorious company of the (_twelve months_, or) apostles praise thee.”
”Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ!”
”When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man, thou pa.s.sest through the constellation, or zodiacal sign--the Virgin.”
”When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of winter, thou didst open the kingdom of heaven (_i. e._, bring on the reign of the summer months) to all believers.”
”All are agreed,” says Cicero, ”that Apollo is none other than the SUN, because the attributes which are commonly ascribed to Apollo do so wonderfully agree thereto.”