Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Part 136

Buddha, the Lord and Saviour, was described as a superhuman organ of light, to whom a superhuman organ of darkness, Mara, the Evil Serpent, was opposed. He, like _Christ_ Jesus, resisted the temptations of this evil one, and is represented sitting on a serpent, as if its conqueror.

(See Bunsen's Angel-Messiah, p. 39.)

Crishna also overcame the evil one, and is represented "bruising the head of the serpent," and standing upon it. (See vol. i. of Asiatic Researches, and vol. ii. of Higgins' Anacalypsis.)

In Egyptian Mythology, one of the names of the G.o.d-_Sun_ was _Ra_. He had an adversary who was called _Apap_, represented in the form of a serpent. (See Renouf's Hibbert Lectures, p. 109.)

Horus, the Egyptian incarnate G.o.d, the Mediator, Redeemer and Saviour, is represented in Egyptian art as overcoming the Evil Serpent, and standing triumphantly upon him. (See Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, p. 158, and Monumental Christianity, p. 402.)

Osiris, Ormuzd, Mithras, Apollo, Bacchus, Hercules, Indra, dipus, Quetzalcoatle, and many other _Sun-G.o.ds_, overcame the Evil One, and are represented in the above described manner. (See c.o.x's Tales of Ancient Greece, p. xxvii. and Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 129. Baring-Gould's Curious Myths, p. 256. Bulfinch's Age of Fable, p. 34. Bunsen's Angel-Messiah, p. x., and Kingsborough's Mexican Antiquities, vol. vi.

p. 176.)

[483:1] The crucifixion of the Sun-G.o.ds is simply the power of Darkness triumphing over the "Lord of Light," and Winter overpowering the Summer.

It was at the _Winter_ solstice that the ancients wept for Tammuz, the fair Adonis, and other Sun-G.o.ds, who were put to death by the boar, slain by the thorn of winter. (See c.o.x: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p.

113.)

Other versions of the same myth tell us of Eurydike stung to death by the hidden serpent, of Sifrit smitten by Hagene (the Thorn), of Isfendiyar slain by the thorn or arrow of Rustem, of Achilleus vulnerable only in the heel, of Brynhild enfolded within the dragon's coils, of Meleagros dying as the torch of doom is burnt out, of Baldur, the brave and pure, smitten by the fatal mistletoe, and of Crishna and others being crucified.

In Egyptian mythology, Set, the destroyer, triumphs in the _West_. He is the personification of _Darkness_ and _Winter_, and the Sun-G.o.d whom he puts to death, is Horus the Saviour. (See Renouf's Hibbert Lectures, pp.

112-115.)

[483:2] "In the _Rig-Veda_ the G.o.d _Vishnu_ is often named as a manifestation of the _Solar_ energy, or rather as a form of the Sun."

(Indian Wisdom, p. 322.)

[483:3] Crishna says: "I am Vishnu, Brahma, _Indra_, and the source as well as the destruction of things, the creator and the annihilator of the whole aggregate of existences." (c.o.x: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p.

131.)

[484:1] See Chap. XX.

[484:2] _Indra_, who was represented as a crucified G.o.d, is also the _Sun_. No sooner is he born than he speaks to his mother. Like Apollo and all other Sun-G.o.ds he has _golden locks_, and like them he is possessed of an inscrutable wisdom. He is also born of a virgin--the Dawn. Crishna and Indra are one. (See c.o.x: Aryan Mythology, vol. i. pp.

88 and 341; vol. ii. p. 131.)

[484:3] Wake: Phallism, &c., p. 55.

[484:4] See c.o.x: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 113.

[484:5] Ibid. pp. 115 and 125.

[484:6] See Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, p. 157.

[484:7] Knight: Ancient Art and Mythology, p. 88.

A great number of the Solar heroes or Sun-G.o.ds are forced to endure being bound, which indicates the tied-up power of the sun in winter.

(Goldzhier: Hebrew Mythology, p. 406.)

[484:8] The Sun, as climbing the heights of heaven, is an arrogant being, given to making exorbitant claims, who must be bound to the fiery cross. "The phrases which described the Sun as revolving daily on his four-spoked _cross_, or as doomed to sink in the sky when his...o...b..had reached the zenith, would give rise to the stories of _Ixion_ on his flaming wheel." (c.o.x: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 27.)

[484:9] "So was Ixion bound on the fiery wheel, and the sons of men see the flaming spokes day by day as it whirls in the high heaven."

[485:1] c.o.x: Tales of Ancient Greece, p. x.x.xii.

[485:2] Ibid. p. x.x.xiii.

[485:3] "That the story of the Trojan war is almost wholly mythical, has been conceded even by the stoutest champions of Homeric unity." (Rev. G.

W. c.o.x.)

[485:4] See Muller's Science of Religion, p. 186.

[485:5] See Calmet's Fragments, vol. ii. pp. 21, 22.

[486:1] Nimrod: vol. i. p. 278, in Anac., i. p. 503.

[486:2] At Miletus was the crucified Apollo--Apollo, who overcome the Serpent or evil principle. Thus Callimachus, celebrating this achievement, in his hymn to Apollo, has these remarkable words:

"Thee thy blest _mother_ bore, and pleased a.s.sign'd The willing SAVIOUR of distressed mankind."

[486:3] These words apply to _Christ_ Jesus, as well as Semiramis, according to the Christian Father Ignatius. In his Epistle to the Church at Ephesus, he says: "Now the virginity of Mary, and he who was born of her, was kept in secret from the prince of this world, as was also the death of our Lord: _three of the mysteries the most spoken of throughout the world, yet done in secret by G.o.d_."

[487:1] The Rosicrucians, p. 260.

[487:2] Ibid.

[488:1] The Sun-G.o.ds Apollo, Indra, Wittoba or Crishna, and Christ Jesus, are represented as having their feet pierced with nails (See c.o.x: Aryan Mytho., vol. ii. p. 23, and Moor's Hindu Pantheon.)

[489:1] Knight: Anct. Art and Mytho., pp. 87, 88.

[489:2] Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 32.

[489:3] "This notion is quite consistent with the ideas entertained by the Phenicians as to the Serpent, which they supposed to have the quality of putting off its old age, and a.s.suming a second youth."

Sanchoniathon: (Quoted by Wake: Phallism, &c., p. 43.)

[489:4] Une serpent qui tient sa queue dans sa gueule et dans le circle qu'il decrit, ces trois lettres Greques G??, qui sont le nombre 365. Le Serpent, qui est d'ordinaire un embleme de l'eternete est ici celui de _Soleil_ et des ses revolutions. (Beausobre: Hist. de Manich. tom. ii.

p. 55. Quoted by Lardner, vol. viii. p. 379.)

"This idea existed even in _America_. The great century of the Aztecs was encircled by _a serpent grasping its own tail_, and the great _calendar stone_ is entwined by serpents bearing human heads in their distended jaws."

"The annual pa.s.sage of the Sun, through the signs of the zodiac, being in an oblique path, resembles, or at least the ancients thought so, the tortuous movements of the Serpent, and the facility possessed by this reptile of casting off his skin and producing out of itself a new covering every year, bore some a.n.a.logy to the termination of the old year and the commencement of the new one. Accordingly, all the ancient spheres--the Persian, Indian, Egyptian, Barbaric, and Mexican--were surrounded by the figure of a serpent _holding its tail in its mouth_."

(Squire: Serpent Symbol, p. 249.)

[489:5] Wake: Phallism, p. 42.

[489:6] See c.o.x: Aryan Mytho., vol. ii. p. 128.

[490:1] Being the most intimately connected with the reproduction of life on earth, the _Linga_ became the symbol under which the _Sun_, invoked with a thousand names, has been worshiped throughout the world as the restorer of the powers of nature after the long sleep or death of Winter. In the brazen _Serpent_ of the Pentateuch, the two emblems of the _Cross_ and _Serpent_, the quiescent and energizing _Phallos_, are united. (c.o.x: Aryan Mytho. vol. ii. pp. 113-118.)

[490:2] Wake: Phallism, &c., p. 60.

[491:1] Squire: Serpent Symbol, p. 155.