Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Part 44

[163:2] Hist. Hindostan, ii. p. 310.

[163:3] See Higgins: Anacalypsis, vol. i. p. 157. Bunsen: The Angel-Messiah. Davis: Hist. of China, vol. ii. p. 80, and Huc's Travels, vol. i. p. 327.

[163:4] Allen's India, p. 379.

[163:5] See Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 200, and Chambers's Encyclo., art. "Fuh-he."

[163:6] Davis: History of China, vol. ii. p. 48, and Thornton: Hist.

China, vol. i. p. 151.

[163:7] See almost any work on Egyptian history or the religions of Egypt.

[163:8] See Lundy: Monumental Christianity, p. 403.

[163:9] See Taylor's Diegesis, p. 152. Roman Antiquities, p. 124, and Bell's Pantheon, i. 382.

[164:1] See Greek and Italian Mythology, p. 81. Bell's Pantheon, vol. i.

p. 117. Murray: Manual of Mythology, p. 118, and Roman Antiquities, p.

71.

[164:2] See Bell's Pantheon, vol. ii. p. 170, and Bulfinch: The Age of Fable, p. 161.

[164:3] See Bell's Pantheon, vol. i. p. 27. Roman Antiquities, p. 136, and Taylor's Diegesis, p. 150.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS.

Interwoven with the miraculous conception and birth of Jesus, the star, the visit of the Magi, &c., we have a myth which belongs to a common form, and which, in this instance, is merely adapted to the special circ.u.mstances of the age and place. This has been termed "the myth of the dangerous child." Its general outline is this: A child is born concerning whose future greatness some prophetic indications have been given. But the life of the child is fraught with danger to some powerful individual, generally a monarch. In alarm at his threatened fate, this person endeavors to take the child's life, but it is preserved by divine care.

Escaping the measures directed against it, and generally remaining long unknown, it at length fulfills the prophecies concerning its career, while the fate which he has vainly sought to shun falls upon him who had desired to slay it. There is a departure from the ordinary type, in the case of Jesus, inasmuch as Herod does not actually die or suffer any calamity through his agency. But this failure is due to the fact that Jesus did not fulfill the conditions of the Messiahship, according to the Jewish conception which Matthew has here in mind. Had he--as was expected of the Messiah--become the actual sovereign of the Jews, he must have dethroned the reigning dynasty, whether represented by Herod or his successors. But as his subsequent career belied the expectations, the evangelist was obliged to postpone to a future time his accession to that throne of temporal dominion which the incredulity of his countrymen had withheld from him during his earthly life.

The story of the slaughter of the infants which is said to have taken place in Judea about the time of the birth of Jesus, is to be found in the second chapter of _Matthew_, and is as follows:

"When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem, saying: 'Where is he that is born _king of the Jews_? for we have seen _his star_ in the East and have come to worship him.' When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. Then Herod, when he had privately called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said: 'Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word.'"

The wise men went to Bethlehem and found the young child, but instead of returning to Herod as he had told them, they departed into their own country another way, having been warned of G.o.d _in a dream_, that they should not return to Herod.

"Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, _and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under_."

We have in this story, told by the _Matthew_ narrator--which the writers of the other gospels seem to know nothing about,--almost a counterpart, if not an exact one, to that related of _Crishna_ of India, which shows how closely the mythological history of Jesus has been copied from that of the Hindoo Saviour.

Joguth Chunder Gangooly, a "Hindoo convert to Christ," tells us, in his "Life and Religion of the Hindoos," that:

"A _heavenly voice_ whispered to the foster father of Crishna and told him to fly with the child across the river Jumna, which was immediately done.[166:1] This was owing to the fact that the reigning monarch, King Kansa, sought the life of the infant Saviour, and to accomplish his purpose, he sent messengers '_to kill all the infants in the neighboring places_.'"[166:2]

Mr. Higgins says:

"Soon after Crishna's birth he was carried away by night and concealed in a region remote from his natal place, for fear of a tyrant whose destroyer it was foretold he would become; and who had, for that reason, ordered all the male children born at that period to be slain."[166:3]

Sir William Jones says of Crishna:

"He pa.s.sed a life, according to the Indians, of a most extraordinary and incomprehensible nature. His birth was concealed through fear of the reigning tyrant Kansa, who, at the time of his birth, _ordered all new-born males to be slain, yet this wonderful babe was preserved_."[166:4]

In the Epic poem Mahabarata, composed more than two thousand years ago, we have the whole story of this incarnate deity, born of a virgin, and miraculously escaping in his infancy from the reigning tyrant of his country, related in its original form.

Representations of this flight with the babe at midnight are sculptured on the walls of ancient Hindoo temples.[167:1]

This story is also the subject of an immense sculpture in the cave-temple at Elephanta, where the children are represented as being slain. The date of this sculpture is lost in the most remote antiquity.

It represents a person holding a drawn sword, surrounded by slaughtered _infant boys_. Figures of men and women are also represented who are supposed to be supplicating for their children.[167:2]

Thomas Maurice, speaking of this sculpture, says:

"The event of Crishna's birth, and the attempt to destroy him, took place by night, and therefore the shadowy mantle of darkness, _upon which mutilated figures of infants are engraved_, darkness (at once congenial with his crime and the season of its perpetration), involves the tyrant's bust; the string of _death heads_ marks the mult.i.tude of infants slain by his savage mandate; and every object in the sculpture ill.u.s.trates the events of that Avatar."[167:3]

Another feature which connects these stories is the following:

Sir Wm. Jones tells us that when Crishna was taken out of reach of the tyrant Kansa who sought to slay him, he was fostered at _Mathura_ by Nanda, the herdsman;[167:4] and Canon Farrar, speaking of the sojourn of the Holy Family in Egypt, says:

"St. Matthew neither tells us where the Holy Family abode in Egypt, nor how long their exile continued; but ancient legends say that they remained two years absent from Palestine, and lived at Matareeh, a few miles north-east of Cairo."[167:5]

Chemnitius, out of Stipulensis, who had it from Peter Martyr, Bishop of Alexandria, in the third century, says, that the place in Egypt where Jesus was banished, is now called Matarea, about ten miles beyond Cairo, that the inhabitants constantly burn a lamp in remembrance of it, and that there is a garden of trees yielding a balsam, which was planted by Jesus when a boy.[167:6]

Here is evidently one and the same legend.

_Salivahana_, the virgin-born Saviour, anciently worshiped near Cape Comorin, the southerly part of the Peninsula of India, had the same history. It was attempted to destroy him in infancy by a tyrant who was afterward killed by him. Most of the other circ.u.mstances, with slight variations, are the same as those told of Crishna and Jesus.[167:7]

_Buddha's_ life was also in danger when an infant. In the southern country of Magadha, there lived a king by the name of Bimbasara, who, being fearful of some enemy arising that might overturn his kingdom, frequently a.s.sembled his princ.i.p.al ministers together to hold discussion with them on the subject. On one of these occasions they told him that away to the north there was a respectable tribe of people called the Sakyas, and that belonging to this race there was a youth newly-born, the first-begotten of his mother, &c. This youth, who was Buddha, they said was liable to overturn him, they therefore advised him to "at once raise an army and destroy the child."[168:1]

In the chronicles of the East Mongols, the same tale is to be found repeated in the following story:

"A certain king of a people called Patsala, had a son whose peculiar appearance led the Brahmins at court to prophesy that he would bring evil upon his father, and to advise his destruction. Various modes of execution having failed, _the boy was laid in a copper chest and thrown into the Ganges_.

Rescued by an old peasant who brought him up as his son, he, in due time, learned the story of his escape, and returned to seize upon the kingdom destined for him from his birth."[168:2]

_Hau-ki_, the Chinese hero of supernatural origin, was exposed in infancy, as the "Shih-king" says:

"He was placed in a narrow lane, but the sheep and oxen protected him with loving care. He was placed in a wide forest, where he was met with by the wood-cutters. He was placed on the cold ice, and a bird screened and supported him with its wings," &c.[168:3]

Mr. Legge draws a comparison with this to the Roman legend of Romulus.

_Horus_, according to the Egyptian story, was born in the winter, and brought up secretly in the Isle of Buto, for fear of Typhon, who sought his life. Typhon at first schemed to prevent his birth and then sought to destroy him when born.[168:4]

Within historical times, _Cyrus_, king of Persia (6th cent. B. C.), is the hero of a similar tale. His grandfather, Astyages, had dreamed certain dreams which were interpreted by the Magi to mean that the offspring of his daughter Mandane would expel him from his kingdom.