(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).