Like the old Aryan scheme, this Mithra myth was derived from the constellations, having reference to the decline of the year in autumn, the defeat of the sun by the powers of darkness (or winter), and the rebirth and ascension of that grand luminary in the spring of the year. Mithra was “spiritual life contending with spiritual darkness, and through his labours the kingdom of darkness will be lit with heaven’s own light: the eternal will receive all things back into his favour; and the world will be redeemed to God. The impure are to be purified, and the evil made good, through the mediation of Mithras, the reconciler of Ormuzd and Ahriman. Mithras is the good; his name is Love. In relation to the Eternal he is the source of grace; in relation to men he is the life-giver and mediator. He brings the Word, as Brahma brings the Vedas from the mouth of the Eternal” (Plutarch, “De Iside et Osiride ”). The close connection of the later Eranians with the Chaldeans no doubt gave the former facilities for studying the Akkadian astronomy; and, therefore, it is fair to presume that the phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes was well understood by them, which would account for the fact that Mithra is always represented in earlier times under the figure of a bull, and afterwards under that of a lamb. The reason of this is that, prior to about B.C. 2,200, the vernal equinoxial sign was the zodiacal figure of the bull (Taurus); while, after that period, the figure of the lamb or ram (Aries) took its place; and as the saviour sun-god Mithra was the personification of the new annual sun, born in the December constellation, crossing the equator in March, and thereby conquering the powers of evil or darkness, he was invariably represented by the figure of that zodiacal constellation which happened to be at the vernal equinoxial point at the time.[1]
Having thus briefly glanced at the religious cults of the three branches of the great Aryan family, and found the very same religious conception of a divine and incarnate saviour, redeeming the universe from the powers of darkness and evil, running through each mythological system, we cannot help coming to the conclusion that, inasmuch as the saviour-myth was developed into its full proportions long after the separation of the families took place, and inasmuch as the development followed similar lines in each separate case, there must have been some common guide, and that guide was the unwritten word of nature as expressed in the heavens above.
[1] Vide my “Popular Faith Unveiled.”
Leaving the Aryan stream, and turning back to that division of the great Iranian family which migrated to the valley of the Nile, and which we call the Egyptian, we find a very similar religious system in vogue among them from the very earliest times, as existed among the Aryans. The first settlers in Egypt carried with them, no doubt, the primitive religious conceptions of their Iranian fathers, which were derived from a contemplation of the various phenomena of nature, as previously stated; and it is highly probable that, at a very early period, they gave considerable attention to the movements of the heavenly bodies, for from monumental inscriptions, unearthed in modern times, which geologists inform us must have lain sub terra for several thousands of years, we learn that the Egyptians, at that remote time, well understood the theory of the precession of the equinoxes, placing the zodiacal constellation of the bull at the vernal equinoxial point in the period prior to about B.C. 4300, and that of the ram in the period immediately following. It is probable, therefore, that hundreds of years before this time these primitive men of the Nile were engaging themselves with the study of astronomy, and using effective astronomical instruments, which indicates a high state of civilisation; and this is further borne out by the fact that, at the commencement of the first Egyptian dynasty, about the year B.C. 5000, when Menes reigned over Egypt, there was every appearance of a very advanced civilisation that had lasted for centuries. From the “Book of the Dead” and the Prisse Papyrus (most of the former written at latest prior to B.C. 4000, and the latter very soon after) we derive a tolerably accurate notion of the mythological system of the Egyptians during the first portion of the Old Empire, and probably many hundreds of years previously; while, from the writings of Herodotus, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Manetho, we learn the progress the religion made during the 4,000 following years.
The “Book of the Dead” treats principally of the refining processes through which the spirits of dead people passed in the under-world, or Cher Nuter, before being purified sufficiently to inherit a state of bliss and become spirits of light (Chu) to be absorbed into the sun at the point where it is born, and taken within it to An, the celestial Heliopolis. Before the time of Menes the religion of Egypt was animistic, blended with a vague kind of sun-worship, the supreme deity being, at Thinis-Abydos, the ancient capital, called Osiris, the god of gods, son of Seb, god of earth, and Nu, goddess of the heavenly ocean, and grandson of Ra. Osiris was the sun-god of the daily and annual circle, who enjoyed his spouse, Isis, the great mother, during the summer months and the daytime, after which he was overcome by the evil Set-Typhon and his wife Nephthys, and tortured in the under-world, until released by his son Horus, the conqueror sun-god, who rose into the upper world as the avenger of his father’s defeat, and liberated the soul of Osiris from torture, to be absorbed by, and for ever shine forth in the constellation Orion, as the soul of Isis shines for ever in Sirius. At Heliopolis, An, On, or Para, the city of the sun, Ra was worshipped as supreme god, who as Tum, the hidden god, fought the demon of darkness, the serpent Apap, in Amenti, and who rose again from the under-world as Harmachis. Later, when Menes reigned as the first monarch of the Old Empire (circa B.C. 5000), Memphis, or Mennefer, was the capital city, in which Phtah was worshipped as the supreme god or creator of the world (called Sekru, the slain god, when in the lower world), together with Ma, goddess of righteousness, and Imhotep, the chief of priests, whose name signified “I come in peace,” and who formed the third part of a kind of trinity, with Phtah and Ma. All these, and other minor deities, such as deified kings, etc., were represented on earth by incarnations in the shape of animals, Ra, Osiris, and Phtah, the supreme gods, being manifested in the sacred bull Apis, representing the sun at the vernal equinoctial point in the zodiacal constellation Taurus. During six dynasties these gods were worshipped peacefully, their incarnations and religious rites being protected by the kings; but about the year B.C. 3800 the kingdom appears to have dropped to bits, its religion to have been mixed up in a most confused manner, and its people divided into a number of small nationalities, with separate kings and separate laws; until, at length, the whole country was once more united under the reigning monarchs of the eleventh dynasty (Second Empire), whose capital was Thebes, and whose popular deity was Amen, the hidden god, called also Amen-Ra, to signify that he was not only the sun-god in the under-world, but also the rising and conquering sun-god of the early morn and spring of the year. In fact, Amen was the sun-god of the whole revolution, the Theban Yao, one with his father Osiris in the mid-day and mid-summer, one with his counterpart Horus at the early morn and spring of the year, and one with Tum in the darkness of night and winter; just as Zeus of the Greeks was Zeus Amen (Jupiter Ammon), Olympian Zeus, Zeus Yao, and Stygian Zeus, according to the season of the year.
Between the Middle Empire and the New Empire another catastrophe occurred to the Egyptians, in the form of an invasion of the Hyksos, or shepherd kings of Arabia, who overran the whole country, destroyed the temples, and levied heavy tribute on the people, eventually settling down for four centuries as Kings of Egypt, adopting many of the native customs, and introducing many Semitic deities and observances. At last the Hyksos were driven forth, and the New Empire commenced with the eighteenth dynasty; but a considerable difference was now found to exist in the religion of the country, partly on account of the introduction of Semitic rites, and partly owing to the change that had taken place at the vernal equinoctial point, by the precessional movement of the zodiacal constellation Taurus. The vernal equinoctial point was now (B.C. 2000) in the sign Aries, and therefore the principal deities should be no longer represented as incarnate bulls, but as incarnate rams. Accordingly, we find that after this date the bull-god Apis, or Serapis, gradually fell into disrepute; and Amen, who was now the supreme and representative god, was worshipped as an incarnate ram, being depicted as a man wearing ram’s horns.
Another mode of worshipping the young sun-god, born at the winter solstice, December 25th, was that known as the Mysteries of the Night, or Passion of Osiris, at which an idol of the infant Horus, or Amen, called also the Holy Word, was presented to the people in its mother’s arms, or exposed to view in a crib for the adoration of the people by the priests, who were, according to Adrian, called Bishops of Christ (χριστος, the anointed one); and when King Ptolemy, B.C. 350, asked the meaning of the custom, he was informed that it was a sacred mystery. During these mysteries, which took place annually, bread, after sacerdotal rites, was mystically converted into the body of Osiris, to be partaken of by all the faithful, who were called Christians; and an idol representing the body of the god, stretched on a cross within a circle, was placed upon the mystic table for adoration and praise.
The winter solstitial point is really December 21st; but the ancients always kept the festival of the birth of the sun-god on December 25th, because at twelve o’clock, midnight between December 24th and 25th the uppermost stars in the constellation Virgo made their appearance above the horizon, being the first indication of the birth of the new sun, which had taken place exactly three days and three nights previously. This gave rise to the popular superstition that the new sun-god was born of a virgin, from whose womb he had been trying to extricate himself for the space of three days and three nights. From this the idea prevailed that the sun-god underwent similar periods of struggle also at the summer solstice and the two equinoctial points; and thus arose the legend of the two crucifixions, the one at the vernal equinox, when the sun in Aries crossed the Equator and was crucified as the “Lamb of God” on March 21st, commencing the ascension to heaven on March 25th; and the other at the autumnal equinox, when the sun in Libra (the balance of justice) crossed the Equator and was crucified as the “Just Man” on September 23rd, descending to hell for three days and three nights, after which he emerged into the shades until born again at the winter solstice.
A very popular deity of the Lower Nile was Mises (drawn from water), the sun-god of wine and mirth, who was born on Mount Nyssa (Sinai), and was found as a babe in a box floating on the Red Sea, and who, by means of his magic wand, took his army dry-shod through the Sea and the rivers Orontes and Hydaspes, drew water from rocks, and caused the land through which he passed to flow with milk, wine, and honey. He was depicted with a ram’s horn on his forehead, being the personification of the new-born sun delivering the world from the powers of darkness, and was afterwards worshipped in Phœnicia as Iēs, in Greece as Dionysos (Διονυσος], God of Nyssa), son of Zeus, and in Rome as Bacchus. The temples dedicated to this sun-god were, in the time of the Greek kings of Egypt, very gorgeous, the mystic table having upon it, not only the infant in its cradle, the transubstantiated bread, and the Osirian crucifix, but also a bleeding lamb, the emblem of the sun-god at the vernal equinox, over which was placed the Phœnician name of Mises, Iēs, in Greek capitals (ΙΗΣ]), surrounded by the rays of glory, to signify that he was the risen and crucified sun-god, and one with Horus and Amen-Ra.