Kung-foo-tsze (meaning "the sage Kung" or "the wise excellence") was of royal descent; and his family the most ancient in the empire, as his genealogy was traceable directly up to Hwang-te, the reputed organizer of the state, the first emperor of the semi-historical period (beginning 2696 B. C.).
At his birth a prodigious quadruped, called the Ke-lin, appeared and prophesied that the new-born infant "would be a king without throne or territory." Two dragons hovered about the couch of Yen-she (his mother), and five celestial sages, or angels, entered at the moment of the birth of the wondrous child; heavenly strains were heard in the air, and harmonious chords followed each other, fast and full. Thus was Confucius ushered into the world.
His disciples, who were to expound his precepts, were seventy-two in number, twelve of whom were his ordinary companions, the depositories of his thoughts, and the witnesses of all his actions. To them he minutely explained his doctrines, and charged them with their propagation after his death. Yan-hwuy was his favorite disciple, who, in his opinion, had attained the highest degree of moral perfection. Confucius addressed him in terms of great affection, which denoted that he relied mainly upon him for the accomplishment of his work.[121:3]
Even as late as the seventeenth century of our era, do we find the myth of the virgin-born God in China.[121:4]
All these god-begotten and virgin-born men were called Tien-tse, i. e., "Sons of Heaven."
If from China we should turn to Egypt we would find that, for ages before the time of Jesus of Nazareth, the mediating deity, born of a virgin, and without a worldly father, was a portion of the Egyptian belief.[122:1]
Horus, who had the epithet of "Saviour," was born of the virgin Isis. "His birth was one of the greatest Mysteries of the Egyptian religion. Pictures representing it appear on the walls of temples."[122:2] He is "the second emanation of Amon, the son whom he begot."[122:3] Egyptian monuments represent the infant Saviour in the arms of his virgin mother, or sitting on her knee.[122:4] An inscription on a monument, translated by Champollion, reads thus:
"O thou avenger, God, son of a God; O thou avenger, Horus, manifested by Osiris, engendered of the goddess Isis."[122:5]
The Egyptian god Ra was born from the side of his mother, but was not engendered.[122:6]