When Apollo was born, a halo of serene light encircled his cradle, the nymphs of heaven attended, and bathed him in pure water, and girded a broad golden band around his form.[157:5]
When the Saviour Æsculapius was born, his countenance shone like the sun, and he was surrounded by a fiery ray.[157:6]
In the life of Zoroaster the common mythos is apparent. He was born in innocence of an immaculate conception of a Ray of the Divine Reason. As soon as he was born, the glory arising from his body enlightened the whole room, and he laughed at his mother.[157:7]
It is stated in the legends of the Hebrew Patriarchs that, at the birth of Moses, a bright light appeared and shone around.[157:8]
There is still another feature which we must notice in these narratives, that is, the contradictory statements concerning the time when Jesus was born. As we shall treat of this subject more fully in the chapter on "The Birthday of Christ Jesus," we shall allude to it here simply as far as necessary.
The Matthew narrator informs us that Jesus was born in the days of Herod the King, and the Luke narrator says he was born when Cyrenius was Governor of Syria, or later. This is a very awkward and unfortunate statement, as Cyrenius was not Governor of Syria until some ten years after the time of Herod.[158:1]
The cause of this dilemma is owing to the fact that the Luke narrator, after having interwoven into his story, of the birth of Jesus, the old myth of the tax or tribute, which is said to have taken place at the time of the birth of some previous virgin-born Saviours, looked among the records to see if a taxing had ever taken place in Judea, so that he might refer to it in support of his statement. He found the account of the taxing, referred to above, and without stopping to consider when this taxing took place, or whether or not it would conflict with the statement that Jesus was born in the days of Herod, he added to his narrative the words: "And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria."[158:2]
We will now show the ancient myth of the taxing. According to the Vishnu Purana, when the infant Saviour Crishna was born, his foster father, Nanda, had come to the city to pay his tax or yearly tribute to the king. It distinctly speaks of Nanda, and other cowherds, "bringing tribute or tax to Kansa" the reigning monarch.[158:3]
It also describes a scene which took place after the taxes had been paid.