"He is the great God-loved of Heaven. His birth was one of the greatest mysteries of the Egyptian religion. Pictures representing it appeared on the walls of temples. One passed through the holy Adytum[364:1] to the still more sacred quarter of the temple known as the birth-place of Horus. He was presumably the child of Deity. At Christmas time, or that answering to our festival, his image was brought out of that sanctuary with peculiar ceremonies, as the image of the infant Bambino[364:2] is still brought out and exhibited in Rome."[364:3]
Rigord observes that the Egyptians not only worshiped a Virgin Mother "prior to the birth of our Saviour, but exhibited the effigy of her son lying in the manger, in the manner the infant Jesus was afterwards laid in the cave at Bethlehem."[364:4]
The "Chronicles of Alexandria," an ancient Christian work, says:
"Watch how Egypt has constructed the childbirth of a Virgin, and the birth of her son, who was exposed in a crib to the adoration of the people."[364:5]
Osiris, son of the "Holy Virgin," as they called Ceres, or Neith, his mother, was born on the 25th of December.[364:6]
This was also the time celebrated by the ancient Greeks as being the birthday of Hercules. The author of "The Religion of the Ancient Greeks" says:
"The night of the Winter Solstice, which the Greeks named the triple night, was that which they thought gave birth to Hercules."[364:7]
He further says:
"It has become an epoch of singular importance in the eyes of the Christian, who has destined it to celebrate the birth of the Saviour, the true Sun of Justice, who alone came to dissipate the darkness of ignorance."[364:8]
Bacchus, also, was born at early dawn on the 25th of December. Mr. Higgins says of him: