[481:4] "Perseus, Oidipous, Romulus and Cyrus are doomed to bring ruin on their parents. They are exposed in their infancy on the hill-side, and rescued by a shepherd. All the solar heroes begin life in this way. Whether, like Apollo, born of the dark night (Leto), or like Oidipous, of the violet dawn (Iokaste), they are alike destined to bring destruction on their parents, as the Night and the Dawn are both destroyed by the Sun." (Fiske: p. 198.)
[481:5] "The exposure of the child in infancy represents the long rays of the morning sun resting on the hill-side." (Fiske: Myths and Mythmakers, p. 198.)
The Sun-hero Paris is exposed on the slopes of Ida, Oidipous on the slopes of Kithairon, and Æsculapius on that of the mountain of Myrtles. This is the rays of the newly-born sun resting on the mountain-side. (Cox: Aryan Myths, vol. i. pp. 64 and 80.)
In Sanscrit Ida is the Earth, and so we have the mythical phrase, the Sun at its birth is exposed on Ida—the hill-side. The light of the sun must rest on the hill-side long before it reaches the dells beneath. (See Cox: vol. i. p. 221, and Fiske: p. 114.)
[482:1] Even as late as the seventeenth century, a German writer would illustrate a thunder-storm destroying a crop of corn, by a picture of a dragon devouring the produce of the field with his flaming tongue and iron teeth. (See Fiske: Myths and Mythmakers, p. 17, and Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii.)
[482:2] The history of the Saviour Hercules is so similar to that of the Saviour Christ Jesus, that the learned Dr. Parkhurst was forced to say, "The labors of Hercules seem to have been originally designed as emblematic memorials of what the REAL Son of God, the Saviour of the world, was to do and suffer for our sakes, bringing a cure for all our ills, as the Orphic hymn speaks of Hercules."
[482:3] Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, pp. 158, 166, and 168.
[482:4] In ancient mythology, all heroes of light were opposed by the "Old Serpent," the Devil, symbolized by Serpents, Dragons, Sphinxes and other monsters. The Serpent was, among the ancient Eastern nations, the symbol of Evil, of Winter, of Darkness and of Death. It also symbolized the dark cloud, which, by harboring the rays of the Sun, preventing its shining, and therefore, is apparently attempting to destroy it. The Serpent is one of the chief mystic personifications of the Rig-Veda, under the names of Ahi, Suchna, and others. They represent the Cloud, the enemy of the Sun, keeping back the fructifying rays. Indra struggles victoriously against him, and spreads life on the earth, with the shining warmth of the Father of Life, the Creator, the Sun.
Buddha, the Lord and Saviour, was described as a superhuman organ of light, to whom a superhuman organ of darkness, Mara, the Evil Serpent, was opposed. He, like Christ Jesus, resisted the temptations of this evil one, and is represented sitting on a serpent, as if its conqueror. (See Bunsen's Angel-Messiah, p. 39.)
Crishna also overcame the evil one, and is represented "bruising the head of the serpent," and standing upon it. (See vol. i. of Asiatic Researches, and vol. ii. of Higgins' Anacalypsis.)