Pagan and Christian Creeds: Their Origin and Meaning. Edward Carpenter
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which were sacred to the Sun. (See F. Nork, Der Mystagog,
Leipzig.)
(2) This at any rate was reported by his later disciples (see
Robertson's Pagan Christs, p. 338).
Osiris was born (Plutarch tells us) on the 361st day of the year, say the 27th December. He too, like Mithra and Dionysus, was a great traveler. As King of Egypt he taught men civil arts, and "tamed them by music and gentleness, not by force of arms"; (1) he was the discoverer of corn and wine. But he was betrayed by Typhon, the power of darkness, and slain and dismembered. "This happened," says Plutarch, "on the 17th of the month Athyr, when the sun enters into the Scorpion" (the sign of the Zodiac which indicates the oncoming of Winter). His body was placed in a box, but afterwards, on the 19th, came again to life, and, as in the cults of Mithra, Dionysus, Adonis and others, so in the cult of Osiris, an image placed in a coffin was brought out before the worshipers and saluted with glad cries of "Osiris is risen." (1) "His sufferings, his death and his resurrection were enacted year by year in a great mystery-play at Abydos." (2)
(1) See Plutarch on Isis and Osiris.
(2) Ancient Art and Ritual, by Jane E. Harrison, chap. i.
The two following legends have more distinctly the character of Vegetation myths.
Adonis or Tammuz, the Syrian god of vegetation, was a very beautiful youth, born of a Virgin (Nature), and so beautiful that Venus and Proserpine (the goddesses of the Upper and Underworlds) both fell in love with him. To reconcile their claims it was agreed that he should spend half the year (summer) in the upper world, and the winter half with Proserpine below. He was killed by a boar (Typhon) in the autumn. And every year the maidens "wept for Adonis" (see Ezekiel viii. 14). In the spring a festival of his resurrection was held—the women set out to seek him, and having found the supposed corpse placed it (a wooden image) in a coffin or hollow tree, and performed wild rites and lamentations, followed by even wilder rejoicings over his supposed resurrection. At Aphaca in the North of Syria, and halfway between Byblus and Baalbec, there was a famous grove and temple of Astarte, near which was a wild romantic gorge full of trees, the birthplace of a certain river Adonis—the water rushing from a Cavern, under lofty cliffs. Here (it was said) every year the youth Adonis was again wounded to death, and the river ran red with his blood, (1) while the scarlet anemone bloomed among the cedars and walnuts.
(1) A discoloration caused by red earth washed by rain from the
mountains, and which has been observed by modern travelers. For the
whole story of Adonis and of Attis see Frazer's Golden Bough, part iv.
The story of Attis is very similar. He was a fair young shepherd or herdsman of Phrygia, beloved by Cybele (or Demeter), the Mother of the gods. He was born of a Virgin—Nana—who conceived by putting a ripe almond or pomegranate in her bosom. He died, either killed by a boar, the symbol of winter, like Adonis, or self-castrated (like his own priests); and he bled to death at the foot of a pine tree (the pine and pine-cone being symbols of fertility). The sacrifice of his blood renewed the fertility of the earth, and in the ritual celebration of his death and resurrection his image was fastened to the trunk of a pine-tree (compare the Crucifixion). But I shall return to this legend presently. The worship of Attis became very widespread and much honored, and was ultimately incorporated with the established religion at Rome somewhere about the commencement of our Era.
The following two legends (dealing with Hercules and with Krishna) have rather more of the character of the solar, and less of the vegetational myth about them. Both heroes were regarded as great benefactors of humanity; but the former more on the material plane, and the latter on the spiritual.
Hercules or Heracles was, like other Sun-gods and benefactors of mankind, a great Traveler. He was known in many lands, and everywhere he was invoked as Saviour. He was miraculously conceived from a divine Father; even in the cradle he strangled two serpents sent to destroy him. His many labors for the good of the world were ultimately epitomized into twelve, symbolized by the signs of the Zodiac. He slew the Nemxan Lion and the Hydra (offspring of Typhon) and the Boar. He overcame the Cretan Bull, and cleaned out the Stables of Augeas; he conquered Death and, descending into Hades, brought Cerberus thence and ascended into Heaven. On all sides he was followed by the gratitude and the prayers of mortals.
As to Krishna, the Indian god, the points of agreement with the general divine career indicated above are too salient to be overlooked, and too numerous to be fully recorded. He also was born of a Virgin (Devaki) and in a Cave, (1) and his birth announced by a Star. It was sought to destroy him, and for that purpose a massacre of infants was ordered. Everywhere he performed miracles, raising the dead, healing lepers, and the deaf and the blind, and championing the poor and oppressed. He had a beloved disciple, Arjuna, (cf. John) before whom he was transfigured. (2) His death is differently related—as being shot by an arrow, or crucified on a tree. He descended into hell; and rose again from the dead, ascending into heaven in the sight of many people. He will return at the last day to be the judge of the quick and the dead.
(1) Cox's Myths of the Aryan Nations, p. 107.
(2) Bhagavat Gita, ch. xi.
Such are some of the legends concerning the pagan and pre-Christian deities—only briefly sketched now, in order that we may get something like a true perspective of the whole subject; but to most of them, and more in detail, I shall return as the argument proceeds.
What we chiefly notice so far are two points; on the one hand the general similarity of these stories with that of Jesus Christ; on the other their analogy with the yearly phenomena of Nature as illustrated by the course of the Sun in heaven and the changes of Vegetation on the earth.
(1) The similarity of these ancient pagan legends and beliefs with Christian traditions was indeed so great that it excited the attention and the undisguised wrath of the early Christian fathers. They felt no doubt about the similarity, but not knowing how to explain it fell back upon the innocent theory that the Devil—in order to confound the Christians—had, CENTURIES BEFORE, caused the pagans to adopt certain beliefs and practices! (Very crafty, we may say, of the Devil, but also very innocent of the Fathers to believe it!) Justin Martyr for instance describes (1) the institution of the Lord's Supper as narrated in the Gospels, and then goes on to say: "Which the wicked devils have IMITATED in the mysteries of Mithra, commanding the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated you either know or can learn." Tertullian also says (2) that "the devil by the mysteries of his idols imitates even the main part of the divine mysteries." … "He baptizes his worshippers in water and makes them believe that this purifies them from their crimes." … "Mithra sets his mark on the forehead of his soldiers; he celebrates the oblation of bread; he offers an image of the resurrection, and presents at once the crown and the sword; he limits his chief priest to a single marriage; he even has his virgins and ascetics." (3) Cortez, too, it will be remembered complained that the Devil had positively taught to the Mexicans the same things which God had taught to Christendom.
(1) I Apol. c. 66.
(2) De Praescriptione Hereticorum, c. 40; De Bapt. c. 3; De
Corona, c. 15.
(3) For reference to both these examples see J. M. Robertson's
Pagan Christs, pp. 321, 322.
Justin Martyr again, in the Dialogue with Trypho says that the Birth in the Stable was the prototype (!) of the birth of Mithra in the Cave of Zoroastrianism; and boasts that Christ was born when the Sun takes its birth in the Augean Stable, (1) coming as a second Hercules to cleanse a foul world; and St. Augustine says "we hold this (Christmas) day holy, not like the pagans because of the birth of the Sun, but because of the birth of him who made it." There are plenty of other instances in the Early Fathers of their indignant ascription of these similarities to the work of devils; but we need not dwell over them. There is no need for US to be indignant. On the contrary we can now see that these animadversions of the Christian writers are the evidence of how and to what extent in the spread of Christianity over the world it had become fused with the Pagan cults previously existing.