Pagan and Christian Creeds: Their Origin and Meaning. Edward Carpenter
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Paris, 1822)
was one of the earliest modern writers on these subjects.
Immediately after Midnight then, on the 25th December, the Beloved Son (or Sun-god) is born. If we go back in thought to the period, some three thousand years ago, when at that moment of the heavenly birth Sirius, coming from the East, did actually stand on the Meridian, we shall come into touch with another curious astronomical coincidence. For at the same moment we shall see the Zodiacal constellation of the Virgin in the act of rising, and becoming visible in the East divided through the middle by the line of the horizon.
The constellation Virgo is a Y-shaped group, of which [gr a], the star at the foot, is the well-known Spica, a star of the first magnitude. The other principal stars, [gr g] at the centre, and [gr b] and [gr e] at the extremities, are of the second magnitude. The whole resembles more a cup than the human figure; but when we remember the symbolic meaning of the cup, that seems to be an obvious explanation of the name Virgo, which the constellation has borne since the earliest times. (The three stars [gr b], [gr g] and [gr a], lie very nearly on the Ecliptic, that is, the Sun's path—a fact to which we shall return presently.)
At the moment then when Sirius, the star from the East, by coming to the Meridian at midnight signalled the Sun's new birth, the Virgin was seen just rising on the Eastern sky—the horizon line passing through her centre. And many people think that this astronomical fact is the explanation of the very widespread legend of the Virgin-birth. I do not think that it is the sole explanation—for indeed in all or nearly all these cases the acceptance of a myth seems to depend not upon a single argument but upon the convergence of a number of meanings and reasons in the same symbol. But certainly the fact mentioned above is curious, and its importance is accentuated by the following considerations.
In the Temple of Denderah in Egypt, and on the inside of the dome, there is or WAS an elaborate circular representation of the Northern hemisphere of the sky and the Zodiac. (1) Here Virgo the constellation is represented, as in our star-maps, by a woman with a spike of corn in her hand (Spica). But on the margin close by there is an annotating and explicatory figure—a figure of Isis with the infant Horus in her arms, and quite resembling in style the Christian Madonna and Child, except that she is sitting and the child is on her knee. This seems to show that—whatever other nations may have done in associating Virgo with Demeter, Ceres, Diana (2) etc.—the Egyptians made no doubt of the constellation's connection with Isis and Horus. But it is well known as a matter of history that the worship of Isis and Horus descended in the early Christian centuries to Alexandria, where it took the form of the worship of the Virgin Mary and the infant Savior, and so passed into the European ceremonial. We have therefore the Virgin Mary connected by linear succession and descent with that remote Zodiacal cluster in the sky! Also it may be mentioned that on the Arabian and Persian globes of Abenezra and Abuazar a Virgin and Child are figured in connection with the same constellation. (3)
(1) Carefully described and mapped by Dupuis, see op. cit.
(2) For the harvest-festival of Diana, the Virgin, and her
parallelism with the Virgin Mary, see The Golden Bough, vol. i, 14 and
ii, 121.
(3) See F. Nork, Der Mystagog (Leipzig, 1838).
A curious confirmation of the same astronomical connection is afforded by the Roman Catholic Calendar. For if this be consulted it will be found that the festival of the Assumption of the Virgin is placed on the 15th August, while the festival of the Birth of the Virgin is dated the 8th September. I have already pointed out that the stars, [gr a], [gr b] and [gr g] of Virgo are almost exactly on the Ecliptic, or Sun's path through the sky; and a brief reference to the Zodiacal signs and the star-maps will show that the Sun each year enters the sign of Virgo about the first-mentioned date, and leaves it about the second date. At the present day the Zodiacal signs (owing to precession) have shifted some distance from the constellations of the same name. But at the time when the Zodiac was constituted and these names were given, the first date obviously would signalize the actual disappearance of the cluster Virgo in the Sun's rays—i.e. the Assumption of the Virgin into the glory of the God—while the second date would signalize the reappearance of the constellation or the Birth of the Virgin. The Church of Notre Dame at Paris is supposed to be on the original site of a Temple of Isis; and it is said (but I have not been able to verify this myself) that one of the side entrances—that, namely, on the left in entering from the North (cloister) side—is figured with the signs of the Zodiac EXCEPT that the sign Virgo is replaced by the figure of the Madonna and Child.
So strange is the scripture of the sky! Innumerable legends and customs connect the rebirth of the Sun with a Virgin parturition. Dr. J. G. Frazer in his Part IV of The Golden Bough (1) says: "If we may trust the evidence of an obscure scholiast the Greeks (in the worship of Mithras at Rome) used to celebrate the birth of the luminary by a midnight service, coming out of the inner shrines and crying, 'The Virgin has brought forth! The light is waxing!' ([gr 'H parhenos tetoken, auzei pws].)" In Elie Reclus' little book Primitive Folk (2) it is said of the Esquimaux that "On the longest night of the year two angakout (priests), of whom one is disguised as a WOMAN, go from hut to hut extinguishing all the lights, rekindling them from a vestal flame, and crying out, 'From the new sun cometh a new light!'"
(1) Book II, ch. vi.
(2) In the Contemporary Science Series, I. 92.
All this above-written on the Solar or Astronomical origins of the myths does not of course imply that the Vegetational origins must be denied or ignored. These latter were doubtless the earliest, but there is no reason—as said in the Introduction (ch. i)—why the two elements should not to some extent have run side by side, or been fused with each other. In fact it is quite clear that they must have done so; and to separate them out too rigidly, or treat them as antagonistic, is a mistake. The Cave or Underworld in which the New Year is born is not only the place of the Sun's winter retirement, but also the hidden chamber beneath the Earth to which the dying Vegetation goes, and from which it re-arises in Spring. The amours of Adonis with Venus and Proserpine, the lovely goddesses of the upper and under worlds, or of Attis with Cybele, the blooming Earth-mother, are obvious vegetation-symbols; but they do not exclude the interpretation that Adonis (Adonai) may also figure as a Sun-god. The Zodiacal constellations of Aries and Taurus (to which I shall return presently) rule in heaven just when the Lamb and the Bull are in evidence on the earth; and the yearly sacrifice of those two animals and of the growing Corn for the good of mankind runs parallel with the drama of the sky, as it affects not only the said constellations but also Virgo (the Earth-mother who bears the sheaf of corn in her hand).
I shall therefore continue (in the next chapter) to point out these astronomical references—which are full of significance and poetry; but with a recommendation at the same time to the reader not to forget the poetry and significance of the terrestrial interpretations.
Between Christmas Day and Easter there are several minor festivals or holy days—such as the 28th December (the Massacre of the Innocents), the 6th January (the Epiphany), the 2nd February (Candlemas (1) Day), the period of Lent (German Lenz, the Spring), the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, and so forth—which have been commonly celebrated in the pagan cults before Christianity, and in which elements of Star and Nature worship can be traced; but to dwell on all these would take too long; so let us pass at once to the period of Easter itself.
(1) This festival of the Purification of the Virgin corresponds
with the old Roman festival of Juno Februata (i.e. purified) which was
held in the last month (February) of the Roman year, and which included
a candle procession of Ceres, searching for Proserpine. (F. Nork, Der
Mystagog.)
III. THE SYMBOLISM OF THE ZODIAC
The Vernal Equinox has all over the ancient world, and from the earliest times, been a period of rejoicing and