It is not only the idea of the just man suffering, of the Messiah dying
upon the gibbet, as "King of the Jews" and a criminal, and his rising
again, which belongs to the centuries before Christ. The stories which
relate to the miraculous birth of Jesus and to his early fortunes
also date back to this time. Thus in the Revelation of John [125]
we meet with the obviously very ancient mythical idea of the birth of
a divine child, who is scarcely brought into the world before he is
threatened by the Dragon of Darkness, but is withdrawn in time into
heaven from his pursuer; whereupon the Archangel Michael renders the
monster harmless. Gunkel thinks that this conception must be traced
back to a very ancient Babylonian myth. [126] Others, as Dupuis [127]
and Dieterich, have drawn attention to its resemblance to the Greek
myth of Leto, [128] who, before the birth of the Light god Apollo,
being pursued by the Earth dragon Pytho, was carried by the Wind god
Boreas to Poseidon, and was brought safely by the latter to the Island
of Ortygia, where she was able to bring forth her son unmolested by
the hostile monster. Others again, like Bousset, have compared the
Egyptian myth of Hathor, according to which Hathor or Isis sent her
young son, the Light god Horus, fleeing out of Egypt upon an ass before
the pursuit of his uncle Seth or Typhon. Pompeian frescoes represent
this incident in such a manner as to recall feature for feature the
Christian representations of the flight of Mary with the Child Jesus
into Egypt; and coins with the picture of the fleeing Leto prove how
diffused over the whole of Nearer Asia this myth must have been. The
Assyrian prince Sargon also, being pursued by his uncle, is said
to have been abandoned on the Euphrates in a basket made of reeds,
to have been found by a water-carrier, and to have been brought up
by him--a story which the Jews have interwoven into the account of
the life of their fabulous Moses. [129] And very similar stories are
related both in East and West, in ancient and in later times, of other
Gods, distinguished heroes and kings, sons of the Gods, of Zeus, Attis,
Dionysus, OEdipus, Perseus, Romulus and Remus, Augustus, and others. As
is well known, the Indian God-man Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu,
is supposed to have been sought for immediately after his birth by his
uncle, King Kansa, who had all the male children of the same age in
his country put to death, the child being only saved from a like fate
by taking refuge with a poor herdsman. [130] This recalls Herodotus's
story of Cyrus, [131] according to which Astyages, the grandfather of
Cyrus, being warned by a dream, ordered his grandson to be exposed,
the latter being saved from death, however, through being found by
a poor herdsmen and being brought up in his house. Now in Persian
the word for son is Cyrus (Khoro, [132] Greek Kyros), and Kyris or
Kiris is the name of Adonis in Cyprus. [133] Thus it appears that the
story of the birth of Cyrus came into existence through the transfer
to King Cyrus of one of the myths concerning the Sun-God, the God in
this way being confused with a human individual. Now since Cyrus, as
has been said, was in the eyes of the Jews a kind of Messiah and was
glorified by them as such, we can understand how the danger through
which the Messianic child is supposed to have passed found a place
in the Gospels. Again, a similar story of a king, who, having been
warned by a dream or oracle, orders the death of the children born
within a specified time, is found in the "Antiquities" of Josephus
[134] in connection with the story of the childhood of Moses. Moses,
however, passed like Cyrus for a kind of forerunner and anticipator
of Christ; and Christ was regarded as a Moses reappearing. [135] Again
Joab, David's general, is said to have slaughtered every male in Edom;
the young prince Hadad, however, escaped the massacre by fleeing into
Egypt. Here he grew up and married the sister of the king, and after
the death of his enemy King David he returned to his home. [136]
But Hadad is, like Cyrus, (Kyrus) a name of the Syrian Adonis.
Another name of Adonis or Tammuz is Dôd, Dodo, Daud, or David. This
signifies "the Beloved" and indicates "the beloved son" of the heavenly
father, who offers himself for mankind, or "the Beloved" of the Queen
of heaven (Atargatis, Mylitta, Istar). [137] As is well known, King
David was also called "the man after the heart of God," and there is
no doubt that characteristics of the divine Redeemer and Saviour of
the same name have been intermingled in the story of David in the same
way as in that of Cyrus. [138] According to Jeremiah xxx. 8 and Ezekiel
xxxiv. 22 sqq. and xxxvii. 21, it was David himself who would appear as
the Messiah and re-establish Israel in its ancient glory. Indeed, this
even appears to have been the original conception of the Messiah. The
Messiah David seems to have been changed into a descendant of David
only with the progress of the monotheistic conception of God, under
the influence of the Persian doctrine concerning Saoshyant, the man
"of the seed of Zarathustra." Now David was supposed to have been
born at Bethlehem. But in Bethlehem there was, as Jerome informs us,
[139] an ancient grove and sanctuary of the Syrian Adonis, and as
Jerome himself complains the very place where the Saviour first saw the
light resounded with the lamentations over Tammuz. [140] At Bethlehem,
the former Ephrata (i.e., Place of Ashes), Rachel is said to have
brought forth the youngest of the twelve month-sons of Jacob. She
herself had christened him Benoni, son of the woeful lament. He was,
however, usually called Benjamin, the Lord or Possessor of light. In
the Blessing of Moses he is also called "a Darling of the Lord," and
his father Jacob loved him especially. [141] He is the God of the
new year born of the ashes of the past, at whose appearance lament
and rejoicings are commingled one with another; and thus he is only
a form of Tammuz (Hadad) bringing to mind the Christian Redeemer in
that he presided over the month of the Ram. [142]
Now we understand the prophecy of the prophet Micah: "Thou Bethlehem
Ephrathah, which art little to be among the thousands of Judah,
out of thee shall one come forth unto me that is to be a ruler in
Israel, whose going forth is from of old, from everlasting." [143]
Now, too, the story of the slaughter of the children at Bethlehem
has its background in religious history. It is said in Matt. ii. 18,
with reference to Jer. xxxi. 15, "A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping
and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and she would
not be comforted, because they are not." It is the lamentation of
the women over the murdered Adonis which was raised each year at
Bethlehem. This was transformed by the Evangelists into the lament
over the murder of the children which took place at the birth of
Hadad who was honoured at Bethlehem. [144]
Hadad-Adonis is a God of Vegetation, a God of the rising sap of
life and of fruitfulness: but, as was the case with all Gods of a
similar nature, the thought of the fate of the sun, dying in winter
and being born anew in the spring, played its part in the conception
of this season God of Nearer Asia. Something of this kind may well
have passed before the mind of Isaiah, when he foretold the future
glory of the people of God under the image of a new birth of the sun
from out of the blackness of night, with these "prophetic" words:
"Arise, shine, for thy light has come and the glory of the Lord is
risen upon thee. For behold darkness shall cover the earth and gross
darkness the peoples: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his
glory shall be seen upon thee. And nations shall come to thy light,
and kings to the brightness of thy rising.... The abundance of the
sea shall be turned unto thee, the wealth of the nations shall come
unto thee. The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of
Midian and Ephah. They all shall come from Sheba: they shall bring gold
and frankincence, and shall proclaim the praises of the Lord." [145]
As is well known, later generations were continually setting out
this idea in a still more exuberant form. The imagination of the
enslaved and impoverished Jews feasted upon the thought that the
nations and their princes would do homage to the Messiah with gifts,
while uncounted treasures poured into the temple at Jerusalem: "Princes
shall come out of Egypt, Ethiopia shall haste to stretch out her hands
unto God. Sing unto God ye kingdoms of the earth." [146] This is the
foundation of the Gospel story of the "Magi," who lay their treasures
at the feet of the new-born Christ and his "virgin mother." But that we
have here in reality to do with the new birth of the sun at the time
of the winter solstice appears from the connection between the Magi,
or kings, and the stars. For these Magi are nothing else than the
three stars in the sword-belt of Orion, which at the winter solstice
are opposed in the West to the constellation of the Virgin in the East;
stars which according to Persian ideas at this time seek the son of the
Queen of Heaven--that is, the lately rejuvenated sun, Mithras. [147]
Now, as it has been said, Hadad also is a name of the Sun-God, and the
Hadad of the Old Testament returns to his original home out of Egypt,
whither he had fled from David. Thus we can understand how Hosea xi. 1,
"I called my son out of Egypt," could be referred to the Messiah and
how the story that Jesus passed his early youth in Egypt was derived
from it. [148]
It may be fairly asked how it was that the sun came to be thus
honoured by the people of Western Asia, with lament at its death
and rejoicing at its new birth. For winter, the time of the sun's
"death," in these southern countries offered scarcely any grounds
at all for lament. It was precisely the best part of the year. The
night, too, having regard to its coolness after the heat of the day,
gave no occasion for desiring the new birth of the sun in the morning.
We are compelled to suppose that in the case of all the Gods of this
nature the idea of the dying away of vegetation during the heat of
the year and its revival had become intertwined and commingled with
that of the declining and reviving strength of the sun. Thus, from
this mingling of two distinct lines of thought, we have to explain
the variations of the double-natured character of the Sun-Gods and
Vegetation-Gods of Western Asia. [149] It is obvious, however, that the
sun can only be regarded from such a tragic standpoint in a land where,
and in the myths of a people for whom, it possesses in reality such a
decisive significance that there are grounds for lamenting its absence
or lack of strength during winter and for an anxious expectation of
its return and revival. [150] But it is chiefly in the highlands of
Iran and the mountainous hinterland of Asia Minor that this is the
case to such an extent as to make this idea one of the central points
of religious belief. Even here it points back to a past time when
the people concerned still had their dwelling-place along with the
kindred Aryan tribes in a much more northerly locality. [151] Thus
Mithras, the "Sol invictus" of the Romans, struggling victoriously
through night and darkness, is a Sun hero, who must have found his
way into Persia from the north. This is shown, amongst other things,
by his birthday being celebrated on the 25th of December, the day of
the winter solstice. Again, the birth of the infant Dionysus, who
was so closely related to the season Gods of Nearer Asia, used to
be celebrated as the feast of the new birth of the sun at about the
same time, the God being then honoured as Liknites, as "the infant
in the cradle" (the winnowing-fan). The Egyptians celebrated the
birth of Osiris on the 6th of January, on which occasion the priests
produced the figure of an infant from the sanctuary, and showed it to
the people as a picture of the new-born God. [152] That the Phrygian
Attis came thither with the Aryans who made their way from Thrace into
Asia Minor, and must have had his home originally in Northern Europe,
appears at once from the striking resemblance of the myth concerning
him with that of the northern myth of Balder. There can be no doubt
that the story in Herodotus of Atys, son of Croesus, who while out
boar hunting accidently met his death from the spear of his friend,
only gives another version of the Attis myth. This story, however,
so closely resembles that of the death of Balder, given in the Edda,
that the theory of a connection between them is inevitably forced
upon one's mind. In the Edda the wife of Balder is called Nanna. But
Nanna (i.e., "mother") was according to Arnobius [153] the name of
the mother of the Phrygian Attis.
Now the Sun and Summer God Balder is only a form of Odin, the Father
of Heaven, with summer attributes, and he too is said, like Attis,
Adonis and Osiris, to have met his death through a wild boar. Just as
anemones sprang from the blood of the slain Adonis and violets from
that of Attis, so also the blood of the murdered Odin (Hackelbernd)
is said to have been changed into spring flowers. [154] At the great
feast of Attis in March a post or pine-tree trunk decked with violets,
on which the picture of the God was hung, used to form the central
point of the rite. This was a reminder of the way in which in ancient
times the human representative of the God passed from life to death,
in order by sacrifice to revive exhausted nature. According to the
verses of the Eddic Havamal, Odin says of himself:--
"I know that I hang on the wind-rocked tree
Throughout nine nights,
Wounded by the spear, dedicated to Odin,
I myself to myself." [155]
By this self-sacrifice and the agonies which he endured, the northern
God, too, obtained new strength and life. For on this occasion he not
only discovered the Runes of magic power, the knowledge of which made
him lord over nature, but he obtained possession at the same time of
the poetic mead which gave him immortality and raised the Nature God
to be a God of spiritual creative power and of civilisation. This is
obviously the same idea as is again found in the cult of Attis and
in the belief in the death of the God. The relationship of all these
different views seems still more probable in that a sacrificial rite
lay at the root of the Balder myth also. This myth is only, so to
speak, the text of a religious drama which was performed every year
for the benefit of dying nature--a drama in which a man representing
the God was delivered over to death. [156] As all this refers to the
fate of a Sun God, who dies in winter to rise again in the spring,
the same idea must have been associated originally with the worship
of the Nearer Asiatic Gods of vegetation and fruitfulness, and this
idea was only altered under changed climatic conditions into that
of the death and resurrection of the plant world, without, however,
losing in its new form its original connection with the sun and winter.
At the same time the myth of the Sun God does not take us to the
very basis and the real kernel of the stories of the divine child's
birth. The Persian religion was not so much a religion of Light
and Sun as of Fire, the most important and remarkable manifestation
of which was of course the sun. Dionysus too, like all Gods of the
life-warmth, of the rising plant sap and of fruitfulness, was in his
deepest nature a Fire God. In the Fire Religion, however, the birth
of the God forms the centre of all religious ideas; and its form was
more exactly fixed through the peculiar acts by means of which the
priest rekindled the holy fire.
For the manner in which this occurred we have the oldest authentic
testimony in the religious records of the Indian Aryans. Here Agni,
as indeed his name (ignis, fire) betokens, passed for the divine
representative of the Fire Element. His mystic birth was sung in
numberless passages in the hymns of the Rigveda. At dawn, as soon as
the brightening morning star in the east announced that the sun was
rising, the priest called his assistants together and kindled the fire
upon a mound of earth by rubbing together two sticks (aranî) in which
the God was supposed to be hidden. As soon as the spark shone in the
"maternal bosom," the soft underpart of the wood, it was treated as an
"infant child." It was carefully placed upon a little heap of straw,
which at once took fire from it. On one side lay the mystic "cow"--that
is, the milk-pail and a vessel full of butter, as types of all animal
nourishment--upon the other the holy Soma draught, representing the
sap of plants, the symbol of life. A priest fanned it with a small
fan shaped like a banner, thereby stirring up the fire. The "child"
was then raised upon the altar. The priests turned up the fire with
long-handled spoons, pouring upon the flames melted butter (ghrita)
together with the Soma cup. From this time "Agni" was called "the
anointed" (Akta). The fire flickered high. The God was unfolding
his majesty. With his flames he scared away the dæmons of darkness,
and lighted up the surrounding shadows. All creatures were invited to
come and gaze upon the wonderful spectacle. Then with presents the
Gods (kings) hastened from heaven and the herdsmen from the fields,
cast themselves down in deep reverence before the new-born, praying
to it and singing hymns in its praise. It grew visibly before their
eyes. The new-born Agni already had become "the teacher" of all living
creatures, "the wisest of the wise," opening to mankind the secrets
of existence. Then, while everything around him grew bright and the
sun rose over the horizon, the God, wreathed in a cloud of smoke,
with the noise of darting flames, ascended to heaven, and was united
there with the heavenly light. [157]
Thus in ancient India the holy fire was kindled anew each morning,
and honoured with ritualistic observances (Agnihotra). This took
place, however, with special ceremony at the time of the winter
solstice, when the days began again to increase (Agnistoma). They
then celebrated the end of the time "of darkness," the Pitryana, or
time of the Manes, during which the worship of the Gods had been at a
standstill. Then the Angiras, the priestly singers, summoned the Gods
to be present, greeting with loud song the beginning of the "holy"
season, the Devayana, with which the new light arose. Agni and the
other Gods again returned to men, and the priests announced to the
people the "joyful tidings" (Evangelium) that the Light God had been
born again. As Hillebrand has shown, this festival also indicates
the memory of an earlier home in the North whence the Aryan tribes
had migrated, since in India, where the shortest and longest days
only differ by about four hours, no reason exists for celebrating
the "return" of the light. [158] Indeed, it appears that we have to
do here with a rite which reaches back into the very origins of all
human civilisation, and preserves the memory of the discovery of fire
in the midst of the horrors of the Stone Age.
There is no doubt that we have before us in the Vedic Agni Cult the
original source of all the stories of the birth of the Fire-Gods
and Sun-Gods. These Gods usually enter life in darkness and
concealment. Thus the Cretan Zeus was born in a cavern, Mithras,
Dionysus, and Hermes in a gloomy grotto, Horus in the "stable"
(temple) of the holy cow (Isis)--Jesus, too, was born at dead of
night in a lowly "stable" [159] at Bethlehem. The original ground
for this consists in the fact that Agni, in the form of a spark,
comes into existence in the dark hollow of the hole bored in the
stick. The Hymns of the Rigveda often speak of this "secret birth"
and of the "concealment" of Agni. They describe the Gods as they set
out in order to seek the infant. They make the Angiras discover it
"lying in concealment," and it grows up in hiding. [160] But the idea
of the Fire-God being born in a "stable" is also foreshadowed in the
Rigveda. For not only are the vessels of milk and butter ready for
the anointing compared with cows, but Ushas, too, the Goddess of Dawn,
who is present at the birth, is called a red milch-cow, and of men it
is said that they flocked "like cows to a warm stable" to see Agni,
whom his mother held lovingly upon her lap. [161]
It is a common fundamental feature of all Nature religions that they
distinguish between the particular and the general, between earthly
and heavenly events, between human acts and natural occurrences as
little as they do between the spiritual and natural. The Agni Cult
shows, as does the Vedic religion in general, this interplay of the
earthly and heavenly world, of the microcosmic individual and the
macrocosm. The kindling of the fire upon the earth at the same time
betokened the rising of the great light of the skies, the sun. The fire
upon the altar did not merely represent but actually was the sun, the
earthly and the heavenly Agni were one. Thus it was that the nations
of antiquity were able to think of transferring earthly events into
heaven, and conversely were able to read earthly events in heavenly
occurrences such as the relations of the stars to one another. It was
on this that astrology rested. Even the ancient Fire Worship appears
in very early times to have been transformed into astrology, and what
was in the beginning a simple act of worship was generalised by the
priests in a macrocosmic sense and was transferred to the starry
heavens as a forecast. Thus the altar or place of sacrifice upon
which the sacred fire was kindled was enlarged into the Vault of the
Spheres or Grotto of the Planets. Through this the sun completed its
annual journey among the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and in so doing
assumed successively the form and fulfilled the functions of that
constellation with which it entered into astronomical relations. The
metaphorical name of "stable" for the place of sacrifice attains a
new significance from the fact that the sun during a certain epoch of
the world (something between 3000 and 800 B.C.) at the beginning of
spring passed through the constellation of the Bull, and at the time
of the winter solstice commenced its course between the Ox (Bull)
and the Great Bear, which anciently was also called the Ass. [162]
The birth of the God is said to have been in secret because it took
place at night. His mother is a "virgin" since at midnight of the
winter solstice the constellation of the Virgin is on the eastern
horizon. [163] Shortly afterwards Draco, the Dragon (the snake Pytho),
rises up over Libra, the Balance, and seems to pursue the Virgin. From
this comes the story of the Winter Dragon threatening Leto, or Apollo;
or, as it is also found in the Myth of Osiris and the Apocalypse of
John, the story of the pursuit of the child of light by a hostile
principle (Astyages, Herod, &c.). [164] Unknown and in concealment
the child grows up. This refers to the course of the sun as it yet
stands low in the heavens. Or like Sargon, Dionysus, or Moses it is
cast in a basket upon the waters of some great stream or of the sea,
since the sun in its wanderings through the Zodiac has next to pass
through the so-called watery region, the signs of the Water-carrier
and the Fishes, the rainy season of winter. Thus can the fate of the
new-born be read in the sky. The priests (Magi) cast his horoscope like
that of any other child. They greet his birth with loud rejoicings,
bring him myrrh, incense and costly presents, while prophesying
for him a glorious future. The earthly Agni is completely absorbed
in the heavenly one; and in the study of the great events which are
portrayed in the sky, the simple act of sacrificial worship, which had
originally furnished the opportunity for this whole range of ideas,
gradually fell into oblivion. [165]
It has been often maintained that Indian influences have worked
upon the development of the story of the childhood of Jesus, and in
this connection we are accustomed to think of Buddhism. Now, as a
matter of fact, the resemblances between the Christian and Buddhist
legends are so close that we can scarcely imagine it to be a mere
coincidence. Jesus and Buddha are both said to have been born of a
"pure virgin," honoured by heavenly spirits at their birth, prayed
to by kings and loaded with presents. "Happy is the whole world,"
sing the Gods under the form of young Brahmins at the birth of the
child--as we are told in the Lalita Vistara, the legendary biography
of Buddha, dating from before Christ, "for he is indeed born who
brings salvation and will establish the world in blessedness. He
is born who will darken sun and moon by the splendour of his merits
and will put all darkness to flight. The blind see, the deaf hear,
the demented are restored to reason. No natural crimes afflict us any
longer, for upon the earth men have become righteous. Gods and men
can in future approach each other without hostility, since he will
be the guide of their pilgrimage." [166] Just as the significance of
Jesus was announced beforehand by Simeon, in the same way according
to the Buddhist legend, the Seer Asita foresees in his own mind the
greatness of the child and bursts into tears since he will not see him
in the splendour of his maturity and will have no part in his work
of redemption. Again, just as Jesus [167] even in his early youth
astonished the learned by his wisdom, so Prince Siddharta (Buddha)
put all his teachers at school to shame by his superior knowledge, and
so on. The Buddhist legend itself, however, goes back to a still older
form, which is the Vedic Agni Cult. All its various features are here
preserved in their simplest form and in their original relation to the
sacrificial worship of the Fire-God. This was the natural source of the
Indian and Christian legends, and it was the original of those myths
which the Evangelist worked up for his own purposes, which according
to Pfleiderer belonged "to the common tribal property of the national
sagas of Nearer Asia." [168] Again, it could the more easily reappear
in the Evangelists' version of the story of the childhood of Jesus,
since the sacrificial act had been re-interpreted mythologically,
and the corresponding myths transformed into astrology, and, as it
were, written with starry letters upon the sky, where they could be
read without trouble by the most distant peoples of antiquity.
The myth of Krishna offers a characteristic example of the manner in
which in India a sacrificial cult is changed into a myth. Like Astyages
and Herod, in order to ward off the danger arising from his sister's
son, of which he had been warned by an oracle, King Kansa caused his
sister and her husband Vasudewa to be cast into prison. Here, in the
darkness of a dungeon, Krishna comes into the world as Jesus did in
the stable at Bethlehem. The nearer the hour of birth approaches the
more beautiful the mother becomes. Soon the whole dungeon is filled
with light. Rejoicing choirs sound in the air, the waters of the
rivers and brooks make sweet music. The Gods come down from heaven
and blessed spirits dance and sing for joy. At midnight his mother
Dewaki (i.e., the divine) brings the child into the world, at the
commencement of a new epoch. The parents themselves fall down before
him and pray, but a voice from heaven admonishes them to convey him
from the machinations of the tyrant to Gokala, the land of the cow,
and to exchange him for the daughter of the herdsman Nanda. Immediately
the chains fall from the father's hands, the dungeon doors are opened,
and he passes out into freedom. Another Christopher, he bears the
child upon his shoulders through the river Yamuna, the waters of which
recede in reverence before the son of God, and he exchanges Krishna
for the new-born daughter of Nanda. He then returns to the dungeon,
where the chains again immediately fasten of their own accord upon
his limbs. Kansa now makes his way into the dungeon. In vain Dewaki
entreats her brother to leave her the child. He is on the point of
tearing it forcibly from her hands when it disappears before his eyes,
and Kansa gives the order that all newly-born children in his country
under the age of two years shall be killed.
At Mathura in Gokala Krishna grew up unknown among poor herdsmen. While
yet in his cradle he had betrayed his divine origin by strangling,
like Hercules, a dreadful snake which crawled upon him. He causes
astonishment to every one by his precosity and lofty wisdom. As he
grows up he becomes the darling of the herdsmen and playmate of Gopias,
the milkmaid; he performs the most astonishing miracles. When, however,
the time had come he arose and slew Kansa. He then fought the frightful
"Time Snake" Kaliyanaga, of the thousand heads (the Hydra in the
myth of Hercules, the Python in that of Apollo), which poisoned the
surrounding air with its pestilential breath; and he busied himself
in word and deed as a protector of the poor and proclaimer of the
most perfect teaching. His greatest act, however, was his descent
into the Underworld. Here he overpowered Yama, the dark God of death,
obtained from him a recognition of his divine power, and led back the
dead with him to a new life. Thus he was a benefactor of mankind by
his heroic strength and miraculous power, leading the purest life,
healing the sick, bringing the dead back to life, disclosing the
secrets of the world, and withal humbly condescending to wash the
feet of the Brahmins. Krishna finally died of an arrow wound which he
sustained accidentally and in an unforeseen manner on his heel--the
only vulnerable part of his body (cf. Achilles, Balder, Adonis, and
Osiris). While dying he delivered the prophecy that thirty-six years
after his death the fourth Epoch of the World, Caliyuga, the Iron
Age, would begin, in which men would be both unhappy and wicked. But
according to Brahmin teaching Krishna will return at the end of all
time, when bodily and moral need will have reached its highest pitch
upon the earth. In the clouds of heaven he will appear upon his white
steed. With a comet in his right hand as a sword of flame he will
destroy the old earth by fire, founding a new earth and a new heaven,
and establishing a golden age of purity and perfection in which there
will be nothing but pure joy and blessedness.
This reminds us strongly of the Persian Eschatology, of Mithras and
Saoshyant, and of the Jewish Apocalyptics. But following the ancient
sacred poem, the Barta Chastram, the former conception as well as the
doctrine of a Messiah rest upon a prophecy according to which Vishnu
Jesudu (!) was to be born a Brahmin in the city of Skambelam. He was
to hold intercourse with men as a God, to purify the earth from sin,
making it the abode of justice and truth, and to offer a sacrifice
(self-sacrifice?). But still more striking are the resemblances of
the Krishna myth with the Gospels. Does any connection between the two
exist? The question is hard to answer because, owing to the uncertainty
in all Indian citation of dates, the age of the story of Krishna cannot
be settled. In the oldest Indian literature, the Vedas, Krishna appears
to be the name of a Dæmon. In the Mahâbbhârata, the great Indian heroic
epic, he plays indeed a prominent part, and is here on the point of
assuming the place of the God Indra. The age of the poem, however, is
debatable, although it is probably of pre-Buddhist origin. The chief
source of the Krishna myth is the Puranas, especially the Bhagavat
Purana and Vishnu Parana. But since the antiquity of these also is
uncertain, and their most modern portions presumably belong only to
the eighth or ninth century of the Christian era, a decision as to
the date of the appearance of the Krishna myth can only be arrived
at from internal evidence.
Now the Pantanjalis Mahâbhashya, i.e., "Great Commentary," of the
second century before Christ, shows that the story of Kansa's death
at the hands of Krishna was at that time well known in India, and was
even the subject of a religious drama. Thus the story of the birth at
least of Krishna, who had already been raised to be a Cult God of the
Hindoos, cannot have been unknown. The other portions of the myth,
however, belong as a whole to the general circle of Indian ideas,
and are in part only transferred from other Gods to Krishna. Thus,
for example, the miraculous birth of the divine child in the darkness,
his precosity, his upbringing among the herdsmen, and his friendship
with Gopias, remind us of Agni, the God of Fire and Herdsmen, who also
is described in the Rigveda as a "friend and lover of the maidens"
(of the Cloud Women?). His combat with the Time Snake, on the other
hand, is copied from the fight of Indra with the wicked dragon Vritra
or Ahi. Again, in his capacity as purifier and deliverer of the world
from evil and dæmons the God bears such a striking resemblance to
Hercules, that Megasthenes, the ambassador of Seleucus at the court
of the king at Pataliputra, in the third century before Christ, simply
identified him with the latter. No impartial critic of the matter can
now doubt that the Krishna myth was in existence and was popularised
long before Christianity appeared in the world. The great importance,
however, which the God possesses in present-day India may have been
attained only during the Christian era, and the Puranas may have
been composed only after the appearance of the Gospels; for their
being written down later proves nothing against the antiquity of the
matter they contain. It appears that even Buddhism did not obtain its
corresponding legends direct from the Vedas, but through the channel
of the Krishna myth. Since, however, Buddhism is certainly at least
four hundred years older than Christianity, it must be assumed that
it was the former which introduced the Krishna myth to Christianity,
and not vice versâ, if we are not to consider the Babylonian-Mandaic
religion as the intermediary between Krishna and Christ. [169]
For the rest the supposition of Indian influences in the Gospel
story is not by any means an improbable one. It is pure theological
prejudice, resting upon a complete ignorance of the conditions of
national intercourse in ancient times, when it is denied, as, for
example, by Clemen in his "Religionsgeschichtlichen Erklärung des
Neuen Testaments" (1909), that the Gospels were influenced by Indian
ideas, or when only a dependence the other way about is allowed;
[170] and this although Buddha left to his disciples, as one of
the highest precepts, the practice of missionary activity, and
although as early as 400 B.C. mention is made in Indian sources of
Buddhist missionaries in Bactria. Two hundred years later we read of
Buddhist monasteries in Persia. Indeed, in the last century before the
Christian era the Buddhist mission in Persia had made such progress
that Alexander Polyhistor actually speaks of a period during which
Buddhism flourished in that country, and bears witness to the spread
of the Mendicant Orders in the western parts of Persia. Buddhism
also reached Syria and Egypt at that time with the trade caravans;
as we have to suppose a frequent exchange of wares and ideas between
India and the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean, especially
after the campaigns of Alexander. Communication took place, not only
overland by way of Persia, but by sea as well. Indian thought made
advances in the Near East, where Alexandria, the London and Antwerp
of antiquity, and a headquarters of Jewish syncretism, favoured the
exchange of ideas. With the rediscovery of the South-west Monsoon
at the beginning of the first century after Christ the intercourse
by sea between India and the Western world assumed still greater
dimensions. Thus Pliny speaks of great trading fleets setting out
annually for India and of numerous Indian merchants who had their
fixed abode in Alexandria. Indian embassies came to Rome as early as
the reign of Augustus. The renown of Indian piety caused the author
of the Peregrinus Proteus to choose the Indian Calanus as an example
of holiness. Indeed, so lively was the Western world's interest
in the intellectual life of India, that the library at Alexandria,
as early as the time of the geographer Eratosthenes under Ptolemy
Euergetes (246 B.C.), was administered with special regard to Indian
studies. The monastic organisation of the Essenes in Palestine also
very probably points to Buddhist influence. Again, although the
Rigveda, which contains the groundwork of all Indian religions, may
have been unknown in Nearer Asia, yet the Fire Worship of the Mazda
religion at any rate reaches back to the time before the division
between the Indian and Persian Aryans. Certain fundamental ideas,
therefore, of the Fire Religion may through Persian influences on
Nearer Asia have been known to the surrounding peoples. [171]
As a matter of fact, the Mandaic religion contains much that is
Indian. This is the less strange considering that the headquarters
and centre of Mandaism was in Southern Babylonia; and the ancient
settlements of the Mandæi, close to the Persian Gulf, were easily
reached by sea from India. Moreover, from ancient times Babylonian
trade went down to India and Ceylon. [172] Consequently it is by no
means improbable that the many remarkable resemblances between the
Babylonian and Indian religions rest upon mutual influences. Indeed,
in one case the borrowing of a Mandaic idea from India can be looked
upon as quite certain. The Lalita Vistara begins with a description
of Buddha's ante-natal life in heaven. He teaches the Gods the "law,"
the eternal truth of salvation, and announces to them his intention
of descending into the bosom of an earthly woman in order to bring
redemption to mankind. In vain the Gods endeavour to hold him back
and cling weeping to his feet: "Noble man, if thou remainest here
no longer, this abode of heaven will be bright no more." He leaves
them, however, a successor, and consecrates him solemnly to be the
possessor of the future dignity of Buddha: "Noble man, thou art
he who will be endowed after me with the perfect intelligence of a
Buddha." [173] "Man" (Purusha) is thus here the usual name for the
divine nature of Buddha destined for individual incarnations. It is
also called the "great man" (Mahapurusha) or the "victorious lord"
(Cakravartin). Here we have the original of the Mandaic "son of man,"
whom we meet with in the Jewish Apocalyptics (Daniel, Enoch, Ezra),
a figure which plays so great a part in the primitive Gospel records
of Christianity, and has called forth so many explanations. And
the Elcesaitic Gnostics teach a like doctrine when they imagine the
"son of man," or Christ, as a heavenly spirit and king of the world to
come who became incarnate first in Adam, then in Enoch, Noah, Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob and so on, in order finally to appear by a supernatural
virgin-birth in the person of Jesus, and to illumine the dark earth
by his true message of salvation. [174]
Of all the Gods of the Rigveda Agni bears the closest relationship
to the Perso-Jewish Messiah, and it is he also who stands closest
to man's soul. He is rightly called king of the universe, as God of
Gods, who created the world and called into life all beings that are
upon it. He is the lord of the heavenly hosts, the guardian of the
cosmic order and judge of the world, who is present as an invisible
witness of all human acts, who as a "knower of nature" works in every
living thing, and as a party to all earthly secrets illuminates the
unknown. Sent down by his father, the Sky-God or Sun-God, he appears
as the "light of the world." He releases this world from the Powers
of Darkness and returns to his father with the "Banner of Smoke" in
his hand as a token of victory. Agni blazes forth in the lightning
flash from out of the watercloud, the "sea of the sky," in order to
annihilate the Dæmons of Darkness and to release oppressed humanity
from the fear of its tormentors. Thus, according to Isaiah xi.,
4, the Messiah too will burn his enemies with the fiery breath
of his mouth; and in this he is clearly a Fire-God. Again, in the
Apocalypse of Esdras (chap. xiii.) the Seer beholds the "Son of Man"
(Purusha) rise up from out of the sea, fly upon the clouds of heaven,
destroy the hostile forces by the stream of fire which proceeded
from his mouth, free the scattered Israelites from their captivity
and lead them back into their country. [175] But this "first-born"
son of the Sun-God and the Sky-God is at the same time the father and
ancestor of men, the first man (Purusha), the head of the community
of mankind, the guardian of the house and of the domestic flock, who
keeps from the threshold the evil spirits and the enemies who lurk
in the darkness. Agni enters the dwellings of men as guest, friend
(Mitra), companion, brother and consoler of those who honour him. He
is the messenger between this world and the beyond, communicating the
wishes of men to the Gods above, and announcing to men the will of the
Gods. He is a mediator between God and men who makes a report to the
Gods of everything of which he becomes aware among mankind. Although
indeed he takes revenge for the men's faults yet he is a gracious God,
disposed to forgive, in his capacity of an expiatory, propitiatory and
redeeming power, atoning for their sins and bringing them the divine
grace. Finally, he is also the guide of souls--he conducts the Gods
down to the sacrifices offered by man and makes ready for men the path
upon which he leads them up to God. And when their time has come he,
as the purifying fire, consumes their bodies and carries that which
is immortal to heaven. [176]
Agni's father is, as has been said, the sky, or rather the light,
the sun, the source of all warmth and life upon the earth. He bears
the name of Savitar, which means "creator" or "mover," is called "the
lord of creation," "the father of all life," "the living one," or "the
heavenly father" simply. [177] At the same time Tvashtar also passes
as the father of Agni. His name characterises him simply as modeller
(world-modeller) or work-master, divine artist, skilful smith, or
"carpenter," in which capacity he sharpens Brihaspati's axe, and,
indeed, is himself represented with a hatchet in his hand. [178]
He appears to have attained this rôle as being the discoverer of
the artificial kindling of fire, by means of which any fashioning
(welding), any art in the higher sense of the word became possible,
as being the preparer of the apparatus for obtaining fire by friction
or rotation--"the fire cradle"--which consisted of carefully chosen
wood of a specified form and kind. Finally, the production of fire is
ascribed to Matariçvan also, the God of the Wind identical with Vayu,
because fire cannot burn without air, and it is the motion of the
breeze which fans the glimmering spark. [179] All of these different
figures are identical with one another, and can mutually take the
place one of another, for they are all only different manifestations
of warmth. It is this which reveals itself as well in the lightning
of the sky and motion of the air, as in the glimmering of the fire,
and not only as the principle of life, but also as that of thought
and of knowledge or the "word" (Vâc, Veda), appearing on the one side
as the productive, life-giving, and fructifying power of nature, on
the other as the creative, inspiring spirit. This is the reason why,
among the ancients, the God of life and fertility was in his essential
nature a Fire-God, and why the three figures of the divine "father,"
"son," and "spirit," in spite of the differences of their functions,
could be looked upon without inconsistency as one and the same being.
As is well known, Jesus, too, had three fathers, namely, his
heavenly father, Jahwe, the Holy Spirit, and also his earthly father,
Joseph. The latter is also a work-master, artizan, or "carpenter," as
the word "tekton" indicates. Similarly, Kinyras, the father of Adonis,
is said to have been some kind of artizan, a smith or carpenter. That
is to say, he is supposed to have invented the hammer and the lever
and roofing as well as mining. In Homer he appears as the maker of
the ingenious coat of mail which Agamemnon received from him as a
guest-friend. [180] The father of Hermes also is an artizan. Now Hermes
closely resembles Agni as well as Jesus. He is the "good messenger,"
the Euangelos; that is, the proclaimer of the joyful message of
the redemption of souls from the power of death. He is the God of
sacrifices, and as such "mediator" between heaven and earth. He is the
"guide of souls" (Psychopompos) and "bridegroom of souls" (beloved of
Psyche). He is also a God of fertility, a guardian of the flocks, who
is represented in art as the "good shepherd," the bearer of the ram,
a guide upon the roads of earth, a God of the door-hinge (Strophaios)
and guardian of the door, [181] a god of healing as well as of speech,
the model of all human reason, in which capacity he was identified
by the Stoics with the Logos that dwelt within the world. [182] Just
as in the Rigveda Tvashtar stands with Savitar, the divine father of
Agni, and Joseph the "carpenter" with Jahwe, as father of the divine
mediator, so the divine artificer, Hephaistos, whose connection with
Tvashtar is obvious, is looked upon together with Zeus, the father
of heaven, as the begetter of Hermes. [183]
Now if Joseph, as we have already seen, was originally a God, Mary,
the mother of Jesus, was a Goddess. Under the name of Maya she is
the mother of Agni, i.e., the principle of motherhood and creation
simply, as which she is in the Rigveda at one time represented by
the fire-producing wood, the soft pith, in which the fire-stick was
whirled; at another as the earth, with which the sky has mated. She
appears under the same name as the mother of Buddha as well as of
the Greek Hermes. She is identical with Maira (Maera) as, according
to Pausanias, viii. 12, 48, the Pleiad Maia, wife of Hephaistos,
was called. She appears among the Persians as the "virgin" mother
of Mithras. As Myrrha she is the mother of the Syrian Adonis;
as Semiramis, mother of the Babylonian Ninus (Marduk). In the
Arabic legend she appears under the name of Mirzam as mother of the
mythical saviour Joshua, while the Old Testament gives this name to
the virgin sister of that Joshua who was so closely related to Moses;
and, according to Eusebius, [184] Merris was the name of the Egyptian
princess who found Moses in a basket and became his foster-mother.
After all this it seems rather naïve to believe that the parents of the
"historical" Jesus were called Joseph and Mary, and that his father
was a carpenter. In reality the whole of the family and home life
of the Messiah, Jesus, took place in heaven among the Gods. It was
only reduced to that of a human being in lowly circumstances by the
fact that Paul described the descent of the Messiah upon the earth
as an assumption of poverty and a relinquishment of his heavenly
splendour. [185] Hence, when the myth was transformed into history,
Christ was turned into a "poor" man in the economic sense of the word,
while Joseph, the divine artificer and father of the sun, became an
ordinary carpenter.
Now it is a feature which recurs in all the religions of Nearer Asia
that the "son" of the divine "virgin" mother is at the same time the
"beloved" of this Goddess in the sexual sense of the word. This
is the case not only with Semiramis and Ninus, Istar and Tammuz,
Atargatis (Aphrodite) and Adonis, Cybele and Attis, but also with
Aphrodite (Maia) and Hermes, [186] Maia and Iasios, one of the Cabiri,
identical with Hermes or Cadmus, who was slain by his father, Zeus,
with a lightning stroke, but was raised again and placed in the
sky as a constellation. [187] We may conclude from the connection
between Iasios and Joshua that a similar relationship existed between
the latter and his mother Mirzam. Indeed, a glimmer of this possibly
appears even in the Gospels in the relationship of the various Maries
to Jesus, although, of course, in accordance with the character of
these writings, they are transferred into quite a different sphere
and given other emotional connections. [188]
Now in Hebrew the word "spirit" (ruach) is of feminine gender. As a
consequence of this the Holy Ghost was looked upon by the Nassenes and
the earliest Christians as the "mother" of Jesus. Indeed, it appears
that in their view the birth of the divine son was only consummated by
the baptism and the descent of the Spirit. According to the Gospels
which we possess, on the occasion of the baptism in the Jordan a
voice from above uttered these words: "Thou art my beloved son; in
thee I am well pleased." [189] On the other hand, in an older reading
of the passage in question in Luke, which was in use as late as the
middle of the fourth century, it runs, in agreement with Psalm ii. 7:
"Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee." In this case the
spirit who speaks these words is regarded as a female being. This
is shown by the dove which descends from heaven, for this was the
holy bird, the symbol of the Mother Goddess of Nearer Asia. [190]
But it was not the Nassenes alone (Ophites) who called the Holy
Spirit "the first word" and "the mother of all living things:"
[191] other Gnostic sects, such as the Valentinians, regarded the
Spirit which descended in the shape of a dove as the "word of the
mother from above, of wisdom." [192] Viewed in this sense, baptism
also passed in the Mysteries as a new birth. Indeed, its Greek name,
photisma or photismós (i.e., illumination), clearly indicates its
origin in fire-worship. Thus, when Justin [193] too speaks of a
flame appearing at the baptism of Jesus, he alludes thereby to the
connection between that solemn act and the birth of a Fire-God. [194]
Ephrem, the Syrian composer of hymns, makes the Baptist say to Jesus:
"A tongue of fire in the air awaits thee beyond the Jordan. If thou
followest it and wilt be baptized, then undertake to purify thyself,
for who can seize a burning fire with his hands? Thou who art all fire
have mercy upon me." [195] In Luke iii. 16 and Matt. iii. 11 it is
said in the same sense: "I indeed baptize you with water; but there
cometh he that is mightier than I.... He shall baptize you with the
Holy Ghost and with fire." And in Luke xii. 49 sq. we read the words:
"I came to cast fire upon the earth: and what will I, if it is already
kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with." Here is a reference
to fire falling upon the eyes and being made to blaze up by "baptism,"
that is, the pouring on of a nourishing liquid, as we have seen in
the worship of Agni. [196]
Just as John, who was closely related to the Essenes, baptized the
penitents in the Jordan in the open air, so also the Mandæi, whose
connection with the Essenes is extremely probable, used to perform
baptisms in flowing water only, on which account they were also called
"the Christians of John" in later times. This custom among them was
obviously connected with the fact that Hibil Ziwâ, who was venerated by
them as a Redeemer, was a form of Marduk, and the latter was a son of
the great Water-God, Ea; he thus incorporated the healing and cleansing
powers of water in himself. On the other hand, as has been already
said, the "anointing" of the God in the Agni Cult with milk, melted
butter, and the fluid Soma, served to strengthen the vital powers of
the divine child and to bring the sparks slumbering in the fire-wood
to a blaze. There is no doubt that this idea was also present in the
baptism as it was usually practised in the mystic cults. By baptism
the newly admitted member was inwardly "enlightened." Often enough,
too, for example, in the Mysteries of Mithras, with the ceremony
there was also associated the actual flashing forth of a light, the
production of the Cult God himself manifested in light. [197] By this
means the faithful were "born again," in the same way as Agni was
"baptized" at his birth, and thereby enabled to shine forth brightly
and to reveal the disorder of the world hidden in the darkness.
"The world was swallowed up, veiled in darkness,
Light appeared, when Agni was born." [198]
"Shining brightly, Agni flashes forth far and wide,
He makes everything plain in splendour." [199]
A complete understanding of the baptism in the Jordan can only be
attained if here, too, we take into consideration the translation of
the baptism into astrological terms. In other words, it appears that
John the Baptist, as we meet him in the Gospels, was not an historical
personage. Apart from the Gospels he is mentioned by Josephus only,
[200] and this passage, although it was known to Origen [201] in
early days, is exposed to a strong suspicion of being a forgery
by some Christian hand. [202] Again, the account in the Gospels
of the relations between John and Jesus is full of obscurities and
contradictions, as has been pointed out by Strauss. These, however,
disappear as soon as we recognise that under the name John, which
in Hebrew means "pleasing to God," is concealed the Babylonian
Water-God, Oannes (Ea). Baptism is connected with his worship, and
the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan represents the reflection upon
earth of what originally took place among the stars. That is to say,
the sun begins its yearly course with a baptism, entering as it does,
immediately after its birth, the constellations of the Water-carrier
and the Fishes. But this celestial Water Kingdom, in which each year
the day-star is purified and born again, is the Eridanus, the heavenly
Jordan or Year-Stream (Egyptian, iaro or iero, the river), wherein the
original baptism of the divine Saviour of the world takes place. [203]
On this account it is said in the hymn of Ephrem on the Epiphany
of the divine Son: "John stepped forward and adored the Son, whose
form was enveloped in a strange light," and "when Jesus had received
the baptism he immediately ascended, and his light shone over the
world." [204] In the Syrian Baptismal Liturgy, preserved to us under
the name of Severus, we read the words: "I, he said, baptize with
water, but he who comes, with Fire and Spirit, that spirit, namely,
which descended from on high upon his head in the shape of a dove, who
has been baptized and has arisen from the midst of the waters, whose
light has gone up over the earth." According to the Fourth Gospel,
John was not himself the light; but he gave testimony of the light,
"that true light which lighteth every man coming into the world,"
by whom the world was made and of whose fulness we have all received
grace. [205] In this the reference to the sun is unmistakable, while
the story of John's birth [206] is copied from that of the Sun-Gods
Isaac [207] and Samson. [208] In John, the Baptist himself is called
by Jesus "a burning and shining lamp," [209] and he himself remarks,
when he hears of the numerous following of Jesus, "he must increase
but I must decrease," [210] a speech which probably at first referred
to the summer solstice, when the sun, having reached the highest point
in its course, enters the winter hemisphere and loses strength day by
day. John is said to have been born six months before Jesus. [211]
This, too, points to the fact that both are essentially identical,
that they are only the different halves of the year, representing
the sun as rising and setting, these two phases being related to one
another as Caleb and Joshua, Nergal and Tammuz, &c. John the Baptist is
represented as wearing a cloak of camel-hair, with a leathern girdle
about his loins. [212] This brings to mind the garb of the prophet
Elijah, [213] to whom Jesus himself likened him. [214] But Elijah,
who passed among the Jews for a forerunner of the Messiah, is a form
of Sun-God transferred to history. In other words, he is the same as
the Greek Helios, the German Heljas, and Ossetic Ilia, with whom he
coincides in most important points, or at any rate characteristics
of this God have been transferred to the figure of the prophet. [215]
According to Babylonian ideas corresponding to the "baptism of water"
at the commencement of the efficacious power of the sun, was the
"baptism of fire," when it was at the height of its annual course,
at the time of the summer solstice, and its passage was again
inclined downwards. [216] This idea, too, is found in the Gospels,
in the story of the transfiguration of Jesus upon the mountain. [217]
It takes precisely the same place in the context of his life-year,
as depicted by the Evangelists, as the Sun's "baptism of fire"
in the Babylonian world system, since it too marks the highest and
turning-point in the life of the Christian Saviour. On this occasion
Moses and Elijah appeared with the Saviour, who shone like a pillar
of fire, "and his garments became glistening, exceeding white, like
unto snow, so as no fuller on earth can whiten them." And there came
a cloud which overshadowed the three disciples whom Jesus had taken
with him on to the mountain. And a voice came from the cloud, saying,
"This is my beloved Son, hear ye him." As at the baptism, so here,
too, was Jesus proclaimed by a heavenly voice as the Son or beloved
of God, or rather of the Holy Spirit. As the latter is in Hebrew of
the feminine gender, it consequently appears that in this passage we
have before us a parallel to the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan. The
incident is generally looked upon as though by it was emphasised
the higher significance of Jesus in comparison with the two chief
representatives of the old order, and as though Jesus was extolled
before Moses and Elijah by the transfiguration. Here too, however,
the Sun-God, Helios, is obviously concealed beneath the form of the
Israelite Elijah. On this account Christianity changed the old places
of worship of Zeus and Helios upon eminences into chapels of Elijah;
and Moses is no other than the Moon-God, the Men of Asia Minor. And
he has been introduced into the story because the divine lawgivers in
almost all mythologies are the same as the moon, the measurer of time
and regulator of all that happens (cf. Manu among the Indians, Minos
among the Greeks, Men (Min) among the Egyptians). [218] According
to Justin, [219] David is supposed to have made the prophecy that
Christ would be born "before the sun and the moon." The sun and moon
often appear upon the pictures of the Nearer Asiatic Redeemer, God
(e.g., Mithras), paling before the splendour of the young Light-God,
as we have seen in the case of Buddha, [220] and as, according to
the narrative of the Rigveda, also happened at the birth of the Child
Agni. Accordingly we have before us in the story of the transfiguration
in the Gospels only another view of the story of the birth of the
Light-God or Fire-God, such as lies at the root of the story of the
baptism of the Christian Saviour. [221] And with the thought of the
new birth of the Saviour is associated that of the baptism of Jesus,
and particularly that of the fire-baptism, of which the sun partakes
at the height of its power. [222]