CHAPTER VIII.

Supernatural generation. What is meant by the term. Examples. Children

given by the gods. Anecdote. Frequency of god-begotten children in

Ancient Greece. Their general fate. The stories not credited by the

grandfathers of children, nor apparently by the mothers. The babies,

how treated. Foundlings and Hospitals. Antiope. Leucothoee. Divinely

conceived persons not necessarily great or good. Babylonian idea that

a god came down to enjoy human women. Tale from Herodotus. Jehovah as a

man. Grecian idea attached to the expression Son of God. Homer. Hebrew

ideas. Roman notions. Romulus, son of Mars and a Vestal Augustus, son

of Apollo. Modern ideas respecting Incubi. Prevalence of the belief.

Its suppression. Causes of its origin. Bible made to pander to priestly

lust. Dictionnaire Infernal. History of incubi therefrom. Stories.

Strange idea that the Gods who made men out of nothing cannot as easily

make babies. Divine Androgynes. Strange stories of single gods having

offspring. Narayana and the Spirit of God of Genesis. Chaos. Hindoo

mythos of Brahma. Birth from churning a dead man's left arm, and again

his right. Ayonyesvara, his strange history. Similar ones referred

to. History of Carticeya. Christian parallels. Immaculate conception a

Hindoo myth. The dove in India and Christendom. Agni and cloven fiery

tongues. Penance and its powers. Miraculous conception by means' of a

dove. Other myths from various sources.

It is a question which should, in my opinion, be asked by every

individual in a rational community, whether it is advisable to continue,

as a matter of faith, a doctrine which must be repudiated, as a matter

of fact. To this we may join, as a rider, can anyone who puts his

credence in a legend because it is old, claim to be superior to those

who originally invented the tale, in the darkness of antiquity? When

moderns smile at the stories told by the classic Varro, how certain

mares in Lusitania were impregnated by the wind on a certain mountain,

without any access to a horse, and at the credence given to similar

accounts by Virgil, Pliny, and even the Christian bishop Augustine; and

by some old Scotch authority how a young woman became a mother through

the intervention of the ashes of the dead: and when they pity the

benighted Greeks who gave to Hercules, Jupiter for a father; and to

Mars, Juno for a mother, without intercourse with her celestial spouse,

it behoves them to inquire whether each may not be addressed in the

sentence, "Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur"--i.e., change but the

name of the believers from Greeks and Romans to modern Christians, and

it will be found that Popes, priests, and peoples believe as firmly

now in supernatural generation as the most crass pagan of which history

treats.

Our classical reading tells us abundance of marvellous stories--how

Jupiter seduced Danae in the form of a golden shower, and yet had a

common son by her, who was not an aureous coin; how Leda received Zeus

as a swan, and bore therefrom a couple of eggs; how Europa was tempted

by him as a bull, and yet did not bear a calf; and how Callisto, a

maiden of Diana, was debauched by the same god under the guise of her

mistress, and yet that from two maidens a boy was formed.

Of the amours of Apollo with a dozen and a half damsels, and of the very

numerous disguises which he assumed, we find abundant details in our

classical dictionaries. Mars, though not so frequently adopted by

human females as a lover, had many children of whom he was the putative

father.

Jupiter had Bacchus and Minerva without Juno's aid, and Juno retaliated

by bearing Ares without conversation with her consort. We deride these

tales, and yet think, that because we laugh at a hundred such we shall

be pardoned for believing one. How little we are justified in acting

thus a few philosophical considerations will demonstrate.

There are few things in mythology that are more curious than the subject

of the miraculous formation of certain individuals. Some of these have

been regarded as the offspring of a celestial father and a mother of

earthly mould; others again, as for example AEneas, were said to be

the result of a union between a heavenly mother and a terrestrial

father--e.g., AEneas was the son of Anchises, a handsome man, and Venus,

goddess of beauty and love. Some, though these are few, are said to be

children of a virgin or deserted wife, who has produced them without any

extraneous assistance,* and others are declared to be descended from a

father whom no consort could ever claim. One individual, indeed, called

Orion, is represented as having been wholly independent of both father

and mother, and the result of a strange form of development, the like of

which Darwin never dreamed of as he came from a bladder into which three

gods had micturated. His name, we are gravely assured, came _ab urina_.

* The following is a good case in corroboration of what is

said in the text. In the _Dictionnaire Infernal_, to which

more particular reference will be made shortly, there is, s.

v. Fecondite, a report of a trial before the Parliament of

Grenoble, in which the question was, whether a certain

infant could be declared legitimate which was born after the

husband had been absent from his wife four full years. The

wife asserted that the baby was the offspring of a dream, in

which she had a vivid idea that her wandering spouse had

returned to love and duty. Midwives and physicians were

consulted, and reported on the subject. As a result, the

Parliament ordained that the infant should be adjudged

legitimate, and that its mother should be regarded as a true

and honourable wife. The judgment bears date 13th February

1537.

The quaint ideas associated in mythology with the supernatural

generation here referred to have been various. In some instances they

have been wholly poetical, as when we are told that "the Supreme" by his

union with law and order (Themis) produced "Justice," "the Hours," "Good

Laws," and "Peace" (Hesiod Theogony, 900), and as when Europa is said to

have tempted Jupiter to leave Phoenicia, and travel westward to Crete

as the first step towards the colonization of an unknown continent. In

other instances, the ideas have been framed upon the very natural belief

that anyone--whether existent in story only, or in reality--who has

greatly surpassed his fellows, must have had a large element of the

Deity in his constitution. In other instances, the notion has been

associated with the once prevalent belief, that the Creator had a sex,

to which we shall refer by and by; and in other cases, the fancy has

clearly been mingled with the fact, that many an unmarried woman has

attributed to some god, a pregnancy, or baby, which has been due, in

reality, to a very mortal man. Here we may notice that the fecundity

which damsels of old were wont to refer to a god or some inferior, but

yet beneficent, deity, more modern christian girls have associated with

a demon. Jupiter and Apollo being replaced by a special class of imps

who were named "incubi," and of the particulars of whose embraces the

strangest stories are told. This small truth seems to be sufficient to

demonstrate that the Greeks were not familiar with the being to whom

we give the name of "Satan" and the "Devil," and that their belief

coincided in one respect with that of the older Jews, who considered

that whatever occurrence happened in the world, whether apparently for

good or evil, was done by Jehovah, or as the Hellenic damsels reported

by Jupiter, Apollo, or Mars.

Here, too, I may be permitted to introduce a remark suggested by a

narrative, told to me by a lady of high British rank. She had been

brought up in a foreign country under the eye of a sensible and pious,

we may add prudish, mother, who endeavoured to shield her daughter from

all contact with external vicious influences, and to prevent her ears

or her mind from ever coming to the knowledge of those matters which

are associated with love, marriage, and offspring. When the young lady

naturally inquired of mamma where the infants sprang from which came

into the world and grew up around her, she was told, "from God," and she

was referred to Psalm cxxvii. 3, which declares that "children are an

heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is His reward." After

having attained adult age, and being wholly imbued with this belief,

she, on one occasion, expressed her opinion that Mademoiselle--who had

recently been confined--must have been a peculiarly virtuous maiden, to

have received so great a present as a baby from the beneficent Creator.

This speech fell like a bombshell amongst a mixed company, but she knew

not why. It was not until her marriage some time subsequently, that she

learned that infants were said to come from God or the Devil according

to circumstances, but that in reality they were always due to men and

women.

The anecdote given above, naturally enables us to call attention to

the remarkable fact that though the Grecian poets repeatedly spoke of

maidens being fertilized by a divinity, yet Greek fathers never paid

any heed to the power of that god, whom their daughters asserted to have

operated upon their femininity; but always treated the earthly love of

the alleged celestial spouse, as if the latter was wholly powerless to

punish the hard-hearted parent, who had no scruples to turn his daughter

from his door, so that she might hide her shame in distant lands. In

those classic times, procreation by a god upon a human being was the

attempted cover for bastardy. Moreover, even the woman herself, to whom

Jupiter or Apollo was alleged to have descended from heaven to honour,

felt herself so much injured by the visit, that she either tried to

destroy the resulting offspring with her own hands, or exposed it upon

a mountain to the tender mercies of dogs and vultures. Much in the

same way many a modern maiden places her shame-covered infant in

the turn-table of a foundling institution. Antiope, for example, the

daughter of a king of Thebes, was, according to her version, beloved by

Jupiter, who visited her in the form of a satyr and implanted twins.

When she discovered the coming event, which casts its shadow before, she

left the paternal mansion, to avoid her father's anger, and fled to a

mountain, on which she left her hapless offspring. They were found by

shepherds and brought up.

The story of fair Leucothoee is still more to the point. She was

sufficiently beautiful to attract Apollo, who seduced her under the form

of her own mother--not a very likely story it is true, but the two lived

happily together until a rival told the loved one's father of the amour.

The incensed paterfamilias ordered his daughter to be buried alive, and

yet the god who could change her body after death into the frankincense

tree, and himself into a matronly looking woman and yet retain his sex,

could not prevent his earthly spouse from dying a cruel death. In other

words, Orchamus, the parent of the damsel, wholly disbelieved in the

existence of a divine "spark," and felt assured that his daughter had

disgraced herself with a man far below her in earthly rank.

From these, and a number of other Grecian anecdotes, we can draw no

other conclusions than that the sires in those days were as jealous of

the honour of their daughters as we are of our own now; that when that

honour was in danger of being tarnished, a god was alleged by the

damsel to be the offender; that the story was not believed; and that the

daughter fled, was punished, or was pardoned, according to the sternness

or credulity of the parents. The idea that individuals who were the

sons or daughters of a god, must necessarily be great and good, does not

appear to have prevailed amongst the ancient Greeks. Nay, we may even

doubt whether any of them really believed that Jupiter, Apollo, or

Neptune, could, or had ever become incarnate, for the sole purpose

of impregnating a human female. That such an idea, however, prevailed

amongst the Babylonians we learn from Herodotus, who informs us, book i.

c. 181, that Belus comes into a chamber at the summit of a sacred tower

to meet therein a native woman, chosen by the god from the whole nation;

and in the succeeding chapter he indicates that a similar occurrence

takes place in Egyptian Thebes, and in Lycian Patarae. Yet even whilst

writing the tales, the historian expresses his own incredulity of their

value, and we may well suppose that the thoughtful generally, would only

give such credence to the statements of the temple priests, as was given

to certain Christian stories by a philosopher, who said he believed them

because they were impossible. Even if the common people credited the

assertion that "The Supreme" did elect a woman with whom to converse, we

must not despise them too lightly, for we are distinctly told in our own

scriptures that Jehovah appeared as a man, and as such, ate, drank, and

talked with Abraham (Gen. ch. xviii.); that Elohim was in the habit of

conversing face to face with Moses (Exod. xxxiii. 11); and that the

same God wrestled with Jacob as a man, and could not prevail against the

patriarch until he had lamed him. We must also notice that myriads of

Christians have believed, and many still do so, that He in a certain

form had commerce with a Hebrew maiden (Luke i. 34, 35), and had by her

a begotten son.

When civilization spread over Greece, there seems to have been a

change of expression--which being at the first wholly metaphorical,

subsequently became realistic. Thus, any man peculiarly characteristic

amongst his fellows for strength, knowledge, or power, was designated

"a son of God." Thus, as Grote remarks (12 vol. edition), vol. ii. p. 132,

note 1. "Even Aristotle ascribed to Homer a divine parentage; a damsel

of the isle of Ios, pregnant by some god, was carried off by pirates to

Smyrna at the time of the Ionic emigration, and there gave birth to the

poet" (Aristotle ap. Plutarch Vit. Homer, p. 1059). Plato, also by

some, called "the divine," was said by Seusippus to be a son of Apollo

(_Smith's Dictionary_, 8. v.) The Hebrews had a similar metaphorical

expression, and gave to everything supereminently good, an epithet which

we may paraphrase as "divine." Some few writers used the title, "sons

of God," as for example, Job i. 6, and xxxviii. 7, and Hosea i. 10; an

epithet adopted by John i. 12, Rom. viii. 14, 19, Phil ii. 15, 1 John iii

1, 2, as if the same were applicable to all who are virtuous and good

to an especial degree. The Hebrews even seem to have adopted the belief

that Elohim, like the Grecian Zeus, had many children, could, and

did really, associate with human beings, for we can in no other way

reasonably interpret the strange narrative in Genesis vi, wherein we are

told that the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, who became

the sires of mighty men of great renown.

Amongst the Romans, similar ideas to those which we find amongst the

Greeks prevailed. For example, Romulus was said to be the son of Mars

and a Vestal virgin; but so little did her relatives believe in the

possibility of the occurrence, or the divine nature of the maiden's

offspring, that the mother was buried alive, and the twins which she

bare were exposed, much in the same way as modern "foundlings" are. In

this case, as in many others, it is probable that little notice would

have been taken of such supernatural generation had the mother been of

low origin--but when a god inveigles a king's daughter from her duty,

both the one and the other must be punished; the one in her person, the

other in his child. Yet these very writers who told of the punishment of

the Vestal Hia for her intrigue with Mars, took advantage of the story,

and spread a report that Romulus, the offspring of the two, was, after

his death, taken up to heaven to dwell there as a god. At a subsequent

period, Augustus Caesar announced, on his mother's authority, that he

was the son of Apollo, and claimed to be treated as a veritable scion of

that venerable deity.

The account of the conception and birth of Servius Tullius is curious

from its circumstantiality. Ovid tells us, _Fasti_, vi., 625-659, Bonn's

translation: "Vulcan was the father of Tullius; Ocrisia was his mother,

a woman of Corniculum, remarkable for her beauty. Her, Tanaquil, having

duly performed the sacred rites, ordered, in company with herself, to

pour some wine on the decorated altar. Here amongst the ashes, either

was, or seemed to be, a form of obscene shape; but such it really was.

Being ordered to do so, the captive (Ocrisia was a slave), submits to

its embraces; conceived by her, Servius had the origin of his birth from

heaven. His father afforded a proof, at the time when he touched his

head with the gleaming fire, and a flame rising to a point, blazed upon

his locks." In some earlier lines, the poet tells us that the goddess,

Fortune, was enamoured of this same Roman king, and visited him

nightly--much as Venus came to converse with Anchises.

In this story, we have an unusual ingredient, inasmuch as there is a

witness to that which we may call the immaculate conception, and after

birth, a proof of the child's divine origin! Of course there are many

irreverent people who declare that the story is untrue--that it is far

more likely that the real father was Tarquin, who, finding his consort's

beautiful servant to be with child, contrived a plan by which she would

escape the vindictiveness of the mistress--one which, if devotionally

inclined, she was bound to give credence to. Nor can devout Christians

altogether range themselves amongst the unbelievers in the miracle, for

the founder of their religion was borne by a woman of low condition, and

is said to have been begotten by an overshadowing spirit. He assumed to

be a king; but the son of Ocrisia became one in reality, and instituted

games in honour of his divine progenitor.

For some more modern poetical fictions of the same nature, we may refer

our readers to Scott's _Lady of the Lake_, where, in the account of the

Highland seer, Brian, they will find a parallel to the story promulgated

by Alexander the false prophet, respecting his birth, described by

Lucian.

The same ideas, with which we are all of us so familiar in Christendom,

that they form a portion of the creeds which the orthodox weekly

rehearse, have obtained in far Ceylon. Thus, for example, we read in a

Buddhistic legend (_Kusa Iatakaya_, translated by T. Steele, Truebner,

London, 1871, small 8vo., pp. 260):--

"As Sakra*, with his thousand eyes gazed over every land,

The hapless queen, with heart distraught, he saw dejected stand;

His godlike eye revealed to him that to her blessed womb

Two radiant gods illustrious from Heaven's high town should come.

Then entering first the Bodisat's blest skyey palace fair,

And next unto another god's, did Sakra straight repair:

Benign he said:--Go to the world of men, that distant scene,

And there be born from out the womb of yon delightful queen.

The saying of the king of gods unto their hearts they took;

Then bathed they in his feet's bright rays that shone as shines a brook:

'Let us be so conceived,' they said, when they the order heard,

'Within the womb of yonder queen, even as the Lord declared.'"

--Stanzas 129-131.

* Indra, "The Supreme."

But the two children do not appear as twins, like Romulus and Remus, for

we find in stanza 155--

"Now when the darling little child, the wisdom-gifted one, Began to lift

his tiny foot, and learn to walk alone, Another god from Heaven's high

town flashed down the sky serene, And was conceived within the womb of

that delightful queen."

I may notice in passing, that the lady was married, but had always been

barren with her husband.

In the instances to which we have referred above, there has been no very

marked departure from the ordinary course of nature. In all, an union

between a father and mother has occurred--in all, the relation between

each to the offspring has been maintained, and the ordinary progress of

gestation observed. The main discrepancies which are to be noticed are,

that a divine is substituted for a human father, or, as in the case of

AEneas, the sire has been a man, and the mother a "celestial." But after

birth, instead of the child being cared for by its parents, it very

frequently happens that a goat, wolf, or other animal, performs

the mother's duty as a nurse. The reader whose antiquarian lore is

considerable, will probably remember that Christians in Italy, France,

and I dare not say in how many other Catholic countries, were implicit

believers in the idea that spirits from the invisible world could assume

a human form, and under that, have intercourse with youths of either

sex. The literature upon this subject was at one time very great, but

such pains have been taken to destroy it, in order that so great a blot

upon the infallibility of Papal rulers should no longer be found, that

there are few books to which I can refer inquirers. The first time I

met with the subject was in a Latin treatise by Cardan, a.d. 1444-1524,*

being commentaries upon Hippocrates. In this, many chapters are devoted

to the possibility of intercourse between women and embodied spirits.

The Mediaeval virgins, unlike the Greeks, always attributed their

pregnancy to demons and not to gods, although on some occasions maidens

were foolish enough, like those of ancient Babylon, to believe that they

were embraced, by a divine being or angel. Into this matter the Italian

doctor enters folly, and endeavours to establish some distinction how

a woman could distinguish an "incubus" from a human being, and if she

became pregnant and brought forth, how the devil's offspring could

be told from an ordinary baby. The particulars which are given to the

learned in Latin, will not bear to be reproduced in the vernacular,

suffice it to say, that they are such as would be given by silly women

more or less conscious of having been guilty of impropriety, and who

were goaded by sanctimonious but ribald divines to enter into every

detail of the devil's doings and the females' sensations.

* It is more than thirty years since I read the book in

question, and I have long ago parted with it. As I am unable

now to lay my hands upon a copy I am not sure whether the

author was Facio Cardan, who flourished at the period given

in the text, or the more celebrated Jerome Cardan who lived

A.D. 1601-1576.

Before saying more of the "incubi," we may bestow a passing glance upon

the foundation of the idea of their existence. In mediaeval times, a

large portion of the New Testament was taken to be literally true, and

the people were instructed to believe that the devil went about like a

roaring lion seeking whom he could devour. The papal priests encouraged

the idea, for by frightening the ignorant, they induced them to purchase

sacerdotal insurance by paying for masses to protect themselves from the

snares of Satan. For hierarchs who were obliged to live without wives,

it was easy in the first place to imbue the mind of a superstitious

maiden with a horror of Apollyon's power, and then to take advantage of

her fears by personifying the fiend. In this manner the bible suggested

the sin to the priest and made the maiden passive.

It would not be profitable to write a catalogue in detail of the

authorities upon which I found these statements. I will rather give a

short resume of an article upon "Incubi," which is to be found in a most

curious book entitled _Dictionnaire Infernal ou Bibliotheque universelle

sur les etres, les personnages, les livres, les faits et les choses

qui tiennent aux apparitions, a la magie, au commerce de Venfer, aux

divinations, aux sciences secretes,... aux erreurs et aux prejuges,...

generalment a toutes les croyances mer-veilleuses, surprenantes

mysterieuses et surnaturelles.--Par M. Colin de Plancy. Deuxieme

edition entierement refondue _; Paris, 1826. The book is rare, but most

interesting to the philosopher who concerns himself about matters

of "faith," for it shows, clearly, that there is no depth of human

degradation into which people who are guided by blind trust in some

fellow mortal, unchecked by the exercise of reason, will not enter, and

there reside permanently, until stirred up by those whom they assert on

the first blush to be "infidels."

After a few preliminary remarks, we are told that the French incubi did

not attack virgins, but in the next paragraph is an account of a maiden

who was seduced by a demon in the form of her betrothed. This was in

Sardinia. An English fiend acted in a similar way, and from the congress

followed a frightful disease of which the poor girl died in three days.

This story is told by Thomas Walsingham, b. A.D. 1410. A Scotch lass

is the next victim reported, and to her the unclean spirit came nightly

under the guise of a fine young man. She became pregnant, and avowed

all. The parents then kept watch, and saw the devil near her in a

monstrous unhuman form. He would not go away till a priest came, then

the incubus made a frightful noise, burned the furniture, and went off

upwards, carrying the roof with him. Three days after a queer form was

born, more horrible than had ever been seen, so bad indeed, that the

midwives strangled it. For the credulous, what fact could be more

strongly attested than this? The reporter is Hector Boetius, b. 1470.

The next tale, having a locale in Bonn, occurred at a time when priests

married and had a family. The daughter of one who was closely watched

and locked up when left by herself, was found out by a demon, who took

upon him the form of a fine young man. Such an occurrence was thought

nothing uncommon then, inasmuch as Paul had told the Corinthians that

Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light (2 Cor. xi. 14). The

poor victim became enceinte and confessed the whole to her father, who,

fearing the devil, and anxious not to make a scandal, sent the daughter

away from home. The impudent fiend came to remonstrate, and killed the

wretched sire with a blow of his fist.--Quoted from _Caesarii Heistere

mirac_., lib. iii., c. 8. The next case occurs at Schinin, wherein

we are told (Hauppius _Biblioth portai, pract._, p. 454) that a woman

produced a baby without head or feet, with a mouth in the chest near to

the left shoulder, and an ear near the right one; instead of fingers it

had webs like frog's feet, it was liver coloured, and shaky as jelly, it

cried when the mother wanted to wash it, but somebody stifled and then

buried it. The mother, however, wanted it be exhumed and burned, for

it was the offspring of a fiend who had counterfeited her husband. The

thing was taken up and given to the hangman for cremation, but he could

neither burn it nor the rags which enwrapped it until the day after the

feast of Ascension.

The following story is laid near Nantes:--Therein a young girl baulked

of her lover, mutters something like a modern order to him to go to

the foul fiend, and remarks to herself that a demon would be a better

friend. She is betrayed in the usual manner, and finds, when too late,

that she is embracing a hairy incubus which has a long tail. She exclaims

fearfully. The "affreet" blows in her face and leaves her. She is found

frightfully disfigured, and is brought to bed seven days after of a

black cat. The remaining histories are of a similar nature, all alike

showing how completely the so-called Christian people of Modern Europe

believed that disembodied spirits could assume human form with such

completeness as to be the father of offspring. We may fairly compare

these tales with that told by heathen Greeks about Jupiter and Alcmena,

but when we place them side by side, the ancients show a far superior

fancy in their fables than do the comparative moderns. I find from

_Reville's History of the Devil_, p. 54 (London: Williams & Norgate,

1871), that so late as a.d. 1756, at Landshut, in Bavaria, a young girl

of thirteen years of age, was convicted of impure intercourse with the

devil, and put to death. It is a pity that no account of the trial is

appended.

Talboys Wheeler, in his _History of India_, vol. IL, p. 515, indicates

that there is to this day, in India, a belief in _incubi_. Speaking

of Paisacha marriages, in which a woman is united to a man without her

knowledge or consent, he remarks:--"The origin of the name is somewhat

curious. The Paisachas were evil spirits or ghosts (see "_Lilith"

and "Satyr" Ancient Faiths_, vol. ii.) who were supposed to haunt the

earth.... If, therefore, a damsel found herself likely to become a

mother without her being able to furnish a satisfactory reason for her

maternity, she would naturally plead that she had been victimized by a

Paisach.... In modern times, however, the belief is still very general

throughout the rural districts of India, that wives, as well as maidens,

may be occasionally victimized by such ghostly admirers."

Every mythologist who has invented such stories as that of Jupiter and

Alcmena, and every woman who has ever attributed her pregnancy to a

divine being, call him what she may, seems completely to ignore the idea

that a god who deserves the name, does not require human aid to produce

a man or woman. Surely every profound thinker would say to himself,

The Supreme, who could by a word create full-grown creatures "in the

beginning," has not lost the power now; surely He, who could make Adam

out of dust, and Eve out of a bone of man, can produce in later days

similar images of the godhead, as we are told in Genesis i. 26,

without accoupling with a descendant of the rib. The mythological

idea, therefore, of a divine child coming from a celestial father and a

terrestrial mother, has nothing profound therein, for it is essentially

a bungling contrivance of some stupid man. On the other hand, such a

notion could only be entertained where a grovelling or anthropomorphic

idea has prevailed, or is cherished amongst a credulous people. To put

the subject into the fewest words possible, a god has never--so far as

thoughtful men can judge--been said to be the father in the flesh of a

human being, except by frail women, or vain, foolish, or designing men.

We are fortified in this conclusion by the method in which nations or

sects who have each their own favourite "son of God," treat each

other. None endeavour to prove that the mother of their own hero had

no commerce with man, for that is impossible--all, on the other hand,

ridicule the idea of there being a child without a human father, and

insist that no woman's word countervails the laws of nature. But this

argument is only used against opposing religionists--it has no weight

against their own divine leader. The cases which we have described are

wholly different from those mythological stories, in which the union

of the sexes is absolutely or relatively ignored. They differ also

from those in which the Creator is represented as androgynous, or being

originally without sex, becomes, by an effort of will, a bisexual being,

so as to bring about the creation of man and of the world. For example,

when we find in the Orphic Hymns (Cory's _Ancient Fragments_, pp. 290,

seq.), "Zeus is male, Immortal Zeus is female," it is clear that there

was in the writer an idea of an union of the sexes being necessary to

creation. But when we find Chaos alone being the progenitor of Erebus

and Black Night, from which again were born Ether and Bay, and Earth the

parent of Heaven and the Sea (Hesiod, Theogony, 116-130), there is a

total absence of a sexual notion. This idea, however, appears in the

subsequent lines which represent Earth wedding with Heaven. The same

sexual notion, appears in another fragment from _Aristophanes_, (Cory,

A. R, p. 293), which tells us that "Night with the black wings first

produced an aerial egg, which in its time gave rise to love, whence

sprung all creation." Yet the egg necessarily presupposes a being which

formed it, and another that fructified it, so that the mythos is not

wholly free from the intermixture of the sexual element.

When mythologists have been peculiarly anxious to shake off the somewhat

grotesque doctrine that the celestial Creator must be independent of any

other power, in the genesis of the world and heaven, there has been a

great variety of attempts to show how this has been brought about. In

one curious Hindoo legend, Vishnu is represented sleeping on the bosom

of Devi, at the bottom of the ocean which covered the world. Suddenly a

lotus sprung from his navel, and grew till it reached the surface of the

flood. From this wonderful flower Brahma sprang, and, seeing nothing but

water, imagined himself the first-born of all creatures. But ere he felt

sure, he descended the stalk and found Vishnu at its root; and then the

two contested their respective claims, but Mahadeva interposed, and, by

a curious contrivance, stopped the quarrel, demonstrating that before

either came into existence there reigned an everlasting lingam.

Another myth closely resembles one which is indicated in the Hebrew

Scriptures, viz., that Narayana, or the spirit of God, a self-existent

entity, moved over the waters, and made them bring forth all things

living. This Narayana is identical with the _yomer elohim_--"the spirit

of God" of the Hebrew Genesis i. 2; the [--Greek--]--the spirit of God,

or Holy Ghost of the Greeks. It is the same as the breezes of thick air

which hovered over chaos in the legend assigned to Sanchoniathon (Cory's

Fragments, p. 1), and produced the slimy matter from which all beings

sprung. Narayana is again the same as the Night of the Orphic fragment

which hovered with her black wings over immensity--the same as the

_chakemah_, or "wisdom" of Proverbs viii.; the Greek _sophia_ and the

_logos_--"the word" of John i. 1. The Buddha--or Brahma of the Hindoo.

From this mysterious source matter was formed into shape and all

creatures sprang into life.

Another Indian mythos (Moor's _Hindoo Pantheon_, p. 78), attributes even

more than this to Brahma. He is said to have produced four beings who

proved refractory, and grieved their maker. To comfort him, Siva issued

from a fold in his forehead--then strengthened by Siva, he produced

Bhrigu and the seven Rishis, and after that, Narada, from his thigh,

Kardama from his shadow, and Dacsha from the forefinger of his right

hand. He had, apparently, without a consort, sixty daughters, and from

these last proceeded all things divine, human, animal, vegetable, and

mineral.

This is not altogether dissimilar from the Hebrew idea of Jehovah

creating all things except woman from the dust,* and forming her

mysteriously from a rib of the only existing man. We may also compare

it with the birth of Minerva from Jupiter's brain, and Bacchus from

his thigh. But the Greek myth differs from the Hindoo, inasmuch as the

deities referred to were originally conceived by human women, and did

not grow from The Thunderer's body like branches from a tree.

* In Mythology, things ever repeat themselves, with very

little alteration. For example, Mahadeva is represented as

fighting with Dacsha, and producing heroes from the dost by

striking the ground with his hair. (See Moor's H. P., p.

107).

There is amongst the Hindoos a goddess called Prit'hvi, who is said to

personify the Earth; she had many names which we need not describe, and

she was also furnished with a consort, whose birth is thus described

(Moor, H. P., p. 111.)--"Vena being an impious and tyrannical prince,

was cursed by the Brahmans, and, in consequence, died without issue. To

remedy this, his left arm was opened, and churned with a stick till it

produced a son, who, proving as wicked as his father, was set aside; and

the right arm* was in like manner churned, which also produced a boy,

who proved to be a form of Vishnu, under the name of Prit'hu." We may

add that Prit'hvi treated him badly, and he had to beat and tear her

before she would be comfortable with him. Hence the necessity for

ploughing and digging before crops of cereals, &c., will abound. We can

understand the last part of the legend better than the first. In the

Vedic Mythology, we may say generally, that the means of producing

offspring are curiously numerous; for example, we find in Goldstucker's

_Sanscrit and English Dictionary_, page 20, under the word _angiras_--a

statement that an individual bearing this cognomen, is named in the

Vaidik legends, as one of the 'Prajapatis', or progenitors of mankind,

engendered, according to some, by Manu; according to others, by Brahma

himself, either with the female half of his body, _or from his mouth, or

from the space "between his eyebrows._"

* As these legends generally are based upon something which

Europeans would designate a vile pun, I turned to the

Sanscrit Lexicon (Monier Williams), first to ascertain the

names of "the arm;" and, secondly, if there were any words

allied to it, however remotely, which had a certain meaning.

Amongst others, I find that _buja_ signifies "an arm," and

_bhaga_ is a name of Siva--one of whose epithets, _bhagan-

dara_ = "rending the vulva." _Dosha_ also means "the arm"

and "night." Another word having the same meaning, is

_praveshta_, and this not only signifies the arm, but one

"who covers over." We can then, I think, see why the device

of the churning, referred to in the text, made a process

available for the production of a child. The legend is a

clumsy one, but not more so than that in Exodus xxxiii. 23,

wherein we are told that Jehovah showed to Moses "His back

parts,"--Vulgate, _posteriora mea_--inasmuch as no one could

see His face and live!

A still more curious story is related in the same dictionary, p. 451,

under the word _ayonijeswara_. This appellative is one belonging to a

sacred place of pilgrimage sacred to _Ayonija_, whose miraculous birth

was thus brought about. A very learned Muni, though making a commendable

use of the proper nasal way of reading sacred scripture in his own

person, yet associated with individuals who did not give the orthodox

twang.* The good man remained, in consequence of this, in a sonless

condition, but the legend does not condescend to explain why toleration

of tones in religious ceremony should make a husband infertile and

his wife barren. At any rate, the Muni, named Vidyananda, feeling the

punishment a great one, travelled, apparently alone, from one holy

place to another without being nearer paternity. At length he met with

a _yogin_ or male anchoret, hermit, devotee, or saint, corresponding

to the _yoginis_, who are represented by Moor (H. P., p. 235) as being

sometimes very lovely and alluring; and he, taking pity upon the Muni,

gave him a wonderful fruit, which, he informed him, if eaten by his

wife, would have the effect of procuring for Vidyananda the birth of a

son. But the Muni, like many another character in mythological and fairy

tales, seems suddenly to have lost his sense of hope deferred and a

certain prospect of relief, for instead of hurrying home he sought

repose under a tree on a river's brink, and whilst there ate the fruit

himself. He at once became pregnant. When the new state of things

was evident, he confessed all that had happened to the Yogin, and the

latter, by means of his supernatural power, introduced a stick into the

body of Yidyananda, and relieved him of the infant. The creature was a

beautiful boy, radiant like the disc of the sun, and endowed with divine

lustre, and on account of the mode in which he was born his father

called him _Ayonija_, which signifies, "not born from the womb." The

account then goes on to state that this miraculous infant became a

wonderfully good, learned, pious, religious, and fanatic man; that the

god, delighted with his piety, gave him sons and grandsons, and after

his death received him into his heaven. Any persons coming now to

bake at the spot where these favours from Siva were granted, and

duly performing the various duties of a pious pilgrim, are rewarded,

according to their piety, &c., with progeny, worldly happiness, freedom

from transmigration, and eternal bliss.

* This reminds me of an anecdote which I once read of a

devout Scotch mother, who, on hearing her son read the Bible

in an ordinary tone of voice, cuffed him violently because

he presumed to read that Holy Book without the customary

religious drawl.

Under the word _Ayonija_, Goldstucker gives the following examples

of individuals "not born from the _yoni_" viz.:--"_Drona_, the son

of Bharadwaja, who was born in a bucket" "_Suyya_, whose origin was

unknown." "_Draupadi_, who at a sacrifice of her father Drupada, arose

out of the sacrificial ground." "_Sita_, who sprang into existence in

the same manner as Draupadi" The same is also an epithet of Vishnu or

Krishna.

These stories pale in interest before that of the origin of Carticeya

(see Moor's H. P., p. 51, 89), and I give an account of this legend,

foolish though many conceive it to be, for everything which is

connected with a Hindoo mythos is remarkable, whenever it is found to be

antecedently parallel with Christian surroundings of a somewhat similar

narrative. We notice, for example, in the following tale, that the

Indian idea of the power of "penance" and "asceticism," is, that these

doings or actions are so great, that by their means alone man may compel

the Creator to do things against His design, whilst in the Papal

tales of certain monks and nuns, we find the doctrine asserted that by

preeminent fastings, scourgings and prayers, people have acquired the

power to sell salvation to their fellow men, in a manner different to

that which is appointed. Again, the god when forced to obey the power of

the devotee, is represented as inventing a method by which he could,

as it were, cheat himself, just as Jehovah or Elohim is said to have

contrived a plan by which He could circumvent Himself for the vow which

He had made to destroy all the men upon the earth by a flood of water.

Again, as the arrogance of the ascetic threatened to destroy the world

and the heaven, a deliverer or a saviour was promised, who should be

begotten by an incarnate god upon a goddess equally incarnate, and save

mankind from a terrible devil This is a counterpart of the Papal theory,

which makes it appear that a portion of the godhead became incorporated

with a dove, and had union with a woman, herself an immaculate

manifestation of another portion of "The Supreme." Yet still more

striking than this, is the part which the dove plays in the Indian

mythos of the birth of the Hindoo Saviour. In almost every mediaeval

painting or etching of the miraculous conception of the Virgin Mary, the

dove takes the position of the divine father of Jesus. Nay, so distinct

is the idea intended to be conveyed in one instance, that a dove,

surrounded by a galaxy of angelic heads, darts a ray from his body on

high, into the very part of the virgin, proper to receive it. The design

of the artist is still farther heightened by the _vesica piscis_, the

emblem of woman being marked upon the appropriate part of the dress, and

a figure of an infant within it, points unmistakeably to the belief that

the Holy Ghost, like a dove, absolutely begot the Jewish saviour as he

did the Hindoo deliverer of gods and men. (_See Ancient Faiths_, vol IL,

p. 648, fig. 48).

But the parallel may even be carried farther, for in the Indian history

it is Agni, the embodiment of fire or the fire or sun god, who

becomes the dove; whilst in the Christian history, fire is one of the

manifestations of the Holy Ghost (Acts ii. 3). We conclude this from the

fact, that all devout churchmen believe that the Holy Ghost descended

upon the day of Pentecost with the sound of a rushing mighty wind, as

a multitude of cloven fiery tongues, which again suggests to the

recollection of those familiar with the Vedic story, that the

Maruts--rushing, mighty, stormy winds--were frequent attendants upon

Agni For example, in one of the Hymns (p. 39) of the Rig Veda Sanhita

(translated by Max Mueller), the burden or chorus of every verse is,

"with the Maruts come hither, O Agni." Here, however, the parallel

between the two myths ceases, for in the Indian tale the saviour has no

earthly mother. We may really affirm that he has no mother at all, being

the offspring of the father alone, whilst in the Christian history, the

deliverer is represented as having no human sire. The one story is just

as likely to be true as the other, or just as unlikely. As a reasonable

being I cannot believe the one without crediting the other, or reject

only one of the two.

With this preface, we may proceed to relate the legend as recorded

by Moor. A certain devil or Daitya--for it must be remarked that the

Hindoos regard the devil as being composed of many individualities,

much in the same way as Christians do--was extremely ambitious and

oppressive, as Satan is said to have been in heaven.* To force Brahma

to promise him any boon he should require, the ascetic went through the

following penances, persisting in each for a hundred years. (1) He stood

on one foot, holding the other, and both hands upwards, and fixed his

eyes on the sun. (2) He stood on one great toe. (3) He lived upon water

alone. (4) He lived on air. (5) He immersed himself in water. (6) He

buried himself in the earth, and yet continued as before in incessant

adoration. (7) He then did the same in fire. (8) Then he stood upon his

head with his feet upwards. (9) He then stood upon one hand. (10) He

hung by his hands from a tree. (11) He hung on a tree with his head

downwards.

* I call attention to these parallels, for they compel as

either to accept the Hindoo stories as true, because they

coincide with that which Christians regard as "revealed

truth," or they oblige as to distrust our current ideas as

to the inspired verity of some biblical stories, founded as

they are upon the same, or a similar, basis to those of the

Brahmins. The Hindoo tale being founded in the Sinpurana,

there can be no reasonable doubt that its fabrication

preceded that of the Hebrew or Christian mythos.

The effect of these austerities alarmed all the gods, and they went to

Brahma for consolation. He answered that though he was bound to grant

the boon desired by a man who became powerful by his austerities, he

would devise a method of rendering it inoffensive to the heavenly host.

Tarika, the name borne by the Daitya, asked for the gift of unrivalled

strength, and that no hand should slay him except a son of Mahadeva.

This being acquired, he plundered all the minor gods--the sun, dreading

him, gave no heat; and the moon, in terror, remained always at the

full--in short, the devil, Tarika, usurped the entire management of the

universe. Nareda--the personification of Reason--Wisdom, the Logos, or

"word," now prophesied that the destined deliverer, or saviour of the

world, would come from the union of Mahadeva and Parvati. But the

first was indisposed to marry, and only consented to do so after being

mollified by ardent devotions and great austerities enacted by the

second. To the horror, however, of the discomfited world, Parvati was

barren; and the gods deputed Agni to try to produce the son whom all

so earnestly desired. He took the form of "a dove," and arrived in the

presence of Mahadeva just as he had risen from the arms of Parvati,

and received from him, in a manner not easy or necessary to describe

minutely, the germ of Carticeya; but, unable to retain it, the bird let

it fall from his bill into the Ganges. On the banks of this river arose,

therefrom, a boy, beautiful as the moon, and bright as the sun. This was

"The Saviour" promised by the prophet. When he attained to manhood, he

fought the devil in a terrific combat which lasted ten whole days; but

Carticeya came off the conqueror, and delivered the world. I may notice

in passing that as Carticeya is represented to be the son of his

father, Mahadeva alone--so Ganesa, who was born after the marriage

above referred to, is said to be solely the son of his mother, Parvati;

Mahadeva not having anything to do with him. It is still farther stated

in the _Sin purana_ that the husband was jealous, and displeased at

this assumption of independent power by his spouse, punished her in the

person of this mysterious son (Moor, H. P., page 171-2).

There is another Hindoo story in which a father alone becomes the

progenitor of twins--and it is remarkable, not only for this, but for

the dread which a deity is said to feel from the austerities of a man.

Wheeler (_History of India_, vol. i, p. 78; Williams' _Sanscrit Lexicon,

s. v. Kripa_), regards this tale as Brahmanical, and, accepting his

authority, we can see that the asceticism which is introduced into the

story is intended to exalt the claims of that section of the priesthood

who torture themselves. It runs thus:--Saradvat, by the magnitude of his

penances, frightened Indra, who sent a celestial nymph to tempt him.

He resisted all her wiles, and refused all commerce with her; but his

excited imagination produced one of its common effects, and from that

which was "spilled upon the ground" a boy and girl arose, Drona and

Kripa. In Wheeler's sketch of the story, two such miraculous events

occur, for a precisely similar occurrence took place with a certain

Raja--and the males sprung from this supernatural form of generation,

Drona and Drupada, became cronies, and were educated together. In

Wheeler's account Kripa becomes the wife of Drona, and not his twin

sister. She is represented to have been born from a Brahmin named

Gautama, in the same fashion as Drona was. Certes, the scribes who wrote

the gospels, and doubled wonders to make them more miraculous, are far

behind the Hindoos in the unblushing effrontery of their conceptions.

A story somewhat analogous to that of the origin of Carticeya--Drona

and Drupada, is to be found in Grecian mythology. Therein we read

(see Lempriere's _Classical Dictionary, 8.V_., Minerva), that

Jupiter promised to his daughter, Minerva, that she should never be

married--since that was her especial desire. But, unfortunately, the

Thunderer had not a good memory, and was unable to foresee the future;

he therefore promised to Vulcan that he would--in return for a perfect

suit of armour--give him whatsoever boon he asked. The distorted god,

being a great admirer of the personification of wisdom, demanded Minerva

in marriage. Zeus then granted his petition and gave Minerva to him for

a bride, so that "arts and arms" should thenceforth be wedded together.

But the goddess disliked Vulcan, just as much as science and philosophy

shun war and physical weapons. Jupiter then privately counselled his

daughter to submit, apparently, but to contend, actually, whenever her

husband should endeavour to caress her. This advice the goddess very

artfully and determinately carried out. But Vulcan's impetuosity was

extreme, and the contest between the spouses was prolonged. Though the

promised wife was in the end victorious, and retained her virginity, the

scene of the strife, like many another battle-field, required cleansing.

The material employed by the goddess in the process was thrown down

to earth, and from this stuff sprung Ericthonius, as the son of Vulcan

alone, who, on attaining man's estate, became the fourth king of Athens.

A somewhat similar story is told of Jupiter (Arnobius, _adv. Gentes_, B.

v.), who is represented as enamoured of Themis, who, when lying on the

rock Agdus, in Phrygia, and there surprised by the god, resisted his

desires, as Minerva had done those of Vulcan, and with a somewhat

similar result. But in this instance, that which the author calls in

another passage of his work, the _vis Lucilii_, fell upon the hard rock.

This conceived, and, after ten months, the stony soil brought forth a

son, called, from his maternal parent, Agdistis. His character, and even

his appearance, were frightful and rugged in the extreme. His strength,

recklessness, and audacity frightened all the gods. In their dilemma,

Bacchus offered to give his aid, and proceeded first to make the man

drunk by substituting wine for the water of the fountain from which he

habitually drank. Then, by a curious contrivance, he made the fierce

hunter emasculate himself. The earth swallows up the sanguinary ruins

of his manhood, and in their place comes up a pomegranate tree in full

bearing. This being seen by Nana, a king's daughter, she plucks some of

the fruit, and lays it in her bosom. By this she becomes pregnant, and,

her story being disbelieved, her father attempts to starve her. But the

mother of the gods sustains her with apples (see Canticles ii. 5),

and berries, or other food. Her baby, when born, is exposed as being

illegitimate, but found by a goatherd and brought up--becoming the all

but deified Atys.

In this legend, we see one son born without a human mother, and a second

without any other father than Rimmon, or a pomegranate.*

* Agdus, Agdistis, &c--I am frequently tempted, after

reading a story like the preceding, to search in the

Sanscrit lexicon to ascertain if there can be any esoteric

signification in the legend that can be explained by that

ancient language. Arnobius opens the story with a statement

of the remote antiquity of the tale, and how it is connected

with the Great Mother. He then tells of a wild district in

Phrygia, called Agdus. Stoaes taken from it, as Themis had

enjoined, were used by Deucalion and Pyrrha to repeople the

world which had been destroyed by a flood. The great mother

was fashioned amongst the rest, and animated by the deity;

then follows the story given in the text. Now, in the

Sanscrit, Agadha signifies a "hole or chasm," and such

things have from the earliest times typified the Celestial

Mother. Agdistis I take to be a Greek form of Agasti--son

both of Mitra and Varuna by Urvasi, said to have been born

in a water-jar, to have swallowed the ocean, and compelled

the Vindhya mountains to prostrate themselves before him,

&c. (Monier Williams' Sanskrit English Lexicon, pp. 4, 6).

Themis may be a corruption of Dhamas--the moon, an epithet

of Vishnu, Yama, and Brahma; also the Supreme Spirit (M. W.

op. cit., p. 448). Deucalion seems readily to be resolved

into the dyu or div--holy, and Kalam, semen virile (M. W.,

p. 211). Pyrrha may apparently be derived from bdra--an

opening or aperture (M. W.); also bhdra--bearing, carrying,

cherishing, supporting (M. W., p. 700). Atys, described as

of surpassing beauty, may fairly be associated with atisi

and atisaya--to surpass, excel, exceed; and pre-eminence,

superiority (M. W., op. cit., p. 15). Liber, again, who is

clever enough to outwit and conquer Agdistis, may, without

too strong a stretch of imagination, come from Idbha--

obtaining, gaining, getting; capture, conquest; the rootword

is labh--to seize, to take hold of, gain, recover, regain,

fcc. (M. W., p. 861, 2). Nana, the mother of Atys the

beautiful, has probably come from nanda--happiness,

pleasure, joy, felicity, delight (M. W., op. cit. p. 467).

In the previous volumes I have referred to the pomegranate--

Hebrew, Rimmon--as an emblem. In the legend which makes Nana

conceive by eating this fruit, there are, I fancy, two

ideas--one, that the pomegranate is filled with seeds and

pulp of a red colour; the other, that in the Greek its name

is rota, or roa, which has a close resemblance in sound with

reo--to flow or gush. Of the word Midas--the name of him who

sought to bring about the union of the opposite sexes by

marrying his daughter Nana to Attis or Atys, the most

appropriate etymon which I can find in the Sanscrit is in

the root math, which signifies to strike fire by rubbing

wood together, to churn or produce by churning.

If we allow that there is truth in these derivations, we can then see

how completely Arnobius has been deceived by taking the legend au pied

de la lettre. He sees nothing but the exoteric side of the fable; the

more instructed philosopher sees in it nothing beyond an attempt to

weave a story to account for ordinary men and women existing. The Earth,

from her deep womb produces stones which become male and female (compare

Psalm cxxzix. 15--"When I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in

the lowest parts of the earth." But mycologists were not always content

with giving precedence in creation to the "Great Mother," consequently

the "Father of all" comes upon the scene from no one knows where.

Refusing to share with him her supremacy, he, like the Hindoo Mahadeva,

becomes a father in spite of her. Like his parent, the son becomes

raging mad, like an elephant or a horse in spring. He is tamed by

castration, but the parts he loses still bear a fructifying power,

and once more, a maiden--type of the celestial virgin, has offspring.

Without going further into the tale, the story teller endeavours again

to introduce marriage, but on the threshold arrests himself, apparently

under the idea that the wedded state takes away the pleasure of freedom

from fine young men. Beyond this point it would be unprofitable to go,

since few of us can realize Greek ideas on certain matters.

The origin of Venus is told by Hesiod in such a manner as to lead his

readers to believe that, not only was she the daughter of a father

alone, but of that particular part of his body which has been deified

as a Trinity. After speaking (_Theogmy_, 170-200), of the cruelty of

Ouranos, and how his wife inspirited Cronos to punish his father by

means of a sickle made of white iron extracted from her body (t.&, the

earth), we read--"Then came vast Heaven, Ouranos, bringing Night with

him, and eager for love, brooded around Earth (_Ge_) and lay stretched,

I wot, on all sides; but his son from out his ambush grasped at him with

his left hand, whilst in his right he took the huge sickle, long and

jagged-toothed, and hastily mowed off the genitals of his sire, and

threw them, to be carried away, behind him. These fell into the sea,

and kept drifting a long time up and down the deep, and all around kept

rising a white foam from the immortal flesh; and in it a maiden was

nourished. First, she drew nigh divine Cythera, and thence came next to

wave-washed Cyprus. Then forth stepped an awful, beauteous goddess; and

beneath her delicate feet the verdure throve around; her, gods and men

name Aphrodite the foam-sprung goddess," &c. (Bonn's Translation, p.

11,12).

Still further, we find in the Grecian mythology that Minerva was the

offspring of Jupiter without a mother being in the case--unless we

put faith in the tale, that the god impregnated Metis, or wisdom, and

afterwards ate her up. In this case the goddess ought, however, to have

emerged from the abdomen, and not from the head of her father. Vulcan,

moreover, is said to have been the son of Juno alone, "who in this

wished to imitate Jupiter, who had produced Minerva from his brains"--a

mythos which does not tally with the statement that Zeus ordered Vulcan

to cleave his head open, not the part corresponding to the yoni The

tales certainly lack that evidence which the philosopher is bound to

seek for; but for those orthodox believers who are bound to credit every

extraordinary event which is recorded in the books of the faithful,

no testimony is required. Those who feel assured that a serpent, ox,

donkey, tree, bush, and other things have spoken rationally, can readily

extend their trust and assure themselves that a female has had a child

without a male, and _vice versa_--especially when the individuals were

divine.

As we have before remarked, there is nothing in the mythological stories

which we have just recounted that is either more or less miraculous than

conception, &c., by a virgin without the intervention of a human

spouse. There is, whenever a miraculous agency is presumed, no greater

difficulty in believing that children may be produced without mothers,

than that they should be formed without the intervention of a father.

Ere a tree can rise in the soil of a field, a germ, seed, or cutting is

as necessary as the existence of a moist mould, or other ground. There

being then no greater probability that a crop will spring from a moist

plain without seed, than that an abundant harvest will come from dry

seed alone, we are necessarily thrown back upon testimony, when we are

asked to believe in the paternity of man and the maternity of woman

without any association of the one with the other.

The mythologists who conceived, or who recorded the fabulous history of

Orion, evidently had some idea in their minds of the necessity of two

elements in the formation and growth of a child, when they told the

tale of the generation of that giant; and the myth connected with this

individual is so curiously like one recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures,

that it deserves full notice. In Genesis the narrative informs us that

there was an old couple, both beyond the age at which there is any

probability of either party performing the part necessary for the

production of offspring (Gen. xviii. 12), both were desirous of having

at least one son, but though they had been long united in marriage,

their aspirations had been vain. To this couple, or rather to the

husband, Jehovah is said to have appeared with two companions (Gen.

xviii. 1, 2), and as the man was hospitably disposed, he ordered his

wife to make some cakes, whilst he went to fetch and kill a calf for his

servant to dress and cook. The visitors then partook, alone, of the good

cheer, and when they had made the repast they promised the husband that

his long cherished desire should be fulfilled, and that he should have a

son. There does not, however, appear to be anything supernatural in the

generation of the infant, except the mere facts that the father had been

effete for some time, and the mother had always been barren even when

young, so that conception was more surely miraculous by reason of her

advanced age. The probability of pregnancy at Sarah's time of life was

certainly small, but she was reminded that nothing was too hard for

Jehovah to effect. Had not He already made man out of dust and woman out

of man? and surely after that it was easy to cause a man and woman to

act their respective parts. The reader must specially bear in mind this

observation of the Lord's when he reads the Greek story following. (See

Ovid's _Fasti_, book 5).

"Jupiter, his brother Neptune, and Mercury, were on their travels; the

day was far spent and evening approached. They were spied by a venerable

man, an humble farmer, who stood in the doorway of his small abode. He

accosts them with the words, 'long is the road and but little of the day

remains, my door too is ever open to the stranger,' and so earnest is

his look of entreaty, that the gods accept his invitation."

Jupiter and the others, however, conceal their divine nature, and

eat and drink like common men. But after a draught of wine, Neptune

inadvertently names Jupiter, and the poor man who has thus entertained

angels unawares, is frightened at their presence. After a few moments of

natural embarrassment, he goes to his field and kills his only ox--the

drawer of his plough--then he cuts up the animal, roasts it well,

produces his best wine, and lays the feast, when ready, before his

august guests. Then Jove, delighted with his hospitality and piety, says

to the farmer, 'If thy inclination leads thee to desire anything, wish

for it, and thou shalt receive it.' To which the old man answers, 'I

once had a dear wife, known as the choice of my early youth, yet she is

now gone from me and an urn contains her ashes.

To her I vowed, calling upon you my lord gods as witnesses to the oath,

that I would never wed me more. I swore and will keep my word. She and

I longed for a son, yet none came to bless our declining years. I yearn

for one now, but will not endeavour to procure one, I wish to be a

father, yet refuse to be a husband or enact his part.' To deities like

Jupiter, such a request was by no means a difficult one to grant, the

gods could as readily form a boy as they could fabricate Pandora--a

lovely woman--and send her to Prometheus, with all the ills which flesh

is heir to, confined in an ark, chest, or coffer. Yet the process of

what may be designated conception was a strange one. The three simply

relieved themselves of the wine which they had drunk, using the skin of

the slaughtered ox instead of a more commodious vessel. The man was then

ordered to bury the whole in the ground, and wait according to the time

of life. The gestation of the earth was completed in ten months, and

at the end of that period the venerable farmer possessed a fine lad who

grew up and became famous. If, now, we substitute for the Grecian name,

Hyrieus, the Hebrew title Abraham; if for Jupiter, Neptune, and Mercury,

we read, Jehovah and two angels; if for the phrase, "they were on their

travels," we read, "they were going down to Sodom to see if it was as

bad a place as it was reported to be" (see Gen. xviii. 21); if for the

ox which was roasted, we place, "a calf tender and good," we see a

wonderful resemblance between the stories of the conception of Orion and

Isaac. But there is this difference that in the Hebrew tale the divine

gift is brought about by a transient restoration of power to Abraham

and Sarah; whilst in the Grecian mythos, the old man is faithful to

the memory of a beloved spouse, and refuses to renew with another the

pleasure which he had in her company. We conceive that the exigency of

the Jewish account, made it necessary that the son of Abraham should be

of his father begotten, as well as a child of promise; whereas no one

can call Orion the son of any one, although he was as surely a child of

promise granted by the gods, as Isaac was, who was given by Elohim (or

the gods) of the Hebrews.

We may enter now, for a short time, into a speculation whether the

Grecian story was borrowed from the Hebrew or the contrary. We are

disposed to believe that the tale was adopted by the Jews after they

became acquainted with the Greeks. The following are our reasons:--The

conception of a godhead composed of three persons, is foreign to the

Hebrew thoughts of the Almighty. Still further was it from Jewish

belief to think, that Jehovah would come down upon earth to acquire

information, and when there, eat and drink and talk like any ordinary

man. Amongst the Israelites it was generally held that no one could see

the face of God and live, On the other hand, the Greeks were familiar

with tales which told of gods coming down to earth in the guise of men.

As an illustration of this, we may point to Acts xiv. 11-13, wherein

we find that the people of Lycaonia imagined that the gods Jupiter and

Mercurius had come down to them in the likeness of men, and prepared

to sacrifice to them. Yet after all, Paul had simply cured a single

paralytic. On the other hand, the Jews regarded as rank blasphemy, and

a crime worthy of death, that Jesus should assert himself to be a son of

God, even although the miracles alleged in support of the assertion were

as stupendous as they were numerous.

Still, further, we cannot imagine that the degrading story of Jehovah's

feasting with Abraham could have been composed, except when the Jews

were no better than an untaught and grossly superstitious race. We

have already, in _Ancient Faiths, &c._, expressed our opinion that the

Israelites were at the very lowest period of their history at the time

when Isaiah began his exhortations. There had been a confederacy between

the men of Edom, of Moab, Gebal, Amnion, Amalek, Tyre, Philistia, and

Assyria, the Ismaelites and the Hagarenes, which had attacked Jerusalem

and Judea, and captured all the inhabitants, many of whom they sold to

the Grecians (see Joel iii. 5-7). At, and shortly after this time,

the Jews were in a condition of abject misery (see Isaiah i. 4-9), and

capable of believing any story told to them, and would just as easily

credit the mythology which the Grecian captives told, or their Grecian

masters taught, as their successors do those which at a subsequent

period filled the Hebrew Scriptures.

Whilst then, on the one hand, there is a probability of the Hebrews

having borrowed the fable from Hellenistic sources, there is, on the

other, the strongest objection to the supposition that the Greeks

should have borrowed from the Jews. Everything which the latter say of

themselves, indicates that they were exclusive to an inordinate

degree, refusing to have intercourse on equal terms with any of their

neighbours, that they never sought to make their history, laws, and

customs, known to Gentiles, and especially those outside of Judea, and

that their writings never assumed a Grecian dress until the time of

Ptolemy Philadelphus, who ordered the Septuagint translation to be made

about B.c. 285, with the direct view of making the Hebrew Scriptures

known to the Greeks.

Moreover, we know from everything which was said of the Jews by

the Gentiles, that the latter treated the former with contempt and

contumely, and would no more dream of imitating any of their writings,

&c., than we should care to adopt the myths of Abyssinian negroes as an

integral part of Christianity.

It will now be profitable if we examine the story of Sanchoniathon and

the statements of the Orphic Hymns.

We have, in the course of this chapter and elsewhere, so" often referred

to the Grecian story of the Creation as given by Sanchoniathon and in

the Orphic hymns, that I think my readers are entitled to receive

some further account of them; so I reproduce passages which bear upon

supernatural generation, and especially that of the world and its

inhabitants--my main authority being _Ancient Fragments, &c._, by J. P.

Cory (London, 1832).

Of Sanchoniathon we know little; our information may be summed up by

saying that he is mentioned eulogistically by Eusebius (a.d. 270-338),

an historian whose veracity cannot be entirely depended on. He says that

Sanchoniathon had, ere his time, been translated by a certain writer

called Philon Byblius, and it seems that Porphyry is credited with

having copied a great part of this translation into Greek from the

Phoenician. Nothing, however, is actually known of the historian in

question, except from Eusebius (_Smith's Dictionary_, p. 308, vol.III.,

s. v., Philon.) We may then assume, according to our inclination, either

that the story is really a compendium of Tyrian legendary lore, or

simply a representation of what the Greeks imagined. The way, however,

in which the generation of beings is described, well deserves attention

from its similarity, and its contrasts with the biblical story. First,

there was a breeze of thick air and Chaos. These united and produced

Pothos. This again united with the wind, and Mot was the result, also

called Ilus; from this sprung the seed of Creation. And there were

certain animals without sensation, from which intelligent animals were

produced.* After this follows a quantity of stuff that is traceable to

Hesiod, and a part of which may be considered a paraphrase of Genesis.

Then mention is made of Elioun, called Hypsistus (the most High),

and his wife Beruth--as being the contemporaries of others; but no

indication is given from whence they came. These produced Ouranos

(Heaven) and Ge (Earth). Their father was killed by wild beasts! Then

Ouranos married Ge, and had offspring by her. But he had other women,

and Ge was jealous. Ouranos, however, came to her when he listed and

attempted to kill her children. He had a son, Cronus, who drove him from

his kingdom. This son turns out to be the original being called Ilus,

and he contrived to emasculate his father, and from the blood which

flowed sprang rivers and fountains. The remainder of this story scarcely

deserves notice.

* The author of the tale evidently had something in common

with our modern Darwin.

Ere we turn our attention to the compositions known as the Orphic Hymns,

it will be interesting to inquire whether the preceding account of

Creation had a Phoenician origin, or may more fairly be traced to an

Indian source flowing through a Greek channel After a diligent search in

the Hebrew Lexicon--and it is to be noticed that the Hebrew is all but

identical with the Tyrian and Carthaginian, I cannot find any words

or roots from which the proper names in the opening paragraph of

Sanchoniathon can by any ingenuity be derived. Nor can I discover in the

Greek anything which explains the esoteric signification of the story.

But, on reference to the Sanscrit, there is a curious identity apparent

between the second verse in Genesis and a Hindoo idea. The former

runs:--"The earth was without form and void (_tohu ve bohu_), and

darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God moved

on the face of the waters." The Indian interpretation of the myth is

this:--"Air in motion, _vahu_, ruffled the inexplicable, or empty space,

_ka, has_, or _Icha, Icham_, a word also signifying 'nothing.' Thence

proceeded the earth, _Ua, or Mot_ (Sans); _Math_ (Sans) making fire

by rubbing sticks (coitus?) _Mada, mdda, and moda_, pleasure, delight,

gladness=love, Eros." This is almost the same idea that Hesiod

propounds.

In the Orphic Hymns we find much more clearly than in any other writing

amongst the ancient Greeks the early Hellenic notion of the generation

of the worlds and of mankind. Respecting the value of the fragments

there may be some difference of opinion. The curious and doubtful may

be referred to _Smith's Dictionary_ (s.v. Orpheus); for me it will

be sufficient to state that both Aristophanes and Plato refer to the

presumed author as a religious teacher and a preacher against murder,

and Euripides frequently mentions him. This will place Orpheus at least

before b.c. 480. If, however, we consider him as identical with the

oft-sung husband of Eurydice, we must place him B.c. 650 (Smith, s.v.).

In quoting from Cory's translation, I shall not scruple to make the

sense of more importance than literality: "Zeus is the first--he, the

thunderer, is the last; he is the head and the middle, he fabricated all

things. Zeus is male; he, the immortal, is also female; he founded the

earth and the starry heaven; he is the breath of all things, the rushing

of indefatigable fire. Zeus is the root of the sea, the sun and moon,

the king, the author of universal life; one power, one demon, the

mighty prince of all things; one kingly frame, in which this universe

revolves--fire and water, earth and ether, night and day, and Metis

(counsel); the primeval father and all delightful Eros (love). All these

things are united in the vast body of Zeus. Would you behold his head

and his fair face? It is the resplendent heaven, round which his golden

locks of glittering stars are beautifully exalted in the air. On each

side are the two golden taurine horns, the risings and settings, the

tracks of the celestial gods: his eyes are the sun and opposing moon;

his unfallacious mind the royal incorruptible Ether."

The next fragment has been filched by the author of _Sanchoniathon_, and

we must not quote it. After a recapitulation about Chaos, Cronos, Ether,

and Eros, he proceeds:--"I have sung the illustrious father of night

existing from eternity, whom men call Phanes, for he first appeared. I

have sung the birth of powerful Brimo (Hecate), and the unhallowed deeds

of the earth-born giants who showered down from heaven their blood--the

lamentable seed of generation, from whence sprung the race of mortals

who inhabit the boundless earth for ever."

"Chaos was generated first, and then the wide-bosomed Earth--the ever

stable seat of all the Immortals that inhabit the snowy peaks of Olympus

and the dark dim Tartarus in the depths of the broad-wayed earth, and

Eros--the fairest of the immortal gods, that relaxes the strength of

all, both gods and men, and subjugates the mind and the sage will in

their breasts. From Chaos were generated Erebus and black Night; and

from Night again were generated Ether and day, whom she brought forth,

having conceived from the embrace of Erebus; and Earth first produced

the starry heaven, equal to herself, that it might inclose all things

around herself."

The preceding is given by Hesiod (900 B.c.). The following is the

version given by Aristophanes:--"First were Chaos and Night, and black

Erebus and vast Tartarus; and there was neither Earth nor Air nor

Heaven: but in the boundless bosoms of Erebus, Night with her black

wings first produced an aerial egg, from which at the completed time

sprang forth the lovely Eros, glittering with golden wings upon his back

like the swift whirlwinds. But embracing the dark-winged Chaos in the

vast Tartarus he begot our race (the birds). The race of the Immortals

was not till Eros mingled all things together; but when the elements

were mixed one with another, Heaven was produced, and Ocean and Earth

and the imperishable race of all the blessed gods."

"Maia, supreme of gods, Immortal Night, tell me, &c." The next

invocation is to the double-natured Protogonus--the bull coming from

the egg, the renowned light, the ineffable strength, Priapus the king,

&c.--"Metis (wisdom) bearing the seed of the gods, whom the blessed

inhabitants of Olympus call Phanes Protogonus." "Metis the first father

and all-delightful Eros." Again, in allusion to Phanes,--

"Therefore the first god bears with himself the heads of animals--many

and single--of a bull, of a serpent, and of a fierce lion, and

they sprung from the primeval egg in which the animal is seminally

contained." "The theologist places around him the heads of a ram, a

bull, a lion, and a dragon, and assigns him first both the male and

female sex." "Female and Father is the mighty god Ericapeus; to him also

the wings are first given."

The Japanese account of the creation is of sufficient interest to

be noticed here. I quote it from a translation of the _Annals of the

Emperors of Japan_, by Mons. Titsingh, assisted by interpreters of the

Dutch Factory at Nagasaki, and rendered into French, after being duly

compared with the original by M. J. Klapworth--(printed for the Oriental

Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland; London, 1834). In the

account of the seven generations of the heavenly bodies, we are told

that "anciently the heaven and the earth were not distinct, nor was the

female principle then separated from the male. The chaos, having the

form of an egg, moved about like the waves of an agitated sea. The germs

of everything were there, and these ultimately divided, the pure and

transparent ones going upward to form heaven, whilst the dull and opaque

ones coagulated and formed the earth. Between the two a divine being

sprang up; he was followed by two others in succession." All these were

pure males, and engendered without consorts. After them came a male and

a female deity, but they had no intercourse with each other. These and

three other divine couples, who followed them, reproduced their like by

mutual contemplation. The last couple directed the "celestial spear

made of a red precious stone"--said by Japanese commentators to be

the phallus--into the world below, and stirred it up to the bottom. On

withdrawing the lance some drops fell from it and produced an island,

upon which the celestial couple descended. Each one then began to walk

in opposite directions around the isle, and when they met the feminine

spirit sang joyously--"I am delighted to find so handsome a young man."

But this vexed the male spirit, who, being a man, asserted that he ought

to have been allowed to speak the first. So they parted once more on

their solitary walk; and when they met the second time, the woman waited

to be spoken to. Then followed a conversation somewhat too coarse for

repetition, which was followed by corporeal union. From the intercourse

of these divine beings all creation sprang. But, after a time, the

partners reflected that there was still wanting a governor for the

world which they had engendered. So they again accoupled, and produced

a daughter so lovely, that her parents thought her too good for earth;

gave her the name of "the precious wisdom of the heavenly sun," and sent

her to heaven, there to assume the universal government of all things.

The parents once again united, and produced the moon, who was sent to

heaven to assist her sister. A terrible fellow was then born from them,

who represents the Devil, or those tempests which seem to oppose the

beneficent action of the sun upon the soil. The parents returned to

heaven, and there are constant contentions between the brother and

sister. The former is described as being furious under attempts at

control; generally, he was quiet, and always had tears in his eyes (dew

and rain), but sometimes, when provoked, he broke every thing, uprooted

trees, and set the mountain forests on fire. We need not pursue

the story further than to say that the celestial beings created a

terrestrial couple, whose children bear considerable resemblance to the

Greek Jupiter, Apollo, Neptune, and others, and from them came the first

Emperors of Japan. In the matter of evidence upon such a point as the

conception of a man without a woman, or a woman without a man, it is

clear that unsupported assertion is wholly valueless.

For example, I may for a time absent myself from general society, and

return to it again after a certain interval, having with me a child,

whom I assert to be my very own, produced by my own inherent power, just

as a tree produces a leaf which grows, matures, and falls. I may frame

a romantic account of a dream, in which I was told that if I planted

myself in the central bed of a certain garden, and contrived an

apparatus for daily watering my buried legs, that a child would sprout

from my right side, who should be to me as a daughter. Yet, however

ingenious my tale, there is not any one possessing sound sense and

knowledge who would believe me. In like manner, if a woman should tell a

story analogous, though not identical, she is certain to be discredited;

even the assertion of the existence of a divine father would not, if the

woman were unmated, save her character from a stain.

We may next refer to the legend of Prometheus, inasmuch as in many

points it resembles the Hebrew mythos so greatly, that we must imagine

they both have a common origin, or that the one is a copy--though

an indifferent one, of the other. Prometheus, or forethought, was

represented to be the first who made an ordinary man--he formed him

of clay, and then animated him with fire from heaven. The Jewish tale

asserts that it was Jehovah who made the first man. That man was first

formed like a statue out of clay or dust, and had no life until breath

was infused into his nostrils. In both stories man alone is formed

first. In the Grecian fable Prometheus does not make a consort for his

man; nay, he refuses to receive one for himself when the gods send

to him Pandora--a paragon of loveliness. Instead of this he gives the

damsel to Epimetheus--or after-thought--who takes her carelessly, and

finds that even a charming woman is not a guarantee against cares and

woes. Some accounts, however, say that Prometheus made both man and

woman out of clay.

The discrepancy does not signify much, for we see the same in Genesis,

wherein we are told in one place that man and woman were made together,

whilst in another the story runs that Adam preceded Eve, and that,

instead of being formed of dust or clay, the latter was formed of bone.

We may now refer to the story of Apollonius Tyaneus, whose history has

interest for us, inasmuch as it illustrates three important points, upon

which much stress has been, and may still be, laid by inquiring minds.

The most conspicuous is the propensity of historians, or, to speak

more correctly, of a biographer, to record wonderful things about an

extraordinary man; next the ridicule cast upon the tale by those who

have circulated stories equally improbable, and the indication that

travel to Hindostan was apparently common, prior to and during his time.

In sketching the life of the philosopher, I quote something from

_Le Dictionnaire Infernal_, and the rest from Smith's _Biographical

Dictionary_. The philosopher in question was born about 4 years B.C. His

history was written by Philostratus, about 100 years after the hero's

death, and is ostensibly founded upon memoirs left by his secretary,

Damis, an Assyrian, who accompanied Apollonius during his travels, and

recorded his discourses and prophecies, and acted much as Luke did with

Paul.

Amongst the proofs which Damis gives of his veracity, he tells us that

when he and his master traversed the Caucasus, they saw the chains which

bound Prometheus, still fixed to the rocks. This bit of verification

is now derided, but in my school-days I recollect having an account put

into my hands, written by some author, stating that the remains of the

ark were still to be seen upon Mount Ararat.*

* On the day before this was written there appeared in _The

Telegraph_ a paragraph, to the effect that an Assyrian slab

had been translated by Mr. Smith of the British Museum. The

record is said to give an account of "the deluge," and it

tallies nearly with that given by Berosus, recorded in my

second volume. It adds, however, that the ark was at that

period in existence, and its wood and bitumen used as

amulets. Singularly enough, the tale is supposed to confirm

the bible legend, the writer of the paragraph never dreaming

that it more certainly confirms the Babylonian or Assyrian

origin of the book of Genesis. The other parts of this slab,

which were wanting, have more recently been found. But there

is no necessity for me to change the wording of the note.

There was also current a "Joe Miller" about some old woman, who would

not believe in flying-fish, which her sailor-boy had seen, but who

readily believed his tale of hooking up a chariot wheel on an anchor

fluke from the bottom of the Red Sea!

Dr. Smith, or Mr. Jowett, the author of the article, very judiciously

says--"We have purposely omitted the wonders with which Philostratus has

garnished his narrative.... _Many of these are curiously coincident with

the Christian miracles_--(the italics are our own). The proclamation of

the birth of Apollonius to his mother by Proteus, and the incarnation of

Proteus himself; the chorus of swans which sung for joy on the occasion,

the casting out of devils, the raising the dead and healing the

sick, the sudden disappearances and reappearances of Apollonius; his

adventures in the cave of Trophonius, and the sacred voice which called

him at his death--to which may be added his claim as a teacher, having

authority to reform the world--cannot fail to suggest the parallel

passages in the Gospel history." We learn, moreover, that the biographer

was high in favour with Alexander Severus, and that Eusebius of Caesarea

naively allows the truth of Philostratus' narrative in the main, with

the exception of what is miraculous. None of the authors quoted seem

to think of the adage--"Change but the names, and the same classes of

wonders are a matter of faith to you." Surely it is as easy to credit

the strange deeds of Proteus as those of Gabriel.

Whether we choose to adopt the hypothesis that Apollonius was a rival

of Jesus, that the Nazarene and Tyanean were independent of each other,

that the evangelists took a hint from Damis, or Philostratus imitated

Luke in more ways than one, we have still the fact that two different

biographers, giving a history of the life of two contemporary

individuals, assert that the birth of their respective heroes was

announced by a divine being, who himself brought about the conception

of the infant that, on arriving at maturity, was held to be divine.

In writing thus, it will be distinctly understood that we draw no

comparison between Jesus and Apollonius, but only between the authors

who have undertaken their respective biography.

Leaving this curious point, the next noteworthy one is that Philostratus

records, that the Tyanean went through Assyria, Babylonia, and Bactria,

to India, "where he met Jarchus, the chief of the Brahmins, and disputed

with Indian gymnosophists _already versed in Alexandrian philosophy_."

I have placed these last words in italics, to call attention to the

apparent belief of the historian, that prior to his day there had been

extensive religious communication between India and Greece--a point on

which I have much insisted in a previous chapter. The Tyanean is said to

have been five years upon his eastern journey. We have no idea where the

Nazarene was during his youth and before he began his public career, and

we cannot help regarding the omission to notice this part of his life as

being blameworthy in the evangelists. Those who knew so much of Jesus at

his conception, and about his birth and infancy, could surely, if they

would, have informed us of his adult years.

Nor, _a propos_ to this short account of the biography of Apollonius, by

Damis and Philostratus, must we omit to notice the conceits of those

who have assumed that the Tyanean was set up as a counterfoil to, or an

imitator of, Jesus of Nazareth; for, just as the Christians may, with

some show of reason, affirm that the miracles recorded in their writings

have been filched by others; so may the Buddhist, with still greater

plausibility, declare that the greatest part of the life of the

Nazarene, as given in the Gospels, has been copied almost verbatim from

the biographers or evangelists of the Indian saga For myself, I consider

that the miraculous parts of the history of all the three conspicuous

men which have been named are equally true or--false.

The idea of attributing to the Supreme God the birth, or, rather, the

procreation, of an extraordinary man, seems, so far as we can judge, to

have existed in the Western Hemisphere as well as in the Eastern. For

example, in an interesting book, entitled _New Tracks in North America_,

by W. A. Bell, M.A., M.B., Cantab; London, 1869, we find the following

legend respecting Montezuma, the most popular ruler of the ancient

Mexicans. The legend is intended to explain the occurrence of vast ruins

amongst the Pima Indians, of which other history is silent, and runs

thus: "Long ago a woman of exquisite beauty ruled over the valleys and

the region south of them. Many suitors came from far to woo her, and

brought presents innumerable of corn, skins, and cattle to lay at her

feet. Her virtue and determination to continue unmarried remained alike

unshaken, and her store of worldly possessions so greatly increased,

that, when drought and desolation came upon her land, she fed her people

out of her great abundance, and did not miss it, there was so much left.

One night, as she lay asleep, her garment was blown from off her breast,

and a dew drop from the Great Spirit fell upon her bosom, entered her

blood, and caused her to conceive. In time she bore a child, who was

none other than Montezuma, who built the large 'Casas,' and all the

other ruins which are scattered through the land" (vol. i. p. 199).

It is allowable for the reader to doubt whether there ever was a Mexican

Queen whose renown was spread far and wide, who preferred celibacy to

marriage, and who, being rich, was not plundered by the chiefs whose

alliance was rejected. We may equally doubt the efficacy of a drop

of water, even though it came from the Great Celestial Spirit; but,

notwithstanding every objection which the most sceptical can advance,

the legend is quite as probable as those current amongst the ancient

Greeks, the religious Hindoos, and a large portion of modern Christians.

A miracle, always improbable, is not necessarily true because it is said

to have occurred in the old world, or indubitably false because it is

reported to have happened in the new. Nor can one who regards faith as

superior to reason, refuse to believe or to question the truth of

any supernatural story simply because he was not told it during his

childhood or youth.

When the philosophical inquirer finds that in every country, with whose

literature we are familiar, there are, not only abundance of tales

about supernatural generation before the world was formed, but from

the earliest periods of history to our own day, he may well pause

and inquire into the intrinsic value of a religion or a faith that is

founded mainly, if not wholly, upon the assertion that a certain person

was the son of the Supreme Creator, and being so, has the qualities of

his sire as well as those of his human mother. The orthodox in Britain

do not believe in Cristna, Krishna, or Vishnu, because the Hindoo sacred

books declare that he has appeared repeatedly as an incarnation of

the Creator--nor do they credit the tales told of the supernatural

generation of Bacchus or Hercules--yet, when they are asked what

stronger evidence they have for the truth of their own story, they are

unable to give more than affirmations, strong, perhaps, but not more so

than those of ancient Hellenic priests.

It is out of my province, now, to enter into every thing connected

with the doctrine held by those who are known as Trinitarians. My

main endeavour in this part of my subject is to clear the way for

"reconstruction." It is my desire to give to those who have not the

leisure, or, perhaps, the inclination, to wade through the dull tomes of

theological, mythological, and similar books, an account of what is and

has been entertained as religious belief by others, with whom, or with

whose opinions, they have not come in contact. I have no special wish to

prove that my opinions are right and the prevailing ones wrong; my chief

aim is to give data by which others may form a judgment for themselves.

With this view I have systematically endeavoured to satisfy myself of

the trustworthiness of the witnesses whom I call upon to testify to

facts; to my knowledge, nothing has been suppressed which seems to me to

bear upon my subject, nor is aught set down in malice.

In my next chapter I shall institute an inquiry into another important

doctrine, held by Christians from their first existence until the

present day, namely, the Existence and Ministration of Angels. Since the

chapter was originally written, Dr. Kalisch has published an essay upon

the same subject in the second part of his commentary upon Leviticus.

I shall probably take the liberty of quoting from his pages; but, as

we treat the matter from different points of view, I do not feel called

upon to suppress my own work because he has preceded me. It gives me

pleasure to feel and to know that fellow-workers in the same toilsome

task, not only may help each other, but rejoice in the opportunity of so

doing.