“Knowing his adopted land well, the Eastern does not require recondite volumes to explain ‘Dionysiak myths’ or ‘solar theories,’ as the old faiths are now called in the West. He sees these pervading the tales and epiks of East and West alike, just as Yahvism or Yahu-ism pervades the Scriptures of Jews or Yahus—that ever-familiar and expressive faith-term by which alone Asia knows the ‘Yahudean’ race.” While fully admitting the true character of the old faith as here expressed, yet, with all due deference to one of such acknowledged repute in the literary world as Major-General Forlong, whose splendid work, entitled “Rivers of Faith” (Preface, p. xxi.) contains the above paragraph, it may be fairly urged that the educated few only, both among Easterns and Westerns, have hitherto been capable of discerning the vein of solar myth which pervades all systems of religion; while the vast multitude of ignorant and credulous people even yet perceive, or think they perceive, the Divine handiwork in the particular sacred oracle to which they firmly pin their faith. The Hindu supreme deity is known as Brahm, the Persian as Ormuzd, the Mohammedan as Allah, and the Jewish and Christian as El, Elohim, Yahouh (or Jehovah), God, etc. Probably few among the many millions who worship these various deities know much or anything about their origin, innocently imagining that the Deity they bow allegiance to once manifested itself to some chosen individual, to whom it gave a revelation, the facts of which were handed down to posterity. They little dream of the vast cycles of time that have rolled past since the brain of man attained such a state of perfection as to enable it to evolve the idea of Deity. It is utterly impossible for the human mind to grasp the enormous interval of time that has elapsed since primeval man emerged from the condition of unreasoning existence to enter upon the bright dawn of intellectual activity, which has developed into such mighty proportions as we behold to-day. Let us carry the mind back far beyond the Dark Ages, through the classic era, as far even as the very commencement of Egyptian history; and even then we find ourselves but little nearer that remote period in which the first spark of intelligence made its debÛt upon the platform of life. In imagination we may go still further back, and view the wonders of that ancient Asian civilisation which preceded that of the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, and which was probably derived very gradually from the earliest social conceptions of the Caucasian branch of the Polynesian primitive man. Still we are ages away from the period we desire to arrive at; and even were we able to trace the human family back to that remote time when man could not be said to partake more of the character of the human than the ape species, still we should even then be unable to point to the precise moment when intellect shed its glorious rays upon the race, making bright, clear, and beautiful what before was dark, misty, and unmeaning. The ancient ProsimiÆ gradually became Catarrhine apes, which, in their turn, as slowly assumed the characters of the AnthropoidÆ, and afterwards of ape-like men; but the time required for this imperceptibly gradual process of evolution was probably many hundred thousands of years, during which period, or perhaps even at a prior time the first intellectual spark became manifest: how, when, or for what ultimate purpose it is apparently beyond our power to devise.

How soon after the dawn of intellect the conception of Deity was evolved in the human brain it is equally impossible to say; but the probability is that the date was a very early one, for it seems highly probable that such a conception would be among the very first efforts of the mind, the materials necessary for the stimulation of such an effort being at hand at any moment. We can imagine our early fathers groping in the darkness of ignorance, with mental powers on a par with those of the awakening minds of our own children, seeing bogies in every natural phenomenon, and tremblingly glowering at the spectra of their own imaginations. Having no experience of the past or knowledge of the future, they would indeed be in a most helpless condition, relying entirely upon the instinctive capabilities they had inherited from their ancestors. By degrees, however, their various faculties would be further awakened by impressions received from external objects; their wants would be multiplied in proportion to their intellectual development, causing them to manifest a desire for industry; and their self-consciousness would arouse within them a feeling of dignity and importance to which they had hitherto been strangers. Thus gradually would the race cast off its animal and put on its human clothes. The old plan of hand-to-mouth existence would be abolished by the newly-developed reason of man; the innumerable dangers which confronted him would undoubtedly stimulate him to approach his fellows with the object of establishing mutual aid and of co-operating for their common welfare; and a feeling of confident superiority over others of the animal kingdom would become apparent among them. Not only would man’s attention be arrested by the impending dangers of each day, the necessity of procuring sustenance for himself and family, and the obvious advantages accruing from co-operation, but also by the constantly-recurring natural phenomena, such as the rising and setting of the sun, moon and stars, the never-ending succession of day and night, etc., as well as by the no less wonderful, and certainly more awful, occasional natural occurrences, such as lightning, thunder, and earthquake. He would be as much struck with wonder and amazement at the one set of phenomena as with awe at the other. The returning sun-light would each morning produce joy in his heart equally as much as the inevitable recurrence each night of darkness would produce a feeling of sadness, dread, and despair. We can easily imagine the long hours of horror our first fathers must have passed through each night among the yells and howls of the savage monsters by which they were surrounded, and how they anxiously looked forward to the return of that glorious orb which would bring back to them daylight, sunshine, warmth, and happiness. What a boon it must have been to them! Can we wonder that they should have regarded the sun with particular affection? It would have been remarkable, indeed, had they not done so; and it is more than probable that this daily re-appearance of the sun on the eastern horizon was actually what prompted the first conception of deity. The very oldest mythology with which we are acquainted appears strongly to bear out this theory, and, indeed, in every other mythological system we find the re-appearing sun to be one of the principal objects of devotion and affection. If we turn our gaze to that part of Asia, along the banks of the Oxus, over which our Aryan ancestors wandered thousands of years before the time of the earliest Egyptian dynasty, we find there a clue to the origin of the original conception of deity. Among these early people were composed the hymns of the Rig-Veda, which are probably the earliest records of any race, and in which we find personified the phenomena of the heavens and earth, the storm, the wind, the rain, the stars, etc. The earth is represented as a flat, indefinite surface, existing passively, and forming the foundation of the whole universe; while above it the luminous vault of heaven forms a dwelling place for the fertile and life-giving light and a covering for the earth below. To the earth the Aryans gave the name of Prihovi, “the wide expanse;” the vault of heaven they called Varuna, “the vault;” while the light between the two, in the cloud region, they named Dyaus, “the luminous air,” “the dawn.” Varuna and Prihovi, in space, together begat Agni, the fire-god, the sun in heaven and life-giver of the universe; and Soma, the ambrosial deity of earth, god of immortality, fertiliser of the waters, nourisher of plants, and quickener of the semen of men and animals. In these hymns frequent mention is made of the joy experienced at the return of dawn, and of the saddening effect produced upon the mind by the ever-recurring twilight which ushered in the dark and dreary night. We meet with incantations expressive of the wildest excitement at the welcome appearance of the dawn-god, Dyaus, which heralded the approach of the sun-god, Agni, who is led up to the summit of his ascension, or bosom of Varuna, by the conquering god of battle, Indra, the defeater of the evil powers of darkness; and we find the most pathetical appeals both to Agni and Indra to remain longer over the earth, and co-operate with Soma in replenishing nature, instead of sinking into the twilight, or shades of evening, to be slain by Vritra, “the coverer,” and tormented in the darkness of night by Ahi, the dragon, and other cruel monsters. This is precisely the drama we should expect to find depicted in the earliest writings of man; is the root of all future religious ideas; and is still to be found pervading almost every modern religious faith. It is a beautiful representation of the earliest yearnings and fears of our forefathers; and, though the picture is now and then almost effaced by numerous subsequent additions of mythological lore, yet the original conception remains indelibly depicted in the religions of the present day, furnishing us with the key to the study of comparative mythology.

It will be necessary, in order to compare, with any degree of accuracy, the mythological systems which subsequently developed from this primitive conception of a ruling power, to glance at the mode of distribution of the various branches of the earliest human family; and in doing so we must ever keep in mind the more than probable fact that that portion of the earth’s surface which is now covered by the Indian Ocean once formed a large equatorial continent, uniting the east coast of Africa with Arabia, India, Ceylon, and the Malay Peninsula. Instead of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates emptying their waters into the Persian Gulf, and the Indus into the Arabian Sea, it is highly probable that these rivers united to form one large estuary, which emptied itself into the ocean on the south of the now submerged continent of Lemuria. It is equally probable that the large rivers, Ganges and Brahmapootra, likewise found an outlet south of a line drawn from Point de Gall to Singapore. On this submerged continent, and on the shores of these long-lost streams, it is supposed man evolved from the anthropoid apes, in the early Pleiocene, or perhaps even in the later Meiocene, geological period of the world’s history. The transition stage in the pedigree of man between the AnthropoidÆ and true men—that is to say, between man-like Catarrhine apes and beings possessing a larger proportion of the characteristics of the human than of the ape species—is known to Anthropologists by the name of Alali, or ape-like men. These wild and ill-formed savages wandered about in bands along the banks of these monster rivers, passing their time in hunting their less fortunate brethren of the animal kind. In course of time they multiplied and spread over the entire continent, killing all such monsters as interfered with their safety or comfort, and gradually dividing and sub-dividing into families and races, each acquiring, under the influence of the two laws of selection and adaptation, peculiarities and characteristics not common to the remainder. One branch wandered away to the west and south, becoming the progenitors of the South African races; another found its way to the east and south, to people Australasia; while a third struck out towards the north, overrunning Malaya, Burmah, and Southern India. This last branch, which we term the Malay, or Polynesian, subdivided into two distinct families—the Mongolian, or Turanian, the progenitors of the ancient Chinese, Ural Turks, Akkadians, and Finns; and the Caucasian, or Iranian, the first human inhabitants of South-Western Asia. Of these Iranians one stream, it is supposed, found its way to the banks of the Nile, and became, in course of time, a distinct and powerful Egyptian race; another, the Semitic, followed the direction of the Persian Gulf, and settled in Arabia and along the banks of the Euphrates; while a third, which we call the Aryan or Indo-Germanic, covered India, Afghanistan, and Northern Persia, gradually extending along the northern shores of the Black Sea into Europe.

Now, as already stated, the earliest known records of any race are the hymns of the Rig-Veda, composed among the Aryans of Northern Persia, probably from earlier traditions handed down to them from the older Iranian stock, or even from the still earlier Polynesians; and it is remarkable that in all ancient mythological records, as well as on monumental inscriptions, the same vein of solar myth as is found in the Rig-Veda is clearly traceable beneath the accumulated mythological lore of future ages. The main idea in all mythologies seems to have been that of a saviour-deity conquering the evil genius of night, or winter, and bringing back the day, or summer, to replenish the earth. As already stated, Indra was to the Aryans of the early Vedic period the saviour-god who, with his companions, Vishnu and Rudra, leads forth Agni, the god of celestial and terrestrial fire, to the bosom of Varuna, where his influence operates upon Soma, the fertilizer of earth. A conqueror from early morn to mid-day, Indra’s power grows weaker as the evening approaches, until at last the twilight yields him up to Vritra, who slays him, after which he is tormented by Ahi, the dragon, for the remainder of the night. This drama was probably derived from the original Iranian stock, and as probably underwent considerable modification before being finally committed to writing as a cultus by the Aryans; and, therefore, we should expect to find some resemblance between the Aryan, Semitic, and Egyptian mythological systems. This is precisely what we do find on carefully comparing these three oldest of all known mythologies, though, as will be seen further on, each accumulates such a vast quantity of fresh mythological matter that the original conception is considerably obscured, and in each the original deities become in course of time so mixed up with one another that it is almost impossible to separate their individual characteristics.

Although Agni was said to have been begotten by the conjunction in the air of Varuna and Prihovi (Prithivi), all the principal gods, or Devas, originally conceived as the phenomena and power of heaven, were called the children of Dyaus and Prihovi, Agni and Indra being considered the two chief of the twelve Devas. Dyaus, Prihovi, and their progeny afterwards became endowed with moral qualities, and were looked upon as creators and governors of the world; and as time wore on the original Vedic deities gradually gave place to purely solar deities: the sun was called Surya, and differed from Agni, who was god of terrestrial and celestial fire—sun, lightning, and altar fire in one, the soul of universe, and mediator between the gods and men; Surya was also Savitri, the quickener, who in the early morn rouses the sleepers, and in the evening twilight buries them again in sleep; he is also Vishnu, the companion of Indra, who traverses the celestial space in three long strides; he is Pushan, the nourisher and faithful guide of men and animals; and he is Yama, who traverses the steep road to death and the shades. Thus the gods multiplied—the original supreme deity, Varuna, who was one with Indra, though different from him, giving place to a multitude of solar deities, children of Dyaus, the great dawn-god or day-father.

As the old Vedic language became lost to the people there arose a custom of setting apart certain individuals to faithfully preserve the old and sacred records, and thus arose the priestly caste of Brahmans, whose duties consisted in transcribing the sacred hymns of the Rig-Veda and preserving the knowledge of the sacred language in which they were first written. The great day-father, Dyaus, now received the name of Brahma, the magic power, and Prajapeti, the lord of creatures, and was endowed with three divine energies—Agni (fire), Vayu (air), and Surya (the sun), which together formed a subordinate triad. Soma became associated with the moon; Asura became the demon of hell, which was peopled with tormenting monsters; Indra and Vishnu became blended with Surya; and Rudra was converted into Siva and identified with Agni. As Brahmanism progressed the principal worship on the shores of the Ganges gradually centred round Vishnu, who was supposed to undergo periodically a number of Avataras, or incarnations, by means of which he rescued fallen man from the fate awaiting him. These descents to the lower world were very frequent, and appear to have had some connection with the zodiacal constellations; for we find the incarnation at one time taking place as a man, at another as a fish, at another as a lion, and so on.

The most ancient of the Avataras was probably the incarnation of Krishna, the Indian Hercules, who was mentioned in the Vedic writings as “Krishna, the son of Devaki,” and in whose honour festivals were kept, at a very early period, similar to those connected with the cultus of Bacchus. Megasthenes found the worship of Krishna prevailing along the shores of the Ganges at the beginning of the third century before our era, and described it as the worship of Hercules. This incarnate offspring of the ancient sun-god, Vishnu, was said to have been born at Mathura, a place situated between Delhi and Agra, and to have acted the part of a saviour of the world and a mediator between the gods and men. Soon after his birth his life was sought by the reigning tyrant, Kamsa, who feared for the safety of his throne, which necessitated the removal of Krishna to a place of safety. Arriving at manhood, this young divinity slew the serpent Kaliya, and sported with the GopÎs, or female cowherds, among whom he had been brought up. He was fond of wine, Bacchanalian revels, and sensualities, though considered to be immaculately holy, and resigned to his fate, which was to suffer death in order to relieve the earth of the burden of a proud race. For this purpose he was incarnated in the womb of his mother, Devaki, and for this purpose he lived and died.

In the mountainous regions away from the Ganges the cultus of Siva was the more prevalent, Vishnu being considered of secondary importance; but, as sects gradually were formed out of the ancient religion, one party preferring this deity and another that, an attempt was made, which eventually proved successful, to re-unite the various religious parties and re-instate the principal gods in their original places. The ancient orthodoxy was brought into sympathy with the new religion in a very curious manner, by making Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva a trinity of essences or attributes of the supreme Brahm, each a supreme god in itself, and each equal with the others in importance; Brahma being specially the creator, Vishnu the redeemer or preserver, and Siva the destroyer. At times Krishna was added to the new trinity as a fourth figure; but this was an innovation which found little favour, inasmuch as Vishnu and Krishna were the same god, the one but the incarnation of the other. Thus the old idea of Prajapeti, or Brahma, with the three divine energies—Agni (fire), Vayu (air), and Surya (the sun)—were revived in a manner as a new trinity of essences of the supreme deity, under other names; and the arrangement thus concluded has continued in use to this day with the orthodox Hindus. We find, therefore, that, despite the accumulation of fresh myths, which grew larger as time wore on, the original conception of the constant necessity for a divine saviour was never lost, and that, as the approach of night in the Vedic system was followed by the torments of the shades, and the powers of darkness were destroyed by the re-appearance of the dawn-god, so also the approaching extinction of the people under a wicked tyrant was followed by the misery which preceded the appearance of the saviour-god, Krishna. In fact, every myth that occurs in the religions of India is built out of this original idea of the powers of light being overcome by the powers of darkness and finally rescued by a redeeming god. In later times, as the science of astronomy became more popular and better understood, not only was the daily apparent course of the sun the source from which myths were fabricated, but his annual apparent march through the zodiacal signs was also drawn upon for the creation of more imposing and elaborate dramas; and in this manner were produced the fables containing allusions to the two crucifixions, or passage of the sun across the equator at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, and the rites of baptism when the sun was passing through the sign Aquarius, and fasting during the period of the sun’s transit through Pisces, etc.

The religion of Boodhism is an offshoot of the Brahman system, having originated in the so-called incarnation of Vishnu, Gautama Boodha, whose powerful personality has left an indelible impress upon the religion. This remarkable man lived about the end of the sixth century; but the real history of Boodhism does not commence until about the middle of the third century before our era. The doctrines taught by this great reformer were brotherly love, self-sacrifice, and an eternal Nirvana as the consummation of all bliss. The doctrine of the transmigration of the soul was still maintained; but a state of Nirvana, or absolute non-existence, was declared to be the deliverance from the endless succession of re-births for those who, by their purity of life and heart, merit such a blissful end. Admitting that men were born in different castes, determined by their good or evil deeds in a prior existence, Boodha yet declared that all might attain the highest salvation, and that none, not even those of the highest caste and most sacred offices, could do this without having regard to the well-being of all his fellow creatures. The authority of the Vedas was rejected by the Boodhists, as also the whole dogmatic system of the Brahmans; and in their place was substituted a higher moral teaching, a more equitable relationship of men, and a wide-spreading system of communism. This reformation of ancient dogmatic faith was not destined to last long uncorrupted, for the monasteries established by the Boodhists for the purpose of affording an asylum to the poor and destitute soon became infested with religious fanatics—Jainas, as they were called, some of whom went naked, while others robed themselves in white linen. These ascetic monks looked forward to Nirvana as their final goal, practised the most severe austerities, received confession, administered priestly absolution, and kept regular feast and fast days; but they discountenanced the growing custom of worshipping relics which was finding favour with other Boodhist sects. Thus gradually the primitive Aryan conception of a ruling power developed into a huge system of dogmatism, monachism, and ritual in the countries south and east of the Indus, as far even as the confines of the country of the great Mongol race, whose religion is as yet but little known to us, although it bears strong marks of having been originally derived from the same source as that from which came the Vedic system.

Having glanced somewhat cursorily at the religious development of the Eastern Aryan peoples, we will now turn to the Western Aryans, and observe the manner in which the old Vedic myth was perpetuated in Western Europe, leaving the Central Aryans, or that branch which remained in and around Persia and Western Afghanistan, for subsequent consideration; for, in this central district, the Mongol Akkadians and the Semites intermingled so frequently with the Aryans that a very intricate mythological system gradually came into operation in some districts, bearing resemblance to the Vedic, the Semitic, and the Mongolian mythologies.

The Western branch of the great Aryan family, after penetrating into Southern Europe, became the progenitors of the ancient Pelasgi, the earliest known inhabitants of Greece, and through them transmitted the original Aryan myth to their successors, the Hellenes. Homer, in his “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” written at latest B.C. 900, well describes the religion of the Acheans, who inhabited Hellas for centuries prior to B.C. 1000, and long before the supremacy of the Dorians; and, in this description, as well as in that of Hesiod’s “Theogony,” written immediately afterwards, there is exhibited a remarkable similarity to the old Vedic system, the very name of the supreme deity being clearly derived from an Aryan source, and that root being the identical expression used to designate the Vedic Dawn God. From Dyaus Pitar, the Day Father or Dawn God of the Aryans, the Greeks derived their Zeus Pater, from whence we get Dios, Theos, the Latin Deus Pater, Dies Pater and Jupiter, and the French Dieu. Zeus was supreme god, high above all others, having unlimited power, and living up in the vault of heaven, surrounded by the inferior and subordinate deities, who together formed his Olympian court. Instead of being nature powers, these gods were endowed with freedom of action, subject to pain and pleasure, and depended for their sustenance upon food. The supremacy of King Zeus was firmly established; he presided over councils of the gods to deliberate great matters, and was not bound or fettered by any recognised restraint. With Athena and Apollo, he formed a supreme triad, himself being the head, Athena the reason or wisdom of the Divine Father, and Apollo the mouth, revealer of his counsel, and loving son, who is always of one will with his father. With Apollo was closely associated Prometheus, the great benefactor and liberator of the race of man, who, according to that beautiful tragedy of “Æschylus,” brought salvation to the world in spite of Jupiter, his father and torturer, by whom he was crucified on a rock, where he remained in fearful anguish until liberated by Hercules. Here we find the old Vedic saviour redeeming the world from the darkness and misery of night or winter, the same drama precisely as that described in connection with the Eastern Aryan mythology. In both instances the apparent daily and annual ascension and decline of the sun is depicted: in the one case it rises again after its period of defeat in winter, or night, as the sun-god Indra, afterwards Surya, and still later Krishna; while in the other case it resuscitates the earth as Prometheus, the benefactor of mankind. Just as Prometheus was but the Greek counterpart of the Hindu Krishna, so also were Apollo, Hercules, Iao, and Dionysos precisely the same. Each was the new-born sun, bringing back light and glory to suffering humanity; and each passed through the very same periods of power, decline, and misery before being born again.

Zeus was the sun-god par excellence, residing on the summit of Olympus, or in the highest part of the heavenly vault, during the summer months, when he was called Olympian Zeus, and down in Hades during the winter period, when he was known as the Stygian Zeus; and thus the oracle of the Klarion Apollon taught that the supreme God was called, according to the seasons of the year, Hades, Zeus, Helios, and Iao. Apollo and Prometheus, although saviour sun-gods, representing the new-born sun victorious over death and winter, were yet one with Zeus, and merely repetitions of the same character under different names. So, in like manner, Hercules was not only son of Zeus, but Zeus himself, and may be traced right through the complete annual circuit in his twelve labours, from Hades to Olympus, and from Olympus to Hades again. Dionysos was, in reality, not an Aryan deity, but of Egyptian origin, having been introduced into Greece at a very early time, either from Egypt, where he was worshipped as Mises, or, more probably, from Phoenicia, where he was worshipped under the name of Ies, which accounts for the fact that hero personifications of Dionysos in later times were accorded the designation of Iesous, (??s???, or in capitals ??S??S—Latin Jesus), the Greek form of Ies (???, or in capitals ??S). This Egyptian saviour sun-god became later the popular god Bacchus of the Romans, just as Apollo had been the popular Greek divinity, and was thus described by Macrobius: “The images or statues of Bacchus represent him sometimes under the form of a child, sometimes under that of a young man, at other times with a beard of a mature man, and, lastly, with the wrinkles of old age, as the Greeks represent the god whom they call Baccapee and Briseis, and as the Neapolitans in Campania paint the god whom they honour under the name of Hebon. These differences of age relate to the sun, who seems to be a tender child at the winter solstice, such as the Egyptians represent him on a certain day [December 25th], when they bring forth from an obscure nook of their sanctuary his infantine image, because, the day being then at the shortest, the god seems yet to be but a feeble infant: gradually growing from this moment, he arrives, by degrees, at the vernal equinox, under the form of a young man, of which his images at that time bear the appearance; then he arrives at his maturity, indicated by the tufted beard with which the images which represent him at the summer solstice are adorned, the day having then taken all the increase of which it is susceptible. Lastly, he decreases insensibly, and arrives at his old age, pictured by the state of decrepitude in which he is portrayed in the images.”

Yao, Iao, or Adonis was of Semitic origin, although widely worshipped in Greece, and generally identified with Zeus, whose Semitic counterpart he really was, although himself a saviour sun-god. Yao, to the Phoenicians and Chaldeans, was as Zeus and Prometheus to the Greeks, and represented the whole annual circuit, though he was always called by the Greeks specially the god of the autumn, on account of his having, at that period, to part from his lover, Aphrodite (Venus), for six months; and thus there was usually a certain melancholy attached to his worship, the oracle of the Klarion Apollon terming him the darling or tender Yao (?a?), god of the autumn.

As the Greek power and civilisation declined and the Roman advanced, the god Yao, like his counterpart Ies, became one of the most popular of the Roman deities, being worshipped under the name Adonis in every city of Italy; and the mythological horizon became crowded with gods and demi-gods of every description, until, at length, it became a very difficult matter to determine who was a god and who was not worthy of that distinction; for the Roman Emperors were invariably deified, as well as others of less degree. The old Aryan drama, however, was preserved throughout in the worship of the principal gods, and has even been perpetuated in the reformed religion of the Semitic communistic enthusiast, Yahoshua, which became, soon after the commencement of our era, the popular religious system of the whole of Europe.

We have now to deal with the Central Aryans, or Eranians; and, in doing so, must bear in mind that, while the Eastern Aryans, or Hindus, and the Western Aryans of Europe, were almost altogether uninfluenced for many centuries by the mythologies of surrounding tribes of other and distinct families of the human race, this was far from being the case with the Eranians, who were almost entirely cut off from their Western brethren; and, although still in comparatively close contact with the Eastern Aryans, were yet completely wedged in between the Turanian Urals on the north, and the great Semitic stream of life on the south and west. Such being the case, it is at once apparent that the religion of the Eranian people would quickly lose many of its distinctive Aryan marks and acquire many Turanian and Semitic characteristics. Bactria, in Eastern Eran (Persia), appears to have been the ancient birth-place of this semi-Aryan religion, which afterwards developed, under the influence of that great reformer, Zoroaster (Zarathustra), into the cultus called Mazdeism, or Parsism. From the Avesta, the sacred writings of the Parsis, written in the old Zend language, we derive considerable knowledge of Mazdeism. Ahura Mazdao (Ormazd), the all-wise spirit, is supreme god, far above all gods, being creator of the world, god of light and truth, existing from the beginning, and eternal. Inferior to him are Mithra, god of light; Nairyo Sanha, god of fire; Apan Napat, god of water; Haoma, god of the drink of immortality; and Tistrya, the dog-star god. The chief goddess of fruitfulness was Anahita, who in later time became an important deity in association with the worship of Mithra, the son of Ormuzd. Mazdeism also recognised a god of evil, Ahro Mainyus (Ahriman), who, with the evil Devas, inhabit the under-world, and oppose Ormuzd on every occasion; the world lying between the two kingdoms of righteousness and evil, ruled over respectively by Ormuzd and Ahriman. This dualism is the most marked feature of Mazdeism, and runs through the whole religion, being found in every myth, and giving rise to the most hideous conceptions of morality. In the cosmogony of the Parsis the great creator, Ormuzd, after making a perfect world and introducing a perfect pair of human beings, is defeated by the wicked Ahriman, who creates evil, and seduces the man and woman to sin, thus placing in opposition to each other upon this earth the two forces, good and evil. To avoid the influence of this evil force, and to gain that of the good power, was the great aim of all true Mazda-worshippers; and the means whereby this much-desired end could be attained was the fire-god, Nairyo Sanha, to whom constant supplications were made for this purpose. So great was the influence of Ahriman upon human beings that the god of light, Mithra, was promised as a saviour to come upon the earth and rescue his people from the power of evil, his mission being to avenge his father’s defeat by the god of the under-world, after doing which he would ascend to his father and become one with him for ever. The Magi, or Mithraitic priests of the “black art,” or “hidden science of astrology,” are thus addressed in the “Zend-Avesta”:—”You, my children, shall be first honoured by that divine person who is to appear in the world; a star shall be before you to conduct you to the place of his nativity; and when you have found him, present to him your oblations and sacrifices, for he is indeed your lord and an everlasting king,” meaning that after the constellation of the virgin came to the eastern line of the horizon, as it did at twelve o’clock at midnight, between December 24th and December 25th, in the period immediately following that in which the words were written, the great star, Vindemiatrix, in the virgin’s elbow, would, on January 6th, begin to shine, pointing out to the astrologers, or Magi, her exact situation, who would then know that the birth of the god-light of the new revolution had taken place, and that by his re-appearance he would declare himself to be the everlasting ruler of the universe. Consequently, for centuries after this time the image of the god-light Mithra was presented to the people for adoration every year on December 25th, soon after midnight, in the shape of a newly-born male child, brought from the recesses of the sacred grotto, or mystic cave of Mithra. Another image, supposed to be the same deity fully grown, was said to die, and was carried to the tomb after death by the priests, who chanted solemn hymns and groaned. After pretending to mourn for three days, the sacred torch, or emblem of new life, was lighted, and the priests exclaimed, “Reassure yourselves, sacred bands of initiated; your god is restored to life; his pains and sufferings procure your salvation.” This took place at the vernal equinox, and the people responded: “I salute you, new light; I salute you, young bridegroom and new light.”

Like the old Aryan scheme, this Mithra myth was derived from the constellations, having reference to the decline of the year in autumn, the defeat of the sun by the powers of darkness (or winter), and the rebirth and ascension of that grand luminary in the spring of the year. Mithra was “spiritual life contending with spiritual darkness, and through his labours the kingdom of darkness will be lit with heaven’s own light: the eternal will receive all things back into his favour; and the world will be redeemed to God. The impure are to be purified, and the evil made good, through the mediation of Mithras, the reconciler of Ormuzd and Ahriman. Mithras is the good; his name is Love. In relation to the Eternal he is the source of grace; in relation to men he is the life-giver and mediator. He brings the Word, as Brahma brings the Vedas from the mouth of the Eternal” (Plutarch, “De Iside et Osiride ”). The close connection of the later Eranians with the Chaldeans no doubt gave the former facilities for studying the Akkadian astronomy; and, therefore, it is fair to presume that the phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes was well understood by them, which would account for the fact that Mithra is always represented in earlier times under the figure of a bull, and afterwards under that of a lamb. The reason of this is that, prior to about B.C. 2,200, the vernal equinoxial sign was the zodiacal figure of the bull (Taurus); while, after that period, the figure of the lamb or ram (Aries) took its place; and as the saviour sun-god Mithra was the personification of the new annual sun, born in the December constellation, crossing the equator in March, and thereby conquering the powers of evil or darkness, he was invariably represented by the figure of that zodiacal constellation which happened to be at the vernal equinoxial point at the time.[1]

Having thus briefly glanced at the religious cults of the three branches of the great Aryan family, and found the very same religious conception of a divine and incarnate saviour, redeeming the universe from the powers of darkness and evil, running through each mythological system, we cannot help coming to the conclusion that, inasmuch as the saviour-myth was developed into its full proportions long after the separation of the families took place, and inasmuch as the development followed similar lines in each separate case, there must have been some common guide, and that guide was the unwritten word of nature as expressed in the heavens above.

Leaving the Aryan stream, and turning back to that division of the great Iranian family which migrated to the valley of the Nile, and which we call the Egyptian, we find a very similar religious system in vogue among them from the very earliest times, as existed among the Aryans. The first settlers in Egypt carried with them, no doubt, the primitive religious conceptions of their Iranian fathers, which were derived from a contemplation of the various phenomena of nature, as previously stated; and it is highly probable that, at a very early period, they gave considerable attention to the movements of the heavenly bodies, for from monumental inscriptions, unearthed in modern times, which geologists inform us must have lain sub terra for several thousands of years, we learn that the Egyptians, at that remote time, well understood the theory of the precession of the equinoxes, placing the zodiacal constellation of the bull at the vernal equinoxial point in the period prior to about B.C. 4300, and that of the ram in the period immediately following. It is probable, therefore, that hundreds of years before this time these primitive men of the Nile were engaging themselves with the study of astronomy, and using effective astronomical instruments, which indicates a high state of civilisation; and this is further borne out by the fact that, at the commencement of the first Egyptian dynasty, about the year B.C. 5000, when Menes reigned over Egypt, there was every appearance of a very advanced civilisation that had lasted for centuries. From the “Book of the Dead” and the Prisse Papyrus (most of the former written at latest prior to B.C. 4000, and the latter very soon after) we derive a tolerably accurate notion of the mythological system of the Egyptians during the first portion of the Old Empire, and probably many hundreds of years previously; while, from the writings of Herodotus, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Manetho, we learn the progress the religion made during the 4,000 following years.

The “Book of the Dead” treats principally of the refining processes through which the spirits of dead people passed in the under-world, or Cher Nuter, before being purified sufficiently to inherit a state of bliss and become spirits of light (Chu) to be absorbed into the sun at the point where it is born, and taken within it to An, the celestial Heliopolis. Before the time of Menes the religion of Egypt was animistic, blended with a vague kind of sun-worship, the supreme deity being, at Thinis-Abydos, the ancient capital, called Osiris, the god of gods, son of Seb, god of earth, and Nu, goddess of the heavenly ocean, and grandson of Ra. Osiris was the sun-god of the daily and annual circle, who enjoyed his spouse, Isis, the great mother, during the summer months and the daytime, after which he was overcome by the evil Set-Typhon and his wife Nephthys, and tortured in the under-world, until released by his son Horus, the conqueror sun-god, who rose into the upper world as the avenger of his father’s defeat, and liberated the soul of Osiris from torture, to be absorbed by, and for ever shine forth in the constellation Orion, as the soul of Isis shines for ever in Sirius. At Heliopolis, An, On, or Para, the city of the sun, Ra was worshipped as supreme god, who as Tum, the hidden god, fought the demon of darkness, the serpent Apap, in Amenti, and who rose again from the under-world as Harmachis. Later, when Menes reigned as the first monarch of the Old Empire (circa B.C. 5000), Memphis, or Mennefer, was the capital city, in which Phtah was worshipped as the supreme god or creator of the world (called Sekru, the slain god, when in the lower world), together with Ma, goddess of righteousness, and Imhotep, the chief of priests, whose name signified “I come in peace,” and who formed the third part of a kind of trinity, with Phtah and Ma. All these, and other minor deities, such as deified kings, etc., were represented on earth by incarnations in the shape of animals, Ra, Osiris, and Phtah, the supreme gods, being manifested in the sacred bull Apis, representing the sun at the vernal equinoctial point in the zodiacal constellation Taurus. During six dynasties these gods were worshipped peacefully, their incarnations and religious rites being protected by the kings; but about the year B.C. 3800 the kingdom appears to have dropped to bits, its religion to have been mixed up in a most confused manner, and its people divided into a number of small nationalities, with separate kings and separate laws; until, at length, the whole country was once more united under the reigning monarchs of the eleventh dynasty (Second Empire), whose capital was Thebes, and whose popular deity was Amen, the hidden god, called also Amen-Ra, to signify that he was not only the sun-god in the under-world, but also the rising and conquering sun-god of the early morn and spring of the year. In fact, Amen was the sun-god of the whole revolution, the Theban Yao, one with his father Osiris in the mid-day and mid-summer, one with his counterpart Horus at the early morn and spring of the year, and one with Tum in the darkness of night and winter; just as Zeus of the Greeks was Zeus Amen (Jupiter Ammon), Olympian Zeus, Zeus Yao, and Stygian Zeus, according to the season of the year.

Between the Middle Empire and the New Empire another catastrophe occurred to the Egyptians, in the form of an invasion of the Hyksos, or shepherd kings of Arabia, who overran the whole country, destroyed the temples, and levied heavy tribute on the people, eventually settling down for four centuries as Kings of Egypt, adopting many of the native customs, and introducing many Semitic deities and observances. At last the Hyksos were driven forth, and the New Empire commenced with the eighteenth dynasty; but a considerable difference was now found to exist in the religion of the country, partly on account of the introduction of Semitic rites, and partly owing to the change that had taken place at the vernal equinoctial point, by the precessional movement of the zodiacal constellation Taurus. The vernal equinoctial point was now (B.C. 2000) in the sign Aries, and therefore the principal deities should be no longer represented as incarnate bulls, but as incarnate rams. Accordingly, we find that after this date the bull-god Apis, or Serapis, gradually fell into disrepute; and Amen, who was now the supreme and representative god, was worshipped as an incarnate ram, being depicted as a man wearing ram’s horns.

Another mode of worshipping the young sun-god, born at the winter solstice, December 25th, was that known as the Mysteries of the Night, or Passion of Osiris, at which an idol of the infant Horus, or Amen, called also the Holy Word, was presented to the people in its mother’s arms, or exposed to view in a crib for the adoration of the people by the priests, who were, according to Adrian, called Bishops of Christ (???st??, the anointed one); and when King Ptolemy, B.C. 350, asked the meaning of the custom, he was informed that it was a sacred mystery. During these mysteries, which took place annually, bread, after sacerdotal rites, was mystically converted into the body of Osiris, to be partaken of by all the faithful, who were called Christians; and an idol representing the body of the god, stretched on a cross within a circle, was placed upon the mystic table for adoration and praise.

The winter solstitial point is really December 21st; but the ancients always kept the festival of the birth of the sun-god on December 25th, because at twelve o’clock, midnight between December 24th and 25th the uppermost stars in the constellation Virgo made their appearance above the horizon, being the first indication of the birth of the new sun, which had taken place exactly three days and three nights previously. This gave rise to the popular superstition that the new sun-god was born of a virgin, from whose womb he had been trying to extricate himself for the space of three days and three nights. From this the idea prevailed that the sun-god underwent similar periods of struggle also at the summer solstice and the two equinoctial points; and thus arose the legend of the two crucifixions, the one at the vernal equinox, when the sun in Aries crossed the Equator and was crucified as the “Lamb of God” on March 21st, commencing the ascension to heaven on March 25th; and the other at the autumnal equinox, when the sun in Libra (the balance of justice) crossed the Equator and was crucified as the “Just Man” on September 23rd, descending to hell for three days and three nights, after which he emerged into the shades until born again at the winter solstice.

A very popular deity of the Lower Nile was Mises (drawn from water), the sun-god of wine and mirth, who was born on Mount Nyssa (Sinai), and was found as a babe in a box floating on the Red Sea, and who, by means of his magic wand, took his army dry-shod through the Sea and the rivers Orontes and Hydaspes, drew water from rocks, and caused the land through which he passed to flow with milk, wine, and honey. He was depicted with a ram’s horn on his forehead, being the personification of the new-born sun delivering the world from the powers of darkness, and was afterwards worshipped in Phoenicia as Ies, in Greece as Dionysos (?????s??], God of Nyssa), son of Zeus, and in Rome as Bacchus. The temples dedicated to this sun-god were, in the time of the Greek kings of Egypt, very gorgeous, the mystic table having upon it, not only the infant in its cradle, the transubstantiated bread, and the Osirian crucifix, but also a bleeding lamb, the emblem of the sun-god at the vernal equinox, over which was placed the Phoenician name of Mises, Ies, in Greek capitals (??S]), surrounded by the rays of glory, to signify that he was the risen and crucified sun-god, and one with Horus and Amen-Ra.

Turning to the third great division of the Iranians—viz., the Semites, who migrated to the Valley of the Euphrates, we find a more or less complicated religious system, varying in accordance with the amount of intercommunication which took place between the Semites and the tribes belonging to the Aryan, Mongolian, and Egyptian families. The earliest Semitic settlement was in the district stretching from the Euphrates to the Red Sea and Mediterranean, and their religion was, at first, one of pure animistic polydÆmonism, varying enormously in details of drama in the different tribes, but exhibiting in all common characteristics.

All early Semitic peoples worshipped the sun-god, Shamsh, and all were moon, planet, and star-worshippers to a very large extent; but, as the race became divided into Northern and Southern Semites, a distinct difference gradually arose between the religious cults of the two branches. The Southern, or Arab, tribes, on account of their more isolated situation, retained the original Semitic mythology, worshipping the sun as their chief god, Shamsh, the moon as his consort, and the stars and planets as inferior gods and goddesses, the Pleiades being objects of special homage. Shamsh was father of all, and disappeared to the under-world at night to rest in slumber until awakened into activity in the morning as Yachavah, his son, who became one with his father.

The Northern Semites, on penetrating, at a later period, the borders of Mesopotamia, came in contact with a powerful and advanced civilisation, which had been already established by the Akkadian branch of the Northern Mongolian family, and thus the original Semitic religion became very much modified by the introduction into it of many of the Mongol, as well as some also of the Aryan, myths.

Very little is known of the Akkadian mythology; but it is pretty certain that they were, at a very early period, acquainted with the science of astronomy, and that the Chaldeans, their successors, who were a mongrel race, partly Akkadian and partly Semitic, invented the cuneiform writing to take the place of the old Mongolian hieroglyphic characters. From what we know of the religion of the old Mongol Chinese empire prior to 1200 B.C., it was a kind of spirit-worship, the Shang-ti, or supreme spirit, being Thian (Heaven), who, in co-operation with Heu-thu (earth), produced everything. Man, according to this cultus, had two souls, one of which ascended after death to heaven, while the other descended into the earth, both being absorbed respectively into Thian and Heu-thu.

The Akkadians, who were but a branch of the same race as the progenitors of the ancient Chinese, also worshipped spirits, the greatest of whom was Ana (the highest heaven), the next Mulge (the hidden heaven in the interior of the earth), and the third Ea, the god of the atmosphere and of moisture. After these came an inferior group—Uru-ki, the moon-god; Ud, the sun-god; and Im, the wind-god. The spirits were divided into good and bad, which were constantly at war with each other; and thus was introduced into the religion of the semi-Semitic Chaldeans the dualistic notion of good and evil existing in conflict throughout all time.

The Northern Semites may be conveniently divided into four distinct nations—viz., the Chaldeans (Babylonians and Assyrians), who were partly Semitic and partly Akkadian, the AramÆans, the Canaanites, and the Phoenicians. These peoples soon became acquainted with the astronomical learning of the Akkadians, and were taught the wonderful phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes; and it is highly probable that the fact of the vernal equinoctial sign having changed shortly before B.C. 2000 from that of the Bull to that of the Ram or Lamb had much to do with the changing of the old Semitic name Shamsh to that of El, as a designation of the sun-god, El (??) being the old Chaldean word for Ram.

Owing to the mixed character of the Chaldean nation, their religion was a peculiar blending of the Akkadian and Semitic mythologies, El Ilu, or Ilah, being their chief deity; but, instead of sinking into the lower world each night for peaceful slumber, as the older Shamsh had done, he became the victim of the wicked demons, who tormented him all through the dark hours, until he was avenged by his son Yachavah, who thereby became the conqueror and saviour god, one with his father Ilu, and yet different. To a great extent the religion of the purely Semitic tribes of the north was affected by this Chaldean myth; but there arose many points of difference between them. The Assyrians worshipped El under the name of Asur, their national deity, the Babylonians converting the name into Bel; while the pure Semites worshipped him as Bel and Baal in the west, and as Al in the south. Out of the story of El and Yachavah was fabricated the great Adonis myth of the Chaldeans, which became so popular in future times among all the Semites except the Arabs of the south, who retained the original character of the supreme Shamsh, El or Al (afterwards Allah), and his son Yachavah, afterwards Yahouh. This Adonis drama, as originally conceived, was that El reigned in supreme power and glory in the highest heaven, enjoying the delights of his spouse Istar, but that in the autumn the wicked gods of winter overcame him, separating him from his lover, and tormenting him all through the winter months, until in the spring he conquered the evil demons as Adon, the beautiful youth, who is restored to his mourning Istar. The worship of Adonis, or Adon was generally adopted by all the Northern Semites, the god becoming eventually the most popular deity of the Semitic people, being known as Yao (??? of the Greeks) to the Phoenicians, Yahoo (???) to the Canaanites, and Tammuz to the AramÆans, while his lover Istar became the Phoenician Ashtoreth. Ies, the god of wine, and Greek Dionysos, was another saviour sun-god worshipped largely by the Phoenicians; but was most probably of Egyptian origin, being identical with Mises, the Egyptian Bacchus. As already stated, the Southern Semites of Arabia retained, in common with their Ethiopian brethren, the old and simpler worship of the supreme god El and his son Yahouh, although, owing to their propinquity to Egypt, many strange inferior deities had been introduced into Arabia from that country, which resulted, in much later times, in the formation of various religious sects, each having a particular tribal deity, or patron god, though all recognising El as supreme. One of these tribes, with Yahouh as their tribal god, on which account they were called Yahoudi, having left their native Arabian home, penetrated far into the country of the Northern Semites, learning from the Canaanites, Phoenicians, and Babylonians the strange legends of the Northern Semitic deities, including the Adonis myth; and, after wandering about for many years, one large portion of their tribe settled in the delta of the Nile, while the remainder crossed the desert of Syria and approached the confines of Babylonia, finally settling in the barren and rocky interior of Syria, and making the spot where now stands the small town of El-Khuds (Jerusalem) their headquarters. During their long wanderings they became acquainted not only with the various Semitic myths of the north, but also with the Babylonian and Persian legends, and incorporated a quantity of strange deities and customs into their own rude and primitive religion, thus manufacturing a very complicated and weird system of mythology.

The date of the Yahudean migration into Syria was certainly not earlier than about B.C. 250, despite the declaration of interested parties that these people were known as Israelites and Jews for centuries before that time. The following quotation from Major-General Forlong’s “Rivers of Faith” is worth reproducing on this point:—“The first notice of the Jews is, possibly, that of certain Shemitic rulers of the Aram, paying tribute about 850 B.C. to Vool-Nirari, the successor of Shalmaneser of Syria, regarding which, however, much more is made by Biblicists than the simple record warrants. This is the case also where Champollion affirms that mention is made on the Theban temples of the capture of certain towns of the land we call Judea, this being thought to prove the existence of Jews. Similar assumption takes place in regard to the hieratic papyri of the Leyden Museum, held to belong to the time of Rameses II.; an inscription read on the rocks of El-Hamamat, and the discovery of some names like Chedorlaomer in the records of Babylonia; but this is all the ‘evidence’ as to the existence of ancient Jews which has been advanced, and the most is made of it in Dr. Birch’s opening address on ‘The Progress of Biblical ArchÆology,’ at the inauguration of that Society. The only logical conclusion justifiable, when we give up the inspiration theory, is that Arabs and Syro-Phenicians were known to Assyrians and Egyptians, and this none would deny. Indeed, we readily grant with Dr. Birch that, ‘under the nineteenth and twentieth Egyptian dynasties, the influence of the Armenoean nations is distinctly marked; that not only, by blood and alliances, had the Pharaohs been closely united with the princes of Palestine and Syria, but that the language of the period abounds in Semitic words, quite different from the Egyptian, with which they were embroidered and intermingled.’ Could it possibly be otherwise? Is it not so this day? Is a vast and rapidly-spawning Shemitic continent like Arabia not to influence the narrow delta of a river adjoining it, or the wild highlands of Syria to its north? Of course, Arabs, or Shemites, were everywhere spread over Egypt, Syria, and Phenicia, as well as in their ancient seats of empire in Arabi Irak (Kaldia), and on the imperial mounds of Kalneh and Kouyunjik, but not necessarily as Jews. I cannot find that these last were anything more than possibly a peculiar religious sect of Arabs, who settled down from their pristine nomadic habits, and obtained a quasi government under petty princes or sheks, such as we have seen take place in the case of numerous Arabian and Indian sects.”

Again, the author of “Rivers of Faith” remarks: “No efforts, say the leaders of the Biblical ArchÆological Society, have been able to find, either amid the numerous engravings on the rocks of Arabia Petrea or Palestine, any save Phenician inscriptions—not even a record of the Syro-Hebrew character, which was once thought to be the peculiar property of Hebrews. ‘Most of those inscriptions hitherto discovered do not date anterior to the Roman Empire’ (Dr. Birch, President of Soc, op. cit., p. 9). ‘Few, if any, monuments (of Jews) have been obtained in Palestine’ or the neighbouring countries of any useful antiquity, save the Moabite Stone, and the value of this last is all in favour of my previous arguments on these points. At the pool of Siloam we have an ‘inscription, in the Phenician character, as old as the time of the kings.... It is incised upon the walls of a rock chamber, apparently dedicated to Baal, who is mentioned on it.’ So that here, in a most holy place of this ‘peculiar people,’ we find only Phenicians, and these worshipping the Sun-God of Fertility, as was customary on every coast of Europe, from unknown times down to the rise of Christianity. The Biblical ArchÆological Society and British Museum authorities tell us frankly and clearly that no Hebrew square character can be proved to exist till after the Babylonian captivity, and that, ‘at all events, this inscription of Siloam shows that the curved or Phenician character was in use in Jerusalem itself under the Hebrew Monarchy, as well as the conterminous Phenicia, Moabitis, and the more distant Assyria. No monument, indeed,’ continues Dr. Birch, ‘of greater antiquity, inscribed in the square character (Hebrew), has been found, as yet, older than the fifth century, A.D.; and the coins of the Maccabean princes, as well as those of the revolter Barcochab, are impressed with Samaritan characters.’” As to the Moabite Stone, I would refer my readers to a little work entitled “An Inquiry into the Age of the Moabite Stone,” by Samuel Sharpe, the celebrated author of “The History of Egypt,” in which will be found abundant evidence to prove that the inscription on the Stone is a forgery of about the year A.D. 260.

Apart from the history contained in the books of the Old Testament, there is absolutely no record of the Jews as an independent people, except that contained in the writings of Josephus (about A.D. 100); and, although that author may be tolerably trustworthy when relating matters near to his own time, yet in his description of Jewish antiquities he evidently, as he himself asserts, rests only on tradition. For instance, he alone records the story of Alexander entering the holy place at Jerusalem and offering sacrifice on the altar; but Arrian, in his “Anabasis of Alexander the Great,” where he specially treats of the life and actions of this great conqueror, says not one word about such a place as Jerusalem, or about such a story as that recorded by Josephus. Curtius, who wrote a far more detailed account of the life and conquests of Alexander, mentions neither Jerusalem nor the story of Alexander and the holy place. Herodotus, about B.C. 430, when narrating the two raids of the Scythians through Syria, as far as Egypt, says not a word about any Jews. Xenophon, who wrote 150 years after they were said to have returned from Babylon, or about B.C. 386, appears to have been unconscious of their existence, only mentioning the Syrians of Palestine. Neither did Sanchoniathon, Ctesias, Berosus, nor Manetho even once mention them as a nation. Diodorus also, when writing of the siege of Tyre by the soldiers of Alexander, neither mentions the Jews as a nation nor Jerusalem as their chief town. In fact, we have no account of them at all, except that contained in the Old Testament and that in the writings of Josephus, until we find them subject to the Romans, under Antiochus Epiphanes, about B.C. 165, when in all probability they had just settled down into a dependent nation, having been driven into Syria by the Babylonians, whose fertile valleys these Arabian nomads had attempted to colonise. Being surrounded on all sides by nations whose religions so very far surpassed their own in development, it did not take long for the Yahoudi (afterwards called Jews) to become affected by the mythological dramas of their neighbours; and, in carefully examining the mythical records of their tribe, we find that they very soon became acquainted with, and in some cases offered worship to, almost all the purely Semitic and Chaldean, as well as to a few of the Egyptian, deities. Their principal god always remained as before, El (??) signifying the zodiacal sign Aries, the heavenly ram and first of the twelve zodiacal figures. Combined with Yah (??), the abbreviation of Yahouh (????), their tribal deity, it formed a compound word, Eloh (????), or Elyah (????, the ? and ? being interchangeable), the plural of which was Elohim (?????), a word used frequently in the Bible to signify the supreme God. Bearing in mind the fact that the fables of the Bible are not actual history, but merely so many accounts of the ever-recurring phenomena of the sidereal heavens, and that in the various saviour myths the vernal equinoxial sign, or saviour sign, Aries, was looked upon as the supreme god, who housed the new-born sun on his first appearance in the upper world, just as in the present day the song of praise on Easterday is “Worthy is the lamb who was slain (crucified) to receive the power and bring back salvation to the world,” the meanings of these names of the supreme deity become apparent at once. All the words—and, in fact, almost every divine name found in every divine record—signify the sun in one or other of the divisions of his annual or daily apparent march, or else one of the divisions itself. El signifies the first and saviour sign of the zodiac, the celestial ram, and is always used when the winter period is referred to, because from the autumnal to the vernal equinox the sun-god, Yahouh, is separated from the ram, El, which remains god of the lower world, until again united with its spouse, the sun, at the vernal equinox, becoming the ram-sun-god, El-Yah or Eloh, whose plural is Elohim, the ram-sun-gods, from the vernal to the autumnal equinox, when the sun and Aries are together for six months. At a later time, when the old Bacchus worship was revived at Alexandria in the person of the young Semitic Yahoshua, who was named Iesous, we have a good illustration of this when the sun-god, in his agony at being separated from the ram at the autumnal equinox or crucifixion, exclaimed: “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—“My ram, my ram, why hast thou forsaken me?” In, I believe, every instance in which the plural word, Elohim, is used in the Bible the reference is to the summer half of the year, from the vernal to the autumnal equinox, when El and Yah are together. We meet with El—in its Babylonian form, Bel; in its AramÆan forms, Bel and Belus; and in its Phenician form, Baal—frequently in the Bible, and often in combination with other deities, as El-Shaddai and Bel-Shaddai (??????), signifying the “breasted ram,” or the ram at the vernal equinox, the period of suckling.[2] Other forms of the same divine name were Baal-Berith, god of the equinox or covenant (co-venire, to come together, as when the ecliptic crosses the equator at the two equinoxes or crucifixions); Baal-Yah and El-Yah, rendered in the authorised version respectively Bealiah and Elijah, when in reality they signify the god Yahouh, or ram-sun-god; El-Yah also does duty for Joel; Elishah signifies the saviour ram; Eliakim, the setting ram; Eleazar, the creating ram; Samuel, the god of fame, or famous ram; Daniel, the ram judge; and Israel, the struggle with El. The Phenician Hercules wrestled with Typhon (the sun at the meridian) in the sand, just as Israel or Jacob wrestled with Elohim in the dust—Hercules, like Jacob, being wounded in the thigh; and the Canaanites knew the Greek Hercules, who wrestled with Zeus, by the name of Ysrael.

[2] El not only signified a ram, but also a lamb, or any other kind of sheep. The vernal equinoxial sign, for instance, of the Persians was a lamb, while that of the Egyptians was a ram.