Christianity and Mythology

Robertson, J. M. Christianity and Mythology. Rationalist Press. London: Watts, 1900.

(excerpted by Clifford Stetner)

PART I.

THE PROGRESS OF MYTHOLOGY.

CHAP. I—THE SCIENCE AND ITS HISTORY.

§ 1 The Problem 1

§ 2. The Scientific Beginnings 3

§ 3. The Relation to Christianity 12

CHAP. II.—MODERN SYSTEMS.

§ 1. The Etymological and Solar Schools 19

§ 2. The Movement of Anthropology: Tylor 25

§ 3. A Priori Evolutionism: Spencer 28

§ 4. The Biological Correction 30

§ 5. Fresh Constructions, Reversions, Omissions, Evasions 34

§ 6. Mr. Lang and Anthropology 40

CHAP. III.—THE SEPARATIST FALLACY.

§ 1. The Theistic Presupposition 52

§ 2. The Metaphysic of Religion 65

§ 3. Mr. Grant Allen's Theorem 71

CHAP. IV.—THE STAND FOR THE BIBLE.

§ 1. Hebrew Mythology 79

§ 2. Christianity and" Degeneration" 95

§ 3. The Psychological Resistance to Evidence 101

§ 4. The Problem of Non-Miraculous Myth 111

§ 5. The Problem of Priority 117

PART II.

CHRIST AND KRISHNA.

I. THE NATURE OF THE PROBI.EM.

Standpoint of the Investigation. Current Presuppositions.

Vice of Christian Method. Rationalism committed to no

Historical Presupposition. . . . . . 129

II. THE QUESTION OF PRIORITY.

Old Date of Orthodox Hypothesis. Theories of Giorgi. Hyde.

Missionaries. Jones. Maurice. Jones's Presuppositions. Polier.

Paulinus. Kleuker. Moor. Creuzer. Reactionary Spirit of English

Religious Archaeology. Suppression of Evidence 131

III. AGE OF INDIAN DOCUMENTS.

Ritter's Criticism. Oldest Inscriptions. Oral Preservation of Druids.

Extravagance of Indian Chronology. Origin of Writing. Muller

and Tiele. Lore. Brahman Method of Study. The Druids 135

IV. THE SPECIAL DOCUMENTS.

Age of Vedas. Developments of Indian Religion. Vogue of

Krishnaism. Its Documentary Bases. Phases of Krishna. 138

V. THE KRISHNA LEGEND.

Barth's Synopsis. Solar Significance. Krishna Black, Hiding,

or Night Sun. Black Deities in other Systems. The Vegetal Spirit

Theory. Krishna and Arjuna. Osiris and Typhon. Krishna

originally a "Demon." Supersedes Indra. Contrary Christian View.

Note on the Black Osiris 141

VI. THE CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT.

Wheeler's History. Thesis of its Athenaeum Critic. His

Presuppositions. Professor Miller's Apologetics. Superior

Candour of Continental Scholarship. Weber's Attitude. General

View of Sanskritists. Wheeler on Question of Imitation 148

VII. THE CENTRAL DISPROOF.

Antiquity of Kansa Myth. Bhandarkar on Patanjali. Weber's

Admissions. The Main Question Settled. . . . 154

VIII. ANTIQUITY OF KRISHNAISM.

Further Proofs. Bhitari Pillar Inscription. Bayley's Inscriptions.

Khandogya Upanishad. Muller and Weber 156

IX. INVALID EVIDENCE.

Lassen on the Hercules of Megasthenes. Criticism of Tiele.

Wilson's Position. Upheld by Weber and Senart. Bala Rama's

Characteristics. His Close Correspondence with the Hercules of

Megasthenes. Rama Chandra. . . . . 160

X. WEBER'S THEORY.

His General Attitude; Theory of Early Greek Influence and Imitation

of Christianity; Doctrine of Faith; Festival Details. § 1. Criticism of

his Positions; The Kansa Myth; Problem of Christian Origins; Virgin

and Child derived from Isis and Horos; De Rossi on the Catacomb

Madonnas; Pre-Christian Childcarrying Goddesses; Juno; Demeter;

Venus; Alitta; Aphrodite; British Museum Nomenclature; India and

Egypt; Tiele's Criticism of' Weber; Buddha Virgin-born;

Jerome's Testimony;

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Krishnaite Name-giving; Early Christian Placing of Nativity on

Epiphany; Christmas a Pre-Christian Festival; Name-day in Hercules

Worship; Name-day in Mazdeism; Baptizing on Epiphany; Abyssinian

Usage. § 2. The Birth-Festival and the Puranas; Weber's Explanation

Accepted; Purana Legends not necessarily Late; Birthdays of Gods

Astrological; Krishna and Star Rohini; Krishna Nativity in July;

Significance of this; Birthday of Horus in July; Hindu Festivals;

Mattu Pongal and St. Anthony's Day; Myth Derived from Ritual;

Krishnaite and Roman Festivals; The "Swinging" Festival 163

XI. THE SOLAR-CHILD MYTH.

Connection of Kansa Legend with Legend of Cyrus. Parallel

Legends. The Coat of Many Colours. Dangers Run by the Divine

Child. The Myths of Sargon, Horos, and Moses. Confucius

Miraculously Born. The Messianic Cyrus and Jesus. The

Massacre of the Innocents. The Child Speaking at Birth.

The Birth in a Cave. The Child Born on a Journey. Maya and Mary.

The Mythological River.

The "Taxing" Journey. The Myth of the Seven Gates. 183

XII. THE STABLE AND MANGER.

Weber and Senart on the Krishna Ritual. The Manger-basket of

Dionysos, Hermes, Zeus, and Ion. Bas-reliefs in the Catacombs.

Ox and Ass. Cows and Stable. Isis and the Virgin Cow.

Horus Born on Christmas Eve. Virgin, Child, and Manger Myth

pre-Christian in Egypt. Cow Myth in Mithraism. Ox and Ass

Symbolic. The Christian Legend. The Text in Habbakkuk.

The Cave Motive. Agni the Babe God in the Veda. Myths

concerning Him. Agni and Dionysos twice Born. The Cow-shed

in the Krishna Ritual and in Catacomb Sculpture. The Symbolic Ass.

Images in Christism and Krishnaism. Joseph and the Ass.

Virgin-Myth Ritualized in Egypt. The Magi.

Antiquity of the Babe-Sun-God.

Dramatic Ritual in Krishnaism and Christism 197

XIII.

THE MYTH OF ST. CHRISTOPHER

The name Christophoroi. Cognate Terms. The Pastophoroi.

The Charge of Child-eating. The Christian Mysteries Secret.

Testimonies of Clarkson, Palmer, Trollope, and Hatch.

Childcarrying in Pagan Cults.

The Sacramental Eating of Baked Images.

General Use of such Images. The Principle of Eating the God.

The Krishna 'Myth and the Christian. St. Christopher's Day 215

XIV. INDIAN AND CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS DRAMA.

Weber's View. Wilson's. Buddhist Testimony.

"The Toy Cart." Devaki and Vasudeva.

Dramatic Ritual in Early Christism.

Evidence of St. Proclus.

Dramatic Origin of the Eucharist and the Mass.

Early Christian Religious Drama.

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The Liturgies.

The Greek Mysteries.

Persistence of the Pagan Drama 227

XV. THE SEVEN MYTH.

§ 1. The Seven Brother Martyrs; The Seven Sleepers;

The Seven Priests; Contact of Mithraism and Christism;

The Banquet of Seven; Cox on the Seven Myth;

The Sleepers and Martyrs = the Seasons and Pleiads.

§ 2. The Seventh Month; Devaki's Children;

Vedic Myth of the Eighth Child; The Younger Brother;

The Seven Planetary Spirits; Eight Egyptian Cosmic Powers;

The Week Myth; Semitic Usage; Saturn; Possible Myth Connections;

Alteration in Order of Months; Birthday Festival Dates 235

XVI. THE DESCENT INTO HELL.

Introduction of the Dogma. Pagan Precedents.

Osiris, Hermes, Dionysos, Adonis, Orpheus, Zamolus, Mithra, Apollo.

Balder and Arthur. Krishna's Descent. Cerberus.

The "Two" rescued "Sons" in both Legends. Also in Legend of Buddha,

The Dragon. Christian Borrowings from Buddhism 249

XVII. SPURIOUS AND REMOTE MYTH-PARALLELS.

The Address to the Fig-tree. Doctrine of Immortality. Transfiguration.

Feet-washing. Raising the Widow's Son. Anointing the God.

Judas and his Bag 258

XVIII. EXPLANATION OF THE KRISHNA MYTH.

§ 1. Its Obviously Solar Character; Repetitions in Solar Mythology;

Krishna and Agni; Cox's Analysis; Krishnaite Syncretism;

The Three Ramas—One; The Cult of Bala Rama.

§ 2. Weber's Chronological Scheme; Senart's Refutation;

Weber's Answer: Its Insufficiency.

§3. Buddhist and Other Parallels. 261

XIX. KRISHNAITE AND CHRISTIST DOCTRINE.

§ 1. Weber's Misconception of Wilson; Wilson's Real Opinion.

§ 2. Lorenser on the Bhagavat Gita; His Error as to "India";

Vague Early Use of the Name; Chrysostom's Evidence;

No Early Hindu Translation of Gospels.

§ 3. Date of the Gita; Telang's Suggestion; Lorinser's Parallels;

Their Futility; Pagan and New Testament Parallels;

Universal Theology and Ethics; Brahman and Christian Pantheism.

§ 4. Bhakti and Sraddha; Christian Doctrine of Faith from Judaism;

Its Universality; Muir, Telang, and Tiele, on the Indian Doctrine;

Position of Senart and Barth 274

XX. THE "WHITE ISLAND."

Weber's Thesis. Lassen's Argument. Telang's Refutation.

Tiele's Endorsement. Senart and Barth Take Same Ground.

Christian Tritheism and Monotheism. 290

XXI. THE CRUCIFIXION MYTH.

The Error of Moor and Higgins. Was there an Asiatic Crucifixion Myth?

Andrade and Giorgi on the Crucifixion Myth in Tibet.

Indra Crucified. Dr. Oldfieid's Corroboration. Krishna on the Tree.

The "Two Thieves." Frauds on Wilford. Wilson on Gnostic

Borrowings from India. Epiphanius' Testimony.

Difficulty of the Question. Orthodox Criticism. Jacolliot 294

XXII: SUMMARY.

These Positive and Negative. The Christian Hypotheses Found

Untenable and Absurd. All the Evidence Against It. Presumption

of Some Christian Borrowing from Krishnaism

as well as from Buddhism . . 299

PART III

THE GOSPEL MYTHS.

PREAMBLE.

FIRST DIVISION. MYTHS OF ACTION.

§ 1. The Virgin Birth. 317

§ 2. The Mythic Maries 319

§ 3. The Myth of Joseph . 326

§ 4. The Annunciation . 328

§ 5. The Cave and Stable Birth 329

§ 6. The Birthday 331

§ 7. The Massacre of the Innocents 332

Note on the Moses Myth. 333

§ 8. The Boy Jesus in the Temple 334

§ 9. The Upbringing at Nazareth 335

§ 10. The Temptation. . 343

§ 11. The Water-Wine Miracle. 356

§ 12. The Scourging of the Money-Changers 358

§ 13. The Walking on the Water. 358

§ 14. The Healing of Two Blind Men. 359

§ 15. Other Myths of Healing and Resurrection 360

§ 16. The Feeding of the Five Thousand 362

§ 17. The Anointing. . . 363

§ 18. The Riding on the Ass and Foal. 366

§ 19. The Myth of the Twelve Apostles. 370

§ 20. The Characteristics of Peter 378

§ 21. The Myth of Judas Iscariot 384

§ 22. The Last Supper. 386

§ 23. The Transfiguration and the Passion 392

§ 24. The Crucifixion. 394

§ 25. The Seamless Robe 414

§ 26. The Burial and Resurrection 416

§ 27. The Banquet of Seven 418

§ 28. The Ascension 420

SECOND DIVISION, MYTHS OF DOCTRINE.

§ 1. The Jesuine Discourses in General 423

§ 2. The Preaching of John the Baptist 432

§ 3. Jesus as a Preacher of Universalism 433

§ 4. Jesus as Messiah . . 434

§ 5. Jesus as Preparing the Kingdom of God. 437

§ 6. The Sermon on the Mount 440

§ 7. The Lord's Prayer. . 450

§ 8. The Woman Taken in Adultery. 457

§ 9. Gnostic and Cryptic Parables. 460

§ 10. The Late Ethical Parables in Luke 462

§ 11. The Discourses of the Fourth Gospel 463

Epilogue. 470

PREAMBLE.

THE three treatises making up this volume stand for a process of inquiry which began to take written form nearly fifteen years ago. It set out with a certain scientific principle and a certain historical purpose: the principle being that Christian Origins should be studied with constant precaution against the common assumption that all myths of action and doctrine must be mere accretions round the biography of a great teacher, broadly figured by "the" Gospel Jesus; while the practical purpose was to exhibit" The Rise of Christianity, Sociologically Considered." To that end I was prepared to assume a primitive cult, arising in memory not of a great teacher but (perhaps) of an obscure thaumaturg, concerning whom there is preserved, in the Epistles of Paul, only the tradition of his crucifixion. But the first independent explorations, the first rigorous attempts to identify the first Jesuists, led to a series of fresh exposures of myth. "Jesus of Nazareth" turned out to be a compound of an already composite Gospel Jesus, an interposed Jesus the Nazarite, and a superimposed Jesus born at Nazareth. And none of the three aspects equated with the primary Jesus of Paul. Each in turn was, in Paul's words, "another Jesus whom we have not preached." And the Twelve Apostles were demonstrably mythical.

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While, therefore, a sociological foundation was in a measure reached, it was plain that the ground had not yet been cleared of mythology; and at that stage I even surmised that, in view of the known frequency alike of Messiahs and Jesuses in Jewry, an actual succession of Jesuses might be the historical solution. Such a theorem represented a still imperfect appreciation of the scope and dominion of the principle of Myth; and it fitly chanced that the sociological inquiry was arrested for the time as a literary task, though continued as a study. Soon after, at the request of the late Mr. Bradlaugh, I undertook the research concerning "Christ and Krishna" by way of salving scientifically and objectively a simpler general problem in mythology and hierology; and about the same time the undertaking of an independent research into Mithraism further enabled me to see the Christian problem in a fuller scientific light. Thus the original inquiry, never discontinued as a subject of thought, led gradually to a conception of Mythology as a more catholic science, or a more scientific classification of certain knowledge, than it has yet been shown to be in the hands of its cultivators, admirable as much of their work is. That view I have now tried to set forth critically and historically in the opening treatise on "The Progress of Mythology." The study on "Christ and Krishna," which first appeared serially in Mr. Bradlaugh's journal and was reprinted (1889) with additions and corrections, is now again a good deal expanded, and. in parts rewritten. It seeks on one hand to illustrate, in detail, what seems to me the right method of dealing with certain problems glanced at in the opening treatise; and on the other hand to lead organically into the general problem of Christian mythology. Finally, the survey of "The Gospel Myths," portions of which were also published serially, is recast, and greatly enlarged, by way of finally clearing the mythological ground far sociology "proper."

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As regards the theoretic problem, I cannot better prepare a reader to catch my point of view than by indicating it critically as against the diverging doctrine of the recently-published work of Dr. Percy Gardner entitled "Exploratio Evangelica," a treatise in many respects wise and stimulating, which came into my hands only when the bulk of this volume was in type. As I regard it, Dr. Gardner's treatise relies unduly on the old, untested, metaphysical conception of mythology. Consider, for instance, the proposition that "probably at that time [early Christian age] in all the Levant the true myth making age was over. But the faculties which had been employed in the construction of myth were still at work. And they found their natural field in the adaptation of history to national and ethical purpose" [n1 Work cited, p. 149.]. Such language seems to me to confute itself: in any case, the whole drift of the present work is a gainsaying of such divisions as the one thus sought to be drawn. Dr. Gardner speaks again [n2 Id. p. 108.] of "the vague and childish character of the true myth." I submit that there are all degrees of vagueness and childishness in myth, from the grossest to the slightest, and that though there may be classification there can be no scientific sunderance. A myth commonly so-called, when all is said, is simply a false hypothesis (whether framed in bad faith or in good faith) which once found easy credence; and when inadequate or illusory hypotheses find acceptance in our own time, we see exemplified at once the play of the myth-making faculty and that of the normal credulity on which it lives. Any "explanation" which is but an a priori formula to account for an uncomprehended and unanalyzed process of phenomena is a "true myth" in so far as it finds utterance and acceptance. Some myths are less fortuitous, more purposive, than others; and a question might fairly be raised as to whether there is not here a true psychological distinction.

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My answer is that we can never demonstrate the entire absence of purpose: it is always a question of degree; and it makes little scientific difference in our elucidation whether we impute more or less of ignorant good faith, provided we recognize variation. A quite primitive myth may have been a conscious fiction on the part of its first framer; but the credulity of its acceptors assimilated it in exactly the same way as others framed in better faith.

Even if, however, we restricted ourselves to false hypotheses framed in absolute good faith, the old conception of myth remains a stumbling-block to be got rid of. It obscures our comprehension of the psychological process even of myths commonly so-called. Dr. Gardner, for instance, writes that "the Phoenician kinsmen of the Jews retained down to quite late times the terrible custom of human sacrifice. Its abolition very early among the Hebrews was a mark of their unique religious consciousness, and a sign of their lofty destiny" [n1 Work cited, p. 105.]. This proposition I should describe as the quasi-explanation of an uncomprehended process in terms of the phenomena themselves; as in the propositions that opium has a dormitive virtue, and that nature abhors a vacuum. And such explanations, I submit, so far as they are accepted, are myths, made in just the old way, though with far higher intellectual faculties. Even as the movement of the sun and planets was not scientifically accounted for by supposing them to be tenanted by Gods or guiding spirits, so the evolution of a community and its culture is not accounted for by crediting the community with "unique consciousness" and. "lofty destiny." The old explanation was a myth; the other is only myth on a different plane of instruction.

The effect of this change of theoretic standpoint must needs be considerable, at least as regards phraseology. I will merely say that, conceiving myth thus comprehensively, I have sought to track and elucidate it by lines of evidence not usually made to co-operate. Myth in the Gospels, on the view, here taken, is to be detected not merely by means of the data of comparative mythology, but also by means. of analysis of the texts. As Baur argued long ago, from criticism of the history we must come to criticism of the documents. But the later criticism of the documents, prepossessed by old conceptions of myth, has often made little account of concrete mythology, and has so fallen back on Hegelian formulas—that is, on philosophical myths where real solutions were quite feasible. At the same time, students of mythology have often taken myth for biography, for lack of analysis of the texts. As illustrating my idea of what is to be gained by the concurrent use of both procedures, I may point to the subsections of "Gospel Myths" dealing with (a) the Myth of the Temptation, and (b) the Myth of the Upbringing at Nazareth. The first undertakes to trace an ostensibly fortuitous myth by various methods of comparative mythology, in particular by colligating clues in art and in literature; the second undertakes to trace a relatively purposive myth by analysis, of the texts which gradually construct it, leaving part of the, problem of the motives, in the latter case, for a wider historical inquiry. And here we have cases which test the old theory of myth—Baur's and Dr. Gardner's conception of "the true myth." The first myth, we say, is ostensibly fortuitous, the second ostensibly purposive. But neither assumption is susceptible of proof. The first myth, in its Christian aspect, may have originated in a deliberate fiction by a priest who gave what he knew to be a false explanation of a picture or sculpture; the second may have originated in good faith, with a theorist who did not believe that the first Christian Nazarenes were so called in the sense of Nazarites.

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In fine, what makes a myth "truly" so is not the state of mind of the man who first framed it, but the state of mind of those who adopted it. And that state of mind is simply uncritical credulity.

It may be that in some process of textual criticism in the treatise on "The Gospel Myths" I have unknowingly put forward theses already advanced by other critics. The German literature in that department is so immense that I have not sought to compass even the bulk of it, having read a good deal with little decisive gain. Much of it is a mere prolongation of dispute over the more problematical, leaving the less problematical line of demonstration unoccupied. It seems in every way more profitable to put the case afresh from my own standpoint, on the lines of my own chosen approach, which is the result or sequel of a survey of previous methods; and to do this without even criticising a whole series of such methods which strike me as finally fallacious. Not that they were not meritorious in their circumstances; on the contrary, they frequently convey a melancholy impression of a great expenditure of intellectual power to no effectual end. In comparing Bruno Bauer, for instance, with "safe" modern practitioners like Bernhard Weiss, one cannot but be struck by the greater originality and acuteness of the free-lance. But the bulk of the work of Bruno Bauer is practically thrown away by reason of his false Hegelian or quasi-Hegelian method; for he is more Hegelian than Strauss, and constantly frames his solutions in terms of the more problematical rather than in terms of the less.

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Every phenomenon in the text is by him accounted for through an a priori abstraction of the constructive consciousness of the early Christian community, acting as it theoretically needs must; so that we get psychological and sociological myth in place of theological. The negation is right; the affirmation is wrong. Broadly speaking, such work as Bruno Bauer's, and much of that of Strauss, answers to Comte's conception of the normal rise of a metaphysical mode of thought as the first departure from a theological; this though Bauer thought that he and Weiss and Wilke and others had reached the true "positive" standpoint. The truth is that none, of us—certainly not Comte—could make the transition so promptly as he supposed himself to have done; at best we grow less and less metaphysical (or, as I should prefer to put it, less a priori), more and more" positive."

This appears even in the weighty performance of F. C. Baur, a much more "positive" thinker and investigator than Bruno Bauer, whose error of method he exposed with perfect precision. Common prudence, therefore, dictates the admission that the method of the following treatises is likely to suffer in some degree from survivals of the "metaphysical" method. I claim only that, so far as it goes, it is in general more "positive," more inductive, less a priori, more obedient to scientific canons, than that of the 'previous critics' known to me who have reached similar anti-traditional results. It substitutes an anthropological basis, in terms of the concrete phenomena of mythology,

for a pseudo-philosophical presupposition.

That this will give it any advantage as against the ecclesiastical defence would be too much to look for. I have suggested that that defence represents, however unconsciously, the organization of an economic interest; that the ostensible course of criticism is not a matter of the logical evolution of discovery, as in a disinterested science; but of the social selection of types of teacher.

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No stronger brain than Baur has dealt with historical theology in Germany since his day: either through their own choice of other careers or the official selection of other candidates, the stronger German brains have mostly wrought in other fields. So, in the Church of England, we see no continuous advance in the application of clerical ability, from Milman onwards, to the problems of Christian Origins. If the capable men are there, they are mostly gagged or obstructed. The late Dr. Edwin Hatch, the one Churchman who in our time has done original and at the same time valid and important service in that field, appears to have been in a measure positively ostracised in his profession, though the sale of his works shows their wide acceptability even within its limits. The corporate interest and organization avail to override unorganized liberalism, there as elsewhere.

When then Dr. Percy Gardner, writing as a layman, avows that he cannot hope "to escape the opposition and anger which have always greeted any attempt to apply to the Christian creed the principles which are applied freely to other forms of faith" [n1 Work cited, p, 118.], I may well count on a worse if more cursory reception for a book which in places represents him as unwarrantably conservative of tradition. Such treatises properly appeal to serious and open-minded laymen. Unfortunately the open-minded laity are in large part satisfied to think that traditionalism is discredited, and so take up an attitude of indifference to works which any longer join issue with it. None the less, those who realize the precariousness of modern gains in the battle against the tyranny of the past must continue the campaign, so doing what they can to save the optimists from, it may be, a rude awakening.

J. M. R.

June, 1900.

CHRISTIANITY AND MYTHOLOGY.

PART 1.

THE PROGRESS OF MYTHOLOGY.

CHAPTER I.—THE SCIENCE AND ITS HISTORY.

§ 1. The Problem.

THERE are stages in the history of every science when its progress can be seen to consist in applying to its subject-matter a wider conception of relations. Scientific progress, indeed, mainly consists in such resorts to larger syntheses. In geology, as Mr. Spencer points out, "when the igneous and aqueous hypotheses were united, a rapid advance took place"; in Biology progress came through "the fusion of the doctrine of types with the doctrine of adaptations"; and in Psychology, similarly, an evolutionary conception partly harmonized the doctrines of the Lockian and Kantian schools [n1 First Principles, p. 22.]. It is true that Mr. Spencer proceeds to turn the generalization to the account of his theorem of a "Reconciliation" between "Religion" and "Science," on a ground which he declares to be outside both—that is, to belong to no science whatever. Nevertheless, the general proposition as above illustrated is just; and there is an obvious presumption that it will hold good of any science in particular.

It is proposed in the present inquiry to try whether the renewed application of the principle may not give light and leading in the science—if we can agree so to call it—of mythology. By some the title may be positively withheld, on the ground that mythology so-called is seen in recent discussions to be only a collection of certain lore, to which are applied conflicting theories; and it is not to be denied that there is enough of conflict and confusion to give colour to such an account of the matter. But inasmuch as there has been progress in course of centuries towards scientific agreement as to certain classifications of the phenomena; and as this progress can be shown to consist in successive extensions of the relations under which they are contemplated, there is reason to conclude that mythology is a science like another, though latterly retarded more than others by the persistence of pre-scientific assumptions.

Myth, broadly speaking, is a form of traditionary error; and while the definition of mythology turns upon the recognition of the special form, the bane of the science has been the more or less complete isolation of it in thought from all the other forms. The best analogy for our purpose is perhaps not any of those cited from Mr. Spencer, but rather the case of Astronomy, where Newton's great hypothesis was by way of seeing planetary motions as cases of motion in general. Any form of traditionary error, it seems clear, must occur in terms of the general conditions of traditionary error; and such error in general must be conceived in terms of men's efforts at explanation or classification of things in general, at successive stages of thought. Yet in our own time, under the ostensible reign of Naturalism, after ages in which men looked at myth from a point of view that made almost invisible the psychological continuity between myth-makers' mental processes and their own, we find accomplished students of the science still much occupied in setting up walls of utter division between the mythopoeic and all other mental processes; between the different aspects of early classification; between the aspects of myth; between myth and "religion," religion and magic, myth and early morals, myth and legend, myth and allegory, myth and tradition, myth and supernaturalist biography.

If past scientific experience can yield us any guidance, it would seem that such a tendency is frustrative of scientific progress.

§ 2. The Scientific Beginnings.

Gains there have certainly been, in the past half century. When we compare its results with those of the previous ten or even four centuries, as sketched in the Introduction à l'Etude de la Mythologie of Eméric-David [n1 Paris, 1833.], we must admit a considerable progress; though if we should chronicle as he did the backward treatises as well as the others we could make a rather chequered narrative. The definite gain is that the naturalist method, often broached but not accepted before our time, is now nearly though not quite as generally employed in this as in the other sciences, whereas in past times there was an overpowering tendency to handle it from the point of view of that belief in "revelation" which so completely vitiated the study of Greek mythology in the hands of Mr. Gladstone, the last eminent practitioner on the old basis. How effectively that belief has retarded this science in particular may be partly gathered from Eméric-David's historical sketch.

Beginning with Albric in the eighth century, Maimonides in the twelfth, and Boccaccio in the fourteenth, the learned academician makes out a list of between seventy and eighty scholarly writers on mythology down to Benjamin Constant. He might have extended the list to a hundred; but it is duly representative, save in that it oddly omits all mention of Fontenelle, whose essay De l'origine des fables, as Mr. Lang points out, substantially anticipated the modern anthropological and evolutionary point of view [n2 As does his Histoire des Oracles, 1686.]. This was of all previous treatises the one which could best have enlarged and rectified the French historian's own method, and he either overlooks or wilfully ignores it, taking note only of the very one-sided view of the anthropological principle presented later by De Brosses and his disciple Benjamin Constant.

It may be helpful at this point, however, to note the manner of the progression, as very fairly set forth in the main by Eméric-David, and in part by Karl Ottfried Mliller, in his earlier Prolegomena [n1 Neither supplies a complete survey; and the present sketch is of course only a bird's-eye view. For others, see Preller, Griechische Mythologie, Einleitung, §7; Decharme, Mythologie de la Grèce Antique, Introd., pp. vi.-xx.; and Father Cara, Esame critico del sistema philolologico e linguistico, applicata alla mitologia e alla scienza delle religione, Prato, 1884.].

The movements of advance and reaction in the history of mythological science, then, may be thus summarily and formally stated.

1. In rationalistic antiquity, the principle of evolution was barely glimpsed; and on the one hand the professed mythologists aimed at multiplying symbolical or allegorical meanings rather than tracing development, while on the other the school of Evemeros framed a set of false "naturalistic" explanations, being equally devoid of the requisite historical knowledge. The mythologists sank the fabulous personalities of the Gods in symbols; the sceptics sank them in actual human personages.

2. A substantially scientific beginning was made by the late school which reduced the symbolism of the older schools to a recognition of the large part played by sun and moon in most systems. In the hands of Macrobius (4th c.) this key is applied very much on the lines of the modern solar theory, with results which are still in large part valid. But that step of science, like nearly every other, was lost under Christianity and the resurgence of barbarism.

3. The Christian Fathers, when not disposing of Pagan Gods as demons, had no thought save to ridicule the old mythologies, failing to realize the character of their own.

4. The scholars of the Renaissance recognized the principle of Nature-symbolism, as set forth by Macrobius; but when, in the sixteenth century, scholarship began to classify the details of the pagan systems, it had no general guiding principle, and only accumulated data.

5. Bacon, who made symbolism his general principle of interpretation, applied it fancifully, slightly, and without method. Selden and others, with much wider knowledge, applied the old principle that the pagan deities were personalized nature-forces, as sun and moon. But others, as Leibnitz, Vossius, Bochart, and Mosheim, confused all by the theological presupposition (adopted from the ancient atheists) that the pagan deities were deified men, and by assuming further that the early life of antiquity was truly set forth only in the Bible.

6. Other earlier and later theologians, as Huet, though opposed by critical scholars such as Selden, Basnage, and Vico, went still further astray on the theory that pagan Gods were perversions of Biblical personages; and that all pagan theologies were perversions of an earlier monotheism. Such an application of comparative method as was made

by Spencer of Cambridge (De Legibus Hebraerorum, 1685) was far in advance of the powers of assimilation of the time.

7. Sceptics like Bayle derided all explanations alike, and ridiculed the hope of reaching any better.

8. New attempts were in large part a priori, and some went back to Evemerism, as that of Banier, who saw myth origins in perversions both of historical fact and of Biblical

narratives. The sound theorem of personalized forces was reiterated by Vico and others, and that of savage origins was thrown out by Fontenelle, but the theological method and premisses overrode scientific views. Other rationalists failed to apply the clue of evolution from savagery, and wrongly staked all on purposive allegorizing.

9. The Naturalism of De Brosses (Du Culte des Fetiches, 1760), while rightly pointing towards savage life, ignored the many grades between fetichism and the higher paganism,

and thus failed in the main to win even rationalistic students. On the other hand, the great astronomical and symbolical system of Dupuis (chief work, 1795), a development from the ancient positions of Macrobius, carefully applied to the Gospels and to the Apocalypse, did not account for the obscurer primitive elements of myth, though it rightly carried the mythological principle into the surviving religions. This was effectively done also in the slighter but more brilliant work of Volney, Les Ruines (1791), which proceeds on an earlier research by Dupuis.

In England and Germany the deistic movement of last century also led to the recognition of myths in the Old Testament [n1 Preller (Griech. Mythol. ed. 1860, i. 20) finds a predilection to particular points of view in the different nations—the Italians arguing for allegory, the Dutch for perversion of the Bible, the French for Evemerism and other pragmatic principles, and the Germans standing for an original monotheism. But this classification, as Preller implicitly admits, is only loosely true; and it no longer holds good in any degree.].

10. In the same period, Heyne developed a view that was in large part scientific, recognizing that myth is "the infant language of the race," lacking "the morality and delicacy of a later age," and that in later periods early myths were embellished, altered, and poeticized. He radically erred, however, in assuming that the early mythmakers only provisionally albeit "necessarily" personified natural forces, and always knew that what they said had not really happened. On the other hand, while teaching that their myths came to be literally believed by posterity, he erred in ascribing to the Homeric bards a conception of these myths as pure symbol; this conception having originated with the theosophic priests of Asia and Egypt, whence it reached the post-Homeric Greek rationalists. Voss [n2 Mythologische Briefe, 1794.], opposing Heyne as he later did Creuzer, did not improve on Heyne's positions, leaning unduly to the belief that primeval man allegorized reflectively, and making too much of the theory of deified ancestors, later insisted on by Mr. Herbert Spencer.

11. A distinct advance in breadth of view was made by Buttmann[n3 Treatises between 1794 and 1828, collected in Mythologus, 2 Bde. 1828-9.], who purified Heyne's doctrine as to the essential primitiveness or aboriginality of typical myth, and freshly laid the foundations of Comparative Mythology, recognizing that the same primitive mode of thinking could give rise to similar myths in different nations independently of intercourse, and calling for a comprehensive collocation. He thus naturally made too little of the special local significance of many myths.

12. Creuzer [n4 Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Volker, besonders der Griechen, 4 Bde. 1810-12.], on the other hand, while rightly recognizing that personification was a fundamental law of early thought, nevertheless founded on the false assumption of a "pure monotheistic primitive religion," and so stressed the idea of reflective allegory as to obscure his own doctrine that primeval man personified forces quite spontaneously.

Yet he introduced real clues—as that of the derivation of some myths from ritual, and that of verbal misconception, a theory later carried to excess by F. G. Welcker, and still later by Max Muller. He also noted the fact—fallaciously stressed by Mr. Lang in our own day—that the primitive mind made no such distinction between spirits and bodies as is made in later theology. Hermann, proceeding on similar fundamental lines, likewise conceived myth too much in terms of the constructive allegorizing of priesthoods, overlooking the spontaneous and relatively fantastic beginnings of savagery.

Alongside of these later German writers, whom he does not mention, Eméric-David does not innovate in any effective fashion. His own interpretative principle, further set forth in his treatise Jupiter (1832), is that laid down with caution but applied without any by Bacon—that myths are symbolical attempts to explain Nature; and to make his treatise broadly scientific it needed that he should have recognized how the principle of so-called fetichism, or the actual primitive personalizing of nature-forces, preceded and conditioned the systems which the writer handled as purposively symbolical, and symbolical only. The anthropological method had been indicated by Heyne, whose

system he admitted to be "true at bottom"; but on this side he made no use of it. As it was, he partly rectified the bias towards a single astronomical point of view which

narrows the great treatise of Dupuis, De l’Origine de tous les Cultes (1795). Concerning that, he rightly admitted that with all its limitations" it still constitutes the most

luminous treatise that has been written on mythology" [n1 Introduction cited, p. lxv.];

and his own contribution may be said to have consisted in adding several wards to Dupuis's key, or new keys to Dupuis's two or three, letting it be seen that the old symbolical interpretation of nature was at once a simpler and a more complicated matter than Dupuis had supposed. At the same time, he made no attempt to carry on the great

practical service of Dupuis and his school, the application of the pagan keys to the Christian religion, but confines himself to the Greek. The same thing falls to be said in some degree of the earlier Prolegomena of Karl Ottfried Muller (1828) [n1 Translated in English in 1844, under the title Introduction to a Scientific System of Mythology, by J. Leitch.], of which Eméric-David makes no mention, on his principle of not criticising living writers. But none the less had Muller brought to the study of Greek mythology a learning, a genius, and a method which give a really scientific character to his work. Of the school of Dupuis he shows no knowledge. Whether this came of policy or of nonacquaintance we cannot well divine; but it is much to be regretted that he thus failed to come in touch with the most vital problem of his study. On the other hand, he did much to clear up the scientific ground so far as he did go. One of the most intellectual and most alert German scholars of that great period, he brought to bear on all Greek matters an exact and critical knowledge such as had hardly ever before been vigilantly applied to mythology; and though he did not escape the bane of all pioneers—indefiniteness and contradiction—he did not a little to reduce previous confusions. Good samples of his services as a first-hand investigator are his statement [n2 Introduction, Eng. tr., p. 58.]

of the grounds for holding that the complete myth of Prometheus and Epimetheus is late, and his analysis of the myth of the transformation of Callisto into a bear.

In the latter case, by strict scrutiny of all the sources—a thing too seldom thought

of before his day—he arrived at the clear demonstration that "Callisto is nothing else than the Goddess and her sacred animal combined in one idea," and that Callisto became a bear, in the original legend, for this reason only, that the animal was sacred to Arcadian Artemis" [n1 Id. pp. 16-17.]. His deficiency on the concrete side appears in the same connection, when he observes that to Artemis as a Nature-Goddess "the most powerful creatures in nature, such as the bear, were sacred." This is unduly vague, and leaves us asking, in the light of later anthropology, whether the bear is not traceable further, and, in the light even of previous explanation, whether the bear was not after all associated with the Goddess because of the verbal resemblance between the names arktos (bear) and Artemis.

As regards general principles, Ottfried Muller is perhaps only at two points open to serious criticism. He rightly controverted the view, implicit in Dupuis and explicit in Creuzer (though Creuzer also implied the contrary), that systematic symbolism and allegory were the main and primary sources of myth; arguing with Schelling that myths were at the outset essentially spontaneous and unartificial At the same time, when dealing with the substantially sound thesis of Heyne, that "the mythus [in its early forms] was the infant language of the race," and that "poverty and necessity are its parents" [n2 Cited by Muller, p. 256. Schelling had said the same thing (Ueber Mythen, 1793), cited by Strauss, Leben Jesu, Einleit. § 8.], he is led by his passion for classical antiquity to put an unreasonably flat contradiction [n3 Muller, p. 20.], and thus seems to set his face against the fundamental truth that all religion begins in savagery. Thus he inconsistently lays stress [n4 P. 18.] on the conscious moral purpose of the myth of Zeus and Lycaon, which he holds to be very early, while disregarding the immorality of others, both earlier and later. The difficulty becomes acute when, making a needless verbal strife over the term "allegory," he insists that, if a certain worship were "allegorical in the strict sense, it could be no worship at all" [n5 P. 61.]; He goes on:—

"Here we have to deal with a mode of contemplating the world which is quite foreign to our notions, and in which it is difficult for us to enter. It is not incumbent on the historical investigation of mythology to ascertain the foundations on which it rests. This must be left to the highest of all historical sciences—one whose internal relations are scarcely yet dreamt of—the history of the human mind."

On which one at once answers, first, that mythology, as distinguished from mere mythography, must be of itself a part of the history of the human mind, if it is anything, and that it must in some sort settle its bases as it goes along; and, secondly, that MUller himself, in the next breath, goes on to specify such a foundation when he speaks of a "certain necessity of intuition" as underlying the formation of mythi. But indeed he is thus reasoning out psychological foundations all through his treatise, and we are entitled to say that the deliverance above cited is in plain contradiction of his practice, as well as of his later and really sound decision, given in comment on Creuzer, that "mythology is still an historical science like every other. For can we call a mere compilation of facts history? and must we not, in every field of the science of history, ascend on the ladder of facts to the knowledge of internal being and life" [n1 Id. p. 273.]?

That is the most serious contradiction in the book; and we can but say on the other hand that the reasoner enables us to correct him when he errs. His frequent protests (echoed by Grote) against the attribution of "allegory" to myths in general, do but point to the confessed imperfection of the "history of the human mind"—a consideration which should have made him more circumspect verbally. We are left asking, What is allegory? and while we can all agree that early Greeks certainly did not allegorize as did Spenser and Bunyan, and that the Prometheus story in its complete form is clearly late, we are none the less forced to surmise that something of the nature of allegory may enter even into the earliest myths—that at times even the myth-making savage in a dim way necessarily distinguishes at the outset between his myth and his other credences, or at least is often in a manner allegorizing when he makes his story to explain facts of nature. Where he differs from the scientific man—though not from the religious—is in his power of passing from the half-allegoric conception to the literalist.

In any case, it is not historically or psychologically true that, as Muller puts it, "mythus and allegory are ideas lying [necessarily] far apart" [n1 Id. p. 272.]; and we may, I think, be sure that some of the writers he antagonized were using the word "allegory" in a sense of which the practical fitness is tacitly admitted by his repeated use of the phrase "strictly allegorical." All the while he admitted [n2 Id. pp. 18, 58.], as does Grote after him [n3 History of Greece, second par.], that an allegorical explanation frequently holds good of parts even of early myths; which is really a surrender of the essentials in the dispute.

As against these minor confusions, however, we must place to the credit of Ottfried Muller a general lucidity and catholicity of method that make him still a valuable instructor. While he avoided the extravagances of the symbolists, he sensibly recognized and explained many symbols [n4 E.g. that of the Dog Star, p. 135.]; and while he objected to allegoric systems he gave the sound advice: "Let us therefore, without rejecting anything of that kind, merely hold back, and wait for the development of individual cases" [n5 P. 18: cp. p. 19.]. Without laying down the anthropological method, he prepares us for it, especially by his keen attention to the geography of Greek myth; and while disclaiming all-round interpretation he helps us to many. The most helpful of his many luminous thoughts is perhaps his formulation [n6. Pp. 171, 175, 206, and previously in his Orchomenos (1820).] of the principle, implicitly to be gathered from Creuzer [n7 Cited by Muller, p. 270, from the introduction to the Symbolik.], that in many cases "the whole mythus sprang from the worship, and not the worship from the mythus"—a principle accepted from him by Grote [n8 History, end of ch. i.] and by a number of recent students, including Professor Robertson Smith and Mr. J. G. Frazer, and likely in the future to yield results of the first importance when applied to living as it has been to dead problems [n9 It must always be kept in mind that the worship which has given rise to a given mythus has itself arisen out of a previous mythus, on a different plane of conception. See below, ch. iii. §1, end, and compare Bergmann, Le Message de Skirnir et les Dits de Grimnir, 1871, p. 3.].

But thereby hangs, as we shall see, a tale to the effect that the course of true mythology does not run smooth. The application of the science to living problems is the weakest point in its present development. Thus far, then, we may round our summary of progress;

13. Karl Ottfried Muller and Eméric-David, proceeding on earlier studies and laying down general principles for myth interpretation (the former looking narrowly to documentary evidences and the latter putting stress on general symbolic values), alike failed on the one hand to explain the barbarous and primeval element in mythology, and on the other hand to connect mythology with the surviving religions. Each, however, gave sound general guidance, and Muller in particular established some rules of great importance.

§3. The Relation to Christianity.

So close on the publication of Ottfried Muller's Prolegomena as not to be fundamentally affected by it, came Strauss's epoch-marking Leben Jesu (1835), after Dupuis the first systematic application of mythological science to the Christian system. For several generations the mythical principle had been partially applied by German scholars to matters of current belief; the stimulus of the English deistical school having borne fruit more continuously among them than elsewhere. Deistical in spirit the movement remained; but it had all the easier a course; and the line of thought entered on by the school of Eichhorn, following on Heyne and Reimarus, was not even blocked, as was the case in England and France, by the reaction against the French Revolution. The Old Testament narratives, of course, were first dealt with; but so fast did criticism go that as early as 1802 there was published by G. L. Bauer a treatise on the Hebrew Mythology of the Old and New Testaments; a work which is noteworthy as already laying down the principle that it is of the highest importance to compare the myths of different races, thereby to learn how parallels may stand not for identity of matter, but for similarity of experience and way of thought among men of a given culture-stage [n1 Hebraische Mythologie, 1802, Vorrede, pp. iv. v.].

It also affirms in so many words that "the savage animizes all things (denkt sich alles belebt), for only what lives can act, and thus he personifies all" [n2 Id. i. 17.]. But in his interpretations Bauer follows the early rationalist method of reducing mythic episodes to exaggerations or misconceptions of actual events; and he makes little advance on Semler, who had connected the Samson myth with that of Hercules as early as 1773 [n3 Id. ii. 81.].

A generation later, whereas Keightley in producing the first edition of his Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy (1831) could say that" in selecting mythology" he "took

possession of a field which lay totally unoccupied" [n4 Pref. to 2nd edition, 1838.], the Germans had a whole library of treatises compared with which even his much improved second edition was but a respectable and prejudiced manual. So far had free scholarship travelled at a time when the teachers of the insular and stipendiary Church of England [n5 "The priest-ridden kingdom of the leopards" was Alexander Humboldt's. label for England in the early part of the century.] were declaring that "infidelity" was no longer associated with scholarly names. While English theology and philosophy, under ecclesiastical auspices, were at an absolute standstill, German thought was applying rational tests, strenuously if imperfectly, to nearly every department of traditional knowledge. The progress, of course, was halting and uncertain at best. Strauss has shown [n6 Leben Jesu, Einleitung, § 6, 8-11.] how vacillating and inconsistent were most of the innovators in their advance; how they were always trying to limit their concession, attempting first to explain miracles as natural events, then admitting myth to a certain extent, seeking for each myth a historical basis, striving to limit the field of myth to early times, trying later to draw a line between the Old Testament and the New, and next to admit myth as regards only the infancy of Jesus—always compromising in the interests of faith, or of simple peace and quietness.

Yet so early as 1799 an anonymous. writer on "Revelation and Mythology" had substantially set forth Strauss's own thesis, that "the whole life of Jesus, all that he should and would do, had an ideal existence in the Jewish mind long prior to his birth"; and between this and the more limited treatment of details by intermediate writers the world was partly prepared for Strauss's own massive critical machine.

And yet, though the formidable character and effect of that is the theme of an abundant literature, it was not a decisive force, even for theoretical purposes. On the side of mythological science it was defective in that it overlooked many of the Pagan myth-elements in the Christian cult, above all those bound up with the very central doctrine of the anthropic sacrifice and eucharist; and this by reason of a too exclusive attention to Judaic sources. It dealt with the salient item of the Virgin-birth in the light of general mythology; but it ignored the connecting clue of the numerous ancient ritual cults of a Divine Child. It showed the incredibility and the irreconcilable confusions of the resurrection story; but it did not bring forward the mythic parallels. As regards the process of mythic accretion, it did not properly apply the decisive documentary test that lay to hand in the Pauline epistles. At many points Strauss is Evemeristic even in condemning Evemerism, as when he decides the historic reality of John the Baptist to be certain, and the story of the Sermon on the Mount to be in the main genuine, though manipulated by Matthew in one way and by Luke in another. Dealing with the obviously mythical story of the betrayal by Judas, he never realizes the central preposterousness of the narrative [n1 Cp. The Myth of Judas Iscariot, in the author's Studies in Religious Fallacy.], and treats it as history. On the side of philosophy, again, he strikes a scientific reader dumb by his stupendously naive assurance that his long investigation of the life of Christ need have no effect on Christian doctrine. "The inner kernel of the Christian faith," he writes in his preface, "the author knows to be entirely independent of his critical researches.

Christ's supernatural birth, his miracles, his resurrection and ascension, remain eternal truths, however far their reality as historical facts may be put in doubt. Only the certainty of this can give calmness and weight to our criticism, and distinguish it from the naturalistic criticism of previous centuries, which aimed at upsetting the religious truth along with the historical fact, and so necessarily came to conduct itself frivolously. The dogmatic import (Gehalt) of the Life of Jesus will be shown by a dissertation at the end of the work to be uninjured." There are different conceptions of what constitutes frivolity; and it would have been pleasant to have Voltaire's estimate of the seriousness of a scholar and theologian who produced an enormously laborious treatise of fifteen hundred pages to disprove every supernatural occurrence connected with the life of Jesus, and at the beginning and end assured everybody that it all made no difference to religion, and that those must be frivolous who thought otherwise. Only in Germany, it may be decided, can such supernatural flimsiness of theory be conceived as solid philosophy; and even in Germany, in the generation of Hegel, there was a good deal of serious [n1 E.g. Julius Muller On the Theory of Myths, tr. in Voices of the Church agaimt Strauss, 1845, pp. 176-7.] if not frivolous comment on Strauss's final advice to the clergy to keep on telling the mythical stories to the people with due attention to the spiritual application, thereby furthering the "endless" progress towards the dissolution of the forms in the consciousness of the community—this in a work in the vernacular. Mr. Arnold gravely if not bitterly complained that Colenso ought to have written in Latin, though Colenso's avowed purpose was to put an end to deception. He might a good deal more relevantly have given the advice to Strauss, whose work he not very ingenuously exalted in comparison.

It was not unnatural that such a teaching should leave the practice of Christendom very much where it found it. If the "rational" critic felt as Strauss did after fifteen hundred pages of destructive argument, there was small call for the priest to alter his course.

And what has happened in regard to the mythology of both the Judaic and the Christian systems is roughly this, that after the mythical character of the quasi-supernatural narratives had been broadly demonstrated, specialist criticism, instead of carrying out the demonstration and following it up to its conclusions in all directions, has fallen back on the textual analysis of the documents, leaving the question of truth and reason as much as possible in the background. Later work on Hebrew mythology there has been but not, as before, on the part of professed theologians; and even that, as we shall see, is to a considerable extent unconvincing, thus failing to counteract the arrest of the study. On the professional Biblicists it seems to have had no practical effect, their lore being at least kept free of any specific acknowledgment. One is inclined to surmise that this process of restriction turns upon one of selection in the personalities of the men concerned. It would seem impossible that after Strauss and Baur and Renan and Colenso the stronger and more original minds could deliberately take up theology as of old; and as a matter of fact no minds of similar energy have appeared in the Churches since that generation completed their work. For Baur we have Harnack; for Bishop Colen so Bishop Barry; the Bishop Creightons meddling with none of these things. The powerful minds of the new generation do not take up orthodox theology at all; the business is for them too factitious, too unreal, too essentially frivolous. So we get a generation of specialists devoutly bent on settling whether a given passage be by P or P², by the Yahwist or the Elohist, the Deuteronomist or the Redactor, the Jerusalem Davidian, or the other, or the Saulist or the Samuel-Saulist—an interesting field of inquiry, well worth clearing up, but forming a singular basis on which to re-establish the practice of taking that mosaic of forgery and fiction as the supreme guide to human conduct. Of course this is the only species of rational criticism that can be pursued in theological chairs even in Germany; so that even if a professor recognizes the need for a moral and intellectual criticism of the Judaic literature, he must be fain to confine himself to documentary analysis and platitudes.

But the dyer's hand 'seems to be subdued to what it works in. Even in our own day, men engaged in the analysis tell us that the scribes and interpolators dealt-with really had supernatural qualifications after all [n1 See Canon Driver's Introduction to the Study of the Old Testament, 1st ed. pref. p. xv.]. It thus appears that when the higher criticism has done its work, the higher common-sense will have to take up the dropped clues of mythology and conduct us to a scientific sociologico-historical view of religious development. The textual analysis is a great gain; but to end with textual analysis is to leave much of the human significance of the phenomena unnoticed.

So with the mythology of the New Testament and the ritual usages of the Churches. In that regard also we now hear little of the element of myth, but a good deal of the

composition of the Gospels; and men supposed to know the results of that analysis are found treating as great spiritual truths, special to Christianity, data and doctrines which entirely appertain to the systems and credences of buried Paganism. The men capable of realizing the seriousness of the fact either remain outside the Church or follow Strauss's counsel inside. The undertaking to frame a psychological presentment of the "real Jesus" is still seriously pursued, albeit the documentary analysis does not leave even a skeleton for the accepted historical figure, wherewith to materialize the silent spectre of Paul's epistles. Thus Evemerism is still the order of the day as regards the Christian mythus; and people who are supposed to have the elements of a sound culture, including the results of mythological science, are often almost entirely ignorant of any bearings of Comparative Mythology on the Gospels, even though they may have learned to disbelieve in miracles. Mythological science has been prudently restricted to other fields, spiritually remote from modern faith and ritual.

The principle seems to be that of the legendary preacher who, when arranging with a brother cleric to take his place, warned him against speaking on capital and labour, as the congregation included some large employers, or on temperance, as there were some brewers; but added that "for a perfectly safe subject he might take the conversion of the Jews." Mythology is kept perfectly safe, and made to figure as an academic science, by being kept to the themes of the Dawn, the Tree, the Storm-Cloud, and the heathen Sun-God; to Sanskrit, savagery, totems, fairies, and Folk-Lore.

CHAPTER II.—MODERN SYSTEMS.

§ I.—The Etymological and Solar Schools.

WHILE, however, our science has thus faltered and turned back on those of its paths which come the straightest and the nearest to living interests, it has not been idle or altogether ill-employed. Even as the textual analysis of the Jewish and Christian sacred books lays a solid foundation for the mythologist of the future, so the modern schools of mythology, in building up the Comparative Method, with whatever laxities of logic and psychology, have been making the way easier for successors who will not submit to any restriction of their field. While Strauss, Colenso, and Renan were successively disturbing the peace of the Church without much resort to the mass of mythological lore, new and professed mythologists were beginning anew, and with on the whole a scientific bias, the presentment of mythological science so-called, with hardly any avowed recognition of its bearing on current creeds. Unfortunately the new schools are thus far much at issue among themselves, by reason mainly of their differing ways of restricting the application of the Comparative Method. Kuhn, who in Germany began the new investigation on the basis of the Vedas, was an acute or rather ingenious theorist along particular lines of myth-phenomena, his tendency being to reduce all myths to those of the phenomena of storm-cloud, wind, rain, and lightning. To Kuhn, however, belongs the honour of inaugurating the new Comparative Mythology in terms of the affiliation of Greek God-names to Sanskrit [n1 Steinthal, The Original Form of the Legend of Prometheus, Eng. tr. With Goldziher, pp. 363-5; E. H. Meyer, Indoger. Mythen, 1883, i. 1.]; and his brother-in-law Schwartz, who had collaborated with him in collecting the Norddeutsche Sagen (1848), did real service to the science by his analyses and explanations of nature-myths in his Ursprnng der Mythologie (1860).

About the same period in England, Mr. Max Muller founded a separate "Aryan" school, standing mainly on the solar principle as against the storm-system of Kuhn; and inasmuch as this was but a setting of one myth-type in place of another, the scientific advance was not great. On one side, indeed, there was retrogression. At the very outset of his work in 1856, Muller thought fit to insist that

"As far as we can trace back the footsteps of man. . . . we see that the divine gift of a sound and sober intellect belonged to him from the very first; and the idea of a humanity emerging slowly from the depths of an animal brutality can never be maintained again" [n1 Comparative Mythology, in Oxford Essays, 1856, p. 5; cp. Chips from a German Workshop, ed. 1880, ii. 8. The passage ends with the phrase "such unhallowed imputations." In the reprint the adjective becomes "gratuitous."].

Three years later was published The Origin of Species, followed in 1871 by The Descent of Man. But Professor Muller's conception of mythology was now fully shaped. Proceeding further mainly on the supposed primordiality of Sanskrit, and preoccupied with the philological problems set up by any comparison of Sanskrit and Greek God-names, he elaborated the theory of Creuzer and Welcker as to verbal confusions, putting it that myths in general originated in a "disease of language" [n2 "Mythology, which was the bane of the ancient world, is in truth a disease of language." Lectures on the Science of Language, 3^rd ed., p. 11. Cp. p. 240.], and that, the disease once developed—like the pearl in the oyster or the wart on the skin—it remained fixed in the languages derived from the given stem. The disease consisted in the primitive tendency to make proper names out of names for phenomena, the embodiment of genders in all names having the effect of setting up the habit of thinking of natural objects as animate and sexual. It is surprising that such a theory should ever be formulated without the theorist's seeing that the problem is shifted further back at once by the bare fact that the genders were attached to the words to begin with.

Had Professor Muller merely claimed that in some cases a myth arose as it were at second-hand by the misunderstanding of a name, he might have made out a reasonable case enough; for certain racial and geographical and other myths can best be so explained. And when he wrote that

"Nothing is excluded from mythological expression; neither morals nor philosophy, neither history nor religion, have escaped the spell of that ancient sibyl. But mythology is neither philosophy, nor history, nor religion, nor ethics" [n1 Essay on Comparative Mythology, end.],

he was putting a true conception which transcends the limitary principle of "disease of language." At the same time he declared that "mythology is only a dialect, an ancient form of language." Yet in the previous sentence he had, like his namesake Ottfried, repudiated Heyne's formula, "ab ingenii humani imbecillitate et a dictionis egestate"; substituting the anti-evolutionary "ab ingenii humani sapientia et a dictionis abundantia;"—as if it were sapientia to confuse the meanings of words. Thus the false principle overrides the true: sound conceptions passed on by Professor Muller himself have received development at other hands; and for lack of correlation in thinking he has repeatedly assailed his own positions; though, conscious of having held them, he is ready to resume them. Hence his attempts, under stress of controversy, to show that his doctrine was not what opponents represented it, have not only brought upon him some criticisms of much asperity, but have plunged the subject in extreme confusion. At times he has seemed to concede that the philological position is too narrow. After describing comparative mythology as "an integral part of comparative philology" [n2 Id. as first cited, p. 86.], he protested that he had "never said that the whole of mythology can be explained" as "disease of language," claiming only that "some parts of mythology" are "soluble by means of linguistic tests" [n3 Introd. to Science of Religion, ed. 1882, p. 252.]. Yet he later seems to oscillate between the extreme view and the broader [n4 Natural Religion, 1889, pp. 22, 24.]; and he says in so many words that it is a pity that Comparative Mythology has got into any hands save those of Sanskrit scholars [n5 Id, p. 484.].

Nor have his attempts to subsume Schleiermacher’s philosophy of religion into his mythology been more fortunate; the philosophy and the psychology are alike inexpert; and not a little of his philological mythology is unsatisfying in detail, apart from all other issues. In particular, certain etymologies which Dr. Muller represented as scientifically certain—e.g., the equations between gandharva and kentauro (Kuhn), Erinnys and saranyu, Daphne and Ahana—have been rejected as unsound by Mannhardt and others, as Mr. Lang is always reminding us.

In all probability this reaction has in turn gone too far; and latterly we find E. H. Meyer, in his Indogermanische Mythen, holding to the gandharra-kentauros equation against his master, Mannhardt. Pure philology was after all Dr. Muller's specialty; and he will probably stand on that when he has fallen on other issues. Next to his metaphysic and his psychology, it is his confidence of concrete myth-interpretation in terms of names that most weakens his authority. Most careful mythologists will admit that they are apt to put too much faith in their own explanatory theories: that they can hardly help coming at times to conclusions on a very incomplete induction. But Professor Muller has never lost the confidence with which he solved his early problems, while his readers, on the other hand, have in many cases lost the contagion. And this criticism applies in some degree to the brilliant performance of his most powerful English disciple, the Rev. Sir George Cox. That excellent scholar's Mythology of the Aryan Nations (1st ed. 1870), the most vivid and eloquent work in mythological science, was constructed on the assumption that the "Aryan" heredity was all decisively made out once for all on the old lines; and that the whole mythology of the races covered by the name is a development from one germ, or at least from a family of germs, found in the "Vedic and Homeric poets." In his second edition he admitted that since he wrote fresh proof had been given of the" influence of Semitic theology on the theology and religion of the Greeks"; but such an admission does not scientifically rectify the theoretic error embodied in his original thesis.

Anthropological as well as mythological research, following on the lines marked out by Fontenelle and De Brosses, had been showing not merely Semitic influences on Greeks, but (1) an interplay of many other influences, and (2) a singular parallelism in the mythology of races not known to have had any intercommunication [n1 See Schirren's Die Wandersagen der Neuseelander und der Mauimythos 1856, and Tylor's Researches into the Early History of Mankind, 1865, p. 326.]. These facts supplied a reason for a recasting of the mythological scheme, by way of recognizing that there is more than "one story" in hand, and that though "the course of the day and the year" covers a great deal of the matter, there are some other principles also at work. Further, Sir George Cox has quite needlessly grafted Dr. Muller's overbalanced theory of "disease of language" on his exposition. Dr. Muller on his part had classed his disciple as belonging to another school than his own—the Analogical as distinct from the Etymological [n2 Natural Religion, pp. 484, 492.]—and Sir George might profitably have made the same discrimination. For his own part he had rightly represented the primitive "savage" as necessarily personifying the things and forces of nature: to him they "were all living beings: could he help thinking that, like himself, they were conscious beings also? His very words would, by an inevitable necessity, express this conviction" [n3 Mythology of the Aryan Nations, ed. 1882, p. 21.]. For this "necessity" Sir George could quote Dr. Muller; but instead of noting that such a proposition dismissed a fortiori the theorem of "disease of language," he went on to include the latter, a propos of the principle of Polyonymy (or multiplying of names for the natural elements), which needed no such backing. With his usual candour he proceeded to cite the trenchant comment of M. Baudry, who in his essay De l'interprétation mythologique [n4 Published in the Revue Germanique, Fév, 1, 1868.] countered Dr. Muller before the "Hottentotic" school did. As M. Baudry pointed out, there was no "disease of language" in the case of secondary myths arising out of polyonymy, but simply failure of memory or loss of knowledge, such as may happen in the case of a symbolic sculpture as well as of an epithet.

Sir George's solution was that "after all there is no real antagonism" between the two accounts of the matter—a mode of reconciliation rather too often resorted to by Dr. Muller on his own account. There is certainly "no real antagonism" if only Dr. Muller's erroneous formula be dropped, and M. Baudry's substituted; but as it happens Dr. Muller's, instead of undergoing that euthanasia, is still made to cover far more ground than M. Baudry's pretends to touch.

In other countries the linguistic misconception had a hampering effect even on good scholarly research, as in the case of the work of M. Bréal, Hercule et Cacus: étude de mythologie comparée (1863). It is there laid down that " Never was the human race in its infancy, however vivacious and poetic may have been the first sallies of its imagination, capable of taking the rain which watered the earth for the milk of the celestial cows, nor the storm......for a monster vomiting flames, nor the sun,.....for a divine warrior launching arrows on his enemies, nor the roll of the thunder for the noise of the aegis shaken by Jupiter...... Whence came all these images, which are found in the primitive poetry of all the Aryan peoples? From language, which creates them spontaneously without man's taking care (sans que l'homme y prenne garde)." [n1 Work cited, p. 8.]. If this be true, early man never really personified anything; but his more highly evolved posterity did, merely because he had seemed to do so. In other words, the early man knew the sun to be inanimate though his language made him call it a person; and his descendants consequently regarded it as a person when they were able to describe it as inanimate. Here we have Heyne's old conception of a species of allegorizing which was inevitable and yet not believed in a theorem more puzzling than the phenomena it explains.

In the circumstances it was natural that there should arise an anthropological reaction against the Sanskritist and "Aryan" school, with its theory of family germs and

inherited disease of language; its forcing of philological hypotheses on a psychological science; and its assumption that we can trace nearly every myth with certainty to a definite natural origin. So many myths are inconsistent with themselves; so many are but fumbling explanations of ancient rituals of which the meaning had been lost; so many have been touched up; so many embody flights of imagination that are not mere transcripts from nature [n1 See Tylor, Primitive Culture, 3rd ed. i. 306, as to some of the conditions under which primitive invention is developed.]; so many are primitively stupid, so many have been combined, that such confidence is visibly excessive; and there are always plenty of cool heads pleased to shatter bubbles. But there is more than mere conservatism arrayed against the confident lore of Professor Muller and the brilliant ingenuity of Sir George Cox: there is the solid opposition of students who, finding myths just like those of the "Aryans" among all manner of savages, proceed to show that what is represented as exquisite fancy among early Aryans is on all fours with the clumsy tales of Dyaks and Hottentots, and that the interpreters are putting more into many Aryan myths than their framers did.

§ 2. The Movement of Anthropology: Tylor.

To such criticism a powerful lead was given by Dr. E. B. Tylor's Researches into the Early History of Mankind (1865) and Primitive Culture (1871), which colligate much of the anthropological science on which alone a sound mythology can be founded. At the outset, indeed, Dr. Tylor ranks himself among the adherents of Kuhn and Max Muller [n2 Researches into the Early History of Mankind, 1865, pp. 298, 326.], significantly coupling their names, though Muller had rejected Kuhn's interpretations in terms of cloud and storm and thunder, preferring to stake everything on the sun.

But besides bringing into correlation many terms of folklore, Dr. Tylor added to the keys already on the mythologist's bunch that of the "Myth of Observation," showing by many instances how the discovery of peculiar remains had given rise to fabulous interpretation, as in the case, already noted by Darwin, of the savage theory that the large animals whose skeletons are found underground must have been burrowers. By including such ideas under the concept of myth, Dr. Tylor was usefully pointing towards the general truth that all myth is but a form of traditionary error; and in his later work on Primitive Culture he further widened the conception, guarding against Muller's limitary view, and pronouncing "material myth to be the primary, and verbal myth to be the secondary formation" [n1 Primitive Culture, 3rd ed. i. 299.]. Again, while inconsistently separating mythology from religion [n2 Id. p. 285.], he expressly recognized that "the doctrine of miracles became as it were a bridge along which mythology travelled from the lower into the higher culture. Principles of myth formation belonging properly to the mental state of the savage, were by its aid continued in strong action in the civilized world" [n3 Id. p. 371.]—restricting his instances, of course, to mediaeval Catholicism. Finally, in his summary of "the proof of the force and obstinacy of the mythic faculty," he supplied a very suggestive list of its modes :

"In its course there have been examined the processes of animating and personifying Nature, the formation of legend by exaggeration and perversion of fact, the stiffening of metaphor by mistaken realization of words, the conversion of speculative theories and still less substantial fictions into pretended traditional events, the passage of myth into miracle-legend, the definition by name and place given to any floating imagination, the adaptation of mythic incident as moral example, and the incessant crystallization of story into history" [n4 Id. p. 416.].

The main logical or scientific flaw in the exposition is one that almost corrects itself—the separation from all this of the study of "Animism," which is separately handled as the basis of Natural Religion. Obviously Animism is involved in the very first of the processes above specified as constituting myth—the animating and personifying of Nature. This is admitted in the earlier announcement, in the first chapter on Mythology (ch. viii.), that the doctrine of Animism "will be considered elsewhere as affecting philosophy and religion, but here we have only to do with its bearing on mythology."

But here Animism is one thing or category, Mythology another, and Religion yet another; the two latter ranking as separate departments or processes of intellectual life, and being merely acted on by the third. Such a position marks the limit to the direct service rendered by Dr. Tylor to the science of mythology and of hierology, though his indirect service is unlimited. To make further progress we must recast the psychological concept and statement, recognizing that Animism, Mythology, and Religion are alike but aspects of the general primitive psychosis; and that while we may conveniently make anyone of the three names cover the primary phenomena, it is a fallacy to make them stand for three faculties or provinces of intellectual life. Such a conception is only one more unscientific severance of unity, yielding no analytic gain of clearness, but rather obscuring the problem. So much seems to be felt by Dr. Tylor when in his concluding chapter he remarks that

"Among the reasons which retard the progress of religious history in the modern world, one of the most conspicuous is this, that so many of its approved historians demand from the study of mythology always weapons to destroy their adversaries' structures, but never tools to trim and clear their own" [n1 Id. ii. 447.].

Unfortunately the schematic fallacy rather than the implications of the comment tends to stand as the author's authoritative teaching; and in one other regard Dr. Tylor regrettably endorses a separatist view of primitive thought. Concluding his exposition of Animism [n2 Ch. xvii. vol. ii. p. 360.], he writes that

"Savage animism is almost devoid of that ethical element which to the educated modern mind is the very mainspring of practical religion. Not, as I have said, that morality is absent from the life of the lower races. Without a code of morals, the very existence of the rudest tribe would be impossible; and indeed the moral standards of even savage races are to no small extent well-defined and praiseworthy. But these ethical laws stand on their own ground of tradition and public opinion, comparatively independent of the animistic beliefs and rites which exist around them. The lower animism is not immoral, it is unmoral."

The use of the word "comparatively" shows a half consciousness of the essential error of the proposition. Obviously the animistic beliefs and rites themselves stand on "tradition and public opinion"; and the tradition and public opinion in all cases alike subsist in virtue of being those of the same series or congeries of peoples or persons, whose ethic tells of their religion and mythology, and whose religion and mythology are part of the expression of their ethic. As we shall see, a mythologist as separatist as Dr. Tylor himself on the question of religion and mythology is able to controvert him as regards his separation of religion and ethic.

Always the trouble is arbitrary classification and limitation, illusory opposition set up between. two aspects of a coherent process; and we seem to be delivered from one obstacle only to collide with another, set up by the deliverer.

§ 3. A priori Evolutionism: Spencer.

The fatality is peculiarly striking in the case of the greatest co-ordinating thinker of the time, Mr. Herbert Spencer. Coming in the due course of his great undertaking to the problem of the evolution of religious beliefs, he does indeed necessarily posit unity in the psychological basis of credences, having already well established the psychic unity of the thinking faculty or process from its lowest to its highest stages. But with all the results of Comparative Mythology thus far before him, Mr. Spencer must needs make all religious concepts pass through the single ivory gate of Dreams, reducing all forms of the God-idea to a beginning in the primitive idea of ghosts or souls [n1 Principles of Sociology, 1876-82, §§ 52-204.]. Here, indeed, the primitive Welt-Anschauung is envisaged as all of a piece; but the manifold of myth and worship is traced to the root of a single mode of error. Thus mythology is poised on a single stem, where inductive research shows it to have had many; and where in particular the study of animal life, which Mr. Spencer was so specially pledged to take into account, reveals a general propensity prior to that special development on which he rests the whole case.

Thus again the science of Mythology, which is the basis of the science of Hierology, is confronted by a principle of schism, as the result of a great thinker's determination to shape the doctrine of evolution in terms of his own specific thought, to the exclusion or subordination of other men's discoveries. Dr. Tylor had fully recognized the play of the ideas of ghost and soul in ancestor-worship, and the bearing of ancestor-worship on other forms; but he had also recognized as a primary fact the spontaneous personification by early man of objects and forces in Nature. Mr. Spencer on his side escapes the false dichotomy between ethics and religion; and he rightly brings myth and religion in organic connection; yet his forcing of all myth-sources back to the one channel of ancestor-worship. and the conception of ghosts has given as large an opportunity to reaction as did any of the limitary errors of professed mythologists before him; and specialists with antiscientific leanings, who set up a false separatism where he does not, are able out of his fallacy to make capital for a fresh version of supernaturalism.

On the constructive side, Mr. Spencer's service is clear and great. He has given new coherence to the conception of the interplay of subjective and objective consciousness, in primitive thought. No one, again, had better established the principle of continuity in the process of intelligence. Where Professor Muller, in the act of insisting on the presence of the "divine gift of a sane and sober intellect" in the lowest men, yet represented them as getting their myths by sheer verbal blundering, Mr. Spencer rightly stipulated that all primitive beliefs are, "under the conditions in which they occur, rational" [n1 Id. § 52. This, it should be noted, is clearly put by Fontenelle two hundred years ago; and from him the principle was accepted by Comte, who esteemed his work.]. Where other students had either waived the relation of the higher theology to the lower, or had used the language of convention, he consistently traces one process of traditionary error from first to last.

Where professed mythologists continue expressly to differentiate Hebrew from all other ancient credences, he decisively asks whether "a small clan of the Semitic race had given to it supernaturally a conception which, though superficially like the rest, was in substance absolutely unlike them" [n1 Id. § 202.]? And yet his limitary treatment of the animistic process has enabled partizans of that other order, who see abnormality in Hebrew lore and who describe the myth-making process as "irrational," to turn his error to the account of theirs—this though the correction of his fallacy had been clearly and conclusively made by a student of his own school, and had been indicated before him by other evolutionists.

§ 4. The Biological Connection.

The point at issue is fully indicated by Mr. Spencer himself when he argues [n2 Id. § 61.] that sub-human animals distinguish between the animate and the inanimate, though for them motion implies life; that the ability to class apart the animate and the inanimate is inevitably developed by evolution [n3 Id. § 64.], since failure would mean starvation; and that accordingly primitive man must have had a tolerably definite consciousness of the difference [n4 Id. § 65.], and cannot be supposed to confound the animate and the inanimate "without cause." Hence he must have had a fresh basis for his known Animism; and this came by way of his idea of ghost or soul, reached through his dreams [n5 Id. § 73.].

But on the face of his own argument, Mr. Spencer has gone astray. If motion be a ground for Animism with animals, and if the instinct be passed on to primitive man with the burden of effecting a closer discrimination among things, many of the phenomena of Nature were thrust upon him without his having the knowledge needed to make such discrimination.

For him, the sun, moon, and stars, the clouds, the rain, the winds, the rivers, the sea, the trees and plants, were all instances of more or less unexplained motion. What should he do, then, but personalize them? That problem had been put and the answer given by both Comte and Darwin, who lay to Mr. Spencer's hand; yet he overrides their reasoning as he overrides the crux.

Darwin's clue is given in his story of how his dog, seeing an open parasol suddenly moved by the wind, growled at it as he would at a suddenly appearing strange animal [n1 Descent of Man, ch. iii. 2nd ed. i. 145.]. This clue is systematically developed in the essay of Signor Tito Vignoli on Myth and Science (1882), where Mr. Spencer's theory is respectfully but firmly treated as a revival of Evemerism; and where myth is shown to root in the animal tendency in question, on which Signor Vignoli had carefully experimented [n2 Work cited, ch. ii.]. And it would not avail for Mr. Spencer to reply that he had already avowed the tendency of the animal to associate life with motion, but that this cannot lead to a fetichism which animises the non-moving. In stating the case as to the animal he had already admitted fetichism in so far as fetichism consists in animizing inanimate things which are moved. Thus his statement that fetichism is shown by both induction and deduction to follow instead of preceding other superstitions is already cancelled. It is a self-contradiction for him to argue that the savage, being unable to conceive separate properties, is unable to imagine "a second invisible entity as causing the actions of the visible entity" [n3 Principles of Sociology, § 163.]. One answers: Quite so. The savage makes no such detour: he sees or feels motion, to begin with, and takes for granted its quasi-personality: it is only on the ghost-theory, as its author admits, that he assumes "two entities." And having begun to ascribe personality where there is motion without consciousness, he might proceed to ascribe personality or consciousness where there is no motion, though on this head we may grant the ghost-theory to have a special footing. But the essential point is that to sun, moon, and stars, to winds and waters, to trees and plants, the savage is spontaneously led to ascribe personality, in so far as he speculates about them.

Here Mr. Spencer has providently set up another defence, in the proposition [n1 Id. § 46.]

that it is an error to conceive the savage as theorizing about surrounding appearances; that in point of fact the need for explanations of them does not occur to him. This is certainly borne out in a measure by much evidence as to lack of speculation on the savage's part; but the solution is simple. He theorizes about the forces that affect or seem to affect him, else why should he ever reach fetichism at all, with the ghost-idea or without it? The dog, which animizes the suddenly moved stone in his kennel, probably does not animize the wind and the rain, unless they should become violent [n2 Cp. Vignoli, pp. 57-67.], or the river, the light, and the darkness; and it may be that many savages could also go through life without doing so on their own account. But the simple noting that the sun rises and sets, if followed by any speculative reflection whatever, must by Mr. Spencer's own admission involve the animizing of the sun by the early savage, who has acquired no knowledge enabling him to explain the sun's motion otherwise; and that is the gist of the dispute. That ghost ideas when formed should affect and develop prior animistic ideas is likely enough: what must be negated is the proposition that they are the beginning of all mythology and superstition.

Thus rectified, Mr. Spencer's teaching, complemented by all the data of anthropology and mythology, gives the true form or standing-ground for mythological science. Taking myth as a form of traditionary error, we note that such error can arise in many ways; and when we have noted all the ways we have barred supernaturalism once for all, be it explicit or implicit. Unfortunately the rectification has been ignored by those mythologists who are concerned to retain either the shadow or the substance of supernaturalism; and until the naturalist position is restated in full, foursquare to all the facts, they will doubtless continue to obscure the science.

The old fatality, indeed, is freshly illustrated in an almost startling fashion by Signor Vignoli, the corrector of the psychology of Mr. Spencer. His thesis includes the perfectly accurate propositions that "the mythical faculty still exists in all men, independently of the survival of old superstitions, to whatever people and class they may belong" [n1 Work cited, p, 3.], and that it is "in the first instance identical and confounded with the scientific faculty" [n2 Id. p. 33.]. That is to say, a myth is a wrong hypothesis made to explain a phenomenon, a process, or a practice. And with a fine unconsciousness Signor Vignoli supplies us later on with a sheaf of such hypotheses of his own. Christianity, he tells us, citing his Dottrina razionale del Progresso, "was originally based on the divine first Principle, to which one portion of the Semitic race had attained by intellectual evolution, and by the acumen of the great men who brought this idea to perfection"; and again, "the Semitic people passed from the primitive ideas of mythology to the conception of the absolute and infinite Being, while other races still adhered to altogether fanciful and anthropomorphic ideas of the Being" [n3 Id. p. 175.]. Here be old myths: in point of fact the Jewish God was anthropomorphic, and was not an "absolute idea" ; and monotheistic doctrine was current in Egypt long before the Semites had any. Or, if "Semites" had the idea as early as Egyptians, they were certainly not the Hebrews. On the other hand, Signor Vignoli is so oblivious of the facts of comparative mythology as to consider it a specially "Aryan" tendency to desire a Man-God [n4 Id. p. 181.]. He has forgotten that Attis and Adonis and Hercules and Dionysos, all of Semitic manufacture, had been as much Man-Gods as Jesus; and he has no suspicion that Samson and half-a-dozen other figures in the Bible had been Man-Gods [n5 Goldziher indeed writes, Mythology among the Hebrews, Eng. tr. (p. 248), that "Samson never got so far as to be admitted, like Herakles, into the society of the Gods." But this view is completely negated by the records of the worship of Samas or Samsu in the Babylonian system. Herakles is late in joining the Greek Gods because he is an imported hero. Samson in the Bible has been Evemerized into a mortal.] till they were Evemerized by the Yahwists.

But there is an element of new myth in Signor Vignoli's statement over and above these historic errors: he pictures the "Semitic and Chinese races" as having "soon freed themselves from their mental bonds" in virtue of the fact that their "inner symbolism of the mind" was "less tenacious, intense, and productive." All which is simply

sociological myth: the reduction of a vast and incoherent complex to an imaginary simplicity and unity of movement. To generalize "the Semite" and "the Aryan" as

doing this and that is but to make new myths. Such a phrase as: "the idea of Christianity arose in the midst of the Semitic people through him whose name it bears," is merely literary mythology; and "the intellectual constitution of the race" is a psychological myth. Signor Vignoli, in fine, has taken over without scrutiny a group of current historical myths, including the current conception of the Gospel Jesus, and the Renan myth that "the Semites" lacked the faculty for mythology [n1 When Renan committed himself, the Babylonian mythology had not been recovered. Signor Vignoli accepts the myth with the Babylonian mythology before him.]; and he has added to these fresh sociological and psychological and literary myths in the manner of Auguste Comte. He even becomes so conventionally mythological as to rank among the "peculiar characteristics" of "our" [the "Aryan"] race, "a proud self-consciousness, an energy of thought and action, a constant aspiration after grand achievements, and a haughty contempt for all other nations" [n2 Id. p. 180.]. As if the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Chinese, the Hebrews [n3 Cp. Goldziher, pp. 250-7.], and the Fijians lacked the endowment in question. Evidently we must set the mythologist to catch the mythologist.

§ 5.—Fresh Constructions, Recursions, Omissions, Erasions.

Happily, gains continue to be made, despite aberrations; and while general principles are being obscured in the attempts to state them, new researches are made from time to time with so much learning and judgment as to give solid help towards clearing up and re-establishing the general principles.

Of such a nature, indeed, are most of the first-hand researches of the past generation into the beliefs, rites, and practices of the contemporary lower races. It is safe to say, further, that every systematic survey of Mythology has served to clear up some details as well as to facilitate the recognition of general law by later student. This holds good of J. F. Lauer's posthumous System der griechischen Mythologie (1851), though it sets up a superficial classification in defining Mythos as a wonderful story dealing with a God, and Sage as a story dealing with men. It holds good of the Griechische Gotterlehre of Welcker; of the admirably comprehensive Griechische Mythologie and Romische Mythologie of Preller; of the eminently sane and scholarly Mythologie de la Grece Antique of M. Decharme ; of the brilliant Zoological Mythology of Signor de Gubernatis; of the astronomical and other studies of Mr. Robert, Brown, Jr.; of Goldziher's Hebrew Mythology, despite the undue confidence of some of its interpretations (as that Joseph is certainly the Rain, Jacob the Night, and Rachel the Cloud); of the theorem of the historical critics that Rachel and Leah and their handmaids may be myths of tribal groups and colonies; and of a multitude of general surveys and monographs, down to the monumental Ausfuhrliches Lexikon der griechischen und romischen Mythologie, edited by Dr. Roscher. Yet probably no surveJ0 is yet sufficiently comprehensive; and even the most masterly researches are found at times to set up obstacles to the full comprehension of the total mythological process.

No abler or more truly learned monograph has ever been written in mythology than Mr. Frazer's Golden Bough (1890) ( Proceeding partly on the memorable researches of Mannhardt, which as usual were ignored in England till long after they were accepted elsewhere, and partly on those of the late Professor Robertson Smith, it connects Mannhardt's and Smith's data with much cognate lore, and constructs a

unitary theory with signal skill and circumspection. In Mr. Frazer's hands a whole province of mythology becomes newly intelligible; and henceforth multitudes of cases fall easily into line in terms of a true insight into primitive psychology.

But there accrues in some degree the old drawback of undue limitation of theory. Rightly intent on establishing a hitherto undeveloped principle of mythological interpretation, the cult of the Vegetation Spirit, Mr. Frazer has unduly ignored the conjunction—seen deductively to be inevitable and inductively to be normal—between the concept of the Vegetation-God and that of others, in particular the Sun-God. He becomes for once vigorously polemical in his attack on the thesis that Osiris was a Sun-God, as if that were excluded once for all by proving him to be a Vegetation-God. The answer is that he was both; and that such a synthesis was inevitable.

A few unquestioned facts will put the case in a clear light. Mithra, who, so far as the records go, was primordially associated with the Sun, and was thereby named to the last, is mythically born on December 25^th, clearly because of the winter solstice and the rising of the constellation of the Virgin above the horizon. Dionysos and Adonis, Mr. Frazer shows, are Vegetation-Gods. Yet they too are both born on December 25^th, as was the Babe-Sun-God Horos, who however was exhibited as rising from a lotos plant [n1 See hereinafter, Christ and Krishna, Sec. xii.]. Now, why should the Vegetation-God be born at the winter solstice save as having been identified with the Sun-God [n2 It is noteworthy that Apollo had two birthdays—at the winter solstice for the Delians, and at the vernal equinox for Delphi. Eméric-David (Introduction, p. cvi.) sets down the latter to the jealousy of Delphian priests. It probably stands for another process of syncretism.]? Again, Mr. Frazer very scientifically explains how Dionysos the Vegetation-God could be represented by a bull; animal sacrifices being a link between the Vegetation-Spirit and the human sacrifice which represented him. But then Mithra also was represented by a bull, who is at once the God and his victim; also by a ram, as again was Dionysos. Yet again, Yahweh and Moloch were represented and worshipped as bulls; and it would be hard to show that they were primarily Vegetation-Gods, though Yahweh does, like Dionysos, appear "in the bush."

Now, the mere identification of different Gods with the same animal, however different might be the original pretexts, would in the ancient world inevitably lead to some identification of the cults; even were it not equally inevitable that the Sun should be recognized as a main factor in the annual revival of vegetation. In the case of Osiris there is the further obvious cause that Isis, his consort, is an Earth-Goddess, this by Mr. Frazer's own admission. The God must needs stand for something else than the Goddess his spouse. For Mr. Frazer, finally, the sun enters the vegetation cult as standing for the fire stored in the sacred fire-sticks [n1 Id. ii. 369.]. But to assume that only in that roundabout way would primitive man allow for the obvious influence of the Sun on vegetation, is to shut out one of the most obvious of the natural lights on the subject. Once more the expert is unduly narrowing the relations under which he studies his object.

Such questions come to a focus when we bring comparative mythology to bear on surviving religion. The whole line of Mr. Frazer's investigation leads up, though unavowedly, to the recognition of the crucified Jesus as the annually slain Vegetation-God on the Sacred Tree. But Jesus is buried. in a rock-tomb, as is Mithra, the rock-born Sun-God [n2 See hereinafter, Mithraism, Sec. 4.]; and it is as Sun-God that he is born at the winter solstice; it is as Sun-God (though also as carrying over the administrative machinery of the Jewish Patriarch [n3 See the author's Studies in Religious Fallacy, pp. 164-5, and articles in National Reformer, May 8th and 15th, November 20th and 27th, and December 4th, 1887.]) that he is surrounded by Twelve Disciples; it is as Sun-God that, (like Osiris, he is to judge men after death—a thing not done by Adonis or Attis; it is as Sun-God passing through the zodiac that he is represented successively in art and lore by the Lamb and the Fishes; and it is as Sun-God that he enters Jerusalem before his death on two asses—the ass and foal of the Greek sign of Cancer (the turning-point in the sun's course), on which Dionysos also rides [n4 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, i. 21.]. The Christ cult, in short, was a synthesis of the two most popular Pagan myth-motives, with some Judaic elements as nucleus and some explicit ethical teaching superadded.

Not till Mr. Frazer had done his work was the whole psychology of the process ascertained.

Such is the nature, indeed, of the religious consciousness that it is possible for some to recognize the exterior fact without any readjustment of religious belief. To the literature of Christian Origins there has been contributed the painstaking work, Monumental Christianity, or the Art and Symbolism of the Primitive Church as Witnesses and Teachers of the one Catholic Faith and Practice, by John P. Lundy, "Presbyter" (New York, 1876). Its point of view is thus put by its author in his preface:—“It is a most singular and astonishing fact, sought to be developed in this work, that the Christian faith, as embodied in the Apostles' Creed, finds its parallel, or dimly foreshadowed counterpart, article by article, in the different systems of Paganism here brought under review. Noone can be more astonished at this than the author himself. It reveals a unity of religion, and shows that the faith of mankind has been essentially one and the same in all ages. It furthermore points to but one Source and Author. Religion, therefore, is no cunningly devised fable of Priest-craft, but it is rather the abiding conviction of all mankind, as given by man's Maker." On the other hand the author holds by the Incarnation, as being "a more intelligible revelation than Deism, or Pantheism, or all that mere naturalism which goes under the name of Religion" [n1 Work cited, p. 11.]. Thus the good presbyter's conscientious reproductions of Pagan emblems serve to enlighten others without deeply enlightening himself, albeit he has really modified at some points his old sectarian conception.

What Mr. Lundy imperfectly indicates—imperfectly, because he has taken no note of many Pagan works of art which are the real originals of episodes in the Gospels—has been set down with great theoretic clearness by M. Clermont-Ganneau in his L'Imagerie Phoenicienne et la Mythologie iconologiqne chez les Grecs (1880).

It is there shown, fully if not for the first time, how a mere object of art with a mythological purport (as in a group or series of figures), passed on from one country to another, may give rise to a new myth of explanation, and may attach to a God of one nation stories which hitherto belonged to another nation.

This theory, which M. Clermont-Ganneau ably establishes by some clear instances, has probably occurred independently to many inquirers [n1 The derivations of Christian myths from Pagan works of art hereinafter offered were all made out before I had seen or heard of the work of M. Clermont-Ganneau. See again H, Petersen's Ueber den Gottesdienst des Nordens wahrend der Heidenzeit (1876), Ger. trans., 1883, p, 82, for an independent statement of the principle. It is endorsed, again, in Collignon's Mythologie figurée de la Grèce, 1884, pp. 113-4.]: in any case it is a principle of the most obvious importance, especially in the investigation of the myths of the Gospels.

As against these important advances, there is to be noted a marked tendency on the part of philologists to revert to etymology as the true and perfect "key to all mythologies." Thus the Erklarung alles Mythologie of Herr F. Wendorff (Berlin, 1889) is wholly in terms of the supposed root-meanings of names in ancient myth; and the Prolegomena zur Mythologie als Wissenschaft, und Lexikon der Mythensprache of Dr. P. W. Forchhammer (Riel, 1891) turns on the same conception, with, however, a further insistence on Ottfried Muller's doctrine that it is necessary to study the myth in the light of the topography of its place of origin.

Dr. Forchhammer's motto runs: "Only through the knowledge of the local and chronological actualities in myths, and through the knowledge of the myth-language of the Greek poets, is the hidden truth of the mythus to be discovered." The criticism of such claims is (1) that all myths tended more or less to find acceptance in different

localities, with or without synthesis of local topographical details—even Semitic myths finding currency and adaptation in Greece; and (2) that the hope to reach certainty about the original values of mythic names all round is vain. Some have an obvious meaning: concerning others philologists are hopelessly at variance. We must seek for broader grounds of comprehension if we are to comprehend the bulk of the phenomena at all.

Finally, account must be taken, in any professedly comprehensive survey, of the play of a principle which in some hands is indeed much overstrained, but which certainly entered largely into ancient religion and symbol, that of phallicism. While some inquirers exaggerate, others evade the issue. But science cannot afford to be prudish; and in this particular connection prudery ends in facilitating nearly every species of general error above dealt with. That the subject can be handled at once scientifically and instructively has been shown by the massive work of General Forlong, entitled Rivers of Life (1883), in which the evolution of religious ideas is presented in broad relation with the general movement of the species. It is clear, indeed, that every line of research into human evolution is fitted to elucidate every other; and that there will be no final anthropological science until the intellectual and the material conditions of the process are studied in their connections throughout all history. Every problem of religious growth in a given society raises problems of economics and problems of political psychology. Thus far, however, we are hardly even within sight of such a sociological method as regards mythology. There it is still necessary to strive for the application of ordinary scientific tests as against the pressures of conservatism and reaction.

§ 6. Mr. Lang and Anthropology.

The protagonist, if not the main body, of the reactionary school is Mr. Andrew Lang, whose Custom and Myth (1884) and Myth, Ritual, and Religion (1889, revised ed. 1899) set forth his earlier views of the subject, otherwise condensed in his article on Mythology in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Written with a vivacity which somewhat irritates scholars on the other side [n1 See Professor Begnaud's Comment naissent les mythes? 1878, p. xvii.], and with a limpidity which is no small advantage in controversy, Mr. Lang's books perhaps make amends for setting up needless friction, by the fresh impulse they give to mythological study.

In large part they stand on the sure ground of evolution and comparative anthropology; and they do unquestionably make out their oft-reiterated main thesis, that myth has its roots in savage lore and savage fancy, and that all bodies of myth preserve traces of their barbarous origin—a proposition specially applied by Mr. Lang to certain of the cruder

Greek myths, such as that of Kronos and Saturn, concerning which a variety of "explanations" have been offered by mythologists. This main position no one seems to dispute. If there is any positive counter-theory, it is to be found in Mr. Lang's own later and obscurer argument that a high "religion" arises in the most primitive stage of life, either in or out of connection with a faculty possessed by the very same savages for "supernormal" knowledge [n1 Cp. in the author's Studies in Religious Fallacy, the paper, Mr. Lang on the Origin of Religion, and the Appendix.]—a theory so completely out of relation with his earlier exposition of Mythology that, to understand or expound the latter, we must for the time keep them apart. Taking his earlier mythology by itself, we can credit it with coherence and a general reasonableness. While, however, Mr. Lang may on this score claim to have established all he sought negatively to prove, he in turn is open even there to some criticism, not only for the method of his handli11g of the point supposed to be in dispute, but for his failure to carry out to its proper conclusions the evolutionary principle by which he professes to abide. It is thus necessary to rectify the course of the science by calling in question some of his doctrine.

To begin with, Mr. Lang has in the opinion of some of us overstated the stress of the difference between his point of view and that of the solar school. He has been over-solicitous to create and continue a state of schism. As a matter of fact, his main tenet is not only perfectly compatible with most of their general doctrine, but implicit in that.

Inasmuch as Sir George Cox and Dr. Muller more or less definitely accept the principle of evolution in human affairs, the former in particular constantly comparing savage myth and folk-lore with the classic mythologies, there is no good ground for saying that they ignore or reject the anthropological method. Sir George expressly points to the primeval savage as the first and typical mythmaker; and he uses phrases similar to Mr. Lang's concerning the "psychological condition" of early man. But Mr. Lang is always charging upon that school a positive rejection of anthropological science. Quoting [n1 Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 1st ed. ii. 324, App. A; 2nd ed. ii. 343.] Fontenelle's phrase,

"It is not science to fill one's head with the follies of Phoenicians and Greeks, but it is science to understand what led Greeks and Phoenicians to imagine these follies,"

he goes on: "A better and briefer system of mythology could not be devised; but the Mr. Casaubons of this world have neglected it, and even now it is beyond their comprehension." Now, as we shall see, Fontenelle's sentence may really be made an indictment against the method and performance of Mr. Lang himself; but it certainly does not tell against Sir George Cox, who, as the leading English exponent of a system of (implicitly) universal mythology, would naturally figure for Mr. Lang's readers as a typical "Mr. Casaubon" in this connection. The whole purpose of Sir George Cox's work is to "understand what led Greeks and Phoenicians to commit these follies": the only trouble is that, in the opinion of Mr. Lang and some of the rest of us—though we do not all go as far in Pyrrhonism as Mr. Lang—certain of his keys or clues are fanciful. Where Mr. Lang has made of these divergences a ground for challenging the whole body of the work, he was entitled only to call in question given interpretations. Mr. Lang on his own part really seems unable to see the wood for the trees.

There is absolutely nothing in Sir George's works that is incompatible with Fontenelle's doctrine as to the origination of mythology among primitive and savage men: on the contrary, that is more or less clearly implied all through them. Indeed, those of us who came to the study of mythology as evolutionists, taking Darwin's theory as substantially proved, found no more difficulty—apart from problems of interpretation—in Sir George Cox's pages than in those of Dr. Tylor, where the mental life of savages is the special theme. In this connection the idea dated back at least a century, to Heyne, with his derivation of the mythus. "ab ingenii humani imbecillitate et a dictionis egestate," so much objected to by K. O. and Max Muller. We took savage origins as a matter of course, and were puzzled to find Mr. Lang in chapter after chapter insisting on this datum as if it were a struggling heresy, ignored or opposed by all previous mythologists. Nay, we were the more puzzled, because while Sir George Cox, clergyman and theist as he is, leads us definitely through mythology into or at least up to the reigning religion, carrying the principle of evolution further than we could well expect him to do, Mr. Lang not only shows himself more of an a priori theist than Sir George, but definitely refuses to apply the evolution principle beyond certain boundaries. Instead of seeking above all things to "understand what led Greeks and Phoenicians to commit these follies," he again and again flouts attempts at explanation, and falls back on the simple iteration that "all this came from savages," which is no explanation at all, but merely a statement of the direction in which explanation is to be sought. Part of his grievance against other schools is that they are too ready with explanations. When he does accept an explanation that goes beyond totemism, he has often the air of saying that it is hardly worth troubling about. Let us take his own definition of his point of view :

"It would be difficult to overstate the ethical nobility of certain Vedic hymns, which even now affect us with a sense of the 'hunger and thirst after righteousness' so passionately felt by the Hebrew psalmists. But all this aspect of the Vedic deities is essentially the province of the science of religion rather than of mythology. Man's consciousness of sin, his sense of being imperfect in the sight of 'larger other eyes than ours,' is a topic of the deepest interest, but it comes but by accident into the realm of mythological science [n1 While retaining this passage in the revised (1899) edition of his earlier work, Mr. Lang complains, in his Making of Religion (1898), about "that strangely neglected chapter, that essential chapter, the Higher beliefs of the Lowest savages" (p. 183). Cp. the attack on Huxley's teaching, p. 191.]. That science asks, not with what feelings of awe and gratitude the worshipper approaches his gods, but what myths, what stories, are told to or by the worshipper concerning the origin, personal characteristics, and personal adventures of his deities. As a rule, these stories are a mere chronique scandaleuse, full of the most absurd and offensive anecdotes, and of the crudest fictions" [n2 Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 1st ed. ii. 129; 2nd ed. ii. 152.].

It is odd that a writer of :Ml'. Lang's general tone should thus explicitly maintain that his chosen specialty consists mainly in the mere collection of absurd and offensive anecdotes [n3 Sir George Cox, in a note (p. 19) on an early article by Mr. Lang, justly enough protests that "the great body of Vedic, Teutonic, or Hellenic myths is not silly, gross, obscene, disgusting, and revolting"; but on this we may let Mr. Lang have his way, if it comforts him.]. He must surely be doing himself an injustice. However that may be, it is clearly on him if on anyone that there falls, pro tanto, the rebuke of Fontenelle: "It is not science to fill one's head with the follies of Phoenicians and Greeks." On this head, it cannot be too emphatically said that Mr. Lang's sundering of religion from mythology, his proposition that they come together only "by accident," or that "mythological science" has nothing to do with the ethical purport or colouring of myths, is as arbitrary as anything that has been said on the other side of the discussion. Mythology as defined by him is not science at all, but mere mythography. Two assertions on this head I shall undertake to support, despite the formidable authority of Dr. Tylor and Mlr. Lang, who, as it happens, differ on one issue while concurring on the other :

1. Primeval myth and primeval ethic are all of a piece: the primitive man's mythology is in terms of his ethic as well as of his science, his logic, his imagination, such as these are [n4 Save in so far, that is, as savages, like civilized people, vary in mental type. Serious and frivolous savages might well frame myths of a different cast. But as we see in all ages a profession of austere religious belief conjoined with unscrupulous or frivolous practice, we must credit savages with similar inconsequence, explaining it by the human brain structure.].

2. Whatever purification, modification, and sophistication of myth takes place in later ages is largely the outcome of the pressure of a more advanced ethic on the old myth lore, which on the side of form or bare statement is otherwise apt to be blindly reiterated, especially in the absence of authoritative science. Where that is developed, it may cause further inventions and modifications.

A partial if not complete contradiction of these propositions is given in Mr. Lang's later theorem—to be dealt with hereinafter—that the lowest savages are found holding together a high-grade religious theory and a low-grade mythology; and that the former is probably the earlier development. But even on that view, which I hold to be fallacious, it would seem to me clear that to set aside as "accident" the ethical elements or bearings of mythology is to throw away an essential part of the explanation of "what led the Greeks and Phoenicians to commit these follies," and what led them to put a different face on them.

Nor is that all. The spirit of Fontenelle's remark carries us beyond the search for the bare explanation of the groups of pagan myths: it sets us upon tracing the whole connection of mythology with social and intellectual life, with historical religion, with ethics and philosophy as affected by historical religion. In the words of Ottfried Muller, we must "ascend on the ladder of facts to a knowledge of internal being and life." Broadly speaking, there were no "accidents" in these matters save in the strict logical sense that in certain cases there is an intersection of causal connections. It is true that it is not the mythologist's business to discuss the development and variation of reasoned and written religious doctrine, as apart from narrative bases and symbols. That is the work of the hierologist; not that the subjects are separate, but that it is necessary to make a division of labour. But to put aside the mass of written theology, the argumentative side of the later historical systems, is one thing; and to keep out of sight the vital connections and reactions of myth and doctrine is quite another. The one respect in which Mr. Lang's books on Mythology and Religion are consistent is that in each in turn he looks only

at one side of the shield—a course so arbitrary and so confusing that it can be explained only in terms of some extra-scientific bias. At the beginning of the historic period, ethics and religion are everywhere inseparably blended with myth; and in so far as religion has remained bound up with myth and with primitive ethic down to our own day, when rational ethic has definitely broken away from the old amalgam, it is supremely important and supremely interesting to trace not merely the earlier forms of myth, ritual, and religion, but their conjunct development into and survival in the latest forms of all. To stop short of that, as Mr. Lang and so many other mythologists do, is wilfully to impoverish and humble the science, keeping it always concerned with "the follies of Phoenicians and Greeks," always among the ancients or the Hottentots, always out of sight or even surmise of the bearings of these matters on the creeds and institutions of the civilized nations of our own day [n1 "Christian conduct and faith," writes Mr. Lang, "are no longer affected by the answers" we give to questions about myth origins. Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 1st ed. i. l.].

After all his iterations about the origination of myths in savagery, it is perplexing, if we cannot call it astonishing, to find Mr. Lang repudiating for religion the fundamental principle of all mental science, on which he has so zealously staked his case in mythology. Modifying the uncompromising dictum above quoted, but still adhering to his

arbitrary division of things, he writes in another chapter concerning Greek myths that

"it must be remembered that, like all myths, they have far less concern with religion in its true guise—with the yearning after the divine which 'is not far from anyone of us,' after the God 'in whom we live, and move, and have our being'—than with the religio, which is a tissue of old barbarous fears, misgivings, misapprehensions. The religion which retained most of the myths was that ancient superstition which is afraid of 'changing the luck,' and which, therefore, keeps up acts of ritual that have lost their significance in their passage from a dark and dateless past" [n2 Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 1st ed. ii. 65; 2nd ed. ii. 186.].

It would appear from these variations of statement that Mr. Lang has really not thought out his position in the matter; and when we compare them—retained as they are in the lately revised edition of his earlier work—with his recent book on The Making of Religion, which inclines to credit primeval savages with a high-grade religion and a "pure" ethic [n1 Making of Religion, pp. 175, 185, 206, 208, 211, 235, 273, 289, 309, 334.], and to explain their mythology as a later excrescence on these [n2 Id., pp, 280, 281, 290, 309. This view again is virtually quashed on p.199.]—when we put all the propositions together, the lack of sequence becomes bewildering. In any case, putting aside for the moment the oddly haphazard assertion in the last sentence of the passage before us, we are driven to note that very soon after drawing a line between the science of religion and that of mythology, and claiming to stand only in the latter's province, he here undertakes, in the merest obiter dictnm, to lay down the law as to what constitutes the "true guise" of religion, just as he repeatedly disparages as "sacerdotage " many phases of the religions of Egypt and India. And we are bound to observe that, whether from his own point of view or from ours, that is none of his affair as a mythologist. From his own standpoint he has no title to speak on it; from ours, inasmuch as he holds that standpoint, he is disqualified to discuss the subject judicially. In this regard, he is doing exactly what he charges on the other mythologists—taking an a priori point of departure instead of going to the comparative history of the facts. At the outset he professes to stand on the evolutionist basis now common to the sciences, making no reservation of any department of mental life. But when he has gone a certain distance he asserts not only that "the question of the origin of a belief in Deity does not come within the scope of a 'Strictly historical inquiry," but that "no man can watch the idea of God in the making or in the beginning" [n3 Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 1st ed. i. 307; 2nd ed. i. 305. I do not gather that in the revised edition Mr, Lang abandons this particular sentiment, though he explains (p. 307) that his opinions have become more emphatic as to the remote antiquity of both the purer religion and the "puzzling element of myth." Compare The Making of Religion, p. 43, as to “beginnings."]. If this be true, to what purpose is all Mr. Lang's polemic?

What is the meaning of the title of his last treatise, "The Making of Religion"? If we cannot watch the God-idea in the making, neither can we watch myth in the making. To speak of "the beginning" is neither here nor there, for the proposition must hold equally of myth, since, as Mr. Lang goes on to say, "We are acquainted with no race whose beginning does not lie far back in the unpenetrated past." In other words, the "beginnings" of myth, as we have seen, are pre-human, in terms of the theorem of Darwin and Vignoli, with which Mr. Lang never deals. Then though Mr. Lang will here dissent—the God-idea must be in similar case; and Mr. Lang indeed proceeds to admit that "the notions of man about the Deity, man's religious sentiments, and his mythical narratives, must be taken as we find them." Then is it argued that at no stage do we find myth "in the making"? What else do we find when we compare successive stages of the mythology of any one people? And what had Mr. Lang meant when he said previously [n1 Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 1st ed. i. 36; 2nd ed. i. 39.] that "we, are enabled to examine mythology as a thing of gradual development and of slow and manifold modifications, corresponding in some degree to the various changes in the general progress of society" ?

Such attempts at the separation of growths that are visibly confluent and complementary are necessarily abortive. We not only take myths "as we find them," but we try to understand how they came to be there and to be so: even Mr. Lang tries, albeit fitfully. And as old myths, commonly so called, are either directly or indirectly God-myths, they are among the first data for the history of the God-idea, and their history is part of its history. Even when the God-idea is nominally separated by philosophers from all myth and ritual, it remains none the less a development from the myth-and-ritual stage; and as every one of the historical religions has at every stage connected the idea with primitive ritual and what we recognize as myth, it is the merest mutilation of mythology to take the "absurd and offensive anecdotes" of the pagans and the heathens in vacuum, and then claim to have given us a "mythological science" of them.

One of the most laborious of the later German mythologists syncretically decides that "Myth history passes through three main periods: those of belief in Souls, in Ghosts, and in Gods," insisting that "the conception (Vorstellung) of the existence of the human soul precedes the animizing of natural objects and phenomena" [n1 E. H. Meyer, Indogermanische Mythen, 1883, i. p. 211 (Mythologische Stellung).]. But while thus drawing a dubious line between the orders of myth-material, he never disputes that all alike belong to " myth-history."

The one way to solve such conflicts of theory is to go to the evidences in anthropology, myth literature, and religious history. And first as regards the mental life of "primeval" man, there is positively no evidence that he passed through successive stages of soul-lore, ghost-lore, and God-lore, adding the second and third one by one to the first. Neither is it possible to show in terms of experimental psychology that a God-idea could come into being only as a fresh superstructure on concepts of soul and ghost: rather the naturalistic surmise is that a God-idea grew up (with and in terms of the others, and was only by means of reflection or of priestly institutions differentiated from them. If, noting how the process of animism lies deep in animal instinct, we perforce credit the earliest men with a notion of living force behind the phenomena of sun and rain and wind, they had a kind of God-idea at least as early as a ghost-idea or soul-idea. Animals, indeed, seem capable of

animizing inanimate things without doing so by rain and wind; but then there is no reason to credit them with a ghost-idea or a soul-idea, though they certainly seem to have dreams; so they give us no reason for putting the germ of the God-idea very late in man. Many of us, in all likelihood, have independently come to the conclusion so decisively put by such a competent student as Professor Giddings:—

"I believe that all interpretations of religion which start from the assumption that fetichism, animal worship, or ancestor worship was a primitive form from which all other forms were derived, are destined to be overthrown. The earliest beliefs were a jumble of ideas, and it was long before the elements of the different kinds of religion were discriminated" [n1 Principles of Sociology, 3^rd ed. 1896, p. 249.].

Here we come to the factor of which so many theorists are always tending to get rid, as against those who for the concept "discriminate" and its variants substitute that of deliberate creation. Early man, like later man, albeit much more slowly, proceeded of necessity in his mental life by way of modification and readaptation of his lore; and the work must needs have been done in large part by the few thinking minds for the many. It took relative genius at one stage to create even a myth which to a civilized sense is offensive and absurd [n2 Compare Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 285, 119.]; and slow as is all aggregate development, and fatally fixative as is the religious instinct, or the group of emotions so labelled, nothing can hinder that the mass of inherited lore shall be modified from period to period either upwards or downwards, either in terms of increasing knowledge or in terms of deepening ignorance, as the socio-economic conditions may tend; or, it may be, alternately or conflictingly, in terms of a strife of forces and institutions. Thus we have the phenomena of (a) the conservation of all manner of primitive thought in systems which yet seek to glose it; and (b) the fresh grafting of primitive survivals on systems which have been partly shaped by higher forces. For instance, the Hebrew sacred books crystallize round the most disparate nuclei of older lore; and again the Christian innovation is grafted on by older and lower conceptions of ritual theophagy; and yet again, in the Middle Ages, the Church gradually adds to its stock of myths that of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mother of the God-Man—this in virtue of the same myth-making bias as framed the previous dogma of his Virgin-Birth. Other religions show kindred phenomena. To say, in view of these long-drawn permutations, that the myth is essentially alien to the religion, or that ethics attaches to either and not to the other, is to override the evidence.

Yet we shall find one mythologist or anthropologist after another claiming to make such severances; and though the desire to accredit religion is naturally the commonest motive, it is not the only one, since the claim is made in the same fashion by one or two writers on the side of scientific Naturalism. We can but proceed to judge of the different attempts on their merits; and in the same way we must deal with the chronic attempts of writers with an orthodox bias to make out a fundamental difference between Hebrew and Christian myths and those of "Pagans," or, in other words, to deny that Hebrew and Christian religion is mythological.

CHAPTER III.—THE SEPARATIST FALLACY.

§ 1. The Theistic Presupposition.

LOOKING for the grounds of the still common persistence in disjoining the mythical or narrative and the didactic aspects of religion, we find important clues as well as cases in the writings of a mythologist already dealt with. The theorem of Mr. Lang as to a mysterious "purity" and philosophical elevation about the ethic and religion which in certain primitive peoples are found in context with an "absurd and offensive" mythology, furnishes a peculiarly good object-lesson on the fallacy of the separatist method. Here, more definitely than ever, myth is classified as a species of byproduct of the primeval mind, something out of touch with the normal psychology of those who produce it, or at least psychologically alien to certain others of their mental processes. Denouncing the doctrines of Dr. Tylor and Mr. Huxley as to there being no connection between the ethics and the religion of the lower savage, Mr. Lang nevertheless insists that there is no real connection between his ethics and his mythology. That primeval men had primordially a "high" conception of a Supreme Being [n1 Making of Religion, pp. 188, 194, etc.], which they at once "forget" [n2 Id. p. 281.] and retain; that the high conception came first, and that animistic degeneration "inevitably" and "necessarily" followed [n3 Id, p. 276.]; though all the while both aspects "are found co-existing, in almost all races; and nobody, in our total lack of historical information about the beginnings, can say which, if either, element, is the earlier" [n4 Id. p. 199.]—such is the motley doctrine with which Mr. Lang has burdened anthropological science.

The puzzle, as Mr. Lang presents it, is of his own making, and does not inhere in his data. We may grant him every one of these, as apart from his glosses—grant him that very primitive tribes may have the notion of a "Supreme Being"; that degeneration may occur at any stage of human evolution; that primitive tribes may be in certain relations much more unselfish in their normal life than highly civilized peoples; that they may be innocent of cruel religious practices found in more advanced civilizations; that they do not discriminate as theologians do between "spiritual" and "material" beings—all this without for a moment concurring either in his arbitrary addenda as to the "purity" of primeval ethics or the actuality of Hebrew narratives, or in the obscure inferences concerning the "supernormal" and the supernatural with which he embroiders the whole.

First in order and importance comes the fallacy as to the "Supreme Being." Because in civilized thought that formula is associated with philosophy, Mr. Lang assumes that any concept which can be described by the words in question must be "high," or "pure," or "deep," or "profoundly philosophic" [n1 Work last cited, p. 211.]. Now, there appears to be nothing necessarily high or deep about the matter: the bare theory of a Single God is not more but less ethically elevated than the theory of Dualism, which is an effort to find an ethical solution where the former does not even face the problem [n2 This is denied by Goldziher, Mythology among the Hebrews, Eng. tr. p. 15; but, while arguing implicitly that savages have no ethics at all, he admits a "secondary" ethical element. Here Mr. Lang's view is corrective: savages certainly have ethics, albeit not" high" or "deep."]. The former is perfectly compatible with any measure of barbaric crudity in ethics, and with any degree of "absurdity" in myth. It is itself an "absurd" (that is, fallacious) myth for all of us who have critically rejected it as an explanation of the cosmos [n3 Mr. Lang notes (Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 2nd ed. i. 3) that "it may, of course, be argued that the belief in a Creator is itself a myth." This view he does not attempt to meet, proceeding with a "However that may be."]. In Mr. Lang's case we have the old fundamentally fallacious presupposition-belief that his own theology is the height of rationality as compared with that of polytheists—turned afresh to the old account of making out that primeval man was not "left without a witness" as to there being only one God.

In point of fact, Mr. Lang's philosophic savages never do believe in One God. He speaks of their "monotheism" in the act of exhibiting their polytheism [n1 E.g. Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 2nd ed. ii. 87.], and seems to suppose he solves the contradiction by noting that so-called monotheists as a rule are practically polytheists. Broadly speaking, the savage's High God or Creator is either a God gone out of action or a figure put in to account for the presence of the other Gods, in the fashion of the Indian fable that the earth rests on an elephant, which rests on a tortoise. That primitive men should often account in that fashion for their Gods is not only conceivable but likely. A thoughtful child might readily reason so. On the other hand, a given God may become "supreme" precisely because other Gods are doing the actual work—a development which we shall have occasion to discuss later. Either way, the process of elevation is not primary, but secondary; not early, but late. And one fact to which Mr. Lang constantly adverts without apparently seeing its bearing—the fact that as a rule the savage pays little heed [n2 Work last cited, ii., 1-2, etc. We find even the belief "that the Great Spirit that made the world is dead long ago" (Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 213).] to his "Supreme Being"—gives the rationale of the whole matter. That the disregard of the Creator God is not at all because he is good, is made clear by the case of the Haidas of North-West America, who have two Creator Gods, a good and a bad, and who disregard both alike in comparison with their minor created deities, with whom they are so much more practically concerned [n3 Max Muller, Psychological Religion, 1893, p. 222, citing Rev. C. Harrison.].

Mr. Lang's theory appears to be that the Supreme Being in savage theology has been shouldered aside by demons, Ghost-Gods, and what not, in the way of degeneration [n4 Making of Religion, p. 224.]. But how a God believed to rule all things could ever be so shelved by beings regarded as of a lower grade, Mr. Lang never explains, though he claims to do so.

A just Supreme Being, he argues, would give no such chances to individual egoism as are given by "squarable " lower Gods. He has begged the question. Not once can he point to the existence of a belief that the Supreme Being as such is at once a ruling power and above propitiation [n1 Mr. Lang relies on the apparent absence of propitiation in regard to certain primitive deities. Id. p. 188. But he never asks whether they regard propitiation as useless. On the next page he records a virtual process of propitiation of an "author of all good" among Patagonians.]: he does not even bethink him to prove that among his primitive savages the conception of inexorable impartiality exists. He has simply given to the phrase "Supreme Being" all its possible connotations, and so burked the real problem. On turning to the known ethic of many savages we find a complete negation of the idea of impartiality. "The African Wakuafi account for their cattle-lifting proclivities by the calm assertion that Engai, that is Heaven, gave all cattle to them. So in South America the fierce Mbayas declare they received from the Caracara a divine command to make war on all other tribes, killing the men and adopting the women and children" [n2 Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 392, citing Krapf and Southey.]. "Heaven" would seem to be a sufficiently "high" God; and here are the Wakuafi attaching to him just such an ethic as that of Mr. Lang's Mosaic Hebrews, whom he so strangely represents as returning to an ancient purity of morals. And the God of the Mbayas may have been just as " high." The right line of inference from the data being thus saved, there is no need to follow Mr. Lang's very assiduous investigation as to the antiquity 6f any of the savage beliefs on which he rests his case. His anxiety to make out that the First God Ahone was believed in by the redskins before Columbus [n3 Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 2nd ed. preface.] would seem entirely needless, were it not that Mr. Tylor appears to doubt the aboriginality of all such conceptions. Some of us, however, see no conclusive ground for the doubt. We are ready to make Mr. Lang a donation, at full value—over and above the earlier evidence he cites—of such testimony as that of the missionary Brainerd, who saw much of the redskins in the second quarter of last century :

"I find that in ancient times, before the coming of the white people, some [Indians] supposed there were four invisible powers, who presided over the four corners of the earth. Others imagined the sun to be the only deity, and that all things were made by him; others at the same time having a confused notion of a certain body or fountain of deity, somewhat like the anima mundi, so frequently mentioned by the more learned ancient heathens, diffusing itself to various animals, and even to inanimate things, making them the immediate authors of good to certain persons. But after the coming of the white people, they seemed to suppose there were three deities, and three only, because they saw people of three different kinds of complexion—viz., English, Negroes, and themselves" [n1 Wesley's abridgment of the Life of the Rev. David Brainerd, 4th ed., 1800, p. 179.].

Brainerd, though an "enthusiast," seems to have inquired without preconceptions, and may pass as a good witness. Here then we have among savages: (1) worship of the Sun by some as Sole God [n2 This should lead us to modify somewhat Hume's substantially sound thesis that polytheism preceded monotheism. For all masses of men it certainly did; but at an early period a monotheist or an atheist might exist among polytheists. Cp. the author's Short History of Freethought, ch. ii.]; (2) the conception of a Good Supreme Being by Polytheists; and (3) finally general resort to a belief in Three Gods, perhaps an adaptation of Christian Trinitarianism to the needs of the case as seen by the redskin's science. Mr. Lang's theory implies that there has been degeneration in the latter case from a higher to a lower form of faith. In reality there has been no such thing. Social and material degeneration did indeed take place among the redskins after the advent of the white man; but the theory of Three Gods is no more degenerate than the theory of A God, whether apart from others or existing alone. It was a primitively scientific attempt to explain a newly observed phenomenon which the older views did not seem to account for; and the process shows very well how simply and childishly the older theories had been framed. Mr. Lang himself constantly reminds us that the savage does not distinguish as theologians do between "spiritual" and "material" beings [n3 Making of Religion, pp. 174, 182, 290; Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 2^nd ed. ii. 48-50. As Mr. Lang notes, the point was made long ago by Dr. Brinton. But it was made still earlier by Creuzer, as he now notes, Id. p. 54.];

which amounts to saying that they are only at the very first stage of the theistic hypothesis, and have not realized the most elementary objections to its adequacy. So with other aspects of their theism. The notion of a Good Power—as distinct from that of a mere First God to account for the other Gods—would be a simple generalization from the observed cases of propitiousness in Nature, and was neither a higher nor a lower conception than that of a Bad Power or a variety of dangerous powers who did the more abundant harm. If it were the case that the Good Power alone was held not to need propitiation, that would be a specially logical deduction from the datum that his only function was doing good. But there is no reason to suppose any such rigour of logic among savages, any more than among Christians. The question is not one of the character or the hierarchical status of the God, but of his supposed activity. To propitiate an Evil Power of any sort would seem to be a most natural course; and we know how simple Christians in all ages have had a sneaking tendency to "speak the Devil fair"; yet, as we have seen, the Haidas are unconcerned about their bad and their good Creator-Gods alike, while they fear and propitiate the nearer Gods of Sun and Sea, who are mixed. The speculative process is visibly from hand to mouth; and the remoter God, even if Creator of Evil, is relatively beneficent simply because he has been relieved of—if he ever had—active administration, not at all because of a primeval loftiness of conception as to his character. That becomes more and more evidently a chimera [n1 As I have pointed out elsewhere, sacrifice, which is a form of prayer, is conditioned primarily by scarcity or abundance of food, especially of tame animals—a factor ignored by Mr. Lang in his comments on the absence of sacrifice among ill-fed races. Cp. A Short History of Freethonght, p. 66.], and the assertion that the Supreme Being of the lowest savages is "on a higher plane by far than the Gods of Greeks and Semites in their earliest known characters" [n2 Making of Religion, p. 289.] is absolutely astray. Those very Supreme Beings, by Mr. Lang's own admission, are concurrent with a "low" mythology [n3 Id. pp. 197, 198; Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 2nd. ed. ii. 19, note, 33, etc.];

and he escapes the force of this admission only by denying that the mythology is really "connected" with the religion—a paralogism which might as well be applied to the case of the Greeks and Semites. The savage's ethic, as ethic, is superior only where his tribal state is relatively communistic; and he is never equally altruistic as regards other tribes.

In another connection, the point as to degeneration is raised by Mr. Lang yet again to fallacious purpose. He having argued that the Australians cannot have got the idea of a Chief-God from a tribe-chief, since they have no chiefs, it is answered that they may once have had them, their present stage being one of social or physiological degeneration. Whereupon Mr. Lang replies that there is no proof of degeneration, inasmuch as no remains of pottery can anywhere be found to show that the Australians were ever higher than at present, when they have no pottery. The degeneration argument, he then triumphantly declares, must be the resort of "despair" on the part of his opponents. This is all pure misconception. It really does not matter, for the confutation of Mr. Lang's apriorism, whether the Australians have degenerated or not, though as regards the question of chiefs, that is possibly the true solution. He himself concedes that Australian Head-Men of tribes are latterly said to count for a good deal [n1 Making of Religion, Appendix D.]. But as we have seen, the idea of a First God who made the others, or of a Good God who does all the favourable things, does not require the concrete fact of chieftainship to suggest it. Mr. Lang's case, then, is not bettered either way.

That the native Australians have however undergone degeneration is a proposition incidentally worth clearing up, in the interests of all sides of anthropological science. The case rests on the fact that the Australians are not autochthonous, but must be held to have anciently immigrated, probably by way of New Guinea and Cape York [n2 Peschel, Races of Mankind, Eng. tr. 1876, p. 325.]. If, as has been conjectured, they were Dravidians, gradually driven further southwards by invading Papuans, [n3 See Nott and Gliddon's Indigenous Races of the Earth, 1857, pp. 75-76, for Logan's theory. As put later by Bleek, it is rejected by Peschel, p. 323.]

they were presumably" low" to start with. But inasmuch as races not yet "high" are seen progressing in the environment which the Australians left—the Papuans being their superiors, and actually, in recent times, to some extent their educators [n1 Peschel, p. 325.]—it follows that whether or not they were of the same stock as the Papuans they were in more progressive conditions before than after entering Australia. And that is the gist of the whole matter. Races degenerate not through an inward bias that way, but through their conditions. Now, "nowhere can the retarded development of mankind be more readily accounted for by the unfavourable configuration of the country than in Australia" [n2 Peschel, p. 324.]. Only a race bringing to it a high secondary or tertiary civilization, with domestic animals and scientific resources, could there prosper. The mass of the Australians, then, having for ages lived in conditions exceptionally unfavourable to progress, after having lived in much better conditions, must be held to have partly degenerated [n3 Compare Mr. Lang's own final admissions, Myth, Ritual, and Religion, ii. 346-7. The case of the Fuegians, where he admits probable retrogression, is closely similar to that of the Australians. As to the relative richness of the Australian language, see Peschel, p. 333.]. It is not a matter of losing pottery but of losing ground in the total struggle with Nature. And that they had chiefs in their "better" days, when they warred with other races, is likely enough, though, as we have seen, the hypothesis is not a necessity for the naturalist explanation of their religion.

It now becomes tolerably obvious that the inference of some "high" and "pure" starting point for savage religion and ethics at what seems to theists their best, is not only arbitrary but obscurantist. Mr. Lang, saddling anthropology with his own theism, tells us that "these high Gods of low savages preserve from dimmest ages of the meanest culture the sketch of a God which our highest religious thought can but fill up to its ideal." On the ordinary definition of "religion" that may be; but if by "highest religious thought" be meant "highest thought" the proposition must here be negated.

Mental and other science, happily, can transcend the ancient paralogism of the Good God who made evil; and it will not be permitted to our theists to impose their estimate of primordial theism on sociological science because primitive man anticipated their favourite myth. Those "degenerating"—or, it may be, stationary—Australian tribes have developed among them in a perfectly natural fashion a tribal ethic of altruism, which ethic is very astutely taught to the young by the old in the mysteries. It is extremely important to the old savage that the younger should supply him with food; and the principle naturally takes the shape of a doctrine of "sharing all round," there as in many other primitive communities living mainly by collective hunting. Where other anthropologists see" the tyranny of the old" [n1 Lubbock, Origin of Civilization, 5th ed. pp. 451-2.], Mr. Lang sees a hyper-Christian religion of "selflessness." It is perfectly true that the Australians are much more fraternal and communistic than any Christian community; but it is a bad fallacy to look for the explanation to or through some primordial conception of a "moral Eternal" [n2 In the revised edition of Myth, Ritual, and Religion (ii. 23) Mr. Lang protests that he "never hinted at morals divinely and supernormally revealed," and that he always held the given ethic to be the natural product of the social conditions. One asks the more insistently what he then means by arguing that religion began in a high ethical conception of deity? His statement that "all morality had been denied to the Australians" is a complete perversion of the issue.], a conception aloof from or precedent to "mythology." The true explanation lies in a line of inference from the facts that even among wild animals the male parent will feed the female and the young; that many flocks of birds and beasts live more or less in common; and that even wolves hunt in packs. These are conditions of relative success (= survival) for individual types and for groups of species; and the law holds good for savages just as for lower animals.

If then a savage is found conjoining an "absurd" mythology with an ethic of altruism for his own group, and with the conception of a Creator God, there is nothing incongruous in the matter.

If the whole crux and puzzle of mythology," as Mr. Lang now tells us, lies in the colligation of absurd legends with the idea of a Good Creator, the trouble is easily got rid of. Unhappily many real puzzles remain after the false puzzle is put right. The conception of a Creator God is simply a less obvious absurdity than the more naif myths concerning him: it is itself as much myth as they; and it is "irrational" in the sense of being illogical. The ethic of altruism for the group is as perfectly natural as joint hunting, fishing, or fighting; and the mountainous fact that the savage never dreams of a universal altruism—a fact not once envisaged by Mr. Lang—disposes once for all of the theory that he started with a "high" conception of a universal Father. Christians indeed think they have a high conception when they talk of a universal Father without for a moment attempting to practise universal brotherhood. But there is no reason to suppose that the unlettered savage even goes through the process of pretending to himself or to his God that he loves strangers or his enemies. For the rest, there is no vital ethical difference, but only a refinement of manners or mores, between the crude practice of sacrifice and the clinging to the theory of a divine sacrifice; and the fact that a given savage, lacking the wherewithal, does not offer sacrifices to his God, does not make him a better man than the slaughterous Hebrew of the days of Jesus. Nor does the latter-day Christian in turn salve his case by substituting for his compromising sacrificial idea that of "the sacrifice of a contrite heart"; for his God remains the Cause of Evil, and his ethic is thus incurably unsound. In fine, the ethic that for Mr. Lang is "highest" is intertwined with mythology just as surely as that of the savage who, whether sacrificing or not, imagines a God who

punishes wickedness, though according to the same savage (says Mr. Lang) the same God is the Omnipotent Creator of all [n1 Mr. Lang (Making, p. 188) assumes to discredit one testimony by the remark: "Why the evil spirit should punish evil deeds is not evident." Yet the evil spirit does so in his own religion.]. In fine, all theistic ethic is flagrantly mythological.

If this reasoning holds good, there is nothing left to refute in Mr. Lang's theorem that Animism arose partly if not wholly by way of the "supernormal" powers of savages [n1 This view, like the more familiar thesis of a primordial monotheism, is found in previous writers. Rougemont (Le Peuple Primitif, 3 tom. 1855, liv. i. iii.), supposes the original monotheism to have lapsed into polytheism by way of Pantheism, through a superfluity of religious life, and excess of poetical inspiration.]. After seeming throughout the greater part of his work on The Making of Religion to connect such powers with the alleged "high" primeval conception [n2 See in particular pp. 65, 71, 172, 292-3.] of an “ethical judge," he elects to stand to the position that they rather made for the Animism which followed on that theistic conception and corrupted it [n3 Fortnightly Review, Nov. 1898.]. By normal powers—such seems to be Mr. Lang's final doctrine—you get "high" conceptions; by supernormal powers you get low—save as regards the belief in a moral future state, which is "priceless" [n4 Making of Religion, p. 294.]. To whom this theory of things gives comfort I am unable to conjecture. But that it is a mere negation of all the data it is very easy to show. It has been established with perfect clearness that the animizing instinct is present in animals; and unless all savages are "supernormal," it is in no way dependent on supernormal faculties. Supposing such faculties to exist, they might serve to add certain items to the mass of animistic lore; but there is not a single element in the so-called "corruption" of religion by mythology that is not easily deducible from normal psychic experience. Absurd and gross myths can arise either out of crude fancy or out of gross practice, such as can go on not only among savages, but among primitive rustics in Europe [n5 E.g. the unpleasant story of Zeus and Demeter, given by Clemens Alexandrinus (Protrept. ii.) and Arnobius (Adv. Gentes, v. 21). The symbolic action there described could occur among primitive rustics to-day. It was doubtless a seasonal ceremony, transferred to divine biography in the usual fashion. But if it could latterly be believed in as such an episode, it could be so conceived by the early practisers of the ceremony.], alongside of formulas about a Supreme or Good God. Low practical ethics can and do subsist alongside of these and of high ethical formulas in civilized countries, independently of "supernormal" corruptions: much more may they do so among savages.

Beliefs in ghosts, souls, resurrection, demons, fairies, and a future state, can and do arise and flourish among savages and more advanced communities independently of any of the "supernormal" processes contended for by Mr. Lang. His whole colligation of these matters with his theory of the making of religion is thus worse than nugatory. We are asked to suppose that primeval man (whom all the while, by natural inference, we must hold to have had animistic habits of mind) began with a "high" conception of a righteous or benevolent Supreme Being, as savages conceive righteousness and benevolence: that is, that without a single preliminary animistic concept (though the ape-man had the animistic habit before him) the primal man proceeded straight to a universalist theistic abstraction [n1 Even this, of course, is strictly Animistic.]. Then, having thought out a " righteous" Omnipotent God, a "moral Eternal" who represents only his own morality, the cave man—or whatever else we figure him to have been—developed "supernormal" powers, which revealed to him all manner of forces that do not exist [n2 This in despite of phrases about "information not accessible to the known channels of sense," and about our escaping "at moments from the bonds of Time and the manacles of Space" (Work cited, pp. 71, 292-3).]!

To insist that "powers" which thus effect in the main mere delusion and corruption, as against the "high" thinking of the earliest men (who in turn might just as well have had such disastrous powers), are rightly to be described as "supernormal," is surely an odd way of classifying things. But the classification is in keeping with Mr. Lang's handling of the phenomena of savage ethics and philosophy; and the total result, I repeat, is doctrinal chaos. The very conceptions of a Supreme Being which he sets over against those of Animism are instances of Animism; [n3 Mr. Lang argues that because the early man did not raise the question of "spirit," "Animism was not needed for the earliest idea of a moral Eternal" (Making, p. 182). As if the question were ever supposed to be raised in early Animism at all! On this view, Animism is indeed not primitive, but late and metaphysical! Mr. Lang has here in effect altered the whole significance of the term. As framed by Mr. Tylor, it applies to exactly the unconscious assumption which Mr. Lang has in view.]

and his chronic restriction of the title of " myth" to stories which make Gods figure as animals or as immoral, classifying all stories of "moral" and "creative" Gods as "religion," is not merely a begging of the question, but an ejection of scientific method from the problem. To call one aspect of primitive anthropomorphism "absurd," and another aspect "sacred," when both alike are the best the savage can do to explain his cosmos [n1 In one passage (Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 1st ed. ii. 282, 2nd ed. ii. 300) Mr. Lang himself takes up this position. None the less, he elsewhere makes the severance before noted. See above, pp. 43, 46; and cpo work cited, 2nd ed. ii. 141, 147, 156, etc. On p. 147 Mr. Lang expressly posits "a rational and an irrational stream of thought," and confines the "irrational" to "myth and ritual," making "prayers and hymns" on the contrary "rationaL" As if prayers and hymns were not ritual and myth-narrative!], is an unscientific inconsequence. And to condemn Huxley and others for making a severance between savage ethic and savage theology [n2 Making of Religion, pp. 191, 195; Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 2nd. ed. ii. 5. Mr. Lang is very severe on Huxley's "crude" position, while noting elsewhere that Dr. Tylor had said the same thing.], while affirming just such a severance between savage ethic and savage myth, is to give the inconsequence an aggressive emphasis.

In the words of a mythologist with no supernaturalist axe to grind, "to our [savage] predecessors we are indebted for much of what we thought most our own"—a proposition which cuts both ways where Mr. Lang would have it cut only one—“and their errors were not wilful extravagances or the ravings of insanity, but simply hypotheses, justifiable as such at the time when they were propounded, but which a fuller experience has proved to be inadequate" [n3 J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, i. 211.]. And in the words, again, of a student of a religion as to which there is no special motive to set up arbitrary distinctions, "There is nothing in worship but what existed before in mythology" [n4 Darmesteter, Introd. to trans. of the Zendavesta, 2nd. ed. p. lxxiii. It is to be kept in view, of course, that while ritual thus always presupposes a mythical process, the historic ritual may give rise to new concrete myths. "For myth changes while custom remains constant." Frazer, ii. 62. Cp. Bergmann, as cited above, p. 11.].

§ 2. The Metaphysic of Religion.

Somewhat similar in form to Mr. Lang's doctrine is that of a learned continental mythologist and Hebraist who preceded him, Dr. Ignaz Goldziher, a professed adherent of the schools of Kuhn and Max Muller, with, however, theoretic formulas of his own, in particular this:

"I have given to the conception of the myth a narrower scope than is usually done. I believe it necessary to separate it strictly from the conception of religion, and especially to exclude from the sphere of primitive mythology the questions of Cosmogony and Ethics (the origin of Evil)" [n1 Mythology Among the Hebrews, Eng. tr. 1877, intr. p. xxv.].

This startling procedure is justified as follows :

"The latter point was of especial importance in reference to the Hebrew Myth, since, as I show in the last chapter, the solution of these questions by the Hebrews was produced in the later period of civilization and from a foreign impulse. There is an immense difference between the ancient mythical view of the origin of nature and that later cosmogonic system. So long as mythical ideas are still living in the mind, though under an altered form, when the times are ripe for cosmogonic speculations, a cosmogony appears as a state of development of the ancient myth. But when the myth has utterly vanished from consciousness, then the mind is ready to receive foreign cosmogonic ideas, which can be fitted into the frame of its religious thought and accommodated to its religious views. This was the case with the Hebrews; and hence . . . . I have not treated as Hebrew mythical matter the Cosmogony of Genesis, which, moreover, is to be regarded rather as a mere literary creation than as a view of the origin of things emanating directly from the mind of the people."

There is here, I think, an obvious confusion, of a kind frequent in mythological discussion, which is so commonly carried on with an unfixed terminology and an irregular logical method. Granted that the Genesaic cosmogony is a literary compilation, made in or after the Exile, mainly from Chaldaeo-Babylonian materials, these materials are in the terms of the case myths. Even if the Babylonians got them from the Akkadians, they must at some point have rooted in relatively "primitive" fancy. It is immaterial to the question whether at that or any other point in the development they were specially shaped or influenced by men of relatively uncommon genius: the same possibility holds good in every mythological case.

What we come to then is this, that the Hebrew Bible contains, besides many remains of primitive Hebrew myth, late adaptations of foreign myths made by way of cosmogonic teaching or quasi-scientific history. It is perfectly fitting, nay, it is incumbent on the mythologist, to mark clearly the distinction between the two orders of mythic matter; but to set aside the second order as non-mythological is simply to renounce one of the most interesting provinces of the study. If the mythologist gives it up, who is to take it in hand? The hierologist may handle the stories of the Fall and the Flood as expressions of the ethical attitude of the adaptors; but the stories about Adam and Eve and Noah remain myths; and the advanced apologist of our own day excitedly protests when they are treated either by believers or by unbelievers as part of "religion." Obviously they come within Mr. Lang's comprehensive species of "absurd and offensive anecdotes."

Nor can we be really sure that these myths are in essentials non-Hebraic. It is quite impossible to grant to Dr. Goldziher that at any point in Hebrew history, in some

spontaneous way, "the [old] myth had utterly vanished from consciousness." How could it possibly do so save after it had been crowded out by a later myth? Rather we are bound to suppose that the Jews of the Exile, having some simple cosmogonic myths of their own, and finding more elaborate statements current among their more civilized and cultured conquerors, sought to blend all together. As a matter of fact, the redactors have preserved two creation stories, with different God-names, embodying different cosmogonic notions. In any case, the Babylonian myths themselves, though complicated by astronomical knowledge and speculation, clearly retained "primitive" elements in virtue of that tenacious tendency in mythic usage on which Mr. Lang is always insisting.

The attempt to draw a division of species between absolute myth and mythless religion in a visibly composite whole breaks down, on whatever lines it is attempted, leading as it does to the most contradictory results.

Such an attempt it is that brings Professor Max Muller to confusion with his Schleiermacher theorem of a perception of the infinite at all stages of thought. That doctrine preceded and presumably inspired the formula of Dr. Goldziher; but it may be well to analyze it afresh in the professedly revised form given to it in Professor Muller's Gifford Lectures of 1888 on what he calls "Natural Religion," as distinguished from the later stages of "Physical," "Anthropological," and "PsychologicaL" It would not be fair to say of Professor Muller that he has never made any progress in his opinions: he has really adopted several new ideas during his polemical career; but it is his tendency all the same to stick faithfully to the old ones; so that his later energies have run a good deal to showing that his different positions are not only reconcilable, but mutually supporting. This comes out notably enough in his fluctuating account of natural religion in the volume under notice. "Religion," he tells us in his fifth lecture [n1 P. 114.], "if it is to hold its place as a legitimate element of our consciousness, must, like all other knowledge, begin with sensuous experience." Mark the "begin," which is repeated later on [n2 P. 141.]. As the argument proceeds, however, it is insisted that "every perception involves, whether we are conscious of it or not, some perception of the infinite" [n3 P. 125.]; and the conclusion of the lecture is [n4 P. 140.] that this perception "from the very beginning formed an ingredient, or, if you like, a necessary complement to all finite knowledge." Now, it is very plain that if "from the very beginning" men perceive (not conceive) the infinite in perceiving the finite, a dog may do the same: that is to say, he perceives finite objects whether or not he is conscious that they are finite. Then a dog might have the beginning of religion. But already [n5 P. 116.] the Professor had stipulated that" Real thought begins when we combine the percepts of sensation into concepts by discovering something they share in common, and embody that common property in a sign or a name."

Then the beginning of religion, on the Professor's showing, is not real thought. Further, we may be conscious of the infinite (which is only a single necessary perception) without really thinking. This is tolerably explicit; but in a little while [n1 P. 125.], after the "whether we are conscious of it or not," the Professor says, "I am told that there are many savage tribes even now who do not possess a word for finite and infinite. Is that an answer?" Of course it is an answer—to him! He has been telling us that there is no "real" thought without words—that thought and language are the same thing—and that thought=reason. His opponents simply meet him on his own ground, and say that a perception of the infinite which is not "real thought" is a chimera.

But that is only one stage of the confusion. Soon it is intimated that "we must restrict the sphere of religion, so far as it is founded on perceptions of the infinite. We must reserve the adjective religious for those perceptions of the unknown or the infinite which influence man's actions and his whole moral nature" [n2 P. 168.]; and yet again [n3 P. 188.], we have the definition: "Religion consists in the perception of the infinite under such manifestations as are able to influence the moral character of man. I look upon this as a definition of religion in its origin " (italics here Dr. Muller's). That is to say, the previously alleged beginning of religion was not a beginning of religion at all, since it did not affect the moral character of man. And yet, after all, we have in the closing lecture [n4 P. 568.] the dictum that "anything that lifts a man above the realities of this material life is religion." If that be not explicit enough, we have the story of the old Samoyede woman who saluted the sun at its rising and setting, saying she did what he did; with the lecturer's comment, "It gave her the sense of a Beyond, and that is the true life of all religion":—this though there is no moral influence whatever involved.

The Professor thus ends in threefold and irreparable confusion. He explains [n1 P. 93.]

that his expansion of his definition of religion to include moral influence was made in acknowledgment of the force of the criticisms of Professor Pfleiderer on his previous definition; but he has neither adopted the Pfleiderer position nor adhered to his own. He has simply used the two definitions inconsistently and at random, it being so much his tendency to cleave to any doctrine he has once adopted that he does not logically readjust his thinking even to a change he is disposed to make. His first definition was a priori, much as he claims to be historical and anti-theoretic; and the equally a priori dogma of Pfleiderer refuses to combine with it. Wundt, who is a good deal more of a psychologist than either of these writers, decides that "all percepts and sentiments become religious as soon as they have reference to some ideal existence which can supply the wishes and requirements of the human heart" [n2 Cited by Muller, p. 73.]; and that account covers the great mass of ancient mythology.

Pfleiderer's influence is to be seen in the form given by Israel Sack to the summaries in his meritorious and often luminous work on the transition of Judaism from Bible-dom to Talmudism. It was in the exilic period, he writes, that

"there came upon the Yahweh religion the pressure of a new element, born of the age, namely the purely religious cult, the personal godliness (Gottesverehrung) independent of social life. It was the first step towards the releasing of the religion of Israel from Palestinian soil, and generally towards the conceptual (begriftlichen) sundering of the religious from the social-ethical" [n8 Die altjudische Religion im Uebergange vom Bibelthum zum Talmudismus, 1889, p 25.].

That is to say, the emergence of the purely religious was only the beginning of a movement towards the purely religious. And on the next page Herr Sack notes that it was in the same exilic period, which first really sabbatized the Sabbath, that there was set up the Zizith symbol-the "ribbon of blue upon the fringes of the borders of their garments," which is given out in the Mosaic law as a pre scription by Yahweh to Moses [n1 Numbers, xv. 37-41.].

The second testimony disposes of the first. The conditions of the exile would naturally develop a private as distinguished from a public habit of devotion; but the Zizith symbol is precisely the effort to make a substitute for the old nationalistic regimen; and of people in that frame of mind it is idle to assert that they have risen from tribalism, ethical or mythical, to "pure religion." Nor can the claim be any better made out for any later style of Judaism, or any other system that holds by sacred books. Judaism is tribal to this day; and Christianity, instead of progressively denuding itself of myth and symbol and ritual, shows everywhere the tendency to make more of them than ever, the Protestant impulse being on the way to euthanasia in rationalism, while the forces of the myth-mongers and ritualists expand as the restrictive element is removed.

Here, as at other points, we find Sir George Cox avoiding the fallacious extremes to which theological bias has led some lay mythologists. "In one sense," he says, "we may, and in another we may not, draw distinctions between the religion of a people and their mythology." [n2 On Greek and Latin Religions, lecture in Religious Systems of the World, 2nd. ed. p. 217. In the Mythology of the Aryan Nations, p. 3, Sir George somewhat obscures the point by saying of the Greeks that "we must draw a sharp line of severance between their theology and their religion, if we use religion in the sense attached to it by Locke or Newton, Milton or Butler." But he goes on to insist on the historic unity of the whole system, which is what we are concerned with. In another passage (p. 169) Sir George reverses the difficulty. Speaking of the Romans, he says that in their system "so thin was the disguise [of the natural forces worshipped] that the growth of a Latin mythology, strictly so called, became impossible." It is not here meant that the Latins were specially religious, in the elevated sense, but the reverse. Of course the proper statement would be simply that the surviving Latin mythology is bare and commonplace. The phrase cited is an echo of Mommsen (ch. xii. Eng. tr. ed. 1868, i. 184-6); but the idea is one of Mommsen's many self-contradictions. As against it he has twice stated the historic fact: "In Italy, as in Hellas, there lies at the foundation of the popular faith the same common treasure of allegorical and symbolical views of nature" (History of Rome, Eng. tr. 1868, i. 28, ch. ii.). "Abstraction and personification lay at the root of the Roman as well as of the Hellenic mythology" (Id. i. 183, ch. xii.)].

That is to say, we may differentiate aspects, but cannot negate the organic connection. We are hardly even entitled to speak, with Ottfried Muller, of "the history of the worship of the Grecian Gods" as "the auxiliary science of most importance to mythology" [n1 Introduction, p, 175.], for an auxiliary that is essential is practically a part of one process. In any case, the same sympathetic scholar has well argued that in Homer the conception of Zeus the moral governor and Zeus the cloud compeller is one twofold thing; and he goes on to cite as essentially and even nobly religious the set of myths in which Zeus has offspring by different females—the "beautiful and sublime fable in the Theogony" wherein Zeus espoused Themis and by her begat the Destinies; and that according to which Eurynome bore to him the Charites. Inasmuch as Zeus here plays as usual the adulterer, the anecdotes become under Mr. Lang's system slightly offensive, if not absurd. But Ottfried Muller, who is reputed to have been a religious man, protests that "He who does not here recognize religion, genuine, true religion, for him have Moses and the prophets written in vain" [n2 Id. p. 186.]. And Muller would seem to be entitled like another to his view of religion's "true guise." Nay, yet another Muller, Julius to wit, defending Christianity against the mythological interpretation of Strauss, insists that the "inmost and most essential characteristic" of a myth is just "the religious element" [n3 Julius Muller, On the Theory of Myths, Eng. tr. in Voices of the Church in Reply to Strauss, 1845, p. 184.] a straining of things the other way in religion's name.

§ 3. Mr. Grant Allen's Theorem.

This species of resistance alone would suffice to prove the inexpediency of the latest attempt of all to break up the phenomena of religion into unconnected species—the attempt made, namely, by the late Mr. Grant Allen in the opening chapter of his able and suggestive work on The Evolution of the Idea of God (1897). Without noting Mr. Lang's similar undertaking to sunder mythology from religion, Mr. Allen charges upon mythologists in general an erroneous identification of the two, and proceeds in his turn to pass one more verdict of divorce.

Devils and Cyclopes and Centaurs, he insists to begin with, are not Gods "or anything like one. They have no more to do with religion, properly so called, than the unicorn of the royal arms has to do with British Christianity. A God, as I understand the word, and as the vast mass of mankind has always understood it, is a supernatural being to be revered and worshipped……Bearing this distinction carefully in mind, let us proceed to consider the essentials of religion" [n1 Evolution of the Idea of God, p. 21.].

The reason for this preliminary distinction turns out to be that Mr. Allen, having in view one particular line of descent for the God-idea, desired to have nothing to do with any other. His position is, in brief, that "corpse-worship is the protoplasm of religion," and that "folk-lore is the protoplasm of mythology, and of its more modern and philosophical offshoot, theology" [n2 Id. p. 438.]. Which recalls the railway guard's decision that "dogs is dogs and cats is dogs, but a tortoise is a hinseck." The decision to connect theology not with religion but with mythology is a course worthy of mythology itself. Arbitrary on any definition, it becomes extravagantly so in view of Mr. Allen's fuller definition of religion, which is that religion properly so called consists in observances, ritual, prayer, ceremonial, sacrifices, and so on.

"What is not at all essential to religion in its wider aspect—taking the world round, both past and present, Pagan, Buddhist, Mohammedan, Christian, savage and civilized—is the ethical element, properly so called. And what is very little essential indeed is the philosophical element, theology or mythology, the abstract theory of spiritual existences. This theory, to be sure, is in each country or race closely related with religion under certain aspects; and the stories told about the Gods or God are much mixed up with the cult itself in the minds of worshippers; but they are no proper part of religion, strictly so called.. . . Religion, as such, is essentially practical: theology or mythology, as such, is essentially theoretical [as if theory and practice were opposite or unconnected] . . . . I also believe.... that the two [i.e., the theory and the practice] have to a large extent distinct origins and roots: that the union between them is in great part adventitious: and that, therefore, to account for or explain the one is by no means equivalent to accounting for and explaining the other" [n3 Id. pp. 22-23.].

This differentiation, it will be observed, is in part in almost complete agreement with that of Mr. Lang, whom Mr. Allen supposed himself to be setting aside. Both writers decide that the connection between mythology and religion is "accidental" or "adventitious," but they have very different ideas as to what constitutes religion "strictly so-called." It begins to be pretty clear that these individual decisions as to what religion is to be are a mere element of gratuitous confusion, and that in the name of science they must be all disallowed. "Religious" persons protest that religion and theology are different thing, but insist that what Mr. Allen calls religion is not religion at all; theologians protest that theology and mythology have nothing to do with each other, and that theology is just religion systematized and explained; Mr. Lang in effect bears them out; Julius Muller protests that religion is of the very essence of myth—as if there were no historical myths; Ottfried Muller finds religion in the higher mythology; Mr. Grant Allen scouts all alike, and declares religion to be simply ritual (which Mr. Lang declares to be mythological and "irrational"); while Dr. Max Muller finds it now in cosmic emotion and now in cosmic apperception, both of which he yet sees in myths; and Sack decides that it only begins after much of mythology and ritual is left behind. In the name of the intellectual commonwealth, we have a right to resist these illicit appropriations on the common domain of terminology.

Scientifically speaking, the term religion covers all the phenomena under notice. Religion in the mass has always been mythological, always ritualistic, always theological, always ethical, always connected with what cosmic emotion or apperception there was. These attributes are in themselves phases of human tendency which make and make-for religion. It is neither here nor there to say that in explaining one we do not explain the other. That is not pretended. But it is very easy to show, as against Mr. Allen, that stories about the God are in hundreds of cases efforts to explain the early ritual, while in other cases particularities of ritual originate in ideas about the God.

Mr. Allen's dictum that" the Origin of Tales has nothing at all to do with the Origin of Worship " [n1 P. 29.] is a mere violence of dogma. To come to the point, how could a ritual of prayer for wind or rain ever originate save in an idea about a God's character and function? Is not the very idea of a God as a protecting Father (insisted on by Mr. Allen as the typical God-idea) a matter of telling a story about the God? Is not the idea of a Bad Spirit correlative with that of a Good Spirit, and as such part and parcel of the religion of the believer in the latter? Is Old Harry "nothing like" the Pan from which he came? And above all, how could primitive men so keep their minds in watertight compartments as to make up their religion rigidly in terms of their thought and practice as corpse-worshippers and corpse-eaters, without letting it be affected by their thought and practice as story-tellers and makers of folklore?

The division drawn by Mr. Allen is finally fantastic. Ideas about corpses and ancestors are demonstrably part of folk-lore. Every primitive practice connotes certain ideas, and every primitive idea connotes certain practice. The one force or law of differentiation in the matter is this: that whereas the whole of the ideas and the practices would in the earlier and ruder eras of savagery tend to be coherent or congruous, the elements of ignorance and fear tend to have the effect of maintaining an ancient practice or formula or myth after the ideas turning on it have been greatly modified by changes of life and culture-conditions, either material or social or both; while on the other hand a practice or myth or doctrine that stands for one order of ideas with one set of minds may be imposed on another set with a very different order of ideas. But all alike is "religion." Not only are mythology and theology and ritual and law and ethic originally "connected": they are so of psychological necessity.

By all means let us for purposes of elucidation trace their several developments, and the ever-advancing differentiation of some of them; but let us not plunge anthropology in darkness by denying their perpetual and inevitable inter-reactions.

We return perforce, then, to the anthropological position that primitive man fused instead of discriminating the states of mind which set up his myths and his cosmosophy, his ethic and his ritual. In the words of the supernaturalist Julius Muller—here true to the evidence which his sympathies obscured for him when he came to the concrete problem over his own creed—the historical form and ideal purport of every myth or primitive usage "are inseparable, and penetrate each other; and it is only by the abstraction of a later age, from which all faith in the myth as such has vanished, that they are separated" [n1 Review of Strauss in Studien und Kritiken, 1836; Eng. trans. in Voices of the Church against Dr. Strauss, 1845, p. 16.]. Such a separation is visibly a process of prejudice, and it cannot hold for those who follow scientific methods.

Nor is it merely on grounds of systematic Naturalism that separatist courses are thus to be disallowed. If on the one hand an immature anthropology is found to join with the supernaturalist school in drawing lines of arbitrary severance between the co-operating elements in all historic religion, on the other hand men who still hold by the concept of revelation, but who nevertheless scrutinize religions in general in the spirit of scientific observation, insist that the definition of religion shall be faithful to historic fact. While one of the most eminent historians of religion, Dr. Tiele, persists in classifying all creeds under the two sundering titles of "Nature Religions" and "Ethical Religions" [n2 Cp. Chantepie de la Saussaye, Manual of the Science of Religion, Eng. tr. 1891, pp. 56-58.]—as if there were nothing ethical in the first, or natural in the second—others, not bent like Mr. Lang on making out the primordiality of "high" conceptions among men, nor yet upon rebutting the special claims of current creeds, recognize the essential continuity and coherence of all the phenomena. It is a Scottish clergyman of missionary experience, capable of elucidating the primitive religions he has studied at first hand, who puts the case thus :

"Religion in the widest sense may be defined as a man's attitude towards the unseen; and the earliest forms of human thought furnish the clue from which must be traced the development of those great systems of religion that have at different periods been professed by the majority of men. Under the term religion we must include not only beliefs in unseen spiritual agencies, but numerous customs, superstitions, and myths which have usually been regarded, by both travellers and students, as worthless and degrading, till within a comparatively recent period" [n1 Rev. James Macdonald, Religion and Myth, 1893 (Nutt), p. l.].

This, I cannot but think, is the only scientific attitude towards the phenomena. When a man of moral and reformative genius declares, "my country is the world; and my religion is to do good" [n2 Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, part ii. ch. 5, Conway's ed. of Works, ii. 472.], he indeed gives a profoundly necessary stimulus to the moral sense of men hypnotized by tradition and ceremonial; and his conception of a "Religion of Humanity" [n3 The phrase is used by Paine in his series The Crisis, No.7, dated Nov. 21st, 1778.] may be turned to many valuable ends, whether or not we reckon among them a cult which in the name of Positivism imitates anxiously some of the institutions of superstition. But to let such adaptation of old terms to new moral ends set up a hallucination as to the historic reality of religion throughout human evolution would be to effect a confusion which the original adaptor would be the first to repudiate, though he did lay it down that "All religions are in their nature kind and benign, and mixed with principles of morality. They could not have made proselytes at first by professing anything that was vicious, cruel, persecuting, or immoral" [n4 Rights of Man, part i. ed. cited, ii. 327.]; and again, "Every religion is good that teaches man to be good; and I know of none that instructs him to be bad" [n5 ld. p. 504. Written before the Age of Reason.]. Here we have yet another conception of "the essence of religion." Paine had unhappy cause to unlearn his optimism; though he never flinched in his insistence that what he taught was true religion as against false.

Any man is free thus to claim a customary name for an uncustomary creed, on the score that honoured names may fitly be given to the systems which best deserve honour. But when we are reducing to scientific form the facts of the mental history of mankind, the only applicable principle is that of the careful comprehension of all facts [n1 Compare Arnold: "Some people, indeed, are for calling all high thought and feeling by the name of religion; according to that saying of Goethe: 'He who has art and science, has also religion.' But let us use words as mankind generally use them" (Literature and Dogma, 5th ed. p. 21).]; and for that purpose we must either reject the word religion altogether, as having no accepted significance, or recognize the plain fact that it is generically extensible to all the credences and practices by which men ever supposed themselves in touch with or aware of what they conceived as Gods, extra-human personalities, intangible lives, and the doings of these. The sum of the matter is that while not all myths are properly to be described as religious, though all are framed under analogous conditions of speculative error, all historic religions are bound up with myth alike in their ethic and their cosmosophy or quasi-science [n2 My friend Mr. F. J. Gould, in his Concise History of Religion (i. 8), gives as an alternative definition of religion "the authority of a moral law" which may be "viewed as purely human creation"; but I do not find in his interesting and useful volumes any instance of a "religion" which comes under this definition.].

In fine, the God-idea="true guise of religion," chased out of mythology with a fork, returns at every window. And we are led and driven to the solution that this attempt to sunder in the name of God what man primordially joined is an expression of some form of acquired or inherited prejudice—what, it is not necessary to ascertain. In Germany it may be either the ordinary religious heredity or an outcome of the influence of Hegel, who in his simple way classified religions so as to leave Christianity in an order by itself, labelled "Absolute Religion." In England, on the other hand (apart from the case of Mr. Allen), were it not for the line taken by Goldziher and Sack (both, I understand, of Hebrew descent), the attitude in question might be supposed to come of the perception that, the God-idea being common to all mythologies and all religions, it

must be at least nominally kept out of the discussion, since if we avow this common ground we shall be driven to consider whether the Christian religion is not consanguineous with the rest in myth and ritual as well as in the other thing. And this, of course, must not be considered by a prudent English mythologist, even if he be at the point of view from which the problem can be properly seen. And that is never to be counted on.

CHAPTER 1V.—THE STAND FOR THE BIBLE.

§ 1. Hebrew Mythology.

AGAIN our first illustration of the difficulty is furnished by the case of Mr. Lang, who more or less avowedly resists the application of anthropology to the problem of Christianity. He does not want to discuss these things; he dislikes and disparages the view that the Judaic and Christian religions are products of normal evolution; the evolution principle being in his hands valid only for the treatment of anthropology and "absurd and offensive anecdotes." For him, the mythological discussions of the first half of the century, including the argument of Strauss, have been carried on pretty much in vain. On one occasion he has actually glanced at the question of Hebrew mythology; and even on that, considered separately from the New Testament, he stands very much where Eichhorn did, over a hundred years ago. It is apropos of Renan's Histoire du Peuple d'Israel that he writes:

"One has a kind of traditional objection to talking about the , mythical parts of the Old Testament. It is a way of speaking which must offend many people, perhaps needlessly; and again, it does not convey quite a correct impression. Whatever else the stories in Genesis and Exodus may be, they have moral and intellectual qualities, seriousness, orderliness, sobriety, and, it may even be said, a poetic value, which are lacking in the mass of wild queries and fancies usually called myths. Whence this orderliness, sobriety, and poetry arise, why they are so solitary, so much confined to the ancient Hebrew literature, is exactly what we wish to know, and what M. Renan, perhaps, does not tell us" [n1 Art. on "Mythology and the Bible," in New Review, vol. i. 1889, p. 279.].

Save for the absence of fanaticism, this is very much the kind of opposition that was made last century to the earlier suggestions that the Bible contained mythology like the sacred books of other religions;

and it is significant of the retardative power of orthodox habit among us that it is necessary today to examine and answer them at the hands of a professed mythologist.

In the first place, Mr. Lang here implicitly unsays what he has so often said in other connections—that in Homer, to say nothing of the Attic tragedians, there are qualities of seriousness, orderliness, sobriety, "and, it may even be said, a poetic value," all imposed upon mythical matter. He has expressly told us, as did others before him, that Homer rejected or ignored "absurd and offensive anecdotes" known to be current in his time; and that Pindar avowedly did the same; and if, after all he has said of Homer, he will not now credit the Iliad with the qualities aforesaid, the rest of us must needs do it as against him. Homer has maintained dominion over men's appreciation all through the Christian period, either in the full understanding that his Gods never existed, or on the assumption that they were "demons"; while the Hebrew Bible has held its place on the express declaration that it was the one divinely-inspired book in the world before the New Testament, and that it contained nothing but the purest truth. In the terms of the case it is impossible that the Greek epics could have held their ground if they had not exhibited seriousness, orderliness, sobriety, in a relatively high degree; and if they had been bound up in one volume with selected works of the tragedians and the philosophers, all of whom use the same God-names, the distinction Mr. Lang seeks to draw could hardly have been ventured on by anybody.

In the second place, if the "absurd and offensive" elements in the best Greek poetry deprive it of title to the qualities ascribed by Mr. Lang to the Pentateuch, there are assuredly absurd and offensive elements enough in that to destroy the credit he so liberally gives it. If Mr. Lang sees nothing but sobriety and orderliness in the two irreconcilable accounts of the creation; in the positing of light before there was sun; in the story of the serpent and the fall; in the talk of Yahweh with Cain; in the cryptogram of the crime of Lamech; in the theory and the procedure of the

flood; in the, two versions of the tale of the ark; in the anecdotes about the exposure of Noah and the proceedings of Lot's daughters; in the narrative of the command to Abraham to sacrifice his son; in the story of his duplicated dealings with Pharaoh and Abimelech; in the further duplication of the same pleasing anecdote in the case of Isaac; in the allegation that Sara at the age of ninety bore a child to her centenarian husband; in Yahweh's wrangle with her beforehand, and the duplication of the laughing episode; in Yahweh's instructions to Abraham about circumcision; in the tasteful details of the connubial life of Abraham and Jacob; in the massacre of the Sichemites by Simeon and Levi, and the ethical comment of their father; in his allocution to his sons—if in this string of alternately absurd and offensive anecdotes and of obscure rhapsodies, all in the book of Genesis alone, Mr. Lang does not see exactly the characteristics of the "mass" of barbaric myth, one can but s,ay that it is impossible to follow his distinctions. To call

such a narrative sober and orderly as a whole in comparison with either Hesiod or Homer is to throw all criticism into confusion.

And the Hebrew compilation, be it observed, represents a relatively late and literary state of Hebrew culture. Even Renan, with all his inconsistencies and laxities of method, sufficiently answers Mr. Lang's question as to how whatever comparative order and sobriety we find in the Pentateuch came to be there. These books represent a prolonged and repeated process of redaction, representing the effects of Assyrian, Egyptian, Babylonian, and Persian culture on the previously semi-civilized Jews—the systematic effort to gloss polytheism into the form of monotheism, and to modify the most glaring crudities of primitive anthropomorphism and pastoral barbarism. It is obvious from the context, for instance, that in the story of Jacob's wrestle with the "man" the antagonist was originally Yahweh—the Yahweh who had familiar conversations with Cain and Abraham and Sarah. And this is but one of a hundred inferrible improvements of the text by the later theologians. Mr. Lang lays special stress on the story of the mutilation of Uranus by Kronos as a sample of the element of savage survival in Greek myth.

But if he had perused an easily accessible work on Hebrew mythology he would have learned that in the Rabbinical literature there is preserved the tradition that Cham, "the black" son, mutilated his father Noah [n1 Goldziher, Mythology among the Hebrews, p. 131, citing the Sanhedrim. 70a.]; and if he had looked further into the matter he would have found that a slight vowel alteration of one word in the present text would give that sense [n2 The old mythologist Andrew Tooke, in his Pantheon (1713), argued that the Greeks had taken their story from Genesis, misreading the word in question as they so easily might.]. Now the context makes it practically certain that this was the original form of the story; and we are thus dealing with a Hebrew adaptation on all fours with the oft-cited practice of Pindar, who refused to say that one of the blessed Gods was a mad glutton, and of Homer, who simply left the worst stories out. The difference is that whereas Pindar made a clean breast of the whole matter, and Homer simply set aside the unmanageable, the Hebrew redactors, in their usual way, falsified the text.

This is not the place to attempt even to outline the main features of Hebrew mythology; but it is justifiable to say, first, that a great deal of the heterogeneous narrative of the Biblical books has long been satisfactorily identified as normal primitive mythology—as clearly so as other portions have been shown to be purposive sacerdotal fiction and that when rational tests are more rigorously and more vigilantly applied, much that still passes as history will probably be resolved into manipulated myth. That Joshua is a purely mythical personage- was long ago decided by the historical criticism of the school of Colenso and Kuenen; that he was originally a solar deity can be established at least as satisfactorily as the solar character of Moses, if not as that of Samson.

And when we note that in Semitic tradition (which preserves a variety of myths that the Bible-makers for obvious reasons suppressed or transformed) Joshua is the son of the mythical Miriam [n1 Chronicle of Tabari, ed. Paris, 1867, i. 396. Cited by Baring Gould, Legends of Old Testament Characters, 1871, ii. 138. The Jewish books would naturally drop the subject.]—that is to say, that there was probably an ancient Palestinian Saviour-Sun-God, Jesus the son of Mary, we are led to surmise that the elucidation of the Christ myth is not yet complete.

If the religion of Yahweh be compared in its main aspects with those around it, instead of being isolated from them in thought as an "ethical system," it reveals even in its highly sophisticated form the plainest mythical kinships. To say nothing of the various elements of myth dealt with by Dr. Goldziher and other recent mythologists, there are clear connections, some of them noted long ago and since ignored, between the worship of Dionysos and the worship of Yahweh, one of the connecting links being the myth of Moses. In the etymological explanation of the horns [n2 Exodus xxxiv. 29, Rev. Verso marg.] of Moses lies a possible clue to the horns of Dionysos. The Hebrew language has but one word, Keren, for "horn" and "ray" [n3 Goldziher, p. 179.]; and as Moses' horns are certainly solar, it may be that there was verbal pressure behind the (Semitic) conception of Dionysos as a bull. In any case, since Yahweh was actually worshipped as a young bull [n4 1 Kings xii. 28; Hosea viii. 4-6. Cp. Judges viii. 27; Hosea viii. 5. Moloc was similarly imaged.], it appears that Moses is at one point but an aspect of the same myth. Dionysos is among other things the Zeus or Iao of Nysa or Sinai being the Horned One, dwelling there in the mountain [n5 Strabo, xv. 1, § 9.], even as did Yahweh; but for the rest he duplicates mainly with Moses. As the babe Moses is set afloat in the basket of bulrushes, the babe Dionysos is carried in the basket in the sacred procession [n6 See hereinafter Christ and Krishna, Sec. xii.]. Like Moses, Dionysos strikes water from the ground with his rod [n7 Pausanias, iv. 36.]; like Moses, he crosses the sea with his host [n8 Diodorus Siculus, iii. 65.]; and in the "twofold rocks" of Dionysos [n9 Euripides, Ion, 1126-7. The statement in the Orphic Hymns that Dionysos. wrote his law on two tables of stone—a datum founded on by Voltaire—is now abandoned as a late Jewish forgery. But the passage in Euripides points to the original of all forms of the myth.] lies the probable myth-basis of the two stone tables on which Moses wrote the law on Sinai.

On the other hand, it is Yahweh who appears to Moses within a bush [n1 Exodus iii. 2-4. First it is the "angel of the Lord" who appears in the bush; then it is "God" (Elohim), "the Lord" (Yahweh) being named in the same sentence—clear traces of the process of redaction. Cp. Deut. xxxiii. 16.]; and within a bush Dionysos was frequently represented in ancient art [n2 Cp. Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 321, and refs.]. But the story that the grave of Moses could never be found is evidently a compromise between the Evemerism of the Yahwists and the early myth, in which Moses must needs have gone to heaven like Dionysos, as did Enoch and Elijah.

There are, however, yet other parallels. In the Greek cult of Demeter much was made of the place Petroma, "two large stones fitting into one another." At the annual celebration of the great rites these were detached, and some writings relative to the rites were taken out, read from, and replaced. "By Petroma" was the most sacred oath for the people of Pheneus; and the stones bore a covering, inside which was a mask of Kedarian Demeter. At the annual celebration the priest put on this mask over his robes (even as Moses put on his veil in the presence of the people before and after speaking with the Lord [n3 Exodus xxxiv. 33, 35.]), and in fulfilment of the ancient rite "struck the earth with rods and summoned the Gods of the nether world" [n4 Pausanias, viii. 15.]—another variant of the acts of Dionysos and Moses. And yet again it was told of the mythic Cretan king and lawgiver Minos—a solar figure of which the traces go clear back to the early Phoenician period—that either once or many times he entered an ancient and holy cave to hold intercourse with his father Zeus, and receive from him laws for the island of Crete [n5 Preller, Griech. Myth. 2nd ed. ii. 119, and refs. Cp. Lactantius, Div. Inst. i, 22.].

For the earlier Christian mythologists, the solution of such coincidences was simple: the Pagan stories were of course perversions of the Hebrew history; and our own contemporaries have the encouragement of Mr. Lang to fall back on a similar view—at least to the extent of deciding that the Mosaic myth is actual history.

If anyone with he facts of Comparative Mythology before him can rest in such a faith, he is certainly past argument. If the story of the giving of the law on Sinai be not a myth, the word has no meaning; and nothing but an Irrationalist bias can account for the capacity to accept such a record in the case of men who profess to accept also the principle of evolution in human things. A set of laws which, so far as they are really ethical, represent the alphabet of all social law, and are seen to have been independently attained by all peoples, with or "without similar myths of revelation, are alleged to have been communicated by theophany to a tribal leader on a mountain top, and to have been by him there engraved on two tables of stone which he afterwards broke; and we are invited by a professed evolutionist, as we shall see presently, to recognize an abnormal verisimilitude in the tale.

So long, of course, as educated publicists like Professor Max Muller and the late Matthew Arnold talk of Abraham as a historical character, who probably discovered the principle of monotheism [n1 Muller, Chips from a Gernan Workshop, 1868, i. 371-5; Physical Religion, 1891, p. 220-1. Arnold, Literature and Dogma, 5th ed. p. 32.] so long as Moses is believed by Positivists [n2 See The New Calendar of Great Men, edited by Frederic Harrison, 1892, p. 5.] to have been a real leader who invented the Ten Commandments; so long as the feats of Elijah and the cheats of Jacob are gravely written about by clerical scholars as natural episodes of Eastern life; so long as authorities like Mr. Gladstone swear by the flood—and, be it added, so long as comparative mythologists can write on the whole matter as does Mr. Lang—it will be difficult to set up in the reading world that state of mind which shall at once encourage and chasten the activity of mythological science in the Biblical direction. But even Mr. Lang seems to perceive, and resent, some such movement of the general intelligence.

Complaining of the vagueness of Renan's account of Hebrew religious origins, he speaks somewhat tartly of its being welcomed by "the clever superficial men and women who think that everything has been found out, when next to nothing has been found out at all; who disbelieve in Authority, and do believe in 'authorities'" [n1 Art. cited, p. 284.]. The psychic state revealed in this utterance is something to be reckoned with in our inquiry, exhibited as it is further in the previously cited protest against "offending many people" by talking of Old Testament mythology. It is hardly necessary to point out that we are not dealing with a spirit of pure humanitarianism or disinterested benevolence. Mr. Lang has no special scruples about offending a good many sorts of people—"the clever superficial men and women," for instance; and he has never shown any great reluctance to dishearten or to ridicule those persons who, instead of making much of the Paradise and Promised Land of Genesis, try to frame and reach paradises and promised lands for themselves or their posterity. Mr. Lang's mercies are somewhat straitly covenanted. He rather enjoys hinting that those who take a rationalistic view of the reigning religion are at best clever and superficial, and easily gullible by authorities: his protecting sympathies are only for the superficial men and women who are not clever, who think everything that is found out goes to corroborate the Bible, and who believe in both Authority and authorities, holding by the Word of God and taking the word of Dr. Samuel Kinns.

On all which it may suffice to observe, first, that the common run of the men and women in question have themselves never shown the slightest concern for the susceptibilities either of those who cannot accept their creed, or of those who hold other creeds; that on the contrary they have shown a very general disposition to ostracise and ruin those who openly disagree with them, and are thus not entitled to anything more than the normal courtesies of debate on vital issues; and, secondly, that science has nothing to do with susceptibilities beyond taking care to use decent language. Mr. Lang repeatedly applies to non-Christian systems and creeds, some of them contemporary,

such terms as "sacerdotage," "anecdotage," and "foolish faith." Such being his latitude, other mythologists may surely go the length of calling Hebrew mythology Hebrew mythology. And if the good "many people" are hurt by such language, they have always open to them the twofold resort of crying "infidelity" and of turning their backs on the subject. What were they doing in that galley?

Coming back to the sphere of scientific argument, we note that Mr. Lang after all admits some of the most prominent of the Pentateuchal narratives to be as downright myths as any in the world. The stories of the finding of Moses and the passage of the Red Sea, he writes, are "myths found all the world over"—the first being "a variant of 'The Man Born to be King'—Cyrus, Romulus, Oidipous—the exposed Royal child," while variants of the sea-passage are "nearly universal." It is to be feared these concessions will give a good deal of pain to "many people." Mr. Lang, however, adds a demurrer:

" But the rest, the wonderful tale of the Plagues, of the death of the first-born, of the pillar and the cloud, the night and the fire? What genius invented these, which are not part of the world's common treasury of myth? This may be a mere literary question, and yet one suspects the presence of some strange historical facts" [n1 Art. cited, p. 286.].

It is a little difficult to deal with such very tentative orthodoxy; but we may put the answer in the form of a few questions.

1. Inasmuch as isolated and peculiar myths are found in most systems, is it to be normally assumed that either (a) a genius invented them or (b) we must surmise "the presence of some strange historical facts"?

2. Is there anything so very staggering to the rationalist position in the view that a Jewish genius may have had a hand in the redaction of the Pentateuch?

3. Is there, after all, anything abnormal in the development of a myth of ten plagues in an intellectual climate in which plagues of drought and flood and vermin and disease and dragons were constantly ascribed to the punitive action of deity? For example, if Apollo had been said to send ten

plagues on the Greeks at Troy instead of one, should we have been any the more entitled to "suspect the presence of some strange historical facts"? Or does a story of ten plagues suggest ten times the amount of genius required to make a story of one plague?

4. Seeing that ten, as the "finishing" and "completing" number [n1 See the references in Bahr, Symbolik des Mosaischen Cultus, i. 175-183. So strong was the inclination to apply this principle that in various myths a divine child is said to have been ten months in the womb. E.g., Hermes (Hom. Hymn, l.11) and the Muses (Hesiod, Theog., 58, where the year=ten months). Cp. Virgil, Ecl. iv. 61; and see Diogenes Laertius (Pythagoras, xix.) as to the Pythagorean biology. In the Pythagorean astronomy the "counterearth" (Antichthon) was invented simply to bring up to ten the number of bodies of the central system (sun, moon, earth, five planets, and central fire). Berry, Short History of Astronomy, 1898, p. 25.], was one of the favourite mythic and regulative numbers in antiquity—e.g., the ten commandments, the ten ages of the Etruscans, the ten spheres of the Pythagoreans, the ten adults needed to make a Jewish synagogue, the ten made by the nine Muses and their head, Apollo; the ten made for Arabs and Persians by the nine heavenly spheres and the earth; the usage of tithes, and so on-is not the particular total of ten plagues rather a reason for inferring pragmatic invention than for suspecting the presence of some strange historical facts?

5. If Mr. Lang had met with a story of ten plagues in any other ancient literature, and all ten of them monstrous miracles, would he have dreamt of raising any question of historical fact? Would he not rather have put the ten tales under his general heading of absurd—if not offensive—anecdotes?

6. Is it exactly wise on the part of a modern Theist, whether writing as a mythologist or as joint author of The World’s Desire, to suggest that his deity and Heavenly Father, "who is not far from anyone of us" [n2 Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 1st ed. i. 340.], really operated on the intelligence of a stubborn king by decimal affliction and final massacres among that king's subjects?

7. Does" the rest" include the wondrous tales of the performances of the rods of Moses and Aaron; or are these forms of narrative which could be evolved without setting up the impression of "strange historical facts"?

Perhaps we have sufficiently considered the wonderful story of the plagues, and may spare ourselves the discussion of the pillars of fire and cloud, remarking that no supernatural genius would seem to be necessary for the adding of these items to a story which all sober Biblical criticism has admitted to be an utterly incredible compilation of fictions [n1 Early in the last century Toland, in his Hodegus, undertook to show that the "cloud" was simply the smoke of the night's guiding-fire. We know to-day that the whole story of the life in the wilderness is a myth; but Toland's Evemerism may serve well enough to meet Mr. Lapg's supernaturalism.]. It is hardly worthy of a professed cultivator of a branch of historical and mental science thus to darken counsel for the "superficial men and women" by suggesting that there are some supernatural facts behind a narrative which so many religionists of a rather more earnest sort have definitely given up as unhistorical. But Mr. Lang distorts the problem from first to last. "Manifestly," he writes, "the Chaldaean cosmogonic myth was a medley of early metaphysics and early fable, like other cosmogonies. Why is the Biblical story so different in character" [n2 Art. cited, p. 281.]? It is not different in character. It is a medley of early metaphysics and early fable—early, that is, relatively to known Hebrew history. It ties together two creation stories and two flood stories; it duplicates several sets of mythic personages—as Cain and Abel, Tubal-Cain and Jabal; it grafts the curse of Cham on the curse of Cain, making that finally the curse of Canaan; it tells the same offensive story twice of one patriarch and again of another; it gives an early "metaphysical" theory of the origin of death, life, and evil; it adapts the Egyptian story of the "Two Brothers," or the myth of Adonis, as the history of Joseph; it makes use of various God-names, pretending that they always stood for the same deity; it repeats traditions concerning mythic founders of races—if all this be not a "medley of early fable," what is? Mr. Lang's discrimination is unintelligible unless he be taken merely to mean that the Hebrew redactors, proceeding professionally on collected materials with a sacerdotal purpose, wrought them up in greater

fulness and elaboration than belonged to the older records. But that is exactly what a dozen Greek mythographers and Hindu poets did with their materials: there is no mystery in the matter.

Nor is there anything more than uncritical rhetoric in Mr. Lang's final deliverance that "Behind it all is the mystery of race and of selection. It is an ultimate fact in the history and government of the world, the eminent genius of one tiny people for religion." He might here, indeed, cite on his side many sayings of Mr. Renan's earlier days, the days when he told the world, as Bunsen had done, that the Hebrews were destitute of a mythology—a proposition which has been rejected by nearly every student of mythology, I think, that has discussed it [n1 It is rejected by Kuenen, Goldziher, Steinthal, Robertson Smith, and Max Muller, as well as by Ewald. It is accepted by Noldeke, Spiegel, Roscher (the economist), Draper, Bluntschli, and Peschel, none of them a mythologist, unless it be Spiegel. See refs. in the author's Short History of Freethought, 1899, p. 73.]. So incoherent was Renan's thought on the subject that he alternately presented the Semites as marked by a "minimum of religion" and a special genius or instinct for it [n2 Cp. Max Muller, Chips from a German Workshop, i, 350-l.]—the theorem now endorsed by Mr. Lang. But the pre-scientific assumption of an innate genius for anything in an entire people must give way before science, like all other apriorisms.

As Mr. Lang indicates, any special development of bias or faculty in any people is a matter of "selection," not in the Darwinian sense that the special development enables the people to survive where others would succumb, but in the sense that special conditions bring the special development about. There is no more mystery in the matter than in any

other natural process-much less, indeed, than in those of biology.

This, of course, is a matter of sociology; and sociology among us is kept fully as backward as mythology by religious prejudice; but even in the light of the mere history of Jewry as rationally re-written by modern Hebraists [n3 I.e., Kuenen, Wellhausen, Sack, Stade, Goldziher, etc,], Mr. Lang's difficulties cease to exist.

We have but to recognize the Hebrews (1) as groups of Palestinian 1tribes, welded now and then into kingdoms, in one of which, during centuries, the cult of Yahweh, previously special to Judah [n1 Saul is described (1 Sam. xiv. 35) as building his first altar to Yahweh after driving out the Philistines with the aid of Judah. Later he massacres the priests of Yahweh (Id. xxii. 17-19). That he himself was a worshipper of Baal appears from his son's and grandson's names (1 Chron. viii. 33-34; ix. 39-40), perverted by the Yahwists (2 Sam. ii. 8; iv. 4). Yahweh, on the other hand, was also the God of the Gibeonites, who were Amorites. Cp. 2 Sam. vi. 3 and xxi. 2.], is at times officially imposed over all others, setting up at Jerusalem a would-be unique source of sacrificial and other revenue [n2 Goldziher (cc. vii. viii.) conceives the special development of Yahwistic monotheism to have occurred in terms of national enthusiasm and patriotic self-consciousness; and no doubt that might assist. But other nations were zealously patriotic without giving up polytheism; and another factor is needed to account for the positive elevation and localization of a cult formerly more widespread, and conjoined with others. The shortcoming of Goldziher's theory lies in the usual tendency to narrow the process of explanation. All the political and psychological conditions must be taken into account.]. We are to remember, none the less (2) that in despite of such efforts, which were intermittent (many of the kings being polytheists, or anti-Yahwists), the natural and inveterate polytheism of the people subsists in all directions, so that a Yahwist prophet can describe the inhabitants even of the capital as having as many Baal-altars as streets, and Judah as having no fewer Gods than cities [n3 Jeremiah xi. 13.]. This polytheistic people (3), after undergoing defeat and depopulation by Assyria, and chronic invasion by other powers, thus going on the whole backward in its civilization and culture, is utterly overthrown, and all save its poorest carried bodily into captivity by the new military power of Babylon, the conqueror of Assyria, where its scholarly and priestly members come into contact with a religion kindred to that of Yahweh, but far more literate, far more fully documented, associated with some development of scientific knowledge, and carried on by an endowed and leisured scholarly class, among whom the monotheistic idea has emerged by way of syncretic philosophy, as it had earlier done in India and Egypt, from either of which directions it may have been carried to Babylonia. This principle (4) is by the Yahweh devotees among the Jews

imposed on their merely tribal or nationalistic belief, with the result (among the most fanatical) of making out the One God to be the God of the Jews and housed at Jerusalem, the rest of the nations of the world having no real God at all, though haply they might each be allowed a guardian angel whom God punishes with his nation when he goes wrong [n1 Dan. x. 13, 20; Isa. xxiv. 21.]. Thus far, at most, had its innate genius for religion, in contact with a much wider religious system, carried the "tiny people" by the time of the Captivity.

And now occurred the first main act of a process of "selection" which to this day has sufficed to set on a false scent the amateurs of a priori sociology. When Cyrus, having conquered Babylon, gave permission to those Jews who would to return to Jerusalem, it was not "the" Jews who returned, but simply those Jews who, in contact with a higher culture, grew more and not less fanatical in their special tribal cult, albeit they were irresistibly influenced by their surroundings towards putting a higher form on it. That the Return was thus partial and sectarian there is abundant evidence, not only in the new sacerdotal literature, but in the testimony of those much more numerous Jews who remained in Babylon. The account of the latter, apparently endorsed by many of the later Palestinians, is that "they were only the bran, that is, the dregs of the people, that returned to Jerusalem after the end of the Captivity, and that all the fine flour stayed behind at Babylon" [n2 Prideaux, The Old and New Testaments Connected, part i. bk. iii. (ed. 1815, i. 178), citing Talmud Bab. in Kiddushim.]. Whatever may be the precise value of that estimate, it sufficiently accords with the fact that the Jews of the Return, both under Zerubbabel and under Ezra, were mostly pedantic ceremonialists, who narrowed down the name of Jew to those of the Captivity that had returned and had not intermarried with foreigners. Meantime the natural diversity of thought and faculty which belonged to the Jews as to other nations was merged in the foreign populations, from Media to Egypt, in which they had scattered themselves during century after century of invasion and oppression, as they did still later after the Roman conquest.

Already, however, the factitious literature even of the fanatical Yahwists had begun to take on the colouring of the Chaldean culture of Babylon, which was actually claimed as a distinction by the men of the Return. Zodiacal ideas, drawn thence, are developed in Jacob's list of his children's characters, and in the story of Joseph's dream; the task of a prophet, formerly exhortation, now becomes prediction, on Chaldean lines; the lore of angels becomes a prominent part of the system; and as time goes on and the Persian cult in turn influences Jewry, the principle of the Adversary, the Evil Power, is woven into the pragmatised history of the past; the idea of a Hades emerges; while the comparatively civilized secular law of the new power, doubtless with modifications, is embodied in the pretended law of Moses, and credited to the theocracy. The very institution of the synagogue dates from the Babylonian sojourn. What is special to the Judaic life is just the systematic writing-up of Yahwism, and the turning of the old local deities into servants of Yahweh, as part of a deliberately-invented though much redacted body of false history. Thus Moses and Joshua, obviously solar personages both, and as such old Saviour-Gods (Mosheh being "the raiser-up," and Joshua or Oshea "the Saviour", or "Conqueror"), are made the leaders of a miraculous theocratic deliverance and conquest in the prehistoric period; while the tribal legends of divine founders become the biographies of patriarchs [n1 As to the God-names Jacob and Joseph, see Sayce, Hibbert Lectures on the Babylonian Religion, p. 51, and Records of the Past, New Series, v.48.]; and various myths concerning the Gods Shamas and El and David and Saul and Solomon [n2 Sayee, Hibbert Lectures as cited, pp. 52-57, and article on "The Names .of the First Three Kings of Israel" in the Modern Review, January, 1884.] are reduced to biographic details in the lives of Samson, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, and David. In all this there is doubtless a faculty for cult-building; but it is a kind of faculty on all fours with any other deliberate specialism, such as Brahmanic metaphysic or Roman law; and it is not very advantageous to religion to describe it as a genius for that.

All that is relatively high in Judaism, in fine, is demonstrably forced or grafted on the primitive cult from without. Renan's phrases about "the clean and sober imagination of Israel," oddly objected to by Mr. Lang, are quite in his own spirit, and belong to the pre-scientific interpretation of history, in which all phenomena are explained in terms of themselves. The most admired Biblical book, that of Job, if written by a Jew at all, is by one who had been in contact with the life and culture of Persia, Arabia, and Egypt, and is certainly post-exilic. The quasi-monotheism and ethical universalism of the later prophets is similarly a product of foreign influences; and to the last it never overcame the indurated tribalism and ceremonialism of the mass of the selected people, for whom its. God is the tenant of one temple, so long as that temple lasts; whereafter he figures as the "Chief Rabbi of Heaven." Formerly he had spent three hours a day in "playing with Leviathan"; but after the fall of the holy city the heavenly court is in mourning, and the hours formerly given to recreation are spent in instructing "those who had died in infancy" [n1 Edersheim, History of the Jewish Nation after the Destruction of Jerusalem, 1856, p. 462, citing the Avoda Sara.]. Such was the "genius for religion" exhibited by the Jewish doctors before they began to acquire new heathen lore from contact with the Saracens. As for their ethic, nowhere does it surpass the measure of altruistic thought which Mr. Lang for another purpose credits to the aborigines of Australia and Africa [n2 The Making of Religion, p. 195, etc.].

Finally, Christianity is on its theological side an unquestionable adaptation of the Pagan principle of the anthropic sacrifice; and on its ethical side is merely a blending, good and bad, of late Grieco-Jewish and Gentile teaching. Its supposed antecedents in Essenism are themselves of late and foreign origination in Jewry. The quality of a genius for religion might just as well be ascribed to the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the Arabs, the Persians, the Hindus, or the Australians, as to the Jews.

The express doctrine of the latter, since the closing of their canon, is a negation of all progress in religion; and their accumulated literature of commentary has less intellectual value than anything of its bulk and kind in the world. The race as a religious group in Europe stands collectively for mere mental fixation and separatism, the result first of its own claims and secondarily of the hostile reaction they set up, alike among Pagans and Christians. The fact of the preservation of the bulk of the later heterogeneous Hebrew literature as a mass of sacred books—mutually contradictory as so many of them are—is in itself only another sociological fact, which in its kind is paralleled in different degrees in the cases of Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Mohammedanism, as well as Christianity; and the religious separateness and persistence of the Jews. is a phenomenon strictly analogous to that of the Parsees. To call it all a special and peculiar mystery is merely to raise mystification. In medieval and modern times, as in ancient, Jewish faculty like every other is evoked and developed by special conditions and culture-contacts; and the special phenomenon of Jewish religiosity is no more a mystery than Japanese art or Russian fiction.

§ 2. Christianity and "Degeneration."

When the mythological basis of Hebrew religion, conceded last century by German theologians, is thus put back in doubt by professedly anthropological mythologists to-day, the problems of Christian mythology are naturally kept far in the background. Excepting Sir George Cox [n1 Cp, his lectures in The Religious Systems of the World, 3rd ed, pp. 218,. 241, 242-3, 245, end,], hardly one of the later professed mythologists, either English or continental, has a word to say on the subject. Only in the last sentence of his valuable book does Mr. Frazer glance at the obvious survival of the anthropic sacrifice and the Tree Cult in the Christian religion.

In this connection we find the procedure of the anthropological school completely reversed, with the tacit consent of such authorities as Mr. Lang. In its treatment of "pagan" myth the aim is always to go back to the earliest forms, to ignore their symbolical development and later ethical connotations: in the treatment of Christianity the principle is to pass over the concrete myth forms altogether and consider only the metaphysic and the ethic that have been grafted on them; or to admit as myths only the Catholic inventions of the Middle Ages.

So rooted is the habit that the most recalcitrant theories are accommodated to it. We have seen Mr. Lang treating the Hebrew religion as disparate and superior to those of other ancient peoples. We have seen him again, in a later work, arguing strenuously for a "pure" primeval monotheism in which the God was not sacrificed to; sacrifice being in his opinion a descent to a lower plane of thought -albeit perhaps by "supernormal" means. Finally, he speaks of the religion of Israel as "probably a revival and purification of the old conception of a moral, beneficent creator, whose creed had been involved in sacrifice and anthropomorphic myth" [n1 Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 2nd ed. ii. 329. 2 Id. i. 5, 325; ii. 304, etc.]—this in the face of the facts that the written Hebrew religion contains a mass of anthropomorphic myths, tempered by interpolated denial, and that the historic Hebrew religion was one of systematic sacrifice, so much so that the temple at Jerusalem had normally the aspect of a shambles. Such are the accommodations granted to the religions that be. Then, when we come to Christianity (a fresh grafting of a pagan sacrificial and propitiatory creed on the old, albeit by way of abolishing animal sacrifice), instead of classifying this on his general principle as a process of "degeneration," Mr. Lang treats it as the consummation of the "pure" theory, with the “priceless" doctrine of immortality added as a gift from Animism. Freely granting that Christianity in the Middle Ages developed a multitude of marchen-myths, 2 whereof "the stuff is the same as are nature myths and divine myths" [n1 Id. ii. 305.], he does not once recognize that the Gospels themselves contain matter equally mythical.

On the contrary, he assumes that Christianity was "given pure," and that only the late popular accretions are mythical.

In this connection, where Mr. Lang sets aside his own doctrine of "degeneration," we may fitly ask what is the true formula. If we suppress most of the facts about Judaism, describing it as a "pure" monotheism, in the misleading fashion of Mr. Lang and Mr. Huxley [n2 Collected Essays, iv. 312, 363.], we may easily see degeneration in the Christian polytheism grafted upon it. In a certain sense, Mr. Lang's theory of the triumph of the "squarable " God does actually here hold good. As in the Zoroastrian system the cult of Mithra gradually supersedes in a measure that of Ahura-Mazda, so, for the Jews and others who adopted it, the cult of Jesus in a measure superseded that of Yahweh or the "Theos" in general; and this obviously because the humanized and suffering God comes home to "the business and bosoms of men"—and women—so much more easily than does that of the remote Creator. The cults of Attis, Adonis, Demeter and Persephone, Hercules, Dionysos, Isis and Osiris, all flourished for just such reasons in comparison with the cults of Zeus, Ptah, Ra, and the rest of the "high" Gods. And for the same reason, again, the cult of the Virgin Mary in later times overlaid the cult of Jesus, who in turn, as Logos and Judge and part of the Ineffable Trinity, receded into a cloudier majesty in exact proportion as the Mother was obtruded on popular reverence. As Mother and Woman she was, in Mr. Lang's phrase, more easily "squared"; and it was as an intercessor with her more judicial Son that she was generally welcomed. But it is an unscientific use of the term to call this development "degeneration."

That term may indeed be fitly applied to the process whereby a once imageless conception of any God is made fixedly concrete through the use of images;

or a multiplication of images and pictures positively destroys in a large population the faculty of thinking reasonably about religion at all [n1 Cp, the author's Short History of Freethought, pp. 63-67.]. In some such fashion, indeed, degeneration is always going on alongside of progress. In the higher civilizations, again, degeneration is endemic in so far as bad life-conditions are always creating a larger area of low culture around centres of high culture. In both kinds of case alike, however, there occurs something that Mr. Lang's theory takes no note of—to wit, a recoil from the vulgar conception towards a higher, not before generally possessed. Such a law is perhaps not without its comforting side. In

any case, it is the fact that (1) a God becomes relatively "high," and positively less unethical, by the very process of introducing another God between him and the worshipper; and (2) that the obtrusion of a crude belief or a crude art on superior intelligences makes for them a stepping-stone to a higher art and a less gross credence. As regards art, we see the process every day. A given convention is contentedly acquiesced in by the majority; but there comes along the man of genius, of finer sensibility, or of more various culture, who revolts from the vulgar model, insists that it does not stand for the truth which he perceives, and proceeds to create something—be it a novel, a picture, a statue, or a poem—which better satisfies his tastes or perceptions. After a time, perhaps after he has been stoned or starved, this better model is accepted by many, till it in turn becomes a convention repellent to a later genius; and again there is innovation.

The process is however complicated at all times by the rule of the environment, which determines whether the majority can or can not rise to the finer presentment, or whether genius itself can evolve to good purpose. And this is the specially important consideration in the case of religion. At all stages, there is reason to think, some minds have risen in some measure above the prevalent ideas, and have sought to correct these; and their success is in the ratio of the total facilities, relatively to the effort made. Thus we find Hebrew prophets (haply, however, interpolated by later hands) rebuking the ethic of their fellow-monotheists and fellow-prophets;

Pindar, as aforesaid, Bowdlerising the current myths; Homer and the Vedas leaving the ugliest out; Egyptian and Brahman priests evolving an esoteric system which turns to symbols the barbarisms of the popular cult. But the socio-political conditions determine the extent to which the higher doctrine is assimilated; and thus far in human history the general law is one of the prevalence of crude and ignorant beliefs, or of their retention alongside of the more refined; the broad reason being that the mass of the people have always been more or less crudely ignorant, either because the majority are always of low mental calibre, or because they are always uncultured, or from both causes concurrently.

All the while, however, there operates the general law above stated, that the simple removal of a God by one or more degrees from direct worship, through the interposition of another God between him and the worshipper, has pro tanto an elevating effect on the older God. The process, which Mr. Lang obscures by his polemic, is really very simple. To put it plainly, a God becomes more respectable precisely as he gets less to do. It stands to reason that when he was the near God, meddling in everything, he was so much the more obviously made in the image of his worshippers, more "mythological," so to say, in the sense of having so many more stories told about him. And instead of the adoption of intermediate Spirits or lower Gods being a process of moral declension, as Mr. Lang contends, it may at times be resorted to for the very purpose of refining and exalting the greater God. Thus we know that in the Samaritan Pentateuch later writers deliberately substituted "the Angel of the Lord," for "the Lord" [n1 Cp. the partial substitution of the angel for the deity in Exod. ii.], on the obvious ground that Yahweh's dignity was lowered by making him appear in human guise on parochial errands. But the law has a more general bearing. Zeus in the Greek mythology acquires his relative moral elevation precisely through his hierarchical elevation. To start with, save for the few better minds, he was not a "high" God, even if for some tribes he was the One God.

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The "low" myths about him, which we are told have no connection with the alleged high primordial religion, are the really old data in the matter. It is when he is put over others in the position of Supreme Judge, overruling the more wayward actions of the younger Olympians, that he begins to lend himself to higher ethical ideals; and the highest of all were those formed when the God-idea became so remote as to elude form, and was pantheistically resolved into the idea of a universal Mind, of which men's minds were portions.

If, on the other hand, a God is made relatively "high" by the simple process of being made to overshadow or absorb similar deities—as seems to have happened in the case of Apollo, who is made the father of so many local Sun-Gods, and thus becomes the Sun-God for Hellas in general—there is in the terms of the case no proportional ethical elevation, since he has only the more stories told about him, and meddles all the more in human affairs. He may be theoretically elevated by a concurrent improvement in general ethical thought; but this is not in virtue of his increased importance; and his continued direct activity will always involve a counter-tendency which in part makes the higher ethic nugatory.

As regards, now, the relation of Christianity to Judaism, it is easy to see that Mr. Lang's theory, supposing it to be applied against his will, would still break down. The One God of the Jews, as generally envisaged, was not "high" at the last any more than at the first. The intervening host of angels and demons, indeed, partly saved his dignity and bore the heavier burdens of the popular superstition; but inasmuch as Yahweh remained, despite the higher ideas of some prophets or their interpolators, a tribal and sacerdotal God, he entailed a tribal and sacerdotal ethic; and though doubtless a few, helped by Greek thought, speculated at a higher level, the Almighty who "plays with Leviathan" and sits as Chief Rabbi in Heaven is not a relatively imposing conception. The first Christists accordingly were but doing what the myth-making and religion-making mind has always done in its innovations—seeking to frame a rather more satisfying ethic.

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This holds good both of the Judaic Jesuists who demanded "works" and the Pauline party who insisted on faith. The latter did in point of fact adopt a common and ancient Gentile conception—that of a sacrificed Divine Man; but they gradually surrounded this conception, which they could not collectively transcend, with a variety of ethical ideas of which some, the contribution of the saner or finer minds, did transcend the central dogma.

Beginning as a Jewish variation, the cult was developed on a broader ethnic basis, its ethic being pro tanto widened. But in the process it became more and more sacerdotal; and when sacerdotalism had come into complete possession the ethic remained fixed in its original crudity, with as many popular myths as might be superadded. Thus it could come about that the spectacle of its crudity and its anthropomorphism could in turn, after ages of social vicissitude, act as a stimulus to the Jewish mind in a new environment, and as a point of repulsion for the new cult of Islam, which movements between them, with the help of recovered Greek thought, thus reached a higher ethic and a higher level of cosmic speculation.

Meanwhile, despite Dupuis and Volney and Strauss and the plain bearings of the latest mythological researches, the European economic system serves to maintain in popular credit the mythology of Christism. Some even who see the untenability of the original ethic seem unable to realize its mythic origin; some who, with Strauss, detect some of the myths, continue to see history in others. Hence the need, in the name at once of mythological science and of social rectitude, to apply to Gospel myths the tests of comparative method, and the cues of accumulated mythological knowledge.

§ 3. The Psychological Resistance to Evidence.

Even when the outworks thrown up for Christianity by an imperfect mythology and by economic conditions are

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removed, however, there will still remain to be met the obstinate resistance offered to every scientific view of religious origins by the forces in the camp—to wit, the enlisted affections, the emotional habit, the acquired code of judgments. So obvious is the play of such bias in every great issue that it should be one of the first duties of every educated man to challenge his own case at every serious encounter with an innovating doctrine. Most men can now see how purely passional, how unjudicial, how prejudiced, has been the resistance offered by orthodoxy to every great scientific advance in succession—to the truths of the roundness and motion of the earth, to the principles of geology, to the principles of Darwin. Yet in everyone of these cases, we may be sure, men thought they saw commonsense in the old notion and extravagance in the new; so easy is it to find the rational in the habitual, so hard to consent to see by new light. Hardest of all does it seem to be where the habit has been bound up with worship and chronic religious emotion.

We have seen how Mr. Lang fails to find offence or absurdity in the most offensive and absurd "anecdotes" when they occur in the Pentateuch. He sees at a glance the nonsense and indecency of the myths of savages, even after he has taken to crediting them with "selfless" ethics; and, as he is aware [n1 Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 1st ed. i. 91.], they can equally see absurdity, if not indecency, in the myths on which he was brought up; whereupon he inadequately observes that "savages and civilized men have different standards of credulity." That is but a superficial explanation. Many civilized men hold with the savages that the Christian myths are preposterous; and some savages can see with civilized men that the savage myths are so. The determining condition of vision is simply freedom, original or acquired, from prepossession in a given direction. But the prepossession, while it lasts, is one of the most blinding of influences. And if any inquirer finds it difficult to understand how modern investigators can make fish of one myth and fowl of another, can

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recognize. unreason and fiction in other men's faiths and unconsciously run their heads against them in their own, he should firstly pay heed to the phenomena of inconsistency and self-contradiction which so abound in argumentative literature even where writers are not mastered by the special bias of a creed or prejudice or conservative sentiment, but are merely giving play to the different currents of sentiment set up in them by detached impressions which they do not seek or do not contrive to co-ordinate.

As showing how far such incoherence may go in the case of a writer of repute, and how far it may avail to confuse historical science, it may serve to compare two sets of mutually-annihilative dicta from the second and twelfth chapters of Mommsen's History of Rome, with the preliminary assurance that the chapters not only make no attempt at a synthesis of the contradictions, but exhibit no suspicion that they contain any contradictions at all. I quote from the 1868 edition of Dickson's translation :

"But, on the other hand, the Latin religion sank into. singular insipidity and dulness, and early became shrivelled into an anxious and dreary round of ceremonies. The God of the Italian was, as we have already said, above all things an instrument for helping him to the attainment of very substantial earthly objects" (i. 193; ch. 12).

"At the very core of the Latin religion there lay that profound moral impulse which leads men to bring earthly guilt and earthly punishment into relation with the world of the Gods" (ch. 12; i. 192).

" But. . . . the forms of the Roman faith remained at, or sank to, a singularly low level of conception and of insight" (i. 181).

"Of such notions, the products of outward abstraction—of the homeliest simplicity, sometimes venerable, sometimes ridiculous—Roman theology was in substance made up" (i. 184).

"It [Roman religion] was unable to excite that mysterious awe after which the human heart has always had a longing" (i 184).

"The Latin religion, like every other, had its origin in the effort to fathom the abyss of thought; it is only to a superficial view, which is deceived as to the depth of the stream because it is clear, that its transparent spirit-world can appear to be shallow" (i. 197).

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"This indifference to ideal elements in the Roman religion was accompanied by a practical and utilitarian tendency" (i. 185).

" The Latin worship was grounded mainly on man's enjoyment of earthly pleasures. . . ." (i. 191).

"Throughout the whole of nature he [the Roman] adored the spiritual and the universal" (i. 29; ch. 2).

"The language of the Roman Gods was wholly confined to Yea and Nay, or at the most to the making their will known by the method of casting lots. . . . The Romans made efforts, even at an early period, to treasure up such counsels [Greek oracles], and copies of the leaves of the. . . . Cumaean Sibyl were accordingly a highly-valued gift. . . . For the reading and interpretation of the fortune-telling book a special college was instituted in

early times Romans in search of advice early betook themselves to the Delphic Apollo himself" (i. 198-9).

"Comparatively slight traces are to be found among the Romans of belief in ghosts, fear of enchantments, or dealing in mysteries. Oracles and prophecy never acquired the importance in Italy which they obtained in Greece, and never were able to exercise a serious control over public or private life" (i. 193).

It is given to few, certainly, to dogmatize so chaotically as does Mommsen; but if he can contrive to think thus incoherently on a question on which he has no master-passion to blind him, as in his utterances on the Celtic races and on French civilization; if he can in different moods see spiritual profundity and mere mechanical externality in one and the same set of religious phenomena, it becomes at least much less surprising that men should see in such different lights phenomena which, though cognate and similar, are at least different in particulars and in their circumstances, as well as in degree of familiarity. The believing Christian who for the first time is told, however guardedly, that his creed is historically on all fours with those of its age, and that its prodigies are but myths and false marvels like those of Paganism, is sure to be sincerely scandalized. To him the two sets of phenomena are wholly disparate, because his feelings about them have always been so. And it finally depends on his intellectual qualities, his opportunities, his studies, and his interlocutors, whether he ever gets beyond framing arguments which merely follow the beck of his prejudice.

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With the wrecks of such arguments the path of discussion has been more and more thickly strewn for the last two hundred years. But as many still see in the wrecks

nothing but good building material, it may be well to scrutinize closely a few arguments which were earnestly or adroitly put together when Strauss fifty years ago gave a new reverberation to the doctrine that Christian supernaturalism is part of the subject-matter of mythology. As had been sought to be done last century in the case of miracles, men strove to show that what were called myths in the Gospels had nothing in common with the admitted myths of Paganism; and that on the other hand, despite its supernaturalism, the life of the Founder was as credible as that of Julius Caesar.

On the first head the line of argument was very much that of Mr. Lang, only more industriously developed, and with of course more resort to the stock "bluffs" of Christian Evidence. One German inquirer put together a list of the Mohammedan myths about Jesus, and claimed to show that all had an extravagant or frivolous or ill-finished character that was totally absent from the Gospel narrative. In the Gospels, it is claimed, there are no "hyperbolical delineations." "There we find no miracle which is not duly called for by the circumstances—none that serves merely frivolous interests, or that violates the rules of propriety." "Where the supernatural does interpose, it presents itself in a manner so unconstrained, and so suitable to the aim of the whole, that the only thing that would have created surprise would have been the absence of this element" [n1 Part vii. of Voices of the Church in Reply to Dr. Strauss, 1845, pp. 35 5-9.].

Place beside these typical assertions, of which even the last is only a delightful development of a common implication, a few of the actual Gospel miracles.

1. The wholesale [n2 The quantity of the wine greatly impressed Strauss, as it did previous German critics. It figures out at over a thousand imperial pints.] turning of water into wine at a feast at which a presumable sufficiency of wine had been already consumed.

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2. The miraculous draught of fishes.

3. The catching of the fish with the coin in its mouth to pay the tribute; taken in connection with the statement that Judas normally carried a stock of money for the group.

4. The story that 5,000 persons went into the wilderness with twelve (or more) baskets, containing only five (or seven) loaves and two (or a few) fishes, and that the Founder multiplied that food for the host till there was superfluity enough to fill exactly twelve baskets.

5. The instantaneous cure of a malady of long standing through a touch on the hem of the Messiah's garment.

6. The rebuking of the wind, its instant cessation, and the immediate "great calm" on a tempest-tossed sea.

7. The instantaneous removal of leprosy.

8. The instant restoration of maimed limbs.

9. The walking on the waves.

10. The rebuking and expulsion of the "devil" in epileptic patients.

Nothing save a prepossession approaching to hebetude can obscure the fact that these are just "irrational," that is, ignorant myths of the ordinary Oriental sort, devoid of "propriety," for instructed people, in the completest degree. The so-called Mohammedan myths, which are really flotsam from early Christian lore, set reasonable and even touching thoughts alongside of absurd narratives: the Gospels do the same, yielding a much larger proportion of sane matter simply because they represent the literary travail of several generations and the selected thoughts of many more, all to some extent edited by men bent on making a Christist movement; whereas the Mohammedan myths about Jesus are mere random survivals. Yet if Christians had found in their Gospels the story that when the disciples complained of the smell of the dead dog, Jesus answered "Ah! how beautifully white are the dog's teeth," with the added explanation, they would have been well pleased [n1 Let the "apocryphal" story be but told in the archaic style of the English versions of the Gospels, and the effect will be tolerable enough. As thus:—"And as Jesus came from that city with his disciples there lay before them on the way a dead dog. And the disciples were much offended with the smell thereof. And the Lord rebuked them and said, Nay, but see ye not the wondrous whiteness of the dog's teeth? This spake he unto them that they should take heed to see the good in all the works of God, and that they should think not of the faults but of the righteous deeds of their brethren."]; and if they could without scandal accept it in exchange for the inept story of the cursing of the fig-tree, many would promptly and gladly make the transaction.

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Again, when the apologist claims it to be a specialty of Gospel narrative to contain simple and natural episodes, he does but exclude from his survey one-half of the literature of mythology.

"That the great Messiah sat down weary at Jacob's well, that he was overcome with sleep in the boat on the lake, that in Gethsemane and on the cross he gave utterance to the deepest feelings of human weakness—all this would as little have appeared in a mytho-poetical picture of his life, as the honest and sober-minded confessions of their own conduct which the evangelists so artlessly embody in their narratives" [n1 Vol. cited, p. 357.].

Such are the devices of "foredeeming." In not a single case does any Gospel attribute any act whatever to its own writer, or indicate who its writer was: the apologist has but adduced myth to defend myth. As for the picture of the God resting by the well, or sleeping in the boat, it can be paralleled on the side of artlessness in a dozen of the most familiar myths of Hellas, and in as many of Buddhism. Can the apologist ever have read of "outworn Dêmêtêr, searching for Persephone"? "By the wayside she sat her down, sore in heart, at the Maiden Well, where the townsfolks drew their water, in the shadow where overhead grew a thicket of olives. In her guise she was like unto an aged woman who is bereft of child-bearing and the gifts of garland-loving Aphrodite…..They knew her not: the Gods are hard for men to discern ….." [n2 Homeridian Hymn to Dêmêtêr, Edgar's trans. slightly altered.]. This of Great Dêmêtêr, of the many temples and the glorious name.

Met thus at every turn by the challenged parallel, the customary apologist usually ends by insisting that the Gospels stand out from all other sacred histories in respect of their utter aloofness from the instinct of sex—that Jesus alone of the Gods of old is without the passion of the male for the female.

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But this again is a fallacious plea, for the entire literature of the early Christists is in the same way stamped with the character of an age in which Oriental asceticism has become the standard of sanctity; and the new God is but specialized as Virgin Goddesses had been before him [n1 I say nothing of the unpleasant problem raised by the wording of John xiii. 23.]. Apollo himself is acclaimed as hagnos, the chaste God; and in Julian we see the now normally sophisticated consciousness of religious men, claiming sexlessness for the old Gods and turning the stories of their appetites to pure allegory. And the principle is dominant in Buddhism no less than in Christism.

Even as the determined believer will not see charm or sobriety in any myth of the heathen, so will he look in the very face of puerility in his own myths and vow that it is surpassingly divine, nay, that prodigy is but a proof of foreknowledge. Thus does no less a teacher than Neander, in an English translation, dispose of the miracle of the fish with the stater in its mouth :

"He [Jesus] wrought no miracle in order to procure the necessary money, but told Peter to have recourse to his usual calling, Providence attached a peculiar blessing to his labours on this occasion; and he found in the mouth of the first fish which he caught a coin, which had probably been swallowed a short time before [n2 Cp. Das Leben Jesu Christi, 4te Aufl. 1845, p. 508. The passage is thus translated in Voices of the Church, as before cited, p. 427. The fourth edition of the original says in conclusion only: "Der zuerst gefangene Fisch sollte so viel einbringen, da ein von ihm verschlungener Stater in ihm gefunden wurde."], Christ's foreknowledge of the result constitutes, as before observed, the miraculous element in the transaction. "

As if supererogatory absurdity were not enough, the theologian must needs glose the narrative, in which Jesus actually tells Peter in advance that he will find the coin in the mouth of the first fish. The narrative (Mt. xvii. 27) does not even tell further of the fulfilment. If then the miracle here consists simply in the foreknowledge, it does so in every case in which Jesus says anything before a miracle is consummated. The formula is naught.

But the extremity of Neander's bias is best illustrated by his handling of the miracle of Cana. Here he does not employ the" foreknowledge" formula, but changes the venue :

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"If we are to regard the author of that [the fourth] Gospel as a man of Alexandrian culture, whose mind was imbued with the notions of the Gnostics, his selection, for the first miracle of Christ, of a transaction which from his peculiar point of view must have appeared utterly unworthy of the Saviour's dignity, is incomprehensible" [n1 Der Leben Jesu Christi, p. 273, note. Voices of the Church, pp. 428-9.].

It would be hard to be more arbitrary. The theorem of Strauss [n2 Leben Jesu, 4te Ausg. i. Ka,p. vii. § 83, end.] and others, that the fourth Gospel suggests Alexandrian or Greek culture and a Gnostic leaning, alleges its Gnosticism only so far forth as the Gospel can be shown to contain Gnostic thought. To reply that the Gnostic of Alexandria would have scouted the miracle of Cana is neither here nor there. Gnosticism had many mansions, and no modern is entitled to say that there were not thousands of the earlier Gnostics who would have accepted the miracle with reverence. Clement of Alexandria actually accepted and prized the name of Gnostic; and he never by a single word disparages the miracle. It is true that he never refers to it; while he revels in the doctrine of the Logos; and it might be argued on Neander's premiss that the water-and-wine story was an addition to the original perhaps made after Clement's time. But this view would of course be repudiated by Neander as reducing the miracle to myth once for all. His argument must remain that the story is to be held apostolic because it would scandalize an educated Alexandrian. How then came any educated Alexandrian ever to be an orthodox Christian; and how came Clement to let the miracle pass?

The special pathos of the defence lies in the perception it betrays that the story is a scandal to the educated modern; that the naif phrases "manifested his glory," "and his disciples believed on him," reveal a notion of divinity and Messiahship which puts the narrative outside the pale of tolerable testimony for a critical reader.

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The modern apologist who felt that "in the Gospel miracles the only thing that would have created surprise would have been the absence" of the supernatural, was clearly at the true primeval point of view; but even he would have been hard put to it to show that the Christian tale is more dignified or more plausible than the repeatedly "attested" wine-miracle wrought annually in the Dionysian temple of Andros in solemn manifestation of the might of the God over his special element [n1 See the treatise on The Gospel Myths in the present volume.]. As for the rest of us, when we collate the two prodigies, what can we say, as reasoning men, but that the Gospel miracle is a parody of the Pagan?

At the next stage of the analysis there arises an issue that is equally set up by other episodes in the Gospels: the question, namely, as to how such a story came first to be told. In the Dionysiak miracle, it will probably be allowed, we have a systematic priestly imposture, actually repeated year by year. It may have been done in pursuance of some old tale of the God turning water into wine; or it may have been the priests' reduction to falsehood, ad captandum vulgus, of their subtler principle that the. Sun-God turned water into wine in ripening the grape [n2 This was actually Augustine's gloss of the Christian miracle, except that in his view the God was miraculous and dramatically repeating what he did annually in the course of nature. In Joann. tract. 8, cited by Strauss.]; or the story may originally have been told by way of embodying that doctrine in a mythos. In any case, an esoteric idea presumably underlay the annual performance. In the Christian tale there is no such element left above ground; and we are driven to ask whether the first narrator of the Christian version was other than a wilful vendor of fiction. It is hard to see how we can answer favourably: certain as it is that any story once written down in an accepted Gospel was sure to be believed, there must have been a beginning in somebody's deceit. And if on this we are met with the old formula that a wilful fiction is not a myth, we can but answer that the formula will have to be recast. For we really know nothing of the precise manner of origin of, say, the myth of Isis and Osiris. We only know that. it was believed, and as a belief it was for all practical purposes on all fours with the belief that Alexander was the son of Jupiter Ammon, and the belief that Jesus turned so many firkins of water into wine by divine volition. They were all traditionary forms of error; and the business of mythology is to trace as far as may be how they came to be started and conserved.

§ 4. The Problem of Non-Miraculous Myth.

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If the foregoing argument be substantially sound, it follows that the conception of "myth" should be allowed broadly to include not only stories of a supernatural cast told of divine personages, but many quasi-historical narratives which fall short of asserting downright miracle; and not only stories of that cast told about non-historical personages, but some told about historical personages. If, for instance, we find related of Julius Caesar and William the Conqueror and other great captains the tale of a stumble on landing in a new country, and a prompt pretence to lay hold of the land by way of reassuring superstitious soldiers, we are reasonably entitled to say that, though the thing may have happened once, it did not happen repeatedly; just as we decide that the same witticism was not really uttered by Voltaire and Dr. Johnson and Talleyrand and Sidney Smith and Douglas Jerrold, though it has been ascribed to them all; and that there were not four Christian nurses who respectively alleged that they had witnessed the death-beds of Voltaire, Rousseau, Thomas Paine, and Mr. Blank, and would not again see a freethinker die for all the wealth of Indies. Knowing how the human mind manufactures these modern false coincidences, we rather count ourselves to have therein a sidelight on coincidences of a more sacrosanct sort in older times. When all is said, we have hardly any other way of divining how primeval men contrived to tell the same stories with innumerable variations of names and minor details.

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But here we must reckon with a logical difficulty of obvious importance, which has been turned to very adroit account by opponents of mythical interpretations of certain religious narratives. This difficulty is that there are very odd coincidences in history and literature: and that some perfectly attested modern biographies are found to chime in a queer way with certain myth-cycles of antiquity. The most familiar and the most striking of all such cases is the mock demonstration by Archbishop Whately that Napoleon=Apollo. Many a student must have been for a moment as much bewildered as entertained by the series of data—the birth in a Mediterranean island; the mother-name Laetitia=Leto=Latona; the three sisters=the Graces; the four brothers=the seasons; the surname Bonaparte; the hero's overrunning of Europe; the two wives=Moon and Earth [n1 Or, as a later writer would be apt to put it, Dawn and Twilight.]; the apparition in Egypt; the turning-point of the hero's career in the land of winter, which undermines his power; his defeat by the northern hosts; his twelve marshals=the signs of the zodiac; his passing away in the western hemisphere in the nlidst of the sea. It all seems at first sight uncommonly awkward for the solarists; and a German theologian, in a sufficiently German manner, undertook similarly to confute Strauss by a work supposed to be produced by a Mexican mythologist in the year 2836, Das Leben Luther’s kritisch bearbeitet, wherein Luther is shown to be a myth [n2 See it reproduced in The Voices of the Church in Reply to Dr. Strauss.]. Here the effect is much less striking; and the plain hits are made over the mythical appearance of the name Wartburg, and the curious story that Luther was born while his mother was on a journey. In this case it begins to appear that the satire has come home to roost; for the mythical interpretation of the Gospel narrative does not rest on a theorem of the unreality of place-names; and the question as to Luther's birth is troublous rather for the Protestant than for the mythologist. The story is very ill vouched: how came it to be told? Is it that an element of myth really did get into the biography even of Luther?

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Once started, the rebuttal is simple enough. To begin with, the clever Archbishop's thesis proves far too much; for Apollo is even in his opinion a mythical person; and nine-tenths of the Napoleon data do not apply to Apollo at all; though the Archbishop might have improved his case by noting that the Greek spelling is Apollon, and the modern Greek pronunciation nearly Apoleon = the Apollyon of Bunyan's allegory. Further, Apollo had not three sisters and four brothers; and was not defeated by northern hosts; and had a great many wives and a great many sons; and never led any hosts, though Dionysos did; and never died, even to rise again. And for the rest, we need but ask the Archbishop and his German emulator, as did the late Professor Baden Powell in the Essays and Reviews, whether they mean to suggest that there is nothing more miraculous in the life of Jesus than in the lives of Luther and Napoleon? In fine, was not the Archbishop a little too clever for the safety of the creed?

We have but to restate the mythological argument in this connection to make clear its real strength. As thus: (1) Jesus is said to be born of a Virgin; but not in the original version of the First Gospel; and not in the Second; and not in any writing or by any mouth known to Paul. Here we see how a myth may be superimposed on a cult. As regards (2) the miracles, the Temptation, the Resurrection, the Ascension, they cannot possibly be solved by any record of a real career. (3) We come next to non-miraculous episodes which yet bear the mark of myth in that they are (a) duplicates of episodes in previous hero-myths, (b) not common to the four Gospels, (c) like the miracles, visibly unknown to Paul. Even Mr. Lang admits myth in the story of the exposure of the infant Moses. The Massacre of the Innocents falls by the same tests. (4) Finally comes the category of presumptively-fictitious utterances, of which there is a whole series, reducible to unreality on various grounds, as thus :

a. All alike are unknown to Paul, and unemployed by the other epistle-writers.

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b. The Sermon on the Mount is further demonstrably a collection of written sayings, and has none of the characteristics of a real discourse.

c. The "Come unto me" formula has no congruity whatever with the main body of the narrative; and is intelligible only as a formula of the mysteries.

d. Many of the parables are similarly impossible as " teachings"; indeed, the Sermon on the Mount, though visibly a written compilation, is almost the only part of the Gospel that has any approach to fitness for popular purposes (cp. Mark iv. 11, 12; Luke viii. 10). The disciples themselves are represented as needing explanations of parables (cp. Matt. xiii. 15-36); and at times Jesus is said to blame them bitterly, at others to be in the habit of explaining to them privately what the multitude cannot understand (Mark ix. 34, etc.).

c. A multitude of absolute contradictions of narrative in the text prove unrestrained invention—e.g., Matt. xiii. 54-58 and Luke iv. 31-44; Matt. x. 5, 6, and xxii. 43; Matt. xii. 30 and Luke ix. 30; Matt. xviii. 3 and xiii. 10-16; Matt. xviii. 17 and verse 22. [n1 See a number of other instances cited in the author's Short History of Freethought, pp. 146-7.].

f. The decisive difference between the whole cast of the fourth Gospel and that of the Synoptics shows that invention was no less unrestrained as regards doctrine. Any man could set forth anything he would as the teaching of the Messiah.

Predictions such as those of the fall of Jerusalem are clearly written after the event. Other teachings were as easy to interpolate.

When any such body of reasons can be given for doubting a pagan narrative, it can to-day find no credence among instructed men. No scholar pretends to believe that all the, speeches ostensibly reported in Livy and Thucydides were really delivered; but though it is not recorded that any reports of Jesuine sayings existed in any form in Paul's time we are asked to believe that a multitude of Jesuite

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discourses delivered about the year 30 were accurately reproduced, without additions, forty or more years later; and that documents to which during a century anybody might add, in an age of habitual forgery, are valid evidence. Clearly this is the merest fanaticism. All that can rationally be claimed is that a teacher or teachers named Jesus, or

several differently named teachers called Messiahs, may have Messianically uttered some of these teachings at various periods, presumably after th writing of the genuine Pauline epistles [n1 Cp. essay on "The Jesus Legend and the Myth of the Twelve Apostles," in the author's Studies in Religious Fallacy.]. To make the whole mass the basis of a conception of a teaching Jesus before Paul, is to ignore all the causal principles of historic a judgment.

To put the case broadly, at the end as at the beginning, Primary myth is but one of the primary modes in which men are collectively deceived; the habit of erroneous belief persists thus far in all stage of civilization; and wherever the result is a widespread hallucination, transmitted from age to age through channels of custom and emotional credulity, we are dealing with the same kind of psychological problem, and should apply to it the same kind of tests. The beliefs that Dêmêtêr wandered over the wide-wayed earth seeking for Persephone; that Isis searched mourning for the body of Osiris; that Apollo shot arrows of pestilence in punishment among the Greeks; that Athênê miraculously succoured her worshippers; that Perseus and Jesus and a hundred more were supernaturally conceived; that Jesus and Dionysos and Osiris gave men new knowledge and happiness in virtue of Godhood; that Tezcatlipoca and Yahweh were to be appeased by the eating, in reality or in symbol, of human flesh and blood; that AEsculapius and Jesus raised the dead; that Hercules and Dionysos and Jesus went down to Hades, and returned; that Jesus and Mithra were buried in rock tombs and rose again; and that the sacrifice of Jesus brought salvation to mankind as did the annual sacrifice of the God-victim of the Khonds—

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these beliefs were set up and cherished by the same faculties for fiction and fallacy as have conserved the beliefs about the Amazons, Arthur and the Round Table, the primacy of the Pope, witchcraft, fairies, the medicinal value of charms, the couvade, the efficacy of prayer for rain, Jenny Geddes and her stool, Bruce's Cave, Wallace's Tree, Julian's saying "Thou hast conquered, O Galilean," the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius, the miracles of Lourdes, the miracles of mediums, Boer outrages, the shooting of the apple on the head of his child by William Tell, and the consequent establishment of the Swiss Confederation.

The fortunes of the Tell myth may serve once for all to illustrate the fashion in which a fiction can even in a historical period find general acceptance; and the time and effort required to dispossess such a belief by means even of the plainest evidence. As early as 1598, a Swiss antiquary pronounced the story a fable; and in 1760 another, named Freudenberger, undertook to show its source, the episode being found in the Danish history of Saxo Grammaticus, written centuries before the date assigned to Tell's exploit. It is said that Freudenberger was condemned to be burned alive for his pains; but this looks like yet another myth. Periodically repeated by scholars, however, the exposure was obstinately resisted by learned Swiss historians on various untenable grounds down till the middle of the present century [n1 E.g., Vieusseux, History of Switzerland, 1840, p. 47, note.]; and when the pressure of criticism at last became irresistible by men of education and capacity, when it was shown past question that the Confederation had been formally established a good many years before the date assigned to Tell, and that no trace of the Gessler episode occurs for generations after the time to which it is ascribed, an accomplished scholar is found in all good faith to contend that, while the apple story is plainly myth and Tell a non-historical person, there is some reason to believe that some disturbance occurred about the time in question [n2 Cp. the pamphlet of M. Bordier, Le Grutli et Guillaume Tell, Geneve et Bale, 1869.]—as if the reservation of such a proposition counted for anything in such a connection.

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It would be strange if a set of myths round which centre the popular religious belief of Christendom were to be rectified more easily than the Swiss belief in Tell. The great majority of the Swiss people, indeed, probably believe devoutly in the Tell story to this day, so little do the studies and conclusions of scholars represent popular opinion in any age; and those rationalists among ourselves who go about proclaiming that Christian supernaturalism, being detected, is "dead," do but proclaim their own immaturity. Do what we will, myriads of "educated" English people will continue for generations to believe that their deity is present in a consecrated wafer; and the faith of myriads more in their remoter myths will continue proportionally vigorous. It remains for those who do care about reason and critical knowledge to pursue these ends faithfully notwithstanding, leaving popular opinion to develop as social and economic conditions may determine. The science of these conditions is indeed the most vital of all; but such science none the less must be followed up for its own sake; and our general survey may fitly end in a consideration of one of the problems that arise for the mythologist on the borderline of the religious resistance, being broached in the name not of orthodoxy but of historical science.

§ 5. The Problem of Priority.

It lies on the face of the foregoing argument that any one religion may influence any other with which it comes in contact; that as Christism borrowed myths of all kinds from Paganism, so it may pass on myths to less developed systems. Hence a possibility of dispute as to whether a given heathen myth discovered in post-Christian times is or is not borrowed from Christianity.

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Dr. Tylor has shown reason for believing that a deluge-myth was set agoing in Mexico by the early Spanish priests. It may be, then, that in earlier times Christianity was drawn upon here and there in the fashion formerly taken for granted by believers as regards all cases of coincidence between Christian and pagan narrative and practice.

Obviously such problems are to be solved, if at all, in terms of a posteriori evidence and a priori plausibility. If the historical data leave a given case in doubt, we have to ask ourselves which way the psychological probabilities lie. It is easy to see why the Christists adopted the belief in the Virgin Birth and the solar birthday; and, on the other hand, to see how savages could acquire from missionaries a belief in a punitive deluge. But there are less simple cases, in which a variety of tests must be put as to the relative likelihood of a given myth's passing from A to B or from B to A. And so great still is the effect of the so long unchallenged habit of treating Christianity as "absolute religion" that in the name even of scientific mythology there is a persistent tendency to look for imitations of Christianity in myths that had been held by independent scholarship to be prior to Christian propaganda. The theses of Professors Weber and Lorinser and others in regard to Krishnaism (discussed at length hereinafter) are typical. Putting these theses aside for detailed treatment, we may take up for illustration that maintained in recent years by R. Petersen, L. Wimmer, Professor Bugge, E. R. Meyer, and others, as to a Christian derivation of the Scandinavian myth of Balder. It is not necessary to ask here whether or not anyone of these writers is influenced by a desire to buttress Christianity: it is quite conceivable that all alike may be indifferent to any such result. The point is that they are apparently influenced by the old habit of treating the Christian system as positively non-mythical, and that their theses are always apt to be turned to the account of orthodox belief.

There is a curious correspondence in the line of argument in the two cases mentioned. As concerning Krishna, so concerning Balder, we are told that "no certain traces are to be found of an actually existing cultus" of the God in early times;

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the only evidence for the worship being late, though there is early evidence for the myth-name [n1 H. Petersen, Ueber den Gottendienst des Nordens wahrend der Heidenzeit,

Ger. trans. 1882, p. 84; E. H. Meyer, Germanische Mythologie, p. 262, cited

by W. Nicolson, Myth and Religion, Helsingfors, 1892, p. 103.]. The position is, then, that a little-esteemed Scandinavian deity of old standing could be developed into a highly-esteemed one by grafting on his personality characteristics borrowed from Christism, and this in face of Christist opposition and propaganda. Professor Bugge's general argument is thus summarized [n2 By Mr, Nicolson, as cited, p. 104.]:

"While the Balder myth includes in itself the most diverse elements . , . . the main element is Christian. Both in the Elder and the Younger Eddas the elements are Christian or partially Christian. . . . All this fairness and splendour [of Balder's complexion and character] in Professor Bugge's opinion is only a reflection of the Son of God, the 'White Christ as he has been named.. . . As Balder was depicted by an old Icelandic author as purest white in the colour of his body; so in.. . . legendary and medieval descriptions Christ is spoken of as fairest of body, and with golden yellow hair. . .The blind Had [who threw at Balder the fatal mistletoe] is the blind Longinus who drove the spear into our Lord's side. . . . He concludes. , . . that the Balder myth has been influenced by these medieval Christian legends" [of Longinus slaying Christ, etc.], Further, Professor Bugge suggests that Lucifer is the original of Loki; that the swearing of the trees and plants, excepting the mistletoe, not to injure Balder, is derived from the Jewish anti-Christian Gospel of the Middle Ages, the Sepher Toldoth Jeschu, where the trees and bushes swear not to bear Jesus if he be crucified, but where Judas makes a cabbage-stump serve the purpose. And so on.

Now, it is not disputed that Christian and classic ideas probably affected some of the later aspects of Scandinavian paganism. So long ago, indeed, as 1728, the antiquarian Keysler argued for Christian and scholarly influence in the Voluspa Saga [n3 See E. H, Meyer, Voluspa: Eine Untersuchung, 1889, pp. 1-8. Cp. H. Petersen, as cited, p. 114.]; and the thesis was sustained by Von Schlozer in 1773, and by Adelung in 1797 and later. Such views were overborne for a time by the enthusiasm and nationalism aroused by the Brothers Grimm; but E. H. Meyer, an admirer of the latter, declares himself bound to confess that the earlier and less scholarly inquirers were right, and the learned Jacob Grimm wrong.

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Among recent students some amount of Christian contact before the composition of the Voluspa and other sagas is generally conceded. Thus Professor Rhys holds that the "prophetic" form in which part of the story is preserved is "due to Christian and Biblical influence" [n1 Hibbert Lectures on Celtic Heathendom, 1888, p. 535.]. As regards the theological conceptions associated with Odin, again, Professor Miiller suggested Christian influence a generation ago [n2 Chips from a German Workshop, 1867, ii. 195-6.]; and Dr. Rydberg has shown that certain of the migration myths of the Heimskringla and the Younger Edda belong to the Christian period, and are the work of Latin scholars of the Middle Ages [n3 Teutonic Mythology, Eng. tr. 1889, i. 39, 65, etc.]. Dr. Vigfusson, again, sees a marked Christian colouring in the entire myth [n4 Corpus Poeticum Boreale, 1883, ii. 466.]. But that the main episode in the Balder saga should be an adaptation from an apocryphal Christian legend, and that Balder himself is an adaptation from the White Christ—this is a hypothesis too unplausible to pass without clear evidence. And the more Professor Bugge's theory is examined, the weaker do his evidences seem. Among his incidental conclusions are these: that the funeral pile of Balder is taken from that of Patroklos, in Homer; and that the picture given of the God in Saxo-Grammaticus, which is older than that in the Edda, is derived from Achilles, as regards the item of Balder's. consuming passion for Nanna. Thus we are to suppose that Balder was first shaped after a classical model, and later after a Christian; and this on the score of some very remote or very normal parallels.

In the hands of Professor Bugge's adherents, the theory is pushed still further. After being vigorously attacked by the German archaeologist Mullenhoff [n5 Deutsche Altertumskunde, Bd. v. 1883.], as by the AngloScandinavian Professor George Stephens [n6 Professor Bugge's Studies in Northern Mythology shortly examined, 1883, pp. 326-345.], and with less emphasis by Dr. Rydberg, it was embraced by E. H. Meyer, Mullenhoff's most distinguished pupil, who contends in his elaborate treatise on the Voluspa that the Saga is a literary adaptation from some current Summa of Christian theology.

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Whereas Bugge had argued with comparative diffidence, that the Balder and Loki story in the Voluspa Saga, heathen in basis, was worked up by a heathen poet, who had heard Christian and classical legends, gathered by the Vikings, E. H. Meyer decides confidently that the poem is rather the work of a Christian priest of the twelfth century belonging to one of the four theological schools set up in Iceland after its Christianization; and that the whole is a literary mystification [n1 Mr. Nicolson (as cited, p. 130) so summarizes Meyer as to make him seem to hold that the saga-poet had a Christian purpose. Meyer really contends that the poem is not a "tendency" writing at all, being unfitted by its Christian ideas to serve Paganism, and by its pagan terminology to serve Christianity (Voluspa, p. 267. Cp. p. 294). Still he speaks of the "entirely Christianized (ganz verchristlichten) Balder and Hoder" (p. 220), and finally designates the poem a Summa Christlicher Theologie (end).], not a genuine reproduction of native myths at all.

It must be said that such a proposition raises acute sociological difficulties. Unless the priest-poet of the twelfth century were a highly-evolved sceptic, he must have been either a Christian or a Pagan. Now, the existence of an impartial artistic scepticism, as distinct from simple unbelief, in such an environment at that period, is a greater improbability than that any of the aspects of the saga should be pagan work. Assume then that he was a believing Christian priest: was ever such a one known to lend new literary attractions to the story of a heathen God, and so to give heathenism the greater glory? The thesis is really exorbitant: Dr. Meyer's conception of such a "mystification," such a "Ratselgedicht," on the part of a medieval Icelandic priest, is but a substitution of a great difficulty for a small. It is one thing to grant that the slain and beloved Balder of the poetic Edda is a marked aesthetic advance on the Balder of Saxo's “history": it is another thing to explain the literary development in the fashion under notice.

And here, once more, there is to be charged on the innovating theorists a lack of comprehensiveness of survey. With all his learning, Dr. Meyer takes no account of the Celtic parallels to the Balder myth. Now, as Professor Rhys has shown, just as there is a plausible mythic equation, Gwydion = Woden = Indra [n2 Celtic Heathendom, as cited, pp. 282-304.],

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there is a whole group of parallels between the Celtic Cuchulainn and Balder, besides a number of possible Celtic originals or parallels for the name and character of Loki [n1 Id. pp. 538-542.]. In Professor Rhys's opinion such parallels, so far as they may indicate identities, stand for the body of myth common to the Aryan peoples before their divergence. But against this view there stands the difficulty that Balder does not figure at all prominently in the old Scandinavian worship [n2 H. Petersen, as cited, p. 84.]. So far as names of persons and places show, the chief God of Scandinavian paganism was Thor [n3 Id. pp. 21-71, 76, 83, 87, 90, 94, 111, etc.]; Odin's supremacy and Balder's prestige being alike apparently late literary developments [n4 As to the original cast of Odin, see a very careful essay The Cult of Othin, by H. M. Chadwick (Clay & Sons, 1899).]. Freyr, too, seems to have been the Sun-God alongside of Thor [n5 Petersen, pp. 74-5. Professor Stephens writes: "Even as to Frigg herself, it is certain not only that Frigg and Froya were originally one deity, but also that this Goddess was at first one and the same with the God Fray or Frey, the English Frea" (Professor Bugge's Studies Examined, p. 314).]; and, again, Heimdal in the Edda has many of Balder's characteristics [n6 Cp. Rydberg, Teutonic Mythology, Eng. tr. pp. 90-97; 402-7.]; just as, by the common consent of Holtzmann, Bergmann, and Rydberg, the figure of Harbard in the sagas is identical with that of Loki [n7 Id. p. 652.]. For Dr. Meyer, the solution in every case is imitation of Christianity: that is to say, the saga-poet or poets created a whole series of new imaginary figures, duplicating one or two figures in the Christian system. Here again we have blank unverisimilitude. As hitherto understood, myths were never made in that fashion. Far less unlikely is the assumption that, to begin with, there were pagan mythical personages with some of the characteristics under notice, and that these were poetically developed.

So far as such a problem can be speculated upon from the outside, the solution seems to lie obviously through the theory of Professors Vigfusson and Powell as to the general development of Icelandic literature [n8 See the article on Icelandic Literature in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.]. That theory is that the germinal force which wrought the remarkable poetic

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evolution in Iceland was contact with the Celtic [n1 As to Slavonic influence on Scandinavian mythology, see Bergmann, Le Message de Skirnir et les Dits de Grimnir, Introd.] literary culture of Western Britain and Ireland—a culture resulting from the long-standing Celtic institution of bardism, originally lacking or left rudimentary in Scandinavia. Such a contact could account for many of the mythic parallels noted by Professor Rhys [n2 A Celtic derivation of the Balder myth is suggested by N. M. Petersen, Nordisk Mythologi, pp. 271-282, cited by Nicolson, p. 101.]. Not that the negative evidence against the Balder cultus is conclusive. A Balder myth may conceivably have flourished among a stratum of the northern population that had been conquered by the Thor worshippers; for though Balder names are scarce in Scandinavia they appear to survive in Germany [n3 Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, Eng. tr. ch. xi. On the possible significations of the name see also Simrock, Handbuch der deutschen Mythologie, 6te Aufl. 1887, § 36, p. 89 ff. Cp. Meyer as cited by Nicolson, pp. 133-4.]. And when such parallels exist as Rydberg has shown between the northern mythology and that of the Vedas, we are not entitled to disallow a single figure in the former as a medieval copy from Christianity. But inasmuch as the aesthetic refinement of the Balder story is one of the main grounds of the latter theory [n4 Cp. Nicolson, as cited, p. 139.], the play of the Celtic literary influence is an adequate explanation, whereas the theory of a literary mystification, a Ratselgedicht, is a flout to all psychological probability. The Celtic influence, doubtless, might carry with it concrete Christian elements. But against the whole theory of Christian imitation there stands the difficulty that the alleged coincidences are so remote. Dr. Meyer's phrase, "Summa of Christian theology," is a plain misnomer: what his evidence really suggests is an imitation not of the Christian theology but of the mythology. The theology is never once present. There is no sacrifice, as there is no cross. Balder’s death is not the salvation of men but a sad catastrophe among the Gods; and the sorrow that prevails until his return connects far more obviously with the mourning cults of the pre-Christian Southern world than with the Christist.

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Read as a sun-myth, the story is transparent; as an imitation of Christian theology it is truly a Ratselgedicht. As Professor Rhys has pointed out, the detail that Balder cannot return until all nature weeps for his loss is a very close notation of the fact that the sun "returns" in strength only when the winter frosts thaw in the spring, bedewing the whole earth. As regards the "descent into hell," which Professor Bugge thinks must be of Christian derivation, it is part of the normal sun myth [n1 See hereinafter, Christ and Krishna, Sec. xvi.; Mithraism, § 6. ], and is obscurely present even in that of Apollo. Now, Professor Bugge thinks that the South-Teutonic God-name Fol, which Dr. Rydberg connects with Falr and Balder, is taken from the name Apollo [n2 Citations by Nicolson, pp. 120-1. Cp. Rydberg, p. 464.]: why then should not classic sun-myths also have reached the North [n3 In the ancient description of the temple of Upsala by Adam of Bremen the figure of the God Freyr is said to be represented cum ingenti priapo. This, . . . like the other statues, suggests an image imported from the south. Cp. H. Petersen, as cited, p. 82, and Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, Eng. tr. 1882, i. 104-119.], supposing them not to have been primary?

Such an item as Balder's funeral pyre, we have seen, Professor Bugge holds to have been suggested by the transmitted story of Patroklos and Achilles, this though the pyre is specifically northern. But what of the pyre of the Sun-God Herakles [n4 Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 353; and O. Muller, as there cited.]; and what of the primary phenomenon of sunset, which probably gave the motive? Bugge's. theory is that the Christian matter in the myth came through the wandering Vikings. Before even the Vikings, however, Teutons had reached the Graeco-Roman world; and thereby hangs the question whether northern myths may not thus at different times have had an entrance into the lore of the south. All the while, Professor Bugge has never asked the obvious questions, Whence came the late cabbage-stalk story in the Sepher Toldoth Jeschu? and How came the myth of the blind Longinus into Christian lore? Parts of the Sepher are in all probability of late medieval origin.

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As regards the other myth, the name Longinus may very well be evolved from the spear, longche, of John xix. 34; but the soldier does not become blind in any legend before the ninth century [n1 Cp. Professor G. Stephens, Bugge's Studies on Northern Mythology, 1883, as cited, and Nicolson, p. 105.]. How did that myth originate? It is quite conceivable that the medieval Christians should adopt the idea that the soldier who thrust the spear was blind, and had to be guided to the act by others; but on this view the hint had to be given them. Now, though Dr. Rydberg holds that Had or Hoder in the primary form of the Scandinavian myth had not been blind [n2 Teutonic Mythology, Eng. tr. i. 653, note.], it is very credible, on mythological grounds, that the Sun-God should be slain by a blind brother=the Darkness or the Winter; and as the northern story turns in the later form upon the magical character of the mistletoe, we are almost driven to conclude that there was a sun-slaying myth of some sort to start with. Why else should the mistletoe have been introduced [n3 Cp. Rydberg, p. 655, as to the reasoning involved.]? It does not follow that the Christians got their idea from the Balder story as we now have it; but the obvious presumption is that a pagan myth preceded theirs; and such a myth may have been current among the Irish Celts, who had contacts alike with northern paganism and southern Christianity. In this way, too, might be explained the entrance of the mistletoe into the northern myth. In its earlier form, the death-dealing weapon is the sword Mistiltein [n4 Mullenhoff, Deutsche Altertumskunde, v. i. 56-7.]. This would at once suggest the mistletoe; but then the mistletoe is unknown in Iceland and in Sweden [n5 Nicolson, as cited, p. 125. But cp. Rydberg, p. 656, as to veneration of the mistletoe among the more southerly Teutons.]. A Celto-Britannic origin would seem to be the only solution.

Again, when Professor Bugge seeks a Christian origin for the weeping of the Mother-Goddess Frigg over the slain Balder, he gives a fair mark for the derision of Professor Stephens [n6 Stephens, as cited, p. 339.]. But, common sense apart, it should be noted that in the pre-Christian cults of Attis, Adonis, and Osiris there are similar phenomena, which do account for the Christian narrative.

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So, finally, with the idea that Christ was fair-haired. Whence came it? Conceivably from golden-haired Apollo; but then why should not the hyperborean Balder be as fair as the Greek Sun-God Apollo, whose cult was fabled to have come from the hyperboreans [n1 Pausanias, x. 5. Compare the comments of Hermann Muller, Das nordische Griechenthum und die urgeschichtliche Bedeutung des nordwestlichen Europas, 1844, p, 447, ff.; and K. Ottfried Muller, The Dorians, bk. ii. c. 4.]? Agni in the Rig-Veda is white, and drives white horses; and Professor Rydberg finds his traits reproduced in Heimdal [n2 Teutonic Mythology, pp. 401-6.]. Why then seek a later source for the whiteness of Balder? And if Balder is an Anglo-Saxon word meaning Lord [n3 Cp, Grimm, i, 220; and Simrock, as cited on p. 123.], why are we to assume that it was never applied to a Teutonic God before Jesus, when we know that the title Lord was given to many pre-Christian Gods, and that it is the probable original meaning of the Scandinavian God-name Freyr [n4 Bergmann, Le Message de Skirmir, pp. 18-22.]? Above all, why should the consuming love of the Sun-God for Nanna be held to need any literary derivation at a late period from Oenone?

When all is said, the problem of priorities doubtless remains obscure; but enough has been said to show that the confident inference of Christian sources for northern myths which only remotely and in externals compare with the Christian, is thus far a very ill-established and recalcitrant hypothesis. And as the whole Christian legend, in its present terminology, is demonstrably an adaptation of a mass of previous pagan myths, there is in all cases a special ground for doubt as to its being an original for a myth found among a semi-civilized people. The complete justification for such doubt, however, is best to be gathered from a detailed examination of the claim made, as already mentioned, in regard to the myth of Krishna, studied hereinafter.

Meantime, we have seen reason to insist, as regards every species of mythological problem, on a more comprehensive study of relations than is hitherto made by any one school. No single clue will lead us through the maze.

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Etymology, astronomy, solarism, the vegetation principle, phallicism, symbolism, the influence of art, the pseudohistorical influence of Evemerism, all play their part in elucidating what it concerns us to elucidate—namely, the religious systems of the world in their mythological aspect. It is too much to hope that so vast a growth can be speedily interpreted with scientific certainty; and many a special research must be made before a decisive co-ordination is. possible. But at co-ordination we must aim; and the effort towards it must be made pari passu with the progress of research, if the latter is not to become unintelligent and sterile.

PART II.

CHRIST AND KRISHNA.

1. THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM.

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SOME recent English discussion [n1 The views of Professor Weber, hereinafter discussed, have naturally been welcomed and more or less fully endorsed by many Christian writers, missionary and other. See, for instance, Dr. J. M. Mitchell's Hinduism, Past and Present, 1885, pp. 79, 119; Major Jacobs' Manual of Hindu Pantheism, 1881, pp. 29-35; article on Hindu Monism, by Professor Richard Garbe, in The Monist, October, 1892, p. 66; J. Estlin Carpenter, art. on The Obligations of the New Testament to Buddhism, in Nineteenth Century, December, 1880, pp. 971-2. Mr. Carpenter's acceptance of the pro-Christian view on the historical question typifies the attitude of Christian scholarship. "It is the opinion of the best Indianists," he writes, "that the worship of Krishna did not arise until the fifth or sixth century of our era"; and this confessedly second-hand opinion he immediately erects into a certainty: "Christ can owe nothing to Krishna, because he preceded him by four or five centuries." Mr. Carpenter apparently regards Krishna as a historical character.] as to the historic relation of the Christ myth and the Krishna myth would seem to make desirable a judicial and yet popular [n2 No pretence is made of indicating the values of Sanskrit consonants, as is done in philological treatises. To the general reader these indications are useless, though vowel accents may not be altogether so. On this head it should be noted that the vowels in Indian names are to be pronounced in the Continental and not in the English manner. That is to say, the names Indra, Krishna, Gita, Veda, Purana, Siva, Rama, are to be pronounced Eendra, Kreeshna, Gheetah, Vehda, Poorahna, Seeva, Rahma. The "a," long or short, is always to be sounded as in "art" or "at," never as in "hate." The long sound is now commonly indicated by a circumflex.] investigation of the subject, from the rationalist point of view. By the rationalist point of view is meant the attitude of disbelief in the supernatural claims of all religions alike—a point of view from which the question of the miraculous origin of Christianity is already disposed of, though of course liable at any time to be reopened. This point of view, however, in no way affects the logic of the following discussion, which lies outside the theological problems, ethical or philosophical.

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What is now in hand is a question of priority of myth forms. Some rationalists have, in my opinion, gone astray over the problem under notice, making errors of assumption and errors of inference in the course of an attempt to settle priority in a particular way; but the detection of these errors does not even settle the point of priority, much less affect the comparative principle.

And here I would point out that, while the Naturalist, like everybody else, is fallible, it is only he, of the two main disputants in this controversy, who can really be impartial, and so do critical service. Inasmuch as he is discussing, not the truth of any religion, but the question as to which religion first developed certain beliefs, he is free to reason justly on the historical data, and so may arrive at just conclusions [n1 "There can be no true objective criticism until a man stands more or less indifferent to the result, and frees himself as far as possible from all subjective relations to the object of criticism." Baur, Kritische Untersuchung uber die kanonischen Evangelien, 1847, p. 72.]. Rationalists are thus far divided on the historical issue, partly because of the uncertainty of the evidence, partly because of differences or oversights of logical method. But in the case of the disputant who sets out with a belief in the truth of the Christian religion, miracles and all, impartiality is impossible. He holds his own religion to be supernatural and true, and every other to be merely human and false, in so far as it makes supernatural claims. Thus for him every question is as far as possible decided beforehand. He is overwhelmingly biassed to the view that any "myth" which resembles a Christian "record" is borrowed from that; and if, in some instances, he repels that conclusion, it is still for an a priori theological reason, as we shall see in the sequel, and not for simple historical reasons. Jesus having been really born of a virgin, and the New Testament teaching having been really inspired, any other story of a virgin-born demi-god is to be presumed posterior to Pontius Pilate, and any morality which coincides with the Christian is to be presumed an "echo" of that, because otherwise revelation would be cheapened.

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In the early days of the Church the Christian saw, in myths which had confessedly anticipated his narratives, devices of the evil Spirit. To-day, the evil Spirit being partly disestablished, this explanation is not officially recognised, and the anticipatory myths of ancient paganism are simply kept out of sight; while as many other myths as possible are sought to be made out post-Christian and therefore borrowed. In this attitude the Christian Church is practically at one. Now, no sound critical result can ever be arrived at on these lines. No conclusion so reached can really strengthen the Christian position, because that position was one of the premises. Christianity remains to be proved all the same. The Naturalist, one says, may reason viciously, may reach the truth: the believing Christian must on such a matter reason viciously, and can only add commentary to dogma. But whereas the rationalist inquiry is in this connection logically free of presuppositions, any permanent results it attains are pure gain to human science; and must finally strengthen the Naturalist position if that position be really scientific.

II. THE QUESTION OF PRIORITY.

We wish to know, then, whether the Krishna myth or legend is in whole or in part borrowed from the Christ myth or Jesus legend, or vice versa. The alternative terms myth or legend [n1 See on this point of terminology Strauss, Das Leben Jesu, Einleit. § 10.], implying respectively the absence and the presence of some personal basis or nucleus for the legends of the Hindu and Christian Incarnations, leave us quite free in our treatment of the historic facts—free, that is, under the restrictions of scientific principle and logical law.

This special question of priority has long been before scholars. In Balfour's Cyclopaedia of India, in the article "Krishna"—a somewhat rambling and ill-digested compilation—it is stated that "since the middle of the nineteenth century several learned men have formed the opinion that some of the legends relating to Krishna have been taken from the life of Jesus Christ.

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Major Cunningham believes that the worship of Krishna is only a corrupt mixture of Buddhism and Christianity, and was a sort of compromise intended for the subversion of both religions in India," etc. In point of fact, the theory is much older than the middle of this century, as is pointed out by Professor Albrecht Weber in his exhaustive study of the

Krishna Birth-Festival [n1 Ueber die Krishnajanmashtami, (Krishna's Geburtsfest) in Abhandlungen der Koniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften Zu Berlin, 1867. Translated piecemeal in Indian Antiquary,vols. iii. vi. (1874-7).], referred to in the Cyclopaedia article. As early as 1762 Father Giorgi, in his Alphabetum Tibetanum [n2 Rome, 1762, pp. 253-263, cited by Weber, p. 311.], discussed the question at length, founding even then on two previous writers, one Father Cassianus Maceratensis, the other the French orientalist, De Guignes (the elder). All three held that the name "Krisna" was only nomen ipsum corruptum Christi Servatoris, a corruption of the very name of the Saviour Christ, whose deeds had been impiously debased by inexpressibly wicked impostors. The narratives, Giorgi held, had been got from the apocryphis libris de rebus Christi Jesu, especially from the writings of the Manichaeans. But his theory did not end there. The Indian epic-names Ayodhya, Yudhishthira, Yadava, he declared to be derived from the scriptural Judah; the geographical name Gomati from Gethsemane; the name Arjuna from John, Durvasas from Peter, and so on.

But long before Giorgi, the English Orientalist Hyde [n3 Historia Religionis Veterum Persarum, 1700, p. 31.], and long before Hyde, Postel (1552) [n4 In his commentary on Abrahami Patriarchae liber Jesirah, cited by Maurice, Indian Antiquities, 1793, etc.. ii. 322 (should be 382-paging twice doubled).], had declared the name of Brahma to be a corruption of Abraham—a view which appears to have been common among Mohammedans; [n5 Maurice, as cited, p. 323 (383), It may be, of course, that there is a very remote and secondary connection between the Abraham myth and the religion of India. It has been pointed out (Bible Folk Lore, 1884, pp. 25, 110) that Abraham's oak compares with Brahma's tree. The absurdity lies in the assumption that Brahmanism derives from the Hebrew Scriptures. On the problem of the origin and meaning of the name Brahma see Professor Muller’s Gifford Lectures on Psychological Religion, 1893, p. 240, and citations by him.]

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and Catholic missionaries early expounded this discovery among the Hindus, adding that the name of the female deity Saraswati was only a corruption of Sarah [n1 Moor's Hindu Pantheon, 1810, p. 130. "Writers are found to identify Buddha with the prophet Daniel" (H. H. Wilson, Works, ii. 317).]. Other propagandists, again, scandalized Sir William Jones by assuring the Hindus that they were "almost Christians, because their Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesa were no other than the Christian Trinity" [n2 On the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India: in Asiatic Researches, i. 272.]; and Sir William's shocked protest did not hinder his disciple, the Rev. Thomas Maurice, from speaking of the "almost Christian theology” of Brahmanism [n3 Indian Antiquities, ll. 325.]; Maurice's general contention being that the Indian and all other Triad systems were vestiges of an original pure revelation [n4 Id. ib. and v. 785, 806, etc. The Rajputs, says "the Portuguese historian De Faria y Sousa (17th cent.), "acknowledge one God in three persons, and worship the Blessed Virgin, a doctrine which they have preserved ever since the time of the apostles" (Kerr's Collection of Voyages, 1812, vi. 228).]. Nor was this all. As early as 1672 the Dutch missionary and trader Balde (Baldams) [n5 An English translation of his work on Ceylon, etc., was published last century in Churchill's collection of travels, vol. iii.] maintained a number of the propositions supported in our own generation by Professor Weber (who does not refer to him) namely, the derivation of parts of the Krishna myth from the Christian stories of the birth of Jesus, the massacre of the innocents [n6 Cited by Maurice, History of Hindostan, 1798, ii. 330, note.], etc.

Following this line of thought, Sir William Jones in 1788 suggested that "the spurious gospels which abounded in the first ages of Christianity had been brought to India, and the wildest part of them repeated to the Hindus, who ingrafted them on the old fable of Cesava, the Apollo of Greece" [n7 Asiatic Researches, i. 274.]; this after the statement: "That the name of Crishna, and the general outline of his story, were long anterior to the birth of our Saviour, and probably to the time of Homer, we know very certainly" [n8 Id. p. 273.].

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And in the same treatise (On the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India) the scholar took occasion to announce that "the adamantine pillars of our Christian faith" could not be "moved by the result of any debates on the comparative antiquity of the Hindus and Egyptians, or of any inquiries into the Indian theology" [n1 In the same spirit, Maurice constantly aims at repelling the criticisms of Volney and other sceptics, always begging the question, and resenting its being raised.]. Still later, the French Orientalist, Polier, seeing in the Hebrew Scriptures the earliest of all religious lore, decided that the triumph of Krishna over the serpent Kaliya (whose head he is represented crushing under his foot, and which at times, on the other hand, is seen biting his heel) was "a travesty of the tradition of the serpent-tempter who introduced death into the world, and whose head the saviour of mankind was to crush" [n2 Mythologie des Indous, i. 445, cited by Weber.]. These writers had of course taken it for granted that all heathen resemblances to Jewish and Christian stories must be the result of imitation; but on equally a priori grounds other Christian writers argued that the "impure" cult of Krishna could never have been derived from Christianity; and the view spread that the Indian myths were of much greater antiquity than had been supposed; the Carmelite monk Paulinus (really Werdin or Wesdin) [n3 Systema Brahmanicum, Rome, 1791, pp. 147, 152; cited by Weber.] surmising that the legendary war, with which was connected the story of Vishnu's incarnation in Krishna, was to be dated "a thousand and more years before the birth of Christ."

Thus far both sides had simply proceeded on a priori principles, the view that Christianity could not give rise to anything bad being no more scientific than the view that all systems which resembled it must have borrowed from it. A comparatively scientific position was first taken up by the German Kleuker, who, discussing Paulinus' polemic, observed that he "willingly believed that the [Krishna] fable did not first arise out of these [Apocryphal] Gospels," but that nevertheless it might have derived "some matter" from them [n4 Abhandlungen uber die Geschichte und Alterthumer Asiens, Riga, 1797, iv, 70; cited by Weber. (The work is a translation, by J. F. Fich, of papers from the Asiatic Researches, with notes and comments by Kleuker.)]. According to Weber, the view that the Krishna story was the earlier became for a time the more general one.

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It is doubtful if this was so; but in 1810 we do find the English Orientalist Moor, following Jones, declaring it to be "very certain" that Krishna's "name and the general outline of his story were long anterior to the birth of our Saviour, and probably to the time of Homer" [n1 Hindu Pantheon, p. 200.]—this while saying nothing to countenance the theory of borrowing from Christianity, but on the contrary throwing out some new heterodox suggestions. Later the German mythologist Creuzer, in his great work [n2 Symbolik, 3te Aufl. i. 42, cited by Weber.], set aside the supposed Christian parallels, and pointed rather to the Egyptian myth of Osiris. It was impossible, however, that this view should be quietly acquiesced in by Anglo-Indian scholarship, partly bound up as it has been with "missionary enterprise," and subservient as it is to the anti-philosophical spirit which had prevailed in English archaeology since the French Revolution. It has been one of the most serious drawbacks to our knowledge of Indian antiquities that not only are the missionaries to such a large extent in possession of the field of research, but the scruples of English pietism, especially during the present century, tend to keep back all data that could in any way disturb orthodoxy at home. Of this tendency we shall find examples as we proceed. How far important evidence has been absolutely suppressed it is of course impossible to say; but observed cases of partial suppression create strong suspicions; and it is certain that the bulk of Christian criticism of the evidences produced has been much biassed by creed.

III. AGE OF INDIAN DOCUMENTS.

On the other hand, however, the case in favour of the assumption of Christian priority has been in a general way strengthened by the precise investigation of Hindu literature, which has gone to show that much of it, as it stands, is of a far later redaction than had once been supposed.

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It has been truly said by Ritter that "in no literature are so many works to be found to which a remote origin has been assigned on insufficient grounds as in the Indian" [n1 History of Ancient Philosophy, Eng. tr. 1838, i. 69. Ritter's whole argument, which was one of the first weighty criticisms of the early assumptions of Orientalists, is judicial and reasonable.]. The measureless imagination of India, unparalleled in its disregard of fact and its range of exaggeration, has multiplied time in its traditions as wildly as it has multiplied action in its legends, with the result that its history is likely to remain one of the most uncertain of all that are based on documents. It was indeed admitted by the first capable Orientalists that there is, properly speaking, no history in Indian literature at all [See Colebrooke in Asiatic Researches, ix. 398-9.]. All early historical traditions are untrustworthy; but no other people ever approached the flights of fancy of the Hindu mind, which has measured the lives of its mythic heroes by millions of years, and assigned to the Institutes of Menu, certainly not 3,000 years old, an antiquity exceeding 4,320,000 years multiplied by six times seventy-one [n3 Jones in Asiatic Researches, ii. 116. See a number of samples of this disease of imagination cited by Buckle, 3-vol. ed. i. 135-7.]. Of this delirium of speculation, the true explanation, despite all cavils, is doubtless that of Buckle—the influence of overwhelming manifestations of nature in fostering imagination and stunning the sceptical reason [n4 Possibly, too, the partly entranced state of mind cultivated by Hindu sages may involve a repetitive brain process analogous to that seen in dreams, in which objects are multiplied and transformed, and the waking perception of time is superseded.]. From even a moderate calculation of Indian antiquity, to say nothing of the fancies of the Brahmans, the step down to documentary facts is startling; and it was not unnatural that scepticism should in turn be carried to extremes.

When the documents are examined, it turns out that the oldest Indian inscriptions yet found are not three centrtries earlier than the Christian era. [n5 Those of king Asoka, about 250 B.C. Tiele, Outlines of the History of Ancient Religions, Eng, tr. p. 121. See them in Asiatic Society's Journals, viii. xii.; in Wheeler's History of India, vol iii. Appendix i.; in Rhys Davids' Buddhism, pp. 220-8; and in the Indian Antiquary, June, 1877, vol. vi. Interesting extracts are given in Professor Muller's Introduction to the Science of Religion, ed. 1882, pp. 5, 6, 23.]

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Nor does there seem a probability of much older records being found, there being reason to doubt whether the practice of writing in India dates many centuries earlier. Says Professor Max Muller:

"There is no mention of writing materials, whether paper, bark, or skins, at the time when the Indian Diaskeuasts [say, editors] collected the songs of their Rishis [poets or seers]; nor is there any allusion to writing during the whole of the Brahmano period [i.e., according to the Professor's division, down to about 600 or 800 B.C.] . . . . Nay, more than this, even during the Sutra period [600 to 200 B.C.] all the evidence we can get would lead us to suppose that even then, though the art of writing began to be known, the whole literature of India was preserved by oral tradition only" [n1 History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, pp. 500-1. Cp. p. 244.].

Professor Muller's division of Indian historical periods is somewhat unscientific; but Professor Teile, who complains of this, accepts his view as to the introduction of the

art of writing:

"Nearchus (325 B.C.) [n2 One of the generals of Alexander the Great. Only fragments of his account of his voyage on the Indian coast are preserved.] and Megasthenes (300 B.C.) [n3 Greek ambassador from Seleucus Nicator to the Indian king Sandracottus (Chandragupta) about 300 B.C. He wrote a work on India, of which, as of that of Nearchus, we have only the fragments preserved by later historians. See them all translated in the Indian Antiquary, vols. vi. and vii. (1877-8), from the collection of Schwanbeck.] both state that the Indians did not write their laws; but the latter speaks of inscriptions upon mile-stones, and the former mentions letters written on cotton. From this it is evident that writing, probably of Phoenician origin, was known in India before the third century B.C., but was applied only rarely, if at all, to literature."

[n4 Outlines, as cited. On the general question of the antiquity of writing it was long ago remarked by Jacob Bryant that "The Romans carried their pretensions to letters pretty high, and the Helladian Greeks still higher; yet the former marked their years by a nail driven into a post; and the latter for some ages simply wrote down the names of the Olympic victors from Coraebus, and registered the priestesses of Argos" (Holwell's Mythological Dictionary, condensed from Bryant's Analysis of Ancient Mythology, 1793, p. 259). The question as regards India, however, cannot be taken as settled. In view of the antiquity of literary habits in other parts of Asia, it may well turn out that the estimates above cited are too low. Tiele's "only rarely, if at all," makes rather too little of the Greek testimony. The Phoenician origin of the Indian alphabets, too, though probable, is only one of many conflicting hypotheses. For a discussion of these see I. Taylor's valuable work on The Alphabet, 1883, ii. 304, ff.].

But all this, of course, is perfectly consistent with the oral transmission of a great body of very ancient utterance. All early compositions, poetic, religious, and historical, were transmissible in no other way; and the lack of letters did not at all necessarily involve loss.

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In all probability ancient unwritten compositions were often as accurately transmitted as early written ones, just because in the former case there was a severe discipline of memory, whereas in the other the facility of transcription permitted of many errors, omissions, and accidental interpolations. And the practice of oral transmission has survived.

"Even at the present day, when MSS. are neither scarce nor expensive, the young Brahmans who learn the songs of the Vedas and the Brahmanas and the Sutras, invariably learn them from oral tradition, and learn them by heart. They spend year after year under the guidance of their teacher, learning a little day after day, repeating what they have learnt as part of their daily devotion. . . . . . The ambition to master more than one subject is hardly known in India. . . . .In the Mahabharata we read, 'Those who sell the Vedas, and even those who write them, those also who defile them, shall go to hell.' Kumarila [800 C.E.] says: That knowledge of the truth is worthless which has been acquired from the Veda, if . . . . .it has been learnt from writing or been received from a Sudra.' How then was the Veda learnt? It was learnt by every Brahman during twelve years of his studentship or Bramacharya" [n1 Muller, work cited, pp. 501-3. Comp. Tiele, Outlines, p. 123. This description corresponds remarkably with Caesar's account of the educational practices of the Druids. He tells (De Bello Gallico, vi. 14) that many entered the Druid discipline, learning orally a great number of verses; some remaining in pupillage as much as twenty years; and this though writing was freely used for secular purposes. Caesar offers as explanation the wish to keep sacred lore from the many, and the desire to strengthen the faculty of memory. We may add, in regard alike to Druids and Brahmans, the prestige of ancient custom, which in other religions made priests continue to use stone. knives long after metal ones were invented. "Brahmanism has kept to the last to its primitive tools, its penthouses of bamboo, its turf-clods and grass-blades, and a few vessels of wood" (Barth, The Religions of India, Eng. tr. p. 129). Modern European parallels will readily suggest themselves.].

IV. THE SPECIAL DOCUMENTS.

In point of fact, no one disputes that the Vedas are in the main of extremely ancient composition (the oldest portions being at least three thousand years old, and possibly much more) [n2 Barth, p. 6.];

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and that a large part even of the literature of commentary upon them, as the Brahmanas, treatises of ritual and theology, and the Upanishads, religio-philosophical treatises, originated at more or less distant periods before our era. We have seen that Professor Muller makes even the Sutra period—that of the composition of manuals for public and domestic guidance—begin about 600 B.C. But the religious history of India, as of every other country, is that of a process of development; and just as the system of the Vedas was superimposed on simpler forms of nature-worship [n1 In the Veda, says M. Barth, "I recognize a literature that is pre-eminently sacerdotal, and in no sense a popular one" (Religions of India, pref. p. xiii.).], so the elaborate system based on the Vedas by the Brahmans was innovated upon from different sides. Thus, four or five centuries before our era, there arose the great movement of Buddhism, in which comparatively new doctrine was bound up with modifications of ancient legends; while on the other hand deities formerly insignificant, or little known, gradually came to be widely popular. Such a development took place in a notable degree in the case of the cult of Krishna, now specially under notice.

At the present moment the worship of Krishna is the most popular of the many faiths of India; and it has unquestionably been so for many centuries. It is equally certain, however, that it is no part of the ancient Vedic system; and that the bulk of the literature in connection with it is not more than a thousand years old, if so much. Mention of Krishna certainly does occur in the earlier literature, but the advent of his worship as a preponderating religion in historic India is late. On the face of the matter, it would seem to have been accepted and endorsed by the Brahmans either because they could not help themselves, or by way of a weapon to resist some other cultus that pressed Brahmanism hard. Hence the peculiar difficulty of the question of origins as regards its details.

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The chief documents in which Krishnaism is to be studied are (1) the Mahabharata, a great epic poem, of which the events are laid long anterior to our era, and of which much of the matter is probably pre-Buddhistic [n1 See Professor Goldstucker's essay in the Westminster Review, April, 1868; or his Literary Remains, ii. 135, 142. The Mahabharata, says M. Barth, "which is in the main the most ancient source of our knowledge of these religions, is not even roughly dated; it has been of slow growth, extending through ages, and is besides of an essentially encyclopaedic character" (Religion of India, p. 187; cp. Goldstucker, ii. 130).]; (2) the Bhagavat Gita or "Song of the Most High"; (3) the Puranas, an immense body of legendary and theological literature, including eighteen separate works, of which the earliest written belong to our eighth or ninth century. It is in the latter, especially in the Bhagavat Purana and Vishnu Purana, that the great mass of mythic narrative concerning Krishna is to be found. The tenth book of Bhagavat Purana consists wholly of the Krishna saga. The Gita is a fine poetico-philosophical composition, one of the masterpieces of Indian literature in its kind, in every way superior to the Puranas; and it simply makes Krishna the voucher of its advanced pantheistic teaching, giving no legends as to his life [n2 Owing to the Bhagavat Gita and the Bhagavat Purana being alike sometimes referred to as "the Bhagavat," there has occurred the mistake of referring to the Gita as containing the legends of Krishna's life.]. Of this work the date is uncertain, and will have to be considered later. The Mahabharata, again, presents Krishna as a warrior demi-God [n3 In one passage "all the heroes of the poem are represented as incarnations of Gods or demons" (Barth, Religions of India, p. 172 n.).], performing feats of valour, and so mixed up with quasi-historic events as to leave it an open question whether the story has grown up round the memory of an actual historic personage. But it is impossible to construct for that legendary history any certain chronology; and the obscurity of the subject gives to Christian writers the opportunity to argue that even in the epos Krishna is not an early but a late element—an interpolation arising out of the modern popularity of his cultus. We must then look to analysis and comparative research for light on the subject.

V. THE KRISHNA LEGEND.

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The outlines of the Krishna saga are well known [n1 See a detailed account in Sir George Cox's Mythology of the Aryan Nations, ed. 1882, pp. 367-371.], but for the convenience of readers I will transcribe the brief analysis given by M. Barth [n2 Religions of India, pp. 172-4.]:

"As a character in the epic. . . . and as accepted by Vishnuism, Krishna is a warlike prince, a hero, equally invincible in war and love, but above all very crafty, and of a singularly doubtful moral character, like all the figures, however, which retain in a marked way the mythic impress. The son of Vasudeva and Devaki. . . . he was born at Mathura, on the Yamuna, between Delhi and Agra, among the race of the Yadavas, a, name which we meet with again at a later period in history as that of a powerful Rajput tribe. Like those of many solar heroes, his first appearances were beset with perils and obstructions of every kind. On the very night of his birth his parents had to remove him to a distance beyond the reach of his uncle, King Kamsa, who sought his life because he had been warned by a voice from heaven that the eighth son of Devaki would put him to death and who consequently had his nephews the princes regularly made away with as soon as they saw the light . . . . Conveyed to the opposite shore of the Yamuna, and put under the care of the shepherd Nanda and his wife Yavoda, he was brought up as their son in the woods of Vrindavana, with his brother Halarama, 'Rama the strong,' who had been saved as he was from massacre," and "who has for his mother at one time Devaki herself, at another time another wife of . . . . Vasudeva, Rohini . . . . The two brothers grew up in the midst of the shepherds, slaying monsters and demons bent on their destruction, and sporting with the Gopis, the female cowherds of Vrindavana. These scenes of their birth and infancy, these juvenile exploits, these erotic gambols with the Gopis, this entire idyll of Vrindavana. . . . became in course of time the essential portion of the legend of Krishna, just as the places which were the scene of them remain to the present time the most celebrated centres of his worship. Arrived at adolescence, the two brothers put to death Kamsa, their persecutor, and Krishna became king of the Yadavas. He continued to clear the land of monsters, waged successful wars against impious kings, and took a determined side in the great struggle of the sons of Pandu against those of Dhritarashtra, which forms the subject of the Mahabharata. In the interval he had transferred the seat of his dominion to the fabulous city of Dvaraka, 'the city of gates,' the gates of the West, built on the bosom of the western sea, and the site of which has since been localized in the peninsula of Gujarat. It was there that he was overtaken, himself and his race, by the final catastrophe. After having been present at the death of his brother, and seen the Yadavas, in fierce struggle, kill one another to the last man, he himself perished, wounded in the heel, like Achilles, by the arrow of a hunter."

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In this mere outline there may be seen several features of the universal legend of a conquering and dying sun-God; and, though the identification of Krishna with the sun is as old as the written legend, it may be well at the outset to indicate the solar meanings that have been attributed to the story by various writers. The name of Krishna means "the black one" (or "blue-black one") [n1 See Moor, Hindu Pantheon. p. 195, as to the epithet" blue-blooded."], and he thus in the first place comes into line with the black deities of other faiths, notably the Osiris [n2 Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, cc. 22,. 33.] of Egypt, to say nothing of the black manifestations of Greek deities [n3 Pausanias, i. 48; ii. 2; viii. 6, 42; ix. 27.], and of the Christian Jesus [n4 For a list of black Christian statues of Mary and Jesus (= Isis and Horos) See Higgins's Anacalypsis, i. 138. Compare King's Gnostics, 2nd ed. p. 173.]. Why then is Krishna, in particular, black? It is, I think, fallacious to assume that any one cause can be fixed as the reason for the attribution of this colour to deities in ancient religions; primary mythological causes might be complicated by the fact that the smoke of sacrifices had from time immemorial blackened [n5 Arnobius, Adv. Gentes, vi. 16; Baruch, vi. 21. Cp. Pausanias, i. 27, as to the grimy statues of Athene, said to have been touched by fire when Xerxes took the city.] statues innumerable, and by the mere fact that, as in Egypt, black stone was very serviceable for purposes of statuary. At Megara there were three ebony statues of Apollo; and the mystic explanation of the choice of material seems to have been purely fanciful [n6 Pausanias, i. 42. Again, Pausanias asserts (viii. 23) that all River-Gods in Egypt except the Nile have white statues, Nilus being figured as black because it flows through Ethiopia!]. But there are, all the same, primary mythological explanations, which, in view of many of the facts, must be pronounced necessary; [n7 The Black Demeter may reasonably be assumed to be so as representing the earth; the black-robed Isis is naturally the moon (Plutarch, I. and O. 52) ; and the blue-black robe of Leto (Hesiod, Theogony, 406) as Night-Goddess, is obviously significant; but Leto also, like Isis, was further represented as an Earth-Goddess (Macrobius, Sat. i. 17), and black in other cases seems to have a more indirect symbolical meaning. The bull Apis and the bull Mnevis, in the Egyptian cults, may be either solar or lunar (Aelian, De Nat. Animal., says Mnevis was sacred to the sun, and Apis to the moon); and we know from Strabo (xvii. 1, § 27) that Mnevis was treated as a God in a temple of the sun at Heliopolis; but both are black. Apis, the "image of the soul of Osiris" (Plutarch, I. and O. 20, 29, 39; cp. Macrobius; Saturnalia, i. 21), was not only black himself (Strabo, xvii. 1, § 31; Herodotus, iii. 28) but put on black robes (Plutarch, 1. and O. 39, 43.) And Mnevis, said to be the sire of Apis, is black to begin with (I. and O. 33). Again, the statue of the later God Serapis, like Osiris, was blue or black, as containing many metallic ingredients (Clemens Alexandrinus, Protrep. iv.). The alternate ascription of the colour blue, as noted below, points to the Night-Sun theory.].

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and one is offered by Professor Tiele in the present case. Krishna is "the hidden sun-god of the night" [n1 Outlines, p. 145. Cp. Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, c. 9.], a character attaching more or less to many figures in the Hindu pantheon.

"That Parasau-Rama, the 'axe-Rama,' is a God of the solar fire, admits of no doubt. He springs from the Brahman race of the Bhrigus (lightning); his father's name is Jamadagni, 'the burning fire.' Like all Gods of the solar fire, he is the nightly or hidden one, and accordingly he slays Arjuna, the bright God of day. . . . In the myth of Krishna, on the other hand, the two sun-Gods are friendly [n2 In Egypt, Typhon, who was red (Is. and Os. cc. 22, 30, 31, 33) and was declared to be solar (Id. 41), was the enemy of the "good" sun-God Osiris, who was black, and who was also declared to represent the lunar world (Id. ib. Contrast 51, 52). The transpositions are endless—a warning against rigid definitions in less known mythologies.], the old pair of deities Vishnu and Indra in a new shape" [n3 Outlines, p. 145. Arjuna is "himself a name and form of Indra" (Weber in Indian Antiquary, iv. 246).].

It should be also noted that Vishnu, of whom Krishna is an Incarnation, is represented as "dark blue" [n4 Moor's Hindu Pantheon, pp. 26, 27. Goldstucker, Remains, i. 309. Compare Pausanias, x. 78, as to a blue-black demon.], as is Krishna himself in one statue [n5 Of blue marble, in which he figures as swimming on the water, in the great cistern of Khatmandu (Bahr, Symbolik de Mosaischen Cultus, i. 326, and refs.).], and as were at times Kneph [n6 Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica, iii. 1.] and Osiris [n7 Cp, Clemens, Protrept. iv.; von Bohlen, Das alte Indien, i. 228; Kenrick i. 396.] and Amun in Egypt [n8 Kenrick, Ancient Egypt, i. 370; Tiele, Egyptian Religion, Eng, tr. p. 160.].

The complications of solar and other mythology, however, are endless; and it is one thing to give a general account such as this, and another to trace with confidence the evolution of such a deity as Krishna from the beginning. Professor de Gubernatis, one of the most acute, if also one of the more speculative of modern mythologists, is convinced of the solar character of Krishna; but points out that in the Rig Veda he is merely a demon—a natural character of "the black one" [9 Compare Senart, Essai sur la Legende du Buddha, 2e ed. p. 322, n, In the early faiths the "daemon" of mixed characteristics is a constant figure, he being often the deity of outsiders to begin with; while in any case the need to propitiate him would tend to raise his rank, Compare the habit, common in rural Britain till recently, of "speaking the Devil fair," and calling him "the good man." He, being a survival of the genial Pan, exemplifies both of the tendencies to compromise. As to the gradual lowering of the status of daemons, cp. Grote, History, ed. 1888, i. 66. Osiris and Isis, again, were held to be raised "from the rank of good daemons to that of deities," while Typhon (Set) was discredited, but still propitiated. See Plutarch, I.e. 27, 30. Cp. 25-6, and Pleyte, La Religion des Pre-Irsaelites, Leide, 1865, p. 131. It is thus possible that all three were primarily aboriginal Gods, accepted in different degrees by races of conquerors, though "from the most remote antiquity Set is one of the Osirian circle, and is thus a genuine Egyptian deity" (Tiele, Egyptian Religion, Eng. tr. p. 49). The difficulty is to conceive how otherwise Set came to be "in turn revered and hated, invoked and persecuted," till finally his very name was officially proscribed (Id. p. 49). Tiele's historical theory is interesting, though not conclusive (pp. 47-51. Cp. E. Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, i. 69, 71, 112). It is not clear whether Set was not confounded with the alien God Sutech, and thereby discredited (Meyer, p.135 = § 111. See also his monograph Set-Typhon, 1875, pp. 55-62; and cp. Tiele, Egyptian Religion, p. 143 and p. 190).];

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is the enemy of the Vedic God Indra, and only later becomes the God of the cows and cowherds [n1 Zoological Mythology, 1872, i. 75.]. He remains, however, "the God who is black during the night, but who becomes luminous in the morning among the cows of the dawning, or among the female cowherds" [n2 Id. p. 51. Cp. Goldziher, Hebrew Mythology, Eng. tr. p. 146 ff.]. A reasonable presumption is that he was a demon for the Aryan invaders, as being a God of the aborigines; and that for these he was a God of the sky and the rain, hence black, hence God of the night, hence associated with the Night-Sun, hence a Sun-God generally. Again, if Mr. Frazer be right as to the priority of the idea of a VegetationGod in cults commonly associated with the Sun, Krishna may have been primarily such a God, and as thus associated with the earth may have been black—the explanation of Mr. Frazer for the blackness of Demeter and Osiris [n3 See Note at end of section.]. Or he may have been black merely as a God of the black-skinned natives [n4 The Greek Hermes, who is surmised (Renan, Etudes d'Histoire Religieuse, pp. 42, 46, following K. O. Muller) to have been a Pelasgic deity, who survived with the ancient race, has many of the characteristics of Krishna, and in particular makes himself black with ashes (Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis, 69) in one story. The theory of the commentators (Spanheim, cited in Ernesti's ed. ad loc.), that this was not the celestial but a terrestrial Hermes, recalls the formula that the Iliad was written not by Homer but by another poet of the same name. But the old discussions as to the four or five Mercuries, the celestial, the terrestrial, the infernal, and yet others (cp. Cicero, De Natura Deorum, iii. 22; Servius on the AEneid, iv. 577), point to a number of syncretic adaptations, of which the result was that Hermes, though not clearly a sun-God to start with, in the end has the solar characteristics (cp. Emeric-David, Introduction, end).].

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In any case he was the rival of Indra, and so presumably had similar functions. And that original relation to Indra is perfectly borne out by the written legend, in which Krishna is represented as turning away worshippers from Indra [n1 Vishnu Purana, b. v. cc. 10, 11. Wilson's trans. 1840, pp. 522-7.], whose cult his probably superseded, and who figures in the account of Krishna's death and ascension as a subordinate God [n2 He acknowledges himself vanquished by Krishna (Id. c. 30, p. 588) and honours him (Id. c. 12, p. 528). Similarly Krishna overthrows Varuna. Muir, Sanskrit Texts, iv. ch. ii. §5.] (obviously = the firmament, a character always more or less associated with him in the Vedas, where he is "the pluvial and thundering God" [n3 Gubernatis, i. 403.]), through whose region of space, Krishna passes on the way to heaven [n4 Maurice, History of Hindostan, ii. 473, professing to follow the Mahabharata.].

But as against all such attempts to explain Krishnaism in terms of the observed mythic tendencies of ancient Aryan religion, there is maintained on the Christian side—not, as we shall see, by any important thinker—the proposition before mentioned, that the entire Krishna legend is a late fabrication, based on the Christian gospels. It is necessary, therefore, to examine that argument in detail before we form any conclusions.

NOTE ON THE BLACK OSIRIS.

That Osiris was either a Sun-God or the Nile-God in origin is the view most favoured by the evidence in Plutarch (Isis and Osiris, cc. 32, 33). Half a century ago, however, Kenrick (Ancient Egypt, 1850, i. 400) rejected the solar theory, and identified Osiris with the Earth and the principle of fertility; here anticipating Mr. J. G. Frazer, who in The Golden Bough (1890, i. 311, ff.) insists, as against Tiele and others, that Osiris was a God of Vegetation. The solution seems to lie in admitting that the later Osiris combined all the characteristics in question. To insist upon any one in particular is to obscure the psychological process of ancient dogmatics.

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The most obvious grounds for connecting Osiris with Vegetation are his associations with corn and trees (Frazer, i. 303-9). But it is not at all clear that these are the earliest characteristics of the Egyptian God. Rather the strictly historical evidence appears to show that Osiris was originally a Sun-God, whose cultus was latterly modified by foreign elements—that, in fact, the Vegetation-principle, regarded by Mr. Frazer as the root of the cult, was added in imitation of the Adonis cult of Byblos. See Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, i. 67-69 and refs. The arboreal character of Osiris is shared by him with Dionysos (see above, p. 84), who nevertheless assumed solar characteristics, and was represented as gold-coloured or red (Pausanias, ii. 2); and by Yahweh, who has

no other characteristic of the Vegetation-God. If then Yahweh assumed it after having begun as a solar or thundering God, the Osiris cult may have done the same.

The case being thus complicated, it is hardly possible to settle it on the side of one hypothesis by ascribing the blackness of the God to his connection with the earth. As we have seen, there are many grounds on which deities may be represented as black. Osiris was held by some to be black as representing water (Plut. 33); while others associated him with sun and moon respectively (Id. 43, 51, 52). A similar blending occurs in the case of the Nile-God Sebak (Tiele, Egyptian Religion, Eng. tr., pp. 135-137). The water theory may be the most comprehensive solution (cp. Selden, De Diis Syris; Syntag. i. cap. 4, ed. 1680, p. 73). Mr. Frazer offers no explanation of Osiris as blue, though on his view he can explain him as black or as green (i. 403), which latter colour is said by Wilkinson (Manners and Customs of Ancient Egyptians, ed. 1878, iii. 81) to be very common in the Osiris monuments. But we have here to note (1) that Osiris might be green by the mere chance of the medium being green basalt (see Maspero, Manual of Egyptian Archaeology, Eng. tr. ed. 1895, p. 237); (2) that in the coloured monuments "the blues have turned somewhat green or grey, but this is only on the surface" (Id. p. 203) ; and (3) that" water is always represented by a flat tint of blue, or by blue covered with zig-zag lines in black" (Id. p. 204). So in Greece black bulls were sacrificed to Poseidon as representing the colour of the sea (Cornutus, De nat. Deor. c. 22).

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All things considered, it seems likely that in Egypt, where the soil counted for so little without the Nile overflow, the latter rather than the former would figure as the greater or more worshipful thing.

In any case, Osiris cannot well have been merely an Earth-God or Plant-Spirit. It is not disputed that from the earliest times he is the consort of Isis; and Isis, as Mr. Frazer grants, is an Earth-Goddess and Corn-Goddess; approximating at several points to Demeter, like whom she is figured as black. But the Earth can hardly have been figured as at once God and Goddess, in a married couple, from time immemorial. If Isis be the Grain or Earth, Osiris might be either the fructifying Nile or the Sun, or both, but hardly Grain or Earth over again. It is true that there was an Earth-God Tellumon (Preller, Rom. Myth. p. 402), and that the Earth was described by the later Egyptians as male under the form of rock, and as female under the form of arable land (Seneca, Quaest. nat. iii. 14 ; cp. Macrobius, Saturnalia, iii. 8, as to the moon). But the rock would not symbolize the fructifying power of Osiris; and the idea was probably drawn late from the cult of Mithra, which rivalled the Osirian. It is true further that Osiris was held lord of all things fiery and spiritual, and Isis ruler of all things dry and moist (Diod. i. 11); and there is some evidence that fruit-bearing trees were called male, and others female; but these are visibly late theories or common fancies, not early God-ideas. Then the blackness of Osiris is not symbolical of the Earth, but of something else. Even the blackness of Isis, however, is not to be ascribed strictly and solely to her as symbolizing the Earth; she unquestionably was associated, whether first or last, with the Moon and the zodiacal Virgin, and would thus be black as Queen of the Night Sky, as was the black Aphrodite. (Pausanias, viii. 6; Orphica, ii. 1-2; Macrobius, last cit.)

The truth is, there was no means by which any God or Goddess in antiquity, among nations with cognate or competing cults, could be prevented from gradually assimilating to any of the others with similar status. What happened later in the Christ cult, before the period of crystallization under Roman headship, happened perforce in the older cults. As Yahweh grew from the God of a tribe to a God of the nations, so every thriving deity tended to receive wider and wider functions. The process was economic as well as psychic.

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It was every priest's business to increase the vogue of his temple's divinities, unless he were expressly hindered by the bestowal of a monopoly on a particular God by a particular king; and every worshipper, when smoothly handled, was naturally ready to aggrandize his favourite deity. That this historically took place in the case of Osiris we know from the monuments, which show him to have been assimilated to the Sun-God Ra (Tiele, p. 44. Cp. Diodorus Siculus, i. 25).

But this was only one of many such blendings. We know for instance that Ptah, who was "certainly not originally a Sun-God," is "distinctly called the sun-disc" (Chantepie de la Saussaye, Manual of the Science of Religion, Eng. tr. p. 425). Now, Ptah does seem to have been originally an Earth-God or Vegetation-God, and he was represented as green (Tiele, Egyptian Religion, Eng. tr. p. 160), though he had also "the blue beard and diadem of Amun, whose colour was blue." Amun in turn seems to have been a Nile-God and a Sun-God (Tiele, pp. 146, 148, 149). In short, a unification of all the Gods with the SunGod was one of the most prevalent tendencies in Egyptian religion (noted by Frazer, i. 314), as again in the Mexican. "The Gods of the dead and the elemental Gods were almost all identified with the sun, for the purpose of blending them in a theistic unity" (Maspero, cited by Lang, M. R. R. 2nd ed. ii. 134). Compare E. Meyer,. Geschichte des alter Aegyptens, in Oncken's series, K. iii. p. 249. As to the case of Cham, the Vegetation-God, who was blended with the Sun-God Horos, see Tiele, pp. 122-127. Such combinations may have been deliberately arranged among the priests, who at all times received an enormous revenue (Diodorus Siculus, i. 28, 81).

It is thus doubly unnecessary to resort for explanation of any junction of the solar and vegetal principles to the ingenious theory of Mr. Frazer (ii. 369) that the fire-sticks. would be held to contain fire as a kind of sap. Kenrick (i. 403) readily acknowledged that the principle of fertility would involve alike the Sun and the Nile; and the historical data since collected amply bear him out.

VI. THE CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT.

Among modern statements of the Christian theory of Krishnaism, one of the most explicit and emphatic is that inserted by an anonymous Sanskritist in a criticism of the, first volume of Mr. T. Talboys Wheeler's History of India, in the Athenaeun of August 10^th, 1867.

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The criticism is hostile, pointing out that Mr. Wheeler “is not a Sanskrit scholar, nor has he very carefully examined the translations with which he works," so that "we are never sure, without referring to the original, what particulars [as to Hindu legend are drawn from the great epic, and what are from the Puranas and other sources." It might have been added that the previous performance of Mr. Wheeler had shown him to be a somewhat biassed historian. He had produced a number of popular abridgments or manuals of Old and New Testament history, in one of which he does not scruple to assert that while "Matthew, who wrote for the Jews, traces the pedigree of Joseph through David to Abraham, Luke who wrote for the Gentiles, traces the descent of Mary through David to Adam" [n1 Abridgment of New Testament History, 1854, p. 35. Cp. Analysis and Summary of New Testament History, 1859 , by same author (p. 28), where it is explained that Luke went back to Adam because he was "desirous of proving [the Gentiles'] admission into the Gospel covenant"—the descent of David from Adam not being an established hypothesis.]. Such an apologist naturally does not flinch "at alleging that Celsus and Porphyry" recognize "the gospels as the "genuine work of the apostles" [n2 Analysis, as cited, p. xxviii.]; and for such a reasoner, it is readily intelligible, the "mythic theory" is disposed of by the argument that it would make out the history of Julius Caesar to be a thorough myth. It will doubtless be comforting to many to learn that this soundly religious writer was ade Professor of "Moral and Mental Philosophy and Logic" in the Presidency College of Madras, and that he has written an elaborate history of India with a considerable measure of acceptance.

But the critic of Mr. Wheeler's history in the Athenaeum is hardly the person to take exception to intellectual tendencies such as these. His own philosophy of history includes the belief that "the history of Krishnah has been borrowed by the Brahmans from the Gospel" ; and he proceeds to prove his case by the following account of the legend in the Bhagavat Purana and Mahabharata—

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an account which is worth citing at length as indicating a number of the minor myth-resemblances in the Hindu and Christian narratives, and as unintentionally paving the way for a fresh historical investigation of the latter :

"The recital [in the Purana] commences with the announcement that to hear the story of Krishnah and believe it is all that is required for salvation; and throughout the narrative the theme of exhortation is faith. Next it is declared that, sin and impiety having spread over the whole world, the Deity resolved to become incarnate in the form of Krishnah. He determined to destroy a tyrant king, whose name signifies Lust, who ruled at Mathurá, and who murdered children. Krishnah is represented as born the nephew of this king, and therefore of royal descent. The name of his tribe is Yadu, which is almost the same as Yahudah in Hebrew. His real mother was Devaki, which signifies the Divine Lady, and his reputed mother Yasoda, or Yashoda. His father's name was Vasudev. In comparing this word with Yusef, we must remember that Dev in Sanskrit signifies divine, and the d appears to have been inserted from that word. The resemblance of the name Krishnah itself to Christ is remarkable enough, but it becomes more so when we consider that the root 'Krish' means 'to tinge,' and may well be taken to signify also 'anoint.' Preliminary to the birth of Krishna the four Vedas become incarnate, and the tyrant king is warned by a divine voice that a son is to be born in his house who will destroy him. Upon this he puts to death the infants that are born to the Divine Lady, and makes a great slaughter of the tribe of Yadu. Notwithstanding this, Krishnah is born and placed in a basket for winnowing corn; in other words, a manger. His father then carries him off to Gokula (or Goshen, the eastern side of Lower Egypt), which is represented as a country place near Mathurá. On finding that the child has escaped, the tyrant makes a slaughter of infant children. A variety of puerile fables suited to the Hindu taste follow, showing how Krishnah was subject to his reputed mother, and how he reproved her. Being now thought to be the son of a shepherd, Krishnah plays in the wilderness, and is assaulted by the various fiends, and overcomes them all. This temptation winds up with the overthrow of the great serpent, upon whose head, 'assuming the weight of the three worlds, he treads.' Even in the strange recital of Krishnah's sports with the cowherdesses, threads of allusions to the Gospels are not wanting. Krishnah is continually manifesting his divinity, and yet disclaiming it. He goes to an Indian fig-tree and utters a sort of parable, saying, Blessed are those that bear pain themselves and show kindness to others. In another place he says that those who love him shall never suffer death. He proceeds to abolish the worship of Indra, the God of the air, and to invite his followers to worship a mountain. He directs those about him to close their eyes, and issues from the interior of the mountain with a 'face like the moon and wearing a diadem.' In this there seems to be an allusion to the Transfiguration. Then follows a scene suited to Hindu taste. Indra rains down a deluge, and Krishnah defends the inhabitants of Braj by supporting the mountain on his finger, and he is then hailed as the God of Gods.

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Krishnah now resolves on returning from the country to the city of the tyrant king. He is followed by a multitude of women and by the cowherds. He enters the city in royal apparel. He is met by a deformed woman, who anoints him with sandalwood oil. On this Krishnah makes her straight and beautiful, and promises that his regard for her shall be perpetual; on which her good fortune is celebrated by all the people of the place. In the account of this miracle the narratives in Mark xiv. 3 and Luke xiii. 11 are blended. It may be as well to mention here another miracle, which is mentioned in the Maha Bharata. Krishnah is there said to have restored the son of a widow to life: 'And Krishnah laid hold of the dead man's hand and said, Arise, and by the will of the Almighty the dead man immediately arose.' . . . . A great army of barbarians is. . . . assembled by a distant king to destroy the holy city of Mathurá.. . . Krishnah then transports the city and his disciples to Dwarka, which is built in the sea. This appears to be a distorted account of the siege of Jerusalem. and the flight of the Christians. Krishnah now returns to Mathurá and combats with the barbarians; flies from their chief, and is pursued into a cave of the White mountains, where there is a man sleeping, covered with a silken robe, apparently dead. This man arises from sleep and consumes the pursuer of Krishnah. In this account of the cave there are evident allusions to the burial and resurrection of Christ; and in a following chapter there is an account of the descent of Krishnah into Hades and his recovery of certain persons from the dead. . . At the great sacrifice performed by Yudhishthira. . . . the task which devolves on Krishnah is that of washing the feet of those present. One person alone is said to have been dissatisfied, and that is Duryodhana, who is generally regarded as an incarnation of the Evil Spirit, and who, like Iscariot, here carries the bag, and. acts as treasurer. . . . It must be admitted, then, that there are most remarkable coincidences between the history of Krishnah and that of Christ. This being the case, and there being proof positive that Christianity was introduced into Judea at an epoch when there is good reason to suppose the episodes which refer to Krishnah were inserted in the Maha Bharata, the obvious inference is that the Brahmans took from the Gospel such things as suited them, and so added preeminent beauties to their national epic, which otherwise would in no respect have risen above such poems as the Sháhnámah of the Persians." [n1 Athenaeum, as cited, pp. 168-9.]

As to the authorship of this criticism we can only speculate. In an allusion to the doctrine of the Bhagavat Gita the writer expresses himself as "willing to admit" that "the Gita is the most sublime poem that ever came from an uninspired pen"; thus taking up the position of ordinary orthodoxy, which presupposes the supernatural origin of the Christian system, and prejudges every such question as we are now considering.

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This is the standing trouble with English scholarship. Even Professor Max Muller, who has produced an Introduction to the Science of Religion, is found writing to a correspondent in terms which seemingly imply at once belief in Christian supernaturalism and a fear that the discussion of certain questions in comparative mythology may damage the faith. "Even supposing," he writes, "some or many of the doctrines of Christianity were found in other religions also (and they certainly are), does that make them less true? Does a sailor trust his own compass less because it can be proved that the Chinese had a compass before we had it?" And again: "These questions regarding the similarities between the Christian and any other religions are very difficult to treat, and (unless they are handled carefully much harm may be done" [n1 Letters to C. A. Elflein, printed at end of a pamphlet by the latter entitled Buddha, Krishna, and Christ.].

From scholarship of this kind (though, as it happens, Professor Muller finally opposes the theory of Christian derivation) one turns perforce to that of the continent, where, whatever be the value of the conclusions reached, we can at least as a rule trust the scholar to say candidly what he knows, and to look impartially for the truth.

Thus Professor Weber, who refers to the Athenaeum critic's argument in his study on the "Geburtsfest," emphatically distinguishes between what he thinks plausible and what seems to him extravagant [n2 He puts a "sic!" after the spelling Yashoda in quoting this passage, and another after the word "inserted" in the phrase" appears to have been inserted from that word."], though the argument in question goes to support some of his own positions. The identifications of the names Yasoda, Yusef, and Vasudev, Gokula and Goshen, he rightly derides as being "à la P. Giorgi"; and he mentions that the stories of the woman's oblation and forgiveness, and also that of the raising of the widow's dead son, are not from the Mahabharata at all, but from the Jaimini-Bharata, a work of the Purana order [n3 Ueber die Krishnajanmáshtami, as cited, p, 315, n,]

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—a point which, of course, would not essentially affect the argument. On the main question he sums up as follows :

"If we could so construe these words that they should harmonize with the view of Kleuker" [before quoted] "we might contentedly accept them. If, however, they are to be understood as meaning that the history of Krishna in the lump (uberhaupt) was first taken from the ‘Gospel history' (and indeed the author seems not disinclined to that view), then we cannot endorse them." [n1 Id. p. 316.]

That is to say, the theory of the Christian origin of the general Krishna legend is rejected by Weber, the most important supporter of the view that some details in that legend have so originated. And not only is this rejection overwhelmingly justified, as we shall see, by the whole mass of the evidence, earlier and later, but so far as I am aware no Sanskrit scholar of any eminence has ever put his name to the view maintained by the anonymous writer in the Athenaeum. Even Mr. Talboys Wheeler, who believes all the Gospels "and more," does not go to these lengths. He is more guarded even where he suggests similar notions.

"The account of Raja Kansa," he observes, "is supposed by many to have been borrowed from the Gospel account of King Herod. Whether this be the case or not, it is certain that most of the details are mythical, and inserted for the purpose of ennobling the birth of Krishna" [n2 History of India, i. 464, note.].

—it being Mr. Wheeler's opinion that the story of Krishna as a whole has a personal and historic basis. He further holds that "the grounds upon which Krishna seems to have forgiven the sins of the tailor" [who made clothes for his companions] "seem to form a travestie of Christianity " [n3 Id. p. 471, n.]; and, like the writer in the Athenaeum and earlier pietists, he thinks that the Gospel stories of the bowed woman and the spikenard "seem to have been thrown together in the legend of Kubja" [n4 Id. p.470, n.]. On the other hand, however, he conceives that the Hindus may have invented some things for themselves :

"Krishna's triumph over the great serpent Kaliya was at one time supposed to be borrowed from the triumph of Christ over Satan.

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There appears, however, to be no allusion whatever to the bruising of the Serpent's head in the sense in which it is understood by Christian commentators" [n1 Id. p. 465, n.].

It may be surmised that Mr. Wheeler, being capable of this amount of prudence, would not be disposed to endorse the more original speculations of his critic in the Athenaeum, a few of which I have put in italics. It may be noted, too, that he does not think fit to dwell much on the puerility which fits the details of the Krishna legend for the "Hindu taste " and the "Hindu mind," though his earlier writings betray no suspicion of puerility in the tales of the Gospels.

VII. THE CENTRAL DISPROOF.

Unsupported as are the Christian theories of the late origin of the Krishna legend, it is necessary to cite the evidence which repels them. The point, indeed, might be held as settled once for all by the evidence of Patanjali's Mahâbhâshya or "Great Commentary," a grammatical work based on previous ones, and dating from the second century B.C., but first made in part accessible to European scholars by the Benares edition of 1872. The evidence of the Mahâbhâshya is thus summed up by the learned Professor Bhandarkar of Bombay, after discussion of the passages on which he founds, as clearly proving:—

"1^st. That the stories of the death of Kansa and the subjugation of Bali were popular and current in Patanjali's time.

"2^nd. That Krishna or Vasudeva was mentioned in the story as having killed Kansa.

"3^rd. That such stories formed the subjects of dramatic representations, as Puranic stories are still popularly represented on the Hindu stage.

"4^th. That the event of Kansa's death at the hands of Krishna was in Patanjali's time believed to have occurred at a very remote time." [n2 Art. "Allusions to Krishna in Patanjali's Mahâbhâshya" in the Indian Antiquary, Bombay, vol. iii. (1874), p. 16.]

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Other passages, Professor Bhandarkar thinks, would appear "to be quoted from an existing poem on Krishna"; and, in his opinion, "Not only was the story of Krishna and Kansa current and popular in Patanjali's time, but it appears clearly that the former was worshipped as a God." And the Professor concludes that "If the stories of Krishna and Bali, and others which I shall notice hereafter, were current and popular in the second century B.C., some such works as the Harivansa and the Purânas must have existed then."

Discussing the Mahâbhâshya on its publication (some years after his paper on the Birth-festival), Professor Weber had already [n1 Indische Studien, xiii. (1873), pp. 354-5, 357.] conceded that it pointed not only almost beyond doubt to a pre-existing poetic compilation of the Mahabharata Sagas, but to the ancient existence of the Kansa myth. Kansa, he pointed out, figured in regard to Bali, in the passages quoted in the Mahâbhâshya, as a demon, and his "enmity towards Krishna equally assumed a mythical character, into which also the different colours of their followers (the 'black ones' are then also those of Kansa ? though Krishna himself signifies 'black' !) would seem to enter. Or," the Professor goes on, speculating at random, "could there be thereby signified some Indian battles between Aryans and the aborigines occupying India before them?" In another place [n2 Notice of vol. iv. of Muir's Original Sanskrit Texts, 1873, reprinted in Weber's Indische Streifen, iii. 190-1.], alluding to the contention of Dr. Burnell [n3 Academy, June 14th, 1873.] that "much in the modern philosophical schools of India comes from some form of Christianity derived from Persia," Professor Weber pointed out that "quite recently, through the publication of the Mahâbhâshya, a much older existence is proved for the Krishna cultus than had previously seemed admissible." Finally, in commenting [n4 In the Indian Antiquary, August, 1875 = iv. 246.] on the argument of Professor Bhandarkar, Professor Weber allows that the passages cited by the scholar from Patanjali are "quite conclusive and very welcome" as to an intermediate form of Krishna-worship;

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though he disputes the point as to the early existence of literature of the Purânas order—a point with which we are not here specially concerned—and goes on to contend that the passages in question "do not interfere at all with the opinion of those who maintain, on quite reasonable grounds," that the later development of Krishnaism "has been influenced to a certain degree by an acquaintance with the doctrines, legends, and symbols of the early Christians; or even with the opinion of those who are inclined to find in the Bhagavadgita traces of the Bible; for though I for my part am as yet not convinced at all in this respect, the age of the Bhagavadgita is still so uncertain that these speculations are at least not shackled by any chronological obstacles."

I know of no recent expert opinion which refuses to go at least as far as Weber does here. His persistent contention as to the presence of some Christian elements in the Krishna cult I will discuss later; but in the meantime it is settled that the most conservative Sanskrit scholarship on the continent not only admits but insists on the pre-Christian character of the Krishna mythus, and of such an important quasi-Christian element in it as the story of Kansa, which had so zealously been claimed (and that with Professor Weber's consent in former years) as an adaptation from the Herod story in the Christian Gospel.

VIII. ANTIQUITY OF KRISHNAISM

The proof of the pre-Christian antiquity of the Krishna cult, however, does not rest merely on the text of the Mahâbhâshya, or the conclusions of scholars in regard to that. The extravagance of the orthodox Christian argument was apparent—it was rejected, we have seen, by Professor Weber—before the passages in the Mahâbhâshya were brought forward. literary

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There have long been known at least three inscriptions, in addition to at least one other allusion, which prove Krishnaism to have flourished long before the period at which the Christians represent it to have been concocted from the Gospels.

1. The Bhitâri pillar inscription, transcribed and translated by Dr. W. H. Mill, [n1 In the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, January, 1837, pp. 1-17.] and dating from, probably, the second century of our era, proves Krishna to be then an important deity. The Krishna passage runs, in Dr. Mill's translation :—"May he who is like Krishna still obeying his mother Devaki, after his foes are vanquished, he of golden rays, with mercy protect this my design." This translation Lassen [n2 Indische Alterthumskunde, ii. (1849), p. 1108, note.] corrects, reading thus:— "Like the conqueror of his enemies, Krishna encircled with golden rays, who honours Devaki, may he maintain his purpose" ; and explaining that the words are to be attributed to the king named in the inscription (Kumâragupta), and not to the artist who carved it, as .Dr. Mill supposed. "As in the time to which this inscription belongs," Lassen further remarks, "human princes were compared with Gods,. Krishna is here represented as a divine being, though not as one of the highest Gods." Dr. Mill, on the other hand, holds Krishna to be understood as "the supreme Bhagavat" referred to in other parts of the inscription. However this may be, the cultus is proved to have existed long before the arrival of Christian influences.

2. Two fragmentary inscriptions discovered in 1854 by Mr. E. C. Bayley [n3 Journal of Asiatic Society, xxiii. 57.], of the Indian Civil Service, equally point to the early deification of Krishna. One has the, words "Krishnayasasa anima" in Aryan Pali letters; the other "Krishnayasasya arama medangisya." The first two words mean" The Garden of Krishnayasas," this name meaning "the glory of Krishna"; and Mr. Bayley thinks that "medangisya,"=corpulent, is some wag's addition to the original inscription.

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As to the date, Mr. Bayley writes:— "The form of the Indian letters had already led me to assign them roughly to the first century A.D. [n1 By "century A.D." Mr. Bayley means "century after Christ." "First century anno domini," a form constantly used by academic writers, is nonsense. In this paper I use "C.E." to signify "Christian era," as "B.C." signifies "before Christ." This, or the use of the form "A.C.," is surely the reasonable course.]. On showing them, however, to Major A. Cunningham, he kindly pointed out that the foot strokes of the Aryan letters ally them to those on the coins of 'Pakores '; and he therefore would place them more accurately in the first half of the second century A.D. l at the earliest." Major Cunningham, it will be remembered, is one of those who see imitation of Christianity in the Krishna legends, so his dating is not likely to be over early. In any case, Mr. Bayley admits that the inscriptions "would seem to indicate the admission of Krishna into the Hindu Pantheon at the period" when they were cut. "If, however," he adds, "this be eventually established, it by no means follows that the name was applied to the same deity as at present, still less that he was worshipped in the same manner." It is not very clear what Mr. Bayley means by "the same deity"; or whether he would admit the God of the Jews to be the same deity as the Father of Jesus Christ, as worshipped by Archdeacon Farrar. But if he merely means to say that the Hindu conception of Krishna, like his ritual, might be modified after centuries, his proposition may readily be accepted.

3. The Buddal pillar inscription, translated by Wilkins [n2 Asiatic Researches, i. 131.], to which I have observed no allusion in recent writers on Krishnaism, serves equally to prove the early existence of a legend of a divine Krishna born of Devaki and nursed by Yasoda. It contains the passage, alluding to a distinguished lady or princess:—" She, like another Devaki, bore unto him a son of high renown, who resembled the adopted of Yasodha and husband of Lakshmi"—the Goddess Lakshmi being here identified with Krishna's bride. This inscription was dated by Wilkins "shortly B.C.," and by Sir William Jones 67 C.E. I have not ascertained how it is placed by later scholars; but in any case it must long antedate the periods assigned by Professor Weber and the Athenaeum critic to the arrival of the Christian influences which are supposed to have affected later Krishnaism.

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4. In the Khandogya Upanishad, a document admittedly older than our era, there occurs [n1 iii. 17, 6; Muller's trans., Sacred Books of the East, i. 52.] this passage:—" Ghora Angirasa, after having communicated this (view of the sacrifice) to Krishna, the son of Devaki—and he never thirsted again (after other knowledge)—said," etc. On this passage I transcribe the comment appended by Professor Muller to his translation :

"The curious coincidence between Krishna Devakiputra, here mentioned as a pupil of Ghora Angirasa, and the famous Krishna, the son of Devaki, was first pointed out by Colebrooke, Miscell. Essays, ii. 177. Whether it is more than a coincidence is difficult to say. Certainly we can build no other conclusions on it than those indicated by Colebrooke, that new fables may have been constructed, elevating this personage to the rank of a God. We know absolutely nothing of the old Krishna Devakiputra except his having been a pupil of Ghora Angirasa, nor does there seem to have been any attempt made by later Brahmans to connect their divine Krishna, the son of Vasudeva, with the Krishna Devakiputra of our Upanishad, This is all the more remarkable because the author of the Sandilya-sutras, for instance, who is very anxious to found a srauta authority for the worship of Krishna Vasudeva as the supreme deity, had to be satisfied with quoting. . . . modern compilations. . . Professor Weber has treated these questions very fully, but it is not quite clear to me whether he wishes to go beyond Colebrooke, and to admit more than a similarity of name between the pupil of Ghora Angirasa and the friend of the Gopis."

Professor Weber, I may mention in passing, does "admit more than a similarity of name"; in his treatise on the Birth Festival [n2 As cited, p, 316] he founds on the Upanishad reference as indicating one of the stages in the development of Krishnaism. And as Professor Muller does not dispute in the least the antiquity and authenticity of that reference, but only queries "coincidence," it may be taken as pretty certain that we have here one more trace of the existence of the Krishna legend long before the Christian era. There is nothing in the least remarkable in the fact of the passage not being cited by a writer who wanted texts on the status of Krishna as "the supreme deity," because the passage clearly does not so present Krishna.

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But it is no part of our case to make out that Krishna was widely worshipped as "the supreme deity" before our era; on the contrary, the evidence mostly goes to show that he attained his eminence, or at least his Brahmanical status, later.. The point is that his name and story were current in India long before the Christian legends, as such, were heard of; and the series of mutually supporting testimonies puts this beyond doubt.

IX. INVALID EVIDENCE.

It does not seem likely that the force of the foregoing evidence will be seriously disputed. At the same time, it is necessary to point out that some of the data relied on by some scholars, and in particular by Professor Lassen, to prove the early existence of Krishnaism will not by themselves support that conclusion. Lassen, who identifies Krishna with the Indian Hercules spoken of by Megasthenes, puts his case thus:

"Megasthenes, whose account of ancient India is the weightiest because the oldest of all those left to us by foreigners, has. . . . mentioned [the] connection of Krishna with the Pandavas, and his remarks deserve close attention. . . . as giving a historical foothold in regard to the vogue of the worship of Krishna. His statement is as follows: He "[i.e., the Indian Hercules] "excelled all men in strength of body and spirit; he had purged the whole earth and the sea of evil, and founded many cities; of his many wives was born only one daughter, Pandaia, but many sons, among whom he divided all India, making them kings, whose descendants reigned through many generations and did famous deeds; some of their kingdoms stood even to the time when Alexander invaded India. After his death, divine honours had been paid him. (Diodor. ii. 39. Arrian, Ind. 8.) That we are entitled to take this Hercules for Krishna appears from the fact that he was specially honoured by the people of Surasena. (Ind. viii. 5.) [n1 Note by Lassen. Besides Mathura, Megasthenes named another city of the Surasenes, …which Pliny (Hist. Nat. vi. 22) calls Carisobara or Cyrisoborea or Chrysobora, and which Von Bohlen (Altes Indien, i. 233) with apparent justice reads as Krishna-Pura, city of Krishna. Ptolemaios names Mathura the city of the Gods.].

"We may from this passage conclude with certainty that in the time of Megasthenes Krishna was honoured as one of the highest of the Gods, and precisely in the character of Vishnu, who incarnated himself when the transgressions of the world began to overflow, and wiped them out.

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When Megasthenes describes him as bearing a club, there becomes apparent that writer's exact acquaintance with Indian matters, for Vishnu also carries a club (hence his name of Gadadhara). That he also, like Hercules, wore a lion's hide, does not correspond to Krishna, and might seem to impute an inclination to make out an identity between the Greek and the Indian hero. Probably Megasthenes was misled by the fact that in Sanskrit the word lion is used to indicate a pre-eminent excellence in men, and specially in warriors [n1 Lassen here assumes that Megasthenes knew Sanscrit, which is not at all certain. More probably he needed interpreters, and in talk between these and the Brahmans the poetic epithet "lion" would hardly be used. It would appear from a remark of Arrian (Exped. Alex. vi. 30) that only one Macedonian in Alexander's train learned Persian, so little were the Greeks disposed to master foreign languages. In Alexander's expedition communications seem at times to have been filtered through three interpreters.]. The account of Megasthenes further corresponds with the Indian Saga in respect that there many wives and sons are ascribed to Krishna (16,000 wives and 180,000 sons. See Vishnu Purâna, pp. 440, 591). Of cities founded by him, indeed, we know only Dvaraka; and Palibothra had another founder. Clearly, however, Pandaia is exactly the name of Pandava, especially when we compare the form Pandavya; and in that connection my previous conclusion seems to be irrefragable, that Megasthenes has signified by the daughter of Krishna the sister, from whom the series of Pandava Kings are descended" [n2 Indische Alterthumskunde, i. (1847), 647-9.].

Now, it is sufficiently plain on the face of this exposition that the identification of Krishna with the Indian Hercules of Megasthenes is imperfect. It leaves, says Professor Tiele, "much to be desired" [n3 Outlines, p. 148.]. The fashion in which the great Indianist founds on one or two details, and lets go by the board some serious discrepancies, is indeed somewhat characteristic of the scholars of his adopted nation. German scholarship has the defects of its great qualities: with an enormous mass of detail-knowledge it often combines a relatively infirm and erratic judgment. In the whole course of this inquiry the real light will, I think, be found forthcoming rather from France, Holland, India, and Italy, than from Germany; though the mere mass-weight of German scholarship commands attention.

In point of fact, a much more satisfactory identification of the Indian Hercules of Megasthenes lay ready to Lassen's hand in Wilson's introduction to his translation of the Vishnu Purâna.

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"The Hercules of the Greek writers," says that sound scholar, "was indubitably the Bala Râma of the Hindus; and their notices of Mathura on the Jumna, and of the kingdom of the Suraseni and the Pandaean country, evidence the prior currency of the traditions which constitute the argument of the Mahabharata, and which are constantly repeated in the Purânas, relating to the Pandava and Yadava races, to Krishna and his contemporary heroes, and to the dynasties of the solar and lunar heroes" [n1 Trans. of Vishnu Purâna, 1840, pref. pp. vi. vii.]. M. Barth, it is true, has tacitly accepted Lassen's view [n2 Religions of India, p. 163.; but does not do so with any emphasis, and points out that it has been contested by Weber [n3 Indische Studien, ii. 409 (1853).], who, regarding Megasthenes' testimony as of uncertain value in any case, declines to accept the reading of Kleisobora as Krishnapura, and considers Wilson's theory of Bala Râma more reasonable. And M. Senart, whose masterly Essay on the Legend of Buddha has put him in the front rank of Indianists and mythologists, very emphatically combats Lassen's position :

"In [Megasthenes'] Hercules M. Lassen finds Vishnu; it would be infinitely more vraisemblable, even in respect of the association with Krishna, to see in him Bala Râma, for whom his club would constitute, in the eyes of a Greek, an affinity, the more striking because it was exterior, with the son of Alcmena. It is necessary, I think, to accept the same synonymy for the Hercules spoken of by Megasthenes, who seems simply to have confounded under this one name legends appertaining to several of the avatars of Vishnu; it is, in my opinion, an error of overprecision to identify, as M. Lassen has done, that Hercules with Krishna." [n4 Essai sur la Légende du Buddha, 2e ed. p. 339, n.]

When we glance at the description of Bala Râma as he figures in Indian effigies, the view of Wilson and Senart seems sufficiently established :

"Bala Râma although a warrior, may from his attributes be esteemed a benefactor of mankind; for he bears a plough, and a pestle for beating rice; and he has epithets derived from the names of these implements—viz.; Halayudha, meaning plough-armed, and Musali, as bearing the musal, or rice-beater. His name, Bala, means strength; and the beneficent attributes here noticed are by some called a ploughshare for hooking his enemies, and a club for destroying them;

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and being sometimes seen with a lion's skin over his shoulders, such statues have been thought to resemble, and allude to, those of the Theban Hercules and their legends." (Note." The pestle is of hard wood, about four feet long, and two inches in diameter, with the ends tipped or ferrelled with iron, to prevent their splitting or wearing") [n1 Moor's Hindu Pantheon, p. 194. Diodorus tells (ii. 39) that in India Hercules has the club and lion's skin as among the Greeks.].

We shall have to consider further hereafter the mythological significance of Bala Râma and the other two Râmas. In the meantime, beyond noting how precisely the former corresponds with the Hercules of Megasthenes, it will suffice to say that one of the other Râmas, closely connected with Krishna, corresponds with, the Hercules figure so far as to support strongly M. Senart's hypothesis of a combination of various personages in the Greek's conception :

"It is Râma Chandra, however, who is the favourite subject of heroic and amatory poetics: he is described of ample shoulders, brawny arms, extending to the knee; neck, shell-formed; chest, circular and full, with auspicious marks; body, hyacinthine; with eyes and lips of sanguine hue; the lord of the world; a moiety of Vishnu himself; the source of joy to Ikshwaku's race.' He is also called. . . . blue-bodied, an appellation of Krishna, as well as of the prototype of both—Vishnu." [n2 Moor's Hindu Pantheon, p. 195.]

In fine, then, we are not entitled to say with Lassen that Megasthenes clearly shows the worship of Krishna to have attained the highest eminence in India three hundred years before our era; but what is certain is that the whole group of the legends with which Krishna is connected had at that date already a high religious standing; and that an important Krishna cultus, resting on these, existed before and spread through India after that period, but certainly flourished long before the advent of Christian influences.

X. WEBER'S THEORY.

The early vogue of Krishna-worship being thus amply proved, it remains to consider the argument, so long persisted in by Professor Weber, as to the derivation of certain parts of Krishnaism from Christianity, keeping in view at the same time, of course, the more extensive claims by the partizans of Christianity.

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With these Professor Weber is not to be identified: there is no reason to doubt that, even if he be mistaken, he is perfectly disinterested in his whole treatment of the subject. This is not to say, of course, that he has approached it from the first in a perfectly scientific frame of mind. I should rather say that his criticism represents the effects of the general European prepossession as regards Christianity on a candid truth-seeker who has not independently investigated Christian origins: that his attitude belongs to the period of criticism in which Christianity was not scientifically studied. It is only fair to mention that besides seeing Christian elements in Krishnaism he finds Homeric elements in the Ramayana, the next great Hindu epic after the Mahabharata. That theory, however, seems to have met very small acceptance among Indianists [n1 See it ably criticized in K. T. Telang's Was the Ramayana copied from Homer? Bombay, 1873.], and need not be here discussed, any more than his old argument as to the influence of Greek art on India after Alexander, which stands on a different footing. One passage will serve to show his general position, which includes a frank avowal that there is evidence of Hindu influence on Christianity just about the time at which he thinks Christianity influenced Krishnaism:

"Still more deep [than the Grecian] has been the influence of Christianity, also chiefly introduced by way of Alexandria, to which is to be attributed the idea of a personal, individual, universal God; and the idea of Faith, which is not to be found in India before this time, but which from this epoch forms a common type of all Hindu sects. In the worship of Krishna, an ancient hero, which now takes an entirely new form, even the name of Christ seems to stand in direct connection with it, and several legends of Christ, as well as of his mother the Divine Virgin, are transferred to him. In an opposite manner, Hindu philosophy too exercised a decided influence upon the formation of several of the Gnostic sects then rising, more especially in Alexandria. The Manichaean system of religion in Persia is very evidently indebted to Buddhistical conceptions, as the Buddhists in the freshness of their religious zeal, carried on by their principle of universalism, had early sent their missionaries beyond Asia. The great resemblance which the Christian ceremonial and rites (which were forming just at that time) show to the Buddhistic in many respects, can be best explained by the influence of the latter, being often too marked for it to be an independent production of each faith;

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compare the worship of relics, the architecture of church towers (with the Buddhistic Topes), the monastic system of monks and nuns, celibacy, the tonsure, confession, rosaries, bells, etc." [n1 Modern Investigations of Ancient India. A Lecture delivered in Berlin, March 4th, 1854, by Professor A. Weber. Translated by Fanny Metcalfe, 1857, pp. 25-6. (Indische Skizzen, p. 28.)]

I do not suppose that, after the banter he has bestowed in Krishna's Geburtsfest on the Father Giorgi order of etymology, Professor Weber would now stand to the above

suggestion about the name of Christ; or that he would give a moment's countenance to the preposterous argument of the Athenaeum critic that the name Krishna = black, might mean "anointed" because the root might mean "to tinge." Apart from that, the argument for a reciprocal action of the two religions is on the face of it plausible enough; and it becomes necessary to go into the details.

In the above extract Professor Weber indicates only two respects in which Krishnaism was in his opinion modified by Christianity—the doctrines, namely, of "a personal, universal God," and of "Faith." In his treatise on the Krishna Birth-Festival he posits a number of concrete details: in particular, the Birth Festival itself; the representation of Krishna as a child suckled by his mother; the curious item that, at the time of Krishna's birth, his fosterfather Nanda goes with his wife Yasoda to Mathura "to pay his taxes" (a detail not noted by the Athenaeum critic) ; the representation of the babe as laid in a manger; the attempted killing by Kansa; the "massacre of the innocents"; the carrying of the child across the river (as in the Christian "Christophoros" legend); the miraculous doings of the child and the healing virtue of his bath water (as in the Apocryphal Gospels); the raising of the bereaved mother's dead son, the straightening of the crooked woman; her pouring ointment over Krishna; and the sin-removing power of his regard [n2 Work cited, pp. 328-9.]. These concrete details I will first deal with.

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§ 1. A most important admission, it will be remembered, has already been made by Professor Weber in regard to the story of King Kansa; which he admits to be now proved a pre-Christian myth. So important, indeed, is that withdrawal, that but for the Professor's later restatement I should have surmised him to have lost confidence in his whole position, of which, as it seems to me, the central citadel has fallen. If the story of Kansa be admittedly a pre-Christian myth, and the Christian Herod-story be thus admittedly a redaction of an old Eastern myth; what becomes of the presumption of Indian imitation of other Christian stories which, on the face of them, are just as likely to be mythical as the story of Herod and the massacre of the innocents? Did it ever occur to Professor Weber to consider how the Christian stories in general really originated? It would seem not. His argument simply assumes that the Gospel stories (whether true or not, he does not say) came into circulation at the foundation of Christianity, and so became accessible to the world. But as to the source of these stories—as to how these particular miraculous narratives came to be told in connection with Jesus—he makes (save on one point) no inquiry, and apparently feels no difficulty; though to a scientific eye, one would think, the clearing-up in some way of the causation of the Christian legends is as necessary as the explaining how they are duplicated in Krishnaism.

The one exception to which I refer in Professor Weber's investigation is his very straightforward allusion to the likelihood that the representation of the Virgin Mary as either suckling or clasping the infant Jesus may have been borrowed from the Egyptian statues or representations of Isis and Horus. For citing this suggestion from previous writers he has been angrily accused by Mr. Growse, a Roman Catholic Anglo-Indian, of "a wanton desire to give offence" [n1 Indian Antiquary, iii. 300.]; an imputation which the scholar has indignantly and justly resented [n2 Id. iv. 251.]. Mr. Growse's pretext for his splenetic charge was the claim, cited by Professor Weber himself from De Rossi, that the earliest representations of the Madonna in the Roman catacombs, recently brought to light, follow a classic and not an Egyptian type. Says De Rossi:

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"The paintings of our subterranean cemeteries offer us the first images of the Holy Virgin with her divine child; and they are much more numerous and more ancient than is indicated by the works hitherto [before 1863] published on the Catacombs of Rome. I have chosen four, which seem to me to be as the models of the different types and of the different periods which one meets from the first centuries to about the time of Constantine." And again (a passage which Weber does not cite): "The frescoes of our illustrations and the monuments cited by me here, demonstrate that in the most ancient works of Christian art the Virgin holding her child is figured independently of the Magi and of any historic scene." [n1 Images de la T. S. Vierge, Choisies dans les Catacombes de Rome, Rome, 1863, pp. 6-7, 21.]

Now, even if it be decided that the earliest "Madonnas" in the Catacombs have a classic rather than an Egyptian cast, nothing would be proved against the Egyptian derivation of the cult of the Virgin and Child. It does not occur to Commendatore De Rossi, of course, to question whether these early Madonnas were really Christian whether they did not represent the almost universal vogue of the worship of a child-nursing Goddess apart from Christianity. There is no artistic or documentary evidence whatever of Christian Madonna-worship in the first century; and De Rossi's "premiers siècles," and his final

claim that his series of images" goes back to the disciples of the apostles," leave matters very much in the vague. The whole question of the antiquities of the Catacombs needs to be overhauled by some investigator as devoted as the Catholics, but as impartial as they are prejudiced.

There might indeed be Christian, but there were certainly non-Christian, "Madonnas" of a "classic" cast before the time at which the absolute images of Isis were transferred to Christian churches, and black images of Mary and Jesus were made in imitation of them [n2 See above, p. 142. Cp: Simrock, Handbuch der dentschen Mythologie, 6te Aufl. pp. 314, 381; and Maury, Legendes Pieuses du Moyen Age, 1843, p. 38.].

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The very name Iacchos, one of the special titles of Dionysos, originally meant a sucking infant [n1 Bochart, Geographia Sacra, ed. 1674, pp. 480-1 (Chanaan, 1. i. c. 18); Suidas, S.v. [Iakchos] Cp. Preller, Griech. Myth. 2nd. ed. i. 614. So the Latin Liber.]; and in the myths he was either suckled by or actually the child of Demeter [n2 Diodorus Siculus, iii. 62; Plutarch, Julius Caesar, c. ix.; Strabo, b. iii. c. iii. § 16. Otherwise Dionysos is the child of Persephone—Koré, "the Maiden," who, like her mother, was "the Virgin." Diodorus, iii. 64; iv.4.], " The Earth Mother," or Ceres Mammosa [n3 Lucretius, iv. 1162.], "the many-breasted," who in turn bore in Greece the name [kourotrophos] [n4 Pausanias, i. 22; Preller, Griechische Mythologie, i. 599. Leto had the same title. Id. p. 184, note 3. But it was given to Artemis, the most virginal Goddess of all. Pausanias, iv. 34.], the boy-rearer. In ancient art she is often represented as suckling the Babe-God, especially on Athenian coins [n5 K. O. Muller, Ancient Art, Eng. trans. pp. 438-441; Winckelmann, Monuments Inedits, i. 28, 68, 71.]. Ino Leucothea, called Mater Matuta by the Romans, mother of Melicerta or Palaemon (= Melkarth and Baal-Ammon) [n6 Cp. Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, p. 326; and Brown, The Great Dionysiak Myth, i. 251 sq.; ii. 100.], the Roman Portumnus, was represented with her child in her arms [n7 K. O. Muller, Ancient Art, pp. 493, 538.], whence a presumption that among the Semites Melkarth and Baal-Ammon were represented as carried infants. Gaia, again, was sculptured holding the infant Dionysos or Erichthonios [n8 Id. p. 493.].

Nor was the appellation of "The Virgin" any more unfamiliar before than after Christianity in connection with Madonna-worship. In Etruscan and Graeco-Roman statuary, Juno (Hêrê), who was fabled to become a virgin anew each year [n9 Pausanias, ii. 38. This myth often recurs. Here bears Hephaistos without having been united in love" (Hesiod, Theogony, 927); and in the same way bears Typhon (Homerid. Hymn to Apollo). So, in Rome, Juno was identified with the Virgo Coelestis (Preller, Romische Mythologie, 1865, pp. 377, 752). The idea is ubiquitous. Cybele, the mother of all the Gods, was also styled the Virgo Coelestis (Augustine, De Civitate Dei, ii. 4), and was revered as a virgin, though the mate as well as the mother of Jupiter, and "seized with a love without passion for Attis" (Julian, In Deorum Matrem, c. 4). Equally transparent was the mysticism which made Ceres, the earth mother, a virgin too.], was represented as suckling a babe—Hercules or Dionysos 10 Preller's Griechische Mythologie, 2nd ed. i. 135; Pausanias, ix. 25; Muller, Ancient Art, pp. 430, 554.].

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On Roman coins, Venus, who also was identified with the Virgo Coelestis [n1 K. O. Muller, Ancient Art, p. 474; Preller, Griechische Mythologie, i. 268; Firmicus, De Errore Profan. Relig. iv.], was represented both as carrying a child and as having one before her, with the sceptre and ball—a form adopted by Christian art [n2 K. O. Muller, as last cited.]. There were abstract Divine Mothers, too, who could be called Virgins without any sense of anomaly, since there was no "male of the species." We know that in Rome in the time of the Republic a special worship was paid by matrons to the image of a nursing mother, Fortuna giving suck to the Child Jupiter, and holding at the same time the Child Juno [n3 "Is est hodie locus septus religiose propter Jovis pueri, qui lactens cum Junone Fortunae; in gremio sedens, mammam adpetens, castissime colitur a matribus." Cicero, De Divinatione, ii. 41.]. Similarly the Greeks had statues of the abstract Virgins Peace and Fortune, each carrying Wealth (Plutus) as a child in her arms [n4 Pausanias, i. 8; ix. 16; Muller, p. 547.]. For the rest, we know that in old Assyria or Chaldaea there was a popular worship of a child-bearing Goddess. It is agreed that the Goddess Alitta was represented by such images [n5 Layard's Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, 1853, p. 477; Rawlinson's Herodotus, i. 257. See the figure reproduced also in Lundy's Monumental Christianity, p. 212.]; and there are many specimens of similar ancient Eastern effigies of small size, which were evidently cherished by multitudes. In a case of "Miscellaneous Objects from Assyria and Babylonia," in the Assyrian basement of the British Museum, may be seen [n6 Written in 1889.] old Chaldaean figures of this kind, one of which is described merely as a "female figure holding a child," while another female figure is unhesitatingly labelled "female deity," though the deity of the former is to the full as certain as that of the latter. In another case of "Antiquities from Dali" upstairs, at the outer end of the Egyptian Hall, are a number of similar figures, in the labelling of which officialdom ventures so far as to write "Figure of Female or Aphrodite," "holding smaller figure or child." Beyond question these popular "Madonnas" of the East are much older than Christianity; and it is even possible that they represent a Chaldaean cultus earlier than the Egyptian worship of Isis.

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This being so, the course of surmising a Christian origin for Indian effigies of Devaki nursing Krishna is plainly uncientific, since it passes over an obvious, near, and usable source for a remote and improbable one. To argue that India remained ignorant of or indifferent to all Asian presentments of child-nursing Goddesses for many centuries, and at length, when she had a highly-evolved religious system, administered by an exclusive priesthood, suddenly became enamoured of the Christian presentment of Mary and Jesus—this is to set aside all reasonable probability on no better pretext than a guess. Even if there were no old Asian cultus, no multitude of portable Asian images, of a child-bearing Goddess, the idea might obviously have been derived from the Isis-figures of Egypt before Christianity came into existence. Even from the engravings appended to his paper by Professor Weber, it appears that other divine personages than Devaki and Krishna were figured as mother and child in Hindu art and mythology; and the usage might perfectly well have prevailed in India before Krishnaism became anything like universal. In this connection Professor Tiele, one of the sanest of hierologists [n1 Let me offer a plea, as well as an excuse, for this most necessary term. Which Professor Tiele himself has fathered. It is in the preface to his Outlines that he suggests the word "hierology" as a substitute for the cumbrous phrase, "Science of Religions." If this term be adopted, we might when necessary say "Comparative Hierology" instead of "Comparative Mythology," and so satisfy conservatives without having recourse to the question-begging "Comparative Theology," or to the solecism of "Comparative Religion," which is no more justifiable than "Comparative Words" for "Comparative Philology."], passes an unanswerable criticism on Professor Weber's argument in the Dutch Theologisch Tijdschrift:—

"One of the weakest points of his [Weber's] demonstration seems to me to be that in which he compares the delineations of Krishna at the breast of his mother Devaki with Christian pictures of the Madonna lactans (the Madonna giving suck), and both with that of Isis and Horos. For in the first place it is not proved that the Indian representations are imitations of Christian models: they might equally well be borrowed from the Egyptian, seeing that India was already in communication with Egypt before our era.

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The Horos sitting on the lotos was certainly borrowed by the Egyptians from Indian pictures; and in return the Isis with the child Horos at her breast may well have been transported to India. Moreover, the Indian illustrations given by Weber, and equally the Christian, are of very late date; and further, it is very doubtful whether they all represent Devaki and Krishna. [Note. Under one of the four is inscribed the name Lakshmi. Another is held to stand for Lakshmi or Maya with Kamadeva. In both the Goddesses have by them a lotos, the emblem of Lakshmi. And a third gives the whole legend, Devaki and Yacodha each lying on her bed, the first strongly guarded, while the father of Krishna, under the protection of the serpent with seven heads, carries the child through the river, to place it in safety. Hardly one of the four recalls a Madonna lactans; but, indeed, Weber acknowledges that that is of very late date.]" [n1. Art. Christus en Krishna, in the Theologisch Tijdschrift, 1877, p. 65.]

I cannot, with my limited knowledge, speak with Professor Tiele's certainty as to the Horos-on-the-lotos being borrowed from India [n2 In his History of the Egyptian Religion, Eng. tr. p. 52, Dr. Tiele puts this view tentatively, as that of Dr. Pleyte.]; but I would suggest that if that were so borrowed, the Isis nursing Horos might be so likewise. We have really no solid ground, that I know of, for assuming that the Indian cult, in some form, was not as old as the Egyptian. We have the decisive testimony of Jerome that in the fourth century the Hindus were known to teach that their Buddha was born of a Virgin [n3 Adversus Jovinianum, i. 42 (Migne, Patrologiae Cursus Completus, xxiii. 273). Professor Rhys Davids, in a letter to Mr. W. S. Lilly (printed in the latter's Claims of Christianity, 1894, p. 30), makes a remark as to the Buddha birth-story which sets up some risk of misunderstanding. "The Buddhists," he writes, "did not ascribe to Gotama any divine birth in the Christian sense. Before his descent into his mother's womb he was a deva. . . ." But Christ also was held to exist from all eternity before his incarnation. The

essential point is that the birth was held supernatural. Professor Davids, of course, rejects the notion that Buddhism borrowed from Christianity.]—a clear proof that the Virgin myth was current in India long before. Such a dogma could not have gained such vogue in the short time between Jerome and the beginning of Mary-worship. If then Buddha was so early reputed Virgin-born, Krishna, who ranked as an incarnation of Vishnu before him, may reasonably be held to have had the same distinction. In any case, it is clear that, as Professor Tiele urges, the Hindus could perfectly well have borrowed, if they did borrow, from Egypt before Christianity was heard of.

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There being thus so little reason for surmising Christian influence in the matter, and so much for discarding any such surmise, there is a fortiori a presumption against Professor Weber's final contention as to the precise time of borrowing. There is a Krishnaist custom in India of "name-giving" on the festival day of Krishna's supposed birth; and in answer to criticism the Professor writes [n1 Indian Antiquary, iv. 249; Ueber die Krishnad. pp. 299, 337.] that "it is because the custom of the Egyptian Church of celebrating the birth and the baptism of Christ on the same day prevailed only from the second half of the fourth century till the year 431, when the celebration of the birth alone took its place," that he dates the Krishnaist borrowing of the Birth Festival from Christianity" at the very time during which that custom peculiar to Egypt prevailed." Here we have perhaps the most striking example of Professor Weber's uncritical treatment of Christian origins. Why, one asks, does he not inquire as to how the Egyptian Christians came to adopt that peculiar usage of celebrating the birth and baptism of Christ on one day, for only the short period he speaks of? Was it a mere freak? And if it were, is it reasonable to suggest that this mere temporary provincial ecclesiastical freak in Christendom somehow impressed the remote Brahmans so much that they determined to adopt it, and succeeded in grafting it on the Krishna cultus ever since? Surely it is more reasonable to surmise that the Egyptian Christians were the borrowers, that they borrowed their peculiar usage from some other cult, and that it was rejected by the rest of the Church just because it was so obviously alien in its origin.

To be sure, the usage of the rest of the Church was itself an unquestionable adoption of a current Pagan one. The Western Church, long after the time when the possibility of ascertaining any facts as to the birth of the alleged Founder had ceased, adopted the ancient solar festival of the 25^th of December, then specially connected in the Empire with the widespread worship of Mithra [n2 Julian, In Regem Solem, c. 20. Cp. Preller, Romische Mythologie, p. 755.]. 2 But the Eastern Churches, influenced by the Egyptian and other pre-Christian systems,

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adopted and for some time adhered to another date, equally solar and Pagan in its character. The facts are collected by Bingham, who points out that it is "a very great mistake in learned men" to say that Christ's birthday was always celebrated on 25^th December by the churches:—

"For, not to mention what Clement Alexandrinus (Stromata, i.) says of the Basilidian heretics, that they asserted that Christ was born on the 24th or 25th of the month which the Egyptians call Pharmuthi, that is. April; he says a more remarkable thing (Id.) of some others, who were more curious about the year and the day of Christ's nativity, which they said was in the twenty-eighth year of Augustus Caesar, and the 25^th day of the month Pachon, which. . . .signifies the month of May, as Mr. Basnage (Exercit. in Baron. an. 37, p. 216) has at large demonstrated. But what is more considerable in this matter is that the greatest part of the Eastern Church for three or four of the first ages kept the feast of Christ's nativity on the same day which is now called Epiphany, or the 6^th of January, which denotes Christ's manifestation to the world in four several respects which were all commemorated upon this day"—i.e. (1) his nativity or incarnation; (2) the appearance of the star, = Epiphany or manifestation to the Gentiles; (3) the "glorious appearance" at Christ's baptism; (4) the manifestation of his divinity at Cana. . . . "And Cassian (Collat. x. c. 2) says expressly 'that in his time all the Egyptian provinces under the general name of Epiphany understood as well the nativity of Christ as his baptism.'. . . . But before the time of the Council of Ephesus, anno 431, the Egyptians had altered the day of Christ's nativity.. . . It was not long before this that the Churches of Antioch and Syria came into the Western observation" [n1 Christian Antiquities, ed. 1855, vii. 280-2.]. . . .

All which is abundantly proved from Epiphanius and Chrysostom. Now, only a supernaturalist criticism can here fail to see that the usages of the Egyptian and Syrian Churches were imitative of pre-existing Eastern astronomico-theological cults; and if we are driven to this conclusion, what right have we left to suppose that India borrowed just such a usage all of a sudden from a short-lived borrowed practice of Eastern Christendom? We have a distinct record that in connection with the ancient solar worship of Hercules among the Sicyonians, who sacrificed lambs to the God, "the first of the days of the Feast which they keep to Hercules they call Names, and the second Hercules' Day" [n2 Pausanias, ii. 10.];

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and there is surely good reason to presume that similar usages prevailed among other solar cults long before Christianity. In the old Persian system, in which the festival of the autumn equinox was originally connected with Mithra, after whom the first autumn-month (then current) is named, it was "auspicious at this season to name children and wean babes" [n1 Wait, Jewish, Oriental, and Classical Antiquities, 1823, p. 194, citing the Berhan-i Kattea.]. Here we have a close correspondence to the Hindu festival, for the month of Mihr is the seventh from the beginning of the Persian year, as the month of Krishna's birth is the seventh in the solar year, counting from the winter solstice. Is it pretended that the Persians borrowed their usage from the Christians? If not, why should the Hindu usage not be as old as the Persian and the Greek? The Christian theory is hopeless. If it is good for anything, there is no need to restrict it to the chronological scheme of Professor Weber. As a matter of fact, the usage of general baptizing on Epiphany did not disappear from the Christian Church after the Council of Ephesus. It has been preserved down to modern times in the Church of Abyssinia, which has continued to receive its primate from the Church of Alexandria, and which practises general circumcision as well as general baptism on the day in question [n2 Geddes, Church History of Ethiopia, 1696, pp. 32-33, Cp. Neale, History of the Holy Eastern Church: Patriarchate of Alexandria, 1847, ii. 347.]. Why should not then the Hindu usage have been borrowed from Abyssinia at a much later time than that at which the Alexandrian Church regarded Epiphany as the day of the Nativity? Why indeed should it not have been suggested by the much more general custom in the early Church of reserving all baptisms for Easter-day [n3 Bingham, Christian Antiquities, as cited, iv, 69-70.]? And why, finally, should it not have been suggested by the Catholic "Festival of the Name of Jesus," which stands in the Calendar for August 7^th, close on the date of the Krishna Birth-Festival? Any one of these hypotheses would be as reasonable as that on which Professor Weber has fastened—as reasonable, and as unreasonable. The whole theory is a mistake.

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§ 2. A more instructive part of Professor Weber's argument concerning the Krishna Birth-Festival, as now observed in India, consists in showing that no trace of it is to be found even in such late literature as the Purânas. An attempt to find authority for it in the Bhagavat Purâna, he declares, entirely fails, except as regards quite modern MSS.; and this he considers the more curious because this Purâna,. and in particular the tenth book, is the peculiar text-book of the Krishna sect. There is there no suggestion of a Birth-Festival. The time of the God's birth, he mentions, is told in detail in Book x. 3, 1-8, but without a date, save what is implied in the statement that it was under the star Rohini, and at midnight; and he raises the question whether the Birth-Festival existed at the time of the composition of the Purâna. He decides that it must have done, not on account of internal evidence proving the lateness of the book, but because the grammarian Vopadeva, to whom Colebrooke, Wilson, and Bournouf ascribe the composition of the Purâna as it now stands, was contemporary with Hemâdri, the author in whom we first find specific mention of the Festival. That was about the end of the fourteenth century of our era—about a thousand years after the period at which the Professor thinks the Hindus borrowed their Festival usage from Alexandria. He might thus well decide that the usage existed before Vopadeva; and he offers an explanation of the silence of the Purana on the subject ;

"In the Bhagavat Purâna is presented the modern development of the Krishna cult, which is chiefly concerned with Krishna's love affairs, and in which the Mother of the God passes progressively into the background. In the Birthday Festival, on the other hand. . . . the Mother comes very prominently into the foreground, playing a principal role, while of the love affairs of Krishna no notice is or indeed can be taken, for he is here represented as still a suckling at his mother's breast. I do not hesitate here to recognize a quite peculiarly ancient phase of the Festival, the more so because. . . . even in that there appears in time a tendency to suppress this side, and. to give the tribute of the Festival to the God alone, without his mother" [n1 Ueber die Krishnajammâshtami, pp. 240-2.].

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That is to say, the Purâna overlooks the Festival because it preserves the old practice of honouring the Mother of the God, while at the time the Purâna was written the cult ran to the glorification of the God himself, and the celebration of his exploits. To this explanation I do not think there can be any objection. It is conceived in the historical spirit; an the only perplexity is that Professor Weber, while thus recognizing that the Festival preserves an old popular rite, which changed much more slowly than the poetic recitals of the God's exploits, should yet decide that even the popular rite was originally borrowed from the new Western religion of Christism by a people who rated their own religious and historic antiquity high before Christianity was heard of.

I have implied that the Purânas represent the literary development of mythic lore; but this does not mean that even their concepts are not mainly made up of matter that in some form long antedates our era. On this subject, it may be well to point out that the absolute preservation of an ancient document in its integrity, unless it be a matter of rote-learned ritual like the Vedas, is not to be looked for in a state of civilization in which manuscripts are not abundant and the knowledge of reading general. There is overwhelming internal evidence of the manipulation of the Christian Gospels: and the reason why, after a certain time, their text became substantially fixed, was just the multiplicity of the copies, and the ecclesiastical habit, derived from old Greek political usage, of meeting in Councils. And even as it was, we know that so late as the fifth century the text of the "three witnesses" was fraudulently inserted in 1 John v., and that this one forgery was ultimately accepted by the entire Western Church from about 1550 down to last century, when earlier copies were authoritatively collated. Now, in India down till recent times, the frame of mind in regard to narratives of the lives of the Gods would be exactly that of the early Christians who manipulated the first and second Gospels, and compiled the third and fourth. There was no such thing as a canon or a received text: there was no "apostolic" tradition; there were no religious councils; no scholars whose business it was to compare manuscripts.

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Besides, no manuscript lasted long; Professor Weber has pointed out how unfavourable is the Indian climate to any such preservation [n1 Ind. Ant. iii. 246 ; Berlin lecture, p. 30 ; and History of Indian Literature, Eng. tr. pp. 181-2. Op. Macaulay, Trevelyan's Life, I-vol. ed. p. 323. A friend in Burma, to whom I had sent a book, writes me that it has to be locked up in an air-tight box during the wet season, otherwise it would be destroyed.]. In fine, the re-composition of sacred narratives would be a perfectly natural course. But it would be fallacious in the extreme to argue that a late redaction meant late invention; on the contrary, there is good reason to believe that late redactions would often take in floating popular myths of great antiquity, which had merely missed being committed to writing before. For this view, modern research in Folk Lore should have prepared all investigators. Our every-day nursery fables are found to be in substance as old as the art of story-telling older than literature, as old as religion.

Now, it is a general rule in ancient mythology that the birthdays of Gods were astrological [n2 This holds good even if we recognize in myths of menaced divine children an idea, of the dangers run by the planted seed before it ripens. Some such idea is suggested in the myth that Ino, the second wife of Athamas, sought to destroy the children of the first wife Nephele (the Cloud), by telling the women of the land to dry the wheat before sowing it. On the failure of the harvest she planned that the messengers sent to consult the oracle should bring the answer that Phrixus, the son of Nephele, should be sacrificed (Apollodorus, 1. ix. 1). But the story of the dried seed-wheat looks like a late fancy framed in elaboration of Ino's plot.]; and the simple fact that the Purâna gives an astronomical moment for Krishna's birth is a sufficient proof that at the time of writing they had a fixed date for it. The star Rohini under which he was born, it will be remembered, has the name given in one variation of the Krishna legend to a wife of Vasudeva who bore to him Rama, as Devaki (sometimes held to be the mother of Rama also) bore Krishna. Here we are in the thick of ancient astrological myth. Rohini (our Aldebaran) is "the red," "a mythical name also applied now to Aurora, now to a star" [n3 Barth, Religions of India, p. 173.].

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We have seen in the case of Christianity how a universal astrological festival, of immemorial antiquity, came to be specialized for Christians; and it is clearly not only possible but likely that every astrological festival of Krishnaism was in vogue in other Indian worships before Krishnaism prevailed. In these matters there is really no invention: there is only readjustment. But that a Hindu festival connected with the starname Rohini and the birth of Krishna should be borrowed from Christianity, where the birth connects with the rise of the constellation Virgo, there is no shadow of reason for supposing. The very fact that no account is given in the older Purânas of the rise of the festival tells in favour of its antiquity. Suppose the festival to be the oldest datum in the case, the omission to date its beginning in the record is just what would happen—just what happened in Christianity. It would have been a simple matter for the early Christians to insert 25^th December in their records as the date of their God's birth; but they did not do so, just because that was so notoriously a festival of extreme antiquity [n1 It is worth while in this connection to recall the statement of Ovid in his Fasti (i. 657) that he went three or four times through the official list of festivals, in vain, looking for the date of the old Sementivae or Festival of Sowing, which was not written down. See Ovid's explanation and that of Macrobius (Saturnalia, i. 16), cited by Keightley in his ed. of the Fasti. There were fixed and unfixed festivals, Stativae and Conceptivae, of which the latter were "annually given out, for certa.in or even uncertain days, by the magistrates or priests." Cp. Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 303, note.]. And the birthday of Krishna may have been that of another God before him.

But the most singular matter in regard to Professor Weber's argument is the fact that the date of the Krishna Birth-Festival is neither in December nor in January, but in the month of July [n2 According to Professor de Gubernatis (Zool. Myth. i. 51) it is customary "towards the end of December" to give presents of cows "in celebration of the new solar year, or the birth of the pastoral God Krishna"; but this appears to be an error, probably resulting from Professor Weber's omission to lay stress on the date in his standard treatise. But doubtless Gubernatis could explain the midsummer birth of the black Sun-God in terms of solar mythology. It is the white Sun-God who is born at Christmas. But on this head it should be noted that the death of the Sun-God Tammuz (Adonis) was celebrated in different climates at different times. See Max Muller, Natural Religion, 1889, pp. 529-530; and Frazer, as last cited. And see hereinafter, Sec. xv.].

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That is to say, it corresponds not with Christmas but with the Egyptian festival of "the Birthday of the Eyes of Horus, when the Sun and the Moon are come into one straight line" [n1 Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, c. 52.]—a festival held on the 30th day of the Egyptian month Epap or Epiphi or Emphi=24^th July, which was the last day of the Egyptian year. Yet it never occurs to Weber to connect the Krishnaite Birth-Festival with this purely Pagan and pre-Christian festival. Indeed one may go through Weber's treatise without discovering what the date in question is. As he says in answer to a criticism, "The date itself (December or July, midwinter or midsummer) plays no part at all in my discussion, and is only spoken of incidentally" in a parenthesis [n2 Indian Antiquary, iv. 249.]. So the proposition is that the Hindus celebrated the birthday of Krishna in July by way of imitating the Christian fashion of celebrating Christ's nativity in January. One is at a loss to understand how Professor Weber can thus make so light of such an important item. If the Krishna Birth-Festival were borrowed, why should the borrowers select a midsummer instead of a midwinter date for their importation? Why, indeed, should they not place their God's birthday, if it only occurred to them late in the day to give him a birthday, on one of the other Krishnaist festivals? I have not noticed that Professor Weber theorises on the origin of these; but their probably astronomical origin is surely important to the argument. As the historian Elphinstone has pointed out, "Even Mr. Bentley, the most strenuous opponent of the claims of the Hindus" to an extremely ancient knowledge of astronomy, "pronounces in his latest work that their division of the ecliptic into twenty-seven lunar mansions (which supposes much previous observation) was made 1442 years before our era" [n3 History of India, ed. 1866, p. 140.]—that is, centuries before the first traces systematic astronomy in Greece. Supposing the division in question to have been derived by the Hindus from the Akkadians, the argument remains the same. Astronomic festivals, in any case, the Hindus must have had from a very remote antiquity [n4 On Vedic festivals see Professor Max Muller's Natural Religion, pp. 524-5.];

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and every argument from analogy in history goes to support the view that their now popular seasonal festivals are prehistoric, and that some of them may even be derived from Dravidian or pre-Aryan practice. And when we compare a few of their usages with those of Christianity, it becomes plain that we must either suppose them to have borrowed a great deal more than Professor Weber says, or give up his theory altogether and look for, if anything, a reverse historic process. The points of resemblance are numerous and suggestive.

"The new year of the luni-solar computation now in use [in India] begins with the first of Chaitra, which falls somewhere in the course of March, and in solar reckoning is said to agree with the entrance of the sun into the sign Mesha, or Aries" [n1 H. H. Wilson, Religious Festivals of the Hindus, Works, ii. 159.]

that is, the sign of the Ram or Lamb, which in the Mithraic system was the "new day," the creation day, and the greatest festival [n2 Wait, as cited, p. 189.], and in Christianity is associated with the sacrifice of the God, symbolized as a Lamb, on a luni-solar and therefore variable date connected with the vernal equinox.

"There was, however, a period at which a different principle was followed [n3 Note by Wilson. According to Bentley, this was 1181 B.C. Historical View of Hindu Astronomy, p. 30.]. . . . the new year then commenced on the first of the solar month Mâgha, the date of the Makara-Sankrânti, or the sun's entrance into the sign Capricornus, identical with the Uttarâyana, or return of that luminary to the regions of the north, or, in fact, to the winter solstice." [n4 Wilson, as cited.]

The Indian and European dates do not actually correspond: with us 21^st December is the time of the sun's entering Capricorn, the sign of the Goat, while the Hindus put it on the first of their solar month Mâgha = 12^th January. But the astronomical motive is explicit; and when we note that this old festival, still in force, lasts three days, and that the day after the sun's entering Capricorn is termed Mattu Pongal, or the feast of cattle, we see a new confirmation of the argument of Dupuis [n5 Origine de tous les Cultes, ed. 1835-6, vii. 104.] that the myth of a Christian God being born in a stable (which corresponds so strikingly with many other myths of Gods as Krishna, Hermes, Hercules—born or brought up among cattle) is really at bottom or by adaptation astronomical or zodiacal, and is properly to be traced to the relative position of the figures in the fuller zodiac or celestial sphere.

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Of course the solar element is manifest in the Hindu usage. "The day of the Makara Sankránti, or Perum Pongal, is dedicated to the sun, and the day of the Máttu Pongal to Indra; they are both comprised in the term Pongal, which is an anniversary festival of a week's duration" [n1 Wilson, as cited, p. 172.]. Now, several of the usages in this and other Hindu festivals are traceable in Europe in non-Christian as well as in Christian times. "The Greeks had a festival in the month Poseidon, or January, in which they worshipped Neptune, or the Sea, in like manner as the Hindus [at the same time] worship the ocean" [n2 Id. p. 175.]. But there is no more remarkable correspondence than that between the Hindu practice of honouring the cattle at this time and the strange Catholic function of blessing the cattle—cows, horses, goats, asses, etc.—at Rome on St. Anthony's day (January 17th). Let Professor Wilson testify:

"The time of the year, the decorating of the cattle, the sprinkling of them with water, and the very purport of the blessing, that they may be exempt from evils, are so decidedly Indian, that could a Dravira Brahman be set down of a sudden in the Piazza, and were he asked what ceremony he witnessed, there can be no doubt of his answer; he would at once declare they were celebrating the Pongal." [n3 Wilson, as cited, pp. 178-9.]

Now, no student can well believe that the Roman Catholic usage really originated, as the fable tells, in the fact that St. Anthony tended swine. These are the theories of the Dark Ages. To-day even semi-orthodox scholarship decides that “So far as myths consist of explanations of ritual their value is altogether secondary;

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and it may be affirmed with confidence that in almost every case the myth was derived from the ritual, and not the ritual from the myth; for the ritual was fixed and the myth was variable; the ritual wag obligatory, and faith in the myth was at the discretion of the worshipper" [n1 Professor Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites, 1889, p. 19. This maxim of interpretation dates back to Creuzer (Symbolik, 1810-12), and to K. O. Muller: Orchomenos, 1820, p. 161; Introduction to a Scientific System of Mythology (1825), Eng. tr. 1844, pp. 171, 175, 195, 206; History of Greek Literature (Eng. tr. pp. 287-8). See it also laid down by Kenrick, Ancient Egypt, 1850, i. 411, 413; A. Bertrand, Etudes de Mythologie et Archaeologie grecques, Rennes, 1858, p. 35; and Grote, end of ch. i. Cp. Miss Harrison, Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens, 1890, pp. xxvi. xxxiii.; and Mr. Frazer, The Golden Bough, passim. "No people ever observed a custom because a mythical being was said to have once acted in a certain way. [An unwarranted negative, by the way.] But, on the contrary, all peoples have invented myths to explain why they observed certain customs." "A myth is never so gTaphic and precise in its details as when it is a simple transcript of a ceremony which the author of a myth witnessed with his eyes" (Work last cited, ii. 128, 246).].

This holds true for every religion; and if we apply the principle in the case of Christianity we shall make an end of more pretences than that as to the borrowing of Christian practices by Krishnaism. It is not argued, of course, that Roman Christianity borrowed its ritual usages direct from India; on the contrary, the presumption is that these usages were even more widespread than the "Aryan race" in pre-historic times. The Roman Catholic celebration of St. Anthony's day probably derives from the ancient Paganalia or Feriae Sementivae, agricultural festivities in which the cattlee were garlanded this very season of the year [n2 Ovid, Fasti, i. 663. Cp. Middleton, Letter from Rome, ed. 1741, pp. xv. xix. and 141-143.]; and it is possible that even the modern name came from that of one of the Antonines. But if Christianity is thus seen deriving its festival days from immemorial custom, what reason is there to surmise that conservative and custom-loving India came to Alexandria for the hint to celebrate the astrological birthday of Krishna? Krishnaism has a number of festivals of which no proper account seems yet to be accessible in England, that given in Balfour's Indian Cyclopaedia being so inexact that one is at a loss to know whether in some cases different festival names do not apply to one and the same feast. But it is clear that there is one great Dolu or Dola Yâtrâ festival, the "swinging festival," which begins about the middle of March (Phalguna) and lasts as a rule fifteen days.

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In the large British towns it is or was restricted to three days on account of the liberties taken; but among the Rajputs it is or was the practice to celebrate it for forty days [n1 Rev. W. O. Simpson's ed. of Moor's Hindu Pantheon, 1864, pp. 139-144,], with more or less licence. Now this practice has certainly an astronomical or seasonal origin; and is as certainly akin to, or as old as, the ancient celebration of the Dionysia or Liberalia in honour of the Sun- and Wine-God among the Greeks and Romans. There was a "swinging festival" in ancient Greece [n2 Athenaeus, xiv. 10.]; and this too has survived to modern times [n3 Miss Harrison, Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens, pp. xxxix.-x:liii.]. The 17^th of March was the date of the Liberalia in Rome; and licence was the note of the festival. It would be just as reasonable to derive the Indian "swinging festival" of the vernal equinox from the Christian celebration of the rising of Christ from the dead, as to argue that the Krishna Birth-Festival is similarly derived [n4 So called because of the ritual practice of swinging an image in a chair. But this practice, according to Balfour's Ind. Cyc. (art. Krishna), would appear to obtain also at another Krishnaite festival of three or five days' duration in the month Shravana = July-August; which I take to be either the Birth Festival proper or the special form of it called Jayanti, which depends on a particular conjunction of the star Rohini (Weber, p. 221; cp. pp.262-3). On this I can find no exact information. In the month Kartika=October-November, there is yet another festival, celebrating the Gopi revels. In a note to Wilson's Select Specimens of the Theatre of the Hindus (1835, ii. 264), citing the Bhavishyottara Purâna, it is explained that many of the Hindu festivals have been displaced. Thus a festival once named the Holikâ is now termed the Dola Yâtrâ (or "swinging of the Gods"); and "the Dola Yâtrâ and Rath Yâtrâ have also been displaced, and in Bengal, at least, transferred to festivals appropriated to Krishna alone, in the months of Jyeshth and Asharh, June-July."].

XI. THE SOLAR-CHILD MYTH.

The further we collate the main Christian myth-motives with those of Krishnaism, the more clearly does it appear that, instead of the latter being borrowed from the former, they are not indeed the originals from which Christianity borrowed, but always presumptively the more ancient; and in one or two cases they do appear to be the actual sources, of Gospel stories.

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We have seen how Professor Weber concedes that the story of King Kansa's killing of Devaki's earlier children in the attempt to kill Krishna is not only: pre-Christian but of old mythic standing, and that it was the subject of dramatic representations before our era. Now, the myth-motive in question is at bottom one that is extremely familiar in ancient legend; and nothing is more unsatisfactory in the modern discussion of Krishnaite origins than the way in which this fact has been overlooked. About a hundred years ago Maurice [n1 History of Hindostan, ii. 478.] called attention to the parallel between the story of Krishna's infancy and that of the infancy of Cyrus the Great, as told by Herodotus [n2 B. i. 107-130.], four hundred years before our era. The story about Cyrus is briefly as follows. Astyages, king of the Medes, having had a remarkable (and Rabelaisian) dream about his daughter, which portended great things of her progeny, gave her in marriage to a Persian of private station, named Cambyses. A year after her marriage, when she was pregnant, he had a still more alarming if less unmentionable dream, whereupon he sent to Persia for her and put her under a guard, resolving to destroy whatever should be born of her; the Magi having signified that his dream meant that her offspring would reign in his stead. The officer (Harpagus) whom he entrusted with the task, however, shrank from the act, sent for one of the king's cowherds, Mitradates, and ordered him to expose the child on a mountain abounding in wild beasts. All the same, the child was clothed in "gold and a robe of various colours." When the herdsman got home, his wife had just been delivered of a stillborn child; and they agreed to give up its body to Harpagus as that of the young prince, dead from exposure, while they actually reared the prince as their own child, giving him another name than Cyrus. When the child grows to boyhood, he of course reveals royal qualities; and while "playing in the village in which the ox stalls were" he is chosen by the other boys as their king, and causes a disobedient playfellow to be scourged. This Astyages discovers, and the story comes out.

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Astyages punishes Harpagus by causing him unknowingly to eat the flesh of his own child; but is told by the Magi that as his dream has been already fulfilled in the coronation of Cyrus by the village children, he may safely let him go. Later, of course, Harpagus secretly helps Cyrus to make an insurrection; Astyages impales the Magi, but gives the command of his troops to Harpagus, who betrays him; and Cyrus reigns, but without killing his grandfather. Of Cyrus' death, Herodotus tells, there were many accounts; and in one of these [n1 Diodoms Siculus, ii. 44.] he is declared to have been crucified by an Amazon queen of Scythians.

Here, then, we have an old myth [n2 A similar story appears to have been told of the hero Gilgames in the old Assyrian mythology, See Aelian, De nat. anim. xii. 21; and cp, Hartland, The Legend of Perseus, i. 6-7.], in which already, however, certain primeval mythical details are seen modified to suit history. The name Cyrus, in its Persian form, was or stood for that of the sun [n3 Plutarch, Artaxerxes, beginning.], and the historic Cyrus simply had fathered on him the popular sun-legend, with modifications. Thus the herdsman's wife's name means "the bitch"; and it is explained that this is how the story arose of Cyrus being suckled by a bitch—a myth which at once recalls the story of Romulus and Remus, suckled by a shewolf; and of Jupiter, suckled by the she-goat Amalthea [n4 Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus, 49.]. Again, the secret message from Harpagus in Media to Cyrus in Persia is sent enclosed in the body of a hare—an animal which in early mythology repeatedly plays the part of a message-bringer [n5 Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, ii. 77, 79.]. And the robe "of many colours" is, like Joseph's coat, plainly the many-tinted cloud-drapery of the Sun.

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Apart from these details, the story of the exposure of the infant hero is plainly cognate with the legends of the exposure of Romulus and Remus, of AEsculapius, of Attis, of Semiramis, of Cybele, of Telephos, of Ion, of lamos, of a dozen other myth-heroes, including Moses, the circumstances of whose exposure are so strikingly recalled by the Jesuist story of the massacre of the innocents; and parts of the tale are found closely paralleled in the northern legend of British Arthur, as well as in that of Oedipus [n1 Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, ed. 1882, pp. 134, 312.]. The child Arthur, like Cyrus, is robed in gold, and like him is secretly sent to be suckled by one not his mother [n2 Malory's Mort d'Arthure, chap. iii.]. In the older mythology Aesculapius, exposed as a child [n3 Pausanius, viii. 25.], is found by Autolaus and nursed by Trygon (="the turtle dove"); or, in another myth, suckled by a she-goat and protected by a watch-dog [n4 Id. ii. 26, Pindar, Pythia, iii. 64.]; or, in yet another, reared by the Magnesian centaur. Attis whom his mother, the river-nymph Nana, bears after impregnation by a miraculous pomegranate, for which her father seeks to starve her to death, is exposed by the father's orders, and is found and nourished by a goatherd [n5 Arnobius, v. 6, citing Timotheus.], or a goat [n6 Pausanias, vii. 17.]. Semiramis ("Istar in another guise" [n7 Sayce, Hibbert Lectures on the Babylonian Religion, p. 271.]) was fabled to have been exposed for a whole year in the desert and nourished by doves, as Elijah is nourished for many days by ravens in the Hebrew myth [n8 1 Kings xvii. 6.]. Cybele, daughter of Maion and Dindyma, is exposed as an infant by her father on the mountain Cybelus, and is suckled by panthers and other wild beasts [n9 Diodorus Siculus, iii. 58.]. Antiope, bearing the twins Zethos and Amphion to Zeus and Epopeos, leaves them in a grotto in swaddling clothes, and they are found by a shepherd [n10 Pausanias, i. 38; ii. 6.]. Têlephos, son of Hercules, is born secretly, and his mother Auge hides him in the temple of Athênê, of which she is priestess. Aleus, her father, finding the child, causes him to be exposed on the Parthenian (Virgin) Mount, where he is nourished by a doe, or a goat, or by shepherds; and at the same time Aleus gives Auge to Nauplius to be sold or drowned [n11 Pausanias, viii. 48, 54; Apollodorus, ii. 7, 4; iii. 9, 1; Aelian, Var. Hist. xii. 42.]. In a composite version, Auge and the child, like Danae and Perseus, Semele and Dionysos, are put to sea in a chest [n12 Pausanias, viii. 4.].

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Ion is placed by his mother in the rock-cave, a possible prey to beasts and birds [n1 Euripides, Ion. 17, 18, 27.]. So Phialo, after bearing Aichmagoras to Hercules, is exposed on the mountain Ostracina, with her child, by her father, Alkimedeon, who dwelt there in a cave; and the call of a jay draws to them the attention of Hercules, who saves them [n2 Pausanias, viii. 12.]. So the prophet-child Iamos, son of Apollo, is left by his mother Evadne, hidden in the rushes, where two azure-eyed dragons feed him with honey [n3 Pindar, Olymp. vi. 60, ff.]. And so Priam's son Alexander was nourished by a she-bear, and Aegisthus, son of Thyestes and Palopea, by a goat [n4 Aelian, as cited.]. Very rarely is the divine child slain, as happens to the babe borne to Apollo by Psamathe, daughter of Crotopus. Exposed by her for fear (as usual) of her father, it is found by sheep-dogs and killed [n5 Pausanias, i. 43.].

The wish of the bad king to slay the hero-child, again, is the specific subject of many more myths [n6 See Mr. Lang's admission in regard to the Moses myth, cited above, p. 87. At times, as in the case of Saturn, the father himself is the would-be slayer. Even Herakles, in frenzy, slays the children borne to him by Megara. Apollodorus, ii. 4, 12.]. In an Arab legend of Abraham, his mother hides him at birth because the astrologers and wise men have declared that according to their books a child is to be born who will destroy the worship of idols and overthrow King Nemrod; and the king accordingly gives orders to destroy all the male children who may be born. Hiding him in a cave, she puts a stone at the mouth and there suckles him, without the knowledge even of her husband Azer [n7 Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, vol. xxii. No.1, p. 57 (1890. Juil.-Août). As showing the medley of ideas in mythology, it may be noted that in this story the world is ruled at the time by four sovereigns: two unbelievers, Nemrod and Bacht en Naser (Nebuchadnezzar); and two believers, Zoul Qarnein and the prophet Solomon. Nemrod rules "the seven zones," and dwells at Babylon.]. The same story is told by the Arabs concerning Daniel [n8 Bochart, pt. i. Hierosolyma, 1. ii. c. 3.] as by the Jews concerning Moses; and it was told at once of John and of Jesus by the early Christists [n9 See the Protevangelion, cc. 22, 23.], who were in all likelihood merely freshening up two immemorial forms of popular religion in Syria.

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As the Moses myth is duplicated in the myths of Cyrus [n1 There is a further echo of it in the story of the infant Cypselus, concerning whom the oracle warned the oligarchs of Corinth that he would be dangerous to them, and who, they having failed to kill him, finally becomes tyrannos of Corinth (Herodotus, v. 93). As the story further makes the mother hide Cypselus in a chest [Kypsele], it is pretty clear that his name had pointed the myth-makers to a current myth in which a child so figures.] and Horus, and unquestionably preceded by the myth of Sargon, it would seem sufficiently idle to suppose later variants to be derived from the New Testament. But with all this parallelism to account for, Professor Weber and the Christian partizans have assumed out-of-hand that the story of Krishna's nativity was just taken from the Gospels, leaving the Gospel story to stand by its own sacrosanctity.

In point of fact there is hardly a leading detail in the Krishna birth legend which is not variously paralleled in other early non-Christian mythology. In the Greek pantheon, God after God, hero after hero, is found to have been reared under difficulties. "Neither in pictures nor in story," says the chorus in the Ion of Euripides [n2 V v 506-8.], "have I heard that the children sprung from the Gods among mortals have a happy life." Ino, mother of Melicerta (Melkarth), leaps into the sea with her child, to save him from his furious father Athamas, who has killed her previous child Learchus; and the two are saved by Nereids, and changed by Poseidon into sea-deities [n3 Pausanias, i. 44; Ovid, Fasti, vi. 489-550; Metam. iv. 511-541. Apollodorius, 1. ix. 2.]. Leto, pregnant with Apollo is driven from place to place by the Jealous hate of Hêrê [n4 Callimachus, Hymn to Delos, 55 ff. Homerid. Hymn to Delian Apollo.]. The Infant Dionysos, son of Ammon and Amalthea, is sent by his father to a secluded island, and guarded by the virgin Goddess Athênê from the jealous wrath of Rhea, the wife of Ammon [n5 Diodorus Siculus, iii. 68, 70.].

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In another version, Semelê, who bears Dionysos to Zeus, is spirited away with her child in a chest by Cadmus: the chest is thrown in the sea and cast ashore; Semelê, found dead, is buried; and the wandering Io (who in the common myth is a cow) rears the child in a cave [n1 Pausanias, iii. 24.]. In another legend, he is excited by Hêrê to go against the Tyrrhenian pirates, who capture him [n2 Euripides, Cyclops, 11.]. Similarly, Zeus himself in his infancy is stolen away of the Curetes from fear of his father Kronos (Saturn) and nursed by the nymphs Ithome and Neda [n3 Pausanias, iv. 33.]; while in the more familiar story Kronos devours his children successively, fearing they will dispossess him, till Rhea his wife gives him a stone wrapped in cloth, which he swallows in place of the new-born Jupiter, whom she brings forth in a distant place and rears in a cave, and who in turn overthrows his father, as Cyrus overthrows Astyages [n4 Hesiod, Theogony, 477-491; Pausanias, viii. 8.]. Yet again, when Arcadian Rhea bears Poseidon, he is "deposited with the flocks and fed with the lambs"; and in this case she gives Kronos a foal to eat [n5 Last cit.]. Hêrê in one story exposes the child Hephaistos [n6 Pausanias, i. 20.]. In yet another story, Aesculapius narrowly escapes being burned alive with his mother Coronis [n7 Pausanias, ii. 26. Pindar, Pythia, iii. 54-63. Callisto, bearing Arcas to Jupiter, is turned into a she-bear by Artemis; and Hermes has to be sent to save the child. Pausanias, viii. 3-4.]. Needless to speak of the serpents sent by Hêrê against Apollo and Artemis [n8 Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 17; Hyginus, fab. 140.] and the infant Hercules [n9 Pindar, Nem. i. By M. Clermont-Ganneau this myth is accounted for as a Greek attempt to explain an Egyptian vase-picture of Horus holding the two serpents.], 9 and the battling of the young Horus against Typhon: the myth is universal. the idea passed, as we have seen, from mythology to regal biography. Ages before Cyrus, it was applied to Sargon, in whose epitaph we have: "My mother the princess conceived: in a secret place she brought me forth. She placed me in a basket of reeds. . . . .She gave me to the river which drowned me not. . . . ." [n10 Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, p. 26.]; and again we have it in the myths of Horos and Moses. And yet we are asked to. believe that an Indian variant of this myth, closely resembling one current in Persia ages before Christ, is wholly or partly borrowed from the Christian Gospels, canonical and apocryphal.

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Carrying the comparison further, we note a variety of parallels in regard to which there can be no pretence that Christianity is borrowed from. For instance, Krishna [n1 Vishnu Purâna, Wilson's trans. p. 502.], Apollo [n2 Hom. Hymn to Delian Apollo, 103-32. Callimachus, Hymn to Delos, 86-7, makes Apollo speak in the womb.], Hermes [n3 Hom. Hymn to Hermes, 17, 18, 29.], and Jesus [n4 Korân, Sura xix. (lviii.)—"Mary": Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, c. i. In Pseudo-Matthew, c. 13, Jesus at birth stands on his feet.], all alike speak immediately after birth. Again, the story of the God being born in a cave [n5 Protevangelion, 18, 21 (xii. 14; xv. 9). Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, 2,3,4,5 (i. 6, 8, 9, etc.). Pseudo-Matthew, cc. 13, 14.] is anticipated in the case of Hermes and Dionysos, and in the cave-worships of Adonis and Mithra [n6 See the essay on Mithraism, hereinafter.]. So thoroughly did this particular notion possess the human intelligence in antiquity that it was grafted on the biography of the philosopher Confucius, of whom it is told that his mother, in obedience to a vision, went to a cave on Mount Ne, where she gave him birth; that genii had announced to her the honour her son would bring her; that the events were heralded by miraculous portents, and that fairies attended at his nativity [n7 Douglas's Confucianism, p. 25. Compare the following native account, given by a Chinese scholar to the "Parliament of Religions":—" I once looked up the derivation of the word 'sing' (surname), which is given by Hsu She, the philologist, to be 'the product of man.' He adds that in ancient times the holy mother conceived a child by heaven, who was called the Son of Heaven; on this account the character 'sing' is made up of two parts—'me' (woman) forming the one part, and 'shang' (born) the other. In the historical sketches of ancient times are recorded many instances of wonderful birth. It was not confined to men of wisdom and virtue. There is an ancient saying that remarkable men have remarkable circumstances attending their births. Tradition has handed down many marvellous circumstances connected with the birth of Confucius. It is said that two dragons wound their bodies round the house where he was born; that five men, venerable with age, representing the five planets, descended unto the open court; that the 'air was filled with music; that a voice came out of the heavens, saying: 'This is a heaven-born, divine child, hence the sound of melodious music descends'; that a unicorn threw out of its mouth a book of jade, upon which was engraved this inscription: 'Son of the essence of water, who shall succeed to the kingdom of the degenerate house of Chan.' It is also said that the Duke of Chan, who lived five hundred years before Confucius, on coming to the place where Confucius was to be born, said: ‘Five hundred years hence, on this sacred spot, shall a divine character be born.' As Confucius appeared at the time predicted, the Duke of Chan is therefore considered to have had a previous knowledge of the coming of Confucius. The fact that Confucius, during his lifetime, often dreamed of the Duke of Chan is also attributed to this circumstance. Tales of this character were scattered broadcast during the Han Dynasty by men who delighted in the mysteries of geomancy, priestcraft, and soothsaying. Though Confucianists do not reject such stories altogether, they do not set much value on them. Marvellous tales have always exerted a sort of fascinating influence over the minds of the Chinese people both in ancient and in modern times." The Hon. Pung Kwang Yu, in paper written for the Parliament of Religions. See Report, 1893, vol. i. p. 426. It should be noted that the "two dragons" occur also in the myths of Ion and Iamos.]

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In the Greek myth of Ion, again, the mother Creusa, after bearing the child to Apollo, carries him, swaddled and cradled, "to the same cave where she had been united to the God" [n1 Euripides, Ion, 16-18. Later (949) she says she bore him in the cave.]

Yet further, the account of Jesus as being chosen king by his playfellows [n2 Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, cc. 41, 42 (xviii. 1, 7).], is clearly based on or akin to the Cyrus legend, above recapitulated; and the various accounts of his games with his comrades, which seem to be regarded as having suggested the Gopi revels of Krishna, are similarly indicated in Herodotus; the killing of boys by Jesus [n3 Id. 46, 47 (xix. 21, 24); Gospel of Thomas (1st Greek form), 3, 4 (ii. 4, 9).] being mildly paralleled in the chastising of a boy by Cyrus, as again more completely in the killing of an Egyptian by Moses [n4 Exodus ii. 12.]. What is the precise historic relation between the Krishna and the Cyrus [n5 This name, so much altered by our pronouncing the "C" as "S," is in the Greek [Kyros] and the Persian (Cosroe or Koresh, identified or interchanged, as above noted, with Khor, the Sun) sufficiently like Krishna to be at least as capable of connection with that as the name Christ. It may be worth noting that whereas Krishna is a serpent-slayer, in the Persian system the serpent is to be killed "at the end of days" by Keresaspa. M. Muller, Chips from a German Workshop, ed. 1880, ii. 172-3.] legends is still uncertain, though the connection is undoubtedly close [n6 "As Laios [father of Oedipus] in the Theban myth is the enemy, Dasyu, of the devas or bright Gods, so is Astyages only a Graecised form of Ashadag, the Azidahaka, or biting snake of Hindu legend and the Zohak of the epic of Firdusi." Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, p. 324; cp. M. Muller, Chips, ed. 1880, ii. 172-4. The view that Astyages = Azidahaka" which appears to have been first advanced by Lenormant, is scouted by Tiele, Outlines, p. 179. "Azhi dahâaka is a purely Aryan demon, and Astyages has nothing to do with him." This view, however, will have to be tested by the reconstructed theory of Aryan derivation; and in any case it is not clear why Astyages should not rank as "purely Aryan." Cp. Taylor, Origin of the Aryans, pp. 190, 319-321; Sayce, Ancient Empires of the East, p. 242; and Spiegel, Eranischie Alterthumskunde, i. 531.]; but on any view the Christian claim is out of the question.

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The obviously mythical Christian story of the massacre of the innocents by Herod [n1 It is erroneously stated by the Rev. Mr. Maurice, Hist. of Hindostan, ii. 298-9, that the argument of Origen with Celsus shows that the Jews of that day did not dispute the story of the massacre. The fact is that Origen explicitly says (i. 61) that "the Jew of Celsus" denies the story. It may be interesting to note the probable mythological explanation of this story in all its forms, which is, according to the solar school, that the massacred innocents are the stars which disappear as the sun is about to enter, the destroyer being the Power of Darkness. The same idea is turned to very different account in the slaying of Argus by the Day-God Hermes; and yet again in the slaying of Ursula and the eleven thousand virgins. On the other hand, when Krishna steals the milk of the cow-maids, it is the sun who takes away the light of the stars (Cox, p. 369). See below, Section xv. § 2, as to the killing of the six children before the Divine One.] was doubtless concocted by blending the legend of the child massacre by Pharaoh [n2 Exod. i. 15-22.] with the legend of the quasi-Messianic, doom-escaping, and finally crucified Cyrus, who stood high in Jewish esteem as a liberator of the captive race and a believer in their God [n3 Ezra i.; iii. 7; iv. 3; v. 13; vi.3; Isaiah xliv. 28; xlv. 1; Daniel vi. 28; etc.]; and adding the prophecy of Zoroaster [n4 Arab. Gospel, c. 7 (iii. 1).].

The item of the God being hastily transported or born on a journey, again, is plainly a phase of the universal and presumably astronomic myth [n5 It could be wished that Mr. Frazer, in his careful and ingenious analysis of the myths of Vegetation Gods, had paid more heed to the differentiating clue of the manner of birth of the different species of deity. Dionysos, for instance, is born under difficulties equally with the more strictly solar Apollo and Herakles. It is conceivable that such stories may at times have been understood of the sprouting of a seed in despite of the enmities of cold and of animals. In some cases, too, a wandering mother who bears a child to the God, or is taken by the God over seas, means just the founding of a colony under the God's auspices. But only an astronomic idea can well explain the idea in the case of indisputable Sun-Gods; and in nearly all cases we are led to surmise a customary child-carrying rite, which the myth is framed to explain.]; and though the myth-necessity of taking Jesus to Bethlehem might account for that detail, the flight into Egypt is mythically gratuitous from the purely Messianic point of view; the motive "out of Egypt have I called my Son" being plainly an afterthought. The journey is really made because of invariable mythic precedent. In the old stories, Mandane comes from Persia to be delivered In Media; Rhea goes to bear Zeus in Crete; Latona wanders far to bear Apollo, and Themis [n6 Homerid. Hymn to Apollo, 124; Callimachus, as cited.] nurses him;

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Cyrene is carried by Apollo athwart the sea, to Libya, garden of Jove, to bear to him the immortal child Aristaeus [n1 Pindar, Pythia, ix. 90 (55); Diodorus Siculus, iv. 81.]; Auge (the Shining) in one version flies, in others is sent, from her father's land, after her amour with Herakles, to bear Telephos (the Far Light) [n2 Pausanias, viii. 4 and 48.]; Evadne (herself sent afar for nurture by her mother Pitane, who bore her to Poseidon) goes away secretly to bring forth under dark bushes the inspired son, Iamos, whom she bears to Apollo [n3 Pindar, Olymp. vi. 49 ff.]; Danae, like Auge, is sent far by her father to bear Perseus, begotten of Zeus; and Zeus conveys the daughter of Opus to Locrus, there to bear Iapetos [n4 Id. Ol. ix. 84, ff.]; Myrrha has to fly far and be transformed into the myrrh-tree before her child Adonis, the Lord, can be born [n5 Ovid, Metam. xi.]; Rhoeo, with child by Apollo, is locked in a chest, thrown into the sea, and cast on Delos, where she bears the child Anios, who is then taken and hidden by his father [n6 Diodorus Siculus, v. 62.]; and Here goes "far away" from Zeus and men to conceive and bear Typhon—or Mars—or Dionysos [n7 Hom. Hymn to Apollo, 326-331; Ovid, Fasti, v. 231-258; Diodorus Siculus, iii. 66.]. Under all disguises it seems to be the Sun-Child, or Day-God, who is so born; and the purple zone and violet hair of Evadne, the Dawn or Sunset Goddess, are as significant as the violet colour of her babe. But the motive does duty for all manner of cases. Hagar goes into the wilderness to bear Ishmael; the daughter of Phlegyas follows her roving father far to bear Aesculapius [n8 Pausanias, ii. 26.]; the mother of the deified Apollonius of Tyana is told in a dream to go into a meadow, and there she is delivered of her child [n9 Philostratus' Life of Apollonius, i. 5. Compare the odd legend of the Epidaurians near the temple of Aesculapius, whose women till the time of Antonine must be delivered in the open air (Pausanias, ii. 27).]; and in the Buddha legend, Maya (who becomes pregnant at the age of forty-five, a period about as late for India as that of the pregnancy of Sarah would be for Westerns), bears her holy child under a palm-tree (as Latona bears Apollo, [n10 Hom. Hymn to Apollo, 117; Theognis, 1. 5; Callimachus, Hymn to Delos, 208; Pliny, Hist. Nat. xiv. 44.]

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and as Mary does Jesus in the Koran [n1 Sura xix.—"Mary." Rodwell's trans. 1861, p. 129.]) on her way to her father's house [n2 Professor Rhys Davids seems disposed to treat this episode as historic (Buddhism, p. 26); and writes that it was "in accordance with custom" that Maya went to be delivered in her father's house. It is evident, however, that the journey is one of the "details" which he admits (p. 27) may be due to the mythopoeic tendency.].

Of course there are variations. Maya dies, as Semele dies; and Buddha is suckled by her sister, as we have seen so many of the Greek Gods were suckled by nurses; whereas Mary lives and keeps her child; but when Professor Weber assumes that the carrying of Krishna across the river is borrowed from the "Christophoros" legend, he not only overlooks the mythological significance of the river, elsewhere mentioned by himself, but the whole legend of Cyrus, which presents the close parallel of the herdsman's wife being delivered at the same time as Mandane, as Yasoda bears a child simultaneously with Devaki, and Elizabeth simultaneously with Mary. And, as he himself points out twice in his treatise [n3 Ueber die Krishnajanmashtami, pp. 249, 280. It is further noteworthy that the Yamuna (i.e., the Jumna) has long had the poetic name of Kalindi,= "daughter of Kalinda," which last is a name of the sun (Wilson, Theatre of the Hindus, 1835, i. 302; ii. 90).], the river figures in the Krishnaite ritual as the serpent or "serpent-prince," Kaliya, a motive not found in the gospels [n4 Among the Gnostics, however, the serpent-worshippers viewed the serpent as "a moist substance"; and the symbolism of serpent and river is obvious (Hippolytus, Refutation of all Heresies, bk. v. c. 4).]. On the other hand, however, when the Professor would derive from the third Gospel [n5 The only canonical Gospel, be it observed, which has the story of Elizabeth giving birth to John when Mary bears Jesus.] the item of Nanda's journey to Mathurâ to pay his taxes, we are entitled to meet him with the converse proposition, that here at least it is the Christian Gospel that borrows from the Hindu drama. The gospel story of Mary and Joseph going to Bethlehem to be taxed under the edict of Augustus is obviously myth: there was no such practice in the Roman world; and in any case Galilee was still independently governed by Herod-Antipas when Quirinius went to tax Judea. Only the late third Gospel tells the story: the narrative in Matthew, added late as it was to the original composition, which obviously began at what is now the third chapter, has no hint of the taxing, but implies that Joseph and Mary lived at Bethlehem;

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the Gospel of Mary gives the visit without the taxing; and so loosely was the myth credited that in the Protevangelion (c. 17) the statement is that it was decreed "that all should be enrolled, who were in Bethlehem of Judea." In that story, Jesus is born on the journey, in the cave, three miles from Bethlehem (c. 17); and it is after being taken from the cave that he is laid by his mother at Bethlehem "in an ox-stall" [n1 Ch.22. In the History of Joseph the Carpenter, which follows Luke for the enrolment story, Mary brings forth Jesus "in Bethlehem, in a cave near the tomb of Rachel" (ch. 7).]. Now, if the Krishna legend is clearly bound up with the long pre-Christian legend of Cyrus, why should we here suppose that its taxing-journey motive is borrowed from Christianity, instead of vice versa? The latter is plainly the reasonable hypothesis. In the Purana story, Vasudeva, crossing the river Yamuna, whose waters are stilled and lowered, with the babe Krishna in his arms, sees on the bank "Nanda and the rest, who had come hither to bring tribute due to Kansa" [n2 Vishnu Purana, Wilson's trans. p. 503.]. The Bhagavat Purana version "more consistently makes Vasudeva find Nanda and the rest fast asleep in their houses; and subsequently describes their bringing tribute or tax (Kara) to Kansa" [n3 Id. Note by Wilson.]. Again, in the Vishnu Purana, the liberated Vasudeva goes "to the waggon of Nanda" [n4 Id. p. 506.]; and in the Bhagavat he "does not quit Mathura, but goes to the halting ground of Nanda, who has come to that city to pay his taxes." On the exhortation of Vasudeva to go, "Nanda and the other cowherds, their goods being placed in their waggons, and their taxes having been paid to the king, returned to their village." Here is a detailed and circumstantial narrative, which, with its variations, we may with considerable confidence assume to have formed part of those dramatic representations of the birth of Krishna that are established, on the evidence of Patanjali's Commentary, as having flourished before our era.

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The Hindu story is detailed and dramatic, though of course grounded on a myth motive: the Christian story, given in one only, and that the latest, of the Synoptics, is either a mere myth-echo or is introduced in order to give a basis for the mythical birth of Jesus at Bethlehem, which the second Gospel, the fourth, and the first as it originally stood, do not assert at all. On what explanation can we fall back save that the knowledge of the Indian religious drama, or of some Asian tale of the same mythological origin, had been conveyed to Egypt or Syria, either by travelling Hindus or by Westerns who visited Asia; and that the compilers of the third Gospel got it in that way? How should such a hopeless story have been invented for such a purpose if the hint were not already in circulation?

As for the old attempt of the self-frustrative Maurice [n1 History of Hindostan, ii. 314.] to derive the item of Devakl's imprisonment by Kansa within seven gates, from the Christian legend, preserved by the Mohammedans [n2 Sale's Koran, note on chap. iii. (ed. 1734, p. 39 b).], that Mary during her maidenhood was guarded by Zacharias in the sanctuary within seven doors, the answer here is still more easy. M. Senart [n3 Essai sur la Legende du Buddha, p. 314.], without any thought of Maurice's contention, of which probably he never heard, gives a Hindu antecedent for the story in an utterance of Indra in the Vedas: "Being still in the breast of my mother, I saw the birth of all the devas: a hundred fortresses of brass enveloped me; I escaped with violence in the form of a falcon" (Rig Veda, iv. 27, 1). And we may further point to the close parallel in the Cyrus legend [n4 Herodotus, i. 108.], in which Astyages puts his daughter under a guard, just as Kansa does his sister Devaki; and to the familiar myth of the imprisonment of Danae in the brazen tower—which in one version becomes an underground chamber [n5 Pausanias, ii. 23.]. 5 Is it likely that the Hindu imagination would need to come to Christianity for the detail of the seven gates?

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Is it not much more likely that the ChristianMohammedan legend and the Hindu drama alike were derived from forms of the ancient myth which makes the Goddess Ishtar pass through the seven gates of Hades [n1 Records of the Past, i. 141; Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 221-227.], to and fro, to reach and bring back her lover? This, like so many other details of the myth, may well have been pre-Aryan; and it may point mythically either to the notion of the "seven zones," or climates, or seasons, or to the seven planets of ancient astronomy [n2 In modern Brahmanic ritual occurs the formula:—" Fire! seven are thy fuels; seven thy tongues; seven thy holy sages; seven thy beloved abodes; seven ways do seven sacrificers worship thee. Thy sources are seven" (Colebrooke in Asiatic Researches, vii. 273). The number had early become a fixed idea.]. Alcmene, who with her husband Amphitryon had come away from her own home [n3 Hesiod, Shield of Hercules, 1-2.], like so many other mothers of Gods, bears Herakles to Zeus and the twin Iphiclus to Amphitryon in seven-gated Thebes [n4 Id. 49.]; and a similar myth may have been taught in the Dionysiak, the Mithraic, the Osirian, or any other mysteries. Of myth there is no "original," save mankind's immemorial dream.

XII. THE STABLE AND MANGER.

After what has been thus far seen of the correspondences between the Christian legends and prior myths, it is unnecessary to lay much stress on the mythical character of the birth in a stable, which corresponds with, and is thought by Christians to have suggested, the legend of the placing of Krishna in a basket, and even, apparently, his upbringing among the Gopis. We have seen that an orthodox English Sanskritist identifies the basket with the Gospel manger; and Professor Weber lays stress [n5 Treatise cited, p. 269.] on the representation of the birth of Krishna in a cow-shed in the elaborate and dramatic ritual service of the Krishna Birth. Festival, which here departs from the Puranic legend, that making the birth take place in Kansa's fortress. On this head a sufficient answer is given out of hand by M. Senart:—

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"The confusion, in certain sources, of the sútiká--griha (lying-in room) with a gokula, a stable, contrary to the strict details of the recital, seems to him [Weber] one more sign of Christian imitation. But it must be remembered that the sútiká--griha must, in the terms of the ritual, contain not only Devaki with her son and Vasudeva, but also, and all together, the images of the shepherds, of the servants of Kansa, the guards of Devaki, of the Apsaras and the armed Danavas, of Yasoda and Rohini, without reckoning the representations of all the exploits attributed to the child Krishna [Weber, pp. 268, 280, ff.]. The intention then was not to give a faithful picture of the facts reported in the legend, but to group in a single frame all the personages included in it. How, on that footing, could separation be made of the new-born and the mother, or distinction between the prison and the dwelling of the shepherd? And of what weight is the novelty, illogical if it be, of the arrangement? The idea of representing the young God at the breast of his mother is really too simple to prove anything: there are not wanting examples of it in the religious representations of the Greeks." [n1 Essai, p. 335. Compare our preceding Section X. § 1, and K. O. Muller's Ancient Art and its Remains, Eng. tr. p. 493.]

But not only is the suckling motive, as we previously saw, pre-Christian; the items of the basket-manger and the stable are equally so. Not only is the Greek liknon, or twig basket, used to this day for corn and for cradling children, as in the old Christian pictures, but we know that the infant Dionysos, in the processions of his cult, was represented among the Greeks as being carried in such a basket, which again is represented as being the cradle of Hermes [n2 [greek] “in the sacred basket." Homerid. Hymn to Hermes, 21.] and of Jupiter [n3 [greek] "in a golden basket." Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus, 48. Cp. Hymn to Demeter, 127; and Apuleius, Metamorphoses, bk. xi. concerning the auream vannum congestam ramulis.]. In the ancient Greek lexicon of Hesychius (which at this point the Christians certainly did not interpolate, though they did so at others) the word… [Liknitis]…is defined as…an epithet of Dionysos, from the liknons in which children are cradled" [n4 Compare Liddell and Scott, s. v. [liknon, liknitis and liknophoros] and Servius on Virgil, Georg. i. 166.].

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Now if, as our Christian apologist argues, a basket is a manger (as it is in the East, and as it is in the well-known picture of the Nativity by Botticelli), it clearly follows on his own reasoning that the Christian story is derived from the previous Dionysiak cultus [n1 Dionysos would be carried in the cradle-basket on Christmas day. The rural or lesser Dionysia, the oldest of all, took place in the Attic month of Posidaon, which would correspond nearly to our December. Again, the great biennial festival, the Trieterika, was celebrated on Parnassus at the time of the shortest day (Muller, Lit. of Ancient Greeee, Eng. tr. p. 288, following Boeckh). The Boeotians, further, began their year at the winter

solstice; and in Bithynia the month beginning on December 24th was known as Dionysos. Under different names, the month began then in the Cretan calendar, which was "the same as that used by most inhabitants of Asia Minor"; while in the Roman period the month Posidaon was in some calendars made to begin on December 25th. Schmitz in Smith's Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Antiq. following Clinton, Hermann, and Bergk.]. In actual fact we find the God-Child represented, on a sarcophagus in the Catacombs, as cradled in a basket, standing under a shed, as in Botticelli's picture, with an ox and an ass looking on at his feet, in the fashion in which he is to this day represented at Christmas-time, throughout France and Italy [n2 See the reproduction in Northcote and Brownlow's Roma Sotteranea, ed. 1879, ii. 258; also in Lundy's Monumental Christianity, 1876, Fig. 85, as copied from Nork's reproduction (in Scheible's Kloster, vol. vii. pt. i. p. 30); and in an article by Dr. Carns in The Open Court, Chicago, December, 1899, p. 723. See also p. 712 for a copy of a less elaborate design on a sarcophagus of the year 343, after Kraus—that given in Roma Sotteranea, ii. 235.]. This bas-relief, which includes the father and the mother, and three figures coming with gifts, is claimed as primarily Christian by Christian scholars, who see in it the adoration of the Magi. It has been argued, on the other hand [n3 First, apparently, by Seel (Die Mithrageheimnisse, 1823, pp. 436, 475), cited by Von Bohlen, Das alte Indien, i. 258. Von Bohlen lays it down that Mithra's birth was "dramatically represented at the winter solstice; the Sun-Child rests with a nimbus, and surrounded by the sacred animals of Ormuzd." The thesis is urged later by a Dutch rationalist, Dr. H. Hartogh Heijs van Zouteveen, in his Over den Oorsprong der Godselienstige Denkbeelden, p. 56, citing Nork's Mythen der alten Persen, which I have not been able to see. But the point is put in Nork's Die Weihnachts und Osterfeier erklart aus dem Sonnencultus der Orientalen, 1838, p. 30.], that the sculpture is originally Mithraic; a view I am much inclined to share; since there is really no other way of explaining the entrance of Magi into the Christian legend. But in any case, Christian or Mithraic, this bas-relief, which probably belongs to the fourth century, proves that a God-Child was early represented as lying swaddled in a basket, with an ox and an ass looking on, or else lying on his mother's knee while the ox and ass eat out of the basket, in circumstances which irresistibly suggest the Gospel legend of the birth of Jesus;

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and that legend is thus clearly imitative of, for one thing, the old Greek usage of carrying in a basket the infant Dionysos, whose typical animals are the bull and ass. The cradle of Dionysos is a "long basket" [n1 Smith's Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Ant. ed. 1849, p. 411. Art. Dionysia. That this is the mystica vannus Iacchi would seem to be implied by Liddell and Scott, and is asserted by Muller (Ancient Art, as cited, p. 494). Cp. Ramage, Nooks and Byways of Italy, p. 157. The "mystic winnowing fan" was indeed a basket, but was it not also the Kaneon of the Canephorro? Cp. Spanheim, Obs. in Hymn. in Cererem Callimachi, v. 127; and in Hymn. in Jovem, v. 48. (Ernesti's ed. ii. 43-4; 822-5.) In Hindu ritual "the winnowing fan, the mystical vannus Iacchi, is always used in the rites of Cal, Cali, and Durga; but the Hindus at present affix no other idea of mystery to it than its being an appendage to husbandry. They use it as a tray, on which they place before the image of the Deity the. . . . articles used in the ceremony. . . . On all solemnities the rituals prescribe exclusively the use of this fan, which they call Surp." Patterson, in Asiatic Researches, viii. 52.]—exactly the description of that in the scene in the Catacomb sculpture and the Botticelli picture; as it is of the "basket of bulrushes" in which the sacred child Moses is sent floating on the Nile. A "woven basket-cradle" again figures in the myth of the birth of Ion, whose mother takes him in it to the rock-cave, whence he is carried by Hermes, "cradle, swaddle-clothes, and all," to the temple of his father Apollo [n2 Euripides, Ion, 31-39, 1596.]. And if it be argued that the stable story is something special to Christianity, the answer is that it is one of the oldest motives in Aryan mythology.

The frequency with which Greek and Indian deities are associated with cows is sufficient to indicate to any student unmesmerized by religion that a nature-myth underlies every case [n3 In Norse cosmogony a cow plays an important part in the creation of man (Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, Stallybrass' trans. ii. 559. Cp. p. 665 ; and Rydberg, Teutonic Mythology, pp. 263, 391, 497).]. That the cow is the foremost myth-animal in the Vedas, nobody disputes. The clouds, the firmament, the moon, the earth, all have that aspect in turn; and to the last the idea holds its ground. In the Vishnu Purana the clouds, the "cattle of Indra," "deluge the earth with milk"; "the cows and the bulls bellow as loud as roaring clouds" [n4 Wilson's trans. pp. 525, 529.]; and the cow is to the Hindu to-day as sacred as ever, and preserves its cultus.

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In ancient Egypt and in Phamicia it had the same pre-eminent sacredness [n1 Herodotus, ii. 41; Porphyry, De Abstinentia, ii. 11.]. But the myth of cow and stable spread world-wide with the race, so that we find the solar Hercules and Mercury fabled as living with shepherds or dealing with cows; and the thievish "night-awaiting" Mercury, who on the evening of the day of his birth steals the (cloud-) cows of the Day-God Apollo [n2 Homerid. Hymn to Hermes, 22 ff. It is noteworthy that in ancient sculpture, as in the Hymn, the child Hermes is represented as lying in swaddling-clothes, defending himself from the charge of cattle-stealing, and as "cattle-stealer in the cradle" (Muller, Anc. Art, as cited, p. 487). Here we have the swaddled and cradled child-God, the Greek Logos, figured in connection with cattle.] (who himself was a cowherd [n3 Iliad, xxi. 446-8.]), was just such a figure as the black Krishna, playing among the cows with the cowherds, untrammelled by commonplace moral principles [n4 The antagonism between Hermes and Apollo, as well as that between Indra and Krishna, may be plausibly explained as occurring between a new and an old deity, or the deities of different races. Assuming with Muller that Apollo was the deity of the conquering Dorians, Hermes may be, as above noted, just a solar deity of the native race they conquered; as on the other hand Krishna's superseding of Indra has been above conceived as the final triumph of an aboriginal cult over a Brahmanic. Cp. Renan, as cited above, p. 144.]. 4 So have we seen the solar Cyrus playing among the ox-stalls of his foster-father's home: the sunchild disporting himself in the stable of the sky. In the Homeridian Hymn to Aphrodite, again, the love-sick Goddess comes to Anchises "in the stalls," while the shepherds and the cows and sheep are absent; and he disrobes her; but when these return she breathes sleep into her lover, and herself puts on beautiful garments. Here the myth is that of the Sun-God meeting the Twilight-Goddess in the sky vacant of clouds. Her garments are the returning clouds, coloured by the sun as he sinks to rest—a grace of poetry which tells of a literary civilization that only slightly retains the primitive fancy of cloud-cows and sky-stable. But as we come nearer Christianity the plot thickens. In the worship of Isis, the sacred cow (herself a virgin, supernaturally impregnated by a flash of lightning or by the rays of the moon [n5 Herodotus, iii. 28; Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, c. 43; Pomponius Mela, i. 9.])

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was carried seven times round the temple upon the eve of the winter solstice [n1 Plutarch, as cited, c. 52.], when the sun-child rose from the lotos [n2 c. 11.]; and cow-headed Isis bears the Sun-God Horos, as in Indian legend the sun is born of the cows [n3 Zoological Mythology, i. 51.].

And still closer comes the parallel. We know from Macrobius [n4 Saturnalia, i. 18.] that the Egyptian priests exhibited a babe to the people on a certain day as being the new-born Sun-God; and from Plutarch we know that the infant Horos was figured on the lotos at the time of the winter solstice. But there is documentary evidence that in the Egyptian system a Babe-Saviour was in pre-Christian times worshipped in a manger or crib, in connection with a virgin mother. The proof is furnished by the remarkable record in the Christian Chronicon Paschale (formerly but improperly called Alexandrium): "The same Jeremiah gave a sign to the Egyptian priests that their idols would be shaken and overthrown by a child Savionr, born of a virgin, and laid in a manger [phatni]. Wherefore they still deify a child-carrying virgin, and adore a child in a manger. And to the inquiry of King Ptolemy as to the cause, they answered that they had received this mystery from a holy prophet who gave it to their fathers" [n5 Migne, Patrolog. Curs. Comp., Series Gr., T. xcii. col. 385.]. The Chronicon Paschale. dates from the seventh century, and would not by itself suffice to prove the cultus alleged, seeing that a Christian might—though this in the circumstances would be extremely unlikely—invent such a story to support his own faith, that being evidently the purpose with which the chronicler cites it. But read in connection with Macrobius and Plutarch, and the ritual of the birth of Amunoteph, it may be taken as certainly resting on a usage in ancient Egyptian religion. The Virgin and Child must of course have been Isis and Horos, whose worship was much older than Jeremiah. And the expression "Child Saviour" clearly points to a child-worshipping ceremonial, and not to the Christian idea of salvation by the crucified adult.

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It is needless to remark on the possibility that the ox-and-ass myth came from the same quarter, seeing that the temples of the sacred bull, Apis, and of the sacred cow, Isis, were already mystically, and in the former case literally, stables. But for the ox and stable there is yet another precedent. In the worship of Mithra, on the testimony of a Christian writer [n1 Firmicus, De Errore, v. See the treatise on Mithraism hereinafter.], the lowing of the sacred heifers was part of a festival ceremony, evidently that of Christmas eve. Now, it has been shown [n2 Id. and in the treatise on The Gospel Myths.] that in a multitude of points the Christian myths are simply based on previous ritual, as myths so often are: shall we then suppose that this primitive myth of the Christian God-born-in-a-stable, which only after a time passed current even with his own worshippers, and which early takes the form of representing him as being born between cow and ass, whose cries, in the popular Catholic fable, hide his [n3 Zoological Mythology, i. 361.], as the cries of the infant Zeus were covered in order to prevent Kronos from hearing them [n4 Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus, 53-54.]—that this is anything but a variation of the myth-motive of pagan antiquity? The mimic presentment of the scene is one of the immemorial features of the Christmas festival in Southern France and Italy: who can finally doubt that the usage was there before the Christian creed?

That the ox and ass in the Mithraic-Christian birth-scene have a mythic significance is very certain. They are not merely inmates of the "stable"; they are from of old symbolic animals; and they were the two of all the talking beasts who had the widest prophetic reputation [n5 For ox and cow, see Livy, iii. 10; xxiv. 10; xxvii. 11; xxviii. 11; xxxv. 21; xliii. 13. For the ass, see the legend of Liber in Lactantius, i. 21; also Plutarch's Life of Antony, where the ass's name, Nikon, "Victory," predicts to Augustus the triumph of Actium; and the Hebrew legend of Balaam—all widely circulated stories. Cp. Gubernatis, Zool. Myth. i. 247, 398. For the talking horse, see Grimm, as cited, i. 392.]. The bull or ox, again, is one of the symbol-animals of the Sun-God; while the ass is not only of phallic repute, but "carries mysteries" [n6 Aristophanes, Frogs, 160; and note in Bohn trans.] is constantly associated with the Sun-God Dionysos, and is probably at bottom the night-sun [n7 Gubernatis, vol. i. ch. 3, passim.],

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as is Dionysos himself, in contrast to Apollo, the day-sun [n1 Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 18: Plutarch, I. and O. c. 28. Dionysos, it will be remembered, was pre-eminently the God of the winter months. Preller, Griech. Myth. i. 539-541.]. In the Jewish ritual[n2 Numbers xix.] the red heifer plays an important part; and the rite, of which the Rabbins seem to have lost the explanation [n3 Spencer, De Legibus Hebraeorum, 1. ii. c. 15, vol. i. p. 340, ed. 1686.], evidently connects with the similar usage in Egypt, which was associated with the solar cult of Typhon [n4 Plutarch, I. and O. cc. 31, 41, 52. Cp. Tobit i. 5, as to "the heifer Baal" Red cattle, again, as well as black (ante, p. 146), were a special sacrifice to Poseidon (Pindar, Pythia, iv. 339). Mr. Frazer plausibly argues (i. 401-2) that the red-haired victim and the red cow were symbols of the Corn-God, and were meant to promote the ripening of the corn.], the Night-God or Winter-God and Principle of Darkness, one of whose symbolic animals was the ass [n5 Plutarch, I. and O.30, 31. The ass in turn was "red" for the Egyptians. (ib.), and also for the Hebrews. Pleyte, La religion des Pre-israelites, 1865. p.150.]. The latter animal, again, evidently had a special significance for the Jews, since the firstling of the ass was specially redeemable, and on that ground bracketed with humanity [n6 Exodus xxxiv. 20. The legend that the Jews worshipped an ass-headed God doubtless derives from the fact that the Samaritan God Tartak (2 Kings. xvii. 31) was so figured. Pleyte, as above, citing the Talmud, Sanhedrim, fol. 63. Cp. Pleyte, p. 186, and Pl. ix. x.]. In the sacred processions of Isis, the ox and the ass were the principal if not the only animals, the latter being sometimes adorned with wings [n7 Apuleius, Metamorphoses, B. xi.]. Now, in the Krishna ritual the ox and the ass figure very much as they do in the birth scene of the Catacombs; and Professor Weber decides that this is one of the details borrowed from Christianity. On that view, it would be borrowed from the Apocryphal Gospel of Matthew. The narrative of that document, late in its present form, is doubtless in part based on much older originals, and challenges attention by its peculiarity:

"And on the third day after the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ the most blessed Mary went forth out of the cave, and, entering a stable. placed the child in the stall, and the ox and the ass adored him. Then was fulfilled that which was said by Isaiah the prophet, saying: The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib. The very animals. therefore, the ox and the ass, having him in their midst incessantly adored him. Then was fulfilled that which was said by Abakuk the prophet, saying: Between two animals thou art made manifest. In the same place Joseph remained with Mary three days" (c. 14).

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Here we have a forced combination of the two myth-motives of cave and stable, both bound up with the worship of the Sun-God, who is cave-born as the offspring of the Earth-Mother, and stable-born for the reasons we are now considering. The reference to Habakkuk (iii. 2) is not to the Hebrew as commonly rendered, but to the Septuagint, in which, by a slight variation in the vocalisation of one Hebrew word and the spelling of another, the words "years" and "make alive" (the marginal reading in the Authorized Version is "preserved alive," the text reading "revive") are made to read as "two living creatures" [n1 Note in the "Ante-Nicene Library" ed. of the Apocryphal Gospels, p. 23.], so that we have the Greek version … "between two living creatures thou shalt be known." Here then rises the interesting question, Does the Septuagint proceed upon an Egyptian or other version of the ox-and-ass myth? Let us see what the commentators have to say:—

"There is a double reading of these words in the Septuagint version of them, and both very different from the Hebrew text. The one is, in the midst of two lives thou shalt be known. . . . The other, by a change of the accent, is, in the rnidst of two anirnals thou shalt be known; so the Arabic version. Theodoret makes mention of both, and inclines to the former; 'some [he says] by two animals understand angels and men; some the incorporeal powers near the divine Glory, the cherubim and seraphim; others the Jews and Babylonians; but to me it seems that the prophet does not say animals, but lives, the present and future.. . . ' The latter reading is followed by many of the ancients, whose different senses are given by Jerome on the place; some interpreting them of the Son and Spirit, by whom the Father is made known; others of the two cherubim in Exodus, and of the two seraphim in Isaiah; and there were some who understood them of the two Testaments, the Old and New. . . . ; and others of Christ's being crucified between two thieves . . . . ; but besides these different sentiments many of the ancients concluded from hence that Christ lay in the manger between two animals, the ox and the ass, and to which they refer in their ancient hymns. [Cognovit bos et asinus Quod puer erat Dominus] . . . ." [n2 Gill's Exposition of the Old Testament, Doudney's ed. iv. 777.].

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The rest is modern Talmudism—the ancient "demoniacal possession" of verbalism over again. Nothing is to be gathered save that the Septuagint somehow adopted the reading of "two creatures," a formula unintelligible on Biblical grounds, but explicable in all likelihood by the ancient ritual-usage under notice. For the rest, the context in the Septuagint, "thou shalt be acknowledged when the years draw nigh; thou shalt be manifested when the time is come," was well fitted to serve as a Messianic prophecy for the Hellenic Jews. But that a merely accidental reading or misreading of the Hebrew text could be the origin of the myth of the stable and the adoring ox and ass, as later found in the apocryphal Gospel, is incredible. The stable, as we have seen, was an established myth, and the ox and ass were at home in the stable. If the translator of Habakkuk in the Septuagint was influenced by an Egyptian or Oriental mystery-doctrine, then we trace to pre-Christian times the entrance of the ox-and-ass myth into Judaic channels; if, on the other hand, the" two animals "was a quite fortuitous reading, we are left to what we otherwise know of the mythological standing of the animals in question. Justin Martyr, who was pretty close to the myth-sources, has a statement that "David predicted that he [Christ] would be born from the womb before sun and moon" [n1 Dialogue with Trypho, c. 76.]. The reference is to the corrupt passage Ps. cx. 3; and the translators of the Ante-Nicene Library version have this note: "Justin puts 'sun and moon' instead of' Lucifer.' Maranus says David did predict, not that Christ would be born of Mary before sun and moon, but that it would happen before sun and moon that He would be born of a Virgin." Whatever "David" said, we have here the glyph of the symbolic ox and ass at the Nativity. And the passage in Pseudo-Matthew is singularly suggestive of just such a process of legend-making from old ritual as has been above contended for. Here, as in the Protevangelion, the laying-in-the-manger is entirely dissociated from the birth, and is therefore the more confidently to be looked upon as a piece of narrative framed to meet a purpose; just as the pragmatic account of the lightless cave is evidently intended to have a doctrinal significance.

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The need for such a doctrine lay in the pre-existence of cave-worship, especially in Mithraism, from which Christianity so largely borrowed in other regards, and in the actual practice of a Pagan ritual in which a Child-God (as Ion) was exhibited as born in a cave; and the need for the laying in a manger in presence of ox and ass can be explained only in a similar way. Thus established, the myth would easily reappear in the form of the animation by the child Jesus of figures of oxen and asses [n1 Arabic Gospel of Infancy, c. 36.], and in the appearance of oxen and asses in the fabulous cortege of the family in Egypt [n2 Pseudo-Matthew, c. 19.].

Is it then reasonable, is it plausible, to assume that this certainly derivative legend, never accepted as canonical, suddenly captured the Hindus late in our era in its Christianized form? Are we not, on the contrary, driven irresistibly to ask, Is not the Christian ox-and-ass legend one of immemorial antiquity?

And here, at least, the Hindu sacred books and ritual offer something like a decisive answer. To begin with, Agni in the Rig Veda is constantly addressed as a newborn infant, he being primarily the Fire, which is generated afresh every time the aranis, the fire-sticks, are rubbed together, a process conserved for religious purposes (as the sacred fire was rekindled in Mexico and elsewhere) for ages after that laborious process had become practically unnecessary. Thus, for one thing, the ever new-born Agni of the Veda is associated with the crossed sticks, which on one theory are the origin of the cross symbol. But not only is Agni repeatedly adored as the new-born by his worshippers, he is held to be similarly adored by the forces of Nature, as is the luminous Christ-child in the Protevangelion [n3 c. 19. Cp. Arabic Gospel of Infancy, c. 3.], and by the Devas or divinities in general :

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"Agni, the bright-bodied, as soon as born, fills all dwellings with shining light. When born, thou, O Agni, art the embryo of heaven and earth, . . . . variegated, infantine, thou dispersest the nocturnal glooms. . . .. Therefore the genetrices (of all things, the herbs) the cherishers (of all) with food, wait on thee who art the augmenter of food, with the sacrificial viands" [n1 Wilson's trans. of Rig Veda Sanhita, vi. (1888), pp. 1-2.].

"The Vedic Gods render homage to Agni when he is born, and when he passes resplendent from his parents the aranis" [n2 Senart, Essai, p. 292, citing Rig Veda, vi. 7, 4.].

"He [Agni] diffuses happiness in a dwelling like a son newly born" [n3 Wilson's trans. i. 184.].

"He [Agni] it is whom the two sticks have engendered like a new born babe" [n4 Id. iii. 253-4.].

"Thou [Agni] art born unobstructed of two mothers [i.e., either the fire-sticks or the heaven and earth] . . .. they have augmented thee with butter" [n5 Id. iii. 256-7. Elsewhere, Agni is thrice born—in the air, in the earth, and in the water—the last, doubtless, being on account of the sun's reflection there. Cp. Wilson's tr. iii. 21, 34; vi. 119; and Grassmann's, pp. 45, 73.].

So in the western world is Dionysos hailed ignigenam, satumque iterum, sollumque bimatrem, "fire-born, twice-born, the only one with two mothers" [n6 Ovid, Metam. iv. 11; Diodorus Siculus, iii. 61; iv. 4, 5.]. And this transparent infant-myth is curiously interwoven in the Veda with the other primeval myths of cow and cave.

"Agni, as soon as born, blazes brightly, destroying the Dasyus" [demons] "and (dispersing) the darkness by his lustre; he has discovered the cows, the waters, the sun" [n7 Wilson's trans. iii. 261.].

"In this world our mortal forefathers departed after instituting the sacred rite, when, calling upon the dawn, they extricated the milk-yielding kine, concealed among the rocks in the darkness (of the cave).

"Rending the rocks they worshipped (Agni) and other (sages) taught everywhere their (acts): unprovided with the means of extricating the cattle, they glorified the author of success, whence they found the light, and were thus enabled (to worship him) with holy ceremonies.

"Devoted (to Agni) those leaders (of sacred rites) with minds intent upon (recovering) the cattle, forced open, by (the power) of divine prayer, the obstructing compact solid mountain, confining the cows, a cow-pen full of kine....

" The scattered darkness was destroyed: the firmament glowed with radiance; then the sun stood above the undecaying mountains, beholding all that was right or wrong among mankind" [n8 Id. iii. 115-6.].

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This last extra-obscure passage well exemplifies the frequent difficulty, avowed by the best scholars [n1 See Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, ii. 214. It should be noted that Wilson's translation, which is here primarily used, follows the commentary of Sayana, as to the merits of which see Max Muller, pref. to 1st ed. of trans. of Vedic Hymns, S. B. E. On comparing the passages here cited with the later renderings of Oldenberg, I find no vital differences. In any case, we want in this connection to have the text as understood by the later Brahmans.], of making out what the Vedas mean—a difficulty further deducible from a comparison of the renderings of Wilson and Langlois with those of later German translators, and of these last with each other. But the association of Agni with cattle and cave seems certain from that and the previous extract, and there is no great obscurity in these further passages :

"Both the auspicious ones (day and night) wait upon him [Agni] like two female attendants, as lowing kine (follow their calves)" [n2 R. V. 1. ii. 2. Wilson's trans. i. 246. Oldenberg translates:—"For thee Nights and Dawns have been lowing, O Agni, as milch-cows in the folds for their calf" (S. B. E. xlvi. 193).].

"The night and the day, mutually effacing each other's complexion, give , nourishment, combined together, to one infant [Agni] who, radiant, shines between earth and heaven" [n3 R. V. 1. xcvi. Wilson's trans. p. 252. Oldenberg's version runs: "Night and Dawn, who constantly destroy each other's appearance, suckle one young calf unitedly. The piece of gold [=Agni] shines between Heaven and Earth" (S. B. E. xlvi. 119).].

Of these two extracts the first is thus rendered from the original in the German metrical version of H. Grassmann [n4 Leipzig, 1876, p. 8.]: "To thee, Agni, shout for joy (jauchzen) Night and the Dawn, as in the stalls cows cry to calves." Is it going too far to surmise that, seeing Agni himself, Fire-God and Sun-God, was in the Veda said to have been, "in the olden time, the bull and the cow" [n5 Wilson's trans. vi. (1888), p. 11.], the symbols of the Night and the Morning, here represented as saluting him, may even then have been the Ox and Ass?

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It is idle to seek to force the solution of such a problem; and in so far as the Vedic evidence goes, I leave the matter to the judgment of the reader, merely adding that when we compare the notion of the instantaneous growth of the new-born Agni (who "as soon as born fills heaven and earth with light," and "fractures, as he advances, the solid

cloud" [n1 Wilson's trans. iii. 120.]; and who is further the "archer" and the "lord of night" [n2 Id. i. 186, 188.] ), the Vedic address to Indra as having "discovered the cows hidden in the cave" [n3 Id. i. 16.], and the legend that these cows were stolen by the Asuras [n4 Id. ib. Wilson's note.]—when we compare these data with the Greek myth of the night-waiting, cattle-stealing infant Hermes, it is difficult to doubt that the latter fable derives from the Aryan original preserved in the Veda. Whether the "two mothers" were suggested by the common myth of the suckling of the child-God by another than she who bore him, or whether the latter notion grew out of the misunderstood symbol of the two fire-sticks, or the mystic doctrine that the Sun-God was born of both Heaven and Earth [n5 Oldenberg leaves open both views, citing Bergaigne, Religion Védique, i. 28, 238. Elsewhere (S.B.E. xlvi. 51) he notes that "Agni, as is well known, is the son of the two worlds."], we need not attempt to decide. But as regards the Indian origin of the ox-and-ass myth we get a fresh light when we connect the Vedic myths of the infant Agni (who, by the way, was specially invoked at the vernal equinox [n6 Id. i. 157, note.]) with the Krishnaite ritual of the Birth Festival. In the Jayanti form of the festival, the erecting of a shed, the watching by it through the night, and the distribution of images, are important items [n7 Weber, p. 223.]. Now, in the Catacomb sarcophagus, the basket containing the child, and the ox and ass, stand under a sloping shed-roof, standing on two posts, while none of the other figures do. Here there is neither cave nor inn-stable; there is only a scenic shed, exactly answering to the shed of the Krishnaite ritual; and to the right of that two palm trees, between which the mother sits. Remarkably enough, one of those trees bends, as do the palms in the Koran legend of Mary, in the Buddhist legend of Maya, and in the account in Pseudo-Matthew (c. 20) of the wanderings of Mary and Joseph after the birth. The trees clearly cannot be reconciled with cave or stable.

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How then came this shed to appear in early Christian or semi-Christian sacred art, unauthorized either by the generally received cave legend or by the story in the third Gospel? What possible conclusion is open to us save that it represents a usage in the dramatic ritual of some other cultus; and that it was this usage that was in view in the peculiar version of the story in the Apocryphal Gospels? And, apart from the familiar myth of the births of Apollo and Buddha under a palm tree, what ritual usage do we know of that comes so close as that of Krishnaism? Either the scene is Christian or it is Mithraic. If the latter, we have a phase of complete identity between the Persian and the Hindu cult, which need not surprise us; and in that case Mithraism would be the channel through which the myth of ox-and-ass, stable-and-manger, came into Christianity. But if we suppose the bas-relief to be non-Mithraic, then it must be held to be a close imitation of a ritual usage previously existing in India—the usage which survives in our own day. For the ass appears in Indian mythology as early as the Vedas, where already he has two characters, divine and demoniacal, being at one time the symbol of Indra, Krishna's predecessor, and at another his enemy [n1 Zool. Myth. ii. 370-4.]. As the friend of the black and once demonic Krishna, he corresponds, with reversal of colour, to the ass of Egypt, who was the symbol of the evil Typhon [n2 Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, cc. 30, 31.]. Again, curiously, one of his Vedic epithets is "childlike" [n3 Zool. Myth. ii. 364.].

When, therefore, we find in the art of Buddhism, as in the Gandhara sculptures [n4 Fergusson and Burgess, The Cave Temples of India, 1880, p. 138.], a representation of a Nativity scene, in which a woman lays a child in a manger-basket, it is quite out of the question to look for the suggestion to the Gospels. In the scene in question, horses' heads appear in the place of those of the familiar ox and ass; and here we are doubtless dealing with another solar symbol; for the horse was in Persia specially associated with the sun.

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The babe in this case may very well have been Agni, who in the Veda is driver of the white horses of the sun; and though, as we shall see, the Buddha myth has borrowed a good deal from that of Krishna, it could also draw directly from the Vedic store.

And if Western borrowing there were on the Hindu side—which will hardly now be argued—it could perfectly well have been pre-Christian. The ass might be the ass of Typhon, "who was the chief God of the Semites in Egypt" [n1 Professor Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 449, Cp. Tiele. Hist. of the Egypt. Relig. Eng. tr. p. 48.], though in ill repute with the Christians; and it may have been from this source that the Christians derived it. It is also possible that they made a not uncommon confusion between the ass of Typhon and the jackal-headed Anubis, the Egyptian Hermes, "both infernal and celestial," who was held to represent Time [n2 Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, c, 44; Sharpe, Egyptian Mythology, pp. 8-9, 3 Les Ruines, note on ch. xxii. § 13.], and who figured as the attendant of Osiris. And when we are discussing origins, we should not forget the suggestion of Dupuis and Volney, 3 that the birth of the Sun-Child between the ox and the ass is simply a fable based on the fact that in the zodiacal celestial sphere the sun would come, at the winter solstice, between the Bull and the Ursa Major, sometimes represented by the ancients as a Boar, sometimes as the Hippopotamus, sometimes the Ass, of Typhon. But the conception may well be older than the zodiac: the fundamental idea of the stable being, as we have seen, the sky as the home of the cloud-cows. The Sun-God is in this primary sense born of two mothers, Earth and Sky—of the Earth in the cave, of the Sky in the stable. Another detail comes in to extend the proof that the Christian legend borrows from the East. In the Catacomb fresco representing the (supposed) adoration of the Virgin and child by two Magi, as reproduced in large and in colour in De Rossi's Imagines Selectae Deiparae Virginis [n4 Rome, 1863, pl. v. Cp. Roma Sotteranea, as cited, ii. 140,170.], 4 the dish tendered to the babe or mother by the right-hand man bears a small human figure. What is the Christian explanation of that? What hypothesis is more likely than that this is one of the Krishnaite images?

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That, of course, remains a hypothesis. And, indeed, we are bound to keep in view that the manifold Egyptian ritual may have included just such a ceremony as that under notice. In the procession of Isis, as described by Apuleius, the ass is accompanied by a feeble old man—exactly the aged Joseph of the Apocryphal Gospels. And we know that the solarized Amunoteph III, who here seems to typify customary royal ceremony, figures in Egyptian sculpture as supernaturally announced, conceived, and born, very much as is Jesus in Christian legend [n1 See the woodcut and explanation in Sharpe's Egyptian Mythology, pp. 18-19.]. The messenger-God, Thoth, announces to the maid-mother the coming birth; the Spirit-God Kneph miraculously impregnates her; and the priests kneel and adore the new-born babe, holding up the cross of life. This must have been a matter of ritual. In the Catacomb bas-relief. and frescoes, again, the adorers, the" Magi," both in the picture with two and in that with four [n2 Roma Sotteranea, as cited, ii. 169: Imag. Bel. pl. iii.], wear the Phrygian or Mithraic cap; but, instead of representing the venerable sages of modern Christian fancy, they are all young and beardless. The juvenile angel, again, exactly corresponds to that which figures in the admittedly Mithraic remains in the Catacombs, as reproduced by Father Garucci and accepted by Canons Northcote and Brownlow. On the other hand, in the fragment of the earliest-dated Catacomb sarcophagus [n3 It bears the names of the consuls of 343 C.E. See the cut in Roma Sotteranea, ii. 235, and in Open Court, as before cited.] held to be Christian, representing the ox and ass, the swaddled child, and two adorers, the men are rather of Western figure; though at the end behind them a hand appears grasping a palm tree or branch. Thus there is the suggestion of the East as well as of Western assimilation. We cannot yet decide with certainty as to the myth's line of travel; we can only decide that all Christian myth is an adaptation of previous myth.

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The case, I think, is thus far clear. The Krishna birth myth is at bottom primeval; and it is highly probable that the Birth-Festival ritual, which Professor Weber supposes to have been based on Christianity, preserves prehistoric practice. At the midnight hour of the God's birth there is a ceremony of a "pouring out of riches" [n1 Treatise cited, p. 299.] (ein Guss Reichthums) which it is a wonder the Professor does not hold to represent the offerings of the Magi. In all probability it does point to the origin of that myth. The "riches" are symbolic, an offering of melted butter and sugar—surely the "nectar and pleasant ambrosia" with which Themis fed the babe Apollo [n2 Hom. Hymn, 124.]; and with which the Hours feed the deathless child Aristaeus, son of Apollo and Cyrene, and by some called Shepherd, Jove, and chaste Apollo, God of flocks [n3 Pindar, Pythia, ix. 97-106; Diodorus Siculus, iv. 81; Athenagoras, Apol. xiv.]; the milk and honey on which Dionysos and the child Jupiter [n4 Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus, 49; and note in Bohn trans. p. 123.] were nourished; the "butter and honey" that in the Hebrew prophet [n5 Isaiah vii. 14-15.] are named as the food of the child Immanuel to be born of the "virgin" of that time, and that were used in their rites (with milk for butter) by the early Christians, especially in the "Mystery of Infants," till the Council of Trullo (held at Constantinople, in 691) forbad the usage [n6 Bingham's Christian Antiquities, xv. 2, § 3 (ed. 1855, vol. v. 242-3).], doubtless because its pagan origin was recognized. And surely the ancient adoration of the ever-new-born Agni was either the origin or the parallel of the offering of butter to the new-born Krishna. Does not the whole mass of data go to suggest that a more or less dramatic ritual has preserved a Babe-Sun-God worship from immemorial antiquity? In pre-Christian India it became actual drama, which the Festival ritual, with its multitude of images, appears to preserve as far as may be; and I am much inclined to suspect that the form of part of the Protevangelion [n7 Chs. xiii. xiv.] comes of a semi-dramatic ritual, as the adoration of the Magi must have done, and as the legends of the Lord's Supper and the rock-tomb burial certainly did [n1 See hereinafter, Mithraism, § 4.]. Be that how it may, the theory that Krishnaism borrowed either its myths or its rites from Christianity is now evidently enough untenable.

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XIII. THE MYTH OF ST. CHRISTOPHER.

The study of a few of the minor myths of Christianity in connection with Krishnaism will be found no less instructive than the comparison of the central myth-motives of the two creeds. Always the lesson is that the mythology of Christianity was derivative; and at times, though there can be no certainty, there is a curiously strong suggestion of direct Christian adoption of Hindu details. I have spoken of the item of the visit of the foster-father of Krishna to the holy city to pay his taxes, which in the Krishna myth is as it were naturally embedded in the narrative, while in the Christ myth it is grafted on loosely and precariously. But the same statement may be made even more emphatically in other regards. Professor Weber [n2 Here adopting a thesis of the pre-scientific Giorgi-cited by Von Bohlen, Das Alte Indien, 1830, i. 232. Von Bohlen states that Kleuker held the Christophorus story to be of Indian origin; but I cannot find such a remark in the place cited. Kleuker did, however (Abhandlungen, as before cited, ii. 234), argue that it was probably the Christians who borrowed from the Hindus, and that the apocryphal Gospels show distinct traces of Indian influence.] has assumed the priority of the "Christophoros" legend, in which St. Christopher under miraculous circumstances carries the rejuvenated Christ, the Christ-child, on his shoulders across a river by night. The Professor does not ask how it was that the idea of regarding Christ still as a child came to persist in the Church through so many centuries, and that only gradually did he come to be pictured as a young man, and finally as a man of middle age. We can see what preserves the child image in Krishnaism—the ancient usage of dramatic ritual, which is only partially overruled by the literary presentment of the stories of the God's career.

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Now, by far the most probable hypothesis of the origin of the Christophoros myth is either that it was framed to explain a Pagan sculpture, or that, like so many others, it was invented late to explain some dramatic or other representation—that there was a ritual in which the Christ-child, like the infant Dionysos in Greece, and the infant Horos in Egypt, was carried on a man's shoulder, long before the legend of the colossal Christ-bearer was framed.

For this hypothesis we have the most convincing evidence in the plural term Christophoroi, found applied to martyrs in an alleged letter of the third century quoted by Eusebius [n1 Eccles. Hist. iii. 10.]. This term every orthodox authority I have seen deduces from the epithet "Theophoros," said to have been applied to Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch; and the usual explanation is that it means "full of Christ," as Theophoros meant "full of God" [n2 So, in effect, Bingham, i, 6; Riddle, Christian Antiquities, p. 134; Migne, ad loc,; Smith and Cheetham's Dict. of Christ. Antiq. sub voce; etc.]. The Bohn translator, Mr. Cruse, however, insists on the etymological meaning of the word, writing that "the martyrs were called, by a strong figure, Christophori, because they bore,. and Ignatius was called Theophorus for the same reason." This, I suspect, is nearer the truth than Mr. Cruse was aware of. The name Theophoros would not have been attached to Ignatius had it not been in existence before. It literally meant, in classic usage, one "bearing or carrying a God" [n3 Liddell and Scott, s. v., citing Aesch. Fr. 224.]; and would naturally be applied to those who carried statues of the Gods in ceremonial or procession [n4 In such cases as those mentioned by Pausanias, ii. 7, 11; vii. 20, 21, etc., or in civic or royal processions.]. There were a score of such names in connection with the Greek rituals. Not to speak of the soldiers and police officers called after the weapons they carried, as the doryphoroi, aichmophoroi, mastigophoroi, rhabdophoroi, etc., there were the liknophoroi, the women who carried the cradle-basket of Dionysos in his processions; the kanephoroi, women who bore sacred baskets of another sort;

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the oschophoroi, noble youths who, in the disguise of women, carried branches of vine in the festival from which came the name; the deipnophoroi, women who, as mothers, carried food for the youths; the arrephoroi (or ersephoroi), maidens who carried the mystic chest with nameless contents in the festival of Panathenaea; the lampaclophoroi, who carried torches in the torch-races; and so on. Always the meaning is the literal carrying of something. Hermes with the ram on his shoulders (the admitted origin of the Christian image of the Good Shepherd [n1 See Smith and Cheetham's Dict. Under "Good Shepherd." Cp. Lundy, Monumental Christianity, ch. vii.; Didron, Christian Iconography. Eng. tr. i. 339, 341, and the figures copied in Dr. Carus's art. in Open Conrt, December, 1899. This type also appears in Buddhist sculpture.]) is Hermes Kriophoros, the ram-bearer. Only secondarily and indirectly could the word come to have the meaning of "possessed by the God"; and the instance cited by Liddell and Scott [n2 From Aeschylus, Agam. 1150.], in which the phrase is "pains of inspiration," is clearly in close connection with the primary meaning. In all probability the name Theophoros at times became a family one, just as that of Nikephoros, "Victory-bearer" [n3 See Athenaeus, v. 27.], which continued to subsist long after Pagan times among Christians. The generic name Christophoroi must have had some solider basis than an analogy from a metaphor.

That the Christian myth of the Christ-birth is a concoction from previous myths, we have already seen; and that the borrowing was first made by way of "mystery" or ritual, the Catacomb remains go far to prove. We know too that in the Egyptian system, apart from the practice of carrying the new-born Sun-Child to exhibit him to the people [n4 Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 18. It is important to remember that Macrobius says the child is carried ex adyto, out of the innermost sanctuary of the temple. The adytum "was almost certainly in its origin a cave; indeed, in Greece it was often wholly or partially subterranean, and is called [megaron] , which is the Semitic … and means a cave" (Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 183; cp. Tiele, Egyptian Religion, p. 115). Here once

more the Christian myth is led up to.], there was a whole order of Pastophoroi, bearers of the pastos, who according to one theory bore a shawl in the mysteries of Isis and Osiris, but "according to another interpretation"—and a much more tenable one—

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"were so denominated from carrying, not a shawl, but a shrine or small chapel, containing the image of the God" [n1 Smith's Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Antiq., art. Pastophoros. Ed. 1849,. p. 871. Compare Apuleius (Metamorphoses. Bk 11), who speaks of the Pastophori as carrying "the sacred images" and "breathing effigies" (simulacra spirantia). See also last par. of the book.]. These Pastophoroi were "a numerous and important body of men," who had allotted to them a part of the Egyptian temples, called the pastophorion—a term adopted by the Jews in describing the temple of Jerusalem [n2 Maccabees, iv. 38.]. And they spread beyond Egypt, having a "college" or brotherhood at Industria, a city of Liguria [n3 Smith's Dict. as above, citing Maffei, Mus. Veron. p. 230. Apuleius locates a college of them at Cenchreae.]. Now, it may be argued that the term Christophoroi might be jocularly applied to Christians by analogy from these and other classes with the same name-suffix; but that the Christians should have adopted it without some real reason is hardly supposable. And when we look into the admitted remains of early Christian ritual, we see at least hints of what the reason was. In early frescoes the Christian hierophant bears a pastos, or a kistê [n4 See Roma Sotteranea, ed. 1879, i. 362. pl. xi.], analogous to the sacred chest of Dionysos. They would hardly carry the serpent, as. the kistê did; but their shrine or chest carried something.

It might be, then, that this was only the sacred host, which to this day is "the good God" in Catholic countries. But whence then came the idea of making the mythic Christophoros, giant as he was, carry the child Christ? I can see no explanation save one or all of three: (1) that the persistent Pagan charge against the early Christians of eating a child in their rites [n5 Justin Martyr, Apol. i. 35; ii. 14; Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. v. 1; Athenagoras, Apol. c. 3; Origen, Against Celsus, vi. 27; Min. Felix, cc. 9, 10, 30, 31; Tertullian, Apolog. cc. 7, 8, 9.] rested on a ritual custom of exhibiting or eating the baked image of a child [n6 Note the image on the platter of the "Magus," referred to in Sec. xii. Baked images were known in the sacrifices of the poor in antiquity (Herodotus, ii. 47); and in Mexico dough images of the God were eaten sacramentally. See H. H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, iii. 297-300, 389; ii. 321. A very extensive list of cases in which either a baked or an unbaked image of a child or adult is ceremonially eaten in ancient and modern times is given by Mr. Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 68, 79-84, and notes. Macrobius (Saturnalia, i. 7) gives accounts of 'the substitution of images for human heads as sacrifices to Hades, and again of heads of garlic and poppy for human heads in sacrifice to the Goddess Mania, mother of the Lares. Yet again, Ovid (Fasti, v. 621-31) tells of the substitution of rush or straw images for old men formerly sacrificed in the worship of Vesta. Mommsen, whose chapter (xii.) on the religion of Rome is a mosaic of

incoherent generalizations, declares in his customary manner that "it is only an unreflecting misconception that can discover in this usage a reminiscence of ancient human sacrifices." He then explains that the Romans acted in the spirit of their merchants, who were legally free to "fulfil their contracts merely in the letter"; that they in all seriousness practised "a pious cunning, which tried to delude and pacify "the deity" by means of a sham satisfaction." Of what then was it a sham?],

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a rite to which, as being a sacred mystery, [n1 The existence of secret mysteries among the early Christians after the second century is abundantly shown in Clarkson's Discourse concerning Liturgies (Select Works, Wycliffe Society's ed. 1846, pp. 266-277). And see Dr. Edwin Hatch's posthumous work, The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, 1890, pp. 292-305, where it is frankly admitted that the Christians imitated Pagan methods. In practising secrecy in particular the Christians only followed the general Pagan usage. Compare Clarkson's citations with Herodotus, passim.] the Christians were unwilling to confess [n2 See Tertullian, Apology, c. 7, where the denial is anything but straightforward. We may rest content with an orthodox explanation: "The method of celebrating baptism, confirmation, and the eucharist; the nature and effect of these ordinances; the sublime doctrine of the Trinity; and the Creed and Lord's Prayer, were only communicated to converts about the time of their baptism. Christians were absolutely prohibited from revealing this information to catechumens or infidels; and whenever the early Christian writers speak on such topics (except when controversy compels them to a different course) there is usually some reserve in their manner, some reference to the peculiar knowledge of the faithful. . . . This primitive discipline is sufficient to account for the facts that very few allusions to the liturgy or eucharistic service are found in the writings of the Fathers; and that on the more solemn part of consecration, etc., they are almost entirely silent" (Rev. W. Palmer, Origines Liturgica;, 4th ed. i. 14; cp. p. 33). See also the Rev. W. Trollope's edition of the Greek Liturgy of St. James, 1848, p. 15: "The Fathers in general, when speaking of the Eucharist, enter as little as possible into detail." Mr. Trollope's explanation—that they feared to expose the mysteries to ribaldry—is clearly inadequate, and contains but a small part of the probable truth. He comes to the conclusion that no liturgy was published till late in the fourth century, when the Church was no longer in fear of its enemies. The just inference is that, when the popularity of the cult made the old secrecy impossible, its ritual was to a large extent shorn of the grosser usages derived from Paganism. If the eucharist ritual all along was just what was set down in the Gospels, why should the early Fathers have kept up any air of mystery?]; or (2) that in the Christmas celebration a real or dummy child was actually carried in the sacred basket, just as Dionysos was in his, or as Horos was represented in Egypt, and as a child may have been in the rites of Mithra; or (3) that the many representations of—the carrying of a Divine Child by Hermes or by Hercules in Greek sculpture may have set illiterate Christians, after the fall of Paganism, upon the framing of an explanatory Christian tale.

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And all three theories are so probable, and so much implicated one with the other, that we are not free to reject any. As to what may seem to many readers the most unlikely of all—the eating of the baked image of a child—there is really most evidence. It is an admitted historic fact that in some of the churches, after the abandonment of the practice of eating an actual lamb in the eucharist at Easter, there arose the practice of eating a baked image of a lamb [n1 Hatch, as cited, p. 300.]. Without suggesting a similar process of substitution, we may reasonably surmise that the infans farre contectus of the Pagan charge [n2 Minucius Felix, c. 9.] was really a model of a child in dough, after the manner of so many pagan cults in all ages. The more closely we look into Christian myth taken in connection with the distinct records of pre-Christian ritual, the more clear does it become that the accepted notions of the rise of the cult are hopelessly wide of the facts.

First as to the charge of ritual child-eating. On this obscure problem it has to be remembered that others than the Christians were accused of killing children in religious rites. Thus, to say nothing of the Carthaginians and other Semites, Juvenal [n3 vi. 548-552. As to the sacrificing of boys, see the passage in Horace, Epod. v., which evidently preserves trace of an ancient usage.] alleges that the Armenian and Syrian haruspices at Rome would sometimes augur from the entrails of a boy; and, "according to Mohammedan accounts, the Harranians in the Middle Ages annually sacrificed an infant, and, boiling down its flesh, baked it into cakes, of which only freeborn men were allowed to partake" [n4 Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 348, citing the Fihrist, and Chwolsohn. Cp. the note of Elmenhorstius in Ouzel's ed. of Minucius Felix (1672, p. 87) as to the ancient eucharistic practice of making bread with the blood of a child, which might or might not die. And see in Bury's History of the Later Roman Empire, ii. 389, the story of how the people of Pergamos, when besieged by the Arabs in 717, took a pregnant girl, cut up the mother and the foetus, boiled them, and so made an unguent for the soldiers' gauntlets.]. Here, too, of course, there is room for doubt, as there is again in regard to the statement of Procopius that the Franks in the sixth century sacrificed children to idols [n5 Gothica, i. 25. Cp. Mahon, Life of Belisarius, 2d. ed. p. 262.].

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But the important fact remains that the Christians retained for their sacramental food the old name of hostia, "the victim," and the Gospels [n1 See Matt. xxvi. 26-28; Mark xiv. 22-24; Luke xxii. 19-20; John vi. 48-58.] all dwell on the eating and drinking of the God's body and blood with a literalness that is unintelligible on the hypothesis of mere originating allegory. It is true that for the ancients it was a commonplace to call bread "Ceres," and wine "Liber" or "Dionysos" [n2 Cicero, De Nat. Deor. iii. 16; Clemens Alexandrinus, Protrept. ii. (Trans. in Ante-Nicene Lib. p. 34.)]; but that was just because in a special and peculiar sense Ceres and Liber stood for the sources of bread and wine, and might with literal fitness be so called in the ritual of their cult; whereas the Christ myth has, on the face of it no such pretext. The whole series of the, later Fathers anxiously explain that the Gospel phrase is figurative; but no one ever explains why such a revolting figure should have been used. They had need deny the literal meaning, which laid them open to just such reproaches as they were wont to cast at the pagans; but it is clear that in the shadow of the Church there, always subsisted a concrete conception, which finally took the doctrinal form of Transubstantiation. And as it is now an admitted principle of comparative mythology that where there is a sacred banquet in connection with a worship, with a specified sacred food, it is the God that is eaten, we, may take it as nearly certain that just as some Christian groups ate a baked image of a lamb, others would carry the freedom of symbolism further and make a dough image, of a child. The lamb itself was the symbol of the God; and the disuse of an actual lamb was doubtless motived by the not uncommon dislike to the eating of flesh. A baked image, after all, would still be a symbol; and when once the symbolism had gone so far, there was no reason why the mystic God should not be represented in the shape of a child, as of old.

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When nothing in human or animal form was baked for the old cult-offerings, the mere round cake (often marked by a cross, as in the hot-cross-bun still in Christian use) stood for the God or Goddess as Sun or Moon; and this is the explanation of the Catholic wafer, reverently described and worshipped as "Jesus" or "God" in Anglican High Church ritual at the present time. Jesus is there revealed by his devoutest worshippers as a Sun-God. But there is no evidence for an early use of the wafer; which indeed was too close to pagan sun-worship [n1 The usage was to eat round panicula after a sacrifice. Pollux, Onomasticon, vi. 6. Cp. Suetonius, in Vitello c. 13, and Smith's Dict. of Ant., art. Canephoros. See the question of the pagan origin of the wafer discussed in Roma Antiqua et Recens, ed. 1889, pp. 44-5.] in the pagan period to be readily acceptable by a sect desirous of marking itself off from its leading competitors. It was apparently adopted with other institutions of sun-worship after the Pagan cults were disestablished, when the Church could safely use their symbols and turn their usages to economic account—economic in both senses of the term, since the priestly miracle of the Eucharist was one of the main grounds of ecclesiastical influence and revenue, and the wafer withal was extremely cheap.

Alike then as to the Gospel myth and the charge of child-eating, a baked image seems the probable solution. And that this rite, like the others, was borrowed from previous cults, is proved by a remarkable passage in Pliny as to the praise due to the Roman people for "having put an end to those monstrous rites" in which "to murder a man was to do an act of the greatest devoutness, and to eat his flesh was to secure the highest blessings of health" [n2 Hist. Nat. xxx. 4.]. It is not clear that this refers to the Druids [n3 But see Strabo, bk. iv. c. iv. § 5, where the Druidical sacrifices are specified, with the remark that the victims are said to have been crucified in the temples—another noteworthy clue to the Christian myth.], mentioned in the context; in any case there are many reasons for holding that a sacrament of theophagy was in pre-historic times widely practised; [n4 It has been ingeniously argued by Professor Robertson Smith (Religion of the Semites, pp. 341-6) that human sacrifices did not ante-date those of animals, but came to be substituted for these at a time when the early way of regarding the animal as a member of the tribe had become psychologically obsolete. The great difficulties in the way of such a theory are (1) that, even if primitive men sacrificed animals as members of the tribe, they had still a psychic reason for selecting animals rather than men; and (2) that in most cults human sacrifice figured as a far-off thing, while the animal sacrifice survived. Cp. Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 7. Human sacrifices, further, were in many cases avowedly superseded by offerings of images, where animal sacrifices went on. In any case, the habit of eating the sacrificed animal would psychologically involve the eating of the sacrificed man, which is the point in hand. As to the deification of the victim, see Smith, as cited, and Frazer's Golden Bough; ch. iii.]

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and even if the sacramental and theophagous usages which chronically revived or obscurely persisted among the Jews [n1 Compare Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, pp. 336-340.] be held to have died out among them at the beginning of the Christian era, the Christians seem to have had alongside of them, in the cult of Dionysos, an example which they were as likely to follow as that of the Mithraic resurrection-ritual and Lord's Supper. The survival of a symbolical cannibalism—the eating of the baked image of a child—in the Dionysian mysteries [n2 Clemens (as cited; trans. pp. 27, 30, 33) distinctly associates the eating of "raw flesh" with the mystery in which the rending of the child Dionysos by the Titans was commemorated; and probably some groups continued to eat one of the God's symbol-animals while others substituted images, as among the Christists. But the Orphic poems, to which we owe this phase of the Dionysiak myth, give the detail that the Titans who surprised the boy had covered themselves with plaster, a proceeding of the Dionysiak festivals (Muller, Lit. Anc. Greece, c. xvi. § 7); and here we seem to have a derivation from the usage of baked images.], is the most probable explanation of the late myth of the Titans rending the child Dionysos in pieces, and further of the myth of the rending of Orpheus, which was bound up with the Dionysiak. Though the former tale was allegorically understood of the spread of vine-culture [n3 Preller, Griech. Myth. i. 554; Diodorus Siculus, iii. 62.], that would hardly account for its invention; nor would the allegory put a stop to the ritual practice.

A connection between the child-carrying and the ritual of child-eating, again, is brought out in the peculiarly parallel case of the ritual of the arrephoroi or bearers of "nameless things" in the cult of Erichthonios at Athens [n4 Pausanias, i. 18, 27.]. The explanation of the myth of the child in the chest that was not to be opened is probably that given by Miss Harrison [n5 Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens, 1890, pp. xxvi.-xxxv.], to the effect that the Kistae carried by the maidens contained figures of a child and a snake.

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These figures would hardly be of marble, which would be impossibly heavy: they are likely enough to have been of baked flour. But the myth of Erichthonios, born of Gaia [n1 Pausanias, i. 2, end.], the Earth, is only a variant of that of Dionysos, born of Demeter, the Earth Mother, or of Semele, equally the Earth [n2 Sir George Cox (Mythol. of Aryan Nations, ed. 1882, p. 260, note) observes that "no Greek derivation has been attached to this name, which certainly cannot be explained by reference to any Greek word." But it has not been noted that in modern Servia to-day Semlje is actually the word for the Earth. And the Servians have many mythic ideas in common with the Greeks. See Ranke, History of Servia, Eng. trans. pp. 42-43.]; and again of that of Agdistis, borne by the Earth to Jupiter [n3 Arnobius, Adv. Gentes, v. 5, 10.]. We have seen that the Divine Child figured in the birth-ritual of Dionysos as in that of Horos; and as the images in the other rituals would have a sacrosanct virtue, the eating of them sacramentally would be a natural. sequence. In the artistic treatment of the myth of Erichthonios, as Miss Harrison points out, the lid of the chest is of wicker-work. The whole may well have been a basket, like the liknon of Dionysos [n4 But cp. the Eleusinian formula:—" I have received from the box; having done, I put it in the basket, and out of the basket into the chest" (Clemens, as cited, p. 32). This testimony is confused by the different version in the same author:—"I have eaten out of the drum, I have drunk out of the cymbal, I have carried the Cernos [said by the scholiasts to be a fan = liknon]; I have slipped into the bedroom." Cp. Firmicus, De Errore, 19.]. On that view the carrying of the image was simply a variant of the usage of carrying an actual child—a practice always open to the objection that the child might at any moment take to crying. In ordinary animal sacrifice it was considered fatal to the efficacy of the rite if the victim showed any reluctance [n5 As to the same idea in connection with the sacred victim among the Khonds, see Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 386-7.]; and even if the child were not to be sacrificed, his crying would be apt to pass for a bad omen [n6 Compare, however, the sinister process of primitive casuistry by which the Mexicans, in sacrificing their children, sought to feel that the inevitable tears were the promise of abundant rain and harvest (Lecture on "The Ancient Religions of America," in Religious Systems of the World, p. 360).].

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Given, however, the pre-Christian existence of a child-carrying rite, in connection with the Christian festival as observed in the Egyptian and Mithraic cults, or as practised in the Dionysia; and given the adoption of this rite by Christism, the idea of making the mythic Giant Christophoros separately carry the Christ-child across a river, it might be supposed, could be grafted fortuitously on the old ritual-motive. It being necessary to have a story of the child being carried somewhere, a river was a possible enough invention. But here again the hypothesis is upset when we turn to the light which Professor Weber so strangely ignored—that of the mythology of Greece. The carrying of a Divine Child by a Divine Person—a very small child by a very big person—is one of the commonest figures in Greek religious art. In Hindu pictures the babe Krishna is carried by Vasudeva in its swaddling clothes. In Greek sculpture Hermes carries the babe Dionysos "carefully wrapped up" to his nurses. At times he bears it on his shoulder [n1 K. O. Muller, Ancient Art, pp. 492-4; Apollodorus, bk. iv. c. iii. § 2.]. He also carries the boy to heaven [n2 Pausanias, iii. 18.]. In the drama of Euripides he carries the swaddled and cradled child Ion to the temple [n3 Ion, 31-40, 1597-1600.]. Similarly he carries the infant Aristaeus, the Sun-Child, from his mother to the nourishing Hours [n4 Pindar, Pythia, ix. 95-97.]; and he carries in turn the child Herakles [n5 Muller, Ancient Art, p. 554.].

Yet again, as Psychopompos, he carries Psyche over the Styx [n6 Id. p. 486.]; and here, in a myth-motive, we have a marked parallel to the ritual motive of the river-crossing in the Krishna tale. And this recurs, for we have Herakles represented carrying Zeus over the water, "a still enigmatical representation," says Muller [n7 Id. p. 562. Compare the myth of Typhon carrying the disabled Zeus over the sea on his shoulders. Apollodorus, 1. vi. 3.]. Herakles, yet again, carries his own infant Telephos in his hand or arm [n8 Muller, p. 558.]; and Telephos is a Divine Child, figuring in a Birth-Ritual in swaddling clothes [n9 Id. p. 559.]. On vases, too, we have Peleus holding the child Achilles [n10 Id. p. 571.], and so on—the representations are endless. Dionysos himself, in one myth, carries Hephaistos, drunk, to heaven [n11 Pausanias, i. 20.].

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How far the motive may have been ritually associated with a passing over water [n1 Dionysos, we know, was lord of the whole element of moisture (Plutarch, I. and O. 35), and in one myth passes as an adult over the sea (above, p. 83)—a solar item, which might very well be symbolized in the ritual of the Babe-Sun-God. In many Hindu ceremonies, again, water is devotionally employed as being the product of the sun. One suspects the same myth-motive in the story of the kingly child Pyrrhus of Achillean descent being carried across a river, when flying from pursuers, in the arms of a man named Achilles. Pyrrhus in the story is put on his father's throne by force at the age of twelve—a very mythical-looking narrative (Plutarch, Pericles, cc. 2, 3). Again, the people of Clazomenae had a grotto called the grotto of Pyrrhus' mother—presumably a Birth Cave—and a tradition about Pyrrhus as a shepherd (Pausanias, vii. 5). Apparently Pyrrhus was mythically handled very much as was Cyrus before him.] it is difficult to decide; but when we are asked to believe that the Christophoros legend, in which Pagan myth and art and ritual were eked out with Christian fiction, so impressed the Hindus at an early period in our era that they transferred it bodily to the worship of their God Krishna, it is difficult to take the suggestion seriously. On the contrary, we are again moved to answer that, if either cult borrowed from the other, it must have been the Christians who borrowed from the religious drama or dramatic ritual of the Hindus. Once more, the carrying of the child Krishna across the mythological river by Vasudeva is naturally embedded in the Krishna legend; while in Christian mythology the story is patently alien, arbitrary, and unmotived, save in so far as it rests on the ancient epithet Christophoros, on the familiar presentment of Hermes or Herakles carrying a Divine Child, at times over water; and on the inferable usage of carrying a child or an image representing the new-born God in early Christian ritual. And, finally—what I cannot but think a noteworthy coincidence—the festival day of St. Christopher is placed in the Roman Catholic Calendar on the 25^th day of July, precisely at the time of year when, in the Hindu ritual, and almost certainly in the early Hindu drama, Vasudeva would be represented as carrying Krishna across the river [n2 This was also, as already noted, the first day of the Egyptian year; and the festival of the "Birthday of the Eyes of Horos" was held on that day or the day preceding.]. Clearly the Indian date cannot be borrowed from the Christian: it depends on the Birth Festival, which is as wide as possible of the Christian Nativity.

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It will need some satisfactory explanation of St. Christopher's date on other lines to destroy the possibility of the surmise that it was determined by the Hindu practice; and in any case we must infer a non-Christian origin.

XIV. INDIAN AND CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS DRAMA.

In an argument which so often insists on the priority of dramatic ritual to written legend, it may be well to take passing note of the state of opinion as to the origin and history of Indian drama. On that as on so many other points, Professor Weber is found surmising Greek influence, and so putting the great period of the Hindu theatre comparatively late. It is needless here to go into that question fully. The points for us are that in any case Hindu drama was highly developed at a period before the suggested importation of Christian legends; and that, since in all early civilizations religion and drama were closely related because originally one, there must have been an abundance of sacred drama in India before the Christian era, as there has been since. We have seen the concrete proof of this in the admitted existence of an early religious drama in which figured the demonic Kansa as enemy of Krishna. And even if Greek influences did affect Hindu dramatic practice after the invasion of Alexander, even to the extent of bringing Western mystery-ritual into the Indian (a sufficiently unlikely thing), the fact would remain that India had these ritual elements from pre-Christian sources. But inasmuch as Professor Weber's argumentation on Indian matters is in a manner interconnected, and his theory of dramatic imitation tends to prop up his theory of religious imitation, it may be pointed out that his opinion on the dramatic question is widely at variance with that of other distinguished Indianists. Wilson, whom Weber more than once cites in self-support on other questions, is here very emphatically opposed to him.

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"It is not improbable," says Weber, "that even the rise of the Hindu drama was influenced by the performance of the drama at the courts of Greek kings" [n1 Berlin lecture cited, p. 25 = Indische Skizzen, p. 28.]. Says Wilson, on the other hand :

"Whatever may be the merits or defects of the Hindu drama, it may be safely asserted that they. . . . are unmixedly its own. The science of the Hindus may be indebted to modern discoveries in other regions, and their mythology may have derived legends from Paganism or Christianity; but it is impossible that they should have borrowed their dramatic compositions from the people either of ancient or modern times. . . . The Hindus, if they learned the art from others, can have been obliged alone to the Greeks or to the Chinese. A perusal of the Hindu plays will show how little likely it is that they are indebted to either, as, with the exception of a few features in common which could not fail to occur, they present characteristic varieties of conduct and construction, which strongly evidence both original design and national development" [n2 Theatre of the Hindus, pref. pp. xi. xii.].

Probably no one who reads Wilson's translations and compares them with the classic drama and, say, the Chinese Laou-Seng-Urh [n3 Eng. trans. London, 1817. Cp. the Brief View of the Chinese Drama prefixed.] will have much hesitation in acceding to Wilson's opinion. Nor is Lassen less emphatic. "In the oldest Buddhist writings," he points out, "a visit of play-actors is spoken of as something customary" [n4 Indische Alterthumskunde, ii. 502. See Korosi's analysis of the Tibetan "Dulva," in Asiatic Researches, xx. 50, the testimony cited by Lassen. The antiquity of much of the "Dulva" is disputed by Weber, Hist. of Ind. Lit. Eng. tr. p. 199. But cp. p. 198, note 210.]; and he insists again [n5 Ind. Alt. ii. 1157.] "that the dramatic art in India is a growth wholly native to the soil, without foreign influence in general or Greek in particular." The origination of Indian drama, he adds, in the former passage, "must certainly be put before the time of the second Asoka; how much earlier it is naturally impossible to say." Anyone who reads Wilson's version of the Mrichchakati, "The Toy Cart," dated by him between a century B.C. and the second century C.E., will I think be convinced that the "origination" must be carried a very long way back [n6 Lassen (Ind. Alt. ii. 1160) dates the play about the end of the first century C.E.; Weber (Indische Studien, ii. 148) in the second century. See Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, ii. 11.].

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That drama really represents in some respects a further evolution—I do not say a higher pitch of achievement than the drama of Greece; and could only have been possible after a very long process of artistic development; hence Kalidasa may well belong, as Weber suggests, to a later period than is comrnonly supposed [n1 Hist. of Ind. Lit. pp. 200-207.]. But this still leaves the beginnings of Indian drama very far off. And seeing that the common people in modern times still played the history of Rama on his festival day [n2 See the Asiatic Researches, i. 258; and the Asiatic Journal, iv. 130, 185, N.S.]—apparently following a custom of older date than the Ramayana poem itself, it is a reasonable conjecture that the literary drama arose in India, as in Greece, out of the representations at the religious festivals. It has certainly small trace of the Greek spirit [n3 The remark of Donaldson (Theatre of the Greeks, 7th ed. p. 7, note) that "the Indian stage, even if aboriginal, may have derived its most characteristic features from the Greek," is professedly based on the proposition that "there is every reason to believe" that Krishna "was an imported deity." K. O. Muller (Hist. of the Lit. of Anc. Greece, ch. xxi. § 2) asserts incidentally that "The dramatic poetry of the Indians belongs to a time when there had been much intercourse between Greece and India," but offers no arguments, and presumably follows some earlier Indianist. Weber, while leaning to the view of Greek origins, admits (Hist. p. 207) that "no internal connection with the Greek drama exists."]: it is much more akin to the romantic drama of modern Europe.

For the rest, there is, I suppose, no connection with the theatre in the meaning of the name Devaki, which, it appears, has only loosely and indirectly the significance of "the Divine Lady," and strictly means "the player" or "she-player." Weber translates it Spielerinn, and Senart, joueuse, with no allusion to any theatrical significance [n4 Weber, Ueber die K., pp. 316, 318; Senart, p. 323. Senart points out, however, that in the Mahabharata the father of Devaki is a Gandharva i.e., a "singer of heaven."]. Nor can I find any explanation of the phrases: "I, who am a person of celestial nature, a mortal Vasudeva," and "I, a man of rank, a Vasudeva," occurring in The Toy Cart [n5 Theatre of the Hindus, i. 28, 145. Cp. p. 26, n.], save Wilson's note on the former passage that Vasudeva = Krishna. These passages do not seem to have been considered in the discussions on Krishnaism.

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They serve, however, to repeat, if that be necessary, the refutation of the Christian thesis that the name Vasudeva was based on that of Joseph; and Wilson's note indicates sufficiently his conviction of the antiquity of Krishnaism. In Act v. of the same play (p. 90) the epithet Kesava ("long-locked," crinitus), constantly associated with Krishna, is without hesitation taken by him to apply to the same deity. It is one of the commonest characterizations of the Sun-God in all mythologies.

The question as to the practice of dramatic ritual among the early Christians, of course, needs a fuller investigation than can be thus given to it in a mere comparison of Christism and Krishnaism. Suffice it here to say that already orthodox scholarship is proceeding to trace passages in the apostolic Epistles to surmised ancient liturgies [n1 See the article of Dr. Jessop in the Expositor, June, 1889.]; and that such a passage as opens the third Sermon of St. Proclus [2 Migne, Patrologia Cursus Completus, Series Graeca, tom. 65.] (Bishop of Constantinople, 432-446), comparing the pagan and Christian festivals with only a moral differentiation; the repeated exhortations, in his fourth Sermon, to mothers, fathers, and children to "come and see" the Virgin and the swaddled child in the cradle [n3 Serm. iv. 2, Col. 711. The representation as thus described followed the apocryphal Gospels in placing the birth in a cave. But instead of the "ox and ass" of the normal show (which would then be too notoriously Pagan) there are mentioned the "ass and foal" of the entrance into Jerusalem. Col. 713. There appears to have been a whole crowd of New Testament figures, including Paul.]; his long account (Sermon vi.) of the dialogue between Joseph and Mary; and in general all his allusions to festivals and mysteries, point clearly to a close Christian imitation of pagan dramatic practices [n4 The remark of the Countess Martinengo Cesaresco (art. Puer Parvulus in Contemporary Review, January, 1900, p. 117), that "there was no actual cult of the infant Saviour till the thirteenth century," is clearly erroneous, though the explicit evidences to the contrary are not abundant. As we have seen, the narratives in the Apocryphal and other Gospels derive from the ancient cult.]. It is further a matter not of conjecture, but of history, that the old play on the "Suffering Christ" is to be attributed to Gregory of Nazianzen;

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and Klein, the German historian of the drama, decides that the sacrament of the Mass or the Communion is "in itself already a religious drama, and is the original mystery-play" [n1 Geschichte des Dramas, iv. ( = Gesch. des Ital. Drama. i.), p. 2.]; a view accepted and echoed by the orthodox Ulrici [n2 Shakespeare’s Dramatic Art, Bohn trans. i. 2.], and independently advanced by Renan [n3 Etudes d'Histoire religieuse, p. 51.]. Klein has further traced, perhaps fancifully at some points, an interesting series of analogies between the early Christian liturgy and the Greek tragedy, which was essentially a religious service. M. Jubinal, again, in a sketch of the rise of the Mystery-plays, sums up that "the fifth century presents itself with its cortege of religious festivals, during which are simulated (on mime) or figured in the church the adoration of the Magi, the marriage of Cana, the death of the Saviour, etc." [n4 Mysteres Inedits du XVieme siecle, 1837, pref. p. viii.]. This statement, made without citations, is repeated by Klein [n5 iv. 11.], who quotes as his authority merely the words of M. Jubinal; and by Dr. Ulrici [n6 i. 4.], who, carrying the statement further, merely cites these two writers. Such defect of proof would be suspicious were it not for the above-cited evidence from Saint Proclus; and, though that is so far decisive, there is evident need for a complete research. Milman has made little or none. Admitting that there were pantomimic spectacles at the martyr-festivals, he rejects the view that they represented the deaths of the martyrs, but says nothing as to the early mystery-plays, merely denying that plays such as that by Gregory were written for representation [n7 History of Christianity, bk. iv. ch. 2, ed. Paris, 1840, ii. 320, 326.]; and in his later work he discusses the Mysteries of the Middle Ages without attempting to trace their origin [n8 History of Latin Christianity, bk. xiv. ch. 4.].

A complete theory would have to deal with (1) the original mystery-plays which preceded and provided the Gospel narrative; (2) the reduction of some of these to pseudo-history and their probable cessation (e.g., in the case of the Last Supper) as complete dramatic representations; and (3) the later establishment of such exhibitions as that of the Nativity, in the teeth of the ascetic objection to all forms of pleasurable art.

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Here, however, I can only posit the fact that such exhibitions did occur, and note that such a conclusion is supported by orthodox clerical statement. Dr. Murdock, discussing the Christian adoption of the Christmas festival, observes that

"From the first institution of this festival, the Western nations seem to have transferred to it many of the follies and censurable practices which prevailed in the pagan festivals of the same season, such as adorning the churches fantastically, mingling puppet shows and dramas with worship, universal feasting and merry-making, visits and salutations, revelry and drunkenness." [n1 Note on trans. of Mosheim, 4 Cent. pt. ii. ch. 4, § 5.]

It is, indeed, one of the commonplaces of Protestant church historians to point out that after the State establishInent of Christianity it borrowed many observances from Paganism [n2 See, for instance, Mosheim, Eccles. Hist. 3 Cent. pt. ii. ch. 4, § 3 ; 4 Cent.

pt. ii. ch. 4, § 1, 2; 5 Cent. pt. i. ch. 3, § 2, etc.; Gieseler, Compend. of Ec. Hist. Eng. tr. 1846, ii. 24-26, 32, 51, 61, etc.; Waddington, Hist. of the Church, pp. 37, 212-4. Cp. Roma Antiqua et Recens, 1665, rep. 1889, Pagano-Papismus, 1675, rep. 1844, and Middleton's Letter from Rome, 1729, etc., for detailed statements. For later views see Dyer, History of Rome, 1877, p. 295; Lord, The Old Roman World, 1873, p. 558; Maitland's Church in the Catacombs, 1846, p. 306; Seymore's Evenings with the Romanists, 1844, p. 221; Merivale's Four Lectures on some Epochs of Early Church History; Lechler's Apostolic and Post-Apostolic Times, p. 262. See finally some very explicit Catholic admissions by Baronius, Epitome Annalium, a Spondano, Lugduni, 1686, p. 79; Polydore Vergil, De lnventore Rerum, 1. 5, c. 1; Wiseman's Letters to John Poynder, Esq., 1836.]. What the student has to keep in view is that these usages, especially such a one as that of "puppet shows and dramas," cannot have been suddenly grafted on a religious system wholly devoid of them. The Christians certainly had the practice of celebrating some birthday of Christ long before the fourth century; and we have seen some of the reasons for concluding that on that occasion they had a mystery-ritual. It is noteworthy, too, that the subjects first specified as appearing in Christian shows or plays were precisely those which we know to have figured in the cults of Mithra and Dionysos, and in the Egyptian system. Further, it was exactly such subjects that were represented in the earliest medieval Mysteries of which copies remain; and it was especially at Christmas and Easter that these were performed. It is hardly possible to doubt that these representations derive from the very earliest practices of the Christian sect, established when Paganism was still in full play.

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The dramatic character of the early Mysteries, which, as we have seen, were almost as inviolably secret as those of the Pagans, pierces through the cautious writings of the Fathers, as read even by clerical eyes :

"Chrysostom most probably refers to the commemoration of our Saviour's deeds and words at the Last Supper, as used in the liturgy, when he attributes such great importance to the words of institution of our Lord, which he considers as still chiefly efficacious in the consecration of the eucharist. He often speaks of the eucharist under the title of an unbloody sacrifice. . . . " [n1 Palmer, Origines Liturgicae, i. 33.]

Other admissions are no less significant :

“There can be little, if any, doubt that Christian liturgies were not at first committed to writing, but preserved by memory and practice." "When we examine the remains of the Roman, Italian, Gallican, and Spanish liturgies, we find that they all permitted a variety of expression for every particular feast. . . . It appears to me that the practice of the western Churches during the fifth and fourth centuries, in permitting the use of various 'missae' in the same church, affords room for thinking that something of the same kind had existed from a remote period. For it does not seem that the composition of new 'missae' for the festivals excited any surprise in these ages, or was viewed as anything novel in principle." [n2 Id. pp. 9, 10. Cp. Mosheim, 4 Cent. pt. ii. ch. 4, § 3.]

That is to say, the first Christians, in their feeble and illiterate way, tried to do what the Greeks had long done in their dramatic mysteries, which must have conformed in some degree to the creative tendency fulfilled on such a splendid scale in their public drama, itself a development of religious ritual [n3 K. O. Muller, Hist. of the Lit. of Anc. Greece, ch. xxi. § 2-5; xxvii. § 1. It is true that, as remarked by Fustel de Coulanges in La Cité Antique (8ieme ed. p. 196), the words and rhythms of the hymns in the ancient domestic and civic rites were preserved unaltered; but this would not apply to the later syncretic mysteries.].

"The Eleusinian mysteries were, as an ancient writer [Clem. Alex. Protrept. p. 12, Potter] expresses it, 'a mystical drama,' in which the history of Demeter and Cora was acted, like a play, by priests and priestesses, though probably only with mimic action, illustrated by a few significant sentences, and by the singing of hymns. There were also similar mimic representations in the worship of Bacchus: thus, at the Anthesteria at Athens, the wife of the second archon, who bore the title

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of Queen, was betrothed to Dionysus in a secret solemnity, and in public processions even the God himself was represented by a man. [A beautiful slave of Nicias represented Dionysus on an occasion of this kind: Plutarch, Nic. 3. Compare the description of the great Bacchic procession under Ptolemy Philadelphus in Athen. v.] At the Boeotian festival of the Agrionia, Dionysus was supposed to have disappeared, and to be sought for among the mountains; there was also a maiden (representing one of the nymphs in the train of Dionysus), who was pursued by a priest, carrying a hatchet, and personating a being hostile to the God. This festival rite, which is frequently mentioned by Plutarch, . is the origin of the fable, which occurs in Homer, of the pursuit of Dionysus and his nurses by the furious Lycurgus." [n1 Id. xxi. § 3 (Lewis' trans. 1847), pp. 287-8.]

The last proposition is one more application of the principle which has been so often followed in the present essay—that ritual usages are the fountains of myth, and typically the—most ancient things in religion. But while the central ritual was immemorial, it may be taken for granted that the secret drama and hymns were innovated upon from time to time. And this frequent or customary change, proceeding from spontaneous devotional or artistic feeling, would seem to have been attempted in some degree, and even in an artistic spirit [n2 Mosheim (1 Cent. pt. ii. ch. 4, § 6) decides that even in the first century the liturgical hymns were sung not by the whole assembly, but by certain persons during the celebration of the sacred supper and the charity.], by the first Christians, till the religious principle and the church system of centralization petrified everything into dead ritual. And only when we know better than we do at present the details of the process by which they built up alike their liturgy and their legends, their mysteries and their festivals, from the medley of religious systems around them, can we possibly be entitled to say that they did not take something from the ancient drama and ritual of India, to which so many Western eyes were then turned.

Finally, we must remember that in all probability the ancient race of travelling Pagan mummers survived obscurely all through the Dark Ages, as did so much genuine Paganism [n3 Cp. Warton, History of English Poetry, sect. xxxiv.; Symonds, Shakespeare’s Predecessors, p. 95; Vernon Lee, Stndies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy, pp. 233-4; Ulrici, as cited, p. 10; Academy, April 6th, 1889, p. 231.].

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It seems to have been their encroachment on the hitherto purely clerical domain of religious play-acting that brought upon things theatrical the curse of the Church, who naturally wanted to destroy the art when she found it slipping from her hands. In any case, we know that, though the early Fathers had often denounced secular drama and actors, doing indiscriminately what Plato had done with discrimination, not till about the thirteenth century did the dramatic art and its devotees begin to come absolutely under the ecclesiastical ban. By that time the Church no longer knew-collectively; indeed, her children had never realised-that primitive drama was the very womb and genesis of the whole faith.

XV.—THE SEVEN MYTH.

An examination of two other minor myth-motives of Christianity in connection with Krishnaism will perhaps be found not uninstructive. We have seen that the Catholic Church placed St. Christopher's day at the time when, in the Hindu legend, Vasudeva carries the new-born Krishna across a river. That is not the only detail of the kind. Just a fortnight before, on July 10th, is fixed the Catholic commemoration day of the Septem Fratres Martyres, the seven martyred brothers.

§ 1. Here we are at once up to the eyes in universal mythology. On the very face of the Christian martyrology, these Seven Brother Martyrs are mythic: they are duplicated again and again in that martyrology itself. Thus we have the specially so-called Septem Fratres Martyres, who are sons of a martyr mother Felicitas, and whose martyrdom is placed in the reign of Antoninus Pius—a safe way off. But on the 18^th day of the same month. we have the martyred Saint Symphorosa and her seven martyred sons, whose date is put under Hadrian, a little earlier still. But yet earlier still we find included in the same martyrology the pre-Christian case of the seven Maccabee brothers [n1 2 Maccabees, vii.] and their mother, fixed for August 1^st.

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And still the list mounts. On July 27^th—we are always in or just out of July—is the holy day of the Septem Dormientes, our old friends the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, fabled to have been "walled up in a cave in which they had hid themselvrs" in the year 250, in the persecution of Decius, and to have waked up—or to have been discovered, as the scrupulous Butler would prefer to put it—in 479 [n1 See their story in Gibbon, c. 33, end. This date shoultl have been the end of the world, as to which there were even more guesses in the early than in the later Christian times. If the chronology of Julius Africanus were accepted, 469 would be the year of the end of the world, on Tertullian's (Magian) view that it was to last 6,000 years.]. Nor is even this all. There are further the Seven Martyrs of Samosata, whose holy day is somewhat belated, December 9th; and the seven Virgin Martyrs of Ancyra, who are placed under Diocletian, so as to help to cover the martyrological ground, and who in the Roman Catholic Calendar are commemorated on May 18th, but in the Armenian Church on June 20th. Doubtless the Seven Virgins, all ladies of about seventy years, have a different mythic origin from the seven brothers or sleepers, who in the four first cases are invariably youths or boys; and the seven of Samosata (whose actual date of martyrdom was June 25th) also divide off from the July group in respect that two of them, the leaders, are old, and that the remaining five in the story are represented as joining these two, who adored the crucifix seven times a day [n2 For these legends see Butler's or any other Lives of the Saints, under the dates given.]. We are left with four sets of Seven Martyr, three of them sets of brothers, whose mothers were martyred before or after them, they themselves suffering between July 10th and August 1^st.

That the Seven Sleepers are of the same myth stock is clear. In the Musaeum Victorium of Rome is, or was, a plaster group of them, in which clubs lie beside two of them; a knotty club near another; axes near two others; and a torch near the seventh. Now the general feature [n3 Butler, ed. 1812, etc., vii. 359-60.] of the other martyrdoms is the variety of the tortures imposed.

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Of the first seven, one is flogged to death with loaded whips, two with clubs, one thrown over a precipice, and three beheaded; and of the sons of Symphorosa each one dies a distinct death. The seven Maccabees are not so much particularised; but of the seven of Samosata, the first, who is old, is flogged with loaded whips like the eldest son of Felicitas; and, though all are crucified, they are finally despatched in three different ways. Again, though the Sleepers are commonly conceived, naturally, in their final Rip Van Winkle aspect; in the plaster group they are beardless, and "in ancient martyrologies and other writings they are frequently called boys." In the Koran again [n1 Sura 18, "The Cave." Rodwell's trans. 1st ed. p. 212.], still youths, and still" testifying "in bad times, they sleep, 'with their eyes open, for 309 years—a longer period than that of the Christian legend, which gives them a sleep of only some 227 years [n2 In one version; in others the time is under 200 years.]—and they are guarded by a dog; while the Deity "turned them to the right and to the left," and the sun when it arose passed on the right of their cave, and when it set passed them on the left; a sufficiently obvious indication of the solar division of the year. And the mythic dog, Mohammedans believe, is to go with the Seven to heaven. He is, of course, of the breed of the dogs who, in certain old Semitic mysteries, "were solemnly declared to be the brothers of the mystae" [n3 Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 273.]; and his connection with the Sleepers doubtless hinges on the ancient belief that he "has the use of his sight both by night and by day" [n4 Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, c. 44. Cp. Diodorus Siculus, i. 87.]

Seven, as the reader need hardly be reminded, is a "sacred number" [n5 "An infinite number of beauties may be extracted from a careful contemplation of it." Philo Judaeus, Bohn trans. iii. 265.] that constantly figures in Jewish, Vedic, and other ancient lore; and there is reason to surmise here, as in so many other cases, a Christian connection with Mithraism. Among the admittedly Mithraic remains in the Catacombs is a fresco representing a banquet of seven persons, who are labelled as the Septem Pii Sacerrdotes, the seven pious pricsts [n6 Roma Sotteranea, as cited, Appendix B, vol. ii. p. 355.].

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Now, the very Catholic authorities who admit the Mithraic character of the picture have put forward an exactly similar one as being Christian, stating that it is common, without a word of misgiving or explanation, beyond an uncalculating suggestion that it represents the meeting of Jesus with seven disciples (John xxi. 1-13) after his resurrection. "It is not stated," argue these exegetes, "that He Himself sat down and partook of the meal with them" [n1 Plate xvii. vol. ii. and pp. 67-8.]. So that we are to assume the Catacomb artist painted the seven fisher disciples, on the shore of the lake, sitting on a couch, banqueting at an elaborately laid table, in the presence of their Lord and Master, whose figure is considerately left to the imagination. It is plain that the picture is either Mithraic pure and simple or an exact Christian imitation of a Mithraic ceremony; and indeed it is very likely that the story in the fourth Gospel, which is evidently an addition, was one more fiction to explain a ritual usage. The picture could not have been painted for the story; but the story might very well be framed to suit the rite, which existed before the painting. And here at least Mithraism had handed on to Christianity an institution of ancient India, for the seven priests figure repeatedly in the Rig Veda in connection with the worship of Agni [n2 Rig Veda Sanhita, Wilson's trans. i. 101, 156; iii. 115, 120, etc. It may have been Mithraic example that led to the creation of seven epulones, rulers of the Roman sacrificial feasts, in place of the original three; as later the institution of the seven Christian deacons. The Septemviri Epulones appear often in inscriptions. There was, however, a traditional ceremonial banquet of Seven Wise Men at Corinth, the founding of which was attributed to Periander, about 600 B.C. Plutarch, Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii.]. But, again, the rite is probably a widespread one; for in the Dionysiak myth the Child-God is torn by the Titans into seven pieces; and there is reason to surmise that a Banquet of Seven gave rise to that story [n3 See the bas-relief from the Dionysiak theatre, reproduced in Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens, by Miss Harrison and Mrs. Verrall, 1890, p. 283. Cp. that on p. 278.].

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We cannot here, of course, trace such a myth minutely to all its parallels [n1 The myth gets into Danish history in the story of the seven young Danes of Jomsburg, who, being captured in Norway, undergo their deaths with unparalleled fortitude, having been trained to despise death and all suffering. Each "testifies" separately. Mallet's Intr. to Hist. of Denmark, lib. 4.]; and there is a risk of oversight in bracketing it with all the Sevens of general mythology. The Rev. Sir George Cox traces these generally to the seven stars of Ursa Major:

"The seven stars" [in Sanskrit, first rikshas, bears; later rishis. shiners, sages] "became the abode of the Seven Poets or sages, who. enter the ark with Menu (Minos) and reappear as the Seven Wise Men of Rellas, the Seven Children of Rhodos and Relios (Pind. Ol. vii. 132). and the Seven Champions of Christendom" [n2 Mythology of the Aryan Nations, p. 26.]. "Epimenides. . . . while tending sheep, fell asleep one day in a cave, and did not awake until more than fifty years had passed away. But Epimenides was one of the Seven Sages, who reappear in the Seven Manes of Leinster [ref. to. Fergusson, The Irish before the Conquest] and in the Seven Champions of Christendom; and thus the idea, of the Seven Sleepers was at once suggested." [n3 Id. p. 225.]

Sir George Cox, however, does not connect these groups. with the sets of Seven Martyrs; whereas Christian and Teutonic mythology alike entitle us to do so. In every case the point is that the Seven are to rise again, that being the doctrinal lesson in the story of the Maccabees. as well as in those of the Christian Martyrs. In the Northern Sagas the Seven Sleepers are the sons of Mimer "the ward of the middle-root of the world-tree"; they are "put to sleep" in "bad times" after their father's death; and they awake at the blast of the trumpet of Ragnarok. They are in fact the "seven seasons," the seven changes of the weather, the seven "economic months" of Northern lore; and in Germany and Sweden the day of the Seven Sleepers is a popular test-day of the weather, as St. Swithin's day, July 15^th—we are always in July—is for us [n4 Rydberg, Teutonic Mythology, pp. 488-494.]. Now, whereas the names of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus—Maximian, Malchus, Martinian, Dionysius, John, Serapion, Constantine—have no connection with a weather-myth, the very first name of the Septem Fratres Martyres is Januarius, and the list includes the names of Felix, Sylvanus, Vitalis, and

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Martialis, all of which have a seasonal suggestion. So, too, have the names alike of Felicitas, Fertility, and Symphorosa = propitious, useful, profitable. And the source of the legend is put beyond all doubt when we find that Temporum Felicitas is actually the inscription on ancient coins or medals representing that Roman Goddess [n1 Felicitas was separately deified. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, iv, 18, 23; Suetonius, Tiberius, c. p.] and her children the seasons. On one side she herself is represented with three children, she bearing symbols, but they bearing none; while on the other are four boys, who distinctly stand for the seasons in respect of the symbols they bear [n2 See the reproduction by Spanheim, Obs. in Callimachi Hymn. in Cererum. ed. Ernesti, 1761, ii. 815-16.]. Now, the ancients had two conceptions on the subject—one of three Horae, who were "not seasons, properly speaking, for the winter was never a Hora," and who were often represented without attributes [n3 K. O. Muller, Ancient Art, p, 530.]; the other, the more definite notion of the quattuor anni tempora, and the medal under notice simply presents both fancies. And the Christian myth-maker in his turn has simply combined them anew, adding the four to the three and making seven sons of Felicitas, accounting for the Temporum as he thought fit. Thus can myths be made.

It is not to be supposed, of course, that the myth could always keep the same cast; and it may be that it is at bottom the same as that of the seven boy and girl victims of the 'Minotaur' in the legend of Theseus; but there is certainly a close kinship between the Teutonic and Christian forms under notice. In the view of Dr. Rydberg, the myth is originally Teutonic; though he notes that "Gregorius says that he is the first who recorded in the Latin language "the miracle of the Seven Sleepers," not before known to the Church of Western Europe. As his authority he quotes 'a certain Syrian,' who had interpreted the story for him. There was also need of a man from the Orient as an authority when a hitherto unknown miracle was to be presented—a miracle that had transpired (sic trans.) in a cave near Ephesus."

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It might be answered to this not only that, as Dr. Rydberg himself candidly notes, the sleeping Endymion was located in a cave in Latmos near Ephesus, but that the seven Pleiades of Greek mythology were rain-givers, and presided over navigation, just as he says the northern Seven Sleepers did. It is doubtless this idea that occurs in the legend of the Seven Virgins of Ancyra, whom the persecutor drowns in a lake, and whose holy day, May 18, is set just about the time the Pleiades rise [n1 The lake itself, in the Christian legend, is the scene of a local water-worship in connection with Pagan Goddesses. Now, the Semites attached a special sanctity to groups of Seven Wells; and the Arabic name given to (presumably) one such group signifies the Pleiades. See Smith's Religion of the Semites, pp. 153, n., 165, 168.]. Furthermore, the Graeco-Syrians had their doctrine of the seven zones or climates into which the earth was divided [n2 Bardesan, Fragments, Eng. tr. Ante-Nicene Lib. vol. xxii. b. p. 107.] just as the northerns had their seven seasons; the zones being doubtless correlative with the "seven bonds of heaven and earth" which in the ancient Babylonian system were developed from the seven planets and their representative spirits [n3 Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, p. 110. There were seven bad spirits as well as seven good —the number was obligatory. Id. pp. 82, 102, 105, 283. Cp. Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, Eng. tr. p. 25.]. But Gregory's derivation of the Christian myth from the East, where also are located the Septem Fratres Matyres, brings us back to our bearings as regards the present inquiry.

§ 2. The occurrence of all these dates of "sevens" in July, or just after July, the seventh month, is a very remarkable coincidence; and it is impossible to miss the surmise that they have a connection with the month's ordinal number. But further surmises are suggested by the fact that in the Krishna legends there is a variation, and an evident confusion, as to the numerical place of the God in the list of his mother's children, of whom he would appear in some versions to have been the seventh, while commonly he is the eighth [n4 Compare M. Barth's account with that of Maurice (History of Hindostan, ii. 330), who follows the Bhagavat Purana, but cites Balde, who made Krishna the seventh son.].

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Devaki's eight children are said to have been seven sons and a daughter; but only the six sons are said to have been killed by Kansa; while in the Bhagavat Purana her seventh child is Bala Rama, and, he being "transferred" to the womb of Rohini, her seventh

pregnancy is given out as ending in miscarriage. It is hardly possible to doubt that there has been manipulation of an earlier myth-form; and the suspicion is strengthened

by the confused fashion in which it is told that after the birth of the divine child the parents' eyes were closed by Vishnu, so that "they again thought that a child was born unto them"—a needless and unintelligible detail [n1 It is made partly intelligible in the Prem Sagar ("Ocean of Love"), a Hindi version at second hand of the tenth book of the Bhagavat Purana. The idea there is that the parents are made to forget the preliminary revelation of the divinity. Cp. Cox, p. 368.]. The myth, besides, is certainly pre-Krishnaite. "In the Veda, the sun, in the form of Martanda, is the eighth son born of Aditi; and his mother casts him off, just as Devakl, who is at times represented as an incarnation of Aditi, removes Krishna" [n2 Barth, Religions of India, p. 173. See Wilson's Rig Veda Sanhita, vi. 199. Aditi "bore Martanda for the birth and death of human beings."]. In other mythologies as in the Hindu the number of the supernatural family varies between seven and eight. "To Kronos [Il or El] were borne by Astarte seven daughters. . . . and again to him were borne by Rhea seven sons, the youngest of whom was consecrated from his birth" [n3 Sanchoniathon in Eusebius, Praep. Evang., cited in Cory's Ancient Fragments, pp.-13-14.]; but again the divine Eshmun (Asklepios) was the eighth son of Sydyk [n4 Id. p, 19.]. The solution is dubious [n5 Apollo, reputed born on the seventh day of the month, was probably first known as seventh-day-born…Scholiasts on Aesch. Seven against Thebes, 800, where the epithet is … Cp. Plutarch, Symposium, viii.]. It is possible that a myth of the birth of seven inferior or ill-fated children, followed by that of one who attains supreme Godhood, may be a primitive cosmogonic explanation of the relation of the "seven planets" to the deity, which is certainly the basis of the familiar myth of the "Seven Spirits" who figure so much in the Mazdean system and in the Christian Apocalypse.

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Mithra, the chief of the seven Amshaspands or planetary spirits of the Persian system, who are clearly akin to the "Adityas" of the Vedas [n1 Tiele, Ontlines, p. 169.], rose in his solar character to virtual supremacy; and it is noteworthy that throughout the Avesta the heavenly bodies always appear in the order: Planets, Moon, and Sun, the Sun coming last [n2 Goldziher, Hebrew Mythology, p. 61.]. In this light, the conception of stars and moon as ghosts or dead divinities in comparison with the sun seems not unlikely. On the other hand, on Mr. Frazer's view of the primitive universality of the worship of a God of Vegetation, whose cult survived in such as those of Dionysos, Osiris, and Adonis, there may have been an association of a myth of the seasons with that of the Life-God, who finally dominates everything. And as there appears to have been a legend of seven slain sons of Devaki [n3 M. Pavie, in his translation (Krishna et sa Doctrine, 1852) of Lalatch's Hindi version of the tenth book of the Bhagavat Purâna, heads the first chapter, "King Kansa kills the first seven children of his sister Devaki," though the text is not explicit to that effect.], these seven sons of the "celestial man" [n4 Barth, as cited, p. 172.] may be duplicates of the seven sleeping sons of the northern Mimer, whom we have seen identified with "the seven seasons." The Christian legends have shown us how the sleepers (always young) could be transformed into martyrs. It is a curious coincidence, again, that in one version of the myth of the twelve Hebrew patriarchs [n5 Gen, xxx. 20-24.] the undesired Leah bears to the solar Jacob seven children, six sons and a daughter, before the desired Rachel bears the favourite, the solar Joseph; while in the dual legend of Rama and Krishna the younger brother becomes the greater, as happens in so many Biblical cases of pairs of brothers—Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, Reuben and Joseph, Pharez and Zarah, Manasseh and Ephraim [n6 Compare the ascendancy of Zeus over his elder brethren. Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus, 58-59. In Hesiod (Theogony, 453-478) Zeus is the sixth and youngest child; but in the Iliad (xv. 182, 204; cp. iv. 60) he is the eldest born.].

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The suspicion of manipulation is further strengthened by the fact that, while the Birth Festival falls in July, the date of the birth in late texts appears to be August. It could be wished that Professor Weber had brought his scholarly knowledge to bear on the problem of the meaning of these dates rather than on the impracticable thesis he has adopted from his supernaturalist predecessors. Sir William Jones gave a clue [n1 Asiatic Researches, iii. 289.] in noting the fact that in the Brahman almanacs there are two ways of dating Krishna's birthday. One puts it "when the moon is in Rohini, on the eighth of any dark fortnight; the other when the sun is in Sinha." It is a conflict of myths.

As to the "seven seasons" notion in old Aryan mythology, it is impossible to speak. The number in Hindu lore as preserved is six [n2 Jones, in Asiatic Researches, iii. 258; Patterson, id. viii. 66.]; and though these might be connected with the six slain children of Devaki, they do not square with the eight births of Aditi. But for this last precedent, it might be suspected that Krishna had been made the eighth child of the Divine Lady because he was the eighth Incarnation of Vishnu; but the Aditi myth is a strong reminder that the story of the eight children may be older than the scheme of the Avatars, the genesis of which is so difficult to trace [n3 For an ingenious if inconclusive attempt to find an astrological solution of the problem, see Salverte's Essai Sur les Noms, 1824, vol. ii. Note C. Salverte has followed some account which makes Krishna the seventh child of Devaki.]. In Rhodes, Poseidon was held to have six sons and one daughter by Halia; while Helios had seven sons and one daughter by Rhode [n4 Diodorus Siculus, v. 55, 56.]. And here we are reminded that the number eight figures in the Vedas as well as seven, there being indeed eight "planets" in the Indian system [n5 Barth, as cited, p. 261, n.]. Yet again, in Egyptian mythology there are "eight personified cosmic powers" "from whom the city of Thut, Hermopolis, derived its Egyptian name," and who are " always united with Thut, but nevertheless to be distinguished from his seven assistants" [n6 Tiele, Outlines, p. 49. Cp. Herodotus, ii. 43, 46, 145, 156.].

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Again, it has been pointed out that the Pythian cycle of eight years was one of ninety-nine lunar months, "at the end of which the revolutions of the sun and moon again nearly coincided [n1 K. O. Muller, Dorians, Eng. tr. i. 281. Cp. pp. 263, 270.]. Finally, it is not impossible that the old perplexity as to Hesperus and Phosphorus—the question whether it was the same planet, Venus, that was seen now at dawn and now at sunset: a problem which was said to have been settled by Pythagoras [n2 Cicero, De nat. deor. ii. 2.]—may underlie the alternations of a seven and an eight myth. It would seem as if an eight myth and a seven myth, both of irretrievable antiquity, had been entangled [n3 Compare Macrobius, In Somn. Scip. i. 6. Colebrooke (Asiatic Researches, viii. 82-3) notes that "the eight Sactis, or enemies of as many deities, are also called Matris or mothers. . . . However, some authorities reduce the number to seven." So there are two accounts of the number of children borne by Megara to Herakles, Pherecydes making them seven, and Pindar (Isth. iii. 81, 116) eight. (Duncker, Gesch. des Alterthums, iii. 98.) Apollodorus in one place. (ii. 7, 8) makes the sons four; in another (ii. 4, 11) three. It may very well be that this ancient perplexity is the origin of the odd phrase in Ecclesiastes (xi. 2): "Give a portion to Seven, and also to Eight”—a formula which the commentators seem to regard as having no special meaning. The two numbers occur again in Micah, v. 5. See Mr. Gerald Massey's Natural Genesis, ii. 80, 104-5, for a surprising number of other instances, one from the Fiji islands! See also the same work, ii. 2, as to the number of the Pleiads.] too early to permit of any certainty as to their respective origins.

On that view, of course, the possibility remains that a week-myth may after all be bound up with the legend of Krishna and the six slain children. The names of the days of the week, ancient and modern, remind us that the "seven planets"—that is, the five planets anciently known, and the sun and moon—formed the. basis of the seven-day division of time, in which the sun has always the place of honour [n4 On this point, in connection with India, see Von Bohlen, Das Alte Indien, 1830, ii. 245 ff. The origin of the week appears still to be disputed. Le Clerc long ago urged the planetary basis against Grotius, who accepted the Judaic (On the Truth of the Chr. Rel. i. 16); but Professor Whitney (Life and Growth of Language, p. 81) writes that "the planetary day-names would have remained to Europe, as to India, a mere astrologers' fancy, but for Christianity and its inheritance of the .Jewish seven-day period as a leading measure of time"—a perplexing statement to me. The Day of the Sun or Lord's Day was certainly a popular institution under Paganism. On the general problem cp. Kuenen, Religion of Ismel, Eng. tr. i. 264; Wellhausen, Prolegomena, p. 113; Indian Antiquary, March, 1874 (iii. 90); Philostratus, Life of Apollonins of Tyana, iii. 41, end; Max Muller, On False Analogies in Comparative Theology, Contemporary Review, 1870.].

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Now, it is a suggestive though imperfect coincidence that among the ancient Semites, who consecrated the seventh day (i.e., Saturday), to their supreme and sinister deity Saturn, the planet most distant from the sun, the priests on that day, clothed in black, ministered to the God in his black six-sided temple [n1 Gesenius, Commentar uber d. Jesaia, 2ter Theil, Beilage, 2, p. 344, citing Nordberg, Lex. p. 76 ff. (Donaldson, Theatre of the Greeks, 7th ed. p. 15.)]—he having made the world in six days, the perfect number. This deity, like the black Krishna; bears signs of transformation from bad to good, from inferior to superior, since in ancient Italy he was both a good and a malevolent deity [n2 Cp. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, i. 38; Virgil, Ecl. iv. 6; Georg. i. 336, ii. 538; Horace, 2 Carm. xvii. 23; Augustine, De Civ. Dei, vii. 13; Juvenal, vi. 569; Macrobius, In Somn. Scip. i. 19. Compare the words "saturnine," signifying gloomy, and "saturnian" as signifying the golden age. See further Lucan, i. 652, on which a curious question arises. Lucan speaks of Saturn as a baleful star with "black fires." Bentley proposed to read Capricorni for Saturni, givin ingenious but doubtful reasons. Mythological confusion was doubtless ca sed by the meteorological' significance of the star, as apart from the deity, who was by many reckoned the chief of the Gods, and identified with the sky and the sun (Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 7, 10, 22). In the Mithraic mysteries Saturn had the "first" gate, the "leaden." Origen, Against Celsus, vi. 22.]. Of course Ovid's etymology is untenable, but it is none the less significant that for him Saturn, the Deus Latins, or God of Latium, is the Deus Latens, or "hiding God" [n3 Fasti, i. 238.], considering that Saturn was commonly opposed to Jupiter, the Deus Latiaris, equally God of Latium, the illustrious king of the race [n4 Preller, Rom. Myth. p. 85.]. It may be that, as in so many other myths, the name helped the theory as to Saturn's "hidden" character; but in any case the theory was persistent; and Herodian, writing in the third century, tells that the Latins kept the festival of the Saturnalia in December "to commemorate the hidden God" [n5 Bk. i. c. 16. Cp. Tacitus, Hist. v. 4; and Preller, p. 413. It is to be noted, too, that Kronos = (Saturn) was, represented in art with his head veiled (K. O. Muller, Ancient Art, as cited, p. 520).], just before the feast of the New Year in honour of Janus, whose image had two faces, because in him was the end of the old and the beginning of the new year. Thus he was celebrated at the time of the greatest cold, the festival lasting for seven days, from December 17th; but the time was one of universal good will, calling up thoughts of the golden age past, and to come [n6 Preller, p. 414; Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 10.].

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And not the least curious parallel between this and the Krishnaite festival and our own Christmas festival is the old custom of making, at the time of the Saturnalia, little images, which were given as presents, especially to children [n1 Preller, last cit.; Macrobius, i. 11.].

This is a way from the week myth. To return to that: we find that in seven-gated Thebes, Apollo the Sun-God is lord of the seventh gate [n2 Aeschylus, Seven against Thebes, 801. Each gate has its God, and the virgin Athene presides over all. In the Mithraic mysteries, Mithra, the Sun God, was lord of the seventh gate, the gates being named from the planets, moon, and sun. Origen, as last cited. The same principle held in Babylon. In ancient Scandinavia, finally, if we can trust the Grimnismal, Balder dwells in the seventh celestial house. Bergmann, Le Message de Skirnir et les dits de Grimnir, pp. 228, 249, 269. There is no sign of Christian suggestion here. Cp. Donaldson, Theatre of the Greeks, 7th ed. p. 14.] because lord of the number seven, and born on the seventh day of the month [n3 Scholiast on Aesch.; Muller, Dorians, Eng. tr. i. 348 and refs. In four months, two in each half of the year, the seventh day was sacred to Apollo. Muller, as cited, p. 350. Cp. p. 270. See also Hesiod, Works and Days, 770; Diogenes Laertius, Life of Plato; and Herodotus (vi. 57), who makes the seventh day of every month as well as the day of each new moon sacred to Apollo in Sparta.]; and though in the Hellenic legend of the seven chiefs who die in the attack on the seven-gated city the basal myth is much sophisticated, it can hardly be doubted that there is a dualist nature-myth behind the detail of the mutual slaughter of the two opposed brothers at the gate of Apollo. More obvious is the conception as we have it plausibly explained by Sir George Cox, followed by Mr. Tylor, in the case of Grimm's story of the wolf and the seven little goats. The wolf is the darkness (Kansa was black) who tries to swallow the seven days of the week, and does swallow six, while the seventh hides [n4 Cox, p. 177, note. Cp. Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 302-8.]. In the Teutonic story the six days come out again, which they do not in the Hindu; but the myth may be the same at bottom. In any case, here we have six or seven slain "children," whose fate makes part of the story of Krishna, the Hindu God honoured in the seventh month; and these compare strikingly with the Christian sets of Seven Martyrs, who are all either "children" of a mother who dies with them, or simply boys, as in the case of the Sleepers of Ephesus; and who are so curiously associated with the same month.

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I am not arguing that the Christian myth must have filtered in the early centuries of our era from India: I have no information as to whether the Hindu ritual includes any allusion to Krishna's martyred brothers. But at the very least the mythological basis of all the stories should be plain enough to help to disabuse all candid minds of the notion that Krishnaism drew its myths from Christianity. Here, again, the myth is embedded in the Hindu story, while it only fortuitously appears in Christian mythology.

§ 3. There is one other possible key to this part of the Krishna myth, which should not be overlooked. It would appear that in old Hebrew usage the seventh month was also known as the first month, owing to a change which had been made in the reckoning. Wellhausen writes :

"The ecclesiastical festival of new year in the priestly Code is also autumnal. The yom teruah (Lev. xxiii. 24, 25; Num. xxix. 1 seq.) falls on the first new moon of autumn; and it follows from a tradition confirmed by Lev. xxv. 9, 10, that this day was celebrated as new year [Rosh Hashna] . But it is always spoken of as the first of the seventh month. That is to say, the civil new year has been separated from the ecclesiastical and been transferred to spring; the ecclesiastical can only be regarded as a relic surviving from an earlier period. . . . It appears to have first begun to give way under the influence of the Babylonians, who observed the spring era." [Note." In Exod. xii. 2 this change of era is formally commanded by Moses: 'This month (the passover month) shall be the beginning of months unto you; it shall be to you the first of the months of the year.' According to George Smith, the Assyrian year commenced at the vernal equinox; the Assyrian use depends on the Babylonian. (Assyrian Eponym Canon, p. 19)."] [n1 Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel, Eng. tr. pp. 108-109.]

There seems reason to suppose that a similar change took place earlier in Egypt. "The beginning of the year, or, the first of Thoth," says Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, "was perhaps originally at a very different season" [n2 Ancient Egyptians, abridged ed. ii. 254. Cp. Bible Folk-Lore, 1884, p. 79, and the Classical Review, April, 1900, p. 146.].

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But during the Sothic period, which subsisted from 1322 B.C. onwards, the usage would seem to have been substantially the same as it was in Caesar's time, when the first of

Thoth, or new year, fell on 29th August [n1 Wilkinson, as cited, p. 252.]. We have to remember, too, that in Krishnaism itself there are different dates for the Birthday Festival, the Varaha Purana entirely departing from the accepted view. In that Purana the Krishna Birth-Festival appears to be "only one of a whole series, amounting to twelve, which relate themselves to the ten—or rather eleven !—avatars of Vishnu as Fish, Tortoise, Boar, Man-Lion, Dwarf [n2 It is a small matter, but it may be as well to guard the English reader against an error which occurs in the Rev. Mr. Wood's translation of M. Barth's admiiable book on The Religions of India. On p. 170 there is an allusion to the Avatara of "the Brahman Nain." This should be "the Brahman Dwarf" or "the Dwarf Bahmun." "Nain" is the French for dwarf, which the translator had misconceived; and "Bahmun," in some versions, was the dwarf's name. It is only fair to say that Mr. Wood has done his work in general very well.], Bhargava (i.e., Parasu Rama), Rama Krishna, Buddha, Kalkin, and Padmanabha (sic)" [n3 Weber, pp. 260-1.]. On which Professor Weber justly observes that the festival calendars of other peoples betray similar discrepancies. A case in point is that of Horus, who had more birthdays than one [n4 Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, c. 52.]. But enough, perhaps more than enough, of a mythological problem which on any view is subsidiary to our main inquiry.

XVI. THE DESCENT INTO HELL.

Finally, a much more important myth-parallel than the last—though I do not even here contend for more than the possibility of direct Christian borrowing—is that between the story of Krishna's "descent into hell" and the Christian dogma and legend of the same purport. In this last case, as in others, Professor Weber would doubtless argue that India borrowed from Alexandria. The known historical fact is that the dogma of the "descent into hell" made its first formal appearance in the Christian Church in the formulary of the church of Aquileia late in the fourth century [n5 Nicolas, Le Symbole des Apôtres, 1867, pp. 221, 364.], having before that time had great popular vogue, as may be inferred from the non-canonical Gospel of Nicodemus, which gives the legend at much length.

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Only in the sixth century [n1 Id. pp. 217-8.] did it begin to be formally affirmed throughout the Church, Augustine having accepted it without exactly knowing what to make of it [n2 Id. p. 223.]. Here clearly was one more assimilation of a Pagan doctrine [n3 On this compare Dr. Gardiner, Exploratio Evangelica, 1899, ch. xxi.]; for the Pagan vogue of the myth of a God who descended into the underworld was unquestionably very great. Osiris was peculiarly the judge of the dead [n4 Herodotus, ii. 123. Compare any account of the Egyptian system.]; and he goes to and comes from the Shades [n5 Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, c. 19. Professor Tiele, indeed, states that "Osiris, according to the old monuments, comes back to earth no more" (Hist. of the Egypt. Rel. Eng. tr. p. 43); but Plutarch's words are explicit as to his return to visit Horus. In any case, the real point is, of course, that the God does not die; and his residence in the other world as Judge of the Dead in the Egyptian system is quite a different thing from residence in the Hades of the Greeks.]; Hercules went to Hades before he went to heaven, his last labour being to carry away Cerberus, the three-headed dog; and then it was that he took away with him Theseus and Peirithous. Dionysos descends to Hades to bring back his mother Semele from the dead, and is so represented in art [n6 Pausanias, ii. 31, 37; Apollodorus, iii. 5, 3; Pindar, Olyrnp. ii. 46-52; Pyth. xi.2; K. O. Muller, Ancient Art, pp. 492, 495.]. Hermes, the Psychopompos, is not only the leader of souls to the Shades [n7 Odyssey, xxiv. 1-10.], but the guide of those who, like Hercules, return [n8 Id. xi. 626.]; he being the "appointed messenger (angel) to Hades [n9 Hom. Hymn, 572. Long ago, according to the indignant Mosheim (note on Cudworth, Harrison's trans. iii. 298), one Peter a Sarn "dared to compareo our blessed Saviour to Mercury, and to advance this as one of the principal arguments by which he attempts to bear out the comparison, that Mercury is said by the poets to discharge the twofold function of dismissing souls to Tartarus and evoking them from thence." Mosheim's own conviction was that "Beyond all doubt a man of that name" [i.e. Mercurius, not Hermes] "had lived in ancient Greece and had acquired for himself a high reputation by swiftness of foot, eloquence, and other virtues and vices; and I have scarcely a doubt that he held the office of public runner and messenger to Jupiter, an ancient king of Thessaly." Such was the light of orthodoxy on human history one hundred and fifty years ago. It is noteworthy that Agni the Child-God, messenger of the Gods, mediator, and "wise one" (the Logos) of the Vedas, was a leader of souls to the Shades (with Pushan, a form of the sun), just as was Hermes (Barth, p. 23; Tiele, Outlines, p. 114). Hermes himself is supposed to be a development of Hermeias, perhaps the Vedic dog Sarameya, who was once possibly "the child of the dawn," and whose name was given to the two dogs of the Indian Hades (Max Muller, Nat. Relig. pp. 453, 483; Tiele, p. 211). This and other identifications of Greek and Indian mythological names have been challenged, along with the whole theory of the derivation of the Aryan race from India. See Mr. Lang's Myth, Ritual, and Religion, i. 23, citing Mannhardt; but cp. the remarks above, p. 22. The old race theory may now be said to be exploded (see Dr. Isaac Taylor's

work The Origin of the Aryans, which gives the results of scholarship on the subject); but the question of the relations between Indian and other myths remains to be worked out on the new lines.

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In the myth of Venus and Adonis, the slain Sun-God, or Vegetation-God, passes six months of the year in the upper and six in the under world, as does the Sun itself; [n1 Mr. Frazer (Golden Bough, i. 282) will not allow that this myth has any solar significance; asking how the sun in the south can be said to be dead for half or a third of the year. But he is satisfied to say that vegetation, especially the corn, lies buried in the earth half the year, and reappears above ground the other half," which is surely not accurate. No doubt the Proserpina myth had such a purport; but the explanation given by Macrobius (Sat. i. 21) of the Adonis myth is that the sun, passing through the twelve signs of the zodiac, spends six months in the" superior" and six in the" inferior" signs,

which last called are the realm of Proserpina, while the others belong to the realm of Venus. For the rest, the fatal boar was held to typify winter, though that part of the myth is certainly not congruous with the rest. But concerning the predominantly solar Apollo it was told that he was present in Delos from the sacred month (January-February) to Hekatombaion (June July) and absent in Lykia from Metageitnion (July-August) to Lenaion (= Gamelion: December-January). Here is an apparently solar precedent

for the Adonisian usage.] Orpheus goes to harp Eurydice out of Hades; and among the Thracian Gettae who early developed the belief in a happy immortality, the man-God Zamolxis, otherwise Gebeleizis, who had introduced that doctrine, disappeared for three years in a subterraneous habitation he had made for himself, and on his unexpected return the Thracians believed his teaching. So tells the incomparable Herodotus [n2 B. iv, 93-96], who "neither disbelieved nor entirely believed" the story in this evidently Evemerized form. But the doctrine is universal, being obviously part of the myth of the death and resurrection of the Sun-God, either in the form of the equinoctial mystery in which he is three days between death and life, or in the general sense that he goes to the lower regions for his winter death before he comes to his strength again. It is bound up with the religion of Mithra, in which, as we gather from later myth-versions, the God originally passed into the "place of torment" at the autumn equinox [n3 Wait, as cited, p. 194.].

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It is even probable that the myth of Apollo's bondage to Admetus (a name of the God of the underworld) originally implied his descent to the infernal regions [n1 See K. O. Muller, Dorians, Eng. tr. i. 339-340; Introduction to Mythology, Eng. tr. pp. 239-246.]; a myth rightly connected by Ottfried Muller with the solitary story of Apollo's death. The same conception is fully developed in the Northern myth of the Sun-God Balder, who, wounded in a great battle, in which some of his kindred oppose him, or otherwise by the shaft of magic mistletoe, goes to the underworld of Hel, where he grows strong again by drinking sacred mead, and whence he is to return at the Ragnarok, or Twilight of the Gods, when Gods and men are alike to be regenerated [n2 See the minute and scholarly examination of this myth in Dr. Rydberg's Teutonic Mythology, pp. 249-264, 492, 530-8, 595, 653, 655, etc.; and the account given above, pp. 118-126, Of recent discussions. The second part of Dr. Rydberg's great work, which contains a fuller study of the Balder myth, is unfortunately not yet translated into English.]. Common to all races, it appears poetically in our legend of Arthur, the gold-clothed solar child, born as was Hercules of a dissembling father, and like Cyrus secretly reared, who after being stricken in a great battle in the West, in which the British kindred slay each other as do the Yadavas of the Krishna lore, goes to the island valley of Avilion to heal him of his grievous wound, and to return. In pre-Christian Greece, from a very distant period, such a myth was certainly current—witness the visit of the solar Ulysses to the Shades in the Odyssey—and it was doubtless bound up with the doctrine of immortality conveyed in the Mysteries [n3 K. O. Muller, Hist. of Lit. of Anc. Greece, Lewis's tr. 1847, p. 231. Cp. Professor Nettleship, Essays in Latin Literature, pp. 105, 136-1.10; Dr. Hatch, Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages Upon the Christian Church, 1890, Lect. ix.; and Mosheim's extracts in note on Cudworth, iii. 296.]. As the latter belief gained ground, the myth of descent and return, always prominent in the fable of Proserpine, would become more prominent; and in the "Orphic" period this fascinating motive was fully established in religious literature.

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In one "Orphic" poem, the Minyas, which elaborately described the lower regions, we have the exact title-formula of the later Christian doctrine… "the Descent into Hades." +

[n1 K. O. Muller, as last cited, p. 233. Cp. Pausanias, ix. 31, as to the poems attributed to Hesiod.]. But there is reason to believe that the "Orphic" system was a result of the influence of Asiatic doctrine [n2 Compare Mr. Lang's Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 1st ed., i. 291-3, and Grote and Lobeck as cited by him.]; and indeed, of all mythic analogues to the Christian myth of the descent into Hell, I can remember none more exact than the story of the similar descent of Krishna. He too, like Agni and Hermes, is a "conveyer of the souls of the dead," and as such is invoked at funerals by the name of Heri, the cry being "Heri-bol!" [n3 Balfour's Indian Cyclopaedia, art. NEMI.] Singularly enough, he connects with Hermes further in that he is identified with "Budha," the name given by the Hindus to the planet Mercury [n4 Max Muller, art. on "False Analogies" in Introduction to the Science of Religion, 1st ed. p. 308.]; but on the Christian side he exhibits a number of other parallels which do not occur in the Hermes myth as we have it. Take the account of Moor:

"It is related in the Padma Purana, and in the Bhagavat, that the wife of Kasya, the Guru or spiritual preceptor to Krishna, complained to the incarnate deity that the ocean had swallowed up her children on the coast of Gurjura or Gujerat, and she supplicated Krishna for their restoration. Arriving at the ocean, Varuna, its regent, assured Krishna that not he but the sea-monster Sankesura had stolen the children. Krishna sought and after a violent conflict slew the demon, and tore him from his shell, named Panchajanya, which he bore away in memorial of his victory, and afterwards used in battle by way of a trumpet. Not finding the children in the dominions of Varuna, he descended to the infernal city, Yamapura, and, sounding his tremendous shell, struck such terror into Yama that he ran forth to make his prostrations, and restored the children of Kasya, with whom he returned to their rejoicing mother.

"Sonnerat notices two basso-relievos, placed at the entrance of the choir of Bordeaux Cathedral: one represents the ascension of our Saviour to heaven on an eagle; the other his descent, where he is stopped by Cerberus at the gates of hell, and Pluto is seen at a distance armed with a trident.

"In Hindu pictures Vishnu, who is identified with Krishna, is often seen mounted on the eagle Garuda... And were a Hindu artist to handle the subject of Krishna's descent to hell, which I never saw, he would most likely introduce Cerbura, the infernal three-headed dog [n5 "Yama, the regent of hell, has two dogs, according to the Puranas, one of them named Cerbura and Sabula, or varied; the other Syama, or black; the first of whom is also called Trisiras, or with three heads, and has the additional epithets of Calmasha, Chitra, and Cirmira, all signifying stained or spotted, In Pliny the words Cimmerium and Cerberium seem used as synonymous; but, however that may be, the Cerbura of the Hindus is indubitably the Cerberus of the Greeks" (Wilford, in Asiatic Researches, iii. 408). There seems some doubt as to the antiquity of the" three heads" in Indian mythology: M. Barth (p. 23) speaks only of "two dogs" as guarding the road to Yama's realm; but the notion seems sufficiently Hindu. See note above as to the Sarameya, and compare Gubernatis, Zool. Myth. i. 49, as to Cerberi. Professor Muller decides (Nat. Rel. p. 453) that the name Kerberos is from the Sanskrit Sarvari, "the night" —which chimes with Wilford's definitions; but here the assumption of derivation must be discarded. In northern mythology there is sometimes one hell-dog, sometimes more (Rydberg, as cited pp. 276, 280, 362); and there is in the underworld a three-headed giant (Rydberg, pp. 295-6; cp. Bergmann, Le Message de Skirnir, 1871, pp. 99, 154). In Greek mythology Typhon is hundred-headed (Aeschylus, Prom. 361; Hesiod. Theog. 825; Pindar, Pyth. i. 29; viii. 23); while Cerberus is also fifty-headed (Theog. 312); and Chimaera, born like Cerberus of the dragon-nymph Echidna, has three heads (Theog. 321; Horace, 1 Carm. xxvii. 23, 24).]

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of their legends, and Yama, their Pluto, with the trisula, or trident: a further presumption of early intercommunication between the pagans of the eastern and western hemispheres" [n1 Hindu Pantheon, pp, 213-4. Compare the varying account of Maurice (ii. 377), following the Persian version of the Bhagavat.].

For obvious reasons, the whole of this passage is suppressed in the Rev. W. O. Simpson's 1864 edition of Moor's work. But the parallel goes even further than Moor represents; for the descent of Jesus into hell, curiously enough, was anciently figured as involving a forcing open of the jaws of a huge serpent or dragon [n2 See the engraving in Hone's Ancient Mysteries Described, and that on p. 385 of Didron's Christian Iconography, Bohn trans. In the latter the saved appear as children.]. Thus, whether or not the Christian adaptation was made directly from Indian communications, it carried on a myth which, appearing in some guise in all faiths, figured in ancient India in a form more closely parallel with the Christian than any other now extant. The appropriation would seem to have been made confusedly, from different sources. Christ in one view went to Hades in his capacity of avenger [n3 Augustine, Letter to Evodius, cited by Nicolas, p. 228, n.]—an idea evidently derived from the Osirian system, which, however, closely approaches the Indian in the story of Osiris descending to the Shades on the prayer of Queen Garmathone and restoring her son to life [n4 Pseudo-Plutarch, Of the Names of Rivers and Mountains, sub tit. Nile (xvi.).].

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In another view, which prevails in the main legend as given in the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Christ descends to the Shades, where Satan and Death are one, on a mission of liberation, taking all the "saints" of previous history with him to heaven, but further restoring to earth for three days the two sons of the blessed high-priest Simeon, who had taken the babe Jesus in his arms. Now, not only was the Brahman Kasya the Guru of Krishna, but his children were two sons [n1 Maurice, as last cited.]. Again, for the more canonical story of Jesus going to preach to "the spirits in prison" [n2 1 Peter iii. 19.], which was adopted by many of the Fathers [n3 Clemens Alexandrinus, who accepted it, is in that connection, I know not why, stigmatized as heretical. Compare the Abbe Cognat's Clement d 'Alexandrie, p. 466, and Jortin's Remarks upon Eccles. Hist. ed. Trollope, i. 231. These writers speak as if there were no scriptural basis for the doctrine of the preaching in limbo. It is important, however, to remember that Clement drew more systematically on pagan religion than any other Christian before or since. Cp. Mosheim's Commentaries on Christian Affairs, Vidal's trans. ii. 115-125, 186-190.] and became bound up with the Pagan-Christian doctrine of purgatory, there is a parallel in the Purana myth, in which Krishna, in the earlier part of his search for the lost children, reaches the under-sea or over-sea region of "Cusha-Dweepa," where he "instructed the Cutila-Cesas in the whole system of religious and civil duties" [n4 Wilford, in Asiatic Researches, iii. 399. Cpo pp. 349, 370.]. Doubtless we shall be told once more that the Indian legend borrows from the Apocryphal Gospel, without any attempt being made to show how or whence the Christian compiler got his story. To which I once more answer that in the Indian version the myth has all the stamp of the luxuriant and spontaneous Eastern imagination, while in the Christian mythology it is one of the most obviously alien elements, and in the detailed legend it is a confused patchwork. In the Purana, Krishna's blast on his shell at the gate of the Shades is perfectly Asiatic; as is the Greek legend of Pan's striking terror in the battle of Gods and Titans by his blast on the same instrument [n5 Eratosthenes, Catasterismi, 27; Hyginus, ii. 28.]; in "Nicodemus" the thunderous voice of Christ at hell-gate may indeed be compared to the shouting of Mars in Homer, but is obviously inspired by some primitive myth, and may much more easily be conceived as suggested-by than as suggesting the Krishnaite tale.

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And if we are to choose between (a) the proposition that it was through a Christian legend that India became possessed of a myth-motive common to half-a-dozen ancient faiths before Christianity was heard of, and (b) the inference that the Christian legend was more or less directly inspired by the Indian legend in something very like the form in which we now have it—there can be little room for hesitation among unprejudiced students. Such an alternative, however, is not really forced on us. There are many reasons for surmising that Hindu and Greek mythology may alike have been influenced by the ancient Asiatic mythology known to us as Akkadian, which on one hand shaped the system of Babylonia, and so wrought on the Greek through Asia Minor, and on the other is likely to have had affinities with the pre-Aryan cults of India. As to this, thus far, we can only speculate, restricting our special reasoning to the problem under notice.

In regard, finally, to some of the myth-parallels dealt with, it might very well be that the Christian appropriation was made through the channel of Buddhism, whence so many elements of the Christian system are now held to have come [n1 See Mr. Arthur Lillie's work, Buddhism in Christendom, and his smaller work, The Influence of Buddhism on Christianity, 1893, for general views and details. As to the general Indian reaction on the West, especially under Asoka, see Professor Mahaffy's Greek World under Roman Sway, 1890, ch. ii.]. That question falls to be considered apart from the present inquiry [n2 See hereinafter, The Gospel Myths, §10.], but it has an obvious bearing on the problem of the relations between Christianity and Krishnaism. In regard to Buddhism the actual historical connections with Christianity are in some measure made out a posteriori, and if sometimes points are stretched, the general argument is impressive. But the argument for Buddhist priority over Christianity owes a large part of its strength to the very fact that, as we shall see, the Buddhist legends are to a great extent themselves refashionings of Krishna legends.

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The weakness of the Christian position is that it claims originality for a body of lore which, obviously non-historical, is as obviously myth in a late and literary though unphilosophic stage; and that this claim is made with no attempt at explaining how such myths could so appear without antecedents. For the Buddhist mythology, as M. Senart has shown, many of the antecedents lie in that very Krishnaism which the prejudiced Christist assumes to be borrowed from his own, so to say, virgin-born mythology. For the Krishnaite myths, again, as we have in part seen and shall see further, antecedents lay in part in the simpler Vedic system, and may further be reasonably assumed to have existed in the great mass of popular religion that must have flourished outside the sacerdotal system of the Vedas. The scientific grievance against scholars like Professor Weber is that they claim priority on certain points for Christian myth without once asking the question as to whence the Christian myth itself came.

If, then, it be shown that any of the myths before discussed came to Christism through Buddhism, our argument is not impugned, but strengthened, unless (which is unlikely) it be contended that the Buddhist form preceded the Krishnaite. In some cases it is plainly probable that the Buddhist legend was the go-between. Thus the late Christian myth of the synchronous birth of the Christ's cousin, John the Baptist, is reasonably to be traced to the Buddhist myth of the synchronous birth of the Buddha's cousin Ananda [n1 Bigandet's Life of Gaudama, Triibner's ed. i. 36.], rather than to the Krishnaite motive of Arjuna or Bala Rama; but this course is reasonable chiefly because the Krishnaite system gives an origin for the Buddhist myth.

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So, too, the motive of the Descent into Hell may have been taken by the Christists from the Buddhist fable of Buddha's expedition to preach "like all former Buddhas" the law to his mother in the upperworld of Tawadeintha, since there not only is the preaching extended to a multitude of others of the unearthly population, but there appear also the mythic "two"—in this case "two sons of Nats," who obtain from Buddha" the reward of Thautapan" [n1 Id. pp. 219-225.]. Certainly Krishna's literal descent, and the item of the dragon, are details that come specially close to the Christian myth; and one would have expected the Christian borrower to introduce the Christ's mother if he had before him the Buddha legend as we now have it. But on the other hand he may well have had a different version; or some of the details may have been added to the Christian story at different times, as they must have been in the Buddhist. All I stand upon definitely is that the Krishna stories are almost always the more primitive; and that if they are the basis of the mythology of the Buddhist system—a system which so largely parallels or enters into the Christian—it is exorbitant to presume that Krishnaism would systematically borrow again from Christianity. In the case of the "preaching to the spirits in prison," in particular, the Buddhist myth is on the face of it pre-Buddhistic, yet Indian. Our general argument, then, for the antiquity of Krishnaism as compared with Christianity, holds good through a whole series of myth motives in respect of which Christianity is unquestionably a borrower, and sometimes apparently a borrower from India.

XVII. SPURIOUS AND REMOTE MYTH-PARALLELS.

It remains to consider the minor quasi-coincidences noted by the Athenaeum critic [n2 See above, pp. 150-1.], between the Krishna saga, as given in the Mahabharata and elsewhere, and the narrative of the Gospels. These are (1) Krishna's address to the fig-tree; (2) his invitation to his followers to "worship a mountain"; (3) his teaching that those who love the God shall not die; (4) his Transfiguration; (5) his being anointed by a woman; (6) his restoring a widow's dead son to life; (7) his washing of feet; (8) the hostility of the demon-follower who "carries the bag."

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By this time, perhaps, the reader will be slow to suppose that such items stand for any Hindu adaptation of the Gospels. Raising once more the crucial question, Whence came the Gospel stories? we are rather led to query whether, by way, as before suggested, of Buddhism, the Gospel stories did not come from India.

Some may be put aside as false coincidences. The Krishnaite story of the fig-tree appears to be as edifying as the Christian is otherwise; but there is no sufficient ground even for supposing the latter to be a perversion of the former. So with the "worshipping a mountain," a usage too common in the ancient world to need to be suggested by one race to another within our era. The mystic teaching as to immortality, again, is certainly preChristian in Europe and in Egypt, and, in a manner, implicit in Buddhism [n1 Cp. Rhys Davids, Buddhism, p. 43.]; and the Transfiguration of Krishna is simply an item in the sun-myth, whence, probably by way of the Neo-Hellenic mysteries, it reached the Christians. The disciplinary washing of feet, again, is one of the established usages of Buddhistic monkery; and there is positively no reason to doubt that it was so before the Christian era. If the Krishna myth borrowed in this instance, it did so at home; but there is every reason to suppose that the religious practice in question was common long before the rise of Buddhism. The miracle of the raising of the widow's son, again, is precedented long before Christianity in the duplicated myth of the Hebrew Elijah and Elisha [n2 1 Kings xvii. 21-22; 2 Kings iv. 34-35. In the Elisha story, the mother is not a widow; but the husband is "old"; and it would appear that in the unexpurgated form of the story the solar prophet was the real father.]; and as all Semitic mythology centres round Babylon and points back to the Akkadians, the story presumptively had a common Asiatic currency.

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In all likelihood it had a solar significance, in common with the myths of the slain Osiris and Adonis and the slain child Dionysos, over the restoration of both of whom there figures a widowed "mother" [n1 For Lactantius, Isis is the mother of the lost or slain "boy" Osiris (Divine Institutes, i. 21); and Demeter assists at the reanimation of the slain boy Dionysos. Diodorus, iii. 62. So in one view the Goddess who mourned for Adonis was the Earth Mother (Macrobius, Sat. i. 21); and in another Adonis is a child (Apollodorus iii. xiv. 4).]. On this view the resurrection of the Widow's Son is only an Evemerized form of the resurrection of the Sun-God (himself at his death a widow's son), interpolated in the pseudo-biography of the latter as a miracle wrought by him. To suppose that such an ancient myth-motive was suddenly appreciated for the first time by the miracle-multiplying Hindus only after it had taken Christian form, is a course barred to rational criticism. We are left to the two connected items of the anointing and the hostile attendant with "the bag."

Obviously it matters very little from the rationalist point of view whether or not these items were conveyed to Krishnaism from Christism. But even this scanty measure of debt on the Hindu side is entirely unproved; while there is cause to conclude that on the Christian side we are dealing with just another adaptation. While the story of the raising of the widow's son occurs in only one Gospel [n2 Luke, vii. 11.], that of the anointing occurs in all; and as it is non-miraculous, the natural tendency is to accept it as historical. Yet a moment's scrutiny shows that its circumstantiality is quite delusive. Both the version of the synoptics and that of John are minutely circumstantial, and each excludes the other, since John tells the story of Mary the sister of Lazarus in her own house, while the synoptics specify another house and a strange woman. John's version might be excluded as false on the face of it, since it represents a pauper household as possessing a peculiarly costly and useless article [n3 Evemerism has in private gone so far as the suggestion that Lazarus may have had the ointment given him by "Dives" for his sores! There is really as good ground for believing that as for accepting the story at all.];

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but John's myth (itself twice introduced—xi. 2, xii. 3) is only a variant of the other, which in the synoptics is related simply of "a woman," but which later fancy, without Scriptural warrant, attaches to the mythic personality of Mary Magdala, Mary "the Nurse" (= Maia = Mylitta), a pseudo-historical variant of Mary the Mother [n1 See hereinafter, The Gospel Myths, § 2.]. And on the principle that "a myth is never so graphic and precise in its details as when it is a simple transcript of a ceremony which the author of the myth witnessed with his eyes" [n2 Frazer, as cited above, p. 182, note.], the reasonable presumption is that the anointing was a part of a mystery drama, Christian or pre-Christian, or both [n3 Oil and ointment were alike signified by one Hebrew term (Isa.,. i. 6. R. V. and marg.); and the usage of anointing was general in the East. Cp. Isa,. Ivii. 9.]; while the ascription of the act to a "Mary" was a normal expedient of the Gospel- makers.

Finally, we have the myth of the discontented Judas carrying "the bag"—a detail unexplained on the Christian side by any dicta as to the source of the money so carried. The story, like that of Lazarus and his household, is found in the fourth Gospel only [n4 John xii. 6; xiii. 29.], and is just another non-miraculous myth added to the primary. myth of Judas the Betrayer. On our theory [n5 See "The Myth of Judas Iscariot" in the author's Studies in Religious Fallacy; and hereinafter, The Gospel Myths, § 17.], that "Judas" is simply a fictitious personality made out of "Joudaios," "a Jew," in a Gentile-Christian mystery drama, "the bag" would be to Gentile eyes simply the symbol of the act of betrayal for money, the receptacle for the "thirty pieces of silver," with perhaps a general anti-Semitic suggestion of Jewish usury or avarice. Between this and the remote detail in the Mahabharata there seems to be only an accidental resemblance. But, if for once there was actually a borrowing by India, the smallness of its significance is in striking contrast with the claim of which it is the last uncancelled item.

XVIII. EXPLANATION OF THE KRISHNA MYTH.

§ 1. We have seen that the latest claims as to the Christian origin of Krishnaite legends are only repetitions of guesses made by missionaries in the days before comparative mythology, and that there is really no more valid argument behind the later than behind the earlier statements.

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It is also the fact, however, that sound and satisfying explanations of Krishnaism on the basis of universal mythology were sketched nearly a century ago; though they have been completely ignored by the later adherents of the missionary view, including even the scholarly and open-minded Professor Weber.

Not only was the solar character of Krishna recognized by the first European investigators [n1 The monk Paulinus (quoted by Kleuker, Abhandlungen, as before cited, ii. 236) was satisfied that Krishna" originally (primigenie) signified the sun, and indeed the sun in eclipse" [here giving a meaning for the "black"], and that "the fable was accordingly to be referred to astronomy." He had probably met with the myth of Krishna hiding himself in the moon (Jones, Asiatic Researches, iii. 290)—a notion found also in the Osiris myth (I. and O., c. 43). He further saw that the mythic wars meant that "the sun in the heavens fought with planets, stars, and clouds," and that the quasi-historic (it is not clear if he thought there was ever a real) Krishna was as it were a "terrestrial sun or" [here anticipating Lassen] "Hercules, as Arrian has it."], being indeed avowed by the Brahmans, but the main elements of the whole myth were soon judiciously analyzed. Take the following early exposition :

"The Earth is represented as a Cow, the cow of plenty; and, as the planets were considered by the Hindus to be so many habitable Earths, it was natural to describe them by the same hieroglyphic; and as the Sun directs their motions, furnishes them with light, and cherishes them with his genial heat, Krishna, the symbol of the Sun, was portrayed as an herdsman, sportive, amorous, inconstant [n2 It should be added that, as later inquirers have noted, the clouds are cows in the Vedas, as in the myth of Hermes, and that this idea also enters largely into the Krishnaite symbolism.].

"The twelve signs are represented as twelve beautiful Nymphs: the Sun's apparent passage from one to the other is described as the roving of the inconstant Krishna. This was probably the groundwork of Jayadeva's elegant poem, the Gita Govinda. It is evidently intended by the circular dance exhibited in the Rasijatra. On a moveable circle, twelve Krishnas are placed alternately with twelve Gopis, hand-in-hand, forming a circle; the God is thus multiplied to attach him to each respectively, to denote the Sun's passage through all the signs, and by the rotary motion of the machine the revolution of the year is pointed out.

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" Krishna obtains a victory on the banks of the Yamuna over the great serpent Caliya Nâga, which had poisoned the air, and destroyed the herds in that region. This allegory may be explained upon the same principle as the exposition given of the destruction of the serpent Python by the arrows of Apollo. It is the Sun, which, by the powerful action of its beams, purifies the air and disperses the noxious vapours of the atmosphere. Both in the Padma and Garuda [Puranas] we find the serpent Caliya, whom Krishna slew in his childhood, amongst the deities' worshipped on this day, as the Pythian snake, according to Clemens, was adored with Apollo at Delphi.' Perhaps this adventure of Krishna with the Caliya Naga may be traced on our sphere, for we find there Serpentarius on the banks of the heavenly Yamuna, the milky way, contending as it were with an enormous serpent, which he grasps with both his hands.

"The identity of Apollo Nomios and Krishna is obvious; both are inventors of the flute; and Krishna is disappointed by Tulasi as Apollo was deluded by Daphne; each nymph being changed to a tree; hence the tulasi is sacred to Krishna, as the laurus was to Apollo.

"The story of Nareda visiting the numerous chambers of Krishna's seraglio and finding Krishna everywhere, appears to allude to the universality of the Sun's appearance at the time of the Equinoxes, there being then no part of the earth where he is not visible in the course of the twenty-four hours. The Demons sent to destroy Krishna are perhaps no more than the monsters of the sky, which allegorically may be said to attempt in vain to obstruct his progress through the Heavens. Many of the playful adventures of Krishna's childhood are possibly mere poetical embellishments to complete the picture" [n1 Patterson, in Asiatic Researches, viii. (1803), pp. 64-5. As to the astronomic significance of the dance in Greece, see Donaldson, Theatre of the Greeks, 7th ed. p. 24.].

Here is a rational, a scientific explanation of some of the main outlines of the Krishna myth, which holds good independently of the author's further theory that the origin of Krishnaism lay in the separation of the sect of Vaishnavas from the Saivas, and that the legends may contain an element of allegory on the persecution of the new sect.

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The former part of that theory was put forward also by Colebrooke, who held that "the worship of Râma and of Krishna by the Vaishnavas, and that of Mahadeva and Bhavani by the Saivas and Sactas, have been introduced since the persecution of the Bauddhas and Jainas" [n1 Asiatic Researches, viii, 474.]. But the same sound scholar declares that he supposes both Râma and Krishna to have been" known characters in ancient fabulous history," and conjectures" that on the same basis new fables have been constructed, elevating those personages to the rank of Gods" [n2 Id. ix. 293.]. Hence he opposed the surmise that early references to Krishna in the sacred books were interpolations. There can be little doubt, I think, that Colebrooke would have admitted the "new fables" to be in many cases new only in their application, and to be really repetitions of the ancient myths of the race. This proposition, inductively proved, renders impregnable the earlier deductive position.

Every solar hero or deity necessarily repeats certain features in the myths of his predecessors; and this the more surely because on the one hand the popular fancy is so far from being clearly conscious of the identities between God and God, or hero and hero [n3 "The story of Perseus is essentially the same as the story of his more illustrious descendant [Herakles]; and the profound unconsciousness of the Argives that the two narratives are in their groundwork identical is a singular illustration of the extent to which men can have all their critical faculties lulled to sleep by mere differences of names or of local coloring in legends which are only modifications of a single myth" (Cox, Mythol. of Aryan Nations, p. 303).], and because on the other the priest either sees in these, like the Jews, a system of types, or, like the Pagans, sees no harm in mystic correspondences. It is thus that so many dynasties of Gods have been built out of the same fabulous material. Now, though Krishna, figuring as he does as a demon in the Vedas, was presumably an outsiders' God even in the Vedic period, with what qualities we know not, we can find in the Vedas precedent for all his main features.

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Agni, the Fire-God, always tending to be identified with the Sun, is the prototype of the modern Krishna, not only in respect of being a marvellous child, but of being a lover of maidens: "Agni, as Yama, is all that is born; as Yama, all that will be born: he is the lover of maidens, the husband of wives" [n1 Wilson's tr. of Rig Veda Sanhita, i. 181.]. That, indeed, is an extremely natural characteristic, whether mystic or anthropomorphic, of all popular deities in primitive times; and M. Senart notes [n2 Essai, p. 321.] that in a Vedic description of a storm, Soma, the personified God of the libation or eucharist, "plays among the Apas like a man among beautiful young girls." But "it is above all to the atmospheric Agni that we must trace voluptuous legends like those which have received such an important place in the Krishnaite myth" [n3 Id. p. 322.]; and for the multiplications of Krishna also we find the prototype in the child Agni, who, at his birth, "enters into all houses and disdains no man" [n4 Id. p. 291, citing R. V. x. 91, 2, from Muir's Original Sanskrit Texts, v.204.]. And this view is substantially adopted by the leading English mythologists. On the relations of Krishna with the Gopis Sir George Cox writes :

"This myth is in strict accordance with the old Vedic phrase addressed to the Sun as the horse: 'After thee is the chariot; after thee, Arvan, the man; after thee the cows; after thee the host of the girls.' Thus, like Agni, Indra, and Yama, he is the husband of the wives, an expression which, in Professor Max Muller's opinion, was probably 'meant originally for the evening sun as surrounded by the splendours of the gloaming, as it were by a more serene repetition of the dawn. The Dawn herself is likewise called the wife; but the expression "husband of the wives" is in another passage clearly applied to the sinking sun, R. V. ix. 86, 32: "The husband of the wives approaches the end."'" [n5 Cox, 116 cited, p. 369, n.].

The same writer, who makes an independent and able analysis of the Krishna myth, sums up as follows on the general question :

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"If it be urged that the attribution to Krishna of qualities or powers belonging to other deities is a mere device by which his devotees sought to supersede the more ancient gods, the answer must be that nothing is done in his case which has not been done in the case of almost every other member of the great company of the gods, and that the systematic adoption of the method is itself conclusive proof of the looseness and flexibility of the materials of which the cumbrous mythology of the Hindu epic poems is composed." [n1 Id. p. 365.] And again: "It is true, of course, that these myths have been crystallized round the name of Krishna in ages subsequent to the period during which the earliest Vedic literature came into existence; but the myths themselves are found in this older literature associated with other gods, and not always only in germ. Krishna as slaying the dragon is simply Indra smiting Vritra or Ahi, or Phoibos destroying the Python. There is no more room for inferring foreign influence in the growth of these myths than, as Bunsen rightly insists, there is room for tracing Christian influence in the earlier epical literature of the Teutonic tribes." [n2 Id. p. 371 n.]

The fluidity of the whole of the myth material under notice is yet further illustrated in the following sketch of Krishna's many metamorphoses:

"He is also identified with Hari or the dwarf Vishnu, a myth which carries us to that of the child Hermes as well as to the story of the limping Hephaistos. As the son of Nanda, the bull, he is Govinda, a name which gave rise in times later than those of the Mahabharata to the stories of his life with the cowherds and his dalliance with their wives; but in the Mahabharata he is already the protector of cattle, and like Herakles slays the bull which ravaged the herds [Muir, Sanskrit Texts, iv. 206]. His name Krishna, again, is connected with another parentage which makes him the progeny of the black hair of Hari, the dwarf Vishnu [Ib. 331]. But he is also Hari himself, and Hari is Narayana, 'the God who transcends all, the minutest of the minute, the vastest of the vast, the greatest of the great.' In short, the interchange or contradiction is undisguised, for he is 'the soul of all, the omniscient, the all, the all-knowing, the producer of all, the God whom the Goddess Devaki bore to Vishnu.' [n3 Sic in Cox; but Muir, who is cited, has "to Vasudeva," p. 224.]" The character of Rudra, said to be sprung from Krishna, is not more definite. As so produced, he is Time, and is declared by his father to be the offspring of his anger. But in the character of Mahadeva, Rudra is worshipped by Krishna, and the necessary explanation is that in so adoring him Krishna was only worshipping himself. Rudra, however, is also Narayana, and Siva the destroyer. . . .It is the same with Rama, who is sometimes produced from the half of Vishnu's virile power, and sometimes addressed by Brahma as 'the source of being and the cause of destruction, Upendra and Mahendra, the younger and the elder Indra.' [n4 Muir, iv. 146, 250. So cited in Cox; but 250 should apparently be 150, where the passage runs: "Thou art the source of being and cause of destruction, Upendra (the younger Indra), and Madhusudana. Thou art Mahendra (the older Indra). . . ."]

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. . . . This cumbrous mysticism leads us further and further from the simpler conceptions of the oldest mythology, in which Rudra is scarcely more than an epithet, applied sometimes to Agni, sometimes to Mitra, Varuna, the Asvins, or the Maruts. . . . It was in accordance with the general course of Hindu mythology that the greatness of Rudra, who is sometimes regarded as self-existent, should be obscured by that of his children." [n1 Cox, pp. 365-7.]

Further illustration could be given, if need were, of this interfluence of myths in the case of the three Ramas, Bala Rama, Parasu [n2 According to Moor, "Parasu" means a sword; according to Balfour's Ind. Cycl. a club; according to Tiele (before cited), an axe! Here, too, is trinity.] Rama, and Rama Chandra, who pass for three different incarnations of Vishnu, but who were early surmised by students to be "three representatives of one person, or three different ways of relating the same history" [n3 Moor, Hindu Pantheon, p. 191.], and whom M. Senart declares to be indeed mythologically one:

"In effect, there is really only one Rama. The contrary opinion of Lassen (Ind. Alt. ii. 2, 503) rests on an Evemerism which will find, I think, few adherents. But he appears to us under a triple form. . . . the popular Rama, brother of Krishna; the Brahmanic Rama, who destroys the Kshatriyas; the Kshatriya Rama, King's son and happy conqueror. The axe of the second, like the ploughshare of the first, represents the same weapon of thunder, which the hero wields against the demons." [n4 Essai, p. 234, n.]

Now, Bala Rama, whom Sir William Jones [n5 Asiatic Researches, ii. 132.] identified with the Greek and "Indian" Dionysos, but whom we have seen [n6 Above, pp. 162-3.] to be probably the Hercules of Megasthenes, " appears to be an ancient agricultural deity that presided over the tillage of the soil and the harvest. He is armed with a ploughshare, [n7 See Moor, as cited above, p. 162.] whence his surname Halabhrit, 'the plough- bearer'; and his distinctive characteristic is an ungovernable passion for bacchanalian revels, inebriation, and sensual love" [n8 Barth, p. 173. M. Senart writes (p. 325, n.): "As to his name of Bala, the analogy of Krishna would suggest that it also had originally a more specially demonic significance, and that the form Bala is only an alteration of Vala, a Vedic personage connected by name and function with Vritra. This is indeed certain as regards the epic Bala, enemy of Indra." In the same note M. Senart draws a connection between Rama and the Persian Rama-gastra, who is an atmospheric genie watching the "pastures" of Mithra, and who figures both as lightning and sun.].

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Like each of his duplicates, he was doubtless contingently a Sun-God (Rama Chandra, who represents the moon [n1 Barth, p. 177.], being also solar) [n2 See above, p. 143, citing Tiele, and p. 163, citing Moor.]; and it might conceivably have been his fortune to become the supremely popular deity instead of Krishna. He too has a Birth Festival, which Professor Weber supposes to be based on that of Krishna, which it very closely resembles; he too figures then as the Child-God; and he too is associated with the stable-myth in that Jamadagni, the father of Parasu Rama, was entrusted by Indra with the charge of the boon-granting cow, Kamadenu [n3 Moor, p. 190.]. His old standing was the cause of his being made Krishna's twin; and at present he ranks next him in popularity [n4 Moor, p. 192.]. It is even conceivable that he is for historic India the original "Child born in a Stable"; and as a God of Vegetation he may have been carried in the corn-basket by way of an incantation to make the fields fruitful. On the other hand, he has assimilated clearly solar attributes. "Like Krishna, Rama is a hero, an exterminator of monsters, a victorious warrior. But, idealized by the poetry of a more fastidious age, and one less affected by the myth [i.e., in the Ramayana], he is at the same time, what we cannot maintain in regard to the enigmatic son of Devaki, the finished type of submission to duty, nobility of moral character, and of chivalric generosity" [n5 Barth, p. 176.]. Krishna in turn, however, has his transfiguration in the Bhagavat Gita. In fine, ancient India, then as now a manifold world of differing peoples and faiths, had a crowd of Sun-Gods apart from those of the priest-made Vedas, but based like those on immemorial myth; and of these Krishna, ancient as the others were ancient, is the one who, by dint of literary and sectarian manipulation, has best been able to " survive."

§ 2. It may be, however, that while the antiquity of the main material of Krishnaism is admitted, it will still be argued, as by Professor Weber, that only in comparatively late times was Krishna a deity at all, and that this alleged lateness of creation permitted of, and partly depended on, the adoption of some of the Christian legends early in our era.

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But it will be necessary, I think, only to state Professor Weber's position in contrast with the argument of M. Senart to make clear the soundness of the latter and the untenableness of the former.

Professor Weber seeks to trace the rise of Krishnaism by way of the chronological order of the references in the documents, taking the Vedic allusions as representing the beginnings of the cult, the passage in the Khandogya Upanishad as pointing to a quasi-historic personage, the legends in the Mahabharata as a development of his story, and so on [n1 Treatise cited, p. 316.]. M. Senart, in answer, points first to the admitted fact that the Kansa legend was already old for Patanjali, and contends that the presence in that text of the name of Govinda sufficiently shows that the myth of the sojourn among the shepherds, which was the inseparable preparation for the slaying of the tyrant, was already ancient and popular, and that it was as the companion of shepherds and lover of the Gopis, not as the hero of the epic, that Krishna was first deified [n2 Essai, p. 339.]. It may be added that the antiquity of the similar myth in connection with Cyrus is a further ground for the same conclusion, as has been shown above. M. Senart then goes on to cite, what is perhaps less important, the testimony of Alexander Polyhistor [fl. 85 B.C.] that in his day the Brahmans worshipped Hercules and Pan. There is, M. Senart argues, no other Hindu deity who could so well suit the latter title as Krishna—a contention which seems to me inconclusive in the circumstances. Might not Alexander's Pan be Siva, whom M. Barth [n3 As cited, p. 163.], following Lassen, identifies with the Dionysos of Megasthenes? Certainly the latter is the more plausible conjecture; but is not Dionysos fully as close a parallel to Krishna as Pan would be? In any case, though M. Senart connects his conjecture, as to Krishna being Alexander's Pan, with the rest of his argument, that works itself out independently, and will stand very well on its own merits:

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"This testimony is the more important in that it leads us to carry further back the date of the legends of this order. M. Lassen, in spite of his opinions on the antiquity of the doctrine of Avataras and the cult of Krishna, seems on this point to go even further than M. Weber. In support of that opinion there is little weight in the negative argument from the silence of the ancient works which have come down to us. What idea should we have had of the date and importance of Buddhism, if we were shut up to the testimony of Brahmanic literature? We can certainly distinguish in Krishna a triple personage; it does not follow, however, that these mean simply three successive aspects of the same type, until it be determined that logically they derive and develop one from the other. Now, the fact is quite the contrary; an abyss separates each one of these stages from the next, if we take them in the supposed order. How could a sacred poet, the obscure disciple of a certain Ghora, suddenly have become the national hero of an important Indian people, the bellicose performer of so many exploits, not merely marvellous, but clearly mythological? And how could this warrior, raised so high, from the epic period, in the admiration and even in the worship of Indians, be subsequently lowered to the position of the adopted child of a shepherd, the companion of shepherds, and mixed up in dubious adventures, which do not fail at times to disquiet and embarrass his devotees? It is clear that the first step at least of such an evolution could be made only under powerful sacerdotal pressure: now there exists in this connection no sign of such a thing in the literature we possess; the cult of Krishna is not a Brahmanic but a popular cult. In fine, there is no doubt that we must reverse the statement. Krishna must have been at first the object of a secondary cult, connected especially, as it remained in the sequel, with the legends of his birth, of his infancy, and of his youth. Localized at first among the Surasenas and at Mathura, this cult would have sufficed to introduce into the epic legend of the Kshatriyas, fixed in that epoch under Brahmanic influence, the bellicose character in which we know him. On its part, the Brahmanic school, desirous to appropriate him, would put him in the list of its singers and masters, until the ever more powerful spread of his popularity forced it to embrace him, under the title of Avatara of Vishnu, in its new theory and in its modern systems.

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It must not be forgotten that the organization of castes creates, alongside of the chronological succession, a superposition not only of social classes but of traditions and ideas which could live long side by side in a profound isolation. Thus considered, the history of the cult of Krishna resolves itself into two periods, which I would not however, represent as necessarily and strictly successive.

Krishna was at first a quite popular deity, whose worship more or less narrowly localized, spread little by little; till at length, identified with Vishnu and admitted to the number

of his incarnations, he was ipso facto recognized by the superior caste [n1 A passage in the Mahabharata shows this evolution clearly enough:—"And thou Krishna, of the Yadava race, having become the son of Aditi, and being called Vishnu, the younger brother of Indra, the all-pervading, becoming a child, vexer of thy foes, hadst by thy energy traversed the sky, the atmosphere, and the earth, in three strides. Having attained to the sky and the ether, and occupied the above of the Adityas, thou, O soul of all beings, hast overpassed the sun by thine own force. In these thousands of thy manifestations, O all-pervading Krishna, thou hast slain hundreds of Asuras who delighted in iniquity." Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, iv. 118.].

"It is possible, indeed, that Christian influences may have developed among the Indians in his connection the monotheistic idea and the doctrine of faith. However that may be, what interests us chiefly at present is the age, not so much of his cult, still less of a certain form of his cult, but of the legend of the hero, and more precisely of that part of his legend which embraces his infancy and his youth. Now, this narrative has its roots in the images of a perfectly authentic naturalism; it cannot be isolated from the various kindred mythological series; and if we only apply, without rashness and without prejudice, the customary methods of mythological analysis, it leads us obviously to more ancient conceptions; and the homogeneity which is exhibited by the whole demonstrates the normal and consequent development of all the parts. Several precise testimonies, independent of any argument borrowed from resemblances, attest the existence of essential elements of the legend at an epoch when there can be no question of those influences which have been conjectured; and these influences finally rest on a very limited number of very inconclusive facts, which, besides, only touch entirely secondary details."

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This argument has been criticised by Professor Weber in a review of M. Senart's essay, in which, while differing from his conclusions, he speaks in high terms of his French opponent's scholarship and ability. With his invariable candour, the Professor, remarking that the theory of Krishna's herdsmanship being derived from the cloud-cows of the Vedas is new to him [n1 Though, as we have seen, the stealing and herding of cows has such a significance in Greek myths.], admits that in itself it is very plausible. But he goes on:

"Only in the latest texts do we find this Gopi idyl: the older records know nothing of it, but recognize Krishna only as assiduous pupil or brave hero. Recently, indeed, passages have been made known from the Mahabhashya which set forth Krishna's relation to Kansa; even further, from Panini, his being evidently worshipped as Vasudeva: and the existence of his epithet Kesava; . . . . but, on the one hand, the herdsman idyl is there awanting : . . . . and on the other hand, in view of the doubts which Burnell and Böhtlingk have expressed in connection with my inquiry, as to the value of the evidence for Patanjali's date given by the words and citations in the Mahabhashya, Senart's assumption that that work dates 'from before the Christian era' is very questionable. The testimony of Alexander Polyhistor, that the Brahmans worshipped a Hercules and a Pan, is again too vague to permit of its being founded on in this matter." [n2 Indische Streifen, iii. 429.]

The force of the last objection I have admitted; and as to the date of Patanjali, of which Professor Weber had seemed formerly [n3 See above, pp. 155-6.] to take Professor Bhandarkar's view (shared by both Senart and Barth), it can only be said that if the "doubts" are ever strengthened, that part of our evidences will have to be reconsidered; though Professor Weber and the doubters will also have to face and explain the fact, which they constantly overlook, of the ancient currency of the Cyrus myth on the Iranian side. In any case Patanjali would. have to be dated very late to countervail the implied antiquity of the phrases he quotes. But as regards the Professor's objection that the Gopi idyl is not mentioned in the oldest documentary references to Krishna, the reader will at once see that it is no answer to M. Senart, whose argument is that the Gopi idyl is part of an immemorial popular myth, originally current outside the Brahmanic sphere.

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Nor does the Professor in any way meet M. Senart's refutation of his own development theory, or answer the questions as to how (1) the deity could be developed out of the student of the Upanishad, and how (2) the warrior hero of the epic could be lowered from that status to the position of the adopted son of a shepherd and companion of shepherds, given to dubious adventures, unless there were an old myth to that effect [n1 There are in the Mahabharata allusions which show the herdsman characteristics to have been associated with the hero. See Senart, p. 340, n.]? These questions, I venture to say, are unanswerable. We are left to the irresistible conclusion that the myths of Krishna's birth and youth are not only pre-Christian but pre-historic.

§ 3. But yet one more reinforcement of the strongest kind is given to the whole argument by M. Senart's demonstration [n2 Essai, p. 297 ff.] of the derivation of a large part of the Buddha myth from that of Krishna, or from pre-Krishnaite sources. It is needless here to give at length the details, which include such items as the breaking of Siva's bow by Kama, the God of Love, of Kansa's by Krishna, and of various bows by Siddartha (Buddha) [n3 Id. p. 302.]; the exploit against the elephant, similarly common to the three personages [n4 Id. p. 303.]; the parallel between the births of Buddha and Krishna [n5 Id. p. 312.]; their early life of pleasure [n6 Id. p. 305.], and their descent from "enemies of the Gods" [n7 Id. p. 315.]. The prodigy of the divine infant speaking immediately after birth occurs in the Buddha myth as in those of Krishna, Hermes, Apollo, and Jesus [n8 See above, p. 190.]; and where Krishna, as Sun-God, takes three miraculous strides, the infant Buddha takes seven marvellous steps [n9 Bigandet, Life of Gaudama, i. 37; and Beal's trans. of the Fo-Sho-Hing-Tsan-King, i. 1 (S. B. E. xix. 3-4).]. There is, in fine, a "close relationship" between the Buddhist and the Krishnaite legends [n10 Senart, Essai, p. 326.], as we have partly seen above.

"In nearly all the variations of this legendary theme one point remains fixed and constant: it is among shepherds that the hero is exiled; and it is impossible to separate from the series either the vraja or the herdsmen and herdswomen who surround the youth of Krishna. And this trait is found in the story of Sakya" [n11 Id.p. 319.].

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And while it is impossible to say with certainty how and whence the Buddhist adaptations were made, it is frequently found here, as in the Christian parallels, that the Krishnaite form of a given story is by far the more natural. The exploit against the elephant evidently " belonged to the Krishnaite legend before being introduced into the life of Sakya [Buddha]: it is infinitely better motived in the former than in the latter." Again, the genealogy of Buddha is in large part a variant on that of Rama. If, then, the theory of imitation from Christian legends were sound, we should have to hold either (a) that Buddhism, which ostensibly influenced Christianity, did not even borrow from Christianity direct, but did it at second-hand through Krishnaism, or (b) that Krishnaism borrowed from Buddhism legends which the Buddhists had already assimilated from the Christians. We have now seen reason enough to decide that such theories are untenable. It remains to investigate the theory of doctrinal as distinct from mythical assimilations.

XIX.—KRISHNAITE AND CHRISTIST DOCTRINE.

§ 1. Professor Weber has more than once advanced the opinion that, in addition to the mythical narratives which we have discussed in the foregoing sections, Krishnaism borrowed from Christianity certain of its leading doctrines, in particular its insistence on the need and value of "faith," and its monotheistic view of its deity. One of his earlier statements of this opinion has been already cited [n1 Above, p. 164.], and he has maintained it to the last. In the "Birth Festival" treatise, after enumerating the alleged myth-imitations, he continues:

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"Their Christian origin is as little to be doubted as the conclusion [Ind. Studien, i. 423] that ‘in general the later exclusively monotheistic tendency of the Indian sects who worship a particular personal God, pray for his favour, and trust in him (bhakti and sraddha), was influenced by the acquaintance made by the Indians with the corresponding teaching of Christianity'; or, in the words of Wilson (quoted in Mrs. Speir's Life in Ancient India, p. 434: cp. my Abh. uber die Ramatap. Up. pp. 277, 360), that the remodelling of the ancient Hindu systems into popular forms, and in particular the vital importance of faith, were directly [sic] influenced by the diffusion of the Christian religion.'" [n1 Treatise cited, p. 339.]

Here, it will be seen, Professor Weber quotes Wilson at second-hand from Mrs. Speir, who cited an Indian magazine. She made the blunder of writing "directly" for" indirectly"; but she states fairly enough that Wilson only "hints" his opinion; and this the Professor overlooks, though doubtless he would have given Wilson's passage fully if he had been able to lay his hands on it. Its effect is so different when quoted in full that I think it well so to transcribe it:

"It is impossible to avoid noticing in the double doctrine of the Gita an analogy to the double doctrine of the early Christian Church; and the same question as to the merits of contemplative and practical religion engendered many differences of opinion and observance in the first ages of Christianity. These discussions, it is true, grew out of the admixture of the Platonic philosophical notions with the lessons of Christianity, and had long pervaded the East before the commencement of our era; it would not follow, therefore, that the divisions of the Christian Church originated the doctrine of the Hindus, and there is no reason to doubt that in all essential respects the Hindru schools are of a much earlier date; at the same time, it is not at all unlikely that the speculations of those schools were reagitated and remodified in the general stimulus which Christianity seems to have given to metaphysical inquiry; and it is not impossible that the attempts to model the ancient systems into a popular form, by engrafting on them in particular the vital importance of faith, were indirectly influenced by the diffusion of the Christian religion. It is highly desirable that this subject should be further investigated." [n2 H. H. Wilson, in review of Schlegel's trans. of the Bhagavat Gita, Orient. Quart. Rev. Calcutta, vol. iii.; reprinted in Works, vol. v. pp. 156-7.]

This, it will be seen, is a very different deliverance from Weber's, and also from what Wilson is made to say in the incomplete and inaccurate quotation of his words.

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Professor Weber, without bringing forward any important new facts, makes a positive assertion where Wilson expressed himself very cautiously and doubtfully, and does not meet (having apparently not seen) Wilson's propositions as to the antiquity in India of the general pantheistic doctrine which prevailed in the East before Christianity [n1 Professor Weber's misunderstanding as to Wilson's view on bhakti seems to have become a fixed idea. In a later letter to Dr. John Muir on the subject, he speaks yet again of "Wilson's theory that the bhakti of the later Hindu sects is essentially a Christian doctrine." Wilson, as we have seen, had no such opinion. Dr. Muir might well write: "I am not aware in which, if in any, of his writings Professor Wilson may have expressed the opinion that the Indian tenet of bhakti is essentially Christian. I find no express statement to this effect in his Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus, though he there says that 'the doctrine of the efficacy of bhakti seems to have been an important innovation upon the primitive system of the Hindu religion'" (Art. in Indian Antiquary, March, 1875, vol. iv. p. 79).].

Before we come to a decision on the point at issue, it may be well to see what it was exactly that Wilson understood by the doctrine of faith, which he thought might possibly be indirectly influenced by Christianity, and which Weber holds to be without doubt entirely derived thence. In his Oxford lectures Wilson declares that in the Puranas. the doctrine of the sufficiency of faith is

"carried to the very utmost abuse of which it is susceptible. Entire dependency on Krishna, or any other favourite deity, not only obviates the necessity of virtue, but it sanctifies vice. Conduct is wholly immaterial. It matters not how atrocious a sinner a man may be, if he paints his face, his breast, his arms, with certain sectarial marks, or, which is better, if he brands his skin permanently with them with a hot iron stamp; if he is constantly chanting hymns in honour of Vishnu; or, what is equally efficacious, if he spends hours in the simple reiteration of his name or names; if he die with the word Hari or Rama or Krishna on his lips, and the thought of him in his mind, he may have lived a monster of iniquity, he is certain of heaven." [n2 Two Lectures on the Religious Practices. . . . of the Hindus, Oxford, 1840, p. 31, = Works, ii. 75. See also Works, i. 368. It is well to keep in mind that while Krishnaism, like Christism, can be turned to the account of lawlessness, it has similarly been turned to higher ends. Thus the Brahman reformer Chaitanya, who flourished in the sixteenth century, and whose movement still flourishes in Bengal, made "discipline of the intellect and a surrender of all to Krishna" one of his main positions. Max Muller, Natural Religion, p. 100.]

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It cannot be denied that all this bears a very close resemblance to the practical applications of the Christian doctrine of faith in European history, and that that is of all Christian doctrines the one which may with most plausibility be held to have originated, in Europe, with the New Testament. Nor is it incumbent on rationalists to object that such a derivation brings small credit to Christianity. An impartial inquiry, however, reveals that the doctrine of salvation by faith is already fully laid down in the Bhagavat Gita; and the Christian hypothesis involves the conclusion that that famous document is a patchwork of Christian teaching. Now, there are decisive reasons for rej ecting such a view.

§ 2. Its most confident and systematic expositor is Dr. F. Lorinser, a German translator of the Gita, whose position is that "the author [of the Gita] knew the New Testament writings, which, so far as he thought fit, he used, and of which he pieced into his work many passages (if not textually, then following the sense, and adapting it to his Indian fashion of composition), though these facts have hitherto not been observed or pointed out by anyone" [n1 Die Bhagavad-Gita, übersetzt und erläutert von Dr. F. Lorinser, Breslau, 1869, p. 272. (The argumentative appendix has been translated in part in the Indian Antiquary, October, 1873, vol. i. pp. 283-296.)]. This startling proposition, which is nominally supported by citation of the general opinions of Professor Weber, rests deductively on early Christian statements as to the introduction of Christianity into "India," and inductively on a number of parallels between the New Testament and the Gita. The statements in question are those of Eusebius as to the mission of Pantamus, and of Chrysostom as to an "Indian" translation of the fourth Gospel, and possibly of the Joannine epistles. The narrative of Eusebius is as follows :

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"The tradition is, that this philosopher was then in great eminence. . . . . He is said to have displayed such ardour and so zealous a disposition respecting the divine word, that he was constituted a herald of the Gospel to the nations of the East, and advanced even as far as India. There were even there yet many evangelists of the word, who were ardently striving to employ their inspired zeal after the apostolic example, to increase and build up the divine word. Of these Pantanus is said to have been one, and to have come as far as the Indies. And the report is that he there found his own arrival anticipated by some who were acquainted with the Gospel of Matthew, to whom Bartholomew, one of the apostles, had preached, and had left them the Gospel of Matthew in the Hebrew, which was also preserved until this time. Pantanus, after many praiseworthy deeds, was finally at the head of the Alexandrian school." [n1 Eccles. Hist. v. 10 (Bohn trans.).]

The statement of Chrysostom, again, is that "the Syrians, and the Egyptians, and the Indians, and the Persians, and the Ethiopians, and innumerable [myria] other peoples, were taught, though barbarians, to be philosophers, by his [John's] teachings translated into their own language" [n2 Comm. in S. Joann. Hom. ii. (i.) 2, in Cap. i. v. 1. (Migne, Ser. Gr. lix. 32).].

On this latter record Dr. Lorinser comments :

"It may be argued that the significance of this testimony is weakened by the addition 'and innumerable other peoples.' This apprehension, however, disappears when we consider that all the translations here specified by name, with the single exception of the Indian, are both heard of otherwise and still in existence. In any case, Chrysostom would not here have explicitly named the Indians if he had not had positive knowledge of an existing translation in their language. Chrysostom died in the year 407 A.C. The Indian translation of which he had knowledge must have existed at least a hundred years earlier, for the knowledge of it to reach him in those days. Apparently, however, Pantanus, the teacher of Clemens Alexandrinus, of whom we know that he had himself been in India, had already brought this knowledge to the West. The origin of this translation may thus possibly go back to the first or second century after Christ." [n3 Work cited, pp. 268-9.]

The most surprising point about this argument is tha_ Dr. Lorinser seems entirely unaware that the names " India" and" Indians" were normally applied by ancient writers to countries and peoples other than India proper', Yet not only is this general fact notorious [n4 "After the time of Herodotus the name India was applied to all lands in the southwestern world, to east Persia and south Arabia, to Ethiopia, Egypt, and Libya; in short, to all dark-skinned peoples, who in Homer's time, as Ethiopians, were allotted the whole horizon (Lichtrand) of the South. Virgil and others signify by India just the East; but most commonly it stands for southern Arabia and Ethiopia." (Von Bohlen, Das alte Indien, i. 9-10, citing Virg. Aen. viii. 705; Georg. ii. 116, 172; Diodor. iii. 31; Lucan, ix. 517; Fabric. Coel. Apoc. N. T. p. 669; Beausobre, Hist. du Manichaeisme, i. 23, 40, 404; ii. 129.) Cp. Arnobius, Adv. Gentes, ii. 12; and Lucan, X. 29, Von Bohlen states that the name India first appears among the Greeks in Aeschylus, Supplic. 282. There the reference is clearly not to India proper, the words running: "I hear that the wandering Indians ride on pannier packed camels fleet as steeds, in their land bordering on the Ethiopians."],

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but it has been made the occasion of much dispute as to what country it was that Pantaenus visited, even orthodox opinion finally coming round to the view that it was not India at all. Mosheim wrote that most of the learned had held it to be Eastern India proper—an opinion countenanced by the statement of Jerome that Pantaenus was sent apud Brachmanas [n1 Epist. 83, quoted by Mosheim.]. But the name Brachman was, as he further pointed out, used as loosely by the ancients as that of India; and the evidence of Jerome further varies from that of Eusebius in stating [n2 Catal. Scriptor. Ecclesiast. c. 36, cited by Mosheim.] that the "Indians" had sent delegates to Alexandria asking for a Christian instructor, and that Bishop Demetrius sent Pantaenus. That Indian Brahmans should have sent such a deputation is simply inconceivable. Vales, Holstein, and others, accordingly surmised that the mission was to Ethiopia or Abyssinia, which was constantly called India by the ancients. Mosheim, rationally arguing that the Hebrew translation of Matthew must have been used by Jews, decided that the delegates came from a Jewish-Christian colony, which he located in Arabia Felix, because he held that to have been the scene of Bartholomew's "Indian" labours [n3 Commentaries on the Affairs of the Christians, Vidal's trans. ii. 6-8, note (citing Tillemont, In Vito Barthol. in Mem. Hist. Eccles. i. 1, 60-1). In the origiginal, pp. 205-7. See also Murdock's note in his trans. of Mosheim's History, 2 Cent. part i. C. i. § 3. Compare the admissions of Kirchhofer (Quellensammlung, 1840, p. 110); and of Gieseler (Compendium, i. 79, 121, notes), who thinks Thomas and Bartholomew: probably only went to Yemen.']. It matters little which view we take here, so long as we recognize the absurdity of the view that the locality was India. Indeed, even if the "Indies" of Eusebius had meant India, the testimony is on the face of it a mere tradition.

The same arguments, it need hardly be said, dispose of the testimony of Chrysostom, who unquestionably alluded to some of the many peoples of Western Asia or Africa commonly dubbed Indians.

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If further disproof of Dr. Lorinser’s initial assumption be needed, it lies in the fact that even Tertullian, in his sufficiently sweeping catalogue of the nations that had embraced Christianity—a list which includes Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and the people of "Mesopotamia, Armenia, Phrygia, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, and Pamphylia"—the whole Pentecostal series—does not say a word of India [n1 Adversus Judaeos, c. 7.]; and that Irenaeus in his allegation as to the spread of the faith does not do so either [n2 Adv. Haereses, c. 10.]. In any case, neither Chrysostom nor Eusebius, nor yet Jerome, pretends that the "Indians" had a complete translation of the books of the New Testament; and nothing less than a complete translation in an Indian tongue is wanted for Dr. Lorinser's argument, as we shall see when we examine his "parallel passages." He admits, in a piquant passage, that it is impossible to say in what dialect the translation was made, whether in one of those spoken by the people or in Sanskrit, then as now only known to the Brahmans. Dr. Lorinser observes that it is all one (gleichgültig) to him. No doubt!

§ 3. An argument for the derivation of the teaching in the Bhagavat Gita from the New Testament has the advantage, to begin with, involved in the difficulty of fixing the time of the composition of the Gita from either internal or external evidence. There can be no doubt that, like so many other Hindu writings, it was formerly dated much too early. Ostensibly an episode in the great epic, the Mahabharata, it stands out from the rest of that huge poem as a specifically theological treatise, cast in the form of a dialogue which is represented as taking place between Krishna and the warrior Arjuna on the eve of a great battle. I may say at once that I cannot regard it as having been composed at the same time as the portion of the poem in which it is inserted. Mr. K. T. Telang, the able Hindu scholar who has translated it for the "Sacred Books of the East" series [n3 Vol. viii. 1882.], and who argues persuasively for its antiquity, confessedly holds "not without diffidence"—indeed, very doubtfully—to the view that it is a genuine" portion of the original Mahabharata." [n4 Introd. pp. 2, 5, 6. In the introduction to his earlier translation of the Bhagavat Gita in blank verse (Bombay, 1875), Mr. Telang took up a stronger position; but even there he declared: "I own I find it quite impossible to satisfy myself that there are more than a very few facts in the history of Sanskrit literature which we are entitled to speak of as 'historically certain'" (p. vii.). The earlier essay, however, contains a very able and complete refutation of Dr. Lorinser's arguments, well worthy the attention of those Who are disposed for a further investigation of the subject.]

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Where he is diffident the rest of us, I fear, must be disbelieving. There is much force in Mr. Telang's contention that the Gita belongs to a period before that of the system-makers; indeed, the flat contradiction, to which he alludes [n1 P.12.], between Krishna's declarations on the one hand that to him "none is hateful, none dear" [n2 Gita, ix. 29.], and on the other hand that a whole series of doers of good are “dear" to him [n3 Id. xii.] —this even raises a doubt as to the homogeneity of the document. But it is one thing to reckon the Gita ancient, and another to regard it as a portion of the "original Mahabharata." It is not easily to be believed that a piece of writing in which Krishna is not lonly represented as the Supreme Deity, but pantheistically treated, can belong originally to the epic in whieh he is a heroic demigod. It must surely belong to the period of his Brahmanic supremacy. Where that period begins, however, it is still impossible to say with any approach to precision; and, as Professor Weber remarks, Dr. Lorinser's thesis is thus far unhampered by any effective objections from Hindu chronology.

It must, however, stand criticism on its own merits, and we bave seen how abjectly it breaks down in respect of the patristic testimony to the existence of an "Indian" mission,

and an "Indian" translation of part of the New Testament, in the first Christian centuries. It is morally certain that no such translation existed, even of the Gospels, not to speak of the entire canon, which Dr. Lorinser strangely seems to think is covered by his quotation from Chrysostom. His argument from history being thus annihilated, it remains to be seen whether he succeeds any better in his argument from resemblance. It is not, I think,

difficult to showthat, even if the Gita were composed within the Christian era, it really owes nothing to Christianity.

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The derivation of the Glta:s teaching from the Christian Scriptures Dr. Lorinser claims to prove by about one hundred parallel passages, in which Gita sentences are matched by texts selected from nearly all the New Testament books. He divides them into three classes: (1) passages in which, with differences of expression, the sense coincides; (2) passages in which a characteristic expression of the New Testament appears with a different application; and (3) passages in which expression and meaning coincide. The nature of these "coincidences" can be best set forth by a simple selection of about a score of them. I have made this quite impartially, taking the majority consecutively as they happen to stand at the heads of the sections, and picking out the remainder because of their comparative importance. It would be easy to make a selection which would put Dr. Lorinser's case in a much worse light :

BHAGAVAT GITA. 1 NEW TESTAMENT.

[n1 I have followed throughout the prose translation of Mr. Telang; and I have occasionally given in brackets parts of a passage elided by Dr. Lorinser as not bearing on his point. The context clearly ought to be kept in view.]

(First Order.)

The deluded man who, restraining I say unto you that every one that

the organs of action, continues to looketh on a woman to lust after her

think in his mind about objects of hath committed adultery with her

sense, is called a hypocrite. iii. 6. already in his heart. Matt. v. 28.

But those who carp at my opinion A man that is heretical [after a

and do not act upon it, know them to first and second admonition] refuse;

be devoid of discrimination, deluded knowing that such a one is perverted as regards all knowledge, and ruined. and sinneth, being self-condemned.

iii. 32. Titus iii. 10-11.

Every sense has its affections and Let not sin therefore reign in your

its aversions towards its objects fixed. mortal body, that ye should obey the

One should not become subject to lusts thereof. Romans vi. 12. Be-

them, for they are one's opponents. cause the mind of the flesh is enmity

iii. 34. against God, etc. Id. viii. 7.

[Arjuna speaks]: Later is your The Jews therefore said unto him> [Krishna's] birth; the birth of the Thou art not yet fifty years old, and

sun is prior. How then shall I hast thou seen Abraham? John

understand that you declared (this) viii. 57.

first? [Krishna answers]: I have I know whence I came, and whither

passed through many births, O I go; but ye [i.e., the Jews] know

Arjuna! and you also. I know them not whence I came, or whither I go.

all, but you, O terror of your Id. 14.

foes, do not know them. iv. 4.

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I am born age after age, for the

protection of the good, and for the

destruction of evil-doers and the

establishment of piety. iv. 8.

He who is ignorant and devoid of

faith, and whose self is full of mis-

givings is ruined. iv. 40.

To me none is hatefql, none dear.

ix.29.

To this end have I been born, and

to this end am I come into the world.

that I should bear witness unto the

truth. John xviii. 37. The devil

sinneth from the beginning. 1 John iii. 8.

He that believeth [and is bap

-tized] shall be saved; but he that,

disbelieveth shall be condemned.

Mark xvi. 16.

There is no respect of persons with

God. Rom. ii. 11.

(Second Order.)

For should I at any time not engage My Father worketh even until now,

without sloth in action [men would and I work. John v.17. [As against follow in my path from all sides, O passage in brackets]: If any man

son of Pritha!]. If I did not perform would come after me, let him deny actions these worlds would be de- himself and take up his cross. Matt. stroyed. I should be the cause of xvi. 24.

caste interminglings. I should be

ruining these people. iii. 23-4.

Even those men who always act on

this opinion of mine full of faith, and

without calling ["die lästern nicht"

in Lorinser] are released from all

actions. iii. 31.

. . . me. . . the goal ["der Weg" in

Lorinser] than which there is nothing

higher. vii. 18.

[n1 Dr. John Muir, than whom there is no higher authority in this country, rejected Dr. Lorinser's translation of "way" and anticipates Telang's:—"Here, as in many other passages of the Indian writings, [the word] certainly signifies 'the place reached by going,' 'resort,' 'refuge.'" Indian Antiqnary, "March, 1875 (vol. iv.), p. 80. To the same effect, Professor Tiele, in Theolog. Tijdschr. 1877, p. 75 n.]

If a man keep my word [he shall

never see death]. John viii. 51.

. . . . that the word of God be not

blasphemed. Titus ii. 5. [Compare

the preceding sentences of the epistle.]

I am the way. . . .No one cometh

unto the Father, but by me. John xiv. 6.

(Third Order) .

To the man of knowledge I am

dear above all things, and he is dear

to me. vii. 17.

I am not manifest to all. vii. 26.

It [i.e., divine knowledge] is to be

apprehended directly, and is easy to

practise. ix. 2.

He [that hath my commandments,

and keepeth them, he it is that]

loveth me... .and I will love him. John

xiv. 21.

No man hath seen God at any time.

John i. 18.

Whom no man hath seen, nor can

see. 1 Tim. vi. 18.

My yoke is easy, and my burden

light. Matt. xi. 30.

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I am [the father of this universe, the mother, the creator, the grandsire, the thing to be known, the means of sanctification, the syllable Om (= past, present, and future), the Rik, Saman, and Yajus also] the goal [the sustainer, the lord, the supervisor, the residence, the asylum, the friend], the source and that in which it merges [the support, the receptacle, and the inexhaustible seed]. I cause heat, and I send forth and stop showers. [I am immortality, and also death; and I, O Arjuna! am that which is and that which is not.] ix. 18, 19.

[That devotee who worships me abiding in all beings, holding that all is one], lives in me, however he may be living. vi. 30.

But those who worship me with devotion (dwell) in me, and I too in them. ix. 29 [n1 As to the passage, "They who devoutly worship me are in me, and I in them," Dr. Muir writes: "In the Rig Veda some passages occur which in part convey the same or a similar idea. Thus in ii. 11, 12, it is said: 'O Indra, we sages have been in thee' ; and in x. 142, 1: 'This worshipper, O Agni, hath been in thee: O son of strength, he hath no other kinship'; and in viii. 47, 8: 'We, O Gods, are in you as if fighting in coats of mail. . . . And in viii. 81, 32, the worshipper says to Indra, 'thou art ours, and we thine.'" (Ind. Ant. as cited, p. 80.)], I am the origin of all, and all moves on through me. x. 8.

I am the beginning, and the middle and the end also of all beings. x. 20.

I am the way [and the truth, and the life] no one cometh unto the Father but by me]. John xiv. 6.

I am the first and the last [and the Living One; and I was dead, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades] . Rev. i. 17-18.

He maketh his sun to rise [on the evil and the good], and sendeth rain [on the just and the unjust]. Matt. v.45.

[As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father; so] he that eateth me, he also shall live because of me. John vi. 57.

I in them, and they in me [that they may be perfected into one]. John xvii. 23.

For of him, and through him, and unto him, are all things. Rom. xi. 36.

I am the first and the last [n2 Dr. Lorinser also brackets the Christian "I am the Alpha and the Omega" with the Gita’s "I am A among the letters" (x. 33). But Mr. Telang points out (B. G. trans. in verse, Introd. p. iv.) that the Indian writer merely takes A as the principal letter. Note that the Deity is already "the first and the last" in Isaiah (so-called):—xli. .4; xliii. 10; xlviii. 12. Why should not the Brahmans have studied the prophets?]. 2 Rev. i. 17.

The first comment that must occur to every instructed reader on perusing these and the other "parallels" advanced by Dr. Lorinser is that on the one hand the parallels are very frequently such as could be made by the dozen between bodies of literature which have unquestionably never been brought in contact, so strained and far-fetched are they;

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and that on the other they are discounted by quite as striking parallels between New Testament texts and pre-Christian pagan writings. Take a few of the more notable of these latter parallels, in the order in which the New Testament passages occur above :

He who means to do an injury has already done it. SENECA, De Irâ, i. 3. Though you may take care of her body, the [coerced wife's] mind is, adulterous, nor can she be preserved, unless she is willing. OVID, Amor. iii. 4, 5.

Not only is he who does evil bad, but also he who thinks to do evil. AELIAN, Var. Hist. xiv. 28.

In every man there are two parts: the better and superior part, which rules, and the worse and inferior part, which serves, and the ruler is always to be preferred to the servant. PLATO, Laws, B. v. (Jowett's tr. v.298).

[In B. iv. of the Laws (Jowett, v. 288-9) is a long sentence declaring that the contemner of right conduct is "deserted by God" and in the end "is utterly destroyed, and his family and city with him."]

The unruly passions of anger and desire are contrary and inimical to the reason. CICERO, Tusculan Questions, iv. 5.

I [Cyrus] am persuaded I am born by divine providence to undertake this work. HERODOTUS, i. 126.

The Muses. . . . whom Mnemosyne. . . . bare, to be a means of oblivion of ills, and a rest from cares. HESIOD, Theogony, 52-5.

The Gods look with just eyes on mortals. OVID, Metamorph. xiii. 70,

God is verily the saviour of all, and the producer of things in whatever way they happen in the world. PSEUD-ARISTOTLE, De Mundo, 6.

Zeus, cause of all, doer of all. . . . What can be done by mortals without. Zeus? AESCHYLUS, Agam. 1461-5 (1484-8).

All things are full of Jove: he cherishes the earth; my songs are his care. VIRGIL, Eclogues, iii. 60.

The temperate man is the friend of God, for he is like to him. PLATO, Laws, B. iv. (Jowett's tr. v. 289).

Not to everyone doth Apollo manifest himself, but only to the good. CALLIMACHUS, Hymn to Apollo, 9.

It is enough for God that he be worshipped and loved. SENECA, Epist. xlvii. 18. Cp. xcv. 50.

God, seeing all things, himself unseen. PHILEMON, Frag.

God, holding in his hand the beginning, middle, and end, of all that is. PLATO, Laws, B. iv. (Jowett, v. 288.)

Zeus was, Zeus is, Zeus shall be. Ancient Song, in PAUSANIAS, x. 12. God comes to men: nay, what is closer, he comes into them. SENECA, Epist. 73.

God is within you. EPICTETUS, Dissert. i. 14, 14.

Pythagoras thought that there was a soul mingling with and pervading all things. CICERO, De Natura Deorum, i. 11.

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Such parallels as these, I repeat, could be multiplied to any extent from the Greek and Latin classics alone; while the Egyptian "Book of the Dead" furnishes many more. But is it worth while to heap up the disproof of a thesis so manifestly idle? It is difficult to understand how a scholar, knowing the facts, can hope to prove such a proposition by such evidence; much more how he can bring himself to believe in his own case. More than half the resemblances are such as could be manufactured by the dozen between any two books dealing with similar questions. On Dr. Lorinser's principle, Jesus and his followers were indebted to pagans for very much of their ethical teaching—as indeed they were unquestionably indebted for a good many of their theological ideas, not to speak of the narrative myths. But surely a small endowment of common sense, to say nothing of scholarship, suffices to make it clear that certain commonplaces of ethics as well as of theology are equaally inevitable conclusions in all religious systems that (rise above) savagery [n1 In Dr. John Muir's valuable little pamphlet, Religious and Moral Sentiments freely translated from Indian Writers (published in Thomas Scott's series), will be found a number of extracts from the Mahabharata and other Sanskrit works, which, on the Christian theory, must have been borrowed from the Gospels. Thus in the epic (v. 1270) we have: "The Gods regard with delight the man who. . . . when struck does not strike again." If this be Christian (it is at least as old as Plato: see the Gorgias) whence came this: "The good, when they promote the welfare of others, expect no reciprocity"? (iii. 16796). It is plainly as native to the Indian poet as is the "Golden Rule," thus stated: "Let no man do to another that which would be repugnant to himself; this is the sum of righteousness; the rest is according to inclination." But most Christians are kept carefully in ignorance of the fact that the "Golden Rule" is common to all literatures, and was an ancient law in China before Jesus was born.]. Four hundred years before Jesus, Plato [n2 Laws, v.] declared that it was very difficult for the rich to be good; does anyone believe that Jesus or any other Jew needed Plato's help to reach the same notion? Nay, does anyone even doubt that such a close coincidence as the comparison of the human soul to a team of horses in the Katha Upanishad and Plato's Phaedrus, pointed out to Dr. Lorinser by Professor Windisch [n3 Cited by Dr. Muir in Ind. Ant. as last cited, p. 78.], might not be quite independent of borrowing?

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If all this were not clear enough a priori, it is sufficiently obvious from the context of most of the passages quoted from the Gita, as well as from the general drift of its exposition, that the Hindu system is immeasurably removed from the Christian in its whole theosophical inspiration. We are asked to believe that Brahmans expounding a highly developed pantheism went assiduously to the (unattainable) New Testament for the wording of a number of their propositions, pantheistic and other, while assimilating absolutely nothing of distinctively Christian doctrine; choosing to borrow from the Christians their expressions of doctrines which had been in the world for centuries, including some which lay at the root of Buddhism—as that of the religious yoke being easy—though utterly rejecting the Christian doctrine of atonement and blood sacrifice and the Christian claim as a whole. Such a position is possible only to a mesmerised believer [n1 It appears from Dr. Lorinser's notes (p. 82) that he thinks the author of the Gita may have profited by a study of the Christian fathers, as Clemens Alexandrinus and Athenagoras. He further implies that the Hindu had read the book of Wisdom in the Septuagint!]. Even were Brahmanic India in doctrinal communication with Christendom at the time in question, which we have seen it was not, it lies on the face of the case that the Brahmanic theosophy was already elaborated out of all comparison with the Christian. It had reached systematic (even if inconsistent) pantheism while Christianity was but vaguely absorbent of the pantheism around it. The law of religious development in this regard is simple. A crude and naïf system, like the Christism of the second Gospel and the earlier form of the first, borrows inevitably from the more highly evolved systems with which it comes socially in contact, absorbing myth and mystery and dogma till it becomes as sophisticated as they. It then becomes capable in turn of dominating primitive systems, as Christianity supplanted those of northern Europe. But not even at the height of its influence, much less in the second century, was Christianity capable of dominating Hindu Brahmanism, with its ingrained pantheism, and its mass of myth and ritual, sanctioned in whole or in part by rote-learnt lore of the most venerable antiquity. Be the Gita pre-Christian or postChristian, it is unmixedly Hindu.

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§ 4. When it is thus seen that all the arguments to prove imitation of the Gospels in the Bhagavat Gita are baseless, it is hardly necessary to deal at any length with Professor Weber's favourite general argument as to the necessary derivation of the doctrines of bhakti and sraddhâ from Christianity. The very proposition betrays some of the "judicial blindness" laboured under by Dr. Lorinser. It has never occurred to either theorist to ask how the doctrine of salvation by faith came to be developed in Christism, or whether the same religious tendencies could not give rise to the same phenomenon in similar social conditions elsewhere [n1 Micah iii. 11; Isa. xxvi. 3; 1. 7-10; Jer. vii. 14; Nahum i. 7; Zeph. iii. 12; Psalms, passim.]. I cannot burden this already overlengthy treatise with an examination of the development of the Christian doctrine of faith from the Judaic germs. It must suffice to say that the principle is already clearly indicated in the prophets; 1111 that faith in divine protection is expressed in the early documents of other Eastern systems; and that the tendency to believe in the all sufficiency of devotion, and the needlessness of personal merit, is noted by Plato (to name no other), and is in some degree really an inevitable phase of all systems at some stages. It found special development under Christism in a decaying society, in which the spirit of subjection had eaten away the better part of all self-reliance; and just such a state of things can be seen to have existed in many parts of India from the earliest historic times. It would be small credit to Christianity if it were responsible for the introduction into India of a doctrine so profoundly immoral in principle, so demoralizing in practice; but, as it happens, the historic facts discountenance the hypothesis.

For though we cannot trace all the stages by which the doctrine of faith reached its full development, we do know that the germs of it lie in the Veda. Take first the testimony of Dr. John Muir:

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"Dr. Lorinser considers (p. 56) that two Sanskrit words denoting faithful and reverential religious devotion (sraddha and bhakti), which often occur in the Bhagavad Gita, do not convey original Indian conceptions, but are borrowed from Christianity. This may or may not be true of bhakti; but sraddha (together with its cognates, participial and verbal) is found even in the hymns of the Rig Veda in the sense of belief in the existence and action of a deity, at least, if not also of devotion to his service. In pp. 103 ff. of the fifth volume of my Original Sanskrit Texts a number of passages are cited and translated in which the word occurs, together with a great variety of other expressions in which the worshipper's trust in, and affectionate regard for, the God Indra are indicated. He is called a friend and brother; his friendship and guidance are said to be sweet; he is spoken of as a father and the most fatherly of fathers, and as being both a father and a mother; he is the helper of the poor, and has a love for mortals." [n1 Indian Antiquary, iv. 81. Also in Dr. Muir's pamphlet Religious and Moral Sentiments, as cited, p. vi.]

These remarks are endorsed by Mr. Telang, who cites other Vedic passages [n2 Trans. of B. G. in verse, introd. p. lxxxii.]; and again by Professor Tiele :

"The opinion that not only did Christian legends find an entry among the Indian sects of later times, but that even peculiarly Christian ideas exercised an influence on their dogmatics or philosophy, that is to say, that the Hindus acquired from the Christians their high veneration for piety or devotion, bhakti, and faith, sraddha—as is contended by Weber (Indische Studien, 1850; i. 423), and after him by Neve (Des Elements Etrangers du Mythe et du Culte de Krichna, Paris, 1876, p. 35)—seems to me unjustified. Already in the Rig Veda there is frequent mention of faith (Sraddha) in the same sense as is given to that word later; and although we cannot speak actually of bhakti, which there as yet only means 'division' or 'apportionment,' yet this has already in very old sources the sense of 'consecration' (toewijding), 'fidelity' (trouw) , 'love resting on belief' (op geloof rustende liefde)." [n3 Art. Christus en Krishna, in Theologische Tijdschrift, 1877, p. 66.]

Take, finally, the verdict of Professor Max Muller—in this connection certainly weighty. Noting that the principle of love and intimacy with the Gods is found in the very earliest portions of the Rig Veda, he cites from the Svetasoatara Upanishad [n4 Muller's trans. in Sacred Books of the East, xv. 260.] a pantheistic passage which concludes:

"If these truths have been told to a high-minded man, who feels the highest devotion (bhakti) for God, and as for God so for his Guru, then they will shine forth, then they will shine forth indeed."

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He adds :

"Here then we have in the Upanishads the idea of bhakti or devotion clearly pronounced; and as no one has yet ventured to put the date of the Svetasoatara Upanishad later than the beginning of our era, it is clearly impossible to admit here the idea of an early Christian influence " [n1 Natural Religion, p. 99.].

Further, the Professor observes that, "even if chronologically Christian influences were possible" at the date of the Gita, "there is no necessity for admitting them." "It is strange that these scholars should not see that what is natural in one country is natural in another also" [n2 Id. p. 97.].

For the rest, we have already seen that the idea of the God entering into his worshippers existed in the Veda (as it notoriously did among the ancient Greeks), though that too was held by Dr. Lorinser to be of Christian derivation; and the one rebuttal reinforces the other. We have also seen how completely Professor Weber was mistaken as to the opinion of Wilson. It only remains to say that in the rejection of Weber's own theory we are fully countenanced by M. Barth [n3 Religions of India, pp. 218-220, 223.]; and that Dr. Lorinser's special proposition is scouted by M. Senart [n4 Essai, pp. 342-3, n.].

XX.—THE "WHITE ISLAND."

There is, I think, only one more proposition as to the influence of Christianity on Krishnaism that calls for our attention; and that can be soon disposed of. Among the infirm theses so long cherished by Professor Weber, not the least paternally favoured is his interpretation of a certain mythic tale in the Mahabharata [n5 xii. 12702, ff.], to the effect that once upon a time Narada, and before him other mythic personages, had visited the Svetadvipa, or "White Island," beyond the "Sea of Milk"; had there found a race of perfect men, who worshipped the One God; and had there received the knowledge of that God from a supernatural voice.

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This, the only record that can be pretended to look like a Hindu mention of the importation of Christianity, is fastened upon by Weber and others as a piece of genuine

history; and the "White Island" (which might also mean the "island of the white ones") is assumed to be Alexandria, for no other reason than that Alexandria seems the likeliest

place whence the knowledge of Christianity could come [n1 Weber, Ueber die Krishnajanmashtami, pp. 318-321; Indische Stüdien, i. 400; Indische Streifen, ii. 21. Lorinser, as cited. Weber's view is shared by the French Catholic scholar, Neve, who says "It is even certain, at least highly probable, that the White Island is Alexandria" (Des Elements Etrangers du Mythe et du Culte de Krichna, Paris, 1876, p. 24, quoted by Tiele, Theolog. Tijdschr. as cited, p. 70). I have not been able to meet with M. Neve's book, which is not in the British Museum. It does not appear, however, to have added anything to the German arguments.]. Lassen, who followed Weber in assuming that the legend was a historic testimony, surmised on the other hand that Svetadvipa would be Parthia, "because the tradition that the Apostle Thomas preached the gospel in that country is an old one." On the other hand, however, he thought it just possible that there had been an apostolic mission to India, though he admitted that it was not without weighty reasons that many ecclesiastical historians held the "India" of Bartholomew and Pantaenus to be Yemen. We are thus left to believe, if we choose, that Christianity was very early imported by Christians into India, and yet that Brahmans went elsewhere to learn it: so loosely can a great scholar speculate. It is worth noting only as a further sample of the same laxity that Lassen thought the hypothesis about Svetadvipa was put on firm ground (eines festen Grundes) by citing the fact that in the late Kurma Purana there is a legend about Siva appearing in the beginning of the Kali Yuga or Evil Age to teach the "Yoga" system on the Himalayas, and having four scholars, "White," "White horse," "White hair," and "White blood." In the Mahabharata legend the Yoga is represented as the source of the true knowledge; hence it follows that both stories refer to the same thing, which is Christianity [n2 Indische Alterthumskünde, ii. (1849), 1099-1101.]!

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It will readily be believed that these assumptions find small favour with later investigators. Telang in India, Tiele in Holland, Senart and Barth in France, all reject them. Mr. Telang's criticism is especially destructive:

"I cannot see the flimsiest possible ground for identifying the Svetadvipa of the legend with Alexandria, or Asia Minor, or the British Isles [this has been done by Colonel Wilford, Asiatic Reearches, xi.], or any other country or region in this world. The Dvip is in the first place stated to lie to the north of the Kshirasamudra; and to the northwest of Mount Meru, and above it by thirty-two thousand yojans. I should like to know what geography has any notion of the quarter of this earth where we are to look for the Sea of Milk and the Mount of Gold. Consider next the description of the wonderful people inhabiting this wonderful Dvip. [Sanskrit quoted.] It will be news to the world that there were in Alexandria or elsewhere a whole people without any organs of sense, who ate nothing, and who entered the sun, whatever that may mean! Remember, too, that the instruction which Narad receives in this wonderful land is not received from its inhabitants, but from Bhagavat, from God himself. Nor let it be forgotten that the doctrines which the deity there announces to Narad cannot be shown to have any connection with Christianity. On the contrary, I think that it must be at once admitted that the whole of the prelection addressed to Narad bears on its face its essentially Indian character, in the reference to the three qualities, to the twenty-five primal principles, to the description of final emancipation as absorption or entrance into the Divinity, and various other matters of the like character. Against all this what have we to consider? Why, nothing more than the description of the inhabitants as white, and as ekânta, which, Professor Weber thinks, means monotheists (Sed quaere). It appears to me that the story is a mere work of the imagination." [n1 Bhagavat Gita trans. into Eng. blank verse. Introd. pp. xxxiv.-v.]

The details as to the supernatural character of the inhabitants of the White Island, be it observed, are ignored by both vVeber an Lassen, who pursue the Evemeristic method. Professor Tiele emphatically endorses Telang:

"With all respect for such men as Lassen and Weber, I can hardly conceive of such a species of historical criticism.

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All the places and persons in the legend are purely mythological: Narada can as little as his predecessors be reckoned a historical personage." [Quotes Telang.] "We are here

in sheer mythology. Svetadvipa is a land of fable, a paradise, a dwelling of the sun, such as we meet with in so many religious systems; and the white inhabitants, exalted above personal needs, are spirits of light. Narada receives there a monotheistic revelation, not from the inhabitants, but from the supreme deity himself; but one only needs to glance at the words in which it is conveyed to perceive its Indian character. And whencesover the poet may have derived this monotheism, at least the legend says nothing as to its being derived from Alexandria or any other religious centre" [n1 Theolog. Tijdschr. art. cited, p. 70.].

Equally explicit is the decision of M. Senart :

"It is certain that all the constituent elements of this story are either clearly mythological or, in the speculative parts, of very ancient origin: both belong to India, apart from any Christian influence. It is another matter to inquire if the use made of the materials, the manner of their application (the Katha Upanishad, i. sq. shows us, for instance, Nasiketas going to the world of Yama to seek philosophical instruction) betrays a Western influence, and preserves a vague memory of borrowings made from Christian doctrines. The question cannot be definitively handled save on positive dates, which we do not possess: inductions are extremely perilous. It has been sought to show (Muir, Sanskrit Texts, iv., 248, ff.) that the Pandavas were the founders of the cult of Vishnu-Krishna. Who would venture to see in these 'white heroes,' whom Lassen holds on the other hand to be new comers from the West (Ind. Alt. i. 800, ff.), the representatives of a Christian influence on the religious ideas of India" [n2 Essai, p. 342, n.]?

And M. Barth in turn, even while admitting that Brahmans may have early "visited the Churches of the East," and that there were probably Christian Churches in India "before the redaction of the Mahabharata was quite finished," regards the Svetadvipa legend as a "purely fanciful relation" [n3 Relig. of India, p. 221.].

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It is needless, for the rest, to go into the question of the manner of the "introduction" of the monotheistic idea into India, or into the point raised by Professor Weber [n1 Ueber die K. as last cited.] as to the commemoration of the Milk Sea and the White Island, and the veneration of Narada, in the Krishnaite ritual. The latter circumstance plainly proves nothing whatever for his case, though he professes to be placed beyond doubt by it; and the idea that Brahmans could derive the idea of monotheism from the Christians of Alexandria, after Athanasius, is on its merits nothing short of grotesque. It is strange that a disinterested scholar can be led by orthodox habit to see an exemplary monotheism in the Christian Trinity; and hardly less strange that he should not recognize how naturally the monotheistic idea tends to be evolved in all religious systems. In other connexions, moreover, Professor Weber assumes the Hindus to have been influenced by Greek thought at and after the conquest of Alexander: why then should they not have had the idea from Greek philosophy—not to speak of Persia or Egypt—before the Christian era? Even Lassen, while holding the Christian theory of Svetadvipa, held that no practical influence on Indian religion could justly be attributed to the Christian missionaries in the early centuries, and rejects the view that the Hindus derived monotheism from Christianity [n2 Indische Alterthumskunde, ii. 1102-3-5-9.].

XXI.—THE CRUCIFIXION MYTH.

While the Christian claim seems thus to collapse at all points, there incidentally arises, out of an equally mistaken countervailing claim, a problem of which I cannot pretend to offer a solution, but which calls for mention here.

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A strenuous freethinker of the early part of this century, Godfrey Higgins—a scholar whose energy and learning too often missed their right fruition just because his work was a desperate revolt against a whole world of pious obscurantism—unwittingly put rationalists on a false scent by adopting the view that Krishna had in an ancient legend been crucified, and that it was the missionaries who had contrived to withhold the fact from general European knowledge [n1 Anacalypsis, 1836, i. 144-6 (ch. ii.).]. His assumption rested mainly on an oversight of the archaeologist Moor [n2 Hindu Pantheon, pp. 416-20, and pl. 98.], who in collecting Hindu God-images had a Christian crucifix presented to him as a native "Wittoba"—a late minor Avatar commonly represented as pierced in one foot. Krishna is indeed represented in the Puranic legend as being slain by an arrow [n3 In the Mahabharata and the Vishnu Purana the slayer is the hunter Jara (= "old age," "decay"). In the Bhagavat Purana the slayer is the forester Bhil. In both cases, the slaying is unintentional but predestined.] which pierced his foot, here comparing curiously with the solar Achilles of Hellenic mythology; but he is not crucified; and Moor later admitted that the figure in question was Christian. It is not at all certain, however, that a crucifixion myth did not anciently flourish in Asia, as we know one did in pre-Christian Mexico. The later missionaries no doubt have suppressed what they conveniently could; and it is far from certain that we yet know all the relevant modern facts. As long ago as 1626, the Portuguese Jesuit Andrade, in his letters from Tibet to the General of his Order, testifies to the existence of a crucifixion myth in that country. They believe, he tells, in the triune God, but give him absurdly wrong names; and

"They agree with us in saying that Christ" [i.e., their Second Person, known as "the great book"]" died for the saving of the human race; but they do not know the manner of his death, knowing little or nothing of the holy cross, holding only that he died shedding his blood, which flowed from his veins on account of the nails with which he was put to death. It is very true that in their book the cross is represented, with a triangle in the middle, and certain mystic letters which they cannot explain."

Andrade further testifies that there were three or four goldsmiths of the King of Tibet, natives of other countries, to whom he gave money to make a cross; and they told him that in their country, two months' journey off, there were many such crosses as his, some of wood, others of metals. These were usually in the churches, but on five days in the year they were put on the public roads, when all the people worshipped them, strewing flowers and lighting lamps before them; "which crosses in their language they call Iandar" [n1 Histoire de ce qui c'est passé au Royaulme du Tibet, trad. d'Italien en Francois, Paris, 1629, pp. 45-6,49-50, 51. Cpo p. 84. Andrade will be found cited by M. V. La Craze, Hist. du Christ. des Indes, La Haye, 1724, p. 514. La Craze has a theory of Nestorian influences.]

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This evidence is remarkably corroborated in 1772 by the Jesuit Giorgi, who, in the very act of maintaining that all Krishnaism was a perversion of Christianity, declares on his own knowledge of Tibet that in Nepal it was customary in the month of August to raise in honour of the God Indra cruces amictas abrotono, crosses wreathed with abrotonus, and to represent him as crucified, and bearing the sign Telech on forehead, hands, and feet. He appends two wood cuts. One is a very singular representation of a crucifix, in which the cross seems wholly covered with leaves, and only the head, hands, and feet of the crucified one appear, the hands and feet as if pierced with nails, the forehead bearing a mark. In the other, only the upper part of the deity's body is seen, with the arms extended, the hands pierced, the forehead marked, but without any cross [n2 Alphabetum Thibetanum, Romae, 1772, p. 203.]. Godfrey Higgins reproduced and commented on those pictures, but I find no discussion of the matter in recent writers, though it appears that the Nepalese usage in question still flourishes. Dr. H. A. Oldfield states that in the Indra festival in August-September at the present time "figures of Indra, with outstretched arms, are erected all about the city" [n3 Sketches from Nepal, 1880, ii. 314.]—i.e., Kathmandu—but he gives no further details. Professor Weber would seem to have entirely overlooked the matter, since he makes no allusion to it. The prima facie inference is that we have here a really ancient and extra-Brahmanical development of the Indra cult; since it is hard to conceive how any Christian suggestion should be grafted on that worship in particular, at a time when it had been generally superseded by the Cult of Krishna.

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And there is no suggestion that any Christian doctrine connects with the usage described. When we note that the Persian Sun-God Mithra is imaged in the Zendavesta "with arms stretched out towards immortality" [n1 Mihr Yasht, 31.] and that the old Persian symbols seem to explain this by a figure of the sun or the God with outstretched wings, it is seen to be perfectly possible that not merely the cross-symbol, which is universal, but a crucifixion myth, should have flourished in ancient India.

This, however, goes for nothing as regards Krishnaism, though Krishna was the supplanter of Indra. The only suggestions of the cross in Krishnaism apart from its appearance in late sculpture or pictorial art are in the curious legend [n2 Balfour's Ind. Cycl. art. Krishna.] that the God was buried at the meeting point of three rivers—which would form a cross—and in the story of Yasoda binding the child Krishna to a tree, or to two trees. The trees opened, and there appeared two Brahmans—a tale which the indignant Giorgi held to be a perversion of the crucifixion of Christ between two thieves [n3 Alphab. Thib. p. 253. Giorgi held that the detail of Krishna's commending the care of his 1,600 wives to Arjuna was a fiction based on the records of the multitude of women who followed Christ from Galilee! (p. 259).]. The story given by Milford [n4 Asiatic Researches, x. 69.] of the holy Brahman Mandavya, who was crucified among thieves in the Deccan, and afterwards named Sulastha, or "cross-borne," is stated by the narrator to be told at great length in the "Sayadrichandra, a section of the Scanda Purana," and to be given briefly in the Mahabharata and alluded to in the Bhagavat Purana "and its commentary"; but as the matter is never mentioned by Weber or other later Sanskritists it must be, I presume, one of the frauds practised on Wilford by his pandits. [n5 On this see Professor Max Muller's article "On False Analogies in Comparative Theology," in the Contemporary Review of April, 1870, reprinted with his Introduction to the Science of Religion, 1st ed. 1873. I am not aware that there has been any detailed discrimination of the genuine and the spurious in Wilford's compilations.]

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The Christian crucifixion story falls to be studied in other lights, one of which is indicated above. It may be that I have in my turn overstrained the possibilities of Christian indebtedness to Krishnaism as regards some minor myth motives; but at least I have in no way staked the argument on such suppositions. I have not even founded on the decision of Wilson (who is so often cited to other purpose by Professor Weber) to the effect that Gnostic Christian doctrines were borrowed from Hinduism in the second century [n1 Trans. of Vishnu Pnrana, Introd. p. viii.]. That there was then "an active communication between India and the Red Sea" is indeed certain; and it is arguable that Christism borrowed from Buddhism; but the testimony of Epiphanius [n2 Adversus Manichaeos, i. (Haereses, xlvi. sive lxvi.).], on which Wilson founds, is clearly worthless, were it only because he uses the term "India" at random, like so many other ancient writers. It is impossible to say what is the force of the reference of Juvenal [n3 Sat. vi. 585.] to the "hired Indian, skilled as to the earth and the stars"; and though there is no great reason to doubt that India was visited by Apollonius of Tyana, and no uncertainty, for instance, as to the embassies sent by Porus to Augustus, and by the king of "Taprobane" to Claudius [n4 Strabo, xv. 1, 74; Pliny, Hist. Nat. vi. 24 (22). It is worth noting that Pliny in this chapter says of the people of Taprobane (doubtless Ceylon) that "Hercules is the deity they worship." This confirms our previous argument as to the antiquity of the hero-God worships.], it is one thing to be convinced of the communication, and another to know what were the results. I have made no attempt to build on the fact that the Christians made a sacred place of the Egyptian Matarea [n5 1 Infancy, viii.], which certainly suggests knowledge of Mathura. I simply insist on the proved error of the main Christian assumptions, on the utter illegitimacy of the others, and on the reasonable contrary hypothesis in certain cases.

In so far as I may have gone astray, I know I lay myself open to that kind of criticism which is bestowed on the mistakes of rationalism by writers whose customary frame of mind on religious matters is the negation of reason.

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The believer lives for his own part in a thought-world of lawless credulity; but if the unbeliever should in his research deviate even unimportantly from strict historical or verbal accuracy, he is impeached on the instant as an ignoramus, or worse. And when he errs grossly, like the unfortunate M. Jacolliot, who, ill-fitted for exact study in any case, seems to have fared worse than Wilford at the hands of Hindu Shapiras, his religious critics point to his miscarriage as a sample of rationalist research in general. Jacolliot's La Bible dans l'Inde, which has misled freethinkers inexpert in Indian matters, was contemptuously dismissed at the start by such critics as Professor Tiele and M. Senart, who are both "sceptics"; but the Rev. Dr. Ellinwood of New York, who seems to get his whole knowledge on the subject from the review article of Professor Max Muller, discusses Jacolliot's extravagances, with the candour of his profession, in a magazine paper under the heading of "The Credulity of Scepticism" [n1 Missionary Review of the World, New York, Feb. 1890.]. Jacolliot's follies are held to put in countenance the myths of Christianity. Leaving such criticism to play its part, I submit the present research to the good faith of serious readers.

XXII.—SUMMARY.

It may be convenient to sum up concisely the results, positive and negative, of the foregoing investigation. They may be roughly classed under these two heads. On the one hand,

1. The cult of Krishna is proved by documentary evidence to have flourished in India before the Christian era, though it has developed somewhat and gained much ground since.

2. In its pre-Christian form it presumptively, if not certainly, contained some of the myth elements which have been claimed as borrowings from Christianity—such as the myth of Kansa; and that myth was probably made the subject of dramatic representations.

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3. Other leading elements in the myth—such as the upbringing of the God among herdsmen and herdswomen—are found long before Christianity in the solar legend which attached to Cyrus; while this myth and the story of the God's birth are found strikingly paralleled in the pre-Christian mythology of Greece and Egypt. There is thus an overwhelming presumption in favour of the view that these myth elements were Hindu property long before our era.

4. The fact that Krishna is in the Vedas a daemon is rightly to be taken as a proof of the antiquity of his cult. Its mythology points clearly to an extra-Brahmanic origin, though it includes myth-motives which closely coincide with Vedic myth-motives, notably those connected with Agni. The attribute of blackness in a beloved deity, too, is a mark of ancient derivation, remarkably paralleled in the case of the Egyptian Osiris, to whom also was attributed a daemonic origin. The same attribute is bound up with the conception of the God as a "hiding one," which is common to the oldest mythologies.

5. Ritual is far more often the basis of myth than the converse; and the Krishnaite Birth-ritual in itself raises a presumption in favour of the antiquity of the cult.

6. The leading elements in the Krishna myth are inexplicable save on the view that the cultus is ancient. If it were of late and Brahmanic origin, it could not conceivably have taken in the legend of the upbringing among herdsmen.

7. The ethical teaching bound up with Krishnaism in the Bhagavat Gita is a development on distinctly Hindu lines of Vedic ideas, and is no more derived from the New Testament than it is from the literature of Greece and Rome.

8. The close coincidences in the legends of Krishna and Buddha are to be explained in terms of borrowing by the latter from the former, and not vice versa.

In fine, we are led to the constructive position that Krishna is an ancient extra-Brahmanic Indian deity, in his earliest phase apparently non-Aryan, who was worshipped by Aryan-speakers long before our era, and, either before or after his adoption by the Brahmans, or more probably in both stages, was connected with myths which are enshrined in the Vedas.

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He acquired some of the leading qualities of Agni, and supplanted Indra, whose ancient prestige he acquired. All which positively ascertained facts and fully-justified conclusions are in violent conflict with the hypothesis that Krishnaism borrowed mythological and theological matter from Christism.

On the other hand,

1. Such phenomena as the Birth-Festival ritual and the pictorial representation of the babe Krishna as suckled by his mother cannot reasonably be held to be borrowed from the Christians, any more than the myths positively proved to be pre-Christian. On the contrary, since the Christian Virgin-myth and Virgin-and-Child worship are certainly of Pagan origin, and of comparatively late Christian acceptance, and since the Virgin-myth was associated with Buddhism even for Westerns in the time of Jerome, the adoration of a Suckling-God is to be presumed pre-Christian in India (which had a Babe-God in Agni in the Veda); and it becomes conceivable that certain parts of the Christian Birth-legend are directly or indirectly derived from Krishnaism. It is an extravagance to suppose the converse.

2. It is equally extravagant to suppose that such a usage, as the Krishnaite "name-giving" was borrowed from the short-lived usage of the Church of Alexandria in the matter of combining the Nativity and Epiphany. A similar usage prevailed in the pre-Christian cult of Hercules, and was presumably widespread.

3. Nor can we without defying all probability suppose that such motives as the "ox-and-ass," the "manger," the "tax-paying," and the "Christophoros," were borrowed by the Hindus from Christianity, which itself unquestionably borrowed the first two and the last from Paganism. The fair surmise is rather that the third was borrowed from India; and the necessary assumption, in the present state of our knowledge, is that the others also were ancient in India, whether or not any of them thence reached Christism in its absorbent stage.

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It is further possible that the introduction of shepherds into the Christian Birth-legend in the late third Gospel was suggested by knowledge of the Krishna legend. The converse hypothesis has been shown to be preposterous.

4. The myth of the massacre of the innocents is the more to be regarded as pre-Christian in India because it connects naturally with the motive of the attempted slaying of the God-child, and is already found in Semitic mythology in the story of Moses, which is minutely paralleled in one particular in the Egyptian myth of the concealment of Horus in the floating island [n1 Herodotus, ii. 156.], and related in others to the universal myth of the attempted slaying of the divine child. The natural presumption is that the Hindu massacre of the innocents is as old as the Kansa myth: the onus of disproof lies with those who allege borrowing from the Gospels.

5. The resemblances between certain Krishnaite and Christian miracles, in the same way, cannot be set down to Hindu borrowing from Christism when so many of the parallel myths [n2 It need hardly be explained that not a tithe of the mythical stories connected with Krishna have been mentioned above. They are extremely numerous, and are all either explicable in terms of the sun-myth or mere poetic adornments of the general legend.] are certainly not so borrowed, and so many more presumably in the same case. For the rest, some of the parallels alleged on the Christian side are absurdly far-fetched, and bracketed with etymological arguments which are beneath serious notice.

6. The lateness of the Purânic stories in literary form is no argument against their antiquity. Scholars are agreed that late documents often preserve extremely old mythmaterial [n3 Compare Mr. Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 1^st ed. i. 291.].

Christianity so-called, in short, we know to be wholly manufactured within historic times: Krishnaism we have seen to have had a pre-historic existence. Thus every claim made in this connection by Christians recoils more or less forcibly on their own creed.