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(ARYAN) SUN-MYTHS
THE
ORIGIN OF (PATRIARCHIAL AND ABRAHAMIC!) RELIGIONS
1889
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
CHARLES MORRIS and also Patriarchy brought by the
ARYANS
The results obtained from the examination of language in its several forms
leaves no room for doubt, Max Miiller tells us, that there was a stage, in the
history of human speech, during which the abstract words in constant use
among ourselves were utterly unknown, when men had formed no notions of virtue
or prudence, of thought and intellect, of slavery or freedom, but spoke only of
the man who was strong, who could point the way to others and choose one thing
out of many, of the man who was not bound to any other, and able to do as he
pleased.
Language without words denoting abstract qualities implies a condition of
thought in which men were only awakening to a sense of the objects which
surrounded them, and points to a time when the world was to them full of
strange sights and sounds, some beautiful, some bewildering, some terrific;
when, in short, people knew little of themselves beyond the vague
consciousness of existence, and nothing of the phenomena of the world without.
In such a state they could but attribute to all that they saw or touched or
heard, a life which was Hke their own in its consciousness, its joys, and its
sufferings. The varying phases of that Hfe were therefore described as
truthfully as human feelings or sufferings, and hence every phase became a pict-
ure, which remained intelligible as long as the conditions remained
unchanged. In time, however, the conditions were changed. Men advanced in knowl-
edge and civilization, and no longer thought of nature as possessing life and
consciousness like their own.
In ancient times there lived, it is supposed on the highest elevation of
Central Asia, a noble race of men, called the Aryan. Speaking a language not
yet Sanskrit, Greek, or German, but containing the dialects of all, this clan
which had advanced to a state of agricultural civilization had recognized the
bonds of blood, and sanctioned the bonds of marriage. That they worshipped
Nature, the sun, moon, sky, earth, a comparison of ancient religions and
mythology in the lands peopled by Aryans^ demonstrates. Their chief object of
adoration was the Sun. To this race, in the infancy of its civilization, the
Sun was not a mere luminary, but a Creator, Ruler, Preserver, and Saviour of
the world.
As there could be no life or vegetation without light, the Sun, as a light-
bringer, becomes Creator, and if Creator, then Ruler of the world the Father
of all things. In driving away the darkness, and likewise in fertilizing the
earth, the Sun becomes the preserver and kind protector of all living things
the Saviour of mankind. As the Sun sometimes scorches and withers vegetation
and dries up the rivers, he was conceived of as a Destroyer also. As Creator,
Preserver, and Destroyer the Sun was three persons in one the Trinity.
It is very hard for man at the present day to realize the feelings with which
the first dwellers on earth looked upon the Sun. " Think of man," says
Professor Miiller, "at the dawn of time. . . . Was not the sunrise to him the
first wonder, the first beginning to him of all reflection, all thought, all
philosophy ? Was it not to him the first revelation, the first beginning of
all trust, of all religion ? "
The Aryans looked up to the sky and gave it the name of Dyaus, from a root-word
which means to shine; When, out of the forces and forms of nature, they
fashioned other gods, this name of Dyaus became Dyaus Pitar, the Heaven-
Father, or AllFather. The earth they worshipped as the Mother of All.
They said that the Sun was the Son of the Sky, or the Heaven-Father, and that
the immaculate virgin, the Earth (sometimes it was the dawn or the night), was
the Mother of the Sun. Hence we have the Virgin, or Virgo, as one of the signs
of the zodiac.
As the Sun begins its apparent annual northward journey on the twenty-fifth of
December, this day was said to be his birthday, and was observed with great
rejoicings. On this day the sign of the Virgin is rising on the eastern
horizon, the Sun having reached the winter solstice.
The division of the first decan of the Virgin represents a beautiful
immaculate virgin with flowing hair, sitting in a chair, with two ears of corn
in her hand, and suckling an infant called lesus (Jesus in Latin), by some
nations, and Christ in Greek (from the Greek Christos, an Anointed One, a
Messiah). This infant denotes the Sun, which at the moment of the winter
solstice, precisely when the Persian magi drew the horoscope of the new year,
was placed on the bosom of the Virgin. (See Appendix A.)
The zodiacal sign of Aries was anciendy known as the Lamb; consequently, when
the Sun made the transit of the equinox under this sign, it was called the Lamb
of God.
The birth of the Sun was said to be heralded by a star the Morning-star,
which rises immediately before the Virgin and her Child. As the Sun appears to
start from a dark abode, it was said that he was born in a cave, or dungeon,
and the splendor of the morning sky was said to be the halo around his
cradle. As the Sun scatters the darkness, it was said that he would be the
destroyer of the reigning monarch, Night. Warned of this peril by oracles,
Night tries to prevent the birth of the Sun, and, failing in that, seeks to
take his life. For this reason it is said that the Sun is left on the bare
hillside to perish, as he seemingly rests on the earth at his rising. He meets
with temptations on his course, is beset by foes, clouds of storm and dark
ness; but, in the struggle which ensues, he is conqueror, the gloomy army,
broken and rent, is scattered. The daughters of his foes, the last light
vapors which float in the heavens, try in vain to clasp and retain him, but he
disengages himself from their embraces ; and, as he repulses them, they writhe,
lose their form and vanish. Temptations to sloth and luxury are offered him in
vain ; he has work to do, and nothing can stay him from doing it. He travels
over many lands, and toils for the benefit of others ; he does hard service for
a mean and cruel generation. He is constantly in company with his Twelve
Apostles the twelve signs of the zodiac.
As he approaches midsummer, he appears in all his splendor, he has reached the
summit of his career ; henceforth his power diminishes, and he meets with an
early and a violent death, from which there is no escape. When the extreme
southern limit of his course is reached, his enemies darkness and cold,
which have sought in vain to wound him win the victory. The bright Sun of
summer is slain, crucified in the heavens, and pierced by the spear (thorn, or
arrow) of winter. He who has performed such marvellous miracles, healing the
sick and raising the dead, cannot save himself; a stern fate decrees that he
must die an ignominious death.
As the Sun wakens the earth to life after the long sleep of winter is passed,
it was said that he raised the dead. He is crucified, with outstretched arms in
the heavens, outstretched to bless the world he is trying to save from the
terror of darkness, to the tree, or cross. It was an ancient custom to use
trees as gibbets for crucifixion, or, if artificial, to call the cross a tree,
the tree being one of the symbols of nature-worship, which denoted the
fructifying power of the Sun. The Sun crucified was the Sun in winter, when
his fructifying power is gone.
Before the Sun dies he sees all his disciples his retinue of light, the
twelve hours of the day or the twelve months of the year disappear in the
sanguinary ;«^/^^ of the clouds of evening; but the tender mother and the fair
maidens he has loved the beautiful lights which flush the eastern sky as the
Sun sinks in the west remain with him till the last. Their tears are the
tears of dew. At his death there is darkness over all the land. He descends
into Hell, or Hades. In ancient times Hell, or Hades, was a place neither of
reward nor punishment, but was simply the home of the dead, good and bad alike,
the word primarily signifying nothing more than the hollow grave, hole, pit,
cavern, or other receptacle which receives the dead. By the Aryans, Hades was
supposed to be in the far west, which to them was always the region of dark
ness and death, as the east was of light and life. On the twenty-second of
December the Sun enters the sign Capricornus, or the Goat, and appears to
remain in the same place for three days and three nights, and then begins to
ascend. This was said to be the resurrection of the Sun from Hades or the
grave. At the vernal equinox, at Easter, the Sun has been below the equator and
suddenly rises above it. It rises triumphant over the powers of darkness and
cold. The resurrection of the Sun was generally celebrated on the twenty-fifth
of March, when the return of spring may be said to be the result of the return
of the Sun, from the lower or far-off regions to which it had departed.
There were numerous symbols which were held as sacred to the Sun, the most
common being the fish, the lamb, the cross, and the serpent. The Serpent was
an emblem of the Sun, when represented with his tail in his mouth, thus forming
a circle. He was an emblem of eternity, when represented as casting off his
skin ; but when represented with his deadly sting, he was an emblem of evil.
When represented as crucified on the tree (cross), the Serpent denoted the
Sun in winter, when it has lost its fructifying power.
The Aryans observed various rites and ceremonies, among them being Baptism and
the sacrament of the Eucharist. Indeed, the doctrine of Transubstantiation is
one of the most ancient of doctrines. Baptism was held to be a regenerating
rite ; and rivers, as sources of fertility and purification, were at an early
date invested with a sacred character. Every great river was supposed to be
permeated with the divine essence, and its waters held to cleanse from moral
guilt and contamination.
The doctrines of Original Sin and the Fallen Condition of Man were not unknown
to the primitive Aryan, who, in order to propitiate his gods, atone for sins,
or avert calamities, offered sacrifices to them. When men lived mostly on
vegetables, they offered grain, salt, fruits, water, and flowers ; but when
they began to eat meat and spices, and drink wine, they offered these also,
naturally supposing that the gods would be pleased with whatever was useful
or agreeable to men.
In the course of time it began to be imagined that the gods demanded something
more sacred as offerings, or atonements, for sin. This led to the sacrifice of
human beings, at first of slaves and those taken in war, and finally of their
own children, even their most beloved and first-born. It came to be an idea
that every sin must have its prescribed amount of punishment, and that the gods
would accept the life of one person in atonement for the sins of others. From
this arose a belief in the redemption from sin by the sufferings of a Divine
Incarnation, by death on the cross, or otherwise.
Branches of the Aryan race migrated to the east and to the west. One of the
offshoots, at the west, founded the Persian kingdom; another built Athens and
Lacedasmon, and became the Greek nation ; a third went on to Italy, and reared
the city on the seven hills, which grew into imperial Rome. A distant colony
of the same race excavated the silver mines of prehistoric Spain ; and the
first glimpse at ancient England reveals Aryan descendants fishing in willow
canoes. Germany also was peopled by the Aryans. Meanwhile other bands of Aryans
had gone forth, from the primitive home in Central Asia, to the seacoast.
Powerful bands found their way through the passes of the Himalayas into the
Punjab, and spread themselves, chiefly as Brahmans and Rajputs, over India.
Wherever the Aryans went, the sun-myths went with them, and appeared in the
course of time, after their origin was forgotten, as the groundwork of
religions, epic poems, folk-lore, and nursery tales. Out of these myths were
shaped by degrees innumerable gods and demons of the Hindoos ; the devs and
jins of the Persians ; the great gods, the minor deities, the nymphs and fauns
and satyrs, of Greek mythology and poetry ; the stormy divinities, the giants
and trolls, of the cold and rugged north ; the dwarfs of German forests ; the
elves who dance merrily in the moonlight of an English summer ; the " good peo
ple " who play mischievous tricks upon stray peasants among the Irish hills;
fairies and gods and heroes.
