suggested, inasmuch as the rainy season in Judæa being then at its height, the shepherds would probably betake themselves to their homes, rather than watch all night in the open fields."1 At the winter solstice, when the sun was at its lowest point, and when the days, being at their shortest, were about to begin to lengthen again, the form in which the sun was adored was that of childhood. The birth of the god of day was celebrated in the mysteries at that time on the 25th of December, and the image of the newly-born god, which was taken from the recesses of the sanctuary or grotto, where he had just been born— from the sanctuary of the Virgin Isis in Egypt, from the mystic cave of Mithra in Persia-and presented to the people." This child was born at the same time as the solar year, which began at that time at the first instant of the first day-that is, at midnight-among several nations, at which period our day also begins. The astrologer-priests, or Magi, cast the horoscope of this young child, as they did that of all other children, at the precise moment of their birth. They consulted the state of the sky called the horoscope-that is, the sign of the zodiac which ascends on the eastern horizon at the moment of birth. The nativity was cast by the aid of one of these elements. That sign was three or four thousand years ago the constellation of the celestial virgin, which by its ascension on the horizon, presided over the birth of the god of day, and appeared to produce him from her virgin side. Both the Magi and the Egyptian priests sang the birth of the god of light and of day, who was incarnate in the bosom of a virgin, who had begotten him without ceasing to be a virgin and without having known a man. The representation of the new-born god of day was drawn in the sphere in the arms of the constellation under which he was born, and all the images of the celestial virgin, which 1 From the Hebrides to the Himalayas. 2 Mankind, their Origin and Destiny, by a M.A. of Baliol College, Oxford. London: Longmans and Co., 1872. were exhibited to the people, represented her as she is in the sphere, suckling the mystic child which was to destroy evil, to confound the prince of the darkness of Winter, to regenerate nature, and to reign over the universe.1 Macrobius (Saturnal., i, 1, cap. xviii) gives a description of the mysteries in which the Sun, i.e., Apollon, Bacchus or Dionysos, was represented as dying, descending to hades or hell, and rising again. He says: "The images or statues of Bacchus (i.e., the sun), represent him sometimes as a child, sometimes as a young man, at other times as a full-grown man with a beard, and lastly, with the wrinkles of old age, just as the Greeks represent the god whom they call Baccaheus and Breseïs, and as the Neapolitans in Campania draw the god whom they honour under the name of Hebon. These different ages relate to the sun, which appears to be a tender infant at the winter solstice, just as the Egyptians represent him on a certain day when they bring up the image of a child from the bottom of their caves, because, the days being then at their shortest, this god appears to be no more than a feeble child. Increasing afterwards, he arrives at the vernal equinox in the shape of a young and vigorous man, whose features the images also represent; then he arrives at maturity, marked by the thick bristly beard which he wears in the images which represent him at the summer solstice, when the day has increased in length as much as it can. Lastly, he decreases after the 24th June insensibly, and attains old age (Hades)." "Greek art represented the Egyptian Isis as a beautiful woman nursing the infant Horus; and Mr. Sharpe in his History of Egypt, tells us that when the worship of Isis was interdicted at Rome, and that of Christianity established in its place, the painters, who had hitherto got their livings by painting pictures of Isis and Horus, still continued to paint the same pictures of the Virgin Isis and child, calling them now Mary and the Infant Jesus. The old mythological taint still continues, and I have before me while writing a beautifully coloured picture of the Virgin Mary, accompanied with a large lunette, or curved moon, or ship symbol."-J. W. LAKE. Isis is generally represented as a beautiful woman, standing on the crescent moon, nursing the infant Horus, and holding two stalks of wheat in her right hand. 1 Mankind, their Origin and Destiny. "Plutarch tells us that in the mysteries of Isis and Osiris, the image of a dead man was carried about in an ark or small boat of a lunette form, which served him as a coffin. This person was Osiris, and this interment they viewed as the disappearance of the deity, and the lamentations occasioned by his being dead or lost constituted the first part of the mysteries. Afterwards, on the third day subsequent to his enclosure within the ark, a procession went down to the Nile at night, the priests bearing the sacred ark. Into this they poured water from the river, and when this rite had been duly performed, they raised a shout of joy, exclaiming that the lost Osiris had been found, that the dead Osiris had been restored to life, that he who had descended into Hades had risen again and returned from Hades. The exultation in which they now indulged, constituted the second or joyful part of the mysteries. Hence originated those watchwords used by the Mystæ: We have found him, let us rejoice together." The ancient mysteries had their celebration prohibited by law by the Emperor Theodosius in the fourth century. "The Egyptians had two yearly festivals, in the one of which they celebrated the entrance of Osiris, the sun, into the moon, Isis; and in the other, his entrance into that ark in which he was enclosed by Typhon, and thus set afloat upon Oceanus, or the Nile. But, according to Plutarch, this ark was itself a navicular moon. These terms simply imply the conjunction of the sun and moon, or as we say now, the new moon of the spring and the autumnal equinox. The first took place in the sign of Taurus or the Bull, hence the worship of the bull, and the representation of Isis as a cow; the latter in the sign Scorpio, the emblem of Typhoon (winter), or the Destroyer." Macrobius quotes Aristoteles, Euripedes, Aischylos, and others, as showing by many arguments that " Apollo and Liber (Bacchus) were one and the same god"; and then says that the sun was Liber; and Orpheus writes in this verse, (Frag. iv):— "The sun whom men call Dionysos as a surname"; and again, "One Zeus, one Aïdes, one Helios, one Dionysos." The Oracle of Apollo Klarios, having been asked which 1 Mythology of the Ark, by J. W. Lake, Esq. of the gods should he who is called Iao be considered to be, replied thus: "Know that of gods who exist, the highest of all is Iao, He is Aïdes in winter, and Zeus of the coming spring time, Helios in summer heat, and in autumn the graceful Iao." Cornelius Laber has explained in his work Concerning the Oracle of Apollon Klarios. In the Orphik verse the four variant phases of the one great divinity are Zeus, Aïdes, Helios, and Iao, which is thus represented as the equivalent of Dionysos, the Lord of the changing seasons. And Thomson, in his work on The Seasons, says,— "These as they roll, Almighty Father, these, - In the mythology of each of the four most important of the Aryan races, viz., the Aryans of India, of Persia, of Greece, and of Italy, one Deity is most conspicuous. He is always the chief, the ruling, the organising, and supreme God. Among the Italians he is Jupiter, among the Greeks, Zeus; with the Persians he is Ahura Mazda, and with the Indians he is Varuna. Jupiter is but Jus-pater; the Zeus-pater of the Helenes, and the Dyauspitar of the Indians. The Greek conception, again, is in every respect one with the Persian Ahura MazdaOrmuzd, and the Indian Varuna. Each is invested with the same attributes; each possesses the same powers; each originally is supreme and without compeers. Each is the divine creator, the god of the heavens, the supreme judge, the omniscient lord, and the ruler of the material universe. The Varuna of the Vedas is phonetically the "Ouranos" (ie., Zeus) of the Greeks. The union of Zeus-pater with Dèmêtêr finds its literal and actual parallel in the Vedic union of Dyaus-pitar with Prithivimatar, the heaven father and the earth mother. Even in the mystic conception of Ahura Mazda among the Persians, his naturalistic and original conception is seen in the ancient invocations which invariably call upon him as a luminous God, the God of the phenomenal VOL. I. 4 heaven. "That which is One the wise call it in divers manners they call it Agni (Ignis, fire), Vama, Indra, Varuna."2 As few brachycephalic skulls have been found in Wales, as far as I am at present aware of, we may imagine that our ancestors were not invaded or conquered by the Celts; and also, from what has been already stated, that we must have been in quiet possession of our country till we were conquered by the Romans. This event occurred in the reign of the Emperor Nero, when, after the victory gained by Suetonius Paulinus over Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni (a Celtic people inhabiting Norfolk and Suffolk) in A.D. 61, the Roman forces (and among them was the xx Legion) were marched to Mona, the chief seat of the Druids, to reduce that island to obedience. On their march through Teyrnllwg, or Gwlad Powys, i.e., Powysland, they were encountered by the Ordovices, who cut off one wing of their army. After his successful expedition into Mona, Agricola determined to fix a garrison upon a spot near the mouth of the river Dyvrdwy, which he determined to make the head-quarters of the xx Legion, which was called also Valeria and Victrix; and at the same time to found a colony, which received the name of Colonia Devana. This is proved by a coin of Septimus Geta, son of Severus, which was thus inscribed: COL. DEVANA. LEG. XX. VICTRIX.1 After the conquest of Britain, Julius Agricola and the Emperor Severus introduced the arts and sciences of Rome into the island; and Agricola no sooner received the command, than he effected a strict discipline among his troops, and treated the conquered tribes with justice and moderation, so that the whole island was at peace, and the natives, who had formerly hated and feared the Roman name, now began to admire and imitate the 1 See Contemporary Review, on "The Supreme God", by M. Darmesteter, Oct. 1879. 2 Rig- Veda, i, 164, 46. 3 Pennant's Tour, i, p. 147. |