Forlong - Rivers of Life

414
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
duality or trinity of persons, in Typhon. He stood alone and undivided, and in time
became a real horned and hoofed dia-bolus—a course idea, but one which proved most
agreeable to the fancies of harsh and fierce northern races.
Men are now beginning to recognise in Solar faiths the key to the material side of all
religions, though in all countries they cling to some ideal man, prophet or demigod,
justly considering that from such good people our moral element can be best developed.
The very advanced author of “The Keys” thinks truly that “the organs of sex,” and
the sun, are at the base of “every religious worship known to us, each alike catholic in
their acceptance, their necessity, and their functiom.” Not only does the Sun’s course,
he adds, at this day control “our secular and ecclesiastical calendars, times and festivals
held in honour of Christ, but they coincide with the main circumstances narrated of his
life, from his conception and birth to his ascension and reception into heaven.” 1
This unknown author is clearly one of that fast-increasing band of pious and learned
men, who see that the Jews only began to abandon their gross Syrian idoiatries after
their Eastern captivities, and then also “to collate their legends, and write what they
are pleased to call History.” True indeed; and confirmation of the fact is daily pouring
in from most unwilling sources, such as Biblical Archeological Societies and Christian
missionaries, viz., that the Jews learned moat of their faith and fables from the great
peoples on their East. Especially did they there get their two cosmogonies, and that
solar fable, mixed with truth, of a Serpent tempting a woman with the fruit of a tree
—of course in the fading or autumnal equinox when only fruits exist, and all creation
tries to save itself by shielding all the stores of nature from the fierce onslaughts of
angry Typhon, when entering on his dreary winter.
The Gan-Eden fable was clearly an attempt by Zoroastrians to explain to
outsiders the difficult philosophical problem of the origin of man, and of good and
evil. Mithras, they said—and the Jews followed suit—is the good God; the Incarnation
of God, who dwells in the beauteous orb of day; to which Christian Jews added
that he was bom of a virgin in a cave which “he illumined.” 2 Hence the reason why
we have the Cave and the Light on the summit of Mount Moriah,
and had over it “the Ark of the Eduth,” and why there was a Pur asbestos,
or ever-burning light, on every Jewish, Greek, and Roman altar; and should be, say
some, in all churches and near all tombs, and why the Jewish Synagogue and Moslem
Mosk can have no side windows, but only “Light from on High”; and why
there is a caved recess behind the holy Eastern wall of both. Mithras long dwelt
in cave; as also did his after-type, till visited and adored by Fire-worshippers, and
circumcised; 3 after which he emerged to enter on the field of his labours, appearing,
said aged Simeon, as “a shining pilIar of light,” that symbol of Siva, and a meta-
phor universally applied to Solar deities. Mithras was pictures as going forth from
1
Keys of the Creeds, p. 60.
2
Gospel of the Infancy, II. 2, also III. i, where
Zoroaster is acknowledged.
3 Gospel of the Infancy, II. 1.
4 do. do. II. 6.