Forlong - Rivers of Life

416
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
one,” residing in a cave, being a man who dies in the prime of live, and on the third day
rises from his bed; when all rejoice with torches (symbolical of joy), and each watcher,
whispering to the other “He lives! he lives!” goes out declaring the glad tidings. 1
This author, a very orthodox layman, says: “We have a similar significant rite annually
celebrated in India, from time immemorial, in the Doorga-Pooja (Doorga-Worship), or
Dasaerah. . . . When Doorga, the wife of Siva, born of the breath of Brahman, the
Logos, is sent into the world to fight against a usurper—sin” (p. 15). This is not,
however, at the Christmas season; see my tables further on.
Strange as this and other seeming coincidences of names may appear, yet they come
upon us too often and too unmistakably not to impress us with the belief, that there is a
connection between the faiths as will as the stories which they severally relate. Thus,
there seems a Solar origin in the statement that Heli (contraction for Helios, a name of
Siva), and Anna (name of the great goddess of Asyria and Phenicia) were respectively
grandfather and grandmother of the Messiah or “the anointed one.” The incident in
connection with Thomas was only known apparently to the Alexandrian writer of St.
John’s gospel, and that as to Anna appears in various apocrypha.
All religions have given us stories of their Gods and Holy Ones travelling in
pain and anxiety during the wintry months; those concerning the Krishna of the
Jamoona, and the Christ of the Jordan, being much the same in this respect; for the
wintry tyrants are then in full strength, seeking to destroy all babes of vernal promise,
especially about the 28th of this anxious month of December. It is then that demigods
are first pictured dimly looming on our horizons, and though amid the rejoicings
of Angelic throngs, yet during the reign of violent and destructive earthly powers.
The demi-gods escape:, however, whether from river, cave, ark, or sequestered vale,
growing in stature and favour with gods and men, until at last they thrust aside the
powers of Typhon, and bring in deliverance and salvation. This is at the Vernal
equinox when the days and nights are equal, and when are sung to them Peans of praise,
“Hosannahs to the highest,” “Blessed is the Lamb that was slain for us,” etc. At this
equinox, Sol is in Aries; and the four seaaons and twenty-four hours may now rejoice in
him, as that solar picture-painter, the Apocalyptic writer tells us; for so I would understand
his metaphor of “four beasts and twenty-four elders.” In Revelation xii. we probably
see the arrival on the horizon of the constellation Scorpio, as that which afflicts the
earth for four or five months; and in the drawing after him of a third part of the stars
of heaven, the troubles which the earth is to suffer during a third part of the year. At
Easter, say all Solar faiths, “the Lord of Hosts,” having overcome the dangers and
weaknesses of Youth, has risen to the full stature of manhood, and metaphorically
rises victoriously from the tomb to march over a conquered world.
St. John, or St. IOn the apostle, is shown as welcoming his Lord’s nativity on the
27th of December, and on the 24th of June or midsummer. The other St. ION 2 is
made to declare, “he must increase, but I must decrease;” at least so says St. Augustine.
1 Evidence of Antiquity of Trinity, by a Layman, p. 14. Hall & Co., Lon., 1863.
2 Ion is in Keltic “the Sun,” and Christ called this John: Lucern ardens et lucens. Jo. v. 35.