Forlong - Rivers of Life

434
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
the babe Horus or Krishna. In Moor’s Indian Pantheon we have the more detailed fig.
170 of the same worship of Maternity, 1 and in strictly Solar form, as it is commonly met
with in the temples and sacred buildings of lndia. It remained for the Christian
church to elaborate the idea in “the Lamb of God” being led forth by the Vernal
Virgin, which I show at the beginning of this chapter.
The sending and receipt of presents among friends at the wintry birth, was considered
a happy omen, or token of good things which the new-born child in his re-ascension
was to pour forth upon earth, and therefore all rejoiced. The Rev. Dr. Jennings,
in his Jewish Antiquities, says that “there is no good reason, but rather the con-
trary,” for the “vulgar opinion” that Christ was born on the 25th December, this
day, he says being only selected in the fourth century, when, of course, the time of
Christ’s conception was made the 25th of March or day of fthe Vernal Equinox. This
learned doctor, and others whom he quotes, say that this arose from a calculation
which was made in the fourth century, showing, no doubt, to the satisfaction of very
credulous Christians, but none other, that John the Baptist’s father was offering
incense in the temple in the middle of September, and had finished the days of his
ministration in the end of that month, when his child was conceived; which, therefore,
necessarily threw back the conception of Christ to the end of March, so as to make
him six months younger than his cousin John. This would place Christ’s birth at
the end of September, or close of our harvest which, as it did not suit the Solar ideas
of any Christians whatever, was therefore eventually rejected.
The Yuletide fetes were noted for men disguising themselves as women and vice
versa, showing their connection with the old Sigillaria of the Saturnalia, which,
formerly observed on the 14th of January, “were afterwards continued to three, four,
five, and some say seven days,” 2 and by the common people even until Candle-
mas day. Both were prohibited when their gross immoralities became apparent to
better educated communities. The orthodox Brand writes: “Because the Romans
had their Saturnalia in December, their Sigillaria in January, and the Lupercalia and
Bacchanalia in February, so amongst Christians these three months are devoted to
feastings and revellings of every kind. 3 Canut’s laws positively prohibited fasting
from Christmas day to the octave of Epiphany.” In Paris, says Trosler in his Chronology,
the 1st of January was observed as Mask Day for two hundred and forty years, when
all sorts of indecencies and obscene rites occurred. Highlanders at this season burnt
Juniper before their cattle, and “on the first Monday of every quarter sprinkled them
with wine,” and practices very similar take place in India at the same solstice.
It is on twelfth day—that on which the Magi (Eastern Princes) are held to have
visited Christ, guided by the Star—that great visiting takes place amongt Chris-
tians. All on this day are esteemed equal, masters and servants calling on and even
feasting with one another. A king or stranger guest is chosen by cutting a cake, and
1 I am indebted to Dr. Inman for the drawings.
2 Kenett’s Rom. Ants.
3 Ante, p. 195.