Forlong - Rivers of Life

Sun Worship.
although this has been argued with great force, both pro and con. Twelve was
undoubtedly a highly cabalistic number, 1 and it is probable that the intense tenaciousness
of the old solar cult in the minds of the early Christians, in regard to the twelve Zodical
signs, may have forced upon them the idea of the same number of apostles.
Plutarch says that Osiris, the seed, entered the Ark Selene or Menoa, on the 17th
of Athyr, when the sun is in Scorpio, and this in order to avoid angry Typhon, whose
coming was announced by the Etesian winds, and the Baptiser, who then bathes the
land with the life-giving waters of the Nile. Of Osiris’ entry into the ark in the month
of Phamenoth, I will speak elsewhere, but I wish here to make my readers fully understand
that these matters, whether of the Jewish or Christian Bible, were old stories long
ere Jews wrote regarding either their Elohim of Samuel’s days, or the Jahveh of Jeremiah’s,
or of those who chronicled their tales up to that time.
MAY.
The Jewish Passover fetes may be said to have in a measure extended into May,
under the term Pentecost, which embraces the fifty days of harvesting, beginning on
the 16th of Nisan, or the day of “the offering of the first sheaf”—the second day of the
Passover, and the third of April 1874; but it is a lunar or moveable period. 2 Pentecost
thus ends about the 24th of May, and is variously called “The Feast of Weeks,” or of
“First Fruits,” i.e., of early harvest. The great day of Pentecost is the 6th of Sivan, or
say the 22d of May 1874. From the first barley two loaves were then made, “the offering
of which was the distinguishing rite of the day of Pentecost.” but numcrous young
rams, bullocks, &c., were then also offered. The Jews connect the day of Pentecost
with their mythological history, just as they do all other fete days, and in this respect act
similarly to all other peoples, and so Sol—the real cause—often, nay generally, gets lost in
some local myth. It was on this day, they say, that Jahveh delivered to them the two
stones, and thus made men, or a nation of them, for they confess that up to this time they
were wanderers and outcasts. The two loaves very fitly symbolise the two stones, and
give additional significance to the strictness at this period in regard to none but complete
and unblemished males approaching the ark, or place of the Mountain-god..
The Romams begin May by the worship of the Lares and Penates, offer sacrifices
during the Compitalia, and continue diligent services to Hermes during the Terminalia
throughout this month, ending it by celebrating the arrival of Agni, the Holy Fire,
Holy Spirit, or Ool-Kan. In early times they freely sacrificed children in the month
of May to please the generative powers of nature, and make the coming season propitious;
but in later years the oracle permitted fruits and the effigies of men and
women to be offerred instead. May, it has been said, was so called in honour of the the
Roman Senate known as Maiores or Majores, as June was said to be in honour of the
Juniores or lower senate. I incline, however, to eastern solar derivation, which con-
1 [Yes, but so are all other positive integers up to 13 and most up to 100. — T.S.]
2 Readers must remember that I can here only speak of a particular year; thus the 15th of Nisan was the
3d of April in 1874, but the 20th in 1875, and will be the 10th in 1876.
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