Forlong - Rivers of Life

Sun Worship.
The catacombs of Rome have revealed something to us, but men’s eyes are not yet
open enough to comprehend solar symboliam when they see it. It extended far down
into our era, among the most advanced Chriatians, and much more so among
the masses. Dean Stanley says, that coffins which lay undisturbed in the cata-
combs from the second and third to the sixteenth century, now reveal that the
Christians were a joyous people. “They had no death’s-heads, or crucifixes, or cypresses,”
but roses, winged fairies, and children, with “heathen subjects, such as Orpheus,
Pysche, Bacchus,” &c. . . . “There was one figure,” he says, “found in almost every
chamber, and the same figure was found everywhere for the first two or three centuries
—that of a shepherd in the bloom of youth, with a crook or shepherd’s pipe in his
hand, shouldering a lamb, which he carefully caressed and guarded with his other
hand; and this was the representation of the ‘Good Shepherd’ mentioned in the
New Testament. This figure was the sign of Christian life, the one predominant sign
of Christian belief, and it was contained in all the catacombs; and wherever they went
it was the chief mark of the Christian’s hope and faith, and was the fonn of religion
that was most dear to the hearts of the early Christians. This representation was
truly the prayer-book, articles, creed, and canons all in one. Afterwards came
representations of the crucified Saviour, and infant in the mother’s arms” 1 a solar ideograph
similar to that which heads this chapter. No testimony could be more perfect than
those untouched sculpturings, and we thus see how Apollo and his solar prestige clung
to the new Christ-idea, in the rising centre of the new faith. No doubt the old
myths here gave strength and vitality to the new, by flinging around them the
ever living though very old garments of the ancient Sun of Righteousness. 2
In these last days we have had a valuable voice from the land of Moab—that
cradle and abiding-place still of Solo-phallic faiths—in the shape of the Moabite stone,
of which I will say a few words, since it enlightens us on many parts of Jewish story,
and points to the faith of all these coasts and deserts. The following is the translation as
given by Bishop Colenso, 3 agreeing substantially with what we find in Mr Isidore Heath’s
Phenician Inscriptions. Mesho King of Moab here mentioned is held to have been
be whom the Jewish writer says rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab
about 900 B.C., so that the stone was probably engraved in the third generation after
Solomon, or about 890.
TRANSLATION.
‘I, Mesha, am son of Kemosh-Gad, King or Moab, the Dibonite. My father reigned over Moab thirty
years, and I have reigned after my father, and I erect this stone to Kemosh at Korcha, a stone of Salvation,
for he saved me from all despoilers, and made me see my desire upon all my enemies, even Omri,
King of Israel. Now they afflicted Moab many days, for Kemosh was angry with his land. His son
succeeded him, and he also said I will afflict Moab. In my says he said ‘Let us go and I will see my
desire on him and his house, and Israel. I shall destroy it with everlasting destruction.’
1 Reported Speech of 31st July 1874. For Apollo as the Shepherd, see p. 479, ante.
2 Malachi iv. 2.
3 Pent. and Moabite Stone, Lec. xxv. The italics are the missing parts.
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