Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Part 148

Another tale which helps us in our task is that of _Jack the Giant-Killer_, who is really one of the very oldest and most widely known characters in wonder-land. Now, who is this wonderful little fellow? He is none other than the hero who, in all countries and ages, fights with monsters and overcomes them; like Indra, the ancient Hindoo Sun-G.o.d, whose thunderbolts slew the demons of drought in the far East; or Perseus, who, in Greek story, delivers the maiden from the sea-monster; or Odysseus, who tricks the giant Polyphemus, and causes him to throw himself into the sea; or Thor, whose hammer beats down the frost giants of the North. "The gifts bestowed upon Jack are found in Tartar stories, Hindoo tales, in German legends, and in the fables of Scandinavia."

Still another is that of _Little Red Riding-Hood_. The story of Little Red Riding Hood, as we call her, or Little Red-Cap, as she is called in the German tales, also comes from the same source, and (as we have seen in Chapter IX.), refers to the _Sun_ and _Night_.

"One of the fancies in the most ancient Aryan or Hindoo stories was that there was a great dragon that was trying to devour the Sun, to prevent him from s.h.i.+ning upon the earth, and filling it with brightness and life and beauty, and that Indra, the Sun-G.o.d, killed the dragon. Now, this is the meaning of Little Red Riding-Hood, as it is told in our nursery tales. Little Red Riding-Hood is the Evening _Sun_, which is always described as red or golden; the old grandmother is the _Earth_, to whom the rays of the Sun bring warmth and comfort. The wolf--which is a well-known figure for the _Clouds_ and blackness of _Night_ (in Teutonic mythology)[558:1]--is the dragon in another form. First, he devours the grandmother; that is, he wraps the earth in thick clouds, which the Evening Sun is not strong enough to pierce through. Then, with the darkness of Night, he swallows up the Evening Sun itself, and all is dark and desolate. Then, as in the German tale, the night-thunder and the storm winds are represented by the loud snoring of the wolf; and then the huntsman, the _Morning Sun_, comes in all his strength and majesty, and chases away the night clouds and kills the wolf, and revives old grandmother Earth and Little Red Riding Hood to life again."

Nor is it in these stories alone that we can trace the ancient Hindoo legends, and the Sun-myth. There is, as Mr. Bunce observes in his "Fairy Tales, their Origin and Meaning," scarcely a tale of Greek or Roman mythology, no legend of Teutonic or Celtic or Scandinavian growth, no great romance of what we call the middle ages, no fairy story taken down from the lips of ancient folk, and dressed for us in modern shape and tongue, that we do not find, in some form or another, in these Eastern poems, _which are composed of allegorical tales of G.o.ds and heroes_.

When, in the Vedic hymns, Kephalos, Prokris, Hermes, Daphne, Zeus, Ouranos, stand forth as simple names for the Sun, the Dew, the Wind, the Dawn, the Heaven and the Sky, each recognized as such, yet each endowed with the most perfect consciousness, we feel that the great riddle of mythology is solved, and that we no longer lack the key which shall disclose its most hidden treasures. When we hear the people saying, "Our friend the Sun is dead. Will he rise? Will the Dawn come back again?" we see the death of Hercules, and the weary waiting while Leto struggles with the birth of Phoibos. When on the return of day we hear the cry--

"Rise! our life, our spirit has come back, the darkness is gone, the light draws near!"

--we are carried at once to the Homeric hymn, and we hear the joyous shout of all the G.o.ds when Phoibos springs to life and light on Delos.[558:2]

That the peasant folk-lore of modern Europe still displays episodes of nature-myth, may be seen in the following story of _Va.s.salissa, the Beautiful_.

Va.s.salissa's stepmother and two sisters, plotting against her life, send her to get a light at the house of _Baba Yaga_, the witch, and her journey contains the following history of the _Day_, told, as Mr. Tylor says, in truest mythic fas.h.i.+on:

"Va.s.salissa goes and wanders, wanders in the forest. She goes, and she shudders. Suddenly before her bounds a rider, he himself white, and clad in white, and the trappings white.

_And Day began to dawn._ She goes farther, when a second rider bounds forth, himself red, clad in red, and on a red horse.

_The Sun began to rise._ She goes on all day, and towards evening arrives at the witch's house. Suddenly there comes again a rider, himself black, clad in all black, and on a black horse; he bounded to the gates of the _Baba Yaga_, and disappeared _as if he had sunk through the earth_. _Night fell._ After this, when Va.s.salissa asks the witch, 'Who was the white rider?' she answered, 'That is my clear _Day_;' 'Who was the red rider?' 'That is my red _Sun_;' 'Who was the black rider?' 'That is my black _Night_. They are all my trusty friends.'"[559:1]

We have another ill.u.s.tration of allegorical mythology in the Grecian story of Hephaestos splitting open with his axe the head of Zeus, and Athene springing from it, full armed; for we perceive behind this savage imagery Zeus as the bright _Sky_, his forehead the _East_, Hephaestos as the young, not yet risen _Sun_, and Athene as the _Dawn_, the daughter of the Sky, stepping forth from the fountain-head of light,--with eyes like an owl, pure as a virgin; the golden; lighting up the tops of the mountains, and her own glorious Parthenon in her own favorite town of Athens; whirling the shafts of light; the genial warmth of the morning; the foremost champion in the battle between night and day; in full armor, in her panoply of light, driving away the darkness of night, and awakening men to a bright life, to bright thoughts, to bright endeavors.[559:2]

Another story of the same sort is that of Kronos. Every one is familiar with the story of Kronos, who devoured his own children. Now, Kronos is a mere creation from the older and misunderstood epithet Kronides or Kronion, the ancient of days. When these days or time had come to be regarded as a person the myth would certainly follow that he devoured his own children, as Time is the devourer of the Dawns.[559:3] Saturn, who devours his own children, is the same power whom the Greeks called Kronos (Time), which may truly be said to destroy whatever it has brought into existence.

The idea of a _Heaven_, the "Elysian fields," is also born of the sky.

The "_Elysian plain_" is far away in the _West_, where the sun goes down beyond the bonds of the earth, when Eos gladdens the close of day as she sheds her violet tints over the sky. The "Abodes of the Blessed"

are golden islands sailing in a sea of blue,--_the burnished clouds floating in the pure ether_. Grief and sorrow cannot approach them; plague and sickness cannot touch them. The blissful company gathered together in that far _Western land_ inherits a tearless eternity.

Of the other details in the picture the greater number would be suggested directly by these images drawn from the phenomena of sunset and twilight. What spot or stain can be seen on the deep blue ocean in which the "Islands of the Blessed" repose forever? What unseemly forms can mar the beauty of that golden home, lighted by the radiance of a _Sun_ which can never set? Who then but the pure in heart, the truthful and the generous, can be suffered to tread the violet fields? And how shall they be tested save by judges who can weigh the thoughts and the interests of the heart? Thus every soul, as it drew near that joyous land, was brought before the august tribunal of Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Aiakos; and they whose faith was in truth a quickening power, might draw from the ordeals those golden lessons which Plato has put into the mouth of Socrates, and some unknown persons into the mouths of Buddha and Jesus. The belief of earlier ages pictured to itself the meetings in that blissful land, the forgiveness of old wrongs, and the reconciliation of deadly feuds,[560:1] just as the belief of the present day pictures these things to itself.

The story of a _War in Heaven_, which was known to all nations of antiquity, is allegorical, and refers to the battle between light and darkness, suns.h.i.+ne and storm cloud.[560:2]

As examples of the prevalence of the legend relating to the struggle between the co-ordinate powers of good and evil, light and darkness, the Sun and the clouds, we have that of Phoibos and Python, Indra and Vritra, Sigurd and Fafuir, Achilleus and Paris, Oidipous and the Sphinx, Ormuzd and Ahriman, and from the character of the struggle between Indra and Vritra, and again between Ormuzd and Ahriman, we infer that a myth, purely _physical_, in the land of the Five Streams, a.s.sumed a moral and spiritual meaning in Persia, and the fight between the co-ordinate powers of good and evil, _gave birth to the dualism which from that time to the present has exercised so mighty an influence through the East and West_.

The Apocalypse exhibits Satan with the physical attributes of Ahriman; he is called the "dragon," the "old serpent," who fights against G.o.d and his angels. The _Vedic myth_, transformed and exaggerated in the Iranian books, _finds its way through this channel_ into Christianity. The idea thus introduced was that of the struggle between Satan and Michael, which ended in the overthrow of the former, and the casting forth of all his hosts out of heaven, but it coincides too nearly with a myth spread in countries held by all the Aryan nations to avoid further modification. Local tradition subst.i.tuted St. George or St. Theodore for Jupiter, Apollo, Hercules, or Perseus. It is under this disguise that the Vedic myth has come down to our own times, and has still its festivals and its monuments. Art has consecrated it in a thousand ways.

St. Michael, lance in hand, treading on the dragon, is an image as familiar now as, _thirty centuries ago_, that of Indra treading under foot the demon Vritra could possibly have been to the Hindoo.[561:1]

The very ancient doctrine of a TRINITY, three G.o.ds in one, can be explained, rationally, by allegory only. We have seen that the Sun, in early times, was believed to be the _Creator_, and became the first object of adoration. After some time it would be observed that this powerful and beneficent agent, the solar fire, was the most potent _Destroyer_, and hence would arise the first idea of a Creator and Destroyer united in the same person. But much time would not elapse before it must have been observed, that the destruction caused by this powerful being was destruction only in appearance, that destruction was only reproduction in another form--_regeneration_; that if he appeared sometimes to destroy, he constantly repaired the injury which he seemed to occasion--and that, without his light and heat, everything would dwindle away into a cold, inert, unprolific ma.s.s. Thus, at once, in the same being, became concentrated, the creating, the preserving, and the destroying powers--the latter of the three being at the same time both the _Destroyer_ and _Regenerator_. Hence, by a very natural and obvious train of reasoning, arose the _Creator_, the _Preserver_, and the _Destroyer_--in India _Brahma_, _Vishnu_, and _Siva_; in Persia _Oromasdes_, _Mithra_, and _Arimanius_; in Egypt _Osiris_, _Horus_, and _Typhon_: in each case THREE PERSONS AND ONE G.o.d. And thus undoubtedly arose the TRIMURTI, or the celebrated Trinity.

Traces of a similar refinement may be found in the Greek mythology, in the Orphic _Phanes_, _Ericapeus_ and _Metis_, who were all identified with the _Sun_, and yet embraced in the first person, _Phanes_, or Protogones, the Creator and Generator.[562:1] The invocation to the Sun, in the Mysteries, according to Macrobius, was as follows: "O all-ruling _Sun_! _Spirit_ of the world! _Power_ of the world! _Light_ of the world!"[562:2]

We have seen in Chap. x.x.xV, that the _Peruvian_ Triad was represented by three statues, called, respectively, "Apuinti, Churiinti, and Intihoaoque," which is, "Lord and Father _Sun_; Son _Sun_; and Air or Spirit, Brother _Sun_."[562:3]

Mr. Faber, in his "Origin of Pagan Idolatry," says:

"The peculiar mode in which the Hindoos identify their _three great G.o.ds_ with the _solar orb_, is a curious specimen of the physical refinements of ancient mythology. At night, in the west, the Sun is _Vishnu_; he is _Brahma_ in the east and in the morning; and from noon to evening he is _Siva_."[562:4]

Mr. Moor, in his "Hindu Pantheon," says:

"Most, if not all, of the G.o.ds of the Hindoo Pantheon will, on close investigation, resolve themselves into the _three powers_ (Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva), and those powers into _one Deity_, Brahm, _typified by the Sun_."[562:5]

Mr. Squire, in his "Serpent Symbol," observes:

"It is highly probable that the triple divinity of the Hindoos was originally no more than a personification of the _Sun_, whom they called _Three-bodied_, in the triple capacity of _producing_ forms by his general _heat_, _preserving_ them by his _light_, or _destroying_ them by the counteracting force of his _igneous_ matter. _Brahma_, the _Creator_, was indicated by the _heat of the Sun_; _Vishnu_, the _Preserver_, by the _light of the Sun_, and _Siva_, the _Reproducer_, by the _orb of the Sun_. In the morning the Sun was _Brahma_, at noon _Vishnu_, at evening _Siva_."[562:6]

"He is at once," says Mr. c.o.x, in speaking of the Sun, "the 'Comforter'

and 'Healer,' the 'Saviour' and 'Destroyer,' who can slay and make alive at will, and from whose piercing glance no secret can be kept hid."[562:7]

Sir William Jones was also of the opinion that the whole Triad of the Hindoos were identical with the Sun, expressed under the mythical term O. M.

The idea of a _Tri-murti_, or triple personification, was developed gradually, and as it grew, received numerous accretions. It was first dimly shadowed forth and vaguely expressed in the _Rig-Veda_, where a triad of princ.i.p.al G.o.ds, _Agni_, _Indra_, and _Surya_ is recognized. And these three G.o.ds are _One_, the SUN.[562:8]

We see then that the religious myths of antiquity and the fireside legends of ancient and modern times, have a common root in the mental habits of primeval humanity, and that they are the earliest recorded utterances of men concerning the visible phenomena of the world into which they were born. At first, thoroughly understood, the _meaning_ in time became unknown. How stories originally told of the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, &c., became believed in as facts, is plainly ill.u.s.trated in the following story told by Mrs. Jameson in her "History of Our Lord in Art:" "I once tried to explain," says she, "to a good old woman, the meaning of the word _parable_, and that the story of the _Prodigal Son_ was not a fact; she was scandalized--she was quite sure that Jesus would never have told anything to his disciples that was not true. Thus she settled the matter in her own mind, and I thought it best to leave it there undisturbed."

Prof. Max Muller, in speaking of "the comparison of the different forms of Aryan religion and mythology in India, Persia, Greece, Italy and Germany," clearly ill.u.s.trates how such legends are transformed from intelligible into unintelligible myths. He says:

"In each of these nations there was a tendency to change the original conception of divine powers, to misunderstand the many names given to these powers, and to misinterpret the praises addressed to them. In this manner some of the divine names were changed into half-divine, half-human heroes, and at last the myths which were true and intelligible as told originally of the _Sun_, or the _Dawn_, or the _Storms_, were turned into legends or fables too marvelous to be believed of common mortals. This process can be watched in India, in Greece, and in Germany. The same story, or nearly the same, is told of G.o.ds, of heroes, and of men. The divine myth became an heroic legend, and the heroic legend fades away into a nursery tale. Our nursery tales have well been called the modern _patois_ of the ancient mythology of the Aryan race."[563:1]

In the words of this learned author, "we never lose, we always gain, when we discover the most ancient intention of sacred traditions, instead of being satisfied with their later aspect, and their modern misinterpretations."

FOOTNOTES:

[553:1] This picture would give us the story of Hercules, who strangled the serpent in his cradle, and who, in after years, in the form of a giant, ran his course.

[553:2] This would give us St. George killing the Dragon.

[553:3] This would give us the story of the monster who attempted to devour the Sun, and whom the "untutored savage" tried to frighten away by making loud cries.

[553:4] This would give us the story of Samson, whose strength was renewed at the end of his career, and who slew the Philistines--who had dimmed his brilliance--and bathed his path with blood.

[553:5] This would give us the story of Oannes or Dagon, who, beneath the clouds of the evening sky, plunged into the sea.

[553:6] This would give us the story of Hercules and his bride Iole, or that of Christ Jesus and his mother Mary, who were at their side at the end of their career.

[553:7] This would give us the story of the labors of Hercules.

[553:8] This is the Sun as _Seva_.

[553:9] Here again we have the Sun as Siva the _Destroyer_.

[553:10] Here we have Apollo, Achilleus, Bellerophon and Odysseus.

[553:11] This would give us the story of Samson, who was "the friend of the children of men, and the remorseless foe of those powers of darkness" (the Philistines), who had stolen away his bride. (See Judges, ch. xv.)

[554:1] This would give us the stories of _Thor_, the mighty warrior, the terror of his enemies, and those of Cadmus, Romulus or Odin, the wise chieftains, who founded nations, and taught their people knowledge.