morning), Hercules of Io (violet-tinted dawn), the Scandinavian Christ of Woden (heaven), and so on in the Zettish songs and old Greek myths, and in the religions of Egypt, Babylon, Mexico, Peru, and Central America. "With scarcely an exception," says Cox, "all the names by which the virgin-goddess was known point to the mythology of the dawn." The 25th of December, which is universally celebrated as the Saviour's birthday, is precisely the commencement of the sun's northward journey after the winter solstice; at that time the constellation Virgo is rising in the Eastern horizon—hence the immaculate virgin of all the Christ legends. In the first decan of the Virgin in the Persian sphere an immaculate virgin is represented; "she nourishes," says Abulmazar, "and suckles a babe which some [nations] call Jesus, and the Greeks call Christ." The inscription of the virgin-goddess of Sais reads: "The fruit which I have brought forth is the sun;" she was delivered about the winter solstice, according to Plutarch. The virgin in the Indian zodiac has a lotus (lily) in her hand; in the Egyptian zodiacs she nurses the child Horus; in one old zodiac she is represented as a virgin nursing a child, seated on clouds, and having a star on her head. The transition from the constellation Virgo presiding at the winter birth of the sun to Maia, Maya, or Maria—the virgin-mother of Hermes, Buddha, and Jesus—is obvious; the whole Mariology of the Catholic Church is borrowed from astronomy, and is only really applicable to the constellation Virgo.
Again, in the star which heralds the birth of the Saviour in all mythologies (and which modern commentators of the New Testament so ingeniously explain on principles of modern astronomy) we must recognise the planet Venus, the "morning star" which heralds the daily birth of the sun. Nearly all the Saviours are born in a cave or dungeon—this is the dark abode from which the sun emerges every morning. It is predicted that he will destroy the ruling monarch—i.e., dispel the darkness of night, and the monarch (e.g., the Egyptian Typhon [darkness]) seeks his life. All the Saviours, or sun-gods, leave their homes and mothers to benefit mankind—the sun rising in the heavens to shine upon men; they meet with many foes (clouds of storm and darkness), but always prevail; they travel over many lands
