Judaism
The Sun Gods—India, China, and the Indo-Europeans
Abstract
© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Friday, May 14, 1999; Sunday, 02 October 2005
The Chinese Religions And Confucius
Civilization appeared in China, about 2700 BC. At the earliest stage, Nature is full of spirits. Every tree, forest, river, lake has what the Chukchi call its “master”, or indwelling spirit. Every animal has a spirit. Of the disembodied spirits of men there are whole legions of sour and malevolent shades haunting the villages and living in the deserts, so that we have a very large belief in “devils” (so prominent in the Chinese religion). They work terrible havoc among men, and there is quite an army of shamans (devil fighters, magic practicers) to keep them at bay.
But some spirits, especially those in the greater elements of Nature, rise above the common level, and, one of them reaches a level not far removed from monotheism. The Chukchi have a supreme spirit, a sky god, whom they regard as a “life giving being” or even “creator”, though they do not pray to or worship him. The chief spirit of the Yukaghirs and the Karyaks is also a sky god, and there is a naïve belief that if the animal sacrifices to him are neglected, he goes to sleep and the course of Nature is disordered. Other Mongolian tribes have no particularly outstanding spirit, but there is a general vague respect for “heaven” (the sky spirit) and the “will of heaven”.
In the sixth century before Christ, when the Chinese kingdom had fallen into decay and confusion, two sages arose, certainly influenced by the message of Zoroaster passing back along the silk road to China. These were Lao-tse and Kong-fu-tse (Confucius). They took from Zoroaster the idea of “Arta” or Order, but seemed to reject the meddlesome Ahuramazda, so both were practical atheists, and the immense influence they had shows that educated China denied any interfering god twenty five hundred years ago.
Lao-tse knew nothing of a personal god, though the moral system he founded, Taoism (Tao is the Chinese for “way” of life), was later mixed with ritualistic Buddhism, and became a tissue of superstitions.
The moral system of Kong-fu-tse is hardly more than a pure secularism. No one in the world disputes that, when Kong was pressed to declare his opinion on a religion, which he never mentioned, he said:
To give oneself earnestly to the duties due to men, and, while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them—that may be called wisdom.
Two thousand five hundred years ago this great sage founded an atheistic code of morality as high as any in the world. For two thousand years it was the standard of Chinese gentlemen, and never took a religious form.
The culture of Japan is mixed. The popular religion was Buddhism, adopted from China, but Japanese nationalism led to an artificial revival of the old religion, Shintoism, in the nineteenth century, when it was practically dead. Shintoism is said by the people to have eight million gods. It is an ancient Nature and ancestor worship revivified. Confucianism was, like Buddhism, brought over from China, and it has been the moral standard of educated Japanese. As in China, it has remained atheistic, and, whatever may be thought about Japanese character since European and American influence began, every writer on the Japanese before that time gives them a high moral character.
Some say they have a sacred book called Bushido, but it seems to be a collection of moral sentiments culled from any suitable source. In 1871, Japanese officials and the middle class—themselves indifferent to, or contemptuous of, religion—sent a deputation to Europe to study Christianity and see if it was suitable for the ignorant masses. Their impartial judgment on Europe’s religion was that Christianity was inferior to Buddhism.
Buddha And The Religions Of India
In India, Brahmanism grew out of the old Vedic faith, and Buddhism out of Brahmanism—now Hinduism. Brahma was the saviour and androgynous creator. Krishna like Osiris was dark skinned, representing the hidden sun at night. Buddhism too has the features of a sun myth—emerging from the womb of the virgin dawn, the hero ascends the sky to meet and conquer a wicked dragon, after which the fires of sunset redden over his funeral pile.
The ancient literature of the Hindus, written in Sanskrit, showed they were related to the peoples of Europe, and more closely related to the Persians. In a treaty, drawn up more than thirty three centuries ago, the names of Hindu and Persian divinities occur as those of a still united people. Soon after, the Hindu branch of the Indo-Europeans migrated into the sunny and fertile plains of India.
Their religion is described in their sacred books, the Vedas, but these were written ages afterwards and, like the Jewish scriptures and other sacred books, they falsify history, and adorn the primitive life and thought of crude pastoral invaders with the more advanced ideas of later ages. Their early religion was a variant of the religion of the Aryans, the common ancestors of the Indians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Slavs, Teutons and Celts.
A large number of tribes survive in India today belonging to the population of India before the Aryans arrived, the Dravidians. Million of these, in the shelter of the hills and valleys, cling to animism, or nature worship. The Todas, for instance, believe vaguely in wandering spirits of the hill, the river, and the pool, and in a small number of greater spirits which can hardly be dignified with the name of gods. The Khasis are substantially at the same level. In brief, these relics of the early population show us the phase of belief in universal spirits and the beginning of the creation of major spirits and gods.
The Hindu early sacred books, the Vedas, did not begin to appear in writing until about 1000 BC, and the later religious ideas are confused with the earlier. But the original religion is fairly clear—the worship of great spirits or gods who control and dwell in the more important elements of Nature. They are gods of the sky, gods of the air, and gods of the earth.
One particular Hindu god was Dyaus (the sky) or Dyaus Pitar (Sky Father, who became Zeus and Jupiter). This was the great god at an early date in Nature worship. From Europe to the coast of China the Heavenly Father is the principal god, where heaven is the physical heaven, the sky. Dyaus is not a monotheistic god in Vedic religion but is accompanied by a legion of gods and goddesses. The sun god, under many names (Surya, Mitra, Vishnu) early displaced the sky god in importance. His mother is Ushas (the Dawn), later represented as a maid. There is a sky god of rain, later the god of water (Varuna). There are, in the air, Vata (wind god), Inara (or rain and lightning), and others, and on the earth are Agni (of fire), Prithivi (mother earth), and many others. The early Hindus had risen above the primitive level to the deification of the great elements of Nature.
Seven centuries before Christ, the priests of the Hindu religion, which was now elaborately organized, and had great temples and ritual, entered upon a phase of speculation or metaphysics. The supreme principle became a deified abstraction called by them Brahma, while the priests called themselves Brahmans. The modern development of this Brahmanism, is the religion of the educated Indians today.
The mass of the people of India had no wish to understand this new development. Their religion was, as it is today, a mixture of the primitive belief in minor spirits with a worship of the congenial and amorous Hindu gods. But the crudities of the popular religion and the empty wordiness of the Brahmans gave rise to a number of reformers.
Jainism, which still has many followers, was one of the new sects or reforms started at this period. It is now a superstitious sect, priding itself that it is a refinement of Hinduism, but its founder, who still lived in the time of Buddha (sixth century BC) rejected all gods and all speculations about them. He retained, however, the doctrine of reincarnation, the germ of many superstitions. Sikhism is in turn a reform of Jainism.
Another group which arose in India about the same time as Jainism had no mystic features whatever. Like Epicureanism in Greece and Rome at a later date, it was rather a frame of mind than a system. It rejected gods and religious speculations, and concentrated upon happiness in this life. One might call it ordinary common sense atheism. Buddha, the Enlightened, or Gautama, his real name, was the son of a chief or small prince, born about 560 BC. He renounced his position, became a wandering teacher of the proper way to live, and gathered disciples about him. But, instead of founding a religion, he wanted to divert people from religion.
Like Kong-fu-tse, Buddha distrusted and rejected all speculation about gods. His complete silence about gods and his advice to his disciples to avoid all such speculation, are universally admitted. The significance of his silence in such an age is plain enough. Buddha was, like Kong-fu-tse, a purely humanitarian and atheistic moralist. One of the greatest religious founders was a practical atheist. One of the most lofty ethical systems was purely humanitarian.
Buddha denied the existence both of a world soul and an individual soul. Some say that Buddha continued to believe in reincarnation, but how could Buddha deny the existence of a soul yet believe in reincarnation? Buddha’s doctrine was purely humanitarian. Its essence is that all earthly existence is suffering, the only means of release from which is renunciation and eternal death. It was a religion of humanity and a system of practical morality, the keynote of which is universal charity, kindness to all beings, animals as well as men.
The asceticism and pessimism of Buddha are explained by the terrible confusion and disorder of his age. His doctrine of universal human love, five centuries before Christ, is the highest note of ethics. His rejection of all religion now explains how all educated Asia reached the final goal of religious evolution, atheism, two thousand years before Europe. Buddhism unfortunately lost popularity, and it now has few followers in India proper.
Astronomy
Among the objects that would stir the minds of primitive people and which would quickly be given a sign or name, is the sun—the creator of the shadow. Rising awareness revealed to people the rising and setting of the sun, the passing days and years, the return of winter and summer, growth and decay, calm and storm. The objects that changed seemed like actors in a drama, either enemies or friends. These actors became gods and heroes to people, and they played the game of copying their actions to show they had noticed them. Then the games generated superstitions that the gods would not respond unless the games were played, and religion had been founded. Events in the history of the tribe were related to the mythical beings behind the planetary events, and the heavenly gods became part of the local tribe.
The Indians, Egyptians, Persians, Ancient Greeks and Romans each had their zodiacs, signs indicating the position of the sun in the heavens, which differed very little from one another suggesting that they all had a common root—it was in Mesopotamia. Akkadian astrologer priests founded astronomy, believing that the heavenly bodies had an influence which ruled over human and worldly affairs. The astrological idea of ruling occurs in the story of creation in Genesis where the sun is said to “rule the day”, and the stars to “rule the night”. Note however that when the sun is in any particular sign, it is the sign opposite to it in the zodiac and the constellations of that portion of the heavens that is visible from our earth at night.
The Zodiac is a division of the firmament into twelve segments or signs each one of thirty degrees, comprising three decans of ten degrees each. As the sun passed from decan to decan, and from sign to sign, the astrologer priests publicly proclaimed the exact moment of its entry into each. The first decan they called the Upper Room, the second the Middle Room, and the third the Lower Room. The six summer signs, being bountiful, were considered specially holy, while the six winter signs were not only less holy but as powerful for evil as the others were for good.
The ancients imagined the earth as flat, and surrounded by water, the Oceans. It is a sphere, three fourths covered by water, this water covering forming the Oceans, and the whole is enclosed by a gaseous atmosphere which fades imperceptibly into space at a height of a few hundred miles. The earth traces an elliptical path round the sun in a flat plane called the plane of the ecliptic, making the complete journey in a year of 365 days and 6 hours. Half of the earth is always illuminated by the sun and the opposite half is in darkness, but the entire sphere spins on an axis making an entire revolution in a day of 23 hours, 56 minutes. When we are in the illuminated half of the sphere we experience day time and when we are in the dark half we experience night.
The earth’s axis of spin is inclined always in one direction at an angle of 67 degrees from the plane of the ecliptic There are times when, in each hemisphere, the tilted axis of the earth inclines towards or away from the sun producing the seasons. The variation in the length of day and night during different periods of the year is also due to the inclination of the axis of the earth. When the north pole of the axis is most inclined away from the sun is the winter solstice, meaning “the standing still”, when the days seem to stop changing in length. When the north pole of the axis inclines towards the sun, at the other end of the journey, is the summer solstice. When the earth arrives roughly halfway between these two points, on either side, are the spring and autumn equinoxes, equal day and night, when the length of the day and night are the same.
As the earth moved in its orbit the fixed stars forming the background to the sun changed but the ancient zodiac was arranged on the theory that the earth was flat and immovable, and it was the sun that made an annual circuit round the earth. The groups of stars in the different signs or constellations forming the backdrop of the sun were named after some fancied resemblance to men, women, animals or other objects of Nature—the Ram, the Bull, the heavenly Twins, the Crab, the Lion, the Virgin, the Scales, the Scorpion, the Archer, the He goat, the Man with the water pot, the Fish with glittering tails. As the sun god traversed his supposed annual passage through the twelve signs, he was worshipped in his different aspects according to the constellation forming the seasonal backdrop—the Lion represented the sun when at his fierce summer strength, the Balance, when the days and nights are equal, the Water pourer, the commencement of the rainy season, and so on.
Spring begins at the vernal equinox, the start of the annual cycle of the ancient zodiac, when the sun seems to enter the constellation called Aries, 21 March. Summer starts at the summer solstice, when the sun appears to enter Cancer, the longest day, 21 June. Autumn begins at the autumnal equinox, when the sun appears to enter Libra, 23 September. Winter begins at the winter solstice, when the sun appears to enter Capricorn, the shortest day, 21 December.
The modern zodiac is a fixed one which does not match the sun’s true journey through the heavens, but, in fact, the zodiac changes, matching the sun’s motion. The reason is the precession of the equinoxes where the equator and the ecliptic cross each other. The equinoxial points (Aries and Libra) move fifty seconds of arc westward every year. So, now the seasonal and cultic signs of the sun have become separated. Not since the second century BC has the vernal equinoxial sign of the Ram really been the first in the Zodiac.
After the sun’s ascent from its lowest point of declination at the midwinter solstice, about 22 December, each year it fails to arrive on time at the vernal equinoxial point, when the days become longer than the nights. The different signs of the ancient zodiac therefore moved forward one degree in 71 or 72 years, and 30 degrees or one whole sign in 2,152 years. Between the years 4340 and 2188 BC, the Bull was the vernal equinoxial or chief sign. Between 2188 and 36 BC it was the Ram or Lamb. Between 36 BC and 2117 AD the chief sign will be Pisces, the fish, and thereafter for another 2152 years it becomes Aquarius, the water carrier. In 25,868 years all the signs would have made a complete circuit.
The astrologer priests considered the various signs of the zodiac, as well as the sun, moon, and five planets, as gods. Though the sun moves through all the signs of the zodiac in a year, when the Bull was the vernal equinoxial sign, the sun was described as being in Taurus. Then the sun in Taurus was supreme God, and sun gods were associated with bulls. When the Ram was the vernal equinoxial sign, the sun was said to be in Aries. Then the sun in Aries was supreme God, and gods were associated with rams or lambs. Although it was only in March that the sun was at the vernal equinoxial point, the Bull god, for 2152 years prior to 2188 BC, was always supreme, and the Ram god in Egypt or Lamb god in Persia, after that date.
They ascribed people’s temperaments to the planet under which they were born, giving us the adjectives “saturnine” from Saturn, “jovial” from Jupiter and “mercurial” from Mercury. They also believed the virtues of herbs, gems and medicines were due to their ruling planets. Each planet was associated with romantic stories of struggles, victories, and defeats and, according to their position in the zodiac, were accounted powerful and victorious at one time, and weak and dying at another. The sun passing through the twelve signs of the zodiac is depicted in the stories of the twelve labours of Hercules, the twelve patriarchs, and the twelve tribes of Israel, from which came the twelve apostles.
The Indo-Europeans
Writing had been largely the prerogative of priests and the king’s administrators but the invention of the alphabet eventually allowed everyone to be literate. Acquiring knowledge became cheaper and easier. Everyone did not need a personal tutor but instead could turn to a book. At the same time a body of people came invading from somewhere in Asia, perhaps from the steppes of Eurasia where traditionally invaders came. They were the Indo-Europeans, pastoralists not farmers, more active and adventurous, with a new language and customs, and new gods—they were patriarchs. They pushed into Iran then dispersed further east to India but some came west to Asia Minor, Greece and the rest of Europe.
Their main weapon was the battle axe and these traced the movement across Europe from about 1700 BC. In Europe the mother goddess was still worshipped but the patriarchal Indo-Europeans displaced her forcefully, bronze weapons being overwhelming against the stone tools of the natives. A pattern is repeated in mythmaking throughout history. Whenever invaders take over a culture, it either demonises the gods of the defeated people or takes them into its pantheon as lesser gods, Hebrew patriarchs or, in the case of Christianity, saints. Some such process might explain how the Hindu god Brahma was reduced to the Hebrew patriarch Abraham.
In Britain, the Aryan invaders made old temples much grander like that at Stonehenge, rededicating it to their sky gods and aligning it to the midsummer sunrise and various other significant points in the heavens. Many solar disks, some with a central cross giving the impression of a four spoked wheel are found.
Before the patriarchs took over society the Aryans probably had a sky mother, the equivalent of the Egyptian goddess, Nut, but by the time they were spreading all over Europe and Asia the Aryan supreme god was, Dyaus Pitar, the sky Father, though various sun gods were always his rivals. Dyaus is the origin of words for god like Deus and Theos, and also the word day. Pitar is related to the Egyptian Ptah, and the word pater, or father.
That the Aryan supreme god was called “The Father” (Pitar) proves that Jesus was certainly revealing nothing new when he addressed God as Father. The habit had begun several thousand years before. In Greece and Rome, Dyaus Pitar metamorphosed into Zeus Pateras and Jupiter respectively. In Egyptian mythology, Ptah, the Father, is the unseen god force and the sun was viewed as Ptah’s visible proxy who brings everlasting life to the earth
In India, Dyaus Pitar all but disappeared because he was so remote, merely smiling through the clouds. The invaders ended the Indus civilisation and introduced the pantheon of Hindu gods into India. Indra was the storm god while the twins, Mitra and Varuna, took on the light aspects. The two were Eternal Light, with Mitra a sun god but Varuna, which means sky in Sanskrit being the senior of the two. Together they drove a chariot across the sky with rays as arms. The Greek word, Christ, probably has the same root as the Hindi word Kris (as in Krishna), a name for the sun.
The Rig Veda, the oldest of the Hindu bibles has many common features with the Persian Avesta, showing their common origins. Mitra was the Persian god who entered the Roman Empire as Mithras, a solar god. The tradition from Persia seems different perhaps because there are gaps caused by the destruction of conquest, not least Alexander’s. The main reason though must be the influence of Zoroaster who tried to organise the pantheon and promote an essentially monotheistic outlook with Ormuzd as the transcendental god. Ormuzd or Ahura Mazda was perhaps originally Dyaus Pitar or the dual god Mitravaruna, certainly a sky god who was represented as a winged solar disc.
At the colossal monument carved on a cliff face at Behistun, Darius salutes the god hovering before him as a winged disc, declaring: “Ahura Mazda came to my aid”. There seems little doubt that Ormuzd under the influence of Zoroaster, had become a second, transcendental sun. The goddess had been Nature but her role as the Great Mother, creating everything, was usurped by male transcendental gods, outside of Nature, invented by the ingeniously patriarchal Indo-Europeans.
Ormuzd was the all powerful, all wise and all good who created the cosmos. Why then should such a good god want to create evil? One answer is that he did not, because there was an unltimate creator, namely Zurvan, who is eternal time, and he it was who created the two opposed spirits. Another answer is that it was to test mankind. Each person had the choice of good or evil and had to take one or other of the choices because the two were in battle and each person contributed to the outcome in however small a way. Everybody had a responsibility for the ultimate outcome of the cosmic battle and could not escape it. Zoroaster made Ormuzd into a god of personal moral choice. The sign of Ormuzd remained the sun however, and the hymns and poetry of Zoroastrianism still used solar chariot metaphors. The sun on earth was fire and so fire was kept burning in the Zoroastrian temples as symbolic of the god.
Modern Zoroastrians conceive of good and evil as opposing aspects of Ormuzd himself—no more than spirits, aspects or emanations of the god which resolved themselves in the fullness of the transcendental god himself. The modern Parsees are like this. Zoroaster always saw lying as personified as an evil to be avoided. Perhaps the priests or Magi wanted something more frightening to keep the congregations worried about their souls. The Lie in person became Ahriman, the Persian Satan, an equal enemy of Ormuzd. That's as may be, but the religion is more logical in its thoroughly dual form and the best authorities on Persian religion see it as the original religion, and not a debased form. It has the advantage of relieving the good god of responsibility for evil, and leaves the choice of good or evil entirely to people themselves. There are no excuses.
When Cyrus the Persian conquered most of the known and some of the unknown world in 550 BC, he spread the moral outlook of Zoroaster, while appearing, in his propaganda, to be restoring ancient religions that had been themselves debased from some original that was curiously similar in its morality to Zoroastrianism. One of his successors, Darius II sent reliable colonists into Judah to replace the pro-Egyptian population that were then living there, at a time when Egypt was constantly threatening revolution and was promoting dissent. The Jewish colonists were set up as a nation of priests in charge of a large and powerful temple meant to promote an ethical god like Ahuramazda, and simultaneously raise taxes for the shah.
So, Judaism has precisely the same light and darkness, dualistic terminology—especially the apocalyptic literature—after the so called return as the Persian Religion. Evil will be defeated at the End Time when the cosmic battle between good and evil is won by the forces for good. The Community Rule of the Dead Sea Scrolls explains how the God of Israel shaped two spirits, the Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error. The Spirit of Truth stems from the Abode of Light while the Spirit of Error stems from the Source of Darkness. The Prince of Light has dominion over all the Sons of Righteousness while the Angel of Darkness has dominion over the Sons of Error. The Essene works seem to have been written for men but on the assumption that women should properly be included, “Sons” should be read as “Children”, as it is in the Christian gospels.
These Persian ideas imbued the Essene sectarian works and appear clearly in the Christian Gospel of John where we find expressions like, “Life was the light of men”, “the light shines on in the dark, and the darkness has never quenched it”, “he came as a witness to testify to the light”, “the real light which enlightens every man” and many more. It should be remembered that these images had already entered Jewish thought before the gentile Christians found similarities with Mithraism, another Roman religion with its roots in Persia.
Mithras was an important god in the common pantheon of the Iranians and the Indians before Zoroaster in Persia diminished him in favour of Ormuzd. Mitra was the twin of Varuna in the Indian variety of the Aryan pantheon but Zoroaster sought to promote monotheism and gave all the attributes of Mithras to Varuna as Ormuzd while relegating Mithras himself to the level of a mere angel. In Mitannian inscriptions of the middle of the second millennium BC, before the reforms of Zoroaster, Mithras is an important god, linked in the Avesta with Ahura Mazda as the god Mithrasahura. The Mithras of the Roman mystery religion was actually Ormuzd but with the older name of Mithras retained.
In the old songs of the Avesta, Mithras is identifiably a sun god pulled along in a chariot with four shining white horses and having one wheel of gold bejewelled with light. This wheel is probably not one of the wheels of the chariot but the wheel of the sun god himself, the solar nimbus or corona, the halo used to depict saints and kings approved by the sun god. Persian kings were signified in image by the fiery aureole surrounding them, the sign of divine approval. In the Book of Daniel, written after the “return”, God is described enthroned on a throne like fiery flame, his countenance as the sun when it shines in its strength and “His wheels like burning fire”. Why should a throne have wheels? The reference is to the solar discs used to denote the sun god. The same appears in Ezekiel where the cherubs have fiery wheels. Indeed much of the Hebrew bible is a testimony to the Hebrew god as a sun god.
Christ is traditionally depicted with a nimbus of gold with four spokes because, though a notable Jewish nationalist was crucified by Pilate to the consternation of his confused followers, the legend which then grew about him was decorated with the full panoply of a sun god. On the high alter of S Peter’s at Rome Christ is depicted as the sun in the form of a huge golden sunburst. The monstrance in Catholic churches which serves to house the communion host for worship before mass is in the form of a radiant sun.
Mithras was also a god of celestial light, often depicted as a sun or alongside a sun, for Mithras, in Mitraism, like Ormuzd in Zoroastrianism, was a transcendental sun rather than the golden object glowing in the daylight sky. The sun itself was called the eye of Mithras, and the extension of Mithras beyond the sun is shown by his depiction with the moon and stars and because he could arrive before the dawn and depart after sunset. Nevertheless he was depicted as a sun and had the crucial attribute of a sun god of dispensing justice—he was a moral and an honourable god who fought evil and honoured contracts. Curiously, just as the Jews had a god who was interested in forming contracts or covenants with people, the meaning of Mithras is “Contract”, and there seems little doubt that each initiate into the mysteries of Mithras entered a personal contract with the god, just as Christians believe they do.
Mithras was identified by the Babylonians with their sun god Shamash and gave to him various astrological interests. He was identified by the Greeks with Helios and Apollo, by the Romans with Sol Invictus. Can anyone doubt that he was a sun god? He created life on earth and ended by being carried aloft in a fiery chariot. In heaven, he was now the mediator with the mighty but distant Ormuzd, the Most High god who lived beyond the stars. Mithras himself therefore had to be equally transcendental. At the End of Time he would send an all consuming fire from which only the righteous would emerge.
Also Indo-Europeans were the peoples of Europe, notably the Greeks and the Romans. Their sky god, Zeus or Jupiter remained as the Most High god of both pantheons and took on the attributes of light. Among the Greeks, however, Apollo evolved into a sun god so that eventually his myth described the Island of Delos, on which he was born, turning to gold at his birth, which was announced by a cockerel (sunrise), and the round pool on the island shone all day with a golden light. The infant was armed with a bow and arrows, which symbolise sunbeams.
He slayed the serpent, Python, wounding him then following him to the Oracle of Mother Earth at Delphi, named after Delphyne a monster and the mate of Python, to finish him off. The legend signifies the conquest, by the patriarchs, of the religion of the Great Mother Earth—Ge or Gaia to the Greeks, described as a monster—and her replacement by Apollo. In historic times the oracle was dedicated to Apollo but plainly it was originally dedicated to the Mother Goddess.
From about the fifth century BC, the association of Apollo with Helios became more explicit. Helios was, of course, always a sun god, but until he was identified with Apollo, he was not an Olympian because Zeus controlled the sky. On Greek vases he is shown driving his four horse chariot across the heavens. Augustus claimed Apollo as his patron and even claimed to be a son of the god.
In 274 AD Aurelian declared Sol Invictus, the Unconquerable Sun, meaning Mithras, as the god of the Roman state. He set up a pontifical college under a High Pontiff and began to wear a diadem, the Persian crown which represented the sun, and claimed to be Lord and God. Diocletian dedicated a temple to Mithras at Carnuntum. However, Constantine was more impressed by the power of the Christian bishops with their disciplined organisation, modelled on the secular administration. Needing their help he put the religion of the state in the hands of the Christians, taking Christ to be, like Mithras, another transcendental sun god with the role of mediator with the Most High god.
Julian the Apostate had seen many of his family murdered by the triumphant Christians and again banned Christianity in favour of the old Pagan solar religion. However, he had power for only three years before being killed fighting the Persians on the eastern front. His edict against Christianity had only been enacted for about half that time, so relatively little had yet been achieved in turning the clock back to Paganism. It is said that as he lay dying, Julian flicked some of his blood toward the sky and declared:
You have won, Galilaean.
The victory of the Galilaean meant the end of the old solar worship, though possibly for most people at the time, there was little to choose between one solar religion and the next. None of them involved mindless worship of an inanimate glowing ball in the sky. All had by then changed into religions of individual choice in which the personality would be helped to survive death by the saviour or mediator. Nevertheless, they all were declared devils.
The Bogie of the modern nursery illustrates the way other peoples gods were demonised. The word “Bogie” is identical with the Slavonic “Bog”, a word meaning god. It is the “Baga” of the cuneiform inscriptions—the name of the Persian supreme power. The chronicle of the glories of Darius, king of Persia, inscribed on a stele situated on the high road from Babylon to the east, was known as the Rock of Behistan and considered as a Holy place. It’s name, properly Bagistane, “the place of the Baga”, referred to Ormuzd or Mazda, chief of the Bagas—the old Sanskrit Bhaga of the Rig Veda. He was Lord of Life, the Giver of Bread and the Bringer of Happiness. The name which, to the Vedic poet, to the Persian of the time of Xerxes and to the modern Russian, suggests the supreme majesty of god, has been reduced in English to that of an ugly and predatory demon.
Contrary to popular belief, classical peoples were no less advanced in their morals and spiritual practices, and might have been more advanced, than the Christians. All the ancient people of history were not ignorant and superstitious and believed their deities to be literal characters. This slanderous propaganda has been part of the conspiracy to make ancient people appear as if they were truly a dark, dumb rabble that was in need of the light of Jesus.
Zeus was a sky god, whence his thunderbolts, yet the Greeks venerated a birth cave and a death cave of Zeus on Crete, surely proving that they thought he had lived. Well, of course, such shrines had been invented by the priests precisely for the dark, dumb rabble who would believe anything, but classical philosophers knew the natural origins of their gods, and that rarely had they been real people, whatever the average Greek or Roman punter thought. It was the dark, dumb rabble who were and remain the Christians.
To the modern mind the word “myth” carries with it a derogatory implication which relegates a belief to the world of nonreality. A myth is fiction. It is false and valueless, except perhaps as entertainment. Not so with the ancients. With them a myth was a spiritual tool, by which truth and wisdom could be expressed, just as Christians regard their book of myths as a spiritual tool. Spiritual truth and experience were incapable of expression or communication merely by means of words. A myth would enhance spiritual truth as a drama illuminates human actions. By the end of the pre-logical phase of human mental development, sometime between the Sumerians and the Greeks, the myth was known to be a fiction and deceived nobody except children—until the third century AD.
Because everyone knew it not to be a true story, attention could be given wholly to its hidden meaning, the deepest of spiritual truths. As a literary device, it captured lofty wisdom in the guise of a human story that could be easily remembered. It was the universal mnemonic by which ancient knowledge was remembered in an age before writing.
It is an arrogant Christian delusion that they came out on top because they had the only true religion. After three or four thousand years of history, organised religions had converged into essentially the same species. It happens to have been called Christianity. Comment
From Stephen Hoy
Thank you for making your synopsis of the mythological basis for sun worship available online. Your final paragraph struck me as a bit off the mark, perhaps because I am embedding it within the context of a study of the early centuries of the Christian church. I think we can be more precise when assigning blame.
While reviewing the history of the early church, I learned that within the first three or four centuries, church leaders began to settle on a specific approved interpretation of the Christian mythos. A number of serious theological disputes emerged. Among these, we find several authorities (eg Arius, Pelagius, Nestor) whose interpretations of scripture align closely with themes present in your discussion of sun gods. It is significant that the most serious disputes escalated to a point where the dissenting parties either submitted to the will of the ruling authorities, or were publicly executed with all the force that an established state religion has at its disposal. Using forceful dominance to acquire and maintain power is found throughout history in nations, religions, and tribes in Europe, Asia, the Americas, and the Pacific.
My analysis of the root cause of this forceful dominance differs from yours in that I ascribe arrogance not to the many varieties of Christian beliefs, but rather to the self centered conceptions of specific men and women who apply force to acquire and maintain a dominant role within their society. This recognition seems to have a more practical application for identifying proscriptive behavior than your less precise target. I am sure there is little doubt to either of our minds that we may count ourselves blessed to live in a country and century where the power of the church is separated somewhat from the power of the state. Still, many force filled structures have emerged to enforce Right Thinking, and we should be alert to those who self centeredly seek to wield that power.
Thank you again for your effort on your website, and for your attention to my comments.
Further Reading
- More on sun gods in Mesopotamia, and in Egypt.
- More on Yehouah as a sun god, and more still.
- More on sun gods as atoning saviours, and yet more, including Jesus as a sun god.
