Note 747 — Chapter VII · THE DUAL MOTHER RÔLE (continued 2)

Compare the stable cleaning of Hercules. The stable, like the cavern, is a place of birth. We find stable and cavern in Mithracism combined with the bull symbolism, as in Christianity. (See Robertson: “Christ and Krishna.”) In a Basuto myth, the stable birth also occurs. (Frobenius.) The stable birth belongs to the mythologic animal fable; therefore the legend of the conceptio immaculata, allied to the history of the impregnation of the barren Sarah, appears very early in Egypt as an animal fable. Herodotus, III, 28, relates: “This Apis or Epaphos is a calf whose mother was unable to become impregnated, but the Egyptians said that a ray from heaven fell upon the cow, and from that she brought forth Apis.” Apis symbolizes the sun, therefore his signs: upon the forehead a white spot, upon his back a figure of an eagle, upon his tongue a beetle.