Note 62 — V THE BIRTH OF THE MESSIAH. THE BAPTISM

Now it is a feature which recurs in all the religions of Nearer Asia that the “son” of the divine “virgin” mother is at the same time the “beloved” of this Goddess in the sexual sense of the word. This is the case not only with Semiramis and Ninus, Istar and Tammuz, Atargatis (Aphrodite) and Adonis, Cybele and Attis, but also with Aphrodite (Maia) and Hermes,62 Maia and Iasios, one of the Cabiri, identical with Hermes or Cadmus, who was slain by his father, Zeus, with a lightning stroke, but was raised again and placed in the sky as a constellation.63 We may conclude from the connection between Iasios and Joshua that a similar relationship existed between the latter and his mother Mirzam. Indeed, a glimmer of this possibly appears even in the Gospels in the relationship of the various Maries to Jesus, although, of course, in accordance with the character of these writings, they are transferred into quite a different sphere and given other emotional connections.64