Note 1 — VI THE SELF-OFFERING OF THE MESSIAH. THE SUPPER
C. Delisle Burns translation
Of a great number of modes of expression and images in the New Testament we know that they originated from the common treasury of the languages of the secret sects of the Orient, having their source above all in Mandaism and the Mithraic religion. Thus “the rock,” “the water,” “the bread,” “the book,” or “the light of life,”1 “the second death,” “the vine,” “the good shepherd,” &c., are simply expressions which in part are known also by the Rigveda and there belong to the ideas grouped about Agni, the God of Fire, Life, and Shepherds. Of the latter, too, as of Jesus, it is said that he loses not a single one of the flock entrusted to his care,2 for Pushan, to whom the hymn in this connection is addressed, is only a form of Agni. In its symbols also the earliest Christianity coincides with Indian thought in such a striking manner that it can scarcely be explained as chance. Thus the horse,3 the hare, and the peacock, which play so great a part in symbolic pictures of the catacombs, point to an ultimately Vedic origin, where they all stand in connection with the nature of Agni. Again, the Fish was already to be found in the Indian Fire Worship and appears to have here originally represented Agni swimming in the water of the clouds, the ocean of heaven.4 In the hymn of the Rigveda itself Agni is often invoked as “the Bull.” This was probably originally a simple nature symbol, the Bull as image of the strength of the God; then the Fire-God and Sun-God, in his capacity of preparer of the Soma cup, was identified with the moon (Manu), whose crescents were taken as the horns of a bull. Later, however, the image of the Bull was driven out by that of the Ram. As early as in the Rigveda there is frequent mention of the God’s “banner of smoke.” Thus he was accustomed to be represented leading a ram with a banner in his hand or simply with a banner in his hand with the picture of a ram upon it, just as Christ is portrayed under the shape of a ram or lamb bearing a banner like a cross.