Note 8 — Chapter IV · THE GRAVE SUSPICIONS AROUSED BY THE STUDY OF ANCIENT BELIEFS

The Virgin Birth.—According to Chinese legends, the sages Fohi (? 3468 B.C.) and Lao-Kiun (about 600 B.C.) were born of virgins. Dean Milman mentions in his History of Christianity that the first Jesuit missionaries who went to China were appalled at finding in the mythology of that country a counterpart of the story of the Virgin. In Persia, Zoroaster,8 the founder of the Perso-Iranian national religion, was miraculously conceived. All attempts to connect him with Hebrew influences are groundless. In Egypt, Horus, who had the epithet of Saviour, was born of the virgin Isis. The Egyptian Bible, remember, is the oldest in the world! Plutarch mentions the notion of the Egyptians that a woman might conceive by the approach of some divine spirit. Egyptian monuments represent the infant saviour in the arms of his virgin mother, or sitting on her knee. The image of the child was worshipped just as the Bambino is worshipped in Rome to-day. Women then, as now, believed in its efficacy for their relief in time of nature’s sorrows. In Grecian and Roman mythology the “Sons of Jove”—Hercules, Bacchus, Amphion, Perseus, Mercury, Æolus, Apollo, and others—have mortal mothers. Speaking of this, the Christian Father, Justin Martyr, declared that the myths regarding the multitude of sons of gods, and especially the myth regarding the virgin’s son Perseus, had been invented by the demons in order to rob the manifestation of Jesus, the true Son of God, of its importance. He also insisted that, with their doctrine of the Virgin-birth of Jesus, of His passion, and of His ascension, the Christians were affirming nothing new as compared with what was alleged of the so-called sons of Zeus.9 Even regarding Plato there was a legend that his mother, Perictione, had experienced a miraculous conception through the influences of the God Apollo, and that the God had declared to Aris, to whom she was betrothed, the parentage of the child (compare St. Matthew i. 20). This was believed in by the disciples of Plato centuries before the Christian era. Among northern nations the sons of Odin take the place of the sons of Jove. Thus “Baldur the Good,” the Beneficent Saviour, was the son of Odin and Friga. The worship of Friga was continued until that of the Virgin Mary took its place. In Mexico, the “Saviour” Quetzalcoatl was born of a pure virgin, who was called the “Queen of Heaven.” An ambassador from heaven announced to the virgin Sochiquetzal, mother of Quetzalcoatl, that it was the will of God that she should conceive a son without connection with man. Here we have an exact parallel to the annunciation of the Virgin Mary (St. Luke i. 26–35), in a part of the globe that was not discovered by Christians till nearly 1,500 years after the birth of Christ! Similar traditions of Saviours are found among various tribes of North and South America.