Note 32 — Chapter VIII · SUPPLEMENTARY MYTH

We are specially concerned with the versions of Matthew and Luke, of which Dr. Spitta, by analysis, finds the Lucan the earlier,32 pronouncing the Marcan to be a curtailment and manipulation, not the primary source, as was maintained by Von Harnack and many others.33 The essence of the story, as episode, is the presence of the God and the Adversary on a high place, surveying “the kingdoms of the world.” This originates proximately in Babylonian astronomy and astrology, where the Goat-God is represented standing beside the Sun-God on “the mountain of the world,” that is, the height of the heavens, at the beginning of the sun’s yearly course in the sign Capricorn, which, personified, figures as the sun’s tutor and guide. Graphically represented, it is the origin of a series of Greek myths—Pan and Zeus; Marsyas and Apollo; Silenus and Dionysos—all turning on a goat-legged figure beside a young God on a mountain-top. Satan and Jesus are but another variant, probably deriving from Greek iconography, but possibly more directly from the East, where the idea of a Temptation goes back to the Vedas.