Pagan & Christian creeds : their origin and meaning / by Edward Carpenter.
- Edward Carpenter
- Date:
- [1920]
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Pagan & Christian creeds : their origin and meaning / by Edward Carpenter. Source: Wellcome Collection.
45/330 page 41
![both of Mithra, the Persian Sungod, and of Attis the Syrian god, as throwing great light on the Christian cult and ceremonies. It must be remembered that in the early centuries of our era the Mithra-cult was spread over the whole Western world. It has left many monuments of itself even here in Britain. At Rome the woiship was extremely popular, and it may almost be said to have been a matter of chance whether Mithraism should over¬ whelm Christianity, or whether the younger religion by adopting many of the rites of the older one should establish itself (as it did) in the face of the latter. Now we have already mentioned that in the Mithra cult the slaying of a Bull by the Sungod occupies the same sort of place as the slaying of the Lamb in the Christian cult. It took place at the Vernal Equinox and the blood of the Bull acquired in men's minds a magic virtue. Mithraism was a greatly older religion than Christianity ; but its genesis was similar. In fact, owing to the Pre¬ cession of the Equinoxes, the crossing-place of the Ecliptic and Equator was different at the time of the establishment of Mithra-worship from what it was in the Christian period ; and the Sun instead of standing in the He-lamb, or Aries, at the Vernal Equinox stood, about two thousand years earlier (as indicated by the dotted line in the diagram, p. 39), in this very constellation of the Bull.^ The bull therefore became the symbol of the triumphant God, and the sacrifice of the bull a holy mystery. (Nor must we I With regard to this point, see an article in the Nineteenth Century for September 1900, by E. W. Maunder of the Greenwich Observatory on “ The Oldest Picture Book ” (the Zodiac). Mr. Maunder calcu¬ lates that the Vernal Equinox was in the centre of the Sign of the Bull 5,000 years ago. [It would therefore be in the centre of Aries 2,845 years ago—allowing 2,155 years for the time occupied in passing from one Sign to another.] At the earlier period the Summer solstice was in the centre of Leo, the Autumnal equinox in the centre of Scorpio, and the Winter solstice in the centre of Aquarius—corre- pondingly roughly, Mr. Maunder points out, to the positions of the four ‘ Royal Stars,’ Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares and Fomalhaut.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29980161_0045.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
