Pagan & Christian creeds : their origin and meaning / by Edward Carpenter.

  • Edward Carpenter
Date:
[1920]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Pagan & Christian creeds : their origin and meaning / by Edward Carpenter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the Precession of the Equinoxes caused the Sun, at its moment of triumph over the powers of darkness, to stand at one period in the constellation of the Bull, and at a period some two thousand years later in the constellation of the Ram. It was perfectly natural therefore that a change in the sacred symbols should, in the course of time, take place ; yet perfectly natural also that these symbols, having once been consecrated and adopted, should con¬ tinue to be honoured and clung to long after the time of their astionomical appropriateness had passed, and so to be found side by side in later centuries. The devotee of Mithra or Attis on the Vatican Hill at Rome in the year 200 A.D. probably had as little notion or comprehension of the real origin of the sacred Bull or Ram which he adored, as the Christian in St. Peter’s to-day has of the origin of the Lamb-god whose vicegerent on earth is the Pope. It is indeed easy to imagine that the change from the worship of the Bull to the worship of the Lamb which undoubtedly took place among various peoples as time went on, was only a ritual change initiated by the priests in order to put on record and harmonise with the astrono¬ mical alteration. Anyhow it is curious that while Mithra in the early times was specially associated with the bull, his association with the lamb belonged more to the Roman period. Somewhat the same happened in the case of Attis. In the Bible we read of the indignation of Moses at the setting up by the Israelites of a Golden Calf, after the sacrifice of the ram-lamb had been instituted—as if indeed the rebellious people were returning to the earlier cult of Apis which they ought to have left behind them in Egypt. In Egypt itself, too, we find the worship of Apis, as time went on, yielding place to that of the Ram¬ headed god Amun, or Jupiter Ammon.^ So that both * Tacitus {Hist, v, 4) speaks of a ram-sacrifice by the Jews in honour of Jupiter Ammon. See also Herodotus (ii. 42) on the same in Egypt.
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