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One would expect that an extraordinary circumstance as the birth of a God into the world must be marked with unusual incidents and fanfare. This was first exhibited by angels, shepherds, prophets, magi or "wise men," flocking around their cradles.
Besides that, one would expect the unusual display of divine power and providential care on the part of the great Father God, who was still left in heaven to save the young saviors through their infancy. But such power is threatening to the powers that be. Something had to be done to ensure the status quo. So the powers at be, not being resourceful, decide to kill the infant Savior/god-man. There is nothing new under the sun. This same story is repeated in various renditons from pagan nation to nation.
It is certainly a remarkable circumstance that so many of the infant Saviors should have been threatened with the most imminent danger of destruction, and yet in every case miraculously preserved, and thus were the Saviors saved. All of the myths of a Sun (Son) god describe some kind of threat to the life of the child god at birth. Also mentioned, is the governon or king, that sees the child as a thread to his sovereignty.
Answer for yourself: Is the same story told about Jesus only conincidence?
A jealousy seems to have existed in several instances in the mind of the tyrant king or ruler of the country that the young Saviors and prospective spiritual rulers (who were mostly of royal descent) would ultimately acquire such favor with the people, by such a display of superior power and greatness of mind, as to endanger his retaining peaceable possession of the secular throne; to express it in brief, he feared the young God would prove a rival king, and hence took measures to destroy him.
Therefore, in common with almost all of the Sun-gods, they are fated to bring ruin upon their parents or the "reigning monarch." Perseus, Oidipous, Romulus and Cyrus are doomed to bring ruin on their parents. They are exposed in their infancy on the hillside, and rescued by a shepherd. "All the solar heroes begin life in this way." Whether, like Apollo, born of the dark night (Leto), or like Oidipous, of the violet dawn (Iokaste), they are alike destined to bring destruction on their parents, as the Night and the Dawn are both destroyed by the Sun (Fiske, Myths and Mythmakers, p. 198).
These "destruction myths" find their origin, like most Christian doctrine, in the stars. The new Son (Son) is born in the winter as we have seen. The astrological sign of Capricorn represents the lord of Hades. This is the Cardinal sign of Winter (opposition, Satan, Saturn). Winter takes control (at the Winter Solstice on Dec. 22), and within three days of mounting his throne, he is challenged by the Sun (Son) of the Father (Sun) that he, or some other ruffians captured (at the autumnal equinox) and has finally slain at the winter solstice. So now the king (Winter, Darkness) is worried and knows that he must murder the Sun (Son) before he gains the strength of his Father (Sun). The guardians of the Sun (Son) know that he can not withstand the power of the Winter (Satan, Herod), so they shield him (Son) and hide him till his time of glory approaches (he reaches maturity) (Jabbar, The Astrological Foundation of the Christ Myth, p. 34).
The Sun(Son) will be mature enough to withstand the powers of Satan after he reaches the age of thirty. This Thirty does not mean years, it means degrees of arc. The Sun is born right after the King of Darkness takes his throne, in the sign of Capricorn. This king (Herod) is determined to kill all opposition to his power within the nether world. But Capricorn (Herod) will die after thirty years(degrees), because each zodiacal sign is limited to thirty degrees of arc. Therefore after the death of Herod (Capricorn), the Sun(Son) comes out from hiding to begin his mission, he is thirty years (degrees) old. But even though the chief rival (Herod/Capricorn) of the Sun(Son) has died, the Sun is yet within the domain of Satan, under the equinoxes. He, the Sun, must face more struggles and temptations as he climbs and fights his way to his glory, at the vernal equinox (Jabbar, The Astrological Foundation of the Christ Myth, p. 35).
The Sun scatters the Darkness; and so the phrase went that the child was to be the destroyer of the reigning monarch, or his parent, Night. The oracles and the Magi, is was said, warned the latter of the doom which would overtake him. The newly-born babe is therefore ordered to be put to death by the sword, or exposed on the bare hilltops, as the Sun seems to rest on the Earth (Ida), at its rising. The exposure of the child in infancy represents the long rays of the morning sun resting on the hill-side (Fiske, Myths and Mythmakers, p. 198).
The Sun-hero Paris is exposed on the slopes of Ida, Oidipous on the slopes of Kithairon, and AEsculapius on that of the mountain of Myrtles. This is the rays of the newly-born sun resting on the mountain-side (Cox, Aryan Mythology, vol. i, pp. 64, 80).
In Sanskrit Ida is the Earth, and so we have the mythical phrase, the Sun at its birth is exposed on Ida-the hill-side. The light of the sun must rest on the hill-side long before it reaches the dells beneath (Cox, Aryan Mythology, vol. i. p. 221; Fiske, Myths and Mythmakers, p. 114).
In oriental mythology, the destroying principle is generally represented as a serpent or dragon. Now, the position of the sphere on Christmas-day, the birthday of the Sun, shows the Serpent all but touching, and certainly aiming at the woman; that is, the figure of the constellation Virgo (who suckles the child Iessus in here arms). Thus we have it illustrated in the story of the snake who was sent to kill Hercules while he was yet an infant in his cradle. The history of the Savior Hercules is so similar to that of the Savior Christ Jesus, that the learned Dr. Parkhurst was forced to say:
The "same" story can be found in Typhon, who sought the life of the infant Savior Horus.
Again, it illustrated in the story of the virgin mother Astrea, with here babe beset by Orion, and of Latona, the mother of Apollo, when pursued by the monster (Bonwick, Egyptian Belief, p. 158, 166, 168).
And last, that of the virgin mother Mary, with her babe beset by Herod. But like Hercules, Horus, Apollo, Theseus, Romulus, Cyrus, and other solar heroes, Christ Jesus has yet a long course before him. Like them, he grows up both wise and strong, and the "old Serpent" is discomfited by him, just as the sphynx and the dragon are put to flight by others.
In the case of the Christian Savior we are told that an angel, or "the angel," warned Joseph (the assumed father) to take the young Savior and God and flee with him into Egypt, because "Herod the king sought to destroy the young child's life," and had, in order to effect this end, decreed the destruction of all the children under two years old. And Joseph heeded the divine warning, and fled as directed. An angel and a dream, then, it will be observed, were the instrumentalities used to save the young Judean Savior from massacre.
And strange as it may seem, we find the same agencies had been previously employed to effect the rescue of other Saviors likewise and similarly threatened.
In the case of Chrishna of India, in particular, the similitude is very striking in nearly every feature of the whole story.
In the first place there is the angel warning. In the Christian story we are not specifically informed how the tyrant Herod first became apprised of the birth of the Judean Savior. The Hindu story is fuller, and indicates that the angel was not only sufficiently thoughtful to warn the parents to flee from a danger which threatened to dispossess them of a divine child, and the world of a Savior, but was condescending enough to apprise the tyrant ruler (Cansa) of his danger likewise -- as we are told he heard an angel voice announcing that a rival ruler was born in his kingdom.
And hence, like Herod, he set about concocting measures to destroy him without a direct attack. Why either of them should have taken such a circuitous or roundabout way of killing an infant, when the life of the strongest man, and every man in their kingdoms, was at their instant disposal, "divine inspiration" does not inform us.
But so it was. And we must not seek to "become wise above what is written" in their bibles. Herod's decree required the destruction of all infants under two years of age (see Matt. 2:16) -- first ordering, however, "Go, and search diligently for the young child" (Matt. 2: 8).
Cansa's decree ran thus: "Let active search be made for whatever young children there may be upon earth, and let every boy in whom there may be found signs of unusual greatness be slain without remorse."
Now, let it be specially noticed that there is to this day in the cave temple at Elephants, in India, the sculptured likeness of a king represented with a drawn sword, and surrounded with slaughtered infants -- admitted by all writers to be much older than Christianity. Mr Forbes, in his Oriental Memories, vol. iii. p. 447, says, "The figures of the slaughtered infants in the cave of Elephanta represent them as being all boys, who are surrounded by groups of figures of men and women in the act, apparently, of supplicating for those children." And Mr. Higgins, in his Anacalypsis, testifies relative to the case, that Chrishna was carried away by night, and concealed in a region remote from his natal place, for fear of a tyrant whose destroyer it had been foretold he would become, who, for that reason, had ordered all the male children born at that time to be slain. Sculptures in Elephanta attest the story where the tyrant is represented as destroying the children. The date of this sculpture is of the most remote antiquity. "He who hath ears to hear, let him hear," and deduce the pregnant inference, Joseph and Mary fled with the young Judean God into Egypt; Chrishna's parents likewise fled with the young Hindoo Savior to Gokul.
Now, let us observe for a moment the chain or category or resemblance.
It is further related in the case of Chrishna, that as he and his parents approached the River Jumna in their flight, the waters "parted hither and thither," so that they passed over "dry shod," like Moses and the Israelites in crossing the Red Sea. And here let it be noted that the representation of this flight, which is said to have occurred at midnight, is like that of the massacre perpetuated and attested by imperishable monuments of stone bearing evidence of being now several thousand years old.
Sir William Jones says: --
The Indian incarnate God Chrishna, the Hindus believe, had a virgin mother of the royal race, who was sought to be destroyed in his infancy about nine hundred years before Christ. It appears that he passed his life in working miracles, and preaching, and was so humble as to wash his friends' feet; at length, dying, but rising from the dead, he ascended into heaven in the presence of a multitude." The Cingalese relate nearly the same things of their Budha." And several authors of Egyptian history refer to a story perpetuated in the Egyptian legends concerning the God Osiris, who was threatened with destruction by the tyrant Amulins, to save whom his parents fled and concealed him in an arm of the River Nile, as Christ was concealed in the same country, and, for aught that appears to the contrary, in the same locality. The mother of another and older Savior of Egypt fled by a timely warning to Epidamis before the birth of the divine child, and was there delivered of "our Lord and Savior," Horus. And the earthly or adopted father of the Grecian Savior, and God, Alcides, had to flee with him and his mother to Galem for protection from threatening danger.
In the ninth and tenth volumes of the Asiatic Researches, we find the story of the "only begotten" or "first begotten son of God," Salvahana, of Cape Comorin, son of a virgin mother (as were all the other Saviors referred to), and a carpenter by the name of Taishnea. Note with me the remembered to Joseph, "foster-father of Jesus," who was himself a carpenter. The story of this "Son of God" presents several features very similar to that relating to Jesus. Sir William Jones, Colonel Wilford, and the Rev. Mr. Maurice all confess to the antiquity of this story, as originating before the birth of Christ. Speaking of Zoroaster of Persia (another case), 600 B.C., an author remarks, "Tradition reports that his mother had alarming dreams of evil spirits seeking to destroy the child to whom she was about to give birth. But a good spirit came to rescue him, and consoled her by saying, 'Fear not; God Ormuzd will protect the infant, who has sent him as a prophet to the people and the world who are waiting for him.'" China, too, presents us with a case of the threatened destruction of a Savior in infancy, evidently recorded more than two thousand five hundred years ago. It is the case of the God Yu, who was concealed in a manner similar to that of Moses -- a commemoration of the story of which is perpetuated by an image or picture of the virgin mother with a babe upon her knee -- sometimes in her arms. Now, let it be noted that these virgin-born Gods, who, we are told, came "to save the world," could not save themselves, but had to be protected and saved by other Gods.
Without pursuing the subject further in detail, we may mention by way of recapitulation, that Chrishna, Alcides, Zoraster, Salvahana, Yu, to which list we may add Bacchus, Romulus, Moses and Cyrus, according to their reputed history, were threatened with death and destruction, but were providentially and miraculously preserved. The case of Augustus is related by Suetonius, that of Romulus by Livy, and that of Cyrus by Herodotus. It will be recollected that Pharaoh, like Herod, in order to reach the infant Moses, ordered the massacre of all the male infants (Herod making no distinction of sex), in order that he might, by this singular and circuitous method, reach the object of his jealousy and malignity without passing a direct sentence of death upon him.
The whole story of Herod's slaughter edict, with the familiar history of its execution, like nearly every other miraculous incident related in "The Holy Scriptures," which detail their histories, are traceable in the skies. Herod, we are told, literally means hero of the skin -- a term applied also to Hercules, a personification of the sun -- because the sun, on entering the constellation of the Zodiac in July, was supposed or assumed to invest himself with the skin of the lion, and this became "the hero of the skin," or a hero with a new skin. Now this solar Herod, passing through the astronomical twins and young infants of May, was said to destroy them, though the word destroy is in the Greek anairean, which any person, on turning to the Greek lexicon, will observe means also to take away, pass through, or withdraw from, so that Pharaoh more properly passed through the infants than destroyed them.
The text, "In Rama there was a voice heard," "Rachel weeping for her children," etc., is quoted by a writer (Strauss) as referring to the children slaughtered by Pharaoh. Let two things be noticed here: 1. Rama is the Indian and Phenican name for the zodiac. 2. Rachel had but two children to weep for -- Joseph and Benjamin -- just the number found in the fifth sign, or May sign, of the zodiac. And Venus, among the ancient Assyrians and Phenicans, was in tears when the sun, in his annual cross through the heavens, passed through or over the astronomical Twins (Gemini), doubtless fearfully apprehending their destruction.
The case of the massacre is an illustration and example of the manner in which all the miraculous stories related in the Christian Scriptures, as having been practically exemplified in the life of Jesus Christ, are traceable to older sources, frequently terminating among the stars.