heaven, render it more probable that she is one of
the many names of the _Dawn_."[476:3]

If we turn from Indian and Egyptian, to Grecian mythology, we shall also
find that their _Sun-gods_ and _solar heroes_ are born of the same
virgin mother. Theseus was said to have been born of Aithra, "_the pure
air_," and OEdipus of Iokaste, "_the violet light of morning_."
Perseus was born of the virgin Danae, and was called the "_Son of the
bright morning_."[476:4] In Io, the mother of the "sacred bull,"[476:5]
the mother also of Hercules, we see the _violet-tinted morning_ from
which the sun is born; all these gods and heroes being, like _Christ_
Jesus, _personifications of the Sun_.[476:6]

"The Saviour of Mankind" was also represented as being born of the
"_dusky mother_," which accounts for many Pagan, and so-called
Christian, goddesses being represented _black_.[477:1] This is the _dark
night_, who for many weary hours travails with the birth of her child.
The Sun, which scatters the darkness, is also the child of the darkness,
and so the phrase naturally went _that he was born of her_. Of the two
legends related in the poems afterwards combined in the "Hymn to
Apollo," the former relates the birth of Apollo, the _Sun_, from Leto,
the _Darkness_, which is called his mother.[477:2] In this case, Leto
would be _personified_ as a "black virgin," either with or without the
child in her arms.

The _dark earth_ was also represented as being the mother of the god
Sun, who apparently came out of, or was born of her, in the East,[477:3]
as Minos (the sun) was represented to have been born of Ida (the
earth).[477:4]

In Hindoo mythology, the _Earth_, under the name of _Prithivi_, receives
a certain share of honors as one of the primitive goddesses of the Veda,
being thought of as the "_kind mother_." Moreover, various _deities_
were regarded as the progeny resulting from the fancied union of the
Earth with Dyaus (_Heaven_).[477:5]

Our Aryan forefathers looked up to the _heavens_ and they gave it the
name of _Dyaus_, from a root-word which means "_to shine_." And when,
out of the forces and forms of nature, they afterwards fashioned other
gods, this name of Dyaus became _Dyaus pitar_, the _Heaven-father_, or
Lord of All; and in far later times, when the western Aryans had found
their home in Europe, the _Dyaus pitar_ of the central Asian land became
the _Zeupater_ of the Greeks, and the _Jupiter_ of the Romans, and the
first pa