ourse. For three days and three nights he remains in hell--the lower
regions.[495:1] In this respect _Christ_ Jesus is like other
Sun-gods.[495:2]

In the ancient sagas of Iceland, the hero who is the Sun personified,
descends into a tomb, where he fights a vampire. After a desperate
struggle, the hero overcomes, and rises to the surface of the earth.
"This, too, represents the Sun in the northern realms, descending into
the tomb of winter, and there overcoming the power of darkness."[495:3]

12. _He rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven._
Resurrections from the dead, and ascensions into heaven, are generally
acknowledged to be _solar_ features, as the history of many solar heroes
agree in this particular.

At the _winter solstice_ the ancients wept and mourned for _Tammuz_, the
fair Adonis, and other Sun-gods, done to death by the boar, or
crucified--slain by the thorn of winter--and on the _third day_ they
rejoiced at the resurrection of their "Lord of Light."[495:4]

With her usual policy, the Church endeavored to give a Christian
significance to the rites which they borrowed from heathenism, and in
this case, the mourning for Tammuz, the fair Adonis, became the mourning
for Christ Jesus, and joy at the rising of the natural Sun became joy at
the rising of the "Sun of Righteousness"--at the resurrection of Christ
Jesus from the grave.

This festival of the Resurrection was generally held by the ancients on
the 25th of March, when the awakening of _Spring_ may be said to be the
result of the return of the Sun from the lower or far-off regions to
which he had departed. At the equinox--say, the vernal--at _Easter_,
the Sun has been below the equator, and suddenly rises above it. It has
been, as it were, dead to us, but now it exhibits a resurrection.[496:1]
The Saviour rises triumphant over the powers of darkness, to life and
immortality, on the 25th of March, when the Sun rises in Aries.

Throughout all the ancient world, _the resurrection of the god Sol_,
under different names, was celebrated on March 25th, with great
rejoicings.[496:2]

In the words of the Rev. Geo. W. Cox:

"The wailing of the Hebrew women at the death of Tammuz, the
crucifixion and resurrection of Osiris, the adoration of the
Babylonian Mylitta, the Sacti ministers of Hindu temples, the
cross and crescent of Isis, the rites of the Jewish altar of
Baal-Peor, wholly preclude all doubt of the real nature