John, i. 9.

[473:3] The Christian ceremonies of the Nativity are celebrated in
Bethlehem and Rome, even at the present time, _very early in the
morning_.

[474:1] Quoted by Volney, Ruins, p. 166, and _note_.

[474:2] See Ibid. and Dupuis: Origin of Religious Belief, p. 236.

[474:3] See Chap. XXXIV.

[474:4] The _Dawn_ was _personified_ by the ancients--a _virgin mother_,
who bore the _Sun_. (See Max Mueller's Chips, vol. ii. p. 137. Fiske's
Myths and Mythmakers, p. 156, and Cox: Tales of Ancient Greece, and
Aryan Mytho.)

[474:5] In Sanscrit "Ida" is the _Earth_, the wife of Dyaus (the Sky),
and so we have before us the mythical phrase, "the _Sun_ at its birth
rests on the earth." In other words, "the Sun at birth is nursed in the
lap of its mother."

[474:6] "The moment we understand the _nature_ of a myth, all
impossibilities, contradictions and immoralities disappear. If a
mythical personage be nothing more than a name of the _Sun_, his birth
may be derived from ever so many different mothers. He may be the son of
the _Sky_ or of the _Dawn_ or of the _Sea_ or of the _Night_." (Renouf's
Hibbert Lectures, p. 108.)

[474:7] "The sign of the _Celestial Virgin_ rises above the horizon at
the moment in which we fix the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ."
(Higgins: Anacalypsis, vol. i. p. 314, and Bonwick: Egyptian Belief, p.
147.)

"We have in the first decade the _Sign of the Virgin_, following the
most ancient tradition of the Persians, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians,
Hermes and AEsculapius, a young woman called in the Persian language,
_Seclinidos de Darzama_; in the Arabic, _Aderenedesa_--that is to say, a
chaste, pure, immaculate virgin, suckling an infant, which some nations
call _Jesus_ (_i. e._, Saviour), but which we in Greek call _Christ_."
(Abulmazer.)

"In the first decade of the Virgin, rises a maid, called in Arabic,
'Aderenedesa,' that is: 'pure immaculate virgin,' graceful in person,
charming in countenance, modest in habit, with loosened hair, holding in
her hands two ears of wheat, sitting upon an embroidered throne, nursing
a BOY, and rightly feeding him in the place called _Hebraea_. A boy, I
say, names IESSUS by certain nations, which signifies Issa, whom they
also call _Christ_ in Greek." (Kircher, OEdipus AEgypticus.)

[475:1] Max Mueller: Origin of Religions, p. 261.

[475:2] Ibid. p. 230.

[475:3] "With scarcely an exception, all the names by which the _Virgin
goddess_ of the Akropol