September 1, 1886.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



321 



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ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE 

 !EM:£,!;ITERATUE,&ARi 



LOXDOX: SEPTEMBER 1, 1886. 



THE UNKNOWABLE. 



By Richard A. Proctor. 



WOESHIP OF THE STJX-GOD. 



^ EFORE turning from the consideration of the 

 virgin-born Sun-god, natunilly recognised, 

 among nations worshipping the sun, as new- 

 born with each new da}-, with each new 

 jear, and with the beginning also of longer 

 periods forming Great Years, I may call 

 attention, in p:xssing, to the possibility that 

 we may find in this belief the explanation 



of a curious passage in classical literature, which has long 



been regarded as enigmatical. 



In Virgil's " Pollio " we find the lines : 



Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Satumia regna ; 

 Jam nova progenies ca;lo dimittitur alto. . . . 

 Te duce, si qua manent sseleris vestigia nostri, 

 Irrita perpetu;i solvent formidine terras . . . 

 Pacatumque reget patriis virtutibus orbem ; 



which may be rendered : " Now returns the Virgin, Satumian 

 realms return ; from heaven above an ofispring new descends. 

 With thee to guide, if any traces of man's wickedness re- 

 main, failing they shall free all countries from perpetual 

 dread . . . He .•shall govern the world in peace, with the 

 virtues of his father." 



It will be observed by those who have considered our 

 account of tlie expectations associated with the birth of each 

 new sun-god — akin, but on an enlarged scale, to the hopes 

 men form with the birth of e;\ch new year, nay, of each new 

 day — that the abov-e [lassage presents the same hopes, the 

 same aspirations. We ai-e thus led to regard the reference 

 to the Virgin as no accidental coincidence. All Virgil's 

 astronomieil references belong to a time long preceding his 

 own. For instance, he speaks of the time of year — 



Candidns auratis aperit cum comibos annum 



Taurus . . . 



— " when the white Bull opens the year with his gilded 

 horns " ; whereas for two thousand years before his time 

 spring had opened with the sun in Aries, not in Taurus. 

 We know not from what source Virgil derived his astronomy ; 

 it is e\-ident only that, like the astronomy of Aratus (bor- 

 rowed from Eudoxus), the astronomy of Virgil was not 

 his own. 



But it chances that we do know something of the source 

 from which Virgil's " Pollio " was in large part derived. 

 That Eclogue was taken from a Sibylline prophecy, though, 

 doubtless, Virgil used all a poet's license in the use of the 

 sacred leaves from w-hich he borrowed his inspiration. 



Now, the very antiquity of the Sibylline Prophecies — an 

 antiquity so great that the origin, and even the authenticity, 

 of most of them is altogether lost — 'Would assure us, apart 



from other evidence, that they related to the early, wide- 

 spread, and reasonable worship of the sun, a cult which was 

 in truth, while it lasted, the worship of the unknown and 

 seemingly unknowable Power of which the sun seemed to 

 be the visible manifestation. We might safely infer that 

 the Sibyls had an ofiic« akin to that which we i-ecognise in 

 Deborah and in Huldah the prophetess — viz., to determine, 

 as by a sort of divine inspiration (like that of the Delphic 

 priestesses), the proper forms for the worship of the Un- 

 knowable. But we are not left to deduce this inferentially. 

 We have historic evidence that the Sibyls were priestesses of 

 the Sun-god. Thus Pausanias preserves the inscription on 

 the monument erected to the Samian Sibyl in a grove sacred 

 to Apollo Smintheus (Apollo being the Sun-god, in his 

 character as dispeller of the darkness of night and of winter). 

 A hymn to the same god, well known to the inhabitants of 

 Delos in the time of Pausanias, was attributed to the still 

 more ancient Eiythnean Sibyl, who was supposed to have 

 predicted the issue of the Trojan war. There were many 

 sibyls, however, all belonging to races which were either 

 sun-worshippers of their own notion, or had borrowed sun- 

 worship from races of earlier civilisation — as the Egyptians, 

 Babylonians, and Persians on the one hand, and the 

 Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans on the other. 



We may recognise, then, in Virgil's lines a very curious 

 relic of ancient sun-worship. The original sibylline verses 

 from which he borrowed formed doubtle.ss a song welcoming 

 the birth of the sungod, and expressing the customary 

 aspirations regarding the time heralded by his arrival.* 



Pursiung further the features in which the ancient myths 

 of sun-gods and their birth resembled each other — as they 

 naturally would in all circumstances having an astronomical 

 or otherwise physical interpretation — we find in nearly every 

 case the following circumstances : — 



First, the birth of the sun-god ruling the new year was 

 arnounced bv the appearance of a star in the east. 



Secondly, the sun-god was bom in a cave, and attended on 

 by herdsmen — cowherds, shepherds, goatherds, according to 

 the habits of the race to which the myth belonged. 



Thirdly, gifts of precious stones or gold, of perfumes, 

 and of substances suitable for sacrificial fires, were ofiereJ in 

 honour of the new-l)orn sun-god. 



Strange as such circumstances as these may appear to the 

 philosophical mind, they seemed natural enough in the days 

 to which they properly "belonged. The astronomer of to-day 

 may be disposed to smile at the thought that a Being 

 worshipped as God of the Universe should be regarded as 

 honoured by the appearance of one star among the millions 

 of millions of suns within his domain. And it may appear 

 still less respectful to absolute Deity to picture It as receiv- 

 ing with satisfaction the adoration of cowherds, goatherds, 

 or shepherds, and gifts of objects as useless to Infinity as 

 they would be unsuited to a babe. But the worshippers 

 of the Buddha, CrLshna, iMithras, Apollo, Serapis, and the 

 rest, must not be blamed for retaining ideas belonging to a 

 religion so ancient that its origin could not be traced by 



* Pope calls attention to the " remarkable parity between many 

 of the thoughts in the ' Pollio ' of Yirgil and those in ' the passages of 

 Isaiah imagined to have been prophecies of the coming of a Messiah: 

 " Behold, a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son " — " Jam redit Virgo 

 jam nova demittitur coelo alto progenies." " Of the increase of his 

 government and of bis peace there shall be no end " — " Illo duce, 

 sceleris vestigia nostri irrita perpetua solvent formidine terras.'' 

 " Upon the throne of David [his father] and upon his kingdom to 

 stabUsh it with justice for ever and ever "—" Pacatumque reget 

 patriis virtutibus orbem." Accordingly Pope is tempted to follow 

 Virgil in making au eclogue out of the mystic sayings of supposed 

 prophecy, calling the poem "'Messiah, an Eclogue,' in Imitation of 

 Virgil's ' Pollio.' " Herein perhaps Pope " builded better than he 

 knew,' becoming one of a very long line of adapters of sun-worship- 

 ping ideas to specific race-religions. 



