156 REV. RICHARD COLLINS, M.A. 
The Egyptian Osiris and Horus, the Persian Mithras, Adonis, 
Apollo, Bacchus, Krishna, Buddha, and Jesus Christ, are 
cited as examples. They are also represented as all ‘ virgin- 
born.” It is, however, to be remarked that Mr. Proctor 
adds in a note, relative to Buddha, that “of course, it must 
be understood, that these details gathered only in long later 
ages around the record of Gautama.” ‘That little note con- 
tains the whole gist of my argument: was it not in “long 
later ages”’ that Krishna, too, as well as others, was sur- 
rounded with features similar to those which characterised the 
history of Jesus Christ? If so, how did those features arise ? 
2. It is not my object here to enter into the whole question of 
these adaptations of the sun-myth, and the invariable accom- 
paniments, according to Mr. Proctor, of the announcement in 
each case of birth by a star; of the date of birth being the 
25th of December, the winter solstice; of the virgin-mother ; 
of the birth in a cave; of the presentation of gold, frank- 
incense, and myrrh, &c. I must take the case of Krishna 
alone. Still, it 1s worth observing, by the way, how freely 
and wildly the reins have been given to this sun-myth theory ; 
so that with some theorists the whole of the Bible, which is, 
in fact, a small library of books written by different hands at’ 
intervals extending over more than 1,500 years of the 
world’s history, is, nevertheless, but one prolonged national 
Semitic cryptograph, if we may so call it, or series of crypto- 
graphs, or allegories, of the solar-myth. Thus ‘‘ Samson,” 
Mr. Proctor says, ‘fis unmistakably a solar myth.”? His name 
may mean “like the sun.” And Delilah, “the languishing 
one,’ represents winter. “The hero’s hair, as in all sun 
stories, represents the sun’s rays. The Philistines are the 
clouds, which darken (or blind) the sun when his rays have 
been cut off in winter. The destruction of the Philistines 
represents the triumph of the sun, when at spring he returns 
to the glorious part of his course, over the clouds of winter, 
by which till then he had been, as it were, imprisoned.” “ In 
the same way,” Mr. Proctor says, ‘‘the story of Jonah loses 
its absurdity, when we recognise Jonah as identical with 
the Oannes of the Chaldeans, the Winter-God or hero, issuing 
trom the great fish which represented the gloom and cold of 
winter.”” So far I have quoted Mr. Proctor. But by others 
the whole Bible is represented as but astronomical allegory. 
The twelve tribes are the twelve signs of the Zodiac; so are 
the twelve apostles, and Hlisha’s twelve yoke of oxen. Moses 
is Aquarius, or Neptune, whose dwelling is where the sun 
rises at the equinox, therefore he is said to be “ drawn out of 
the water.” Hsau is Hercules in the lion’s skin—another 
