Uncovering links of the Jesus-myth with Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome

What follows is merely a slender splinter of striking similarities between myths of the Ancient “pagan” world, and the myth of the Jesus-figure.

I started with the intention of quoting the ardent 19^th century Egyptologist, Gerald Massey, but the post grew & swelled considerably, fed by data from the Greco-Roman world.

To put it in a few words, Gerald Massey was a 19^th century British scholar, perhaps one of the earliest proponents of the Out-of-Africa theory, who traced every word, god, hero, myth, name, symbol, metaphor, image, episode, & event, of nearly each and every legend of nearly each and every part of the world – to Egypt – or rather, to inner Africa as it emerged with & through Egypt.

His principle target was Christianity, and his secondary target, the Old Testament group of legends – and only then, India, Greece, and Rome.

He seemed to subscribe to ancient Gnosticism and modern Darwinism, and makes his intense abhorrence of Christianity very clear.

His unrelenting pursuit to hunt down every episode & act in the Old Testament to Egypt too, and his tacit rejection of any sort of Hebrew originality, might have earned him a double ignominy, because of which all later researchers treat him as if he simply never existed.

That’s why, with a few rare exceptions, nobody ever writes of him or hears about him.

There might be other reasons of his strange obscurity, but I’m not aware of them.

I read about him for the first time, about 15 years ago, while reading Madam Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled, and some Africanists do mention him.

 

At the very outset, let me say that the author of this blog is – i.e. I, myself am – not particularly compatible with Massey.

The author of this blog has not made up his mind about the origin(s) of world civilization.

The author of this blog – being an Indian – does not necessarily believe that world civilization came from India, or that even Indian civilization came exclusively from India.

But the author categorically rejects the “Aryan Invasion Theory”, and is “on the fence” about the Afro-Egyptian theory.

So while not definitively belonging to Massey’s Egyptomaniac camp, the author of this blog is certainly not on the same page as the “Aryanists” either.

“Aryanism” clearly shifted to a dogged glorification of Greece, which is something Hindus – in all their Islamophobia – are not paying attention to.

This is not just an intellectual issue – it is a political & social & cultural issue – it is a racial issue.

The modern intellectual elite – with subtlety, panache, and sophistication – steadfastly subordinates India to Greece.

Hindutva intellectuals – while raising storms of rage & resentment with Asiatic Muslims, & our brethren within our own country, tacitly or openly adding fuel to fire & aggravating religious conflict in India – don’t seem to go back to the roots of the actual issues.

The modern psychological, socio-political, cultural, and racial warfare against India was not started by the Muslims, but by the Western intellectual elite.

In this entire issue, India has been turned into an outpost of Greece – as if India was perpetually waiting for free handouts and doles from Greece {and then, Persia}.

Everything in India is treated as an influence or an imitation from somewhere or the other – but particularly Greece.

Indeed, one idea that this author intends to someday realize, is that Greco-Roman culture is fundamentally a continuation and derivation of Egyptian and Asiatic cultures.

Gerald Massey helps, in this process.

Despite my serious disagreements with him, he deserves to be read and studied, by people struggling to study and comprehend the past without the lens that have been created for us, for the past few centuries.

As to the beautiful fable of Jesus Christ – the author certainly holds it to be a fable.

That said, he’d happily and promptly clarify that he neither believes in the historicity of Rāma-Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma nor that of Jesus, Moses, David, Solomon, Zoroaster, or Buddha.

So what follows, does not sprout from a “sectarian” point of view, not from the viewpoint of “polemics”, let alone “hate”.

It is the birthright of that rational, intellectual, inquisitive creature known as Man to search for the truth, and to “stop not till thy goal is reached”.

This blog-post is a part of that process of investigation, which rightfully belongs to a seeker-out of facts and knowledge.

Every man has the right to question, to examine, to cross-examine, to doubt, to ponder, to weigh the pros & cons of an issue – and at least discover some elements of truth, rather than blindly & lazily accept whatever is foisted on him, by established authority.

This post is simply an expression of an individual exercising his right to doubt, to search, to think, to look for certainty, to figure out the true contours that make up the highly nebulous & evasive form of reality.

 

Also: while this blog-post developed over days to focus on the Greco-Roman origins of the Jesus myth, any inquisitive reader ought to remember that there are striking parallels in Middle Eastern cultures – Sumerian, Assyrian, Akkaddian, Babylonian, Phoenician, Persian, and Syrian – which have not been touched upon here.

The Biblical corpus couldn’t have cropped up without any knowledge of, say, the cults extant in Crete and Anatolia {modern-day Turkey}.

The modern researcher is aware that everything was, and is, connected, and nothing develops in isolation.

It does seem to be true that Christianity was most influenced by Egypt – note the typical fish-hat or mitre worn by Roman Catholic priests: it is not only a continuation of the Babylonian Oannes-Dagon figure, but more so of the Egyptian gods and pharaohs.

Truth be said, Indian gods also wear big, long crowns – {and there might be a connection with the Catholic mitre} – but these tend to be more cylindrical.

The Egyptian hedjet {or atef} crown is a bottle-shaped tiara.

The Roman Catholic priests have worn this bottle-shaped crown or mitre – which flares out towards the centre, and tapers towards the top end – for several centuries, and there are depictions of Popes wearing crowns almost identical to the Egyptian hedjet crown.

It cannot be said, thus, that India had no influence on the development of Hebrew-Christian myths, symbols, and imagery.

But it’s only rational to understand that it’s likely to be less direct, and less impacting, than the influence of Egypt or Persia.

 

I start with a quote from Gerald Massey’s magnum opus, “Ancient Egypt, The Light of the World”, Chapter 12:

“The messianic mystery which has caused unparalleled mental trouble to the world did not originate with, nor was the solution to be found in, the biblical collection of the Hebrew writings.

The Egyptian mesu, to anoint, and as a name for the anointed, is earlier than the Jewish messiah.

Nor would there have been any typical Christ the anointed but for the making of the karast-mummy.

{Massey connects this Egyptian word karast with the word Christ.

It’s true that the baby Christ has been depicted like an Egyptian mummy, wrapped up in bandages from head to toe – something which is not borne out by the Gospel accounts.}

We have to look a long way beyond these books to learn how salvation came into the world by water, or a saviour could be represented by the fish.

It was thus salvation came to Egypt periodically in the new life of the Nile, and thence the saviour, who was imaged in the likeness of a fish.

According to the mythical rendering Horus ­Iu-em-hetep was a saviour because he came with plenty of food and water in the inundation, as the shoot of, or as the child on the papyrus.

In the eschatology he represented the saviour who showed the way by which the manes might attain eternal life, when immortality was held to be conditional and dependent upon right conduct and true character.

A doctrine of messiahship was founded on the ever-coming messu, or child of the inundation in the preanthropomorphic phase of symbolism, in which the type might be the fish, the papyrus-shoot, the beetle, hawk or calf, each one of which bears witness that when the infant-likeness was adopted as a figure of the ever-coming saviour or messiah the human type was just as non-historical as any of its predecessors.

...

The advent of the messu (the Hebrew messiah) was periodic in accordance with the natural phenomena: not once for all.

Once for all could have no meaning in relation to that which was ever-coming from age to age, from generation to generation, or for ever and ever.

Eternity itself to the Egyptians of the Ritual was aeonian, and synonymous with millions of repetitions, therefore ever-coming in the likeness of perennial renewal, whether in the water-spring of earth or the day-spring on high, the papyrus-shoot, the green branch, or as Horus the child in whom a saviour was at length embodied as a figure of eternal source.

At the foundation of all sacrifice we find the great Earth-mother, following the human mother, giving herself for food and drink.

Next the type of sacrifice was that of the ever-coming child.

Ten thousand years ago a divine ideal of matchless excellence had been portrayed in elder Horus as a voluntary sacrifice of self not for the sins of the world, but for human sustenance.

This voluntary victim took the parent’s place, and suffered in the mother’s stead.

Thenceforth the papyrus-plant was represented by the shoot the tree by the branch; the sheep by the lamb the saviour by the infant as an image of perpetual renewal in life by means of his own death and transformation in furnishing the elements of life.

Next Horus, as the foremost of the seven elemental powers, passed into the solar mythos, where the typical virgin and child were reproduced and constellated as repeaters of periodic time and season in the zodiac.”

 

The more interesting passages – more intriguing and potentially controversial – come later {division of text by bullets, by me}:

 

“Before it could be for the first time understood, the story outlined so elusively in the canonical gospels had to be retold in accordance with the astronomical mythology, and more especially in terms of the Osirian eschatology.

The legend was so ancient in Egypt that in the time of Amen-hetep, a pharaoh of the 18th dynasty, it was humanly applied to his child and to his consort Mut-em-Ua in the character of the divine woman, the mother who, like Neith, was ever-virgin.

A passage and a picture from The Natural Genesis may be repeated here.

The story of

·                    the Annunciation,

·                    the miraculous conception (or incarnation),

·                    the birth and the adoration of the messianic infant

had already been engraved in stone and represented in 4 consecutive scenes upon the innermost walls of the holy of holies (the meskhen) in the temple of Luxor (which was built by Amen-hetep III) about 1700 BC, or some 17 centuries before the events depicted are commonly supposed to have taken place.

...

In these scenes the maiden queen Mut-em-Ua, the mother of Amen-hetep, her future child, impersonates the virgin-mother, who conceived and brought forth without the fatherhood.

The first scene on the left hand shows the god Taht, as divine word or logos, in the act of hailing the virgin queen and announcing to her that she is to give birth to the coming son.

(That is, to bring forth the royal repa in the character of Horus or Aten, the divine heir.)

...

In the second scene the ram-headed god Kneph, in conjunction with Hathor, gives life to her.

This is the Holy Ghost or spirit that causes conception, Neph being the spirit by nature and by name.

Impregnation and a conception are apparent in the virgin’s fuller form.

Next, the mother is seated on the midwife’s stool, and the child is supported in the hands of one of the nurses.

...

The fourth scene is that of the Adoration.

Here the infant is enthroned, receiving homage from the gods and gifts from men.

Behind the deity, who represents the holy spirit, on the right three men are kneeling offering gifts with the right hand, and life with the left.

The child thus announced, incarnated, born and worshipped was the pharaonic representative of the Aten-sun or child-Christ of the Aten-cult, the miraculous conception of the ever-virgin mother imaged by Mut-em-Ua.

Thus the divine drama was represented humanly by the royal lady who personated the mother of God, with her child in this particular religion.

...

And here a dogma of ‘historic personality’ may be seen in the germ.

Indeed, when the pharaoh first assumed the vesture of divinity and a doctrine of historic personality for the Messiah could be and was established, Ra was the representative of God the Father and the repa was a type of God the Son, as heir-apparent for the eternal.

The father was the ever-living and the son the ever-coming one.

These, in the cult of Annu, were Atum-Ra the father, and Iusa, the Egyptian Jesus, the coming son.”

 

These assertions appear to be correct correct, and Amenhotep III’s deification is borne out even by Wikipedia, which says in the article on him:

“Amenhotep was the son of Thutmose IV and his minor wife Mutemwiya.

He was likely born around 1401 BC. 

Later in his life, Amenhotep commissioned the depiction of his divine birth to be displayed at Luxor Temple.

Amenhotep claimed that his true father was the god Amun, who had taken the form of Thutmose IV to father a child with Mutemwiya.”

 

Indeed, Sir Ernest Wallis Budge, in his book on the mysterious Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen, wrote, in the 1^st Chapter:

“Our chief authority for the acts of Tutankhamen is the stele in Cairo... from the text, which unfortunately is mutilated in several places, we can gain a very good idea of the state of confusion that prevailed in Egypt when he ascended the throne.

The hieroglyphs giving the year in which the stele was dated are broken away.

The first lines give the names and titles of the king, who says that he was beloved of

·     Amen-Ra, the great god of Thebes,

·     of Temu and Ra-Heraakhuti, gods of Ann (Heliopolis),

·     Ptah of Memphis, and

·     Thoth, the Lord of the “words of god”(i.e., hieroglyphs and the sacred writings).

He calls himself the “good son of Amen, born of Kamutef,” and says that he sprang from a glorious seed and a holy egg, and that the god Amen himself had begotten him.

Amen built his body, and fashioned him, and perfected his form, and the Divine Souls of Anu were with him from his youth up {Anna was mother of Mary, grandmother of Jesus}, for they had decreed that he was to be an eternal king, and an established Horus, who would devote all his care and energies to the service of the gods who were his fathers.”

 

In other words, Tutankhamen is also declared to be “the son of God”, here Amen {Amen = Amun = Amon, all the same, whether or not associated with Ra}.

We shall see indications of the now-obscured relations between Amen, Zeus, Dionysus, and Moses.

And then there is always the notorious Akhenaten, with his Cult of Aten.

 

Though, there is no dearth of miraculous conceptions, and divine fathers, in other cultures, which might have influenced the development of the Jesus-story.

Almost no Indian hero or “mythical” figure has a “normal” human-biological birth.

It may not be necessary to look so far back into Egypt, to trace the origins of this specific scheme of allegory and imagery.

Consider the mythical founder of Rome, Romulus.

This is what Plutarch wrote, in his Life of Romulus:

“The descendants of Aeneas reigned as kings in Alba, and the succession devolved at length upon two brothers, Numitor and Amulius.

Amulius divided the whole inheritance into two parts, setting the treasures and gold which had been brought from Troy over against the kingdom, and Numitor chose the kingdom.

Amulius, then, in possession of the treasure, and made more power­ful by it than Numitor, easily took the kingdom away from his brother, and fearing lest that brother’s daughter should have children, made her a priestess of Vesta, bound to live unwedded and a virgin all her days. 

Her name is variously given as Ilia, or Rhea, or Silvia.

Not long after this, she was discovered to be with child, contrary to the established law for the Vestals.

{This maybe a reference to the Great Greek Mother Goddess Rhea herself, but this specific legend doesn’t call her a goddess.

She is a human virgin, like Mary, but the “divine” and the “human” have been mixed up, as in case of every legend and every tale.

The goddess Rhea is no different from Cybele or Diana of Ephesus – the goddess with the tower.

In other words, Mary Magdalene.

The sudden and unexpected pregnancy of the chaste & pious Virgin Mary, which scandalized the entire community and led to much gossip, and to excruciating embarrassment & despair on the part of Joseph – and especially the typical Christian legends about her being dedicated to the Temple at Jerusalem as a young child, are strikingly similar to that of the Vestal Rhea Silvia mysteriously impregnated while serving as a priestess in a temple.

To continue...}

“She did not, however, suffer the capital punishment which was her due, because the king’s daughter, Antho, interceded success­fully in her behalf, but she was kept in solitary confinement, that she might not be delivered without the knowledge of Amulius.

 

{This is reminiscent of Devakī’s imprisonment by her {cousin} brother Kansa.

The case of Vasudeva, Devakī and Kṛṣṇa is considerably different, but there are also considerable similarities.

Kansa is basically Kṛṣṇa’s uncle, while Amulius here is the uncle of Rhea, the mother of Romulus.
Both uncle and granduncle are threatened by the birth of a child.

Rhea’s being kept guard in secret is reflected in the flight of Mary & Joseph to Egypt {Matthew 2}:

“Now when they {the wise men from the East} had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him.”

When he arose, he took the young Child and His mother by night and departed for Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, “Out of Egypt I called My Son.””

Coming back to Plutarch’s account of the birth of Romulus and Remus:}

“Delivered she was of two boys, and their size and beauty were more than human. 

Wherefore Amulius was all the more afraid, and ordered a servant to take the boys and cast them away.

This servant’s name was Faustulus, according to some, but others give this name to the man who took the boys up.

Obeying the king’s orders, the servant put the babes into a trough and went down towards the river, purposing to cast them in; but when he saw that the stream was much swollen and violent, he was afraid to go close up to it, and setting his burden now near the bank, went his way. 

Then the overflow of the swollen river took and bore up the trough, floating it gently along, and carried it down to a fairly smooth spot which is now called Kermalus, but formerly Germanus, perhaps because brothers are called ‘germani.’”

 

This is a permutation of one of the most common motifs in the history of mankind.

In India, the entire account is closer to the story of Karṇa, rather than the story of Kṛṣṇa.

In the Old Testament, it is astonishingly similar to that of Moses.

But if one thinks about it, the correspondences with the birth of Kṛṣṇa start growing.

Like the lives of Jesus, Moses, and Romulus {& Remus}, the life of Kṛṣṇa is also in mortal danger.

He also has to be hidden from the potential murderer of a king or tyrant – who may or may not be related by blood, but usually is.

He also has to be taken into hiding, and kept concealed, like Romulus, like Karṇa, like Moses, or like Jesus in the episode of the Flight into Egypt.

And while he isn’t set afloat in a river, there is the famous episode of his father Vasudeva carrying him across a river in full flood, and the baby Kṛṣṇa being protected from torrential rainfall by the many-headed hood of the great serpent Shesha-Nāga.

There is always a river.

Most interestingly, the legends of Moses, Karṇa, and Romulus are near-identical to that of the Assyrian King Sargon:

“My mother was a high priestess, my father I knew not.

The brothers of my father loved the hills.

My city is Azupiranu, which is situated on the banks of the Euphrates.

My high priestess mother conceived me, in secret she bore me.

She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid.

She cast me into the river which rose over me.

The river bore me up and carried me to Akki, the drawer of water.

Akki, the drawer of water, took me as his son and reared me.

Akki, the drawer of water, appointed me as his gardener.”

 

Like the mother of Romulus, Sargon’s mother is a priestess.

In both cases, the identity of the Father is unknown, or a mystery.

The son/sons/children either don’t know, or have never been with, or are not raised, by the Father.

It is likely that the legend of Romulus derives from that of Sargon, and as we shall see below, that of Zeus.

{Zeus being inspired by Sargon.}

Greece and Rome, I repeat, are derivatives of Oriental and Egyptian cultures.

An important and controversial point, which deserves way more attention from Indian intellectuals than ever before.

Jesus’s father is the unknown & unseen God

– in case of Karṇa, it is the Sun i.e. Sūrya who impregnates a virgin, nubile Kuntī

– and in case of Romulus, it is the god Mars.

As Plutarch writes:

“Now these creatures {i.e. wolves} are considered sacred to Mars, and the woodpecker is held in especial veneration and honour by the Latins, and this was the chief reason why the mother was believed when she declared that Mars was the father of her babes. And yet it is said that she was deceived into doing this, and was really deflowered by Amulius himself, who came to her in armour and ravished her.”

 

The priestess theme has undoubtedly been continued in the Jesus-Mary legend in Mary’s being dedicated to the Jewish Temple at Jerusalem by her parents, where she stays until her marriage with Joseph, and her subsequent mysterious pregnancy, which needs to be kept secret.

That the Vestal Rhea Silvia was ravished, and produced an illegitimate child, is concomitant both with the illegitimacy of Karṇa, as well as the controversy & slander surrounding Mary’s giving birth to Jesus – which was often called the result of either an illicit affair, or being ravished by a Roman soldier, Panthera.

Rather lowly professions are assigned to the foster-father in all cases:

– in Karṇa’s case, his foster-father Adhiratha is a charioteer

– in case of Sargon, a “drawer of water”

– Jesus’s foster-father Joseph is a carpenter

– Romulus’s putative foster-father Faustulus is either a servant or a swine-herd

– that of Kṛṣṇa, Nanda, is a cowherd.

It should also be remarked that Romulus is not alone, but with his twin-brother Remus.

In India, Kṛṣṇa and his brother Balarāma both brought up by foster-parents.

At several levels, Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma reflect the old symbolism of the twins.

It should always be remembered that as long as they were with Nanda & Yashodā, their identities were secret, and they were actually in hiding.

All these gods, demigods or heroes, have to be hidden and whisked away somewhere, or discarded – and then adopted, or brought up by, foster-parents or foster-fathers.

 

In Greek legend, Zeus himself is brought up in secret by Amalthea.

Indeed, this ties in at one end with the Kṛṣṇa’s foster-parents being cowherds, because Amalthea was sometimes said to be a goat-tending nymph.

It ties in at the other end with Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf, because Amalthea is usually called a goat herself.

Like so many heroes being hidden from a murderous, cruel father-like figure, Zeus is hidden from his father Cronus.

“When Rhea, fearing Kronos, hid Zeus in the Cretan cavern, a goat (Amalthea) offered her udder and gave him nourishment.

By the will of Rhea a Golden Dog guarded the goat.

After Zeus drove out the Titanes and deprived Kronos of power, he changed the goat into an immortal, there is a representation of her among the stars to this day.

He ordered the Golden Dog to guard this sacred spot in Crete.”

{Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses 36 (trans. Celoria) (Greek mythographer 2nd CE)}

It looks like the legend of Romulus was undoubtedly inspired by the legend of Zeus himself, because the dog in one account corresponds to the she-wolf in the other.

There is also a goat-connection, strangely enough – as we find indicated in Plutarch’s narrative.

 

One basically finds the same legend, the same theme, the same elements, being repeated everywhere with slight variations.

 

There is nothing new in these elements of the Jesus version, despite its lofty ethics, and the deep poignancy of the Gospel events.

Pseudo-Apollodorus wrote {2nd century CE Greek mythographer, Bibliotheca}:

“Rhea, when she was heavy with Zeus, went off to Crete and gave birth to him there in a cave on Mount Dicte.

She put him in the care of both the Kouretes (Curetes) and the nymphs Adrasteia and Ide (Ida), daughters of Melisseus.

These Nymphs nursed the baby with the milk of Amalthea”.

 

Not even this cave is left out in the Jesus-myths, because in some versions, Mary gives birth to Jesus in a cave, as in the Protoevangelium of James, an important and revealing text.

 

Gerald Massey notes the correspondences with Sargon, and does trace the overall mythic theme to Egypt, but I wonder if I should give the passages in full here, because that would make the post exceedingly long.

Yet, this should be helpful:

“The growth of a legend from its source in the primitive representation or mythicizing of natural phenomena down to its becoming humanized at last as biblical and historical may be exemplified by the story of the child who was saved from the waters in a little ark of bulrush or papyrus-reed.

It is told of Sargon in Assyria, of Maui in New Zealand, and various other children who were drawn forth from the water at the time of their birth.

It is the myth of the child-Horus, first & far away the oldest in the world.

The story has to be read backward in Hebrew a very long way before its primal meaning can be comprehended.

In going back we meet at first with the child-Horus floating in an ark upon the waters.

The speaker in the Ritual at the time of his rebirth says, ‘I am coffined in an ark like Horus, to whom his cradle is brought.’

This cradle is often represented as a nest of papyrus-reed = the ark of bulrushes in the biblical version.

This in its most primitive Egyptian form was the flower of the papyrus-plant, or later lotus.

{Later lotus?

Well, in India, this takes the form of Brahmā emerging from the Primal Lotus floating on the cosmic waters, something which must’ve developed from the image of Hiraṇyagarbha or the Golden Egg floating on the waters in the Vedas.

The egg, lotus, nest of papyrus-reed, ark – all are variations of each other – from a physical point of view, all symbols of the womb, or uterus, or yoni, or Mother.

Budge writes:

“The forms in which Horus, son of Isis, is depicted are both numerous and interesting, and they show how completely he absorbed the attributes of all the other Horus gods.

Thus he is represented as a child seated on a lotus flower, with one of his forefingers touching his lips, and with the lock of hair on the side of his head ; he wears the crowns of the South and North, and

holds both {the crook} and {the flail}.”

Needless to say, almost every Hindu-Buddhist and Jain deity is depicted on a lotus.}

...

On this Child-Horus is borne up from the waters, which led to the Egyptian ark or boat that was made of papyrus-reeds.

When the legend of Child-Horus on his papyrus, or in his nest of reeds, took its Hebrew form, the little ark in which the child was saved is made of bulrushes, or some other form of rush called אמנּ which probably represents the Egyptian kama, a reed, the reed of Egypt, therefore the papyrus-reed.

According to the legendary lore, repeated with a wise word of caution by Josephus, the young child Moses, saved from the river in the ark, was adopted and named by Thermutis.

This name is a title of the Great Mother Mut in Egyptian, the consort of Amen-Ra.”

 

This is correct.

The original, translated as “bulrush” in the Moses account, says “gome”, which Massey understands as the Egyptian “kama”.

“gome” means “rush, reed, papyrus”.

It is also noteworthy, that Moses doesn’t go floating down a river in a basket.

Like Romulus, he is deposited on the bank of a river {Exodus 2.3-5, New International Version}:

“But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it.”

 

The papyrus-reed-lotus connection perhaps makes perfect sense because one would expect lotuses to grow on the banks of the river – amongst reeds – rather than in the midst of the river current?

Lotuses don’t exactly float down a river – they’ll usually be found on the banks of a river, or in a lake, where the water is not flowing rapidly.

 

This Thermutis being the daughter – possibly the wife – of Pharaoh – is in tandem with the priestess & princess theme.

Devakī is a Queen.

Kuntī is a Princess {who lives in her uncle Bhoja’s place when she is impregnated by Sūrya – reminiscent of Rhea Silvia’s impregnation by Mars while being in the power of her uncle}.

Rhea Silvia is a Princess made a Virgin Vestal, i.e. a priestess.

But Massey is right because Devakī, Kuntī, Rhea, Mary, Amalthea etc. might well be interpreted as goddesses too.

It’s interesting that Massey connects Moses’s Egyptian foster-mother to the consort of Amon-Ra, because there’s one account – given by Diodorus Siculus – in which Amalthea is the foster-mother of Dionysus, and was impregnated by the Libyan King Ammon.

Thus, Moses is broadly modelled on Zeus, and in part, on Dionysus & Romulus.

{There are other legendary heroes who maybe discussed, but we can focus on just these, now.}

This also bears out further enquiry.

Moses was undoubtedly connected to the cult of Amon/Amun in Egypt.

Just like Jupiter-Ammon, he is depicted in European art with two horns, which were probably originally ram-horns or goat-horns.

There’s a deep connection of all this with Alexander of Macedonia’s fixation with the Egyptian Ammon, and the Medieval depictions of Alexander with two horns on his head, like Moses.

That the Horn of Amalthea is sometimes a bull’s horn also bears out because not only is Zeus often imaged by a bull, but Moses’s horns may also be bull-horns.

 

This shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Links have been made between Christianity and the Egypto-Greek cult of Serapis.

Serpais was a god who combined Osiris & the Egyptian bull-god Apis.

The Roman Emperor Hadrian had written, in a letter to a consul called Servianus {this letter is quoted by Massey}:

“The land of Egypt, the praises of which you have been recounting to me, my dear Servianus, I have found to be wholly light-minded, unstable, and blown about by every breath of rumour.

There those who worship Serapis are, in fact, Christians, and those who call themselves bishops of Christ are, in fact, devotees of Serapis.

There is no chief of the Jewish synagogue, no Samaritan, no Christian presbyter, who is not an astrologer, a soothsayer, or an anointer.

Even the Patriarch himself, when he comes to Egypt, is forced by some to worship Serapis, by others to worship Christ.

They are a folk most seditious, most deceitful, most given to injury; but their city is prosperous, rich, & fruitful, & in it no one is idle.

Some are blowers of glass, others makers of paper, all are at least weavers of linen or seem to belong to one craft or another; the lame have their occupations, the eunuchs have theirs, the blind have theirs, and not even those whose hands are crippled are idle.

Their only god is money, and this the Christians, the Jews, and, in fact, all nations adore.”

Hadrian’s own morality is not exactly without stain – but the point is, who’d have expected a powerful Roman Emperor to say or think something like this?

Though Serapis doesn’t seem to be depicted in the form of a bull or bull-horned man {at least I’m not aware}, the Apis-bull connection can’t be denied.

And these distinctions are not very serious distinctions anyway, as Diodorus said: 

“Some think that Osiris is Serapis;

others that he is Dionusus;

others still, that he is Pluto:

many take him for Zeus, or Jupiter, and not a few for Pan”.

 

That Apis himself had a distinct character {not just that of a bull-god} is indicated in the play The Suppliants by 5^th century BCE Greek dramatist Aeschylus, in which he’s called the son of Apollo by Pelasgos, the King of Argos:

“Now of the Apian land itself this plain has long ago borne a name in compliment to a man who practised the healing art.

For Apis, arriving from Naupactus across the sea, a son of Apollo, and an adept both in healing and in prophecy, cleared this land from pestilent monsters, which Earth, defiled by the pollutions of ancient murders, sent up in anger, a dragon-swarm of hostile indwellers.

Of these evils Apis effectually applied remedies, both by drugs and expiations, to the Argive land, and so obtained of old our mention of him in prayers as an equivalent to a physician’s fee.”

 

That is, Apis rid the land of serpents – a feat later attributed to Saint Patrick in Ireland.

It should be remembered that earlier on in Romanesque art, Jesus was depicted very much like St. Michael {or St. George, modelled on Perseus, Marduk, Horus, Indra etc.} – endowed with wings and slaying a dragon, or the Leviathan.

 

There are broken, scattered links between all tales.

This whole scheme of a conflict between the mother or mother-and-child, and the father-figure or King or “dragon”, is reflected in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament, except the focus of the struggle is between the single-mother and the “dragon”, and it is the mother, not the child, who has to be whisked away, concealed, and guarded & protected in secret {Revelation 12:1-6, 13-17}:

“A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of 12 stars on her head. 

She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.

Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with 7 heads and 10 horns and 7 crowns on its heads...

The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born.

{Literally the same is told of Apollo and Herakles/Hercules.

Herakles and his mother are also persecuted by Hera – like Apollo.

Herakles is also born with a twin {a sister} – like Apollo and Diana, or Romulus and Remus.

Herakles also strangles or kills serpents as a baby, i.e. soon after his birth – like Apollo.}

She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.”

And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. 

The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.

...

When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.

The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach. ”

 

This, as indicated above, seems to be taken verbatim from the legend of the birth of Apollo and Diana {Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 140, who lived between 64 BCE & 17 CE}:

“At that time Jove {Zeus} lay with Latona, daughter of Polus...

When Juno {Hera} found this out, she decreed that Latona should give birth at a place where the sun did not shine.

When Python knew that Latona was pregnant by Jove, he followed her to kill her.

But by order of Jove the wind Aquilo {Boreas} carried Latona away, and bore her to Neptunus {Poseidon}.

He protected her, but in order not to make voice Juno’s decree, he took her to the island Ortygia, and covered the island with waves.

When Python did not find her, he returned to Parnassus.

But Neptunus brought the island of Ortygia up to a higher position; it was later called the island of Delos.

There Latona, clinging to an olive tree, bore Apollo and Diana {Artemis}, to whom Vulcanus {Hephaestus} gave arrows as gifts.

Four days after they were born, Apollo exacted vengeance for his mother.”

 

This is also strangely reminiscent of Diodorus’s account of the island where Dionysus is hidden by Ammon.

He uses up an unusual amount of space in describing the forest, the cave, the rocks, and the natural, rather wild, beauty of the place.

He also immediately after, mentions that the duty of guarding baby Dionysus was granted to Athena, who slays the Aegis, “a certain frightful monster which was a difficult antagonist to overcome. For it was sprung from the earth and in accordance with its nature breathed forth terrible flames of fire from its mouth, and its first appearance it made about Phrygia and burned up the land...and after that it ravaged unceasingly the lands about the Taurus mountains and burned up the forests extending from that region as far as India”.

Latona clinging to a {olive} tree and giving birth to Apollo and Diana – twin siblings – is identical to Māyā, the mother of Buddha, clinging to a tree {plakṣa or fig tree in the Lalita Vistāra} in the grove of Lumbini and giving birth to Him.

The same motif is repeated in the birth of Jesus in the Quran:

“She {i.e. Mary} wondered, “How can I have a son when no man has ever touched me, nor am I unchaste?”

He {i.e. Gabriel} replied, “So will it be! ... It is a matter already decreed.”

So she conceived him {i.e. Jesus} and withdrew with him to a remote place {cf. the “wilderness” of the Revelation account, or the island of Delos which was first covered with waves}.

Then the pains of labour drove her to the trunk of a palm tree.

She cried, “Alas! I wish I had died before this, and was a thing long forgotten!”

So a voice reassured her from below her, “Do not grieve! Your Lord has provided a stream at your feet. And shake the trunk of this palm tree towards you, it will drop fresh, ripe dates upon you...”

 

It is astonishing that all these legends are basically the same story being told over & over again, with a small twist here, and a little tweak there, and yet, “experts” deny influence and/or intimate relations!!

 

To return to the account of Diodorus Siculus, the Libyan Ammon

·          marries Rhea,

·          impregnates Amalthea, and

·          fathers Dionysus.

This Dionysus is hidden, and whisked off to a cave on the island of Nysa.

The mother or the child, or the mother-and-child, always need to retreat or flee to some secluded, secretive, or uninhabited region, where the child is born and reared.

Dionysus’s life is in danger, this time from the Goddess-figure, Rhea – who in the Romulus-legend becomes the mother of the god-hero.

The legend recounted by Diodorus is evidently a permutation of the Zeus legend itself.

Thus, while in most legends, Amalthea is the mother or nurse of Zeus – in this one, she is the mother of Dionysus.

Ammon, being the father of Dionysus, may be identified with Zeus, though Diodorus certainly distinguishes the two, and they’re two distinct characters in the same account.

This seems to be a meaningless variation, because names, people, and places are all perpetually exchanged in all these myths.

We are told that Ammon fought a war with Cronus – as Zeus was supposed to have done.

In one legend, Rhea goes to Crete, gives birth to Zeus, and gives the care of the baby to the Curetes {the baby is suckled by Amalthea}.

In the other legend, Ammon, to avoid the wrath of Rhea, takes the child of Amalthea to Nysa – and is said to have escaped to Crete, and married a woman called Cretĕ, the daughter of the Curetes.

It’s the same legend, split up into two strands, and retold with some rehashing.

The characters are arranged and re-arranged and the strands broken up and re-woven, but they’re the same characters, same strands, the same ideas, same conceptions, even the same names, ordered and re-ordered again and again.

Strabo, in his Geography, relates the same set of terms & epithets to Leto {= Latona} hiding from Hera, to give birth to Apollo and Artemis.

“On the same coast {near the city of Ephesos}, slightly above the sea, is also Ortygia, which is a magnificent grove of all kinds of trees, of the cypress most of all.

{Ortygia is an island in the Diodorus account, and the cave where Dionysus is hidden is located in a beautiful forest.

In Buddhism, Māyā goes to a grove, and gives birth to Buddha.

In the Quran, Mary goes to a grove, and gives birth to Jesus.}

It is traversed by the Kenkhrios River, where Leto is said to have bathed herself after her travail.

{According to the Wikipedia, pertaining to Pharaoh’s daughter going down to the river, she probably bathed in it: “Rabbinic literature ... portraying Pharaoh’s daughter as having suffered from a skin disease, the pain of which only the cold waters of the Nile could relieve, and that these lesions healed when she found Moses.”}

For here is the mythical scene of the birth, and of the nurse Ortygia, and of the holy place where the birth took place, and of the olive tree near by, where the goddess is said first to have taken a rest after she was relieved from her travail.

{Like Nysa is a nymph in the Diodorus account, Ortygia is not only the name of an island, or a grove, but a person, out here.}

Above the grove lies Mt. Solmissos, where, it is said, the Kuretes stationed themselves, and with the din of their arms frightened Hera out of her wits when she was jealously spying on Leto, and when they helped Leto to conceal from Hera the birth of her children.

{Here, the dragon/King/father-figure who threatens the life of the mother and/or the child, is Hera.

“Hera” and “Rhea” might well be the same word.

We have just read in the Pseudo-Apollodorus account above, that the Curetes were the ones who nursed Zeus, when his mother was Rhea.

In the 5^th century BCE, one of the three greatest Greek dramatists, Euripedes, wrote in his play Bacchae:

“O secret chamber the Curetes knew!

O holy cavern in the Cretan glade where Zeus was cradled, where for our delight the triple-crested Korybantes (Corybantes) drew tight the round drum-skin, till its wild beat made rapturous rhythm to the breathing sweetness of Phrygian flutes!

Then divine Rhea found the drum could give her Bacchic airs completeness.”

Ammon, having hid Dionysus in Nysa & with a nymph called Nysa, from Rhea, is said to have married a woman called Cretě, daughter of the Curetes.

In Strabo, we read that Curetes saved Apollo.

All accounts refer to the same thing, and all gods are essentially one and the same.}

There are several temples in the place, some ancient and others built in later times; and in the ancient temples are many ancient wooden images, but in those of later times there are works of Skopas; for example, Leto holding a sceptre and Ortygia standing beside her with a child in each arm.

A general festival is held there annually; and by a certain custom the youths vie for honor, particularly in the splendor of their banquets there.

At that time, also, a special college of the Curetes holds symposiums and performs certain mystic sacrifices.”

 

Ammon-Zeus-Jupiter in turn is associated with Moses, the child hidden in a basket by a river, to escape the wrath of Pharaoh {= Rhea = Hera = Herod; is the word Pharaoh connected to Hera & Rhea? And Herod?}.

 

Amun-Ra = Ammon = Zeus = Dionysus = Jupiter-Ammon

 

It’s not surprising that the foster-mother of Moses – i.e. Thermutis – is the wife of Amon-Ra, i.e. Ammon.

Thermutis is modelled on the goat/goat-herdess/nymph Amalthea, lover of Ammon, mother/foster-mother of Zeus or Dionysus, i.e. Greek versions of the Egyptian Amun, but filtered heavily through Jewish thinking {baby Moses doesn’t drink her milk}.

 

All this is further rehashed & written into the tale of Romulus & Remus, in which

·          the mother is Rhea,

·          the babies are whisked away {to be killed, not saved} to be cast into a river, but like Moses, set on its bank

·          are brought up by a swineherd or shepherd or “keeper of flocks” {hence, the ram-goat-bull-cow association}, and

·          are suckled by a she-wolf {in the other case, a goat}.

 

To return to Massey.

We see that all the ideas – infact, almost each and every idea associated with Jesus – was already thought of, and written, sometime or the other, somewhere or the other.

The glowing, grandiose image of the Saviour-Messiah who shall establish a universal reign of peace & joy, with which Jesus was vested—was earlier vested in Augustus Caesar.

Massey writes:

“But not only in Egypt was the divine hero, the Prince of Eternity, represented by the royal child born heir-apparent to the throne.

It was the same in Rome.

For instance, the birthday of Augustus Caesar was hailed in Rome as that of the messianic Prince of Peace.

In a well-preserved Greek inscription of 84 lines, in which an ancient account is given of the introduction of the Julian calendar on the birthday of the Emperor Caesar Augustus, September 23rd, it is written:—

‘On this day [i.e., the birthday of Augustus] the world has been given a different aspect.

It would have been doomed to destruction if great good fortune common to all men had not appeared in him who was born on this day.

He judges aright who sees in this birthday the beginning of life and of all living powers for himself.

Now at last the times are passed when man must regret that he has been born.

From no other day does the individual and all humanity receive so much good as from this day, which has brought happiness to all.

It is impossible to find words of thanksgiving sufficient for the great blessings which this day has brought.

That Providence which presides over the destinies of all living creatures has fitted this man for the salvation of humanity with such gifts that he has been sent to us and to coming generations as a saviour.

He will put an end to all strife and will restore all things gloriously.

In his appearance, all the hopes of the ancestors have been fulfilled.

He has not only surpassed all former benefactors of mankind, but it is impossible that a greater than he should ever come.

The birthday of this god [i.e., Augustus] has brought out the good news of great joy based upon him.

From his birth a new era must begin.’

...

The Egyptian repa or the Roman Caesar was enacting on this earth, approximately, the character assigned to the son of God in the Egypto-gnostic mysteries.

The world would have been doomed to destruction but for the rebirth in time of the messu or messiah, the repa or divine heir, who represented the eternal as the child, the ever-coming prince of peace, who is also imaged as the living link which connects and unites the past and future in the present, by means of him who became the representative of the deity on earth, whether in Egypt or in Rome, in India or Japan.

But the man whose coming changed the world, and saved it by renewal, was mythical, and his advent was aeonian from age to age, under whatsoever name.

Thus, in Rome the Emperor Augustus personalized the coming prince of peace in an historical character.

...

The repetition of this as Christian legend in the gospels is no mere replica of ‘heathen’ sentiments, images, types, and phrases.

It is a reproduction of the Egyptian astronomical mythology and eschatology in the disguise of a pretended history.

In Egypt the pharaoh and his son for ages had represented Ra and the repa, the divine heir-apparent or the prince.

As Egyptian the fatherhood and sonship of the one god were founded on the pharaoh and the heir-apparent, the Ra and repa, who constituted the king that never died.

The son of God was born as manifestor for the eternal, and the ruler as pharaoh, emperor or king, was the earthly representative of the god with whose divinity the new historical ruler was invested as the anointed, the repa, the prince, the Caesar, the Mikado, the Cyrus, or the Christ.

...

This birth of the eternal in time was astronomical.

But it was humanized

·          for the birthday of Amen-hetep in Egypt,

·          for Alexander in Greece, and

·          for Caesar Augustus in Rome

before the era that was designated Christian.

The virgin-mother in mythology, and there never was any other, is she who made her proclamation in the temple of Neith at Sais that she proceeded from herself and bore the child without her peplum being lifted by the male.

The myth reflects the matriarchate from a time when the fatherhood was not yet individualized.

...

The mother with child, the great or enceinte mother, is at the head of the Kamite pantheon as the mother of life and a figure of fecundity.

This type of the mother and child retains its position in the Christian iconography when the child Jesus, like Kheper, is exhibited in the Virgin’s womb surrounded by the seven spirits as doves.

The mother with her child in utero or in her arms was indefinitely earlier than the typical father and son whose worshippers were opposed to the more primitive representation of nature.

Horus, at first, is the child of Isis only, with Seb as putative or foster-father, who was not the begetter.”

 

Massey connects Joseph to the Egyptian god Seb, also known as Geb – as in the original being Io-seph or Iu-Seb.

 

He relentlessly pursues each and every episode in the New Testament to some or the other episode or myth or symbol or reference or image, in Egypt, or Egyptian texts.

Even hiding the divine baby is traced to Egypt:

“The infant Horus was suckled by Isis in solitude.

She is said to have nursed him in secret.

No one knew the hiding-place, but it was somewhere in the marshes of Amenta, the lower Egypt of the mythos.

As an earthly locality, the place where Isis hid herself to suckle her child was identified in the marshes of the delta.

This part of the programme is fulfilled in the gospel according to Matthew, and there only, by the flight into Egypt. ...

The child of the mother had to be taken down into Egypt in order that the Son of God might be brought up out of it, and for the mythos to be fulfilled as biblical history.

...

At the birth of Horus the life of the young child was sought by the evil Sut.

{Sut = Pharaoh = Hera = Herod = Kansa = Rhea = Python {sent by Hera to kill Apollo}}

The mother was warned of the danger by Taht, the lunar god, called the great one.

{who is, as Budge says “the Lord of “the words of God”: Taht = Thoth = Mercury = Hermes, later Hermes Trismegistus}

He says to her, ‘Come, thou goddess Isis, hide thyself with thy child’; and he tells her it is well to be obedient.

She is to take the child down into the marshes of lower Egypt, called Kheb, or Khebt.

There, says Taht, ‘these things will happen: his limbs will grow; he will wax entirely strong; he will attain the dignity of prince of the double earth, and sit (or rest) upon the throne of his father.’

Then the child and mother make their way to the papyrus-swamps.

It is said that the plants were so secret that no enemy could enter there.

‘Sut could not penetrate this region, or go about in Kheb.’

‘Horus in Kheb’ (Egypt) was a title of the divine child.

Kheb was in the north of Egypt, and it was there that Horus passed his early days, and was reared in secret by his mother Isis.”

 

We have seen that a large number of accounts in the Greco-Roman world were of this stamp.

In the 8^th-7^th century BCE, one of the two great founders of Greek culture, Hesiod, wrote in his Theogony:

“But when she {i.e. Rhea, the Mother of the Gods, and wife of Kronos} was about to bear Zeus, the father of gods and men, then she besought her own dear parents, Gaia (Earth) and starry Ouranos (Heaven), to devise some plan with her that the birth of her dear child might be concealed, and that retribution might overtake great, crafty Kronos for his own father and also for the children whom he had swallowed down.

And they readily heard and obeyed their dear daughter, and told her all that was destined to happen touching Kronos the king and his stout-hearted son.

So they sent her to Lyettos (Lyettus) {related to Leto, Latona?}, to the rich land of Krete (Crete), when she was ready to bear great Zeus, the youngest of her children. Him did vast Gaia (Earth) receive from Rhea in wide Krete to nourish and to bring up.

Thither came Gaia (Earth) carrying him swiftly through the black night to Lyktos (Lyctus) first, and took him in her arms and hid him in a remote cave beneath the secret places of the holy earth on thick-wooded Mount Aigion (Aegion) {remember the dragon Aegis, slayed by Athena, who stood guard over baby Dionysus}...”

 

Similarly, in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, an apocryphal Christian text:

“When, therefore, Joseph and the blessed Mary were going along the road which leads to Bethlehem, Mary said to Joseph: I see two peoples before me, the one weeping, and the other rejoicing.

And Joseph answered: Sit still on thy beast, and do not speak superfluous words.

Then there appeared before them a beautiful boy, clothed in white raiment...

{He reprimands Joseph, interprets Mary’s vision, and then:}

And when he had thus said, the angel ordered the beast to stand, for the time when she should bring forth was at hand; and he commanded the blessed Mary to come down off the animal, and go into a recess under a cavern, in which there never was light, but always darkness, because the light of day could not reach it.

And when the blessed Mary had gone into it, it began to shine with as much brightness as if it were the sixth hour of the day.

The light from God so shone in the cave, that neither by day nor night was light wanting as long as the blessed Mary was there.

And there she brought forth a son, and the angels surrounded Him when He was being born.

And as soon as He was born, He stood upon His feet, and the angels adored Him, saying: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good pleasure.”

 

It’s quite normal to have some sort of divine or celestial or super-natural beings attend the birth of a God, or child of God, on Earth – but it’s just as possible that these Angels are modelled on the Curetes which protected Zeus and Apollo.

 

We are told by Massey that Isis hid in Kheb or Khebt.

Interestingly, there is a faint reflection of this in the legend of Romulus & Remus.

Plutarch writes:

“As for the babes, they were taken up and reared by Faustulus, a swineherd of Amulius, and no man knew of it; or, as some say with a closer approach to probability, Numitor did know of it, and secretly aided the foster-parents in their task.

{Numitor is the grandfather of Romulus & Remus – in Hesiod’s account, Gaia, the grandmother of Zeus, helps protect Zeus; in the Moses account, the sister and mother themselves help.}

And it is said that the boys were taken to Gabii to learn letters and the other branches of knowledge which are meet for those of noble birth. 

Moreover, we are told that they were named, from “ruma,” the Latin word for teat, Romulus and Romus (or Remus), because they were seen sucking the wild beast. ”

 

Isn’t the Gabii of this account identical to the Kheb or Khebt mentioned by Massey?

This Gabii-Kheb-Khebt i.e. Lower Egypt, becomes simply Egypt in the New Testament account.

Egypt was universally considered to be the source and seat of all ancient mathematic & scientific knowledge and arcane wisdom, at least in Ancient Greece, so it’s not strange that Romulus and Remus are sent there, to acquire knowledge.

I’d request the reader not to think that I am making haste in associating the relatively insignificant, innocuous Gebii with Kheb, i.e. Egypt.

The etymological associations go very deep, and can be examined at length.

To do full justice to such a topic would require at least four full-length blog posts.

I have every reason to think that the words are related.

Given the apocryphal legends of Jesus being an Egyptian initiate or sorceror, it seems plausible enough that the Flight into Egypt conceals a hidden notion of the acquistion of esoteric knowledge in Egypt.

Yet, that may not be the case.

The Talmud does associate the controversial figure of Yeshu, with a temporary flight into Egypt, but under considerably different circumstances {Babylonia Sanhedrin 107a}:

“When King Yannai was executing the Rabbis, Simeon ben Shetach was hidden by his sister (and) Rabbi Joshua ben Perachiah went (and) fled to Alexandria of Egypt.

When peace was made, Simeon ben Shetach sent him {a letter intimating that peace has been established} ...

(Joshua ben Perachiah) said “I learn from (the letter) that there is peace!”

When he came, (they) arrived at an inn.

(The innkeeper) stood before him with exemplary honor, and accorded him great honors.

(Joshua) sat and was praising them, (saying): “How beautiful this inn is!”

Yeshu said to him, “My master, her eyes are narrow.”

(The Aramaic words for “inn” and “innkeeper” were the same)

(Joshua) said to him “Wicked one, is this how you conduct yourself?!”

He brought out four hundred shofarot and excommunicated him.

Every day, (Yeshu) would come before him, but (Joshua) did not accept him.”

 

In other words, Jesus did escape to Egypt from persecution of learned men by a Jewish king – but not as a baby, and not with his mother.

 

And then we have the severe condemnations of Celsus:

“... {Jesus} came from a Jewish village and from a poor country woman who earned her living by spinning.

He says that she was driven out by her husband, who was a carpenter by trade, as she was convicted of adultery.

Then he says that after she had been driven out by her husband and while she was wandering about in a disgraceful way she secretly gave birth to Jesus.

He states that because he {Jesus} was poor he hired himself out as a workman in Egypt, and there tried his hand at certain magical powers on which the Egyptians pride themselves; he returned full of conceit, because of these powers, and on account of them gave himself the title of God ... the mother of Jesus is described as having been turned out by the carpenter who was betrothed to her, as she had been convicted of adultery and had a child by a certain soldier named Panthera.”

 

Here we do have a somewhat muddled reference to initiation and acquisition of forbidden knowledge, of occult powers, in Egypt.

The Talmud again puts it in a slightly different way in the Sanhedrin 104b:

“We learned in the mishna: If one unwittingly scratches letters on his flesh on Shabbat, Rabbi Eliezer deems him liable to bring a sin-offering and the Sages deem him exempt. It was taught in a baraita that Rabbi Eliezer said to the Rabbis: Didn’t the infamous ben Stada take magic spells out of Egypt in a scratch on his flesh?

They said to him: He was a fool, and you cannot cite proof from a fool.”

 

This Ben-Stada is none other than Jesus – who, going by all accounts – studied in Egypt.

 

This follows in the tradition of all the great philosophers of the Ancient Greek World, like Pythagoras and Solon – who started new cults and gave salutary laws to cities – all of whom studied in Egypt with their priests.

And so do, it seems, Romulus & Remus.

We do read, for instance:

“It is said also that Romulus first introduced the consecration of fire, and appointed holy virgins to guard it, called Vestals.

{Wait ... did he establish the institution of Vestals... because if that’s the case, how was his mother a Vestal?}

Others attribute this institution to Numa, although admitting that Romulus was in other ways eminently religious, and they say further that he was a diviner {like Apollo-Apis}, and carried for purposes of divination the so‑called ‘lituus,’ a crooked staff with which those who take auguries from the flight of birds mark out the regions of the heavens. 

{This crooked staff literally seems to be carried on in the typical Crosier carried by Roman Catholic priests later, till today.

This in turn is undoubtedly related to the crook {with the flail} of the Egyptians – especially Osiris & the Pharaohs – and the ankusha, or crook-shaped elephant-goad, of the Indians, granted to so many deities.}

This staff, which was carefully preserved on the Palatine, is said to have disappeared when the city was taken at the time of the Gallic invasion; afterwards, however, when the Barbarians had been expelled, it was found under deep ashes unharmed by the fire, although everything about it was completely destroyed.”

 

Well, it appears Romulus was something of a founder of a new religion or cult, and a law-giver like Moses or Solon {both of whom studied in Egypt}.

I cannot help emphasizing: Egypt was the land of ancient mysteries, of profound priests & philosophers protecting & preserving the deepest mystic secrets & hoary occult knowledge of the ages – this very fact is denoted by the words “Gabii” and “Kheb”.

The connections of Ancient Egypt with Greece have been seriously downplayed by the modern intellectual elite, which is fundamentally racist and sectarian.

In his dialog Phaedrus, written about 370 BCE, Plato wrote:

“At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters.”

This is the same Taht mentioned by Massey above.

{Taht is Tehuti, Thoth, Teuth, and Taut: Massey insists that Taut is David – who, in Arabic, is called “Daud”.}

This was a universal belief, especially in Ancient Greece.

In other words, Egypt was seen as the root, the womb, and the seat, of all sciences and arts in ancient Europe.

The fundamental root – expressed in words constituting Gb, Kb, Kp, Kf, Kb, Kv, Gv etc. {all these being variations of one another} – is one of the most important roots in the Ancient World – not just in Egypt, but everywhere.

Interestingly enough, like many linguistic roots, it might convey, simultaneously, two very opposite – almost diametrically opposite – fundamental concepts.

 

Returning to the account by Plutarch, one also can’t help notice the peculiar etymology of Rome related to the word for breasts – reference being to the suckling of the twin brothers by a she-wolf – reminiscent of the images of Isis suckling Horus on the one hand, and Mary suckling Jesus, on the other.

The great Diana of Ephesus was famously depicted with multiple breasts on her body.

Massey has multiple views on the etymological roots of the word “Rome”, and it’s not easy to settle on any one; neither does he.

This passage, from The Natural Genesis, however, is interesting:

“The Arab paradise, or Eden, is called the Garden of Irem or Arem.

‘Hast thou not considered how the Lord dealt with Ad, the people of Irem.’

{From the Quran 89.6}

The city of Irem they say is yet standing in the deserts of Aden, although invisible.

Aden is one with Eden, and the Arab tradition identifies another type-name in Irem.

This again corresponds with the Arem of Mesopotamia, the land of the two streams and the two waters, which is called Rum in the Huzvaresh.

The Egyptians called Arem (or Rum) the Nile-Land, Naharina; and another name of the Nile, or its inundation, is urm, urem, or rem.

Also Rome, named from Ruma, the river Tiber, is another form of the earthly paradise under this name—an inner African type-name for water, out of which life issued and creation came.

erem,          is rain in Anan.           

yiramo,      is wet in Mano. 

lem,            is water in Kiamba.    

lem,             ”        Kaure.     

lam,             ”        Legba.

ng-olem,    is water in Tiwi.

almi,            ”         Wadai.

yolma,        is rainy-season in Legba.

yolma,         ”         Kiamha.

yolem,         ”         Kaure.”

This is something I don’t want to comment on, right now.

There are way too many connections, too many complications, too many possibilities.

 

Last but not the least, to conclude this post, I’d take up the similarities between the death, or rather disappearance, of Romulus, and that of Jesus.

Plutarch says:

“He disappeared on the Nones of July, as they now call the month, then Quintilis, leaving no certain account nor even any generally accepted tradition of his death, aside from the date of it, which I have just given.

For on that day many ceremonies are still performed which bear a likeness to what then came to pass...

Romulus disappeared suddenly, and no portion of his body or fragment of his clothing remained to be seen.

But some conjectured that the senators, convened in the temple of Vulcan, fell upon him and slew him, then cut his body in pieces, put each a portion into the folds of his robe, and so carried him away. 

{This does reflect the dismemberment of Osiris by Set.

Oddly enough, this is also deeply reminiscent of the betrayal and murder of Julius Caesar.}

Others think that it was neither in the temple of Vulcan nor when the senators alone were present that he disappeared, but that he was holding an assembly of the people   outside the city near the so‑called Goat’s Marsh, when suddenly strange and unaccountable disorders with incredible changes filled the air; the light of the sun failed, and night came down upon them, not with peace and quiet, but with awful peals of thunder and furious blasts driving rain from every quarter, during which the multitude dispersed and fled, but the nobles gathered closely together; and when the storm had ceased, and the sun shone out, and the multitude, now gathered together again in the same place as before, anxiously sought for their king, the nobles would not suffer them to inquire into his disappearance nor busy themselves about it, but exhorted them all to honour and revere Romulus, since he had been caught up into heaven, and was to be a benevolent god for them instead of a good king. 

{In Matthew’s account of Jesus’s death {27.45-53}:

“From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 

And about 3 o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”...

Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last.

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.

The earth shook, and the rocks were split. 

The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city & appeared to many.”

In the Quranic account, Jesus is literally lifted up into Heaven.}

...

The multitude, accordingly, believing this and rejoicing in it, went away to worship him with good hopes of his favour; but there were some, it is said, who tested the matter in a bitter and hostile spirit, and confounded the patricians with the accusation of imposing a silly tale upon the people, and of being themselves the murderers of the king.”

 

Jesus Christ is both God and King – in theory, and symbolically, and spiritually.

In the Gospel of Luke, Gabriel tells Mary {Luke 1.29-33}, “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

 

But more importantly, we see that just like Jesus appears to his disciples after his death {and Resurrection}, Romulus also appears to a virtuous, noble patrician after his sudden disappearance:

“At this pass, then, it is said that one of the patricians, a man of noblest birth, and of the most reputable character, a trusted and intimate friend also of Romulus himself, and one of the colonists from Alba, Julius Proculus by name, went into the forum and solemnly swore by the most sacred emblems before all the people that, as he was travelling on the road, he had seen Romulus coming to meet him, fair and stately to the eye as never before, and arrayed in bright and shining armour. 

He himself, then, affrighted at the sight, had said:

“O King, what possessed thee, or what purpose hadst thou, that thou hast left us patricians a prey to unjust and wicked accusations, and the whole city sorrowing without end at the loss of its father?”

{This is used in the Jesus legend, splintered and rehashed in myriad ways, for instance in the Luke 24 episode of On the Road to Emmaus:

“Now that same day two of them {Jesus’s apostles} were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 

They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 

As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.”

They recognize him later, after having eaten with him.

All his followers, disciples, and apostles, were grieving about his death, and the disappearance of his body.

Like Romulus was said to have been “caught up into heaven”, Luke writes {24.50-51} of the Post-Resurrection Jesus: “When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven.”

The radiant and wonderful appearance of Romulus, “fair and stately to the eye as never before, and arrayed in bright and shining armour” has been transferred to the Angel in Matthew 28.1-4: “After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. ”

The fact is that if one thinks about it in realistic and historical terms – the body of Jesus had disappeared.

It wasn’t found ever, after his death.

This is not exactly historical, indeed – it was an ancient mythical motif.

Plutarch mentions some famous people, whose bodies had suddenly disappeared.

“Now this is like the fables which the Greeks tell about Aristeas of Proconnesus and Cleomedes of Astypaleia. For they say that Aristeas died in a fuller's shop, and that when his friends came to fetch away his body, it had vanished out of sight; and presently certain travellers returning from abroad said they had met Aristeas journeying towards Croton. ”

This is IDENTICAL to the Post-Crucifixion appearances of Jesus, especially in the Gospel of Luke.

To continue with the narrative of Plutarch:}

 

“Whereupon Romulus had replied:

“It was the pleasure of the gods, O Proculus, from whom I came, that I should be with mankind only a short time, and that after founding a city destined to be the greatest on earth for empire and glory, I should dwell again in heaven.

So farewell, and tell the Romans that if they practise self-restraint, and add to it valour, they will reach the utmost heights of human power.

 And I will be your propitious deity, Quirinus.” 

These things seemed to the Romans worthy of belief, from the character of the man who related them, and from the oath which he had taken; moreover, some influence from heaven also, akin to inspiration, laid hold upon their emotions, for no man contradicted Proculus, but all put aside suspicion and calumny and prayed to Quirinus, and honoured him as a god.”

 

This is almost exactly the situation, of Jesus, in the Biblical myth.

He came to the Earth for a short while {his “ministry” lasted about 3 years, and he died at about 33}, he founded – not a city but – a spiritual & moral & religious Empire which was to overwhelm the entire world – was killed, or condemned to death, or died, suddenly & abruptly – there was betrayal involved – his deadbody was never seen or found – and he was taken up into heaven.

In a certain sense, Romulus is not just the founder of Rome, but of Roman culture and Roman civilization, as we know it.

Jesus is the spiritual founder of the New Rome, of a new religion and a entire new culture built upon that religion.

The radical difference is that Romulus represents a much more ancient, military, aristocratic ideal of a warrior & king – whereas Jesus represents a much later, softer, urban, city-dwelling, cosmopolitan ideal.

Yet, we’re told that he’s the “male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.”” {Revelation 12.5}

Everybody wants to be King or Emperor.

Nobody can found a real kingdom or city in a primitive land, contending with numerous tribes and warring kingdoms – on the principles of “repentance” and “forgiveness of sins”.

Moses, and his band of invading Israelites, couldn’t either – they had to kill, massacre, loot, and destroy.

In this respect, Jesus is like Buddha: you can’t preach vegetarianism & compassion to animals, when you have to hunt for your food everyday, and repel bands of dacoits or invasive tribes trying raiding and marauding your kingdom – when your survival depends on fighting & killing.

Buddhism is also a typical urban, cosmopolitan creed.

Romulus and Moses shouldn’t be judged unfavorably.

Jesus was neither born a king, nor did he ever want to become an actual king.

He was allegedly born into a carpenter’s family, was illiterate, and an itinerant preacher picking up disciples from the hoi-polloi of his society.

Romulus was born into royalty, and was an actual king – in the sense that he ruled over a city and a tribe of men {whether mythically or really}, built a city, gave laws, fought wars, led a kingdom.

Jesus never had such a position – had no such “job”, no such duties & responsibilities.

He thus represented a completely different ethical ideal – not one of fighting, being victorious, and acquiring “temporal” and “material” power and dominion.

 

We see that like Jesus, Romulus was also apotheosized, and worshiped as a god:

“To the surname of Quirinus bestowed on Romulus, some give the meaning of Mars, others that of Citizen, because the citizens were called Quirites; but others say that the ancients called the spear-head (or the whole spear) “quiris,” and gave the epithet Quiritis to the Juno whose statue leans upon a spear, and the name Mars to a spear consecrated in the Regia, and a spear as well as a prize to those who performed great exploits in war; and that Romulus was therefore called Quirinus as a martial, or spear-wielding, god. However that may be, a temple in his honour is built on the hill called Quirinalis after him, and the day on which he vanished is called People’s Flight, and Capratine Nones, because they go out of the city and  sacrifice at the Goat’s Marsh; and “capra” is their word for she-goat.”

 

This is also interesting in its own way, and needn’t be seen as an isolated fact peculiar to this character.

Do note the “goat” connection.

Remember, the greatest of Greco-Roman gods, Zeus {= Jupiter}, was nursed and suckled by a she-goat in Amalthea, when he was being reared in secret, protected from his cannibalistic father Kronos.

I’ll return to this point sometime later.

 

To wrap up.

We have just gone through a variety of quotes, which demonstrate that an overwhelming number of legends of all ancient gods, demigods, and heroes, were basically one and same, with minor variations.

Many significant details of the beautiful, touching and powerful fable of Jesus are demonstrably a highly intelligent reworking of centuries and centuries of myriad such legends and myths.

Similar correspondences can be found in the legend of Moses too.

According to Gerald Massey, the fundamental root of the entire Jesus myth – indeed, the entire Bible, and almost all creeds and cultures of the world – is Egypt.

As I wrote earlier, according to him, the primal root of human civilization itself is inner Africa, but as it emerged in & through Egypt.

To be honest, he “spares” nobody – neither Christian nor Jew, neither Persian nor Indian, neither Greek nor Chinese.

He doggedly subordinates everyone and everything to Egypt.

Gerald Massey may not be strikingly original in his fundamental views, but he has actually put together a mountain-heap of fascinating data, and painstakingly worked out a million connections, to prove his point.

Every episode in the life of Christ, and every idea associated with him, can be traced to Egypt.

In his view, there is absolutely nothing original, and nothing new, in the Biblical narrative of Jesus Christ.

He also traces the grandiose imagery, the glorious hopes, the great messianic expectations, the promise of a new world – surrounding Christ – to figures like Amen-hetep III in Egypt, and Augustus Caesar, in Rome.

 

While he has accomplished something truly astonishing, I don’t think it’s necessary to look for each and every point and letter in Egypt.

The founders of Christianity, in their powerful aspiration to wash over the world like a tidal wave of change, must’ve not looked only to Egypt, but to the entire world around themselves, to create the image of Jesus.

I don’t think we need to look so much at what Egyptians did in 2000 BCE, as to what people in the world around them were doing between the 2^nd centuries BCE & CE, when the specific Jesus myth that came to be accepted by the Roman Church, emerged.

Also, if we were to trace the absolute roots underlying all myths, all legends, all fables, all words, all symbols – it maybe added that Massey doesn’t know much about Sumerian civilization, and doesn’t give it sufficient importance.

Later scholarship has demonstrated the importance of Sumerian culture even if its being the real origin of human civilization is a moot point.

While Egypt was undoubtedly of great importance at the time the Jesus-myth emerged, I see links not only with Egypt, but with Rome, Greece, and to an extent, even India.

Being the “Egypto-Gnostic” that he is, Massey belongs to a very specific and rigid community of “Egyptologists” {for the want of a better word}, who keep insisting on the absolute primacy & supremacy of Egypt over the entire world – and who almost hate India, and especially attack the “Aryan” or “Indo-European” model that emerged in the 19^th century.

This is evidently unfortunate, because the “Aryan” model has been used, not to uphold and glorify India, but against India, against “Brahmins”, and to uphold Greece, Rome, and the white Western-European race.

We reject the “Aryan” model as passionately as Massey does, but for very different reasons, and sometimes pretty opposite ones.

I obviously can’t agree with him on many points, and feel that he misses out on a lot, in his fetish for Egypt.

 

When it comes to the Bible, we have seen how many similarities can be found between the myths of Romulus, Moses, and Jesus.

Truth is, I have merely touched upon a few point, in this post.

This is important, because Rome, and not Jerusalem, has been the principal target and seat of Christianity, from the very beginning.

I don’t think the early Christians were as interested in the Middle East, as they were in Rome – so the founder of the new creed which aspired to step in the place of Caesars of the Roman Empire, would need to be compared to the founder of Rome itself, and other prominent Romans.

We have also seen how links maybe traced to all great Greco-Roman figures – Zeus, Dionysus, Apollo, and {the not-so-Greek} Ammon.

We have seen similarities with the Assyrian Sargon.

I have mentioned some links with India – especially the figures of Kṛṣṇa and Karṇa.

And I’ve not even touched upon the Persian connections.

It is, of course, possible to trace each and every such figure, cult, name, word, and episode – to Egypt – and Massey has done that.

But the founders of Christianity were probably not necessarily thinking in terms of Ancient Egypt, and their knowledge of Pre-Dynastic Egypt remains uncertain to us.

Others have tried to trace such roots to Sumeria.

I would, on my part, refrain from making the kind of categorical assertions that Massey does, but study him assiduously, and extricate as many intriguing, crucial clues and connections that I can find, in his brilliant oeuvre.

Note added on 15^th May, 2022:

I went back and checked about 200-300 pictures of Indian art: I must say that there is almost no fundamental difference between the high, elongated crowns worn by Hindu gods & goddesses, and the Papal tiara.

Indian crowns are not really cylindrical, as I wrote yesterday {which was just a momentary confusion} – many are, but it’s far from being the norm.

So that’s something I needed to correct.

Indian crowns come in considerably different designs & styles, but the fundamental idea & shape is the same – as the Egyptian hedjet crown.

They tend to be somewhat truncated at the top, and then surmounted by a disk-like object with a lotus bud, or simply have a knob, or some other design – but there are numerous crowns which taper in an unbroken curve or line towards the top.

There can be a little perplexity at times, because often what we see in India is not a crown, but the hair piled up high – and it seems to be tied around with something like an elaborate diadem.

This certainly seems to be the case {most often} with male figures like Shiva, Brahmā, and the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara.

Even then, the typical Papal tiara can be a replica of this particular coiffure.

Anybody who doubts this, cam simply go and check out the images of deities on Indian temples, and then check out images of Popes, and God the Father, wearing the typical tiara.

They are the same thing, with minor cosmetic, ornamental differences.

The Catholic mitre is slightly different, though the fundamental principle is again more or less the same {a high crown-like cap which tapers towards the top}: however, the mitre seems to open out, or gape, in the centre, into two flaring halves, front & behind, and clearly divides into two parts.

This imitates the fish, or open fish-mouth design, which has traditionally been traced to the Babylonian civilizing hero-god Dagon-Oannes, but many images purported to be those of Dagon-Oannes are also Egypto-Indian, like the typical Papal Tiara.

I must say that the influence of the Indian crowns on the Papal crowns is pretty much as strong as that of Egypt, though how long back it was found in India itself, isn’t so clear.

I have noticed some more astonishing similarities, and have more intriguing ideas up my sleeve, but of all that ... sometime later!