THE VIRGINAL MYSTERY OF MARY

Regardless of the manner of her impregnation, Isis has been asserted to remain a virgin, calling herself the “Great Virgin” and identified in ancient times with virgin goddesses such as Neith, Athena and Kore. We have seen that the Egyptians allegedly told Ptolemy that the tradition of bringing out a virgin-born savior was a “mystery.” Another related mystery was the doctrine of “perpetual virginity” or “born-again virginity,” so to speak, despite the female’s status as wife and mother, as discussed by the Jewish philosopher Caius Julius Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BCE-c. 50 AD/CE) in his treatise “On the Cherubim” (XIV, 49-50).[755]

In this essay, which appears in the very time and place germane to our discussion, Philo speaks of God as the “husband of Wisdom”—in other words, the female entity Sophia, who has been identified with Isis—and then talks about the virtues of virginity, demonstrating the mystery that allows for a “woman” (one who has known man) to become a virgin once again. Indeed, it was believed by both Philo and early Christians that a woman could regain her virginity “through mystical union with God,” a stance based on Jewish scripture as at Jeremiah 3:4,[756] which Yonge translates as, “Hast thou not called me as thy house, and thy father, and the husband of thy virginity?”[757] Following his discussion in “On the Cherubim” (XIV, 48) in which he first quotes Jeremiah 3:4, Philo remarks:

"For the association of men, with a view to the procreation of children, makes virgins women. But when God begins to associate with the soul, he makes that which was previously woman now again virgin."[758]

The first chapter of Jeremiah 3, in fact, discusses a “woman”—allegory for the land—who has played harlot and engaged in “whoredoms.” The solution to her “pollution” is the scriptural appeal to God: “My father, the author of my virginity.” (Jer 3:4) The Hebrew word translated here as “virginity” is נער —na‘uwr—which Strong’s Exhaustive  oncordance of the Bible (H5271) defines as “youth, early life,” while the Septuagint renders the term as παρθενίας —parthenias, obviously related to parthenos and indeed meaning “virginity.” Jerome’s Latin Vulgate translation of the pertinent word in Jeremiah follows suit with virginitatis, which also means “virginity.”

From his discussion of the Jeremiah passage almost 2,000 years ago, it is evident that Philo too believed the pertinent word na‘uwr to refer to virginity. Indeed, this scripture was interpreted by Philo and others, apparently, to mean that purification “through mystical union with God” could restore a woman’s virginity. In essence, a God-focused woman can become a “born again virgin.”

In discussing the biblical story of the barren, aged wife of the Hebrew patriarch Abraham, Philo remarks that God “will not converse with Sarah before all the habits, such as other women have, have left her, and till she has returned into the class of pure virgins.”[759] Thus, even though Sarah has obviously engaged in intercourse, she becomes a “born-again virgin” by virtue of her piety. This reasoning was probably also used by Christians maintaining that, even though Jesus is depicted in the New Testament as having siblings (Mt 12:46, 13:55; Mk 3:32; Lk 8:19; Jn 2:12), his mother was considered a “perpetual virgin.” Of course, other excuses were proffered as well, such as that these were not really Jesus’s “brothers and sisters” but his cousins instead or Joseph’s children by his “first wife.” Yet, in certain scriptures (Mt 1:24, 25; Lk 2:7) it is implied that after Jesus was born Mary and Joseph engaged in intercourse, so Mary could not possibly be considered a “virgin,” regardless of whether or not she gave birth, unless by this same mystical method as outlined by Philo and as applicable to other divine mothers as well centuries before the common era.[760] In the Greek world, this divine “born-again virgin” status was attained “by means of a bath in a sacred river,” as in the case of the goddess Hera, wife of Zeus and mother of many.[761] Hence, in this mystery we may also find the answer to the dichotomy of goddesses who give birth, yet remain “virgins.”

As we can see, this Jewish writer was retroactively making Jewish heroes the products of virgin births. And Philo’s work appeared before Christianity was founded. There is no evidence whatsoever that Philo had any knowledge of Christ, Christians or Christianity, but there is sufficient evidence that the creators of Christianity used Philo’s works in their efforts. Why would Philo do such a thing? Is it because there were so many virgin-born Pagan gods and heroes with whom to compete? Is this not a clear instance of doctrine being created to compete with another religion, and would we not be wise to suspect that Christianity constitutes but more of the same?

In addition to the renewal of virginity, the virgin birth itself is also one of “the sacred mysteries” repeatedly discussed by Philo,[762] comprising the “mystic union of the soul as female with God as male.”[763] Oxford University professor of Theology Dr. Frederick C. Conybeare (1856-1924) comments that “Philo believed that it was possible for women under exceptional circumstances to conceive and bring forth δια του θεου [through the god] and without human husband.”[764] Thus, Philo revealed the notion of a miraculous or virgin birth to have been a mystery, which is likely one reason we do not find it blasted all over the place in ancient writings, although the concept was surely known to many people over the centuries and millennia.

Isis, Mary and Virgo

As we have seen, the holy mysteries of the virgin birth and virginity restoration/perpetuation existed not only among the Greeks and Jews but also in Egypt, concerning both Neith and Isis, among others. The identification of Isis with the Virgin, in fact, is further made in an ancient Greek text called The Katasterismoi, or Catasterismi, allegedly written by the astronomer Eratosthenes (276-194 BCE), who was for some 50 years the head librarian of the massive Library of Alexandria.[765] Although the original of this text has been lost, an “epitome” credited to Eratosthenes in ancient times has been attributed by modern scholars to an anonymous “Pseudo-Eratosthenes” of the 1st to 2nd centuries AD/CE.[766] In this book, the title of which translates as “Placing Among the Stars,” appear discussions of the signs of the zodiac.

In his essay on the zodiacal sign of Virgo (ch. 9), under the heading of “Parthenos,” the author includes the goddess Isis, among others, such as Demeter, Atagartis and Tyche, as identified with and as the constellation of the Virgin.[767] In Star Myths of the Greeks and Romans, Dr. Theony Condos of the American University of Armenia translates the pertinent passage from the chapter “Virgo” by Pseudo-Eratosthenes thus:

"Hesiod in the Theogony says this figure is Dike, the daughter of Zeus [Dios] and Themis… Some say it is Demeter because of the sheaf of grain she holds, others say it is Isis, others Atagartis, others Tyche…and for that reason they represent her as headless".[768]

The headlessness of the goddess/constellation is interesting in consideration of the story that Isis too was at some point decapitated.[769] Thus, in ancient times Isis was identified with the constellation of Virgo, the Virgin. In fact, as we know well, much of the myth surrounding Osiris, Isis and Horus is indeed astrological or astrotheological. Hence, in the myth of Isis and Horus appears the theme of the constellation of the Virgin giving birth to the baby sun at the winter solstice, long before the Christian era and likely serving as one source for the nativity story of Jesus Christ.

The fact that the Virgin Mary herself is associated with the constellation of Virgo becomes evident from the placement of her “ascension into heaven,” called the “Assumption of the Virgin Mary,” on August 15th, representing one of the four greatest religious festivals in France, for one.[770] Christians believe that this date reflects the time when the mortal Mary ascended or was assumed into heaven. However, the fixation on this date of the supposedly mortal Mary’s assumption is quite obviously a reflection of an ancient observance of the assumption of the constellation of Virgo during the time when the sun god “absorbs the celestial virgin in his fiery course, and she disappears in the midst of the luminous rays and the glory of her son.”[771] Concerning this event, Sir Rev. Jacob Youde William Lloyd (1816-1887) relates:

The Roman Calendar of Columella (Col. lii, cap. ii, p. 429) marks the death or disappearance of Virgo on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of September, that is, on the 15th of August; and on this day the ancient Greeks and Romans fix the Assumption of Astraea, who is the same as Isis. At the end of three weeks or thereabouts, the Calendar notes the birth of the virgin Isis, or her release from the solar rays. On the third day before the Ides, that is the 8th of September, it says the middle of Virgo rises, so that the same  constellation, which is born on the 8th of September, presides at midnight on the 25th of December over the birth of the sun...[772]

The ancient Roman calendar of Columella dates to around 65 AD/CE and does indeed discuss the assumption of the constellation of Virgo, on the precise date centuries later ascribed to Mary’s assumption in the Christian mythos.[773] The Greek goddess Astraea was a daughter of Zeus who, after her ascension into heaven, became Virgo.

Other Virgin Mothers

As previously demonstrated, Neith and Isis are not the only pre-Christian and non-Christian virgin mothers, and their offspring are not the sole products of a virgin or miraculous birth. In yet another instance of an Egyptian virgin birth, the bull god Apis was said to be born from a virgin cow,[774] with Apis identified with Osiris and Hathor also a virgin “cow mother.” Even the sun god Re/Ra is depicted in the texts as being a product of “virgin birth,” being self-created: “I am Rēa who came into being of himself…”[775] Speaking of Re and parthenogenesis, Dr. David Adams Leeming, a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut, says, “The sun god Re was the father of certain Egyptian pharaohs, whose virgin mothers conceived through contact with the ‘breath’ of heavenly fire.”[776]

Regarding the virgin birth, Dr. Leeming further comments:

"The point would seem to be that, in the context of myth and religion, the term virgin birth is rightly applied to any miraculous conception and birth. That is, whether or not the mother is technically a virgin is of secondary importance to the fact that she conceives and/or gives birth by some means other than the ordinary. The virgin birth story is ultimately not the story of a physiological quirk; it is the story of divinity entering the human experience by the only doorway available to it."[777]

Leeming continues with an extensive survey of virgin births worldwide that are quite independent of Christianity. Concerning the commonality of the pre-Christian divine birth, Dr. Conybeare remarks:

"The idea of a woman being made pregnant by the impact of light is common in ancient thought. Thus Plutarch, De Iside 368 D, speaks of Isis as being filled and impregnated by the Sun... The legend of Danae conceiving by Zeus through a shower of gold is similar".[778]

Indeed, Plutarch (43, 368D) does specifically state that Isis, the moon, is impregnated by the sun, which he has elsewhere identified as Osiris:

"For this reason they also call the Moon the mother of the world, and they think that she has a nature both male and female, as she is receptive and made pregnant by the Sun…."[779]

The Greek myth of the virgin Danae being impregnated by Zeus as a “golden shower”— essentially sunlight, which could be deemed the “breath of heavenly fire”—and giving birth to the divine son, Perseus, is referred to by the Christian apologist Justin Martyr (100-165 AD/CE), in his comparison of Christianity with pre-Christian myth. In Dialogue with Trypho (66), in his defense of Christ’s virgin birth, Justin says:

"...in the fables of those who are called Greeks, it is written that Perseus was begotten of Danae, who was a virgin; he who was called among Zeus having descended on her in the form of a golden shower."[780]

In chapter 22 of his First Apology, Justin reiterates the comparison between Christ’s birth and that of Perseus:

And if we even affirm that He was born of a virgin, accept this in common with what you accept of Perseus."[781]

In this same regard, ancient skeptic Celsus (2nd cent. AD/CE) remarked; “Clearly the Christians have used the myths of the Danae and the Melanippe, or of the Auge and the Antiope in fabricating the story of Jesus’ virgin birth.”[782]

In chapter 54 of the same Apology, Justin basically accuses the “heathens” of plagiarizing the Old Testament “prophecy” at Isaiah 7:14:

"...And when they heard it said by the other prophet Isaiah, that He should be born of a virgin, and by His own means ascend into heaven, they pretended that Perseus was spoken
of."[783]

This scripture at Isaiah 7:14 refers to a “maiden” giving birth to one named “God is with us” or Emmanuel who has been interpreted in Christian tradition to be a “virgin,” i.e., Mary, bringing forth Jesus. Indeed, the author of the gospel of Matthew (1:23) copies this passage in the Septuagint verbatim. Furthermore, the argument about the “prophecy” at Isaiah 7:14 is specious, because the original Hebrew term for “maiden” is almah, which means “young woman” but not necessarily a virgin. As noted, the Hebrew term for “virgin” is bethulah. This example provides an important instance where facts have been twisted by fervent Christian proselytizers in attempts to validate their faith.

In Trypho (70), Justin comes up with the infamous Christian excuse for the existence of these various themes in pre-Christian mythology—“the devil got there first!”:

“...And when I hear, Trypho,” said I, “that Perseus was begotten of a virgin, I understand that the deceiving serpent counterfeited also this.”[784]

Thus, as we can see, in order to explain the presence of the virgin birth in so-called Pagan mythology, Justin, along with other Church fathers, argued both that the Pagans plagiarized the Old Testament and that the devil, knowing Christ would be born of a virgin, planted the idea in the heads of the pre-Christians. Nowhere does this early Church father suggest that the Pagans plagiarized from Christianity, and it is quite evident that the virgin-birth motif is pre-Christian and therefore neither unique nor any more “historical” with Christianity than these other, mythical nativities. Of course, centuries later the author of the Paschal Chronicle came up with a different but more sophisticated excuse for the pre-Christian virgin birth of the divine savior as having been “prophesied” by Jeremiah and imitated out of piety before it happened.

In 'The Virgin Goddess: Studies in the Pagan and Christian Roots of Mariology', Dr. Stephen Benko, a professor of Religion and Philosophy at Temple University and a professed Christian, discusses the apocryphal text regarding Christ’s childhood called the Protevangelium. In his analysis of this Christian text, Dr. Benko suggests that the author was influenced by the widespread cult of the Phrygian goddess Cybele, concluding, “Apparently the author’s aim was to elevate Mary to the level of the great virgin-mother goddesses of the Greco-Roman world.”[785] Like Binsbergen’s matter-of-fact statements regarding parthenogenesis, Benko’s comments indicate that the existence of pre-Christian, virgin-mother goddesses and their influence upon Christianity represents a foregone conclusion within the world of academia.

Indeed, in 'A Feminist Companion to Mariology', Dr. John W. Van den Hengel, Dean of the Faculty of Theology at St. Paul University, Ottawa, remarks: “Few theologians doubt, in the words of Stephen Benko, that the development of early doctrines concerning Mary is ‘rooted in popular piety that was motivated by pagan precedents, more precisely by the worship of Cybele.’”[786]

As we have seen, the Greek goddess Hera, wife of the amorous Zeus, was said to restore her virginity each year by bathing in a river. In Virgin Mother Crone, Donna Wilshire states that Hera “is specifically said to have conceived Her children parthenogenically.”[787] Regarding Hera, Wilshire further states that “‘Parthenia’ is one of Her titles that translates as ‘Virgin,’ meaning ‘belonging to Herself,’...”[788] Dr. Theodora Hadzisteliou Price likewise asserts that such mother goddesses as Hera and Athena were called “Parthenos,” with Hera annually bathing to renew her virginity.[789]

In this regard, Dr. Price also says in her analysis of the ancient Greek nursing deities that the “concept of virgin-birth of Gods and heroes is very common.”[790] In reality, the Greeks “would not accept a new god unless he was born by the visitation of God to a virgin.”[791] In her study of the “nursing goddess,” or Kourotrophos, Price also says that “it is not surprising that the Kourotrophos, originally the Goddess of fertility of plants, animals and men, is in many cases a virgin and mother.”[792]

As another example of a virgin-born Greek hero, Conybeare relates that the famous Greek mystic Plato (428/427-348/347 BCE), upon whose work significant aspects of Christianity appear to have been founded, was also thought to have been the product of a virgin birth:

...Plato was himself believed to have been a born of a virgin mother, who conceived him by the god Apollo. Such a myth grew up quite naturally about Plato...[793]

Indeed, in his apology for Christ’s nativity, Origen (Contra Celsus 1.37) raises the issue of Plato’s purported virgin birth from the union of his mother and the god Apollo,[794] as does Jerome in his Against Jovinianus (Adv. Jov. 1.42).[795] In the same regard, Forlong states:

"The legend of virgin birth was at least as old as the 2nd century a.c. among Christians; but Buddha, Zoroaster, Plato, Alexander, and even Tartar emperors and Pharaohs, were called the children of virgins by some god, as well as Christ".[796]

In "Heroes and Heroines of Fiction", William S. Walsh likewise discusses the virgin-birth motif found in the non-Christian world:

"Virgin-mothers. Long before the time of Christ, parthenogenesis, or reproduction by a virgin, was as familiar to ancient Greek, Egyptian and Oriental legend as it is to modern biology. …Buddha was only one of many Oriental heroes whose mother was a virgin. The Egyptian Horus was conceived by Isis without the direct intervention of a male. Isis has been identified with the Greek Demeter, and Demeter also was a virgin, even when she bore a child, Persephone or Proserpine."[797]

As we have seen, the Greek earth mother Demeter/Ceres, who gave birth to the season goddess Persephone/Kore, was also said to be a virgin, equated with Virgo by Pseudo-Eratosthenes, for one, as well as with Isis by Diodorus. As Theodora Price likewise states, “Demeter, the mother par excellence of the Greek religion, who gave birth to Kore, perhaps to Iakchos, even to Artemis according to one tradition...is also a virgin.”[798] Regarding the virginal status of Demeter, in its entry on the “Virgin Birth,” the authoritative Christian publication 'The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge' reports:

"Nowhere, perhaps, has comparative religion discovered a more impressive instance of virgin birth than in the Eleusinian Mysteries. The supreme moment of the solemn celebration of these rites was marked by the marriage of the sacred mother and the birth of the sacred child. The mother was Brimo, a maiden, a goddess of the underworld, the Thessalian Kore or Demeter, the goddess of the fruits of the cultivated earth…. Thus at the very heart and culmination of the ceremonies at this sacred shrine in ancient Greece, centuries before its appearance in the Septuagint, the dogma had been created, “A virgin shall conceive and shall bear a son.”[799]

As we have also seen, Epiphanius asserted that Kore herself was the virgin mother of the sun, brought out at the winter solstice. Also, the presence of the virgin-mother theme in the Septuagint or Greek Old Testament at Isaiah 7:14 might prove the motif’s pre-Christian existence, if it were certain the relevant texts from the Septuagint (“LXX”) had actually been translated before the creation of the Christ character. Indeed, despite Christian tradition that the entire LXX was created centuries before the common era, there remains a debate about whether or not the Greek books of the prophets were forged well into the common era to conform to Christian doctrine and demonstrate it to be “biblical.” If it is contended that the book of Isaiah was translated into Greek along with the Torah two to three centuries before the common era — with the term parthenos to describe the mother — we therefore possess a pre-Christian mention of the virgin birth that could have been used as a blueprint for Christ’s nativity. If, however, it is admitted that this part of the LXX was translated after Christ’s purported advent, then we have a clearcut instance of dishonesty and forgery on the part of early Christians, as has been the case with the many forged or “apocryphal” Christian gospels, letters and so on.[800]

Not only does this entry from Schaff-Herzog validate the claim that there were other, pre-Christian virgin births, but it also supports the contention that this motif of parthenogenesis constituted a mystery, part of the famous Eleusinian Mysteries, for example. Indeed, concerning the “double goddess of Eleusis,” the site of the Eleusinian Mysteries, Dr. Faure relates that she is “both virgin and mother” who gives birth to “the child she conceived by the supreme god...”[801]

This fact of the virgin birth representing a mystery was also verified by Philo, long before the virgin birth of Jesus Christ could be found in the historical/literary record, and, we contend, is one of the reasons it is not widely known today, although it was well enough acknowledged in ancient times. In the same manner, Isis likewise possessed her mysteries, evidently including her own perpetual virginity.

In our analysis of the divine, miraculous and virgin birth, we could become involved into a long digression concerning the terms virgo and virgo intacta, but, despite the quibbling, we would still need to establish that the average worshipper likewise perceived these theological subtleties. Indeed, the discussion becomes moot when we factor in this propensity towards renewed or “born again” virginity, as found in the mysteries.

NOTES

[755] Philo/Yonge, 85.
[756] Conybeare, 305.
[757] Philo/Yonge, 85.
[758] Philo/Yonge, 85.
[759] Philo/Yonge, 85.
[760] The goddesses who give birth to a number of children yet remain pure, chaste and “virginal” include Krishna’s mother, Devaki. (See “Krishna, Born of a Virgin?” in my book Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled.)
[761] Price, T., 203.
[762] See, e.g., De Fuga et Inventione, XVI (Philo/Yonge, 328); Quod A Deo Mittantur Somnia, XIV (Philo/Yonge, 372).
[763] Conybeare, 304.
[764] Conybeare, 304.
[765] Condos, 17.
[766] Condos, 18-19.
[767] Eratosthenes, 244-245. The original Greek reads: “Παρθένος. Ταύτην Ήσιοδος εν θεογονία ειρηκε θυγατέρα Διος Θέμιδος…οί μεν γαρ αυτήν φασιν ειναι Δήμητραν δια το εχειν στάχυν, οι δε Ισιν, οι δε Αταργάτιν, οι δε Τύχην…”
[768] Condos, 205.
[769] Griffiths, OOHC, 104; Redford, 111, 355.
[770] Levillain, 124.
[771] Lloyd, II, 360.
[772] Lloyd, II, 360-361.
[773] The original Latin is as follows: “XIII Kal. Sept. Sol in Virginem transitum facit. Hoc et sequenti die tempestatem significat, interdum et tonat. Hoc eodem die Fidis occidit…. III Kal. Sept. Vmeri Virginis exoriuntur, Etesiae desinunt flare et interdum hiemat.” (Columella, XI, 58; Lundström edition, 1902-1917.)
[774] Taylor, J.H., 251; Enc. Brit., II, 173.
[775] Faulkner, AECT, I, 244.
[776] Leeming, 273.
[777] Leeming, 273.
[778] Conybeare, 242.
[779] Plutarch/Babbitt, 105. (Emph. added.)
[780] Roberts, A., ANF, I, 231. In The Virgin Birth, evangelist Rev. Dr. John Gresham Machen (1881-1937) asserts that, while Justin himself uses the term “virgin,” it does not appear in the original Pagan stories of divine and miraculous births. Machen also objects that the comparison is inapt, because the Pagan gods such as Zeus were full of “lust,” while the Christian God impassively causes Christ’s conception. In the first place, the Greek word  παρθένος/parthenos appears hundreds of times in pre-Christian texts, such as in the works of Homer, Hesiod, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Euripides, Xenophon and Plato, in reference to various deities, among others. It is apparent that the term “virgin” was used in ancient texts, many of which have not come down to us either at all or without tampering. Indeed, we have seen that Epiphanius’s work in which he discusses the virgin birth of “Aion” was mutilated in at least one edition, leading us to wonder both why and whether or not such censorship has happened with other works from antiquity. It is thus possible, perhaps even probable, that Justin knew of such texts with the pertinent word for “virgin” in them—why else would he raise the subject, when it constituted an admission against the originality and uniqueness of Jesus’s virgin birth? If the Pagan “virgin birth” was not the same or was a plagiarism based on Christian doctrine, why wouldn’t Martyr point out that fact? But he never does, and logically we may conclude that the Pagan divine birth of Perseus, e.g., was indeed virginal and that it was not taken from Christianity. Also, we do know that the virginity of goddesses and gods was a subject of great interest to the Pagans, as not only were Athena, Artemis and Apollo called parthenos —“virgin”—but so too was Zeus, despite having impregnated so many. Per Robert Graves: “Thus the Orphic hymn celebrates Zeus as both Father and Eternal Virgin.” (Graves, R., 361.) Furthermore, we have seen from Philo, writing around 25 AD/CE, that the virgin birth was a mystery, one that he surely did not just make up on the spot but was relating as a very old tradition that undoubtedly preceded the common era. In his discussion, Philo definitely uses the term parthenos, many times in fact, although not in the context of a goddess per se. As to Machen’s second objection, even in the dispassionate account of Mary’s impregnation by God the Father—and if it is not he who is fecundating Mary, then Jesus cannot be deemed his “son” — we find an imposition by the all-powerful God upon an innocent little girl traditionally depicted as 12 years old when she became pregnant! It is difficult to see how these two acts are very different and how the Christian conception of the son of God is morally superior to the Pagan conception of the son of God. Instead of causing such trouble for a little girl—whose character was assailed because of it, according to the tale—would it not be more sensible for God simply to have manifested himself fully grown? Why the silly game, unbecoming of a dignified deity? And why not manifest now and set the record straight once and for all?
[781] Roberts, A., ANF, I, 170.
[782] Celsus/Hoffman, 56.
[783] Roberts, A., ANF, I, 181.
[784] Roberts, A., ANF, I, 234.
[785] Benko, 202.
[786] Levine, 134. The devout Christian Benko offers the apology that, despite the obvious “borrowing” by Christians of these “pagan precedents,” this fact “means only that Christianity is firmly anchored in the historical process; it does not mean that Christianity reverted to an earlier, primitive state of paganism.” (Benko, 205.) However, what this fact does mean is that Christianity did indeed borrow cherished doctrines and that it is therefore not a “divine revelation.”
[787] Wilshire, 32.
[788] Wilshire, 32.
[789] Price, T., 203.
[790] Price, T., 202.
[791] Price, T., 203.
[792] Price, T., 203.
[793] Conybeare, 317.
[794] Origen/Chadwick, 36.
[795] Schaff, VI, 380-381.
[796] Forlong, 505.
[797] Walsh, 344.
[798] Price, T., 204.
[799] NSHERK, 212.
[800] For more on the subject, see my book The Christ Conspiracy.
[801] Bonnefoy, REM, 33.

Written by D.M. Murdock in  "Christ in Egypt- The Horus-Jesus Connection" Stellar House Publisher, USA, 2011, excerpts pp.114-122. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.