THE THEOLOGY OF MR JAMES AITKEN.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16038, 31 January 1920, Page 11

THE THEOLOGY OF MR JAMES AITKEN.

To the Editor

Sir, —When your correspondent throws out such absurd challenges as that contained in his letter appearing in your issue of the 29th it surely implies that he labours under the impression that all the rest of the community have followed the same narrow groove of liter--1 ature which has, apparently, sufficed to satisfy his own mind. Had he, as a student of human life and thought should do, studied the origins of any of the great religious, he would have found that they almost invariably account for the birth of their saviours by a virgin birth. He will find it in Egypt in the case of Horue born of the virgin Isis, and this from, perhaps, the oldest literature of the world. If your correspondent will read J. M. Robertson’s “Christianity and Mythology” he will find therein ample proof that the virgin-mother myth is universal in Paganism and “has no recognised place in orthodox Judaism before the Jesuist period.” Mr Aitken’s contention is by no means original. The Rev. McCulloch, in his “Comparative Religion and the Historic Christ,” deals at length with the subject, although he sought to becloud tiie issue by introducing the matter of “male congress” as the essential element. But even here he was shown to be entirely at fault, as in the cases of virgin-births which could be quoted from pagan mythology in which the impregnation is of a mystical nature. In fact it is still in existence amongst certain primitive races. The work of Spencer and Gillen amongst the aborigines of Central and Northern Australia, as well as Roth’s latest work ou the same people, shows clearly that they believe in a spirit entrance rather than natural causes, and most cultivated opinion tends to the view that this has, at an early period in their evolution, been the ruling idea on this subject amongst other peoples in ■ the past. In the cases of Krishna and Buddha you have every detail clearly I described, both being born of virgin mothers (Devaki and Maya), both are “announced,” born in a cave or rock temple, live their lives teaching and performing miracles, died and descend to hell, and afterwards ascend into Heaven. It is all there and, as is well known, antedates Christianity by hundreds of years. Let your oori'espondjent read the article entitled “Buddhism,” in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. iv., and amongst other information he will derive from that article he will read that “We are accustomed to find the legendary and the miraculous gathering, like a halo, around the early history of religious leaders, until the sober truth runs the risk of being altogether neglected for the glittering and edifying falsehood.” If your correspondent wishes to become acquainted with one of the strangest and most fantastic excursions the human mind has ever made into these realms of mystical procreation let him read the description of how it came about in the case of Mary, in the Mohammedan Koran. This is altogether at variance with the Virgin-Mother-Goddess of Sais (in the Mediterranean), whose fruit was the Sun, and whose robe no male had raised. In this connection we further trace the significance of the names of Maira, and Maia, the daughter of Atlas, and of Myrrha, the mother of Adonis, the slain Saviour of the Syrians; also Maya, the Virgin-Mother of Buddha, while she who is reported to have “found” the young Moses is named Merris, or Mori (Eusebius Praeparatio Bvangelica, ix., 27). But, Sir, one could fill you columns on such a subject and, perhaps, come no nearer to convincing your correspondent of the absurdity of his contention, so I will come to an end with this suggestion: that Mr Aitken' will kindly show evidence wherein the story of the Virginbirth he cites differs in any important detail with all the other ancient and similar stories of a like nature.—l am, etc., INQUIRER.